People of the Flood (Ark Chronicles 2) Read online

  Even at the Euphrates’s low level of mid-summer, moving the water through the canals over a long distance proved easy because of the river’s beginning height. Only for their special gardens of onions, leeks, garlic, cucumbers and lettuce did they need to hoist water to higher levels. There they used a shaduf, a long pole with a rope and bucket on one end and a stone as counterweight on the other end, with an upright post used as a pivot or fulcrum. A man pulled the bucket against the counterweight of stone. He dipped the bucket into the lower canal and used the counterweight to help hoist the water to a higher canal. Working from dawn to dusk with a shaduf, a man could move 600 gallons a day.

  The hot summer sun, the rich soil and the unlimited water produced heavy blades of wheat and barley with astonishing yields. Barley grew best. Oil pressed from the many-colored sesame seeds were used for cooking and were used as lamp fuel and cosmetics, while sesame seed cakes became a staple. To hold all the grain, potters fashioned large jars and plugs of clay.

  Even the wild date palms gave fantastic yields, dropping, on average, one hundred pounds of fruit per tree. The stone in the fruit they crushed for cattle feed or burned into charcoal. The fruit itself was eaten fresh or pressed into thick syrup. They used the syrup instead of honey or made a potent date palm wine. The tree trunk they fashioned into doors and wagons. The ribs of the tree made beds and chairs. The leaves were bound into brooms to sweep away dust. The fibers were woven into baskets, ropes and fishnets, while the young shoots at the top of the tree made a tasty salad.

  During this joyous time of initial building and new possibilities, Gilgamesh despaired. It was true that he had become a gifted tracker. He was lean and tireless, with stringy muscles suited to long runs, and he had a growing patience for hiding behind thorn bushes as he watched nervous gazelle. The sun had baked him brown, and the endless hunting gave him a serious look, giving intensity to his squint.

  One day as he returned from the dusty plain, with several hounds loping beside him and a slain gazelle slung about his neck, he stopped at a shrinking lagoon. As the hounds lapped water, a man only a little older than Gilgamesh parted reeds with a net slung over his shoulder and a string of carp in his hand.

  Gilgamesh often thought of Opis, and the youth before him had similar features. It was Ramses, her brother, dressed in a Hunter’s leathers.

  They shook hands and commenced to walk together, congratulating each other on a good day’s bounty. Then they fell silent as Gilgamesh brooded.

  “Uh,” Ramses said, glancing at him sidelong, “Opis says to say hello.”

  Gilgamesh knit his brow, and with a decisive movement, he dug from under his belt a smooth black stone that seemed to suck in the sunlight.

  “That’s jet,” Ramses said, appraisingly. “It’s a precious stone.”

  “It’s my lucky stone. Here. Give it to Opis.”

  Ramses eyed him, and perhaps it was only the sunlight, but something seemed to glimmer in those eyes. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Not if you’re going to tell me to leave your sister alone.” Gilgamesh scowled. “The thought of Uruk touching her makes me boil.”

  “Indeed. But for you to save Opis from him, you must make her your wife.”

  “How? I own no flocks or cultivated fields. My valor and wits are my only possessions.”

  “Those won’t buy a wife,” Ramses said. “Now that piece of jet… My father adores gold, silver and precious stones. If you could add to your jet or gain a few flocks or some cultivated fields…”

  Gilgamesh shook his head. “Hunters have no time for idle pursuits.”

  “How does one gain wealth then?”

  “Valor is the goal,” Gilgamesh said.

  For a time, their tramp was the only sound.

  “My point,” Ramses said, “is that if you ever do gain wealth, you must come to my father and lay half of it at his feet. Say: ‘I wish to marry Opis.’ He’ll look at your goods and say, ‘Not enough.’ Then begin to add a little more. Bargain. If you have enough and argue very hard, Opis will become yours and Uruk will have been thwarted.”

  “Would your father go back on his deal with Uruk?”

  “My father adores Uruk’s goods, not his personality.”

  Gilgamesh grew thoughtful.

  “You have a little less than two years,” Ramses said. “For on Opis’s fifteenth birthday, she will marry.”

  Gilgamesh put away the jet.

  Later, Ramses said, “You might sneak by sometime. If…”

  “Yes?”

  “If you promise on your honor that you won’t dishonor my sister,” Ramses said.

  “I would do nothing to shame her.”

  Ramses smiled. “Perhaps I’ll tell her you said hello. That you’ve been thinking about her.”

  “Yes!” Gilgamesh blushed. “Please, do that.”