People of the Ark (Ark Chronicles 1) Page 5

  “The matter is already forgotten,” Gaea said. She smiled, trying to take the sting out of her reprimand. “Now tell me again. What’s the occasion for all these flowers?”

  “Must there be an occasion?” Europa asked.

  Gaea patted her hand, the smile widening.

  “Well… I love flowers,” Europa said. “And the house could use brightening.”

  ‘True, true,” Gaea said.

  Europa made a dismissive gesture. “And in case visitors should arrive—”

  “Visitors?” Gaea asked, wincing inwardly because she had said that too sharply.

  Europa glanced at the baskets. It was hard to tell what she was thinking. As a king’s daughter, she had learned to hide her emotions.

  A door opened, startling both of them.

  Rahab hesitated at the door. “You…” She seemed to fight for courage. “You said once I was done feeding the chickens that I should come in and card wool.”

  “Of course, of course,” Gaea said. She indicated the table. “Look at all the beautiful flowers Europa picked.”

  Rahab barely glanced at the table, although she said, “They are very pretty.”

  Europa didn’t seem to hear. Perhaps she didn’t notice Rahab after first seeing her. Rahab acted too much like a servant; and those at times Europa seemed to treat as invisible, unless she ordered them to this task or that.

  “You were saying?” Gaea said to Europa.

  “Yes,” Europa said. “I was talking about visitors.”

  “Siblings of yours, I presume?”

  “Girl,” Europa said, “would you start putting these flowers in the vases?”

  Rahab glanced at Gaea.

  Gaea sighed, nodding.

  Rahab picked up the nearest vase and went to the table, hesitating between the flower baskets, choosing the roses.

  “You’ve uncovered my surprise,” Europa told Gaea. “A sister of mine should arrive tomorrow.”

  “Ah,” Gaea said.

  “She’s young,” Europa said. “A mere twenty-one. Perhaps if someone could escort her while she’s here. Ham for instance, if—”

  Rahab cried out, dropping a rose, sucking her finger.

  “What happened?” Gaea said, coming around the table.

  Rahab shook her head, with the finger in her mouth.

  “She asked you a question, child,” Europa said. “Answer her.”

  Rahab took her finger out of her mouth. A spot of blood welled. “I pricked myself,” she whispered.

  Gaea took the small hand, inspecting it. “You must be more careful, Rahab.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  Gaea decided not to chide the small dear again for forgetting to say ‘Mother.’

  “What do you think, Mother?” Europa asked. “Wouldn’t it be a good idea for Ham to escort my sister?”

  Gaea noticed a hurt look enter Rahab’s eyes.

  And Rahab pulled her hand back, and she curled the pricked finger against her palm, using her other fingers to pick up the fallen rose and put it in the vase.

  “My sister is pretty and quite well behaved,” Europa was saying. “I’m sure Ham wouldn’t mind showing her around.”

  “Perhaps,” Gaea said, “but Ham might be busy.”

  “Oh?” Europa asked.

  “I may have Ham help Rahab fetch supplies for Lamech.”

  Rahab looked up, startled.

  “You can’t be serious,” Europa said. “Let one of the field hands help the girl.”

  Gaea faced Europa, saw her calculated study of little Rahab and the almost immediate dismissal of her as a possible obstacle. Gaea pursed her lips, wondering where in this wicked world Ham might find a good wife. Then she smiled, deciding for Rahab’s sake to deflect Europa’s ire.

  “Come,” Gaea said, taking Europa by the hand, “I want to show you some new material I traded for last week. I’m thinking of using it for a quilt. I’d like your opinion.” They moved toward the next room.

  Thus, neither of them saw Rahab glance up, wonderment and confusion filling her face, and a host of doubts.

  4.

  “How did your father know I was thinking about helping myself to the rubies?” Jubal asked.

  Ham grunted a monosyllable answer as they maneuvered the unwieldy crane into position. It had a heavy split-log platform laid atop wooden sleds and was dragged by mules. From the platform sprouted a forty-cubit derrick with a swinging boom or yardarm on top.

  “Those rubies were perfect,” Jubal said.

  “Is that what you have for brains?” Ham asked. “Rocks?”

  “Delilah loves rubies. If I had brought her those… Can you imagine how happy she would have made me?”

  “Maybe so,” Ham said. “But stealing from nomads of Havilah is foolish.”

  “I wouldn’t have been caught. But now your father spoiled it by telling them my plans. I don’t understand how he knew.”

  “Well, that’s my father for you. Full of surprises.”

  Jubal eyed him. “You’re not like your brothers.”

  Ham shrugged.

  “So why do you do this then?” Jubal asked. “Are you really afraid there’s going to be a flood?”

  Ham ignored his cousin as they settled the crane beside the Ark. The reason he worked here wasn’t hard to understand. Only a fool bet against a man who was never wrong. Ham had Jubal unhitch the mules while he set blocks against the sleds. Then they hitched the mules to a loaded wagon, brought the wagon near and slid lumber onto netting.

  “Did you check the rope like your father said?” Jubal asked.

  “Are you in charge or am I?” Ham asked.

  Jubal laughed, shaking his head.

  Soon they clattered the last board onto the pile and hitched the mules to a big wooden wheel. To the wheel had been attached the crane-rope, which was threaded to the bronze pulley on the end of the boom. The wheel had been Ham’s idea.

  “Shem!”

  Thirty cubits up, longhaired Shem poked his head out.

  “I’m sending up the lumber.”

  Shem waved that he was ready.

  Ham slapped the nearest mule and the wheel rattled as it rotated and threaded rope. The boom-pulley squeaked dreadfully, it always needed oiling, and the netting rose around the lumber. The derrick groaned as the load swayed upward, upward, higher and higher.

  “Hey!” Ham shouted. “Don’t stand under it, you fool.”

  As he watched the load, Jubal had drifted underneath the netting.

  The rope creaked, stretching, and it snapped.

  “Look out!” Ham shouted.

  Jubal paled and tried to scramble out of the way. Then heavy gopher-wood planks crashed upon him.

  5.

  Shem shimmied down the scaffolding. Japheth sprinted out the smithy, and Noah ran so hard his tunic flapped around his knees. They threw off boards, to find Jubal mangled and dead.

  Noah picked up a frayed end of rope.

  The glance his father gave him twisted Ham’s guts. But instead of yelling at what kind of imbecile he had for a son, Noah embraced him. No, no, no, Ham wanted to howl. Shout at me! Lecture me! Tell me you told me to check the rope!

  They wrapped the body in a blanket, laid it in a wagon and drove it to the clan compound.

  Jubal’s mother angrily asked what had happened.

  With tears in his eyes, Ham tried to explain.

  “It was an accident,” Noah said. “A terrible accident. I should have been there to supervise.”

  Ham stared at his father.

  “Ham shouted a warning,” Noah explained, “but it was too late.”

  “Too late!” shouted Jubal’s mother. “Didn’t you tell them this could happen?”

  Noah dropped his gaze as his oldest sister upbraided him about the stupidity of building the crazy Ark. That it was one thing to throw away your wealth and wreck your family, but another to kill your nephews.

  The life drained out of Ham.

  Later, he couldn’
t remember when—they had been back at the Keep, he remembered that—his father asked, “Did you check the rope?”

  Ham shook his head.

  The lines furrowed in Noah’s forehead, the ones that meant he pondered or wished to speak but refrained from doing so.

  Ham said he was tired, went to his room, gathered a few things and crawled out the window and over the palisade wall. He tried to outrun his guilt, blundering through cultivated fields. Leagues later, he crashed through a forest far from Noah’s Keep. Hours afterward, exhausted, he threw himself onto rotting ferns and wished that he were dead.

  6.

  Ham woke soaked to the skin and in eerie darkness. A dense fog hung around the massive, mossy tree trunks were he lay and an intense fear squeezed his belly. Then he heard it. It was a heavy thing splintering tree-limbs. The ground trembled.

  He jumped against the nearest trunk, hoary with vines and moss and rotted bark. It too vibrated. From his belt, he snatched his hatchet.

  Behemoth!

  Ham ran a sleeve across his forehead even as another unseen branch cracked, crashing against trees. His hatchet… It was futility to fight a behemoth with it. So he grabbed his bag and fled into the darkness, wet leaves slapping his face.

  Later, he put his hands on his knees and panted, sweat dripping from him. The sounds of the behemoth had vanished. So after he gained his breath he continued to trek along a game trail, trudging past towering trees.

  The fog thinned and it grew light. The ancient trees, some with huge and leafy fronds said to be from the time of Adam, made this a shadowy place, full of mystery and dread. Occasionally he heard deep-throated roars or demented monkey screaming. He avoided everything, including grunting, feeding herbivores such as the great sloth. What he needed was a spear. Against a sabertooth, dire wolf or charging thag his puny hatchet was a toy.

  Ham began feeling guilty for not saying goodbye, not telling his parents where he was going. And just where was he going?

  Eden, he decided, to see the flaming sword.

  He didn’t have much food. Fortunately, silver jingled in his belt pouch. Maybe he would go east to Arad first. But that’s where Jubal had wanted to go. He frowned. What about heading south?

  South was the ancient land of Nod, founded by Cain, the firstborn son of Adam. There Cain had long ago trained his descendants in the wicked art of murder. That sounded like his sort of country, for wasn’t he a murderer? He hadn’t plotted his cousin’s death, but he was the killer.

  Nod’s capital city of Uruk, also founded by Cain, boasted the largest population on Earth. It was said that on Uruk’s vast, leagues-long walls two chariots could race abreast. Teeming hordes lived there, practicing many different occupations. There were silversmiths, masons, jewelers, slavers, leatherworkers, armorers, penny-pinching usurers or moneylenders, necromancers practicing their forbidden arts, squeaky-voiced astrologers, bakers, soldiers, harlots and butchers who shamelessly served blood-dripping meats to the hardest-hearted.

  In Eden, Jehovah had given man the right to eat plants and their seeds and the fruits that hung from trees. Jehovah had not given man leave to eat meat. In Uruk could be found every vice. There too had been built mighty monuments, proud achievements fashioned by the hand of man. No feat, no vainglory was considered too daring that a man of Uruk wouldn’t attempt it. Ham had even heard it said that Nephilim mingled with the city dwellers.

  But Ham didn’t think it would be wise to head south, at least not south into the land of Nod. Caravan masters like Kedorlaomer traveled to such places. While it might be interesting to meet the girl with the leather quirt again, he didn’t want to see the old nomad or his grandsons anytime soon, especially not while alone.

  Alone. The grimness of it weighed upon Ham. He flexed his biceps and knew himself a match for most men. He was the biggest and most muscular of Noah’s sons. Yet… He swallowed. In the wilds anything might happen. So he found a long straight branch, chopped off the twigs and with his hatchet fashioned a point. He hefted it, his crude spear.

  After a long, sweaty march, the ground grew soggy and the trees no longer towered so tall and proud. Dark pools gathered in places and cypress was the largest tree, twisted roots tripping him more than once. He neared a river, the Sacar, and this place was the beginning of a swamp, a low area where a small, clannish folk lived, wary of strangers and odd of habit.

  Ham paused, sniffing the air, deciding to skirt the swamp. The folk here used small bows, their arrows smeared with viper poison, and they dropped vine nooses like wires onto the unwary to sell them later to passing slavers.

  In time he came to a great field of reeds, pushing aside the tall stalks over twice his height, hoping no crocodiles lay in hiding. He scanned the sky. The tree line resumed only a short distance away.

  These reeds were a special sort. It was why he knew about the small folk. They traded with his father, the product of these reeds having made them famous all out of proportion to their crude ways. The plant’s long, woody root was often fashioned into small tools or dried and used as fuel. The stem, the rough stalks, had a variety of uses. The small folk constructed sleek reed boats from these plants and mats, cords and strange fibrous clothing. The inside, the reed pith, as it was called, was edible raw or cooked, and along with the forest’s many fruits made up the bulk of the small folk’s diet. Yet the most interesting product from these towering, rough-skinned reeds was papyrus.

  Once, as a lad, he had joined his father and watched the small folk make their mysterious substance. With special knives, they had sliced the stems into narrow strips. The best strips came from the center of the plant, the worst from near the rind. They lay these strips down in a row and then laid another row over them horizontally. Soaked underwater, the strips released a glue-like substance, melding, binding them together into a thin sheeted mass. Later, taken out and hammered with wooden mallets, the sheets were smoothed and polished with mollusk shells or deer or elk horn. Twenty such sheets were attached one to the other, to make a roll or volume. Easy to store and durable, these volumes became the world’s most favored writing material. The ink of cuttlefish or octopus was used to inscribe on the papyrus.

  Breaking through the reeds, breathing more easily again now that he could see where he was going, Ham trekked a short distance before pushing through thick bushes and stumbling upon the Sacar River.

  The mossy bank seemed inviting. He scanned the area, looking for reed boats, crocodiles or other dangerous beasts. The river flowed slowly, and it was as wide as he could heave the spear. The opposite shore was steeper, reeds at the base and then a wall of leafy trees shielding the rest of the forest.

  No truly dangerous fish swam this river, and he was hot and his skin itched. So Ham shed his buff coat, tunic, boots and breeches and waded into the water, drinking deeply and then scooping sand to scratch the dirt and filth off his skin. He plunged underwater and surfaced, throwing back his shaggy hair.

  He kept the hatchet on his person and the spear nearby, and he stayed alert. He was so alert to his own shore that he didn’t hear the breaking twigs and singing from the other side until it was too late.

  Singing?

  A woman’s voice wafted from the far bank. Ham ducked lower so only his head showed, and he waded behind a mossy rock.

  An amazing sight greeted him. A raven-haired beauty stepped out of the forest, shed her dress and dove off the bank. She surfaced, laughing, throwing back her wet tresses. Soon she waded to shore and took some soap where her scarlet dress was draped on reeds. While humming she bathed.

  Transfixed, hidden behind his rock on the other side, Ham stared in stupefaction. She had green eyes and such a beautiful laughing mouth and… He didn’t know how long he watched, but soon a wave of longing came over him. She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and bit by bit it came to him this was the woman he wanted for his wife.

  Unsteady, dry-mouthed… If she knew he’d been spying… His heart pounded as he rose and cupped
his hands. “Hello.”

  She spun around, her eyes wide. But she had marvelous poise. Her gaze darted along his bank before it centered on him. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Ham. I mean you no harm.”

  It should have shocked him that she didn’t clamber out of the river, grab her clothes and run. She had stood brazenly and called to him. It was different for him. He’d kept on a loincloth, with the hatchet thrust through his belt. Besides, from the waist down water covered him. Not like her.

  All thoughts of Jubal and his guilt had vanished. He’d never seen such a desirable woman.

  “Have you been watching me?” she asked.

  “I-I was taking a swim. You startled me. So I hid behind a rock.”

  “You’ve been there the whole time?” she asked.

  “Uh, no, well, yes, maybe.” He flushed crimson.

  She laughed; it was such a musical sound, so pure and rich.

  “What’s your name?” he shouted.

  “Naamah. Why don’t you swim over here so we don’t have to shout at each other.”

  His heart beat wildly. “Um, shouldn’t you put on your dress first?”

  “If you swim over I will.”

  He plunged in and swam across. She waded to the bank and plucked her dress off the reeds, slipping it on, although she stayed standing in the water, turning to smile as he swam up.

  He studied her. Long dark hair, green eyes. There was a certain hardness in her eyes, but somehow he found that made her even more appealing. She had a wide, laughing smile, and a mocking way of twisting her lips.

  His feet touched bottom. He waded as her eyes swept over his torso.

  “Swarthy and handsome, and young, too,” she said.

  His throat constricted. All he could think was that he wanted to possess this beauty.

  “Are you too shy to speak?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh, very good. You can do more than just stare at me.”