It was the Day of the Offering, the day when Abishram, King of Gebal, was to count his people and learn how rich his kingdom was in worldly goods. And for Beth it was her last day at home, the day when she was to begin her duties as a Temple Maiden, in the Temple of Balaat-Gebal.
There was a stir in the streets of the town from earliest dawn. Peasants were arriving from the countryside with donkeys bearing well-filled panniers, flocks and herds were being driven through the town gates, porters were carrying up bales of merchandise from the harbor, and every craftsman wanted to be first in the queue to deposit his offering and avoid the long wait in the heat of the day.
Only in the house of Resh, it seemed, was there no last-minute bustle to prepare a gift. And yet Resh himself was nervous, irritable, pacing up and down in the house and refusing to touch his morning meal. Beth herself felt strangely calm, full of expectation though she was, but she was worried to see her father so unhappy.
“Father,” she said tentatively, “your gift—it is ready, isn’t it?”
“My offering?” Resh snapped. “Of course it’s ready. I trust His Majesty will be well aware of what my services are worth to him.”
“Are you thinking of Zayin and Nun and Aleph, Father?” Beth asked.
“Of course I am,” said her father. “What else would I be thinking of on a day like this? It is a day when a man needs his sons.”
“Perhaps we shall have news of them today,” said Beth comfortingly. “Who knows, perhaps today Nun’s ship will come in, and the army will return, and—and Aleph will come down the mountains, and they will all bring rich offerings for the King. Wouldn’t that be wonderful, Father?”
“Wonderful indeed!” muttered Resh. “I am too old to believe in wonders.”
Beth felt it was a little unfair that her father should be brooding in this way over her absent brothers, while apparently forgetting what an important day it was for her too.
“Father,” she said again meekly, “when should I go to the Temple?”
“You?” said her father, apparently surprised. “Ah, child, I was forgetting. I am also losing a daughter today.” The thought did not seem to make him any happier.
“I shall not be far away, Father,” she said. For herself, she was looking forward to living in the Temple quarters, though she was still a little vague about what her duties would be. “But should I go this morning?” she asked.
“Oh, any time today, child,” her father answered. Beth became impatient.
“Please, Father,” she said. “Take me to the palace and the Temple now. We can see the first ceremonies, and find out what I should do.” And it would be better for him, she thought, than standing around at home. He must have felt the same, for he agreed, and they went together to where the offerings were already being made.
It was more like a market than a ceremony. As the priests and clerks checked and tallied, peasants were unloading sacks of corn or dried lentils—nothing perishable, Resh said, was accepted on the Offering Day—fishermen laid down piles of sun-dried fish, owners of olive orchards delivered great jars of oil. Potters were queuing up with samples of their best decorated pots, weavers of flax and wool were standing with lengths of useful cloth in their arms. There were even wild mountaineers, bringing pots of honey, and Resh explained that, although they might have avoided the offering if they wished, they would be considered as slaves if they were unable to produce as a gift something that could be weighed or measured. The merchants and traders, of course, made the best show. They paraded, family by family, offering bales of purple cloth from Tyre, copper vessels from Cyprus, spices from Southern Arabia, gems from Egypt and gold from the far corners of the earth. There was one rather ragged sailor who had recently returned from a coasting trip to the North. All he had was a long skewer-like poignard of a strange hard metal: most of its shaft was blackish, tinged with red rust, but its tip was sharpened and polished to a silvery point. The simple sailor did not know the name of the metal, and the clerks were doubtful of its utility, but they accepted it contemptuously and put it among the bronze tools and weapons.
There was a stir among the watching crowds in the public places, and suddenly they saw people making for parts of the town overlooking the sea. Resh explained that the shipwrights were making a communal offering of a new vessel for His Majesty’s Navy. It was too big, of course, to be brought to the Temple, so it was to be rowed in review round the point. It came into sight, gaily decked, with a band of musicians on board. The music floated across the waters, but the occasion was spoiled by a quarrel that broke out among the representatives of the shipwrights on the shore. Resh said that there was a group of men, mere laborers who had felled the trees and carried the timber, who were trying to get a share of credit for the finished job of the master shipwrights. But they were told that they would no more get credit than the galley slaves who rowed the ship, or the musicians, and were sent packing. Beth wondered if this was fair, but her father merely said that a craftsman was a craftsman.
As the morning went on the piles of produce and stacks of manufactured goods grew in the royal courtyard; clerks were kept busy tallying the quantity of each sort; slaves labored to carry it all to the warehouses. The herds of sheep and goats and cattle began to be troublesome. Animals, Resh explained, were accepted from the herdsmen on Offering Day: they were needed for the sacrifices in the Temple, but it was a nuisance to keep so many of them near the palace. They had to be farmed out again to landowners to be looked after—and some envious people said that these were better off after Offering Day than before.
Beth had been excited by the crowds of people thronging in to the town and by the market-day feeling in the air, but after a time she began to tire. There was so much merchandise, so many animals. “When are you making your offering, Father?” she asked. “And when—?”
“The mason’s offering will be a special one, like the shipwrights’,” said Resh. “There will be a ceremony.”
“And when will you take me to the priestesses?”
“Don’t be impatient, child,” said her father testily. “You don’t want to make it look as if I’m offering a daughter because I’ve nothing better to give, do you?”
Beth felt shamed and angry. “Am I nothing better than a cow or a sack of corn, Father?” she exclaimed.
“I did not mean that, my daughter,” Resh said in a milder tone. “Come, perhaps I could take you now to the inner court, and ask the priestess what you should do.”
They passed through an entry guarded by sentries, who recognized Resh, and Beth saw that they were in the courtyard in which she had confronted the King. There stood the mysterious square object, and there stood the tall obelisk, both swathed in cloth. Beth felt her courage ebbing at the sight, but her father escorted her through to the Temple, where they found one of the priestesses. Beth was still awed by the surroundings, but the conversation was very matter-of-fact. She was told which of her belongings she should bring, and that she would have to present two white doves as a sacrifice.
“That is easy,” said Resh. “Beth, remember to bring two pigeons from your flock.”
But at that moment the courtyard began to fill with people, priests, scribes, and notables of the sort whom Beth had seen in the procession when she had been there, illegally, before. Her feelings of terrible guilt returned, but the priestess quite kindly said that she could wait in a colonnade at the back, with the other novices who would be watching the ceremony.
A hush came over the assembly, as the King entered at the far end of the court, and took his seat on a throne placed there for him. Then the High Priest mounted the steps, bowed before the King, and spoke.
“Most High and Sacred Majesty,” began the High Priest. “May you live for ever, and may the abundance of your kingdom never grow less! On this auspicious day your devoted people have brought the good things of this world to lay at your feet. They have offe
red them in the sight of the gods to bear witness to the prosperity of Your Majesty and of your kingdom. Nowhere in the world is there found a prince more favored with richness of belongings: your fields produce corn and beasts, your enterprising merchants bring to your shores rich materials purchased on very favorable terms. Your Majesty’s servants care only for your welfare, day by day, and it is their joyful duty to do so. But we, your priests, think of Your Majesty’s glory, not for today and the next day only but for all eternity. The goods that are brought to Your Majesty today will last while they are needed, but the corn will be eaten, pots will be broken, robes of fine tissue will wear out, beasts will die or must be killed. What Your Majesty’s devoted priests have to offer, however, are things that will not be consumed or outworn. They are such that generations yet unborn will look upon them and say ‘Great is Abishram, King of Gebal!’ They are such as will enshrine the name and person of the High and Mighty King Abishram for all eternity!”
The folds of cloth were pulled away from the obelisk, and the inscription, now neatly finished and painted in gorgeous colors, was revealed. At the same time the cloth was removed from the great square object, and a vast and magnificent burial sarcophagus, a huge stone coffin, was revealed with its massive lid propped open to show the rich lining of the inside.
A murmur of appreciation rose from the crowd, the King spoke a few words of thanks, and the ceremony seemed to be over. Then Beth noticed her father making his way through the throng to the High Priest and plucking in an agitated manner at his sleeve. But the High Priest seemed to be ignoring him and brushing him aside, for the King was now condescending to examine at closer quarters the great stone box in which he was to spend eternity. Resh turned away and retired to the back of the assembly. There seemed to be something so strange in the way he was standing that Beth slipped away from her colonnade and went to his side. Her father was weeping.
“What is it, Father dear?” Beth asked, taking his hand.
Her father spoke, but he seemed to be talking to himself. “The ingratitude of priests! Yet what should I, a poor master mason, expect in the way of gratitude or recognition? I, a man with no sons at my side! What have I to do with the King’s gift? I only saw the stones cut from the quarried blocks, hewed, hollowed, fitted, and smoothed. Why should I be proud? There are many men who could do that—none in Gebal, but perhaps in Egypt, in Babylon. But, Beth, my daughter”—and here he took Beth by the arm and pointed to the great sarcophagus—“do you not see! See how the cover of the coffin, in white stone, fits on to the body of black basalt. What king in the world has a coffin in two colors? And this I thought of, this was my idea entirely!” He choked with indignation. “And see the High Priest, how he shows it to His Majesty as if it were his own creation! Not a word of credit to the masons for their work! Oh no, it is the priests’ gift. And I, I have nothing to offer of my own, and I have no sons to bring gifts for me, and what is to become of me I do not know. I am finished, and my sons are all dead!”
Beth did what she could to comfort him as they walked sadly home, but there was little she could say. He had expressed what she had been trying to ignore, that her three brothers who had been away for such a long time might never return, that, they might already be dead. And she must leave her father in the empty house and go to the Temple.
When they got home she remembered the two white birds which she must bring as an offering to the Temple. It made her no happier to think that two of her little flock must be sacrificed, but in this sad hour it was only one more thing to regret. Then it struck her: she used to have, two white pigeons, but now there was only one.
The birds had not yet returned from their day’s foraging. Beth climbed up on to the city wall above the house, from where she often used to call the flock down out of the sky. She could not see her flock against the mountains, where every tree showed clearly in the level rays of the setting sun. She shaded her eyes and looked along the sea horizon, into the low sun’s glare. A lonely sail stood up against the glow of the sky, but there were no birds. But there, yes!—from the North, where the headlands receded into the blue distance, a little flock was approaching.
The birds circled round between the town and the mountains, and with the sun behind her Beth could see plainly—yes, there were two white birds, so—but no, she was not looking for a flock with two white birds! It was strange how she still forgot. The flock swept round and made for where she stood, and she thought she could recognize some of the other birds of her flock. There were certainly two white ones among them now, and that morning there had been only one. Well, no … That morning she had been too busy thinking of the day’s events to look at her pigeons. Now she was surrounded by a flutter of wings, and they were alighting around her. She held out her hands to the white birds and called to them. “Lady Snow, come, come to me! And is it—can it be your husband, White Snow returned? Come, don’t be shy!” And now the two white birds were perching on her hands, and as she looked at them her heart leaped and she saw that to the leg of one was tied a golden ring, and to the other a tiny scroll. And at once she said to the one in her left hand, “You have come from Zayin, for that is his ring, and he cannot be far away.” And to the bird in her right hand she said, “And you have come from Aleph, and what that strange scroll you have brought can mean I cannot imagine, but perhaps it will tell me what has happened to my brother.” And as she stood on the city wall, something made her raise her eyes to the lone sail she had seen, and something told her that at this happy time it must be Nun’s ship homing on the wings of the wind over the sea.
Zayin, mounted on the horse Horizon, was riding through an olive grove in the northern approach to Gebal: Zayin now very much at home on horseback, riding easily and gracefully, keeping a light touch on the reins, murmuring words of encouragement to the horse as they jogged along. It was the end of a long day, the end of a long ride of many days. Horse and man had got used to each other and were confident together: there is nothing like the companionship of a long journey to get rid of suspicion and mistrust.
Now, as they neared strange habitations and passed astonished peasants and donkeys on the track, the horse only pricked up its ears a little, pranced a little sideway sometimes, but quieted down at a word from the rider. But when at long last they came among the crowded streets of the port and the town, it was different. Heads appeared from doorways, children fled, or followed, staring. Zayin, feeling for the first time the lofty superiority of the man on the horse over men whose feet are merely on the ground, waved graciously. And the citizens muttered, “Can that be General Zayin riding that great beast in that strange manner?” The horse showed the whites of its eyes and snorted, but Zayin urged it firmly onward, through the streets and toward the palace.
The guards at the entrance to the palace were weary and ill-tempered after controlling the crowds that had been flocking to the offering all day; they cursed the latecomers who were still pressing round the gates. As Zayin clattered up the steep street they must have thought the hoof beats were those of yet another ass laden with parched corn. But when they looked round and saw Zayin mounted on the magnificent horse they were struck dumb with astonishment.
Zayin was about to swear at them for their unsoldierly reactions, when it suddenly came to him that he must present a strange picture in his trousers and cloak of skins, with ragged hair and beard. Indeed, after their first shock of surprise the soldiers leveled their spears at him and barred the way. But he called out: “Do you not know your general when you see him? It is I, Zayin. Let me pass!” And at the well-remembered sound of his voice the soldiers stood aside and stiffened to attention.
In the palace yard, everyone from the King to the lowest tally clerk had been feeling the exhaustion that comes at the end of a day of empty ceremony. Heads turned at the sound of the horse’s hooves, and a sudden tense silence fell. The next minute, the King, the priests, and the people were gaping at the man and the horse, and the cr
owd were falling back to give him passage. And Zayin was equally overcome with amazement at the unexpected sight of the King and his whole court: after all he was only a ragged fugitive, returning without his army and empty-handed. Except for the horse, of course—and the animal, sensing the tension in the air as horses do, began to prance and fidget nervously.
It was the High Priest who broke the silence, for it was his ceremony of the offering that was being interrupted, and he spoke the words with which all who came to the offering were addressed.
“Who are you that come to present offering to the Most High and Mighty King of Gebal, and what offering do you bring?”
Zayin’s mind moved slowly, but at last he understood. “Ye Gods!” he exclaimed to himself. “I have arrived on a Day of Offering!” and aloud he cursed his horse, that was backing and sidling and tossing its head.
Zayin collected himself, did his best to control his horse, and spoke: “Zayin, son of Resh, General of the Army of Gebal, salutes and does homage to His Most High Majesty (Stand still you brute—it’s the King!) I bring this horse as humble tribute.” But the last words were spoken in the wrong direction, for the horse had spun round and they were facing the palace gates.
The tension broke, with a gasp of astonishment from the crowd as they recognized the figure on the strange animal as their general; but Zayin could also hear laughter at his odd arrival. And then through the entrance gates appeared his father, Resh, who was returning to the palace in the last hope of retrieving his reputation from the priests. Resh stared, as everyone else had stared, but he recognized his son, and holding out both arms—and ignoring the increasing alarm of the horse—he ran to embrace him.
But the headlong approach of Resh was too much for the horse, and Zayin’s concentration was too much distracted for him to control it. He fell from the back of the rearing animal almost on top of his father, while the horse, panic-stricken, at last bolted through the palace gates, scattering the guards and peasants from its path.
The 22 Letters Page 18