by J. J. Wilder
Japheth touched her cheek with a feather-light finger, and Aresia started, whimpered, and curled away into the servant girl.
“Shh, it’s me,” Japheth whispered. “It’s Japheth. You’re safe now. It’s me. Open your eyes—you’re safe.”
Aresia cracked an eye open, hesitant and disbelieving. When she saw Japheth, she wept, cried out, and reached for him. Japheth caught her, lifted her up, and kissed her cracked, swollen lips. She was thin and frail, weak, so light now he could lift her without effort.
“Is it really you?” Aresia’s voice was a hoarse whisper, her golden eyes peering into Japheth’s, glittering with hope and fear. “Is it you? Are you real? Elohim, please. Don’t mock me, thus.”
“It’s me—it’s me.” Japheth touched his lips to her forehead. “Elohim has brought you to me.”
Aresia lifted a hand, touched his face, his mouth, his cheekbones, smiling. Then she passed out, going limp in his arms.
Japheth and Uresh drove the wagon near to his room. He carried her up to his room over the candlemaker’s shop and laid her on his pallet of blankets, covering her gently.
Then he went back out to find Uresh, trying to coax Irkalla out of the wagon. She wouldn’t let him touch her, shrinking away from him, shaking her head, moaning and whimpering.
Japheth motioned Uresh, climbed up, leaned close and whispered to her. “You’re safe now, Irkalla. You know me. No one else will harm you. Come inside, please. Come inside. I won’t touch you, I promise.”
The girl glanced at Japheth, her eyes finally focusing. She looked from him, to the city around her, the people shuffling by with loads to sell at market, supplies to cook dinner, water from the well. Eyes stared at her, at the guard, at Japheth, and back to her. Booted feet tramped in the distance, spearheads flashed in the sun.
“Come, girl, come inside,” Japheth repeated, keeping his voice low and calm. “The king’s guards are coming.”
“Irkalla, please . . . you must come inside, now.” Japheth reached for her, but she pulled her arm away.
She seemed to rouse herself then, waking up finally. She looked over Japheth’s shoulder at the formation of city guards approaching, and fear crossed her features. She reached out, not for Japheth, but for Uresh. He too was glancing over his shoulder at the approaching soldiers, shifting his feet nervously. When Irkalla reached for him, he gathered her in his arms and lifted her down from the wagon bed, as Japheth had Aresia.
Japheth led the way back to his room. Uresh sat down in a corner, Irkalla still cradled in his arms. Japheth heard him muttering to her. “You are safe now, Irkalla. I will protect you. I won’t let that ever happen again.” His voice was soft, surprisingly gentle for so rough a man.
Japheth wondered at that, but dismissed it—Irkalla and the guard would have to wage their own wars. He checked to make sure Aresia was still sleeping, and then gathering his remaining coin he left, telling the Larsan to not let anyone in unless it was Japheth himself. The healer who’d tended to Japheth’s foot lived near the market at the center of the city, and it was her he sought now. He found her grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle.
“Please, mistress, will you come?” Japheth asked. “I need you, please. I have coin.” Japheth showed a flash of gold.
“What is it you need me for?” The healer was an old woman, granite-gray hair still thick, eyes sharp and clear, her fingers quick and strong.
“A girl . . . my woman, she’s hurt.”
“Well, I need to know more than that, boy. Hurt how? Is she with child? Has she bones broken? A fever? Courses won’t stop? I can’t bring the right herbs if I don’t know what ails her.”
“I don’t know, woman! She’s been . . . tortured, I think. Her feet were . . . branded. Her nose is broken, but it’s been reset, I think.” Japheth paused, running his hands through his hair in frustration. He didn’t really know the extent of her injuries. “She’s been abused, sexually—I’d gamble the king’s own life on it. I think it’s safe to assume that if harm can be done to a body, it’s been done to her.”
The healer gathered various pouches, sniffing some and replacing them, choosing others, muttering to herself. Finally, she nodded and gestured for Japheth to lead the way.
They made their way through the thronging city to Japheth’s room near the wall. Uresh and Irkalla were asleep, Irkalla still in his arms. Aresia was awake now, lying on the pallet on the floor, watching the door with panic in her eyes as Japheth entered.
“You left, Japheth. I woke—and you—you . . . weren’t here.” She reached a trembling hand for him, unable to lift her arm more than a few inches off the bed, tears spilling from her eyes at the pain from simply breathing, simply lifting her hands.
“I have a healer. I’m here now, I’m back.” Japheth knelt beside her, taking her hands in his. “Can you tell her how you’re hurt?”
“Everything,” Aresia whispered. “He . . . he hurt . . . everything.”
The healer knelt on the floor beside Aresia, pulled the blankets aside, and then had Japheth help remove Aresia’s clothes so she could examine her more thoroughly. Anger boiled hot and hard through Japheth at the mass of bruises covering Aresia’s body; fingerprints dotted her upper arms, her stomach and ribs were a solid mass of bruises in various states of progression, some older and yellowing, others fresh and angry blue-black. By the time she was undressed, Aresia had passed out once again from the pain.
The healer tsked and clucked her tongue, shaking her head, sinking back on her heels. “This poor girl has been beaten badly. I don’t think she has a single rib intact. It’s a miracle she’s alive. Elo—I mean . . . Innana has shown her favor.”
Japheth caught the slip. “It’s okay, mistress—you may call on Elohim without fear.”
The healer turned her piercing blue eyes on Japheth, searching for deception. “You did this to her?”
“No! I swear on my life, I swear on the name Elohim, The One God. I did not do this. I love her.”
The healer nodded, accepting Japheth’s word at face value, and turned back to Aresia. “She is no commoner. Her skin is too fine and well cared for beneath the bruises. Her fingers are too soft to have known work. Who is she?”
Japheth saw no reason to lie. “She is Aresia, daughter of Emmen-Utu, and wife of Sin-Iddim, king of Larsa.”
“God above, boy! What is she doing here? And in such a state? You’ll get us all killed!”
“Not if no one speaks of this. The only ones who know she is here are those two, and they will not speak. The other girl may need your attention as well. She has the look of one who has been raped.”
“Unless she’s bleeding, there’s little I can do for that. She’ll either move on, or she’ll never be the same. It’s the lot of a woman, in this life.”
“It should not be.”
The healer looked hard at Japheth. “You’re a warrior. You mean to tell me you’ve never looted a city? You’ve never taken the spoils of war?”
“I’ve killed in battle, and I’ve looted my share of goods, but I’ve never raped a woman. I take no pleasure in the pain of a woman.”
As she conversed with Japheth, the healer was wrapping rags around Aresia’s torso, binding her broken ribs with poultices to reduce the swelling. When the healer began to examine Aresia’s womanhood, Japheth turned away and stared out the window, trying in vain to push down the rage boiling in his gut.
“You love her,” the healer remarked.
Japheth could only nod, still looking out the window.
“She will recover,” the healer said. “Elohim has spared her life. I would not have expected her to live, if I had seen her but a few days ago. She is a strong young woman. But . . . I would not expect her to want to lay with you any time soon. She has been through much suffering.”
“I know. I wouldn’t—I mean . . . no. She is alive, and she is with me. That is enough.”
The healer rose and stood next to Japheth at the window, touched his arm and met
his gaze. “There is more. She may not wish you to know this, but I think you should. She has lost a child in the recent past. Her womb is still tender, still slightly hard to the touch, as of a woman who has been pregnant. I suspect she may have used certain herbs to cause this to happen.”
Japheth buried his face in his hands, stifling a shuddering groan. “She was with child? It was his child then. It would not surprise me if she took something to rid herself of a child fathered by that monster.”
“You speak of Sin-Iddim?”
“Yes. He is a demon.”
“I have heard stories of him. His brutality is legendary, even here. I tended a boy once, who had served in Sin-Iddim’s court. He spoke of sodomy.”
“Yes. It is common in his court, from what I know.”
The healer’s voice was pitched low now, hesitant. “She has suffered this as well, I am afraid. I’m sorry.”
“I wish I could say I was surprised.” Japheth handed the old woman a coin. “Thank you. Is there anything I should do to care for her?”
“Willow bark, boiled as tea; it will help the pain. I have some I can give you. Send for me in a few days, and I will change the dressing on her ribs.” She shrugged and pocketed the coin. “Everything else is only a matter of time. See that she eats and drinks, let her rest, and do not upset her. Just . . . give her your love, patience, and understanding, and Elohim will see to the rest. Pray.”
“Thank you again. I will send my Larsan friend there to fetch you in a few days’ time.”
The first hours after the healer’s departure were the hardest. Japheth’s room was silent but for the soft breathing of three sleeping people. He was alone with his thoughts, his fears and worries. He had the daughter of the king—and the wife of another king—in his house. She was a fugitive. Sin-Iddim would be looking for her, and he would at the very least send a messenger to Emmen-Utu. The city would be searched.
They must leave. They couldn’t stay in Bad-Tibira, that much was clear; Aresia, however, was simply too badly hurt to be moved. She needed rest, and to be near a healer Japheth could trust.
A burst of panic assaulted him—he couldn’t care for a woman; he didn’t know how. Where could he go? The only trade he knew was war, and that meant leaving Aresia’s side for days and weeks at a time, and eventually he would die in battle, and she would be left alone. He couldn’t risk that. She was helpless on her own . . . she’d never known the day-to-day hardships of life. However difficult her father may have been, she was still a princess, pampered, and she had grown up with every physical comfort. Now, after her time in the clutches of Sin-Iddim, she was badly injured only just this side of Death’s door. He couldn’t leave her to go and find mercenary work; she would wake up and need him.
Japheth paced the room, hunger gnawing at him, but fear of her waking up alone kept him in the house. The guard was still asleep as well, clearly exhausted from their flight from Larsa, as was the servant girl, Irkalla.
A single thought entered his head, and he stopped pacing, turning the idea over in his mind.
Noah.
Japheth hadn’t seen his father or mother in years. It would gall his pride, but they might take him back in, help him see to Aresia’s care until she was healed. After three children, his mother knew enough of herbs and poultices and such, and his father could always use the extra help on the farm, which was remote, far removed from any city and the risk of discovery. The thought of crawling back to Noah made Japheth’s gut writhe and burn in anger, but it was the only viable option left.
He’d have to apologize, and his father would demand his obedience.
And then there was the problem of Neses; the girl he had been betrothed to when he was just a boy. Noah and the girl’s father, Namus, had made the match while Japheth and Neses were both still children, but Japheth had refused to comply. When he was old enough he had run away to join King Emmen-Utu’s army before the marriage could be arranged.
He had no idea what had happened to Neses in the intervening years . . . she was a nice enough girl, and pretty, but he had refused to marry someone simply because his father said so. If Japheth went back, would Noah and Namus try to force the marriage again?
That was a risk he’d have to take, for Aresia’s sake. She needed considerable care, and she couldn’t go back to her old life. Not now.
Japheth was reminded of the promise he’d made: he owed Elohim worship in exchange for Aresia’s life . . . and his own life too, perhaps.
Evening sunlight streamed in through the window, bathing the room with a golden square. His home was a simple one, a single room located near the city wall, near the gate, overlooking the city. Japheth stood, leaning his shoulder against the doorway, watching the foot and cart traffic in the road below, hearing the bray of onagers and the bellow of oxen, the yell of drivers.
He’d called Bad-Tibira home for so long now that the thought of his father’s farm seemed alien and distant. He’d been so young when he left, so idealistic and hard-headed. His father had been worse, unmoving in his morals, harsh in the demands he’d made of his eldest son. The rift between them had been inevitable, it seemed to Japheth, looking back. He was so much like Noah in so many ways that two such men under one roof was all but impossible.
Japheth tried to imagine returning to his father’s farm, but he simply couldn’t picture it.
He turned to watch Aresia as she slept, her battered but lovely features slack and at peace; could he make amends with his father, for her sake?
He turned back to watch the sun drop below the city wall. Elohim, guide me, Japheth prayed. It felt strange to pray now, after so long, but he did it anyway. Elohim was the only god he could put any stock in, having spent his entire adult life watching the futile, brutal, empty worship the Nephilim gave their gods.
He had little choice, it seemed . . .
He would return, after many years, to his father’s home.
Immediately, he set about formulating plans and gathering the necessary supplies for the three-day journey. Japheth tried to tell himself he wasn’t nervous.
But it didn’t work.
He would rather have gone into battle naked and unarmed than have to ask his father to take him in.
8
Noah
“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.” Genesis 6:9 ESV
Sunlight on my face—as bright and hot as the pain in my bones—woke me. Consciousness was immediately accompanied by a thousand aches, pangs of pain in every joint, in every muscle. Then came the realization that I was moving. I felt the slow sway and jounce of a wagon across a pitted road. I heard the hee-haw of onagers, and the sound of hooves on hard-packed dirt. I lay quietly, trying to imagine where I was.
I caught myself on the verge of swearing by Inanna, but stopped myself: I no longer believe in her, and haven’t for a long time, but wanted to swear by her out of life-long habit.
By whom do I swear, now?
It felt blasphemous to swear by the name of The One God, wrong in a way it never did to curse by Inanna or Ereshkigal. Elohim is real, I think, and to use his name for so vulgar a thing as cursing seems wrong. But yet . . . the way I feel at this moment warrants a curse of some kind.
I contented myself with a groan and a curse I’ve heard from soldiers: “Shit.”
A hand touched my cheek, knuckles brushing my forehead. “You’re awake.” Japheth’s voice washed over me, familiar and welcome.
I had worried, upon waking, that this had all been a dream that I would wake from back in Sin-Iddim’s palace or on the road.
“Yes, I am awake,” I croaked. “Unfortunately.”
“How do you feel?” Japheth asked.
“Not good,” I answered. “Beaten, raped, and broken.”
Silence fell for several moments.
“You’re safe now,” Japheth said. “No one will ever hurt you again, I promise.”
I wished I could believe him, but I didn’t.
I tried t
o force myself to a sitting position, and the effort left me sweating, cursing in pain—I gave up before I passed out, and settled into a slightly more elevated position, enough that I could rest my head against the wall of the wagon bed, my ribs screaming agony, every breath an agony.
“Where are we going?” I gasped, when the pain had receded enough to allow me speech.
We were alone on the road, and I was alone in the wagon, facing Japheth’s back as he sat on the bench, driving the onagers. It was a small thing, a two-wheeled cart pulled by a pair of onagers, their round, powerful, tawny bodies drawing the cart effortlessly, knobby knees seeming too small for their fat bodies, long dark tails swishing at flies.
The land around us was flat in every direction, plowed and furrowed in wide squares of verdant green, broken by river channels and undeveloped swaths of swampland, all divided by this road on which we traveled, a high-banked, hard-packed line of dirt through the countryside.
Japheth did not answer for such a long time I began to wonder if he had heard me.
“Japheth?” I stared at his broad, hunched back. “Answer me—where are we going? Where are Irkalla and Uresh?”
“We’re going to my father’s house,” Japheth said, eventually, his voice heavy. “Irkalla and Uresh are still in Bad-Tibira; they are staying in my room for now. Uresh said he has family in Kutallu, so they will go there, eventually. Once Irkalla is well enough to travel.”
A thousand questions were banging through my mind. “Why did she not come with us? She is my maidservant . . . I have not gone anywhere without her since I was a little girl. What is happening, Japheth?” The questions took every bit of strength I had.
“She is not sick in her body, not in a way any healer could fix,” Japheth replied. “She is sick in her mind, in her soul. Whatever it was she endured has damaged her. Uresh cares for her—he will see her well, if she has the courage to let herself be well again.” Japheth turned in the wagon seat and looked at me. “I told you, we’re going to my father’s house. You will be safe there. He lives far from anyone.”