Wives of the Flood

by Vaughn Heppner

  “The safety provided by your Hunters?” Ashkenaz asked.

  “Not only the Hunters,” Ham said, “But with strong walls, cultivated lands and masses of good folk. Mankind working in unity can subdue the animals. But if we split into smaller and smaller increments, it’s just a matter of time before each group is overwhelmed and devoured by lurking monsters.”

  Ham told them about the leviathan and watched fear course from one whispering person to the next. So when Ham and the Hunters left, the clan of Ashkenaz deserted the long log cabin. With their sheep, goats and cattle, they marched with Nimrod and his protective Hunters.

  Babel had begun to grow.

  10.

  Opis approached her fifteenth birthday, and Gilgamesh began to anticipate having a wife.

  “When you’re married, you must take a room next to ours,” Semiramis told him in the Barracks’ feast hall. The men had cleared out, and the women cleaned up. Gilgamesh and Semiramis spoke by the hearth.

  “I own so little,” he said. “I have little to give Opis, to help make her life comfortable.”

  “Never fear,” Semiramis said, patting him on the arm. “Love conquerors all.”

  “Do you really believe so? My Grandfather Put says that is false.”

  Semiramis’s eyes seemed to shine as she graced him with a smile. “My noble Gilgamesh, I believe it with everything in me.”

  He grew uncomfortably aware of her touch and her sweet breath. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought the women clearing the table glanced at him and whispered over what they saw.

  He bowed, and thus artfully disengaged from Semiramis. “You’re right, of course. That’s what I’ll tell Lud.”

  “Why do you need to tell him anything?” Semiramis asked, with her plucked eyebrows arched.

  Gilgamesh had hoped to keep this secret, but he admitted, “Lud is worried that I won’t have enough to support his daughter in proper style.”

  “He said that? Are you certain?”

  Gilgamesh lowered his voice. “He’s been talking about postponing the wedding a couple of months. Opis has been feeling sick, and both her mother and father are worried about her.”

  Semiramis patted his arm. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. What are a few extra months, after all? You’ll have an entire lifetime together.”

  “My thoughts are more urgent.”

  “Dear Gilgamesh, you’ve become a wit. Yet with everything considered, I counsel prudence. Marriage, after all, is a heady decision.”

  He said he knew that, and he did, but as the months passed and the wedding kept being postponed, he grew suspicious. He learned that Uruk’s father had approached Lud on more than one occasion, and Enlil had overheard Uruk telling another Hunter that, “This Opis affair is far from over.” Gilgamesh therefore confronted Lud in the open-air portion of his house. The lanky potter sat at his wheel, working on a clay creation.

  “Next week,” Gilgamesh said. “That’s when we’ll marry.”

  Lud let his potter’s wheel spin to a halt. He sat back, with his eyes hooded and his long face made droopier by his frown. “No, not next week, I’m afraid.”

  “When then?”

  “I’m not certain I care for your tone of voice, young man.”

  “I wonder just how much saving your life was really worth.”

  “Did you save it?” asked Lud.

  Despite his anger, guilt washed over Gilgamesh.

  “Of course I’m grateful for what you did,” Lud said. “I will always think fondly of you for it. But would the wild dogs have jumped down and devoured me? I’m uncertain. Furthermore, I’m not sure that I can let mere heroics and brutish gratitude cloud my judgment?

  “Brutish gratitude?” Gilgamesh asked.

  Lud made a depreciative gesture. “I mean an animal feeling that anyone would have in such a situation. Brutish gratitude is a basic emotion, one almost forced out of you. I’m not certain I should be guided into making important decisions because of such an emotion.”

  “Are you saying the wedding is off?”

  “Certainly not,” Lud said. “I gave you my word. Well, I didn’t give my oath. But we came to an understanding. But as I have considered this over the months, I’ve decided that I cannot simply waive Opis’s bridal price. I’d be remiss in my fatherly duties if I did, for half the price will of course become her dowry.”

  “Such is the common practice,” admitted Gilgamesh.

  “A practice I plan to adhere to. Thus, I must insist that you pay a regular bridal fee.”

  Gilgamesh wondered if this was heavenly punishment for having plotted Lud’s death. He worked hard to keep from drawing his dagger and finishing what he had forgone that day. “You say a bridal price… I agree. But only if, on oath, you promise never to let anyone but me marry Opis.”

  “An oath?” Lud asked. “What if you die?”

  “That will void the oath.”

  Lud considered. “What if it takes you twenty years to gather the bridal price?”

  “Hopefully the fee is something within reason.”

  Lud waved his hand. “I should think the former price. The one Uruk had been willing to pay.”

  “As high as that?”

  Lud smiled. “I suspect Uruk might still be willing to pay it.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Of course not, my boy,” Lud said. “So you don’t have to scowl at me like a wolf about to lunge. It was a joke, admittedly one in poor taste. It’s just… Maybe it clarifies the situation for you.”

  Gilgamesh struggled to hold down the heat in his heart and finally managed to nod. “I agree to everything. Now I’d like to hear an oath—in Ramses’s presence.”

  “That smacks of an insult, young man, as if you don’t trust me.”

  Gilgamesh bowed. “Then I crave your pardon, and I’ll retire so I may find Ramses and bring him back to you. I’ll be but a moment.”

  Ramses soon returned with Gilgamesh, to find a pacing Lud. To Gilgamesh, Lud had the appearance of a fox caught in a trap. Lud seemed ready to gnaw off the snared leg and gain freedom, but he also seemed unable to gather the fortitude to do so.

  Lud gave his oath, a most solemn one, startling both youths by the high bridal price.

  “Father!” Ramses said. “That’s exorbitant.”

  “Do you think so?” Lud asked. “Yes, perhaps you’re right, but now I am bound by it because I’ve given my oath. Ah, I should have considered it more closely. I’m sorry, Gilgamesh.”

  Gilgamesh nodded tightly.

  “By Bel,” swore Lud, “I give you two years to gather this amount, upon which time the oath is dissolved. Whoever then pays the bridal price shall marry Opis.”

  11.

  The morning wind blew cold as Ham limped out of the city. He rested against the lee of a canal embankment and threw his woolen cloak over his head as he ate a breakfast of barley cakes and dried fish. Afterward, he hoed weeds. On his return to the city, he waded through a muddy canal and noticed something glittering. With a grunt—he was getting old, making noises like a man in his six hundreds—he scooped up three lumps of… Ham wiped away clay and put one of the lumps to his nose. It was sweet smelling. He clattered them in his hand. They shone a lustrous golden-yellow.

  “Amber,” he said, “I’ve found amber.”

  He slipped them into his pouch and dug like a dog, but he found no more. He decided the Euphrates must have deposited the amber during the spring flood. He’d seen such stones in Antediluvian times, in Arad, in a jeweler’s shop, where the owner had given two theories concerning amber’s origin. One school said these sweet smelling stones could be nothing else than drops of heavenly sweat from the sun. The other, the rational school, said it was a kind of juice from sunbeams. They struck the Earth in certain places with greater force and deposited a greasy slime that formed such gems. To call it sweat from the sun, said the rational school, was a prime example of anthropomorphism.

  As Ham entered the cit
y chuckling, people glanced at his dirty clothes. He hardly noticed, bursting into his house, shouting, “Rahab, Rahab. Look at what I’ve found.”

  She looked up as she absentmindedly churned butter. “Ham, your clothes are filthy. Did you wrestle some of your great-grandsons in a pit?”

  He held out the amber lumps. “I found treasure in a canal.”

  Her eyebrows rose as she first studied the golden stones and then his face. “Why, this is wonderful.”

  He chuckled in agreement.

  “I’ve been sitting here wondering what I could do for poor Hilda. She’s become such a confused young lady. Now you enter with amber. Jehovah has indeed heard my prayers.”

  “Eh?” he asked.

  “Put away those lumps, clean up and then listen to my letter.”

  “Beor’s daughter wrote you?”

  Rahab picked up parchment sitting in her lap. “The letter came with one of Heth’s sons, who arrived with a donkey train of Zagros malachite. Now hurry, clean up and then let me read you the letter.”

  12.

  Hilda’s Letter

  I so miss you, Great Grandmother. Out of all the people in my life, you’re the one who has loved me most. Oh, I know my mother loved me. If I sit and think about it, I can recall her smile, and I can remember how she used to rock me whenever I hurt myself or felt sad, but other than a mass of curly blonde hair and a vivid smile, I hardly remember her at all. Father, too, loves me dearly, but he’s so grim these days, training his Scouts and warning anyone that will listen that evil is being hatched in the Southlands. By that, he means Babel. Oh, how I wish I could see this fabled city, the mud walls I’m told about. How do you pile the mud so high? How do you stop the walls from dissolving during a rainstorm?

  Great Grandmother, Javan’s settlement is so unlike ours in the Zagros Mountains. Where does one begin to compare the differences? In Japheth Land, they don’t all live together, but in many scattered villages according to clan. Elders don’t make decisions, but the clan head alone does. Life is much cruder here, with colder houses and much more ugly clothing, mostly animal skins and furs that scratch your flesh. Truth be told, they envy us our soft woolens and linen garments, and I think that’s why the girls here all want to marry a son of Ham. Maybe I exaggerate a little. They have woolen garments, but they never seem as soft as the ones I remember from home. But this next fact is as certain as the rising sun: the men here are not as brave as father or his nephews from the Zagros Mountains. You’d think with their crude walls, made of branches instead of stout log fortifications, would mean that they’re relentless trackers and hunters. Nothing could be further from the truth. A son of Japheth and those of Javan particularly seem to hate walking out of the gate. Instead, they love to sit around the campfire and debate airy ideas and concepts. I can hear Great Grandfather laughing at that—Father does all the time. They think Father mad to race about on his chariot and hunt lions, wolves and other vicious beasts. And they think it scandalous that I drive the chariot for him and at times jump down and hurl javelins.

  You read correctly, Great Grandmother. I drive the chariot and run with the Scouts, and I’ve become very good at javelin throwing. Father invented me a throwing stick. It attaches to the end of the javelin, and when I snap my wrist and flick the stick in time with my javelin toss, it adds great velocity to the missile. With it, even though I’m a girl—a warrior maiden, says Father—I can heave a deadlier dart than any Japhethite.

  I see that I’ve used both sides of the parchment, Great Grandmother, so I must say farewell. I love you dearly and I miss you very much, and hope you write me back.

  Love Hilda: Warrior-Maid of Beor.

  13.

  “She’s a dear girl,” Rahab said.

  “And insightful,” Ham said. “She sees the Japhethites for what they are.”

  “Nonsense,” Rahab said. “She merely repeats slander she’s heard almost her entire life. What troubles me, however, is this warrior maiden foolishness. It’s clear the lack of a mother has warped her thinking. Beor loves his daughter, I know, but turning her into a javelin-throwing charioteer is simply irresponsible.”

  “She seems to take to it,” Ham said.

  “What I propose is medicine against this ailment,” Rahab said.

  “What is the disease?”

  “Masculinity,” Rahab said. “What Hilda needs is more femininity.”

  “And this will be brought about how exactly?”

  Rahab studied her husband. “When I was a young girl, long before I escaped to your father’s house, I had cruel parents. I, too, envisioned myself bearing weapons.”

  Ham snorted.

  “Yes, you find that difficult to believe,” Rahab said. “I was so shy and demure in those days.”

  “I recall little that was masculine about you,” he said with a grin.

  “Well, besides daydreams of wielding a sword and doing wicked deeds, I used to hide under my covers and fondle an ivory comb. It was my only nice thing. I thought that if I wore it for the right man, he would take me from my misery and treat me highly for the rest of my life. Oh, Ham, that ivory comb helped draw out the femininity within me. What I now propose is something similar for Hilda.”

  “I have plenty of ivory combs,” Ham said.

  Rahab shook her head. “Hilda isn’t like me. Her father loves her. For all his gruff ways, he treats her well. She’ll need something grander to draw out the femininity in her.”

  “Like what?”

  “The envy of women everywhere,” Rahab said. “A beautiful amber necklace.”

  14.

  Heth’s son traded all his malachite rocks, Ham bartering for a portion of them with several ivory figurines. The copper ore then went to a new and improved furnace, one much more efficient than the model first shown them by Noah.

  As before, and in a crowded smithy, a crusher broke rocks into gravel while piles of charcoal waited in nearby wooden bins. And like its ancient prototype, this furnace was bowl-shaped and partially sunk into the ground, but instead of rocks it was made of burnt bricks lined with clay and contained several revolutionary refinements. No longer did sweating youths blow through reed tubes to heat the fire. Now the youths trod on goatskin bellows, forcing a steady blast of air into the glowing charcoal-malachite mix.

  Ham sweated in the hot room and watched as Kush trickled more ore onto the glowing heap. At a signal from the white-bearded elder, Seba used a stick and opened a hole at the front bottom of the furnace. Through it, molten slag oozed, spilling into a trough. Seba corked the hole and more charcoal and copper ore was piled on. They repeated the process many times, until Kush held up his hand. The slag hole was opened for the last time and all of it drained away. Kush took a bronze-tipped staff and levered a hunk of glowing copper from the bottom of the furnace.

  They no longer used hammers to crack open lumps of slag and remove pea-sized pellets of copper. With this new system, all the purified copper had sunk to the bottom of the furnace, with the slag already drawn off. Using this new furnace, 200 pounds of copper could be smelted where before only 20 pounds had been refined. It was faster and used the charcoal more efficiently, as the fire didn’t have to be allowed to die down so they could extract the slag and then reheat to begin anew.

  Ham took his portion of copper and had it re-smelted. Afterward, he poured it into a long, thin basin to produce a fine copper thread. He twined the thread around a soft thong of lion-skin. Next, he polished the amber, shaping each lump into a lustrous and rather large bead. An insect was embedded in the center bead. It made Ham suspect that amber was dried sap from trees. In any case, with the greatest patience he drilled holes through the amber, stringing the copper-wound lion-string through each one. The finished creation he lay on his table, staring at it amazed, wondering if his love for Hilda had mixed with his hidden guilt for having driven her away with his drunkenness.

  He hurried out, bringing Rahab in to see.

  Rahab touched it. “It’s bea
utiful, more magnificent than I could have dreamed.”

  Pride welled within Ham. “I give it to you, my wife, for all the years that you’ve given me nothing but love and patience.”

  “Oh, Ham,” Rahab said, hugging him. “You’re so large-hearted, so wonderful after all these years. But Hilda needs it more than I do. I still wish to give it to her.”

  “Dear, dear wife,” Ham said, holding her by the shoulders, peering into her liquid eyes. “If I’m large-hearted, then know that it’s all your doing.”

  “Who shall we entrust to bring this to Hilda?” Rahab asked.

  “I’ll take it to Zidon myself,” he said.

  “All the way to the Zagros Mountains?”

  “Why not?”

  “What about your hip?” she asked.

  “I’ll take my chariot and bring this necklace to trustable Zidon. He’ll see that it gets to Hilda.”

  Rahab studied his face. “Are you running low on ivory again?”

  Ham laughed, kissing Rahab. “You know me too well, dear wife, too well indeed.”

  15.

  The upstairs Barracks apartment was strewn with cushions, crumpled fur blankets, cups, and vases on chests and wooden stands. Candles flickered everywhere, many more than were necessary. Amid these luxuries, Semiramis paced like a leashed cheetah. Rage caused her eyes to flash, fueled her supple legs with grace and gave her gestures passion.

  Nimrod watched from the edge of the bed as if afraid she might pounce and rake her fingernails across his eyes. They had just returned from viewing the amber necklace. Grandfather Ham had displayed it, saying that, soon, he’d be off to the Zagros Mountains, and from there the necklace would journey to Hilda in Japheth Land.