“From Ymir?” she asked.
The question startled him.
“I think it was brave what you did,” the girl said, “although that’s not how great-grandfather tells the story. Still, who among us has ever challenged a giant? I don’t think even Noah ever did that.”
“Noah built the Ark,” Ham said.
“I know, but…”
Ham hadn’t expected this. Shem’s great-grandchildren not awed by Noah and able to think his battle with Ymir was something heroic. It puzzled him. “Who’s your father?”
“Hul.”
“And his father?”
“Aram.”
“Ah,” Ham said. “Let me tell you, young girl. The stupidest thing I ever did was face Ymir.”
“Yes,” she said. “You’re modest. You old ones always are.”
Old ones?
She brushed her hair with a feminine flick of her wrist. She was pretty. Dark hair, dark eyes and fair skin, with a clean sheepskin dress. “It must have been exciting then,” she said. “Wars. Intrigue. The future of mankind in your hands. Oh, how I wish I could have lived back then.”
Ham blinked in amazement. “The Antediluvian world was evil, desperately wicked.”
“I know that.” She sighed. “All I ever do is sew, guard the sheep if my brothers are sick and cook for them. What was silk like? Was Naamah really as beautiful as the stories say?”
“Uh, I suppose so. Now, really, I must talk to Shem.”
“This way,” she said.
He approached the tent, and as he did, the flap moved and out came…
“Ruth?”
The old woman stopped short. She had dark hair, with maybe twenty strands of gray. Her face was less wrinkled than Rahab’s, even though she was seventy years older. The dress was plain, made of linen, and she wore a golden earring in her left lobe.
“Ham? Oh, dear brother, is it really you?”
They hugged. This felt strange.
“Ham,” she said, looking in his eyes. “It’s been much too long.”
He swallowed.
“Come in, come in,” Ruth said.
He followed her into the tent.
“Shem. Look who’s here.”
An old man with shoulder-length hair and a hooked nose looked up from the scroll he read beside a lamp. Smiles broke out and Shem leapt to his feet. “Ham!”
They embraced. Ham was bigger, thicker, older looking, Shem was thin, unbowed and spry-seeming and almost seventy years older. His face was unlined. His hands looked like those of a man of thirty.
“You look marvelous,” Ham said.
“So do you. Oh, I’m so glad you came,” Shem said. “Isn’t this amazing?” he asked his wife.
“Jehovah’s hand guides us,” she said.
“Sit, sit,” Shem said. “Tell me—”
The flap drew back. Ham turned, paled and he swayed and might have fallen, but Shem caught him by the elbow and steadied him.
A big, broad-shouldered man with piercing blue eyes and a white beard entered. He wore the rough garments of a shepherd and held onto a gopher-wood staff.
“Father,” Ham whispered.
Big Noah leaned his staff against the tent wall. He was almost seven hundred years old. He hadn’t seemed to age, and yet there was about him a sense of stretching, as if time had thinned his strength but left the outer shell.
“Son,” the big man said. In two steps, he hugged Ham, thumping his back with hefty slaps. Then he held onto Ham by the shoulders, examining him, peering into his eyes. “It’s good to see you, my son. I’m glad you’re here. It makes the journey worth it.”
Ham swallowed. Conflicting emotions warred within him. He wanted to ask, Do you remember that you cursed my favorite son? Do you recall? And he wanted to break down crying and tell his father that he was sorry for everything he’d ever done wrong.
“Father, I…”
Noah let go and pulled up a chair, easing into it. Yes, he definitely seemed older.
Shem guided him to a chair, and Ham, too, eased into it. He hated being old. He had to stick out his left leg because the one knee had stiffened.
“The children say you came alone,” Noah said.
“With Odin.”
“Ashkenaz’s son?”
“His grandson.”
“Ashkenaz joined you in Babel?” Noah asked, and the way he pronounced the word, it was obvious he didn’t approve of the city.
“Father finally agreed to leave his retreat on Ararat and come to Festival,” Shem said. “He—”
“Jehovah drew me,” Noah said. “Just as I suspect he drew you,” he said to Ham.
It felt too much like before. Noah took charge. Jehovah talked to Noah. Noah didn’t approve of what he did, of the city. Ham tried to hold down the resentment. He smiled, but it was pained.
“Trouble is afoot,” Noah said.
There it was. Ham had dreaded this moment and now that it was here, he couldn’t speak. To have failed again… He rose, shuffled one way and then another. He licked his lips and tried to speak. What was wrong with him?
“There’s grave trouble,” Shem said.
Ham nodded.
Noah and Shem traded glances.
“Tell him about Assur,” Ruth said.
“What about him?” Ham asked, glad to talk about anything other than the reason he’d come.
Neither his father nor brother spoke. Ruth cleared her throat. Still no one talked. She said, “After returning from Babel, our son, Assur, talked about founding a city of his own. In the same way do many of Japheth’s children now speak. No one wants to strike out on his or her own as Jehovah said we must. They wish to follow the example of Babel and dwell in urban centers.”
“Babel wasn’t my idea,” Ham said.
“Please don’t misunderstand me,” Ruth said. “I’m not blaming you. I simply don’t want you to think that it’s only your children doing this. Ours, too, yearn to gather as one. That’s why father came from his hermitage on Ararat.”
“One of the reasons,” Noah said. “And I’m not a hermit.”
“Of course not,” Shem said, who gave his wife a reproving glance.
Ham faced them. He screwed up his courage and blurted, “I have bad news.”
He had their attention.
He sat down, fidgeted and finally said, “Kush marches here for war.”
“War?” Noah asked.
The way Noah said it made Ham wince. He blew out his cheeks and said, “Please, let me speak without interruptions. I have a lot to tell you.”
33.
Ham hung his head. The butterflies were gone and he felt relieved to have gotten this off his chest, and he felt wretched, too. He wished he were back in Babel, anywhere but in front of his father.
“So,” Noah said. “War.”
Shem frowned as he paced. He had started pacing near the end of the tale. He looked up. “That took guts coming here. Thank you, brother.”
“I don’t want war,” Ham said. “But I don’t know how to stop it.”
Noah rose. “I do. It’s why I came.”
“Jehovah told you about this?” Ham said.
Noah shook his head. “Trouble brewed, that’s all I knew. Now I know what kind.”
“Father,” Ham said, “I really didn’t want this.”
Noah searched his face. “I know. But sin has a way of increasing in one’s children if left unchecked. Kush rebels against Jehovah, against Jehovah’s decrees. I’m not sure we can stop him entirely. But this war…” Noah shook his head. “I can change that.”
“What should I do?” Shem asked.
“Pray for our success,” Noah said.
“Will you send Beor away?” Ruth asked.
“Beor’s already here?” Ham asked.
“Yes,” Noah said, “with his three prisoners. No,” he told Ruth. “I won’t send Beor away.”
“Should we leave Festival?” Shem asked.
“What about those who arr
ive after us?” Noah said. “No. I must stop Kush.”
“What do you plan?” Ham asked.
“To ride with you to the army,” Noah said, “to talk sense into them.”
“What will we do after that?” Shem asked.
Noah thought about it and smiled grimly. “After that, we’ll have our Festival.”
34.
Noah refused the chariot. Said it implied the wrong message. Ham suspected his father thought along Antediluvian lines, when raiders like Kedorlaomer had plagued the world or conquerors like Tubal-Cain or King Laban had obliterated foes through savage chariotry. But Ham’s four-wheeled, donkey-pulled cart inspired no terror. He tried to tell Noah that. If anything, the men of Babel would recognizance his chariot as a familiar vehicle, thus holding their archery fire long enough for them to yell a greeting.
Noah shook his head. The intense blue eyes, the long flowing beard and the compressed lips, Noah had elemental force, as if Mount Ararat itself had squeezed into human skin to come and see what the puny mortals did. There wasn’t any arguing with him, but when did that stop any son.
“I can’t walk more than half a day,” Ham said.
“Your joints stiffen?” Noah asked.
“Well, my knee isn’t what it used to be.”
“My right ankle swells,” Noah said, “even when I’m using my staff. It’s an inconvenience.”
“Agreed,” Ham said, “although, it’s my hip that bothers me.”
“The one you injured fighting Ymir?”
“When the Nephilim threw me and shattered my bones.”
The blue eyes turned distant and the patriarch of man grew still. Then he drew a deep breath, as if resuming living again. “Their trap failed, eh?”
“Trap?”
“Naamah lured you.” Noah sighed. “Ah, well, it failed. It’s over. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“No.”
“Except that you have a bad hip.”
“My constant reminder to think before I act,” Ham said.
“Wisdom,” Noah said nodding.
Ham looked for the joke, and realized with a start that his father meant what he said. It had been a long time away from Noah, away from his father’s honest ways. In the glow of the compliment, Ham allowed his father to pick a donkey for him. Soon, with blankets draped over the u-curved backs, Noah and he set off to find Kush and the army.
35.
Noah reined his donkey on the crest of a hill. He pointed as Ham drew beside him. Far in the wooded valley marched men with flashing spears and shields.
“The Army of Babel,” Ham said. It felt bizarre seeing the Hamites from this vantage. He almost felt sorry for Shem and Japheth.
“Are half the stories true about Nimrod?” Noah asked.
“Nimrod?”
“Isn’t it his Hunters that core the Army of Babel?”
“I suppose.”
“Are the stories true?”
“You mean the dragon and Black Mane the Lion?” Ham asked.
Noah grunted.
“They’re true,” Ham said. “Nimrod is the Mighty Hunter, and his men vie to be like him.”
“So he’s like a Nephilim?”
“Demon-spawned?” Ham asked.
“No,” Noah said, “thirsting for glory, for renown, for immortal fame.”
“That describes Nimrod and his Hunters.”
“Not good,” Noah said. He slid off his donkey.
“What are you doing?”
“Doing? I’m getting ready.”
Ham was perplexed, until Noah clumped near higher ground and worked to his knees. The patriarch of man bowed his head and folded his hands as he began to pray.
36.
Ham sat on a rock.
Their two hobbled donkeys munched oats from the feedbags.
Tall pines kept them company, a whispering breeze swaying the topmost branches. Hidden, but near, a woodpecker rattled its beak against bark, while high above in the blue sky, a screeching eagle wheeled. Silence then, but for Noah’s mumbling, until a cricket rustled its wings. That brought back the rap-rap-rap of the woodpecker, while the eagle continued its lonely vigil, floating, drifting and looping in long circles. It was the king of the air.
Later, from atop his rock, Ham heard voices. They came from down-slope and through the trees. He sat up and glanced at the praying man, the one with his head bowed so his long, white hair swept forward, covering his face, and with his hands clasped. Noah seemed to be wrestling invisibly.
The noise from down-slope, the indistinct voices, now included the clatter of shields, javelins and belted knives.
With a grunt, Noah rose. He dusted off his knees as riders broke from behind the pines. They were four youths, great-grandchildren of Put. Their manner became wary as each of them focused on Noah. The Hunter, the toughest among them, a hard-eyed youth with hair dangling in his eyes, dismounted with a javelin in his fist.
“You’re to come with us,” the Hunter said.
Noah dipped his head.
The Hunter snapped his fingers. “Aphek, ride back and tell them we’re bringing in Ham and— You are Noah, right?”
Noah raised his staff, and his words seemed to crackle. “Aphek will stay with us.”
“Aphek has to report back. That is Kush’s command.”
“We’ll all ride back together,” Noah said.
The youthful Hunter licked his lips, and he avoided Noah’s strange eyes. “We must obey Kush. For we belong to the Army of Babel, to the city of Babel. Kush is our high priest, our leader.”
“Boy,” warned Noah.
The Hunter hesitated only a moment longer, before nodding. “We’ll all ride back together.”
Ham knew this shouldn’t amaze him. He used to watch Noah do this sort of thing all the time—in the Antediluvian world. Yet it impressed him all over again. No one was like his father.
They mounted up and followed the youths, the young riders picking their way down the pine-needle slippery mountain. Ham ducked branches. His shoulders brushed trees. Squirrels chattered or scampered out of sight. One dropped an acorn. He caught the youths glancing at Noah, and, once or twice, at him, too. At the bottom of the slope, Ham peered past thinning trees. The army camped in a clearing. Bivouac fires burned. Venison roasted, and Ham’s stomach growled. He was hungry. Around each fire lay cloaks, tripods of spears and other sundry equipment. Men stretched out, repaired kits or turned a sizzling spit.
As they broke out of the trees, ram’s horns blew, a flat note, ominous, almost eerie. Voices bellowed. The men scrambled to obey, snatching cloaks, spears, shields and running, bumping into one another, shoving, shouting and making a thorough mess of it. Camp hounds howled.
“Keep going,” Noah said, at the dismayed youths.
The four youths, Noah and Ham rode toward the marshalling host. Rank leaders blew copper horns. They made a piercing cry. Captains roared oaths and gave direction. Flag bearers raised banners, waving them back and forth, gaining the men’s attention. The clangor of shields, oaths and shouts mingled with the tramping of feet. Rather quickly, the mass of pushing, milling men took shape: spearmen in front, slingers and bowmen guarding the sides.
“Impressive,” Noah said. “They remind me of the Slayers.”
“Halt!” Nimrod shouted. He stepped in front of the army, wearing leather armor and holding a helmet in the crook of his brawny arm.
The youths halted, so did Noah and Ham.
“Dismount,” Noah said. “And take the donkeys to the stocks.”
The youths hurriedly obeyed, withdrawing to the side. Noah leaned on his gopher-wood staff, his big, gnarled hands wrapped around the equally gnarled wood. Ham limped beside his father, using his much smaller cane. Even in this, his father outdid him. Ham’s stick was smooth and made of soft palm-wood.
Nimrod’s eyebrows rose. “It’s Ham,” he shouted.
Kush, wearing a copper helmet and leather armor, stepped forth, with hulking Uruk on one side and, soon
, Nimrod on the other.
Noah moved to intercept Kush, and he eyed the army. The men in ranks shifted nervously.
Kush glared at Ham. “What are you doing here?”
“Never mind that,” Noah said. “The better question is why have you come to Festival as if to wage war?”
Kush scowled, glancing at the army. “Let us talk over there,” he said.
Out of the army’s earshot. Ham shook his head, and he shouted, “This is Noah! He is our Patriarch! Hear his decree concerning war among men!”
The army lost cohesion. Men looked frightened or ashamed.
“I could have you seized,” Kush said.
“Seized?” Noah roared. “On what pretext would you have me seized, my grandson?”
No one looked ready to grab the white-haired hermit of Ararat. His beard bristled, his blue eyes flashed as he scanned the throng, causing many to glance down or away, anywhere but meet those terrible, blue eyes. Noah studied Kush.
“You claim to lead the city of Babel?” Noah asked.
“I am its High Priest. As such, I’m here to right injustice, to deal with slavers. We’ve—”
Noah raised his gopher-wood staff.
Kush worked his mouth but no more sounds issued. Fear entered his eyes as he clutched his throat.
The ancient patriarch scanned the throng. The men seemed frightened. They seemed awed at this display of supernatural power.
Nimrod rubbed his lips, watching Noah.
“Men of Babel,” Noah said. “Sharp blades and spears are not the way to solve your differences. It is far better to sit and talk in peace. You are cousins to those you march against. And your High Priest has told the others he would talk peace. To wage war then is to be foresworn. That means you will battle against Jehovah.
“Men of Babel,” Noah lifted his gopher-wood staff, “onto your knees. Beg the Almighty to forgive you your thirst for innocent blood.”
Men moaned. Some dropped to their knees. Others, Hunters mostly, remained unbowed.
Kush massaged his throat, with fear and loathing on his ox-like features.
Wives of the Flood Page 66