by Marc Graham
“Bilkis has already begun hearing petitions,” Rahab explained as she led them to the great cedar doors of the palace. “There may not be time for you to be heard today.”
“Surely she will make time for our friends,” Eliam suggested, and gave Yetzer a broad, reassuring grin.
“The queen cannot be seen to be partial,” Rahab replied. “She must be neutral and fair in all things.”
“But we’re practically family,” Eliam insisted.
“It’s all right,” Yetzer said. “We can bide our time. The festival lasts the week?”
Rahab nodded.
“Then if we are not heard today, we will return tomorrow or the next day or the one after that. In the meantime, it will do no harm to witness how justice is dispensed in Yisrael.”
They followed Rahab to a doorway along the side of the palace. The guard—dressed in armor of bronze scales and bearing a thick-shafted spear—nodded to Rahab and pulled open the wooden door. Eliam’s daughter guided them along a narrow corridor to the rear of the great audience hall itself.
Dozens of people filled the space, their robes and complexions, beards and hairstyles testimony to the varied nature of Yisrael’s people. All stood silently attentive, save for the pair of men who stood before the dais, reciting their complaints before the throne, which was hidden from Yetzer’s sight by a canopy of blue and white.
The hall was less grand than Remeg’s throne room in Tsur but built in the same style. The cedar floor spanned between walls of dressed stones, which supported heavy timber rafters. Metal grilles covered openings, high and low in the walls, allowing fresh air to carry away the smoke of lamps and the stink of the occupants. Movement caught Yetzer’s attention. The supplicants had apparently finished making their appeals and a slight figure of a man, robed in sackcloth, stepped to the edge of the dais. A warm, melodious voice rose from beneath the canopy to fill the chamber.
“You have each presented your claims with conviction and eloquence,” a woman said. “I fear mortal wisdom ill-suited to judge the matter.”
Through no effort of his own, Yetzer found himself pushing through the crowd until he had a clear view of the speaker. Bilkis, Queen of Yisrael, sat upon her throne, regal as any queen—any pharaoh, for that matter—of Kemet. She might have been the sculpted image of a goddess, so lovely and perfectly proportioned were her features. Eyes sharp and intelligent, lips full and inviting, fingers graceful and slender as they absently tapped …
Yetzer shook the mantle of desire from the shoulders of reason. The queen had been asking questions of the dark-robed man, who then reached into a pouch to withdraw a stone of white or black. Yetzer hadn’t heard the questions, but as he focused now on the proceedings, a pattern arose. What had seemed to be the queen’s idle tapping of her fingers upon the throne’s armrest now resolved into a signal.
“Shall the payment be seven head of sheep?” Bilkis asked the seer as her thumb twitched.
The man reached into his pouch, withdrew his gloved hand and produced a black stone.
“Shall it be ten head?”
The queen’s fingers lightly strummed upon her armrest, and her oracle produced a white stone.
“And what share shall be the crown’s? Shall it be one?”
Twitch. Black.
“Shall it be three?”
Twitch. Black.
“Shall it be five?”
Strum. White.
Yetzer’s stomach soured. His fingers cramped as he squeezed them into fists. Throughout the settled world, a nation’s ruler was chosen by the gods. Such election might be by bloodline or by sword, but a people could be certain that, by whatever measure their gods valued, the sovereign was divinely chosen. Yetzer had brought his mother to Urusalim to invoke the gods’ justice before the throne. What justice might they find where the gods’ will was shaped to suit the crown’s desire?
The queen heard four more challenges. Three she decided on her own, not unjustly. The fourth she submitted to the gods’ judgment, with a profitable verdict for the crown. Yetzer restrained his anger, then slid behind a thick cedar post when the royal warden rapped his spear and ordered all to kneel.
“Those who have not been heard are invited to return on the morrow,” the warden declared after the queen and her child-king left the hall. “Those who would propose to build the temple unto the gods shall be present on the following day.”
Yetzer remained in the shadow of the post while the petitioners filed from the hall. Only when he felt a cool touch on his hand and looked down to see his mother did he unfurl his fists and allow his wrath to drain away.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t be heard today,” Rahab said. “Perhaps if you are earlier tomorrow.”
“Perhaps,” Yetzer allowed, and offered a polite smile.
He followed along as Eliam led Dvora and Rahab out of the palace grounds and back to his home. Only after they had gathered in the courtyard beneath the shade of a tamarisk tree, after servants had set flatbreads and date cakes and cold, spiced lamb before them—only after Eliam invoked the blessing of Havah and broke the bread—only then did Yetzer speak.
“Tell me more about the temple and about this prophet.”
The evening sun rested upon the crest of Urusalim’s western hill. By its stark light Yetzer picked his way along the well-worn path toward the high place on Mount Morhavah. For hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, pilgrims had come to seek their gods’ blessings and make sacrifice before them. One, an ancestor of the Habiru had very nearly become one of those sacrifices, by command of the blood-thirsty Yah. The goddess Havah, however, had interceded and produced a ram as substitute.
Following Eliam’s directions, Yetzer passed a walled estate on the broad terrace of the hill. Farther along, the smell of sweet incense and the giggles of young women heralded the shrine of Ashtart. As Yetzer neared the summit of the hill, the screech of carrion birds and the growling of dogs proclaimed the Holy Place.
Patched woolen curtains formed a large enclosure. Yetzer entered the holy precinct and was assaulted by the stench of rot. Animal carcasses lay heaped in one corner, picked over by scavengers. Bloody tracks led from the refuse pile to a dry stone altar. Yetzer walked around the gore, its stink fading as he neared the Sanctuary.
Braziers surrounded the tent, sending incense-laden smoke to the heavens. A red-robed priest snored as he dozed against a tent post, between a pair of flaps held back by frayed cords of faded blue and purple and scarlet. Careful not to disturb the man, Yetzer ducked under the lintel. He kicked off his sandals and traced a pentacle across his forehead, chest and shoulders.
He was standing on holy ground.
For a moment, Yetzer questioned his plan. He had excused himself after dinner in order to visit the high place, to see if the gods might inspire him as to the nature of the temple to be built here. His true intent was to seek out just how the queen and her prophet manipulated the will of the gods.
As he stood within the holy enclosure, its threadbare curtains somehow holding out the reek and noise of the charnel grounds, he wondered if he was mistaken. Yetzer could feel the power of this Sanctuary, as sacred as any temple of Kemet. How, then, could the gods allow their seer stones—housed here when not about the prophet’s neck—to be corrupted?
As Yetzer approached the Most Holy Place, an unseen miasma filled the tent and slowed his movements. The foul stillness grew thicker as he stepped through the rear partition of the tent.
A small lamp hung in the middle of the space, suspended from the tent posts by golden chains. Its wick burned brightly, though its light failed to reach to the corners of the small chamber. When Yetzer’s eye adjusted to the gloom, he found himself standing in more of a storeroom than a holy shrine.
There were the graven effigies of the gods—Yah with his long beard and tall crown, and Havah, serene of face and swollen of breasts and belly. These stood about as high as Yetzer’s shoulder, tucked in a corner. About them lay all manner of clutter. A pai
r of wooden staves, one of which was carved with sprouting almond buds, leaned against the figures of the gods. A rectangular stone, not a cubit in its longest dimension, sat in a sling along the far wall. Boxes that looked like ossuaries lay haphazardly stacked.
Dozens of other pieces littered the space, but it was the table beneath the lamp that drew Yetzer’s attention. Set upon three legs of alabaster, the top was of marble inlaid with the signs of the night sky, star pictures of bull and ram, scorpion and fishes, lion and scales of Mayat and a half-dozen others that represented the course of the year. Upon the center of the table lay a pair of gloves and a soft leather pouch, the object of Yetzer’s search.
He lifted the pouch and shook it to hear the rattle of stone upon stone. He glanced at the gods in their corner, reaffirmed to them his good intent, then reached into the bag.
The paired stones were cool to the touch, smooth and faceted, and each sized to fit comfortably in the hollow of Yetzer’s hand. And that was all. One was not perceptibly heavier than the other, nor larger nor thicker nor different in any way that his touch could perceive. He withdrew the stones and studied them under the light. Other than their colors, there was nothing to distinguish them.
“You should try using gloves,” a voice said from behind, and Yetzer’s heart leapt into his throat. “Gad always wears gloves.”
43
Yetzer
Yetzer spun into a crouch, eye focused on the darkness beyond the lamp’s throw. The susurrus of feet on carpet shuffled toward him. A child stepped into the small ring of light. The coarse robes and sandals, the unkempt hair and wide eyes bespoke a wild thing, likely abandoned in the temple grounds at birth.
“I have no food,” Yetzer said, using the tone he might employ with a feral dog. The creature cocked his head and ran his eyes over Yetzer, as though gauging whether to target his hands or neck. Yetzer had little fear of an attack—he’d fling the waif aside like an empty sack—but the noise of a scuffle was certain to wake the guard.
Yetzer gestured toward the outer sanctuary. “There is bread in the Holy Place.”
“That’s the Bread of Havah’s Presence,” the child replied in a scolding tone, “sacred to the goddess. If you’re hungry, I can find other food for you.”
Yetzer started to offer something else, then stopped himself. Instead, he asked, “Who are you?”
“I am Natan, high priest of Yah and Havah,” the child replied boldly. “Who are you?”
“I—” Yetzer began, but could find no other words.
This ragged child served as high priest? Yetzer tumbled forward onto his knees. The young priest sat cross-legged before him, large eyes shining in the lamplight. He rested his chin upon his fists and stared at Yetzer.
“How did you hurt your eye?” the boy asked. “I burned my hand once on the brazier. But Gad always wears gloves when he consults the stones, so you probably should, too.”
Only half understanding the string of words, Yetzer glanced down at the pouch and stones still in his hands. “Do you know about these?” Yetzer asked.
“The seer stones?” the boy said. “Of course. When questions are quite difficult or very important, or if the queen wants something but doesn’t want people angry with her, Gad picks the black or the white one to give the answer.”
“And do you know how he does it?” Yetzer continued.
The boy’s lips pursed and his brows knitted. “He reaches into the pouch,” he said, his words slow and distinct. “He picks a stone and draws it out.”
“But how does he choose?” Yetzer pressed. “How does he know which stone to take?”
Natan’s eyes flicked away and he rubbed the back of his hand against his nose. “The gods tell him, of course.”
Yetzer smiled for the first time since arriving in Urusalim. The boy couldn’t have seen ten years, yet he bore the weight of his responsibility with more care than some men four or five times his age.
“How did you come to be priest?” Yetzer asked as he took the gloves from the table and inspected them.
“I was born a child of Havah,” the boy said, “raised by her priest and trained in the holy arts from the days of my youth.”
Yetzer bit his lower lip to keep from laughing. It was comical, and not a little sad, to hear a boy scarcely past infancy speak so.
“When the old priest of Yah left,” Natan continued, “the god chose me to take up his mantle. And when my master died, I was chosen to bear the mantle of Havah as well.”
“Did the gods use the stones to choose you?” Yetzer asked.
The boy’s downcast eyes gave him the answer.
Yetzer tugged a glove onto his right hand. He dropped the stones back into the pouch, rattled them around, then reached in with his gloved fingertips. The first stone felt the same as before. The second stone, however, now caught upon the threads of the glove.
Yetzer pulled out the white stone and examined it in the thin lamplight. What had first seemed the glitter of quartz now proved to be tiny nodes, too fine for Yetzer’s callused fingers to sense, but coarse enough to snag lightly upon the glove.
“Ask me a question,” Yetzer told the boy. “Anything you want answered with a yes.”
The young priest fixed Yetzer with a dubious expression but gave in with a forbearing sigh.
“Is my name Natan?”
White.
“Am I priest of Yah?”
White.
“Am I also priest of Havah?”
White.
A light sheen rose upon the boy’s eyes, and his voice fell low. “Am I all alone in the world?”
Black.
“Hah!” the boy scoffed. “You can’t make them work. Only the oracle of the gods can rightly draw the stones.”
“I told you to ask questions that would only be answered ‘yes’,” Yetzer chided him, then cleared his throat. “Is my name Yetzer abi-Huram?”
White.
“Am I a rightful priest of Amun?”
White.
“Is not Amun a brother to Yah and Havah?”
White.
“So am I not a brother to the priest of Yah and Havah?”
White.
Natan’s eyes brightened. A smile stretched across his mouth and grew even wider with Yetzer’s next question.
“And shall we together build a temple to the gods of Yisrael?”
After leaving the Sanctuary, Yetzer sat in the star-canopied courtyard of Eliam’s house, his father’s trestleboard in his lap. Line by line, he scratched the image of a temple into the soft clay. The proportions were like any proper shrine of Kemet, with its porch, sanctuary, and inner chamber. Unlike the temples of that desert land, Havah and Yah’s house must be roofed over to protect against the rains that nourished Yisrael.
By morning, he had worked out the elevations. He broke his fast with his mother, then stuffed the trestle board into a satchel, along with his stylus, measuring line and a few other tools.
“We’re not petitioning the queen today, then?” Dvora said when Yetzer started toward the gate.
“Tomorrow,” he assured her, and his mother made the sad, proud expression she’d so often given his father when he started a new commission for Pharaoh.
The sun had just cleared the horizon as Natan led Yetzer across the hilltop.
“It is our most sacred place,” the boy said in hushed tones as he pointed toward a rocky scarp edged with scrub brush.
“Then why is it not enclosed by your Sanctuary?”
Natan stopped and looked up at Yetzer with a dismal expression.
“It is our most sacred place,” he repeated slowly. “Sacred before King Tadua took Urusalim. Sacred before the Habiru carried the tent of the gods about the wilderness. Sacred even before the fathers of Yisrael stood their altars upon these hills.”
Yetzer followed the boy up a narrow path to the mountain’s peak. The scarp towered over the hilltop, nearly to the height of two men. Yetzer followed Natan’s example and kicked off his
sandals before climbing atop the rock. The sun had yet to strike this part of the mountain, but warmth radiated from the ground and sent ripples of energy through the soles of Yetzer’s feet.
The priests stretched for handholds as they scrabbled up the last cubit to the summit. The very air seemed to shimmer as the sun’s power lanced along the opposite hillside, across the steep Valley of Kederon, to the summit of Morhavah. This was no place of man’s choosing, Yetzer decided as he sat facing the sunrise.
A man, be he king or holy fool, would have chosen his sacred place atop one of the neighboring peaks, which rose fifty cubits or more above Havah’s humble crest. There was nothing here to impress the profane, nothing to proclaim to the world a ruler’s greatness. There was only the subtle power of the divine expressed through this knuckle of rock upon the humblest of hills.
“And your queen would have her temple here?” Yetzer said.
Natan nodded and sat beside him. “The Sanctuary has much power in the memories of the people, from the time of our fathers’ wanderings. The stone of Yaakob, the flowering staff—these are easily carried from one place to another.”
“But Bilkis is not a Queen of Wanderers.”
“The old priests and prophets would go out among the people,” Natan said, “to where the need was. The queen would have the people come to her.”
Yetzer pulled his knees to his chest, rested his chin on them and looked out across the hilltop. Crows hopped across the piles of waste, while an occasional pilgrim made his way up from the city with a bit of grain and oil for the priests and a bird or goat to burn upon the altar and add to the charnel heaps.
Most stopped at the Tent of Sanctuary, some went to the neighboring shrine of Ashtart, but a few found the path to the goddess’s rock, making obeisance to Yetzer and Natan before leaving their offerings. The scene was little different than in Kemet, though there the priests had ample slaves to carry the filthy remains away from the gods’ dwelling.