“I’m amazed that little hussy will be rewarded for her deviousness.” Semiramis struck her thigh. Then she picked up a cushion and hugged it. “Doesn’t your grandfather realize the message he’s sending everyone? How demoralizing it is for the rest of us who stay amid the floods and hardships? Perhaps I’ll traitorously dash off to a softer land. Do you think your grandfather will make me such a necklace then?”
“It is unique,” Nimrod said.
“Unique! It’s priceless, marvelous, the perfect piece of jewelry to match my eyes.” Semiramis waved the cushion. “That blonde-haired hussy, it will be wasted on her. Oh, I know all about her hard-hearted little games, believe you me. She simpered and whined, making it so people called me the evil stepmother. The little trickster, she was the devil. She drove Beor against me. She made my life miserable in Canaan’s house. I tried to discipline her, but, behind my back, people started calling me cruel and vicious because of it. Don’t think I don’t know what they said. I had to stiffen my spine to endure it.” Semiramis shook her head. “This necklace will puff her up, making her impossible to control.”
Nimrod shrugged. “That’s hardly our concern.”
Semiramis halted. “I don’t see it that way.”
“You’re divorced, done with Beor.”
“True,” she said. “But I yet feel a responsibility for the girl. Can I let her be poisoned by Ham’s misguided generosity? Not if I want to look at myself in the mirror.”
“There isn’t much you can do about the necklace,” Nimrod said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps I can’t, but you can.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Nimrod asked, surprised.
“You must intercept the necklace,” she said. “See that it never reaches Japheth Land.”
Nimrod laughed. “I’ll not slay a messenger just so you can don a necklace and strut about with it in our bedroom.”
“Is that what you think?” She hurled the cushion at him, which he dodged. “At least Ham understands women. He decks them in precious things because he considers them so. But you, the Mighty Hunter, they say, bringing home trophies like dragon’s heads and wolf skins. Do you think to drape me in animal cloaks so you can hunt me in our room and sate your lusts upon me?”
“I bring you gifts,” he said.
“Like the amber necklace?” she asked, eyes flashing. “Like the fish-eyes Gilgamesh lost?”
“The what?” Nimrod asked. “Fish-eyes, you say? You wish me to pluck out the eyes of fish and give them to you?”
Semiramis grew silent, sitting on a stool and lifting a bronze mirror. The mirror’s bronze face was highly polished, and she held it by its ornamental ivory handle, examining her neck, imaging how the amber necklace would look around her throat.
“I know you want the necklace,” Nimrod said. “Which of the women of Babel didn’t eye it with lust and longing? But it can’t be done, not yet anyway.”
“Don’t speak to me of can’t,” Semiramis said. “Whatever the Mighty Hunter truly desires, he ends up acquiring.”
“Have a care, woman. I’m not Beor. If you continue to bait me, I’ll give you bruises to admire instead of your face.”
Semiramis looked over her shoulder at him and went back to peering at her mirror. She picked up a brush and combed her long, dark hair. With a cry of rage, she flung the mirror aside, leapt to her feet and strode out of the room.
Nimrod watched her go, amused at the vanity of women.
16.
In Ham’s knapsack, the amber necklace made its way to the settlement in the Zagros Mountains. From there, Chin the son of Zidon traveled north with a small caravan of donkeys. They were loaded with copper axes, adzes and knives and several jugs of smooth, Babel beer. The winter snows made it a difficult journey, but after hard weeks of braving deep drifts and icy winds, Chin and his companions reached the valley-village of Javan.
A brittle wall of branches dug into the earth formed a wide perimeter, with huts and rough-hewn timber houses and branch-built corrals filling the settlement in a random fashion. Some of the timber houses had been smeared with clay of such purity and brilliance that it looked like paint or a colored design. Each home, hut or corral was surrounded by open spaces. It was the chief precaution against fire.
Chin was welcomed and stayed in Beor’s stoutly built log house, where also lived the Scouts, two of them Chin’s brothers. They feasted him and his companions in a big room, the table of solid oak construction. They drank from wooden cups and ate off wooden platters, each feaster using a knife and his or her fingers. They ate roasted pork, peas and steaming fresh bread, tearing off chunks and using their thumbs to smear on butter. On the walls were stapled wolf and bearskins, with spears pegged above them. As the meal ended, Chin picked up a package by his feet. He reached across the table and gave it to Hilda. They sat on either side of Beor, who reigned at the head of the table.
The wind howled outside and air rushed down the chimney, causing the fireplace embers to glow and sparks to fly. The feasters ignored that as Hilda tore apart the package. She had grown into a tall girl with open, pretty features and long blonde hair she usually kept loose and, sometimes, in disarray. She wore a hunting outfit, a short dress to her knees, with her arms bare. She kept a dagger at her side and outmatched Semiramis’s amazon-style.
Hilda’s eyes grew wide as she lifted the amber necklace for all to see.
The Scouts and their wives marveled and began to whisper about who had sent Hilda such a fantastic present.
“Father, look.”
Huge Beor half rose out of his chair. His eyes were no longer sunken as they had been at the Zagros Settlement, but were now filled with amazement like everyone else. His once sagging facial flesh had filled out. His bushy, black beard, bald head and mammoth size—he was without a doubt the largest man on Earth. The somber cast to his features gave him a grim majesty. A double-bladed axe was thrust through his broad leather belt and in his right fist, he held a jack of Babel ale.
Beor lowered his drink and grew even grimmer. “Who is this that tries to turn my daughter’s head with priceless treasure? Eh, Chin? Who thinks to steal my daughter from me?”
“Whether that’s Ham’s intention I don’t know,” Chin said.
“Ham?” Beor asked. “My Grandfather Ham sent this?”
“He gave it into my father Zidon’s care,” Chin said. “Now I have discharged the obligation by bringing it to you.”
Beor settled back into his chair, brooding, his heavy eyebrows drawn together. After a moment, he graced the assemblage with one of his wintry grins.
It seemed as if a collective sigh filled the room, and Hilda beamed with delight.
“I approve,” said Beor, “although my grandfather’s generosity baffles me. This, however, I know: Gifts from Ham are precious. Did he not fashion the pike with which I slew Old Slow the Great Sloth, and did he not fashion my chariot? Now he has given my daughter a queen’s ransom. Let us never forget that we are the children of Ham and Rahab, noble people, good in every respect. That is why the evil plague infecting Babel must be stopped.”
“Oh, Father,” Hilda said. “Let’s not talk about that tonight.” She rose, slipping the amber necklace over her head, settling the three lustrous beads onto her blouse.
Those around the table clapped, showing their appreciation. Several of the women eyed the beads with obvious envy.
“I toast to my grandfather, Ham,” Beor said, lifting his cup.
Everyone else did likewise. “To Ham!” they shouted.
As he lowered his cup, Beor said, “The necklace doesn’t quite suit your costume, my daughter. For that, you must wear a proper dress and douse yourself with perfume—and put a crown of lilies in your hair. Then you will seem like a princess come down from the clouds.”
Hilda made a face, but she excused herself and went into the next room, taking a slate mirror off a wooden chest and examining herself and the necklace. A proper dress…she hadn’t worn
a gown for a long, long time. She took off the necklace and carefully set it in a small wooden box. Then she went back to enjoy the evening and to hear more news from Chin.
17.
Hilda drove her father’s chariot the next day as Beor led Chin to other valleys and to the other villages in Japheth Land. It was south of Mount Ararat, much closer to the catchments of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers than those who lived in the Eastern Zagros Mountains. With the passage of years, Japheth Land had drifted southward, inching ever nearer the alluvial plains of the Two Rivers.
These were high valleys, thick with snow and pines and, in the lowest regions, with many oaks. Game was plentiful, and, unlike Babel, the growing season was singular, so food wasn’t as abundant as in Shinar. Perhaps to offset that, many nodes of surface copper-ore—gold, silver and occasionally tin—lay strewn almost everywhere.
At each village, Chin traded briskly for rare tin and precious silver and gold, the gold mostly in dust form. He also traded gossip and news, giving and receiving liberally. Patriarch Japheth treated him with respect and inquired after Babel. He wanted to know in particular about Nimrod.
“Is he as dreadful as Beor makes out?” Japheth asked. They stood at an outdoor pit, with crackling logs. Tall pines rose behind them. Above, dark clouds hid the sun.
Chin glanced at Beor and Hilda before he said, “Nimrod wears a lion cloak, one that had a black mane. They say this lion was the king of all lions.”
Japheth shrugged. He was approaching two hundreds years of age. He was tall, with drooping shoulders and a long, blond beard. His eyes seemed wiser than before, if more haunted, and his mouth twitched from time to time, as if he knew a joke much too clever for anyone but himself to understand.
“Our Beor is also a champion,” Japheth said. “He slew a great sloth, although no one has ever explained to me, to my satisfaction, what drove a sane man to such a deed. Then I think to myself, but of course, he acts like Ham, who faced Ymir and survived. Beor now warns us of Nimrod when he himself acts just like him.”
Beor shook his head. “I refuse to be drawn, Lord Japheth. For, in debate, none may match you.”
“And by such a refusal you think to refute me?” Japheth asked. “I know that ploy. Notice, Nimrod drapes himself in a lion cloak. You wear the head of the great sloth. All the sons of Ham, it seems to me, love ostentation of this most primitive kind. Warriors you are, indeed. Your naked bloodlust proves it.”
Chin cleared his throat.
“You wish to challenge my assertion?” Japheth asked.
“No, Lord Japheth,” Chin said. “You asked for news of Nimrod. This might intrigue you, I warrant. He drove off a leviathan.”
Japheth glanced at several of his grandsons. They wore thick woolen garments and hefted red-colored shields. Each had tattooed swirls of blue woad on either his forehead or cheeks and held onto copper or flint-tipped spears. They had red or blond hair tied in ponytails and wore leather caps with earflaps.
“You’re right,” Japheth said. “I’m interested. We occasionally sail on Lake Van. But a leviathan…such creatures live in the oceans. Has Nimrod built another Ark?”
“I don’t think so,” Chin said. “Ham fashioned a-a—”
“Ah-ha!” Japheth cried. “I knew Ham lied to us during the Deluge. He pretended to abhor the waters, when in actuality they fascinated him. I warrant that Ham sailed with Nimrod.”
“That is true,” Chin said.
“And during the journey, they found this leviathan?” Japheth asked.
“Yes,” Chin said.
“Did Nimrod slay it?”
“No, Lord,” Chin said. “But after it slew a Hunter, Anu the Light-Hearted, I believe, Nimrod wounded the leviathan and drove it off.”
“I find that impressive,” Japheth said. “Don’t you also find that impressive, Beor?”
“The lad’s a skilled hunter,” Beor said. “I’ve always said so.”
“He’s the Dragon Slayer, they say,” Japheth said.
Beor turned away.
Japheth winked at Chin, smiled at Hilda and then, with his grandsons, took his leave, heading back to the village in the distance.
On their return journey to Javan Village, Chin asked Beor, “Do you never wonder about the curse?”
Hilda drove the four donkeys pulling the chariot. The small beasts blew white mist from their nostrils and occasionally glanced back at her. They plodded through a narrow pass, with high mountain walls on either side of them.
Beor took his time answering. “It’s in the back of my mind, of course. And, if you’re like me, whenever I speak with Lord Japheth, I think about it more than otherwise. When I first arrived, I thought about it so much that I journeyed to Mount Ararat.”
“Only to the range’s northern slopes,” Hilda said. “You never did trek up the mountains to show me the Ark.”
“Yes, I stand corrected,” Beor said with a smile. “The point is that I spoke with Noah, and one night I asked him about the curse. I wanted to know if I was in danger, living in Japheth Land.”
“What did Noah say?” Chin asked.
“Noah said that only Jehovah knows. Yet he said that often the curses of Jehovah are long in coming, with many opportunities for repentance.”
“Can the curse be avoided then?” Chin asked.
“I wondered the same thing,” Beor said, “and I Noah asked that. The ancient patriarch shook his head.”
“Javan won’t enslave us,” Hilda said.
“Not outright, anyway,” Beor said.
“You don’t trust Javan?” asked Chin.
“Out of everyone in Japheth Land,” Beor said, “who bargained with you the most sharply?”
“That’s easy,” Chin said. “Javan did.”
“Yes,” Beor said. “Javan.”
For a time they traveled in silence, until Chin glanced sidelong at Beor.
Hilda caught it, and she waited for the question plain on Chin’s face.
Chin asked, “Why do you live in Javan Village? It seems there are…nicer people in some of the other villages.”
Beor shrugged. “One place in Japheth Land is as good as any.”
As the donkeys plodded through the snow and worked their way down into a pine forest, Hilda pursed her lips. She could have told Chin the reason why. Deep in his heart, almost locked away from himself, her father still loved Semiramis. Hilda knew it from the hidden things he did. There was a copper locket with a long strand of Semiramis’s dark hair hidden under Beor’s straw mattress. Other items of hers, a comb, a pin or a buckle from an old belt, Hilda had seen her father late at night when he thought she was asleep. He sat in his chair in front of the fireplace and, with his thumb, rubbed the pin or comb, with his eyes unfocused, as if he saw into another, happier time.
Hilda pitied her father, for she knew that Semiramis was cruel and vindictive. Oh, how her stepmother had terrified her as a child. Nimrod and Semiramis deserved each other.
18.
Chin and his companions departed and life went on in Javan Village. As Rahab had suspected, the amber necklace wove a spell over Hilda. She often took it out, wearing it in her room, gazing at herself in her slate mirror. She finally went to Tarshish, the father of Semiramis, and in his house wheedled a gown from one of his daughters. In her room, Hilda wore the gown with the necklace, moving about and practicing walking like a woman. A month before spring, she waltzed into the main room for supper. Eyebrows rose and her father smiled.
“From which cloud did you descend, my fair princess?” Beor asked.
“Father,” she chided. But she sat at the table, delighted. It gave her the boldness the next day to go outside in the dress. Heads turned. It was caused as much from her loveliness as the treasure hanging from her neck.
Beor warned her two weeks later. “People are gossiping. I’ve heard it, and so have the others. You must put the necklace away and only wear it on special occasions.”
“The other girls wear nice things
,” Hilda said.
“Certainly,” Beor said. “I’m not against that. The amber necklace, however, isn’t just a nice thing. It’s the greatest treasure in Japheth Land. That makes people jealous. Remember, we’re guests here.”
“Guests, Father? After all these years? We’re no longer just guests.”
“That isn’t how people think,” Beor said.
“Many of the Japhethites have married Hamite women,” Hilda argued. “They’re not just guests.”
“It’s different for women, Hilda. A woman and man become one flesh. She becomes like a Japhethite, just as a woman from here, married to a son of Ham, becomes a Hamite. For me and the Scouts, however, it’s different.”
“Javan has welcomed you with open arms,” Hilda said. “He’s said so many times.”
“That’s what he said, I agree,” Beor told her. “But at times, they still resent us.”
“They ask you and the Scouts to lead the most dangerous hunts and to help them make the most intricate bronze-work.”
“Another reason not to like us,” Beor said. “Because they need us.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“True. But that’s human nature nonetheless. So I want you to put the necklace away and only wear it for Festival.”
“Yes, Father.”
Beor patted her on the cheek, no doubt thinking the problem solved.
Hilda, however, wore the necklace whenever he took a Scout as his charioteer instead of letting her drive. Those days, she donned the dress and proudly wore the necklace, turning heads and making others jealous.
Some of the most spiteful women went to Minos, the younger brother of Semiramis. He was a lanky fellow with curly, dark hair and handsome, olive-skinned features. He was the most handsome man in the village. He wore fine clothes, with linen undergarments and golden rings on his fingers. He disdained stone weapons and tools and wore on his belt a silver dagger, one of his many vanities and joys.
He listened to the harping of the jealous women: that a daughter of Beor should show them up and strut about their village as if she were its queen.
Wives of the Flood Page 53
