Ark(35)

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.