Noah Page 8

  * * *

  The Hearth was a small area in the center of the Ark which had been built as living quarters for the family. It consisted of one main room where the family congregated and ate their meals. They slept there, too, in individually pitched tents. There were several smaller rooms, as well, attached to the central hub, where they stored their food and cooked their meals and performed their daily ablutions.

  A brazier in one corner of the Hearth provided warmth, and several candle-lit lanterns hanging from the rafters provided light and made the place cozy. Japheth’s favorite part of each day was the early evening, after supper, when the sun was going down. Contented and warm and with a full belly, he liked nothing better than to sit and listen to his father’s plans or his mother’s stories, or to engage in family discussions.

  When he entered the Hearth now, it was to find his mother holding a tiny, chittering songbird in her cupped hands while his father mixed freshly picked herbs in a cup.

  “Ready?” his mother said.

  His father nodded and dropped a sliver of tzohar into the cup. Immediately the mixture began to give off a thin, sweet-smelling smoke. Naameh extended her arms, putting her cupped hands into the smoke, and instantly the songbird stopped singing.

  Japheth’s eyes widened.

  “Is it dead?”

  His mother and father both laughed.

  “Of course not,” his mother said. “Look.”

  Carefully she opened her hands and Japheth saw that the bird was fast asleep, its red, feathered chest rising and falling gently.

  Noah smiled and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Why have you done that?” Japheth asked curiously.

  “Our journey may be a long one,” Noah said. “How do you think we’re going to feed an Ark full of animals?”

  Japheth thought about it. “We’re not,” he said. “We’re going to put them all to sleep.”

  Noah nodded proudly.

  “Exactly.”

  * * *

  The next morning, after breakfast, Naameh sent Ham and Japheth back to the avian deck to collect the portable braziers, which, together with Noah and Shem, they had placed there the night before.

  After the successful experiment with the tiny songbird, Noah had filled the braziers with more of the herb mixture, and then when they were placed in strategic positions around the avian deck, he instructed his sons to don protective masks to prevent them from succumbing to the effects of the fumes. When he was satisfied that the boys’ noses and mouths were sufficiently covered, he dropped slivers of tzohar into each of the braziers, and then he and the boys retreated, closing the door of the avian deck behind them to allow the smoke to do its job.

  The brothers hurried back toward the avian deck, eager to see how effective their father’s herb mixture had been. They arrived to find that a hint of smoke still hung in the air, though the majority of it had dissipated. Japheth was delighted to find that every single bird was sleeping peacefully, their deep, collective breathing filling the deck like a sough of wind. He and Ham gathered together the metal, bowl-like braziers, the herb mixture in each one now reduced to little more than a few black, crumbling ashes. Japheth stacked the braziers he had collected, then crossed to a particular nest-box that was low to the ground. It contained the two doves he had spotted yesterday.

  He stared at the doves, smitten. He felt an affinity toward them because they had been the first pair of birds to arrive. He watched them for a while as they slept, and then he carefully reached into the nest box and lifted out one of the sleeping birds. It was soft and warm and plump in his hand.

  He stroked its head very gently with one finger.

  “Careful.”

  His father had spoken softly, yet Japheth was startled. Guiltily he looked up at his father, who was standing behind him, but Noah smiled to reassure his son that he had done nothing wrong.

  Even so, when he held out one large, rough, calloused hand, Japheth slipped the sleeping dove into it without hesitation. Ham wandered over and the three of them looked down at the bird slumbering there, so delicate and vulnerable.

  “They are beautiful, I know,” Noah said softly, as if afraid of waking the creature. “But you must remember that there are only two of each kind. After the storm has passed they will become a mother and father, and their hatchlings will spread across the world. But if a single one of them dies, a piece of Creation will be lost forever…”

  He paused, allowing his words to sink in, and then he placed the dove back with its partner. He gestured up and around at the nest boxes towering above them on all sides.

  “These creatures are all in our care now.”

  * * *

  Noah and Shem did their utmost to match the work rate of the Watchers, who toiled tirelessly, clambering easily up the sides of the Ark using their six arms, hammering nails with their clenched fists. But there were times when if they didn’t rest, the father and son would have collapsed from hunger and exhaustion. It was during one of these rest periods, as Naameh ladled out bowls of stew from a pot over a tzohar fire, that Ham sidled meekly across to sit beside Noah.

  “Father,” he said, keeping his voice low so that no one else could overhear him, “may I ask you something?”

  Noah ate hungrily, his face and arms grimy with sweat. “Of course,” he said.

  Ham looked awkward, embarrassed. The fingers of his hands twined around one another as though they were wrestling. For a moment he said nothing, and then he blurted out, “It’s just that… well, all the birds are two. You have mother. Shem has Ila.” He grimaced. “But what of me? And Japheth? Who is there for us?”

  Noah looked down at his son, who would all too soon become a man, and he felt a pang of sadness. Nevertheless he tried to make light of it.

  “In a hurry, are you?”

  Ham blushed and looked at the ground.

  In a more serious voice Noah said, “You see how He made the forest to give us wood for the Ark? How He sent the birds? Hasn’t He sent us everything we need?”

  Ham nodded.

  “So,” Noah said. “In time He will send wives, too.”

  Suddenly there was a clatter as Japheth, sitting a little apart from Noah and Ham, dropped his plate of stew. Noah and Naameh looked across at their youngest son, to see that he was staring beyond them, his eyes wide with shock.

  “Look,” he cried in a strangled voice. “Snakes!”

  Noah, Naameh, and Ham turned. At the edge of the clearing, emerging from the trees, was a moving carpet of reptiles. Snakes, crocodiles, turtles, and lizards—of all shapes, sizes, and colors—were slithering and ambling and scuttling toward them. Noah put aside his plate of stew and stood up slowly. Clinging to the Ark like strange, twisted barnacles, the Watchers stopped what they were doing and turned and stared. Ham, his earlier concerns apparently forgotten, jumped to his feet and rushed toward the advancing army, despite Naameh’s cry of warning.

  She needn’t have worried. The reptiles were hostile neither to Ham, nor to one another. As Ham stood his ground an ankle-high wave of scales, shells, and ridged and wrinkled skin passed over and around him. Snakes slithered over his feet and through his legs, a pair of turtles ambled by on one side, a pair of caimans on the other, all of them heading for the vessel.

  “Snakes are coming, too?” Naameh said.

  “All that creeps, all that crawls, all that slithers,” Noah answered.

  Like a young boy, full of fun and mischief as once he had been, Ham raised his hands high above his head, in glee or in greeting, and he laughed and laughed.

  10

  THE KING

  “Shh,” Ham said.

  Japheth had been chatting with his brother, but when Ham shushed him he froze and instantly fell silent. He knew not to question, not to argue. Their father had taught his sons about the wickedness of men and how, although outsiders had not troubled them for many years, they should remain constantly vigilant. He looked at Ham, who was peering at a clump of t
rees and bushes ahead, as if he believed that if he stared hard enough the forest would become transparent, enabling him to see what lay beyond.

  After a moment Ham carefully put down the basket in which he had been collecting leaves to use as bedding for the reptiles, and motioned to Japheth that he should do the same.

  Japheth’s heart was beating fast. If they were putting down their burdens it could only be because Ham was preparing for the possibility that they might have to run. He felt his muscles tensing for flight—and then a thread of silvery laughter rippled through the trees.

  The next moment both boys stared in astonishment as two young women strolled out from behind a clump of bushes on the path ahead. Dappled sunlight, tumbling through the canopy of leaves above, flickered on each girl’s skin, and for a moment Japheth wondered whether they were spirits of some sort, or even figments of his imagination. One of the girls had blonde hair, the other red. They were a little younger than Ila, but almost as pretty.

  The girls were laughing together. They had not seen the boys. Quickly Ham stepped back off the path, indicating with a silent squeeze of Japheth’s shoulder that he should do the same. The boys were used to the forest, and slipped into a nearby clump of thick, flowering bushes with barely a rustle of leaves. Unseen, they watched the two girls approach, and then follow a left-hand fork in the path that would take them closer to the clearing and the Ark. When the girls were out of earshot, Japheth whispered, “Who are they?”

  Ham shrugged, but his eyes were wide with excitement and anticipation. As if he hardly dared believe it, he whispered, “Wives?”

  Japheth looked stunned—and a little alarmed.

  “What should we do?”

  “Follow them,” Ham said decisively.

  His eyes fixed on the spot where the girls had slipped out of sight, he led Japheth out of the bushes. However he had been so enchanted by the girls themselves that he had given no thought to the possibility that they might not be alone. As he stepped out on to the forest path, something moved to block his way, a dark shadow falling over him.

  Ham’s head jerked up to see a grinning man standing over him, with long, yellow teeth and a tangled, filthy beard. The man was raising an axe above his head, with the clear intention of cleaving Ham’s skull in two—but before he could use it, something huge and heavy smashed into the side of the man’s head, crushing his skull.

  The man dropped like a boneless weight, leaving Ham with a confused impression of a wall of dented metal and black leather. A smell of old blood and rank, unwashed flesh filled his nostrils. Instinctively he stepped back and again looked up.

  The man’s killer was even more terrifying than the man himself had been. Clad in scratched and battered armor, massive and scarred and heavily muscled, his face was as brutal and slab-like as that of any Watcher. Various weapons dangled from his belt, and the huge war axe he had used hung from a hand that was encased in a black leather gauntlet, studded with jags of metal.

  Ham looked at the blood dripping from the head of the weapon, and wondered if he was next.

  The man was old—his long hair and his long forked beard were gray and matted. Yet this did not detract from his aura of savage power. He glared down at Ham, and then he grinned. Japheth, standing behind Ham, wheeled and ran away, shrieking, “Father! Father!” As he did, Ham noticed that the man wore a long but shriveled reptile skin wrapped around his shoulders. The man saw him staring and said in a gruff but not unkind voice, “You like it?”

  Ham, unable to speak, nodded.

  The man leaned down a little, bringing his terrible face, pitted and pockmarked with white scar tissue, closer to Ham’s own.

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  Ham nodded again.

  The man chuckled, as if pleased to find that he was a figure of terror. But he said, “Don’t be afraid.”

  Behind him other soldiers, equally battle-scarred, were emerging from the forest—ten… twenty… more. And there were more women with them, too. Ham blushed as they stared at him—or as he imagined them staring at him. He was too embarrassed to establish eye contact with them, and still too terrified of the man-mountain in front of him.

  “What’s your name?” the man—their leader—asked.

  For one terrible moment Ham thought he would be unable to make a sound in reply.

  “Ham,” he croaked finally

  The man bashed his armored chest with a gauntleted hand.

  “I am Tubal-cain. Do you know me?”

  Ham shook his head, eliciting a murmur of disapproval from the group of soldiers and women arrayed behind their leader.

  Tubal-cain’s face hardened. He gripped the handle of the axe so tightly that his leather gauntlet creaked.

  “You don’t know your king?” he demanded.

  Terrified, but also fascinated, Ham stared at the axe. He had no doubt that Tubal-cain could crush him like a berry with a single downward stroke, if he chose to.

  Even so, he cleared his throat and spoke words that had been drummed into him over many years. “My father says there can be no king in the Creator’s garden.”

  Tubal-cain stared at him. A long moment passed.

  Then, with a gruff bark of a laugh, the huge warrior held out the axe, offering the handle to Ham.

  Ham looked up at him, wondering if this was some trick, but Tubal-cain gave a single encouraging nod.

  Tentatively Ham reached out and took the weapon.

  * * *

  “There!” Japheth said quietly, pointing.

  Noah saw the dark shapes of the men approaching through the trees.

  “Go to your mother,” he said grimly.

  For a split second Japheth looked as though he might protest, but then he nodded meekly.

  “Yes, Father.”

  He hurried away. By the time Tubal-cain and his entourage emerged from the tree line into the clearing, marked here and there by large scattered rocks, Noah was standing, apparently alone, in front of the Ark, waiting for them.

  Though the men were battle-hardened and steeped in blood, they gazed up at the Ark with childlike wonder, clearly awestruck by its sheer size and staggered by the ambition and achievement of this single man who stood defiantly before them.

  Noah, however, barely registered their reaction. The instant he had clapped eyes on Tubal-cain, and on the reptile skin draped around his shoulders, his face had hardened to stone.

  Tubal-cain stared back at Noah without recognition in his eyes. Beside him stood Ham, gripping the warrior’s axe in two clenched fists, holding it proudly upright even though it was clear from his trembling arms that he found it incredibly heavy. Tubal-cain’s gauntleted hand rested lightly on Ham’s shoulder, a gesture that could be interpreted as fatherly, affectionate… or as that of someone claiming ownership of a new possession.

  Ten paces from Noah, Tubal-cain came to a halt. For a moment there was silence as the two men took the measure of one another.

  Then, quietly, Noah spoke.

  “Ham. Come here.”

  Tubal-cain grinned his terrible grin and tightened his hand on Ham’s shoulder.

  “Don’t take my best soldier.”

  Noah’s voice was cold. “He is nothing of yours.”

  Tubal-cain released a derisory huff of laughter.

  “Look at his hand on that weapon,” he replied. “I believe he is something of mine.”

  This time Noah didn’t grace Tubal-cain with a reply. He glared at his son.

  “Ham!” he barked.

  Ham scowled. Regretfully, dragging his feet, and still holding the axe out before him, he moved away from Tubal-cain’s side and toward his father.

  “Leave the axe,” Noah said firmly.

  Ham paused and looked up at him, an appeal in his eyes. “But he gave it to me.”

  Noah’s voice was sharp. “Do as I tell you!”

  Ham hesitated a moment longer, and then, his features scrunching in anger and humiliation, he threw down the weapon and stom
ped away, heading toward the ramp of the Ark, refusing to look at his father.

  Tubal-cain watched him go with amusement, and then he turned his attention back to Noah.

  “When I heard the talk of miracles, I dismissed them. Water from the ground? A great forest from nothing? Nonsense. But when I saw the birds, from everywhere, flying here… I had to come.”

  “What do you want?” Noah asked bluntly.

  Tubal-cain jerked his head up at the Ark. “I’ve come to see your miracles.”

  “They are not my miracles.” Noah half-turned away and said dismissively, “There is nothing for you here.”

  “Nothing for me?” Tubal-cain roared. “This is all mine! This land, this forest, your…” he gestured contemptuously up at the Ark. “What is that? A stronghold?” He sneered. “You think you can protect yourself from me in that?”

  Noah came to a halt, though he was still standing side-on to Tubal-cain, his body half-turned away from him. “It is not protection from you,” he muttered.

  “Then what is it?”

  Noah looked as if he was contemplating simply walking away without answering the question. But then he said, “An ark. To protect the innocent when the Creator sends his deluge to sweep the wicked from the world.”

  He stared hard at Tubal-cain as he emphasized the word “wicked.” The man snorted laughter.

  “The Creator does not care what happens to this world. Nobody has heard from Him since He marked Cain. We are alone. Orphaned children. Cursed to struggle by the sweat of our brows to survive.” He sneered at Noah. “Damned if I don’t do everything it takes to do just that.”

  Noah flinched at the words. It was like a terrible echo from his past. He knew what was coming next. As Tubal-cain spoke the words Noah spoke them with him.

  “Damned if I don’t take what I want,” they said together.

  Tubal-cain’s eyes narrowed.

  “We’ve met before? I would remember…”