Part Three
Chapter Ten
A short, hairy man wearing a gaudy embroidered tunic jostles his way through a tangled bazaar, tugging another man by the arm. Crowds of people of every description mingle in the streets with flocks of sheep, goats, and swine. Oxen pull carts laden with baskets of wheat and barley, jars of oil, bundles of leather strips, and sheaves of reeds. Merchants loudly hawk their goods and the throng clamors like a heron rookery as they haggle for fish and fowl, cucumbers and figs, honey, meat, and bread. Fishmongers bark from every corner, selling fresh or fried. Dogs skulk underfoot, searching for scraps amidst the sandals and hooves.
“Fate is marvelous, Ben-jah!” says the short, hairy man, adjusting his turban as he glances up at the tall, muscular man that he has in tow. “It has been only three years since I sold you, and now you, yourself, are coming to me to buy slaves! Marvelous! And be assured, you shall get a fair price!”
“It has been five years,” says Ben-Jah. “And what do you know about a fair price? Hammur, it is a miracle that you are still in business.”
“You do me injustice,” pleads Hammur as he scurries through the crowd. “Make way!” he shouts.
“Injustice! Ha! What did you get in exchange for me?”
“Make way!” shouts Hammur as he pushes through the mob.
“Have you forgotten?” asks Ben-jah. “A bag of rocks. You only got a bag of rocks for me.”
“They were excellent rocks,” says Hammur. “First-rate copper ore!”
“You have a head like a rock,” says Ben-jah. “What can a rock learn? What can it tell you?”
They arrive at a door in a plastered wall. Hammur pulls the bolt and opens the door. “Out!” he orders, and an old man with stooped shoulders steps into the street. Hammur grins, “What do you think?”
Ben-jah walks around the old man, looking him up and down. “Not bad,” he says. “Not bad.” Then he gestures to the old man, “You may go back inside.”
Ben-jah closes the door. He slowly turns to Hammur, then swiftly grabs him by the throat and slams him up against the wall. “You insult me and you insult that old man!”
“But… But…,” grunts Hammur.
“Pish!” hisses Ben-jah, tightening his grasp. “I buy for the King and you insult me with a poor old man.”
“But….”
Ben-jah further tightens his grip.
“Wait…” gasps Hammur. “I have information.”
Ben-jah loosens his grip. “Speak.”
“My… ahem, associates … tell me that there is a ship…” He arches his eyebrows and holds out his palm.
Ben-jah spits into Hammur’s hand.
Hammur looks down at his hand, then back at Ben-Jah. He sighs. “There is a ship at the third wharf. It arrived this morning. They have a raft of timber. And a boy and a girl.”
* * *
Ben-jah walks toward the river. He pauses momentarily to watch a gang of men working on the foundation of a new building. Some are digging up the earth; others are making mud bricks or carrying timbers.
When Ben-jah was first taken here to the Land Between the Two Rivers he worked on the irrigation ditches that watered the fields of grain that grew here. Now these fields are being trampled by laborers and turned into dwellings.
* * *
The man at the wharf shrugs and says to Ben-jah, “There is only one now. The priests took the girl. They wanted the girl. They did not want the boy.”
“What is wrong with the boy?” asks Ben-jah.
“Nothing,” says the man. “The trader who brought them told me that the boy was learning to speak our tongue, but the girl refused.” He shrugs again. “They wanted the girl.”
Ben-jah mutters, “Those priests, they can not see beyond their own pricks.”
The man shrugs again and whistles through his missing teeth. “So, do you want the boy?”
“Perhaps. You say that he speaks?”
“He is learning.”
Ben-jah approaches the boy, who has been standing silently nearby. “What - is - your - name?”
“Nut,” says Nut.
“Where - do - you - come - from?”
Nut looks out across the immense river.
Ben-jah repeats, in Nut’s own language, “Where do you come from?”
“I cannot say.”
“You cannot say?”
“I do not know where I am.”
=
Ben-jah buys Nut and leads him off through the narrow streets.
“Did they feed you?” he asks.
“Fish,” says Nut.
“I am also from up the river,” says Ben-jah.
* * *
​
​