to the market. The fresh milk had tasted so good. And the fruit! Now, they just lived on a meager ration of twenty shekels of grain per person per day. A few lentils and a small, bony piece of meat each week provided the only variety. She was starving.
Few people were out on the street. They did not linger, afraid of being exposed to enemy fire. To the right the citadel’s walls rose high above the city’s humble houses. When Rivkah passed the gates she could see the activity in the citadel. It was the command centre in the defense effort. From the citadel the commander issued orders. From here soldiers were dispatched to the fighting. Here the garrison was stationed. Provisions and weapons were stored here.
The townspeople had to come here for their daily rations. Even though the commander discouraged people from congregating at the citadel, a few milled around the gate. They were anxious to get food to provide for their families. They came to get some comfort in this place. Here they felt some safety. Nobody greeted Rivkah. They seemed too absorbed in their own misery.
As Rivkah walked on down the main street, she suddenly noticed a little boy staring at her. He was standing at the side of the road, pressed against a house wall, looking up with big dark eyes. She wasn’t sure what she read in his face. Fear? Surprise? Or was it a guilty conscience? He seemed somewhat disorientated and unsure. Just as Rivkah was about to ask him what he was doing all alone on the street and where did he live, a young woman came running down the road. When she saw the boy she clapped her hands in relief and shouted, “Here you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Yotam. What are you doing here?”
The boy’s eyes left Rivkah and he looked at his mother. He pulled up his shoulders, uncertain how to respond. But then a smile crossed his face. The woman scooped him up and carried him in her arms. He let it happen and then snuggled against her as he wrapped his thin arms around her neck. The woman turned and hurried back down the road. Over her shoulder the boy looked at Rivkah again. In his eyes there was no longer any hint of fear.
Rivkah didn’t know whether the woman had even looked at her. She must be one of the refugees from the countryside. Many villagers had sought refuge in the heavily fortified city of Lachish as they heard about the advance of the Assyrian army. The people were poor and did not wear any nice clothing or jewelry. They had had to leave most of their meager possessions behind when they abandoned their houses.
With their arrival, the emergency stores of the city had to last for even more people, but they were a welcome addition to the defense effort. And they did work hard, always willing to help where needed. The houses had become even more crowded accommodating them. Of course, people got annoyed and tempers sometimes flared. But they coped. They had to. After all this was war. Their only hope was in a joint effort to resist the enemy until help arrived, whether from heaven or from earth.
Rivkah’s father was busy at work. He did not fight on the walls. He supported the defensive effort through his trade. There was plenty of work for a blacksmith when a war was on. Normally he made agricultural implements. Now he was beating plowshares into swords and pruning hooks into spear tips. The demand for arrowheads just could not be satiated.
As Rivkah walked through the room, her father looked up. “You can leave some of that water here. Just pour it into that small jar over there.” He turned his concentration back to the arrowhead he was making. It was delicate work.
Rivkah took the water jar from her head. “Elisaph, can you help her, please.” Her father spoke to Rivkah’s cousin who just stood there, leaning against the wall, hardly even noticing Rivkah. He helped her father in the workshop treading the bellow to feed the fire with air to increase the temperature, if required. Elisaph gave a grunt but came over and lifted the jar to pour the water.
“Thank you, Rivkah.” Her father must have finished the arrowhead. He put his hand on her shoulder. “I hope we’ll survive this siege. Keep your head up. I know it’s hard on you. But you can be sure we’ll fight to save this city. Even if I don’t live, I pray you will.”
Rivkah was confused. Her father wasn’t normally like this. He usually didn’t talk that much, especially not with her. But these weren’t normal times. The war seemed to have taken its toll on him. Rivkah studied his face. His eyes seemed sad. Was he afraid? Did he have a premonition of what was to come? Rivkah picked up the water jar again and carried it into the inner room.
Chapter 2
Itur-Ea sat in the shade of the tent seeking cover from the fierce midday sun. This morning they had taken off the front panel of the siege machine and he had thoroughly inspected the whole part, made some repairs and replaced a few hides. The machine was in surprisingly good condition after the battle. In the afternoon they would suspend the battering ram again. Getting that just right was always a major operation. He had to admit that it wasn’t his strength. He was far more confident in maintaining the shell of the siege machine.
His father was a tanner and Itur-Ea had learned from him. Really, he had wanted to become a tanner himself, but the village had chosen him to join the army when the call came. Now his brothers carried on the trade back in the village. He thought about the village often these days: small houses of sun-baked bricks surrounded by stands of date palms. Irrigation canals watered the barley fields. The land was flat and fertile. Not like here in this wild, barren country of steep hillsides and deep valleys.
They used to catch fish in the canals. But the best and biggest always came from the great river. Of course that was several leagues away. Still, they would sometimes go down to the town on its shore and buy fish at the market. It had always seemed such a journey, like a visit to a different land. He would stand and watch the boats on the river, some of them heavily laden with produce for the big cities. He had dreamed of setting out to discover the world, of seeing majestic cities and temples, of travelling to strange and distant lands.
Itur-Ea laughed. He certainly had done that. Who would have ever thought that he would come to this place, to the end of the world near the Western Sea? But he had hardly journeyed by boat. No, he had had to travel on his own two feet—weeks of marching through inhospitable territory, over hills and mountains, plains and deserts.
And then there were the battles. There were times when he loathed them. The exhaustion, the intensity wore him down. But mostly he savored them. The action, the acute awareness of life and death, the danger thrilled him. The performance of their siege machines gave him an inexplicable sense of satisfaction. Through them, careful design and destructive power combined to overwhelm the enemies of the mighty Assyrian army. Whoever dared to stand in their way had fallen.
Nothing compared to the triumph when the walls crumbled, the last resistance was extinguished, the houses looted and the whole city sacked and burned. Then he knew that he was truly part of the greatest army, that his lot was with the conquerors. Victory was with the king and his god Ashur. It made everything worthwhile.
If the truth be told, he probably couldn’t go back and live in the village. Not yet anyway. At the moment life was too exciting to give it all up and lead a sedate life. Wouldn’t he get bored in a sleepy village where everything moved to the same rhythm year in, year out, where village politics was the most exciting topic of conversation?
Military training had been hard to begin with. The new environment had intimidated him. And he had never been any good with a bow and arrow. Actually, if he thought about it, you could count on one hand the birds he had shot as a boy in the village. Still, he had shown some promise with the spear, especially in close-quarter combat. He proved to be very skilled with the dagger and the sword. On his first military campaign he fought as a shield-bearer, providing cover for his archer. The experience had taught him some valuable lessons.
It must have been that survey when he returned to Nineveh that had matched him to
