The sojourner began, and spoke at length.
It seemed there was a great prophet in a land far to the northwest,
whose name was Noah. He was a Patriarch, and a man to be reckoned with,
and all held his words in high esteem, although no one believed the
prophecy he had been speaking imploringly to all of late. Noah, said
the trader, was the son of Lamech, who was the son of Methuselah. These
were all great Patriarchs of wide renown, individuals commonly known in
their own time and country to be men of vast intellect and lofty
pursuits.
This Noah, the trader continued, was no exception. Noah had begun
building a vast ship, of a size well beyond the scope of any known
shipwright of the day, out of gopher wood.
Si'Wren duly recorded the name of Noah, son of Lamech, son of
Methuselah, and awaited further recording instructions or questions.
People could be quite long-winded, and her writing capacity was rather
limited by the relatively small size of the clay tablets, versus the
set size of her cuneiform marking sticks. By Ibi's own oft-repeated
instructions and judiciously worded admonitions, she knew that one must
be frugal with one's free space on a clay tablet. One could only get
just so much down on one slab.
Si'Wren must frequently sit at court, virtually unnoticed on the
sidelines, for interminable periods as the great lords droned on and
on, lulling her almost to sleep with sleepy blinked-back tears of
utmost boredom.
Pages:
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306