Джеймс Миченер - The Source

Today, however, Governor Uriel was not inspecting his craftsmen. His guide led him to the section west of the Watergate to the point where the wall of Makor bulged northward, and there, in a series of low wooden buildings, the young Hittite showed Uriel the ultimate weapon on which the defense of Makor rested, a device so terrifying that it would probably make future sieges unprofitable.

“Is everything in order?” the governor asked.

“Yes,” the young man said, calling to attention a group of Hittites assigned to the low buildings.

“Are these men able to act quickly?”

“At your command,” the Hittite assured him.

Satisfied that the defenses of Makor were secure, Uriel returned to the postern gate, where he went some distance into the dark waterwall until he reached the first guardhouse, from which he looked ahead to the well where women were gathered. Then he returned to the town, where he walked back along the line of shops, nodding to his townsmen, until he came to the gate and there he called again for his three-legged stool. Before it could be brought, his son Zibeon ran up the ramp accompanied by a young farmer. They bore exciting news.

“An army is marching down the road.”

Instantly Governor Uriel thrust out his hands, one toward Akka, one toward Damascus, as if he were once more in command of troops. “From where?”

“There,” Zibeon indicated, and Uriel turned his whole attention to the east.

His first thought was of the cisterns, and he had just satisfied himself that they were filled. Grain was also plentiful and he had seen that the waterwall was in good repair. He next thought of the five hundred peasants who lived outside the walls, and his first inclination was to sound the bronze trumpets used to summon them to the town, but as he was about to give the order he visualized the rich fields awaiting their spring planting and the vines about to mature and he was reluctant to interfere with the normal processes of the land. It was in that moment of indecision that he determined the fate of Makor.

He was certain that some kind of truce could be arranged with whoever ever was marching down the road, so he took his son by the shoulders and asked, “Zibeon, why did you say it was an army?”

“It’s not a handful. There are hundreds of men.”

“But did they have sheep?”

“Yes.”

Uriel was relieved. Nomads had been straggling through Canaan for centuries and nine times out of ten the walled cities had experienced no trouble—that is, if no trouble was initiated by the townsmen. The strangers usually took one look at the walls and the protecting glacis and were quite happy to wander on, unless they decided to settle outside the walls, where they formed little villages which in time helped to enrich the cities. Uriel was satisfied that once more the traditional pattern would be repeated.

He therefore did not cause the trumpets to be sounded, but he did alert his soldiers to man their positions and he sent guards into the waterwall. He ordered the gates to be closed, then climbed one of the towers in order to study the approaching horde. At first he saw only the empty road, resting in spring sunshine and obscured some distance to the east by the flank of the mountain on which stood the altar to Baal. The road looked as it had for centuries—a narrow, rocky, dusty path winding through the countryside, silent and waiting for the next footfall, indifferent as to who might be approaching. Now Uriel saw a flurry of dust as if a breeze incorporeal and unreal had swept across the road, foretelling events of great moment. It was an ominous passage and Uriel drew back, but then a donkey appeared, followed by two children, small and brown and almost naked, who came running ahead to see which could first detect the waiting town. When Uriel saw them he broke into a relaxed laugh.

“Behold the army!” he cried, and the children, seeing the mighty walls and towers, stopped in the middle of the road, stared at the town, then rushed back to tell their elders.

Governor Uriel was still laughing when the first Hebrew appeared. He was a tall old man, covered with dust and clothed in rough-spun garments, bearing a staff and nothing more. He was bearded, and his white hair fell to his shoulders. He wore a rope about his waist and heavy sandals and walked with a determination that was not going to be interrupted until he reached the main gates of the town. If this old man shared any of the surprise shown by his children at seeing the stout walls of Makor, he did not betray it. On the other hand, Governor Uriel observed, neither the old man nor the men following him paid any attention to the peasants whose fields lined the road, and this was a good sign. Had the newcomers been set upon ravaging the countryside they would have started by now.

Nevertheless, Uriel was unprepared for the number of nomads who kept appearing from the east. This was not the ordinary Hebrew family he had met with in the past; Makor had often absorbed such units and had easily inducted them into Canaanite cults. Some families had arrived with as many as twenty children, but this group was different. It was, Uriel saw, a congregation of families, a veritable clan, and its conspicuous feature was not children but grown men of military age. The governor was not afraid, for he saw that the newcomers had few metal weapons, but the order in which they marched made it impossible for him to disregard his son’s earlier report. This was indeed an army, whether bent on military objectives or not, and Uriel climbed down from the tower a much-sobered man.

Custom of that age required the ruler of a city to stay within his walls when a stranger approached, awaiting a formal visit from messengers who would advise him of the intentions of the men gathered outside, but in this instance the nomads were apparently unfamiliar with diplomatic procedure, for no messengers were forthcoming. Instead, the stalwart old man who led the group stalked up to the gates alone, beat on them with his staff and shouted, “Gates of Makor, open for Zadok, right arm of El-Shaddai.”

It was a strange command, unlike any the town had previously heard, for it assumed that the gates were going to open without the application of military force. People on the wall began to laugh, but Governor Uriel went to the gates, peered out through a slit and reassured himself that the men around Zadok were not armed. “Open,” he told the guard, and when a small door in the gate was only slightly ajar the old man thrust his staff through the opening, pushed the door aside and stepped boldly in to confront the governor.

Of the two men who thus met for the first time, the Hebrew was the taller and the elder. He was the more thoughtful, the more dedicated in his spiritual life, and the one better adjusted to nature. The Canaanite was by far the more civilized and the better educated. His service with the Egyptians had also given him a better understanding of contemporary society. As judges of their people, the two men were equal in their appreciation of justice, and as practical heads of their religions, equal in their respect for the sanctity of gods. Neither man was intemperate, nor boastful, nor cruel. Their principal difference lay in the fact that Uriel accepted his trinity of gods as useful but not essential, whereas Zadok lived personally within the bosom of El-Shaddai and could visualize no existence outside that all-encompassing deity. But the opposing leaders were alike in two remarkable characteristics: neither wished to impose his gods on the other, and each was dedicated to the idea that two people as different as Canaanite and Hebrew could live together in harmony. Zadok was repelled by war, and Uriel, who had been an imaginative general for the Egyptians, had no desire to sacrifice his own people in battle. If trouble were to develop from this fateful meeting of nineteen hundred Canaanites and seven hundred Hebrews, it would not come because of anything Uriel and Zadok initiated, for they were men of peace.