SiWren of the Patriarchs | Page 6

some strong and decent man. Was it not supposed to be
one man and one wife, as had once been that great and mythical
Patriarch Adam and his helpmeet, Eve? Eve first bore Cain, then Abel,
and then after the sons of Cain were already abroad upon the land even
unto the sixth generation, Eve bore Seth. Adam and Eve were, then,
one husband and one wife in the beginning. Yet now, after fewer
generations than the fingers on one's hands, men stole, bought, and
murdered for as many wives and female slaves as cunning, sword, and
gold could get.
A good husband, if Si'Wren should one day become so blessed as to
find, could be both protector and benefactor to her. She was young, and
still had her whole life ahead of her. A wise woman must overlook her
man's faults, and stand beside him, even help lift him up when he might
otherwise perish, and Si'Wren believed in the promise of the proverb
that a faithful woman who served well might hope to find such a man,
together with riches, happiness, and a houseful of many offspring.
Abruptly, as she worked, there came the crack of whips and the sound
of curses, and Si'Wren looked up in momentary astonishment as a team
of two big oxen straining against their yokes plodded slowly past the
open end flap of her tent accompanied by several dirty-looking boys
and driven by two brawny slaves who presently followed the beasts
into view. Truly, Si'Wren observed meekly, a woman's place was under
a man's protection, for what woman could match such men in the daily
toil of such backbreaking labors as this?
The oxen were dragging a stone boat. A stone boat was no boat at all,
but actually a great, wheelless, wooden sled or sledge used to transport
big building stones from the rock quarry, or round stones from the
harvest fields where they were unearthed by the plow, to be dragged as
deadweight upon a platform made with two wooden skids, and
transported across the dry land to the construction site for use in the
making of more stone walls and buildings.
The young slave boys walked alongside the grating and squealing
runners of the stone boat with goat skin bags, ready to provide grease

or water to make sludge or mud under the runners, when the sled
ground to a halt sometimes and must have something extra added to
unstick it. The boys also carried straw brooms for the same purpose, as
well as staffs to load and unload the sledge.
One of the young boys had suffered a massively crippled hand from the
carelessness of his overseers when he was ordered to apply the grease
and water and insert the end of a broom more closely beneath the
runners. Such boys must reach in and work the water and grease and
dirt together with their brooms and fingertips, because sometimes what
was poured on would merely run off as quickly again without sinking
in.
The older or more experienced boys could also employ the ends of their
staffs for this purpose, but when a boy was especially young or new to
the job and had never seen a stone boat before, it sometimes pleased the
others who had the charge of such a green and inexperienced youth, to
order him into the worst labors possible, and few other boys would give
the temporary loan of their sticks and staffs, lest one of them suffer a
similar ghastly fate. Si'Wren had once heard an agonizing episode of
high-pitched screams that began so suddenly as to jolt her right down to
the very pit of her stomach. The pitiful childish screams had gradually
subsided into long dismaying moans that had continued long into the
night, and thus had she known that something of the sort had happened,
and she spent the night praying desperately on her bed for the
sufferings of the hapless young victim.
The stones comprising this particular load, broken by the stone masons
into crude blocks of two and three times the weight of a man, were for
the Master's garden wall, which Si'Wren must pass by every day on her
way to and from the spice tent. As the two sweating drivers were
helped along by the boys, many looked on disinterestedly and more
than a few openly laughed and mocked at the slowness of their
progress.
One onlooker shouted gleeful insults, bringing on the inevitable vile
curses from the aggravated drivers.

The men kept the oxen at their yokes with cursings and whippings, as
they dragged the stone boat screeching over the exposed surfaces of
rocks and stones in the ground and the wooden runners scraped over
them with ear-splitting squealings. Si'Wren watched also as the team
made