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At the Healer’s House
IT was early morning at the house on Palace Street. In Yoninah’s workroom, sunlight from the window slits fell onto her tables and shelves.
Yoninah enjoyed this time of day, the quiet time before any clients appeared. She was a healer in the lower city. Her clientele were the sailors wanting ginger to protect against sea sickness or amulets to protect them from the hazards of crossing the Great Sea. And the dockworkers from the harbor, who had aches and pains from lifting heavy storage jars full of grain or ingots of copper. She also saw the young girls seeking love potions to snare a lover, as well as the older women seeking to prevent another pregnancy when they already had several children.
Frequently, Yoninah’s clients would be prostitutes. The women of the night would often have a child or two and would be seeking a way to prevent another pregnancy. Yoninah was invariably kind to these unfortunate women.
Yoninah was a handsome woman in her early thirties. She wore a fine wool tunic, with a bronze pin at one shoulder. Her hair fell in a jumble of soft black waves, setting off her light brown eyes. She was young enough to be sympathetic to the young lovelorn girls and old enough to understand the plight of the women struggling to raise children.
Yoninah arranged her potions and shelves in their jars on her shelves. Then she ground up fresh Valerian roots, for the sleeping draughts her clients invariably sought. She said a quiet prayer to Asherah. A bronze figure of the Goddess stood on a pedestal near her shelves: “Queen of Heaven, give me strength to face the coming day. Give me wisdom in dealing with my clients. Give me patience with those who try my patience.”
Yoninah also prayed to her loved ones in the afterlife: her mother who had taught her the skills of the healer and to her husband who had sheltered her and loved her for the years of their marriage. Her mother had died the year before, her husband five years past. She wished each of them a peaceful sojourn in the hereafter and assured them of her ongoing love.
As she paused for a moment in her work, she heard her daughters call out from the courtyard adjacent to her workroom.
“Mother, come see the birds!
When she joined them in the courtyard, she saw a wondrous sight: thousands of birds filling the sky. Yoninah knew, from the years she had lived in Ugarit, that this was the time for their annual migration, from their winter homes in Africa all the way to their summer homes in the Aegean. Myriads of doves in formation, their gray wings catching the sun, provided a delightful display.
Her daughters Bat-El and Laylah were admiring the blanket of birds passing overhead. Bat-El, at age ten, was enthralled by the overhead display. She had the light brown eyes and curly black hair of the family. Her older sister, Laylah, was equally beguiled. She was fifteen, with the same black hair and brown eyes. She already had the curvaceous figure of their mother.
Then something odd happened. The sunshine dimmed. It seemed a cloud had passed over the sun, but the sky was cloudless. The cheeping of the birds decreased.. And the morning became darker. The day felt like late afternoon. Finally, the birds grew quiet and stopped flying. They settled on trees all over the city.
“The sun is going away!” Bat-El pointed at the sky.
Yoninah snuck a sideways glance at the sun. It was no longer a bright circle. A third of the sun was obscured by a dark shadow.
“My gods!” said Yoninah. “I have heard of such things. My, the birds, they are so quiet.”
The other animals were quiet too. Goats, sheep, donkeys in their quarters in the neighboring houses, they all fell silent. There was a lull over the land. The unnatural darkness of what should have been a bright morning, and the silence of the animals led to an eerie quiet. Everyone was holding their breath, waiting to find out if the world was coming to an end.
“Is the sun going to come back?” asked the girls.
“It should come back,” said their mother. Although she had personally never witnessed such an event before, she was certainly hoping it would come back.
The day grew even darker. By what should have been late morning, the sun was completely obscured by whatever shadow was attacking it. It felt like evening. The birds and other animals remained silent.
Finally, the sun started coming back. The unnatural darkness began to dissipate.
After another interval, the day had fully returned. It was a normal spring morning again. Except by now, it was noon. The donkeys were back to braying and the birds were back to flying. However, Yoninah couldn’t shake an unsteady feeling.
“If the sun could disappear, what other ill-omens are in store for the city?” Yoninah thought to herself.
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Thank you so much for hosting Janet Tamaren today, with an intriguing excerpt from her riveting new novel, Ugarit: Tales of a Lost City.
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