U
rbanus, son of Hermas, son of David had also heard of the Armenian caravan. His father maintained a rented room in Jerusalem from which he conducted most of his business. Since the room often contained considerable amounts of denary, Eh-Ret, a Nubian slave, now a paid servant, stood guard at the door while customers came and went. In addition to being a large, powerful man, Eh-Ret was also friend to young Urbanus. Often he entertained the boy with stories of his homeland in the desert beneath the land of Egypt.
“My people are archers,” he told the boy. “By the time the testicles of our sons descend, they are able to split a grape at twenty paces.” The eyes of the boy widened. He had never held a bow, let alone actually used one. “When I was fifteen, I killed a lion with my bow. Shot him in the eye as he was killing a goat. See, I still wear his fang.” He touched the polished, gold encrusted lion’s tooth around his neck. Urbanus listened, entranced.
“Even girls?” he asked.
“What?”
“Can girls kill lions, too?”
“Why do you ask such a thing? Women do not touch the bow. This is a man’s skill. In Nubia, women are not persons. They are women.” Eh-Ret said this without emotion, as though it were the natural order of things.
“But you marry them. They are the mothers of your children.”
“I’ve had many wives,” said Eh-Ret irritably, “and even more children. Some are older than you. Warriors.”
Urbanus thought about that. He knew the Romans sometimes had more than one wife. Almost all of the Roman men had other women with whom they dallied, to the sometimes not so quiet chagrin of the women to whom they were married.
“Do you ever divorce?” The boy’s curiosity seemed inexhaustible.
“We do not divorce our wives,” said the Nubian. “We care for them as long as they live. If we tire of them, we simply get another wife.” Eh-Ret was smiling now. “But we do not send them away. That would be cruel. They would die of starvation.”
The boy responded, “That is a very strange custom.”
“If you lived among my people, you would think differently.”
“If I lived among your people, I could split a grape at twenty paces,” laughed Urbanus. “I could kill a lion!”
“You will kill your lions little friend,” spoke the slave. “In your time. In your place.”
