UGARIT, Excerpt by Janet Tamaren

A captivating tale of bravery in the face of heartbreak and upheaval.

IN THE SPRING OF 1190 BC, on the sun-drenched shores of the eastern Mediterranean, the thriving city of Ugarit pulses with life, trade, and courtly intrigues. But danger brews beyond its walls.

Yoninah, a gifted healer, offers herbs and amulets to ease her neighbours’ suffering. When a Mycenaean – an ex-soldier from the Trojan War—stumbles into her life, he reawakens memories she thought long buried. Just as whispers of war echo ever closer.

Meanwhile, in the royal court, Thut-Moses is a scribe who was trained in the temples of Egypt. The king is paralyzed by ominous messages: foreign invaders are razing one coastal city after another. As the tide of destruction nears, Ugarit’s fate hangs in the balance.

Torn between loyalty and survival, love and duty, Yoninah and Thut-Moses must each decide: what will they risk to protect what the hold most dear?

Rich with historical detail and inspired by newly-translated cuneiform tablets unearthed form Ugarit’s ashes, UGARIT brings to life the final days of a cosmopolitan world on the brink of collapse – a sweeping tale of courage and resilience at the twilight of the Bronze Age.

CHAPTER 4: AT THE HEALER’S SHOP

Yoninah’s house had the classic sign of the healer outside the door: a snake entwined around a pole.

Hearing a firm knock at the door from the street, Yoninah went to answer it. A middle-aged man stood there, nursing his left arm. The arm was clearly crooked.

“I broke my arm. Can you fix it?” he said with a slight accent.

“Yes, I can splint your arm for you,” she said. “And I have pain meds for you as well.”

“That would be most welcome.” He grimaced with the pain.

Showing him to the front room, where she kept her herbs and supplies, she got him situated on a comfortable bench. She was skilled at setting broken bones. Every month or so, someone from the docks appeared at her door with an injury to an arm or leg. The men did heavy work: unloading cargo from the ships.

“I have silver to pay you. I am told you are good at your work. I’ve broken bones before. I know it will lay me up for a while.” The man attempted a smile, but it didn’t quite work.

Looking more closely at him, she saw that he had the cheekbones, chin, and beard of the Aegean. His hair was black, mixed with a sprinkling of gray. The skin of his face and arms was heavily tanned, with creases across the face, courtesy of the harsh sun of the Great Sea. A handsome face except for the grimace.

Probably a refugee from the war in the north, from Troy, she thought. A war that had been over and done with for a good twenty years.

She picked up a salve of poppy seed extract and myrrh and returned to the bench where the Mycenean sat. She washed the area and applied the numbing ointment as a compress. As she worked, she made small talk to distract him from his pain: “I’m guessing you are Mycenaean. Not much accent there, but you look like you’re from the Aegean. How did you break your arm?”

“I was carrying wine jars on a cart drawn by an ox. The cursed animal took a tumble,” said the Mycenean. “I tried to catch the jars before they hit the ground. The jars survived but my arm broke. Heard the thing snap. Hurts like the sting of a thousand bees.”

“Well, let the compress work for a bit. Should feel better in a short time,” said Yoninah. “Let me find a splint to fit you.”

“And maybe a cup of honeyed wine to take the edge off?” he asked.

“Certainly,” she said. Yoninah called for her daughter Laylah to fetch a flask with honeyed wine.

“How did you end up in Ugarit?” asked Yoninah. “This is a distance from the Aegean Sea.”

“The war,” he said flatly. “I mean the Trojan War. I joined the fleet in Mycenae when I was seventeen because I thought it would be a grand adventure. They paid a good bonus as well. Ten stinking years later – most of it spent outside the grand walls of Troy, in a siege that was going nowhere –we somehow broke through the walls, looted the city, and burnt it.”

“I was sick of the whole adventure by then. And sick of the sea: too many storms, too many shipwrecks. Never wanted to go back across the Great Sea.” He paused for a beat and said, “Is my arm almost ready? I can’t feel the pain as much anymore.”

“Good,” she said. “Lay your arm flat on the table. And here is that wine for you.”

Taking a cup of wine from Laylah with his right arm, he drank it down in one fell swoop.

Yoninah had him lay his misshapen left arm on the table, and manipulated the broken bone back into position. She splinted it with a plank of cedar wood and wrapped it in clean cloths. “How does it feel?” she asked.

“Not bad,” the man said. The man’s attempt at a smile proved a bit more successful.

“You fought at Troy. That’s a goodly distance from Ugarit,” Yoninah said as she gathered up a sling. “How did you wind up here?”

“Never wanted to go back to the open sea. Took passage on a ship bound for Ugarit. As you know, these ships travel along the coast. That took a scant ten days, what with favorable winds and currents. Been here a good twenty tears now,” he said.

She gave him a sling, to keep his elbow bent and the arm held close against his chest. She tied the sling herself. As she bent over him, he stared at her chest.

“That’s a pretty necklace you are wearing.” His eyes were fixed on the pendant she wore, a painted terracotta figure of a naked woman.

Yoninah bit her lip as she tried to hold back a smile. Her patient was a bit tipsy now.

“Thank you. It is Asherah, the Queen of Heaven.” She was momentarily distracted by the intensity of his gaze. She reverted quickly to her healer persona.

“There you go. No using the arm! For at least four weeks. Do you have a wife or daughter to keep an eye on you?” Yoninah couldn’t meet his eyes as she asked this question.

“No,” he said. “My wife died. I have a friend who can help. I’ll be all right.”

“My husband died five years ago,” Yoninah said before she could catch herself. She didn’t really need to tell him this information. She turned away and busied herself for a moment.

“I’ll need you to come back in two weeks,” she said. I’ll need to make sure the arm is healing.”

“My name is Menelaus. And yours is?”

“You can call me Yoninah” she said.

Giving her a silver shekel for the arm repair, he swore he would be careful with the arm and agreed to return in two weeks. He gave her a lopsided grin at that point. Possibly due to the excess of wine, she thought.

After he left, she felt uplifted. That had been an unusually pleasant interaction. The bone had gone smoothly back into place.

Laylah had remained respectful while the Mycenean was there. After he left, she looked at her mother’s flushed face and laughed. “You like him.” she said.

Yoninah agreed: “He is handsome enough. He kept us amused.” She thought, “It is true, I am looking to forward to seeing him again.”

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Meet Janet Tamaren

Janet Tamaren is a retired physician who practiced for two decades in rural Kentucky. Now living in Denver with her husband, she enjoys writing and is the author of a medical memoir and a guide to Hebrew Bible stories. She began writing UGARIT during the COVID lockdown.