Si'Wren duly recorded the name of Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methuselah, and awaited further recording instructions or questions. People could be quite long-winded, and her writing capacity was rather limited by the relatively small size of the clay tablets, versus the set size of her cuneiform marking sticks. By Ibi's own oft-repeated instructions and judiciously worded admonitions, she knew that one must be frugal with one's free space on a clay tablet. One could only get just so much down on one slab.
Si'Wren must frequently sit at court, virtually unnoticed on the sidelines, for interminable periods as the great lords droned on and on, lulling her almost to sleep with sleepy blinked-back tears of utmost boredom. Only, all of a sudden, for some speaker to abruptly begin an unexpected, long string of names, all of them sons and fathers and in-laws of this or that important personage, and she must suddenly scramble to record all before they slipped from memory. She rarely slipped up, but it could be grueling at times.
Fortunately, only three generations had been mentioned this time; Noah, and his father and grandfather along with their common titles of Patriarch. That was easy.
As Si'Wren continued to follow the words of the trader, she noticed that Emperor Euphrates seemed to be unusually agitated by what was being said, and she could not help speculating distractedly on why this should be.
What seemed to scare Emperor Euphrates so badly, from what Si'Wren could garner, was that this great Patriarch called Noah wasn't just building another ship by the sea shore, for ordinary fishing or trading. Oh no, not this one called Noah. He was a different kettle of fish altogether, for he was working far from the sea shore, over by the forests where he would not have to haul his wood so far.
It was a little backwards, and in fact seemed outright senseless on the face of it. Customarily, as all knew, you must haul the wood to the seashore, and build beside the sea. Very close beside it, in fact. For, who could haul a finished ship? Even a rowing bark was carried upon it's owner's back no further from the sea than absolutely necessary, which for such a one happened to be the grass-tufted dunes just beyond the line of the high water mark.
But as for Noah, the vessel which he was building was enormous, and was referred to as an ark. A great ark. It was so far from the sea that all peoples in the land round about him had begun to mock him for his foolishness.
According to the trader, this Noah was declaring openly to all who would listen, that he had a direct revelation from the one true God, the God of legendary Adam himself. Adam, who was rumored to have first pronounced the long outmoded and unpopular prohibition against any making of idols.
At this, everyone paused to turn and stare thoughtfully at Si'Wren, who froze and, after a momentary, unintentional confrontation with them all, dropped her eyes humbly and stared red-faced down at her clay tablet and ivory marking sticks. She suddenly wished her hair was not braided, that she might hide her face even partially from their eyes, behind it's natural veil.
The trader paused and stared at her also, clearly wondering why they should all react in so peculiar a fashion, as to respond by singling out a mere Scribe, and a female at that, for such untimely scrutiny as this.