5D

5D

Yet both he and Jemuel grew wroth with their younger brother by the day for the admonitions of their father that came out of his mouth at regular intervals. Their father was dead, may he rest in peace, but here was little Rosh spouting Laelisms as though the old man somehow lived on through his third son. It rankled, yet neither Elam nor Jemuel dared gainsay God, who had made the Director to point to Rosh as the new High Priest.

Then Elam said to his brother Rosh, "Behold, the very Ark of God dwells in no tent. Would you have the snow fall upon our holy relic? Make you, therefore, curtains of fine twined linen. Adorn them with images of sphinxes, and link them with blue rings and gold clasps." Then Rosh and his Benjaminite wife Sela toiled through the night to carry out the commandment of their chieftain Elam, but they could not even fairly begin to fashion the curtains before it was dawn and the Remnant broke fast to prepare for that day's march north and west.

The twenty-three people of the Remnant could only travel away from the Wall of God for a single league by reason of the rough terrain and the thick undergrowth of dangerous flora, and on account of the age of Lael's widow Sariah, and the livestock they took with them.

During the march Rosh recited from the White Scroll. "Grazing your animals in another man's field, or burning his crops, is theft. The going rate for restitution for stolen oxen is five to one, and for sheep is four to one. If a thief cannot make full restitution, he becomes a slave." While Rosh preached Elam and Jemuel grew angry again, but Elam could not order Rosh to be silent since his words were from the mouth of the God of the Remnant and they would have held him to be exceedingly impious.

But when they made camp Elam had words of his own for Rosh: "Make another tent from goats hair, to cover the tent of linen for the Ark of God, but this time the clasps are to be made from brass." And Rosh persuaded his widowed mother Sariah to aid him and his wife in the mounting tasks, bending brass over a fire. Late into the night did Rosh and Sela and Sariah toil.

The next day when the Remnant resumed their overland march, Rosh again recited the laws written in Leliel's White Scroll. He said, "If you see your neighbor's animals running astray, you shall gather them in. "Magistrates among you shall not accept bribery from the rich, nor shall they favor the poor in their judgments. But if the people are stirred to become a mob when they perceive a judge has made his ruling unfairly, you shall not join them in doing evil."