Chapter 131
Late-July - 3,390 BC
Earth: Village of Assur
NINSIANNA
With a sigh of relief, Ninsianna plunked down her basket of vegetables and wiped the sweat off of her brow. With the sun well past its apex, the temperature should have begun to cool, but this time of year the heat was reluctant to release its grip. Mikhail used to help her perform the back-breaking labor of weeding the garden, picking rhinoceros beetles off of the plants and dropping them into a bowl of water to drown them before they could devour their crops. But along with his newfound prestige came a deficit of time.
She grabbed a ceramic cup and dipped it into the bucket. The tepid water slid down her throat, already warm even though the temperature was cooler inside the house. She fished a strand of hair out of
