Just a Girl

by Jackie French

  And there they were, as if I’d just needed to imagine them and they’d appear. A small herd with a big male and a couple of younger ones, and does. I doubted I could send a stone hard enough to kill a full-grown deer. The fawns were half-grown now too, but there was one, smaller than the rest, perhaps born later. Perfect.

  I moved only my fingers as I chose the largest stone from my belt. Then I lifted my sling, twirled it around and let the stone fly. The fawn staggered.

  I let off three more stones. All hit just above the fawn’s eyes. It went down just as the others scattered. The mother lingered for two breaths, then ran too.

  I raced over the grass. The deer was still breathing. I pulled out my knife and cut its throat, lifting the head to let the blood flow. Its eyes glazed in death. It was fat, but not too big for me to carry. I would need to take it back to the cave now though, before the jackals found it. The onions would have to wait . . .

  ‘You! Put down that knife! Stand up where I can see you!’

  I leaped to my feet and turned, my knife still in my hand. A young man stood behind me, sword raised to slice off my head. He was twenty perhaps, with eyes like heated pebbles, and beard and hair untrimmed. He wore a stained tunic and leather sandals. A dagger hung at his belt.

  He gazed at me, then lowered his sword in shock. ‘You are a girl!’

  I let my knife fall. ‘Jakob.’

  Suddenly I realised what he saw: not the girl with shining oiled hair and clean embroidered dress and dainty leather sandals he had been presented to at our betrothal. My feet were bare and muddy, my hands and arms splattered with the deer’s blood. My dress was girded at my loins, showing brown legs scratched and scarred with work. My veil was stained, my hair . . . I didn’t want to even think about my hair.

  He said, stunned, ‘Judith?’

  ‘Yes. Jakob.’ I was almost as stunned as him. ‘I . . . I’m so glad you’re alive,’ I managed. Sudden hope flooded me. ‘How did you escape from Jerusalem? Did my father and Samuel escape too?’

  ‘Your father?’ Jakob shook his head. ‘Your father went with the army, didn’t he? I wasn’t at Jerusalem. Our group has been fighting further north.’

  The hope ebbed. ‘Have . . . have you come to fetch me?’

  Somehow I was going to have to tell him that I wouldn’t just be bringing a dowry of pomegranate trees, but Rabba and Baratha too. And what would Caius do? Jakob would never accept a Roman into his household. He might not even accept that Caius was our friend, not our enemy. We couldn’t leave Caius alone . . .

  Jakob blinked at me. ‘To fetch you? Why should I do that?’

  ‘We are betrothed,’ I said stupidly.

  He laughed shortly. ‘There is no time for marriage in war. Are we not commanded, “You shall drive them out before you! They shall not live in your land.” As it says in the Psalms, “We must shatter the heads of our enemies, bathe our feet in their blood and leave their bodies to be eaten by the dogs.”’ He glanced up at the hills, his fists clenched. ‘This is what God will give us!’

  But you’re not driving out the Romans, I thought. The Romans took my sisters from the land God led us to, because of rebels like you. But I dared not say it. I wondered if Jakob really believed that God would miraculously let his band of rebels win when the whole army at Jerusalem had failed.

  He looked at me, suddenly impatient. ‘Where would I take you? You’re better off here.’ He gazed around, suddenly taking in the shattered village gates, the birds pecking in the orchards, the well where no women stood gossiping. The land ached with emptiness. ‘What happened?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Romans,’ I said. ‘They took everyone and everything.’

  ‘I came here scouting for supplies. It seems they got here first.’ He looked at the dead fawn at my feet. ‘What are you living on if the Romans took everything?’

  ‘Whatever meat I can catch and wild greens.’ That was true.

  He glanced at the village again, then back at me. ‘I think you have a storage cave,’ he said slowly. ‘I think that is where you’ve been hiding, away from the Romans.’

  This was not the Jakob I had dreamed of. This man was like a pot, emptied of all love, with a sludge of hate clinging to its base.

  I met his eyes. Jackal eyes. ‘No! I’m living in the village now the Romans have gone.’

  ‘Really?’ His smile could have cut leather. ‘Show me where you’re living then, where you’ve made your bed and cook your food.’ He saw me flush and laughed. ‘Every village in these hills uses caves to hide food these days. You have one too, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted cautiously.

  ‘How much food is in it?’

  ‘Not much.’ I hoped he didn’t see the lie. ‘A band of zealots raided us last year and took all the harvest.’ That was true too.

  ‘It is the duty of everyone to support those who fight the Romans,’ he said. ‘Show me this cave.’ He picked up my fawn as casually as if it were a cloak and slung it over his shoulders. ‘Are there any other caves?’

  ‘Lots, but not with food in them.’ I thought that was true, though it was possible there were more storage caves that Rabba hadn’t told me about.

  I didn’t ask what Jakob planned to do when he found our stores. It was all too clear. He and his group would take our supplies, just as the zealots had done. What did he care if two girls and an old woman starved this winter? And in his eyes, Caius would be a Roman to be slain.

  If the war hadn’t happened, I’d soon be marrying this man with a wild beard and a half-healed scar above his wrist. I would have to lie with him each night, be bound to him forever. He had seemed so . . . ordinary when we met at our betrothal. Now I’d rather marry a viper.

  I tried to think. It was impossible to refuse to show him the cave. Even if I ran, he’d either catch me or hide till he could follow me. And if he waited here, he’d hear Baratha’s or Caius’s voice down in the wadi.

  Jakob was stronger than me. Faster. Battle-hardened. But I knew this land and he did not.

  He had caught my hesitation. He managed a smile, though it was obvious he begrudged even that.

  ‘When the war is over, when Judea is free, we will marry,’ he said. ‘You will be the wife of a hero, one of the rulers of Judea.’

  I said nothing. The wife of a ruler of dead and ashes? I would rather wed a jackal.

  He put his hand gently on my shoulder, the smile still in place. ‘Come on. Show me your cave, Judith. Let me see where you are living.’

  I managed a smile back and saw him relax. ‘The cave is down in the wadi,’ I said.

  ‘Where else would caves be?’ He was impatient again now that I seemed compliant. ‘Come on. Hurry.’

  ‘So you can get back to your group by nightfall?’

  ‘I am a scout,’ he said shortly. ‘I can travel at night. But my men are a day’s walk away and they’re hungry.’ He took my hand in his. ‘We are fighting for you, Judith. You must understand that.’

  ‘This way,’ I said, and forced myself to smile again. ‘I am glad you are safe, Jakob. I was afraid you were dead.’

  He hadn’t even asked how I had survived when my village had been destroyed and its people were nowhere to be seen. He hadn’t asked about Ma or my sisters, or the loss of Father and Samuel.

  I did not truly exist for him. I was just a girl.

  Chapter 18

  ‘We’d better run if your people are hungry,’ I said. I began to jog, using it as an excuse to shake off his hand.

  Jakob kept up with me easily, despite the weight of the fawn. Its blood trickled down onto his tunic, joining the stains already there. We ran back through the pomegranates, across the barley stubble, scattering pigeons. Past the onions — I saw him glance at them, evaluating them as supplies.

  I began to scramble down into the wadi . . . but not our wadi. This one was two gullies away from ours, sloping more steeply. It ended in the same canyon as ours did, but much further downhill.

&nbs
p; As soon as we reached the bottom, I’d lead Jakob up the canyon away from our wadi, and then try to escape in the warren of smaller wadis far from ours. I’d find a place to hide and wait. I’d wait for days if I must, till I was sure that he’d gone.

  It was the only way I could think of to keep him from our cave. Jakob couldn’t afford to wait for days to find a girl, especially one too stubborn to show him the storage cave. But even after he gave up and returned to his men, we would need to hide and be quiet for weeks, in case the rebels came back now they knew there was food here.

  Jakob’s feet slithered in the mud. Mine did too, but not as much. I was smaller and not weighed down with a deer.

  ‘It’s a long way from the village,’ he muttered.

  ‘There are no good caves nearer. If there had been, the Romans might have found them.’

  ‘How did you escape?’

  I knew he didn’t truly care about me. He was just curious. But I couldn’t tell him about Rabba. If he knew others had survived, he’d go back to listen for their voices once I’d vanished. He’d hear them too, for they had no reason to be silent. And once he went down into our wadi, he’d easily find our cave with its smells of smoke and cooking bread, our footprints and the goat. I had to keep him far away.

  ‘I became the shepherd after all the men left,’ I said. Let him think I’d been out with the sheep when the Romans came.

  ‘Did any of the sheep survive?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Pity. This is a long way down,’ he said, suddenly suspicious. He let the deer fall to the ground. ‘I’ll come back for this. You have a fire, I suppose? You must have, if you were going to cook the deer.’ He sniffed, trying to smell smoke, then glanced at me thoughtfully. ‘That’s a lot of meat for one girl. Are there more of you?’

  ‘There’s only me here. I was going to dry most of the meat,’ I said, still scrambling down, glad I was in front and he couldn’t see my face. But there was truth in my voice: I was the only other person in this wadi and I did plan to dry some meat.

  ‘The Romans killed my mother and all the old people, and took the rest as slaves,’ I said. ‘Rakeal, Sarah . . . all of them have gone.’

  It all came surging back. We were nearly at the bottom of the wadi now, entering the canyon, but I hardly saw it. I was back behind the rock, hearing the Roman army march towards our village, feeling the drumming of the ground, the whole earth vibrating.

  Just as the ground vibrated now.

  For a breath I thought Jakob’s rebel group had arrived. But there wouldn’t be enough of them to make the ground vibrate.

  And then I heard a rumble too, as if a whole army marched down the ravine. I knew that sound. Not Romans now! Those were boulders and logs crashing down the canyon.

  Flood!

  During the heavy rains each winter, the dry gully became a river. But if it rained further up the hills, the flash flood reached our canyon before the rain. There must have been a heavy fall upstream this morning or last night. Sometimes the flood was just a gully-washer, swishing and swirling. Other times it crashed in a vast torrent, climbing halfway up the wadi walls.

  The roar seemed to fill the world. And then I saw it . . .

  A wall of water surged towards us, as yellow as the rocks and soil, half as high as a house. It seemed impossible that clear, life-giving water could suddenly become a raging monster that ate at the cliffs. Boulders bounced on top of the surge like pebbles, and tree trunks were thrown about like sticks. A flood like this could wash away a village. A girl and a man had no chance at all.

  I scrambled upwards, desperate, my breath heaving as I forced my body towards safety. Jakob climbed too, faster than me with his longer legs. But the torrent was quicker than both of us. Cold water clutched me, pulling me down into the belly of the flood.

  I grabbed a saltbush and clung to it. Froth and broken trees swirled around my waist. I saw Jakob clinging to a boulder a little way above me.

  The water rose, up to my shoulders. Soon it would have all of me. And it was so cold. I had never known such cold, such strength.

  I felt the saltbush move as the water ripped it from the earth. I shut my eyes. At least Jakob could not find the cave now. I had kept them safe. Caius would look after Rabba and Baratha, even if they were not kin. Cave kin . . .

  The water grabbed my hands and dragged me upwards.

  Upwards?

  I opened my eyes. I was sliding through mud, not water. And the force that held me was not the flood, but two strong hands.

  ‘Jakob?’ I said, looking up.

  ‘Was that man Jakob?’ panted Caius.

  I let Caius drag me further up the wadi, then turned, still stunned, and looked down. The canyon swirled with a vast and angry torrent, the water still rising. Jakob and the boulder he had clung to had vanished.

  ‘Was that Jakob?’ demanded Caius again.

  ‘Yes.’ My voice shook. ‘He came to steal the village’s food stores. We can’t let him.’ I stared at the surging water. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Gone.’

  I had known it even as I asked. I had hoped for it as well. I should feel guilty for wanting the death of a man, and that man my betrothed. Instead I gazed down into the canyon to make sure he hadn’t managed to grasp something to stop the water swirling him away.

  Caius kneeled by me and put his arms around me. They were muddy but warm. I leaned back into his strength.

  ‘I saw him get washed away,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t time to save you both. I’m sorry. I know that . . . that . . . you must have loved him.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry!’ He would have killed you, I thought. And left me and Baratha and Rabba to starve. ‘I never loved him,’ I said flatly. ‘I’d only met him three times. My father thought it was a good match. I don’t even like him now. He’s cruel. Ruthless.’

  I was talking as though he was alive. But Jakob is dead, I thought. No one could survive being swept off by that flood. My betrothed was dead.

  I should be crying, preparing for a period of mourning. Instead I felt like laughing with relief, for Jakob was gone and the flood was far below us and we were safe. And I was no longer betrothed to a man I could never love or even like. I’d never be bound to his small village and his small life.

  Instead I was here, with Caius’s arms around me. I looked up at his face and saw only concern.

  I struggled to sit up properly, still panting from the flood. ‘How did you come to be here?’ I demanded. ‘How did you know where I was?’

  ‘Rabba told me you’d gone to the village to gather the onions. I climbed up to help you carry them back. I saw you and the man run off, and followed.’

  ‘We didn’t hear you.’ Neither of us had been watching or listening, I thought.

  He smiled grimly. ‘Slaves learn how to be quiet. And you learn how to follow in the army.’

  He knew so much that I did not.

  I said impulsively, ‘Caius, will you teach me to read?’

  He sat back against a rock and looked at me. Then he began to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded, trying to get my wet tunic to cover my knees again. My veil had vanished in the water.

  ‘I’ve just saved you from a flood. We’re sitting here cold and wet and muddy, and the water is raging down below, and you ask me to teach you how to read.’

  ‘Thank you for saving me from the flood,’ I said politely. ‘Will you teach me how to read?’

  Caius didn’t ask why a girl would want to read. Nor did he hesitate to share his precious skill with me. ‘Of course.’ He stood, pushing himself up with his hands to help his stiff knee. He grabbed his stick, then leaned down to help me up too. ‘You’re not hurt?’

  ‘Bruised a bit.’ My knee was bleeding.

  ‘We’d better wash that with wine when we get back,’ he said. ‘I’ll bind it for you.’

  I could wash and bind my own knee, but I just said, ‘Thank you.’

  We clambered slowly
upwards. I didn’t stop to look back at the flood. Nor would I follow its course later, after the water vanished, to look for Jakob’s body. Let the jackals eat him. He’d become like them.

  The fawn’s body was where Jakob had dropped it. Caius picked it up and carried it over his shoulder, puffing, for he was smaller and slighter than Jakob. But this ex-slave from Rome had a strength that Jakob the soldier would never know.

  Chapter 19

  We stopped at the top of the wadi to skin and gut the fawn.

  ‘We can smoke most of the meat,’ I said. Our cave had no shortage of smoke. ‘I’ll soak the legs in salt for a couple of days first. What are you doing?’

  ‘Cleaning the intestines. We can stuff them to make sausages.’

  ‘What are sausages?’

  He looked up at me. ‘You’ve never eaten sausage? You chop the meat finely, and add spices and herbs and fat, then stuff it all into the intestines. You can dry them, or cook them, or smoke them too. We can hang them up to dry above the fire — the meat will stay good for months.’

  I tried to think of any laws that would stop us eating sausage. I couldn’t find any — apart from the deer being killed by a stone from a girl’s sling.

  ‘Would you mind if I took the skin?’ asked Caius.

  ‘Of course not. What do you want it for?’ Deerskin was too thin and soft for sandals, and we had plenty of goat and sheepskins.

  ‘If I scrape it thinly and make it soft, I can cut it to make scrolls to write on. I’ve been keeping the best pigeon feathers too, for quills. And the lamp black for ink.’

  So that was why he always cleaned the lamp. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the quills and lamp black?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested. But if you want to write, you’ll need to know how to make pens and ink and scrolls. Most households buy parchment for scrolls — it’s made from reeds or wood, and sometimes cloth is added to the mix. But leather lasts longer. It’s best to use leather for work that generations to come will read. My father used to prepare leather for scrolls,’ he added quietly.