Overpowered

by Kathryn McConaughy

  “Why don’t you kill that goat?” He waved dismissively at the long-eared goat in the brush. “The animal’s too old for the meat to be tender, yet it will do well enough.”

  “Not the goat, Zeb,” Taliyah said, driven to sharpness at last. “I use the milk from her still. Your mother likes to have her yogurt in the evening.”

  “You refuse me the hospitality of your house? Taliyah, Taliyah. That isn’t like you.” He reached out, his strong fingers just touching the back of her hand.

  Taliyah pulled her hand away and knew that she had done it too quickly. His eyes flashed, and he took a swift step toward her. “I’ll bring you the bread,” she said, spinning away from him. She hurried into the house. She could feel him watching her—it made her skin crawl.

  Foolishness, she scolded herself. He’s never harmed me, or offered harm. Yet she became more uneasy every time she saw him climbing the bank of the wadi.

  She turned back with the bread and found him right behind her. He followed me? She had never heard him. “Behold, bread,” she said, thrusting it at him.

  He ignored it. “I asked for meat. If you offer me none, you should give me some other compensation. I had a long and dusty walk; you should show gratitude for my company.”

  She slid to one side, but he stepped with her and she realized that she had trapped herself in the corner of the kitchen. Her hip pressed against the long bench that held her jars and pots. “I—there may be some wine left,” she said, trying to sound brisk and calm.

  From the satisfied look on his face she could tell that she hadn’t succeeded. “Wine, thus. Later. But now I have something else in mind.” He stepped forward and wrapped his arm around her waist.

  “Zeb!” she protested, but he didn’t let go. Her grasping hand found the little honey pot on the bench, and she swung it against the side of his face. Honey burst out, spattering his beard and his linen tunic.

  He hissed, raising one hand to touch his cheek, then looking at his sticky fingers in disbelief. Then he turned back to her. “How dare you,” he breathed. “How dare you pretend to scorn me. You are a worm. You are dust.”

  Taliyah shoved at his chest but he only held her tighter. “Your mother will hear if I cry out,” she told him, her voice breaking. She had never seen such a look on a human face.

  “Then you’ll have to be quiet. Won’t you.”

  Taliyah stomped on his sandaled foot, but it made no more impression than if she had kicked a stone. “Let me go—”

  “Creature of dust,” he said almost gently. Then he slammed her back against the wall.

  Taliyah grabbed for the next jar on the bench. The olive jar. It was too big to lift with one hand; she only managed to send it crashing to the floor. Please. Please, someone hear, she thought. Overpowerer, please let someone hear! But she knew there was no one in the house except her cousin’s mother, and she was laid down upon her bed.

  Zeb slipped slightly on the spilled olives and stepped onto a drier part of the floor. “You and your pride,” he said, taking her wrist in his hand and twisting. Taliyah cried out; he twisted harder, encouraged.

  Taliyah’s foot came down on something sharp. She gasped, her weight hanging from her cousin’s hands as she tried to pick her foot up again.

  Zeb made a disgusted noise and let her drop to her knees. With her free hand, Taliyah pulled the sharp thing from her foot. It was a thick shard of the broken olive jar.

  “Up,” he said coldly, tightening his grip until the bones of her arm ground together. “Up, and show me how grateful you are that I’ve come to visit you in this lonely house.”

  “Zeb, what are you doing?” the girl managed to gasp. “What do you want?” She had never thought he would go this far. But now her arm hurt with a fierce pain and her heart pounded with fear.

  “A little respect.” He reached up and ran one finger along her cheek, then suddenly yanked her hair free of its scarf. Still holding onto her hair, he pulled her face toward his.

  Taliyah stabbed him with the potsherd. He made an astonished noise and jerked away, then struck her hard across the face. Taliyah fell against the bench then backed up onto it, bringing her head higher than his. “Get away from me!”

  His face twisted with hatred. “Taliyah—” He snatched at her, his fingers hooked like claws.

  Taliyah struck. She slashed at him as hard as she could. The sharp edge of the potsherd sliced through his shirt and the flesh of his shoulder until it caught on something under the skin. Blood bloomed from the wound—so much blood. Far more blood than a simple cut should yield.

  “Taliyah?” Her cousin sounded suddenly uncertain. His face paled.

  “Stay away from me,” she whispered. Still holding the potsherd, she backed away from him, moving sideways along the bench until she could jump down to the floor.

  His tunic was red, red, red. He wavered, then dropped to his hands and knees. As he leaned forward the red stain spread even faster. “How dare you,” he murmured, and fell onto his face.

  Taliyah stared at him, stared at the spreading pool of red. Then she threw down the potsherd and fled out of the house.

  Scene 2: Olive and Willow

  I had originally intended Yotam to receive a plant name just like the rest of the mercenary band. The only possible name for him was Olive. However, when I dropped him at Cypress’ campsite for the first time he insisted on introducing himself. What would be the point of renaming him after that? Still, Willow tries it. This scene begins when Snow walks off to gather acacia but before Yotam goes to fill the waterskins.

  Yotam touched his side gingerly. The stiches were small and tight—Fig had sewn him up as neatly as a torn garment.

  “Come,” said the leader of the band. Cypress, that was his name. “Tell me everything that you know about Abimalk and his army.”

  The other young man—Vine?—objected to this, but a scarred older man silenced him quickly. “Go make yourself useful—find some wood for the fire,” the scarred man ordered.

  “Make him do it—he’s a servant,” Vine snarled, glaring at Elishama. Elishama looked down his nose at the young man. Yotam suppressed a chuckle.

  “I’ll go.” The slender young woman rose smoothly to her feet, her eyes flickering across them all without meeting anyone’s gaze. Vine opened his mouth to say something, but Fig bumped him forcefully with his shoulder.

  Yotam watched her go. She was brave and quick, bright intelligence shining in her eyes. Elishama had taken her for a boy in her ragged kilt, with her hacked-off hair—a thing Yotam could hardly comprehend. He wondered what had brought her to this place. Did the rest of the band know she was a woman, or did they not?

  “Abimalk,” Cypress prompted.

  “I think he should tell us who he is first, commander.” The scarred man’s voice was flat and cold. He watched Yotam and Elishama like a hawk seeking its prey. Yotam could see the dull metal of a knife, almost hidden behind his fingers. The man was ready to kill them both.

  Yotam wasn’t sure if this man was Cedar or Thorn—Vine had not made very clear introductions. “I am—”

  “Foolish is he who speaks truth to the liar,” Elishama said loudly. Yotam had no trouble interpreting this: his companion did not want him to give his true name. Yet he had already given it to Fig and Snow; the remainder of the band would know his name if they asked them. In any case, he had no desire to conceal his identity.

  “My name—”

  “Commander, you and your men have given us false names, showing the value that you place upon your privacy. Allow us to put the same value upon our own!” Elishama made his appeal directly to Cypress, ignoring the scarred man’s scowl. “Call my master’s name Cedar.”

  “They have a Cedar already,” Yotam reminded him, diverted. “El—”

  “Harumph!”

  Clearly Yotam was not to use Elishama’s name either. “Do what you will for yourself, my friend. But I have not set my heart on secrecy.”

  “Why not be calle
d Olive, my lord?” Elishama pleaded. “There is no reason to give your name. Woe to the man who camps in the midst of jackals!”

  “No.” Yotam held his companion’s eyes. “Peace. My name is Yotam, and in my youth I knew Abimalk bin Yerubba’la. While I do not know his kin in the Refuge, I can tell you of his other allies.”

  Elishama’s shoulders sagged—partly from disappointment, partly from relief that Yotam had not announced himself as Abimalk’s brother. Yotam kept his face smooth, hiding his amusement.

  Scene 3: Fig and Hazit

  We don’t get much of Fig’s arc in “Overpowered” as it stands, but I have all sorts of ideas about the things he was doing when Snow and Yotam weren’t around. Aside from hanging out with the pazir, he also has a connection with a strange young woman from one of the local villages. I ended up cutting this scene because it really has no purpose in the story except to introduce Hazit, who has no impact on the plot… although she is the heroine of a new fairy tale I’m working on, “Revealer of Hidden Things,” in which Fig also plays a starring role.

  “Fig, why is your heart sick?” Yotam asked. Fig set another pomegranate in his basket and sighed. It was summer, and the villagers were concerned with harvests rather than disputes, so the mercenary band was helping to bring in the crops. They had to put bread in their mouths somehow.

  Fig’s expression had been sour but it cleared as he looked up at Yotam. “I’m thinking of Vine. What does he want with Snow? At first I thought, since he knows her secret…” He paused uncomfortably. “In truth, we don’t see many women up in the hills…”

  “I understand,” Yotam assured him.

  “But then to try to send the whole band north to Abimalk—why would he do so?”

  “There was that man Willow told me of, who sought a girl and offered silver for her,” Yotam said softly. He did not want the other harvesters to hear him—least of all Snow, gathering pomegranates a few yards away. “Vine must have told him where to find her. But why would anyone offer so much money for her?” He and Fig had spoken of this before, but they had found no answers to their questions. “By Willow’s word, he seemed an unlikely avenger. Not a man of war or a man of justice.”

  A young woman approached them, and he cut off his next word before it could leave his lips.

  The woman was very short and at first he thought she was a child; yet when he saw her face he knew that she was as old as he or Fig. Her gaze was strange. It took him a moment to understand why: her eyes looked in two different directions.

  She walked right up to them and held out a jar. “Water?” she asked shyly, dropping her eyes to the ground.

  “Thus, I thank you,” Yotam said politely. He drank a dipperful, then held out the dipper to Fig. He had to wave it up and down before Fig noticed it; the other man was too busy staring at his feet as if he had never seen them before.

  “Ah! Thus,” Fig said hastily. He dipped water from the jar, managing to spill half of it onto the waiting woman. “Ayeh! I—”

  “Peace,” she said shyly. “Don’t set your heart on it.” Then she blushed, her skin darkening in uneven blotches. “Though your heart is your own business, o cultivator of figs.” She balanced her jar and shuffled quickly away, hampered by her too-long skirt.

  When Fig realized that Yotam was watching him quizzically, he glared at him with a frown as fierce as any of Thorn’s. “What’s to me and to you?”

  “Better to ask, what’s to you and to her,” Yotam suggested.

  “Nothing!”

  “Peace.” Yotam opened his hands. “Your heart is your own business.” He looked after the young woman. She had stopped in the middle of the path with harvesters scurrying around her. Her head was tilted to one side, and her right eye was fixed on the clouds.

  Yotam followed her gaze upward. “A hawk?” A dark shape soared on graceful wings.

  “It’s too high to say what it might be,” Fig said shortly. He pulled another pomegranate free of its parent plant and thumped it emphatically into his basket.

  The shape. The shape of the flying creature was wrong for a hawk. The clouds shimmered around it, as if it dragged heat lightning in its wake.

  Yotam looked down at the girl again and saw such an expression of loneliness on her face that his heart went out to her. She stared at the soaring creature as if it was carrying all her hopes away on its wings.

  “What’s her name called, Fig?” he asked.

  “What’s that to you?” Fig growled, his voice unusually sharp.

  “I want to pray for her,” Yotam told him.

  Fig was silent for a long moment. “Hazit,” he said at last. “Her name is Hazit.”

  Scene 4: Vine Steals the Cup

  Even though I eventually managed to shoehorn Vine’s returning of the cup into the story, I couldn’t find a way to include the original crime.

  A base with the head of a bull. A rim decorated with pomegranates. A stem of braided metal, like a vine twined around a terebinth. All gleaming of gold, the purest of fine gold.

  When he slept, it haunted his dreams. When he woke, his fingers ached to reach for it. When he chose the lamb for the morning offering, he thought of it. When he washed up the blood from the evening offering, he longed for it.

  Zurishaddai was ruddy and handsome, a fair young Levite in a blue-tasseled garment. Everyone said that he would follow his father as keeper of the sanctuary’s sacred things—to keep them safe, to add to them, to shield the holy things that they might not be profaned. And this was all that he desired.

  As a boy he remembered how his father would bring out the holy things for visitors, displaying them with a proud heart and a smiling face. He had loved to see them—the gleam of gold and silver and bright gems. For now, they were his father’s to do with as he pleased—but someday they would be Zurishaddai’s own.

  In truth, everyone said that the holy things belonged to the god. But this, thought Zurishaddai, was only a clever lie of the Levim, a lie they told so that all the people would bring them fruit and barley, lambs and silver. The Levim ate meat daily; who else could say such a thing? Zurishaddai was proud to belong to so cunning a tribe. The god had nothing to do with it. What good was food to him who had no mouth, or gold to him who had neither hands nor eyes? The god did not even have a statue to be dressed and fed.

  He knew, he knew that the god cared nothing for the holy things.

  Zurishaddai cleansed himself from the blood of the offering as the moon rose over the horizon. He went quickly to his room, his fingers itching. Here—safe under his cot was a box of algum wood, precious and beautiful in itself. He opened it and poured out its contents, a lapful of riches.

  A golden spoon. Gold leaf removed from the underside of the Overpowerer’s offering table. A silver candlestick. An oil lamp made in the shape of a lion.

  It wasn’t really stealing for him to take these things. Would they not be his one day?

  His fingers knew every curve and corner of them, but he looked them all over once again. “Sandals of the god,” he muttered crossly. Even when he was examining his treasures he was still thinking of the cup. It was the pride of his father’s collection, a beautiful thing. Only once had he been allowed to polish it; his father had pretended to find some fault with how he did it. Had said that he took too long. Took too long? What did they expect? Why should he hurry, given the one task that he desired above all others?

  And now it was locked away in its silver box, not to be seen again until the new moon gathering. Locked away! Loincloth of the god! He was sure his father could take it out and look at it whenever his heart pleased. No, more than that—he was sure that his father did take it out, often and often, to the delight of his soul. Why should his father be able to keep the cup to himself, when it all but belonged to Zurishaddai? If only his father would die, he thought sulkily.

  If only the cup belonged to him alone.

  He had hardly thought of this when he rose from his bed. He could not wait a moment longer.
He slipped silently through the courtyard and into the treasury. Old Malki’el, the night keeper, was already snoring at his post. Zurishaddai sneered at him; if he guarded such treasure, he would never sleep and leave it vulnerable!

  The lock was a simple one, a fastening of bronze covered with a wax seal, a seal stamped with the name of the god. Zurishaddai broke the seal and opened the box, lifting out the cup with eager hands. He could not see it properly here in the dark of the sanctuary, so he carried it out with him. With every step he took he told himself, I’m not stealing it. I could still take it back.

  He did not take it back.

  He wrapped it in a scrap of finest linen. It was too large to fit in his treasure box, so he dug a hole for it in the floor. Digging it up again each night was a small price to pay for keeping his glory safe from prying eyes.

  There was great distress in the sanctuary when his father discovered that the cup was missing. All the belongings of the water carriers and servants were searched. In the end, the servant who had last been given the duty of cleaning the treasury was flogged and driven away.

  No one thought to search under Zurishaddai’s cot. He never feared that his fellow Levites would catch him.

  But he was afraid.

  Night after night, he dreamed the same dream. In the dream he dug up the floor to free the cup, but there was someone else in the room, watching him. He could feel their eyes on him, though he saw nothing in the room but darkness. They watched as he lifted out the cloth, only to find it empty. The cup was gone. They watched as the young man began frantically searching for it, digging holes in his floor. They watched as Zurishaddai ran out into the courtyard and began tearing up the cobblestones. They watched as he ran into the sanctuary to search under the offering table and in the cypress cabinets. Then they spoke.

  Where is my cup, Zurishaddai?

  That voice. The voice woke him, and he sprang terrified from his cot—night after night.

  Where is my cup, Zurishaddai?