The Chronicles of the Kings Collection

by Lynn Austin

  Running was useless. She wasn’t free from them, and she never would be. She would wander through an unknown land alone and barefoot while they pursued her with chariots and horses and thousands and thousands of men. She wanted to sink down in the dust and wait for them to come for her, refusing to play their sadistic game. But that would make Iddina furious, and he would torture her without mercy. She had to play along.

  Jerusha knew that the Assyrians wouldn’t break camp and follow her for a few more hours, but once they did, the well-disciplined soldiers could travel at an exhausting pace. She could never outrun them. Why should she try? She had no reason to keep walking, except that Iddina expected her to. And so she plodded hopelessly on, not caring where the road led.

  Jerusha had walked for more than an hour, never once looking back, when suddenly she became aware of a deep, eerie stillness all around her. The strangeness of it made her stop. For the first time in years she no longer heard the low rumble of the army camp, the raucous cries of the vultures, the dying moans of the condemned. Instead, in the echoing silence, she heard the hum of bees and insects, the sweet chirp of songbirds, the soft swish of the wind as it brushed through the treetops. She hadn’t heard those sounds in such a long, long time that they seemed like music to her.

  Jerusha sank down in the middle of the road to listen as tears streamed down her face. She drew a deep breath and smelled the fragrance of the earth—clean and fresh, free from the stench of smoke and rottenness and death. Dazzling colors replaced the black she had grown so accustomed to—the deep blue of the sky, the rich green of the trees and waving grasses, the snowy white of billowing clouds, the yellow and scarlet of dainty wild flowers. Jerusha had forgotten that such a beautiful world existed.

  This was freedom—and this was torture. They would let her taste it and smell it for a while, then snatch it from her again.

  “No!” she cried aloud. “Never!”

  If only she could call upon God for help; if only He would deliver her. But Jerusha knew that there was no God. He hadn’t answered her other prayers, and if she wanted freedom she would have to win it herself. Suddenly she realized how desperately she wanted to remain free. She wanted to beat Iddina at his game or die trying. She hated him, hated what he had done to her, and she vowed that no matter what, she would never return with him to that hell on earth.

  Jerusha scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding with determination. She must get away from him, but how? The chariots and horses would overtake her first. Her only hope was to leave the road and climb the rocky hillsides where the horses and chariots couldn’t follow. Immediately she left the road and began blindly running and stumbling across the rugged terrain toward the safety of the steep hills and barren rocks. She imagined Iddina crouching by the side of the road, studying her trail as it cut toward the foothills, and smiling to himself. She hadn’t disappointed him.

  “All right, Iddina,” she said fiercely. “You’ll have your hunt.”

  King Hezekiah sat in his private chambers with Shebna, reading the daily reports. The sun had set more than an hour ago, and his servants had lit all the oil lamps, moving the tall bronze stands closer to him for more light. Reading the tiny lettering made Hezekiah’s head ache, and when Shebna offered him a scroll with a long list of numbers, he closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Read it to me, Shebna.”

  “It is a report on the wheat harvest, Your Majesty, with record-breaking figures once again.”

  “Enough to export and trade?”

  “More than enough. More than last year.”

  Hezekiah opened his eyes and leaned forward, scanning the list with growing excitement. “That’s three years in a row! Think of the goods we can import with profits like these!”

  “Our economy continues to prosper, my lord.”

  “Yes, and do you know why?”

  “Certainly. It prospers because of your brilliant economic policies. First you won back valuable farmland where most of this surplus is grown, then you decided not to pay tribute to Assyria.”

  “That’s not why, Shebna.”

  “I know, I know . . . You are going to say it was because of your God.”

  “How else could we conquer that territory when the Philistine army outnumbered our inexperienced troops ten to one? And all that farmland would be worthless without rain to make the crops grow. You hold the proof right in your hands of how God has blessed this land since we renewed our covenant with Him, and you still refuse to believe it?”

  “I am sorry, Your Majesty.”

  “But the evidence is so clear!”

  “I interpret the evidence differently than you do.”

  Hezekiah’s head pounded painfully, but he continued to argue, frustrated by Shebna’s stubbornness. “How do you interpret it, then?”

  “You are a bold, decisive leader, willing to take enormous risks, such as attacking the Philistines and rebelling against Assyria. And your risks have reaped astounding benefits.”

  “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were trying to flatter me.”

  “Not true.”

  “Then how did my bold leadership bring three years of abundant rainfall and cause the crops and herds to multiply in record-breaking numbers?”

  “I would have to evaluate the rainfall in nations that have not served your God and examine their crop yields before I would be willing to eliminate the possibility of a coincidence.”

  Hezekiah sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. “Time to quit, Shebna.”

  “Have I offended you, Your Majesty?”

  “The better question is—have you offended God?”

  Shebna appeared unconcerned. “Shall I read you this next report, Your Majesty?”

  “No, I really want to quit for the day.”

  “So early? Are you unwell?”

  “Just very tired, and this headache is making it difficult to concentrate.”

  “Well, there is one more issue that I have been wanting to discuss with you for some time,” Shebna said.

  “Is it important?”

  “Yes. It is of vital importance.”

  Hezekiah closed his eyes. “Go ahead, then.”

  Shebna drew a deep breath. “The potential for a crisis in our nation is growing worse now that the Assyrian army has invaded Israel. They are only one hundred miles from our borders, and—”

  “I’m very aware of that fact.”

  “—and they may invade our nation next. I would strongly advise you to organize a defensive treaty with some of our neighbors. No single nation can mobilize an army the size of Assyria’s, but if we formed an alliance—”

  “Shebna, are you forgetting that the reason the Assyrians are invading Israel is because they attempted to do that very thing?”

  “We would be more subtle about it than they were, Your Majesty.” He smiled slightly and folded his arms across his chest, looking very pleased with himself.

  Hezekiah exhaled wearily. “What are you talking about?”

  “As you know, we already have trade agreements with all our neighbors. . . .”

  “And?”

  “So the foundation for a military alliance is already in place. The diplomatic ties, the network of roads, the economic interdependence and cooperation—they are all there. I am only suggesting that we take those trade agreements one step further.”

  “How?”

  “By establishing family links.”

  Hezekiah glared at Shebna. “You’re talking about marrying the daughters of foreign kings, aren’t you?”

  “Just consider it for a moment, Your Majesty. Suppose you married Pharaoh’s daughter; if the Assyrians threatened Jerusalem, he would send his armies here to defend her and his grandsons.”

  “Shebna, I’m ruling this nation by God’s Law, and that Law says that the king should have only one wife. I won’t even discuss marrying another one.”

  “Just a minute, please. I have reread that passage, Your Majesty, and it says,
‘the king must not take many wives.’ It does not limit you to one.”

  “But I remember copying that portion with my grandfather. I’m sure he told me that it meant one wife.”

  “It says many. You may read it for yourself. Even King Solomon formed an alliance by marrying Pharaoh’s daughter.”

  “Yes, and it led to his ruin. Did you read that part, too?”

  Shebna’s calm facade began to crumble. “Your Majesty, international politics are very complex. Marriage alliances are a modern necessity. You cannot govern this nation with a set of laws that are a thousand years old.”

  “I can and I will.”

  “But—”

  “Foreign wives bring foreign gods with them, Shebna. They encourage their sons, my sons, to worship those gods. How would Pharaoh respond if I refused to let his daughter worship Isis or Ra or any of her other idols? I won’t do it!”

  “If you refuse to marry a foreign king’s daughter, it might collapse the whole agreement. And the day may come when you will need the support of your neighbors.”

  “Well, you’ll have to find another way to win their support, Shebna, because I won’t do it.”

  The throbbing pain in Hezekiah’s head seemed worse than before. Shebna stood abruptly and gathered his scrolls and tablets in icy silence, his dark eyes brooding. Then he stopped and looked up at Hezekiah in stubborn anger.

  “I am sorry. But I still do not understand your refusal. I do not see how the Torah would be violated.”

  Hezekiah faced him with a steady gaze, carefully controlling his own anger. “This may come as a great surprise to you, Shebna, but I love my wife very much. I don’t want to marry anyone else—not for Pharaoh, not for politics, not even for pleasure. I don’t care if the Torah grants me a hundred wives.”

  Shebna looked away. “I see. However, I doubt that there are many kings in the world who would agree with you.”

  “You’re probably right about that, Shebna. I doubt it, too.”

  19

  Jerusha trailed through the rocky underbrush until her feet bled, yet the mocking foothills appeared no closer than when she had first left the road and started toward them. By noon the sun blazed in the sky, a fiery enemy determined to defeat her. The skin of water was already half empty, and she desperately needed a drink, but the bleak, arid countryside offered no water. It seemed useless to go on. She could never survive out here on her own.

  She rested for a moment, dizzy and nauseated from the heat. She studied the sky to make sure she still headed south, then plodded forward. The road was no longer visible, but she knew that if she kept the sun’s rising point on her left and setting point on her right, she would be going in the right direction. Occasionally she nibbled on some of her food for strength, rationing it carefully.

  By dusk, a gradual upward slope in the terrain told Jerusha she had finally reached the foothills. She could no longer see the mountains through the thick forest ahead of her. She yearned to lie down, to close her eyes and sleep, but she forced herself to keep going. Her enemies would stop at night, but every hour that she walked put more distance between them and her.

  Shortly before dark she stumbled upon a shallow stream trickling down the rocky slopes of the mountain, and she sank down beside it to drink. With her thirst quenched, she refilled her waterskin, then sat for several minutes soaking her tired feet, searching for a way to carry more water. Her exhausted mind found no solution. Her eyes burned with the need to sleep, her legs trembled with fatigue, but she thought of Iddina and scrambled to her feet. She glanced behind her, half expecting to see him, and saw her own trail of crushed weeds winding through the thick brush. Iddina could follow her tracks effortlessly.

  “Oh no!” Her voice seemed to echo like a thunderclap through the silent woods.

  An inner voice of fear and despair urged Jerusha to quit. She could never escape from Iddina. She may as well give up. But another voice, just as clear, urged her to go on. She had given in to fear before, choosing to live as a slave, but now something more powerful than fear motivated her: hatred. She would rather die than help Iddina win his evil wager, rather collapse from hunger and exhaustion than live with him for the rest of her life.

  Jerusha sloshed into the frigid water. It would hide her tracks, and if she waded ashore carefully, she might lose him. She made slow progress in the knee-deep water. The rocky stream bed bruised the soles of her feet.

  Near midnight, when her feet were numb with cold, Jerusha began shivering uncontrollably. She stopped to rest on a large boulder, swaddling her icy feet in her blanket, hugging her knees to her chest. Bears and lions probably roamed these mountain heights, but Jerusha felt strangely unafraid. No savage animal seemed as fierce and brutal as Iddina. At least she would die free.

  As the need for sleep bore down on her, Jerusha stood and trudged on. She had to reach the top of the mountain before dawn. They might spot her on the barren upper slopes once daylight came. She waded into the icy water again, following the stream until the current grew too swift. Then, choosing a rocky bank to hide her trail, she abandoned the stream to climb the craggy slope to the summit. As the eastern sky grew light, she struggled over the jagged rocks, her hands and feet bloody and aching. She reached the summit just as the pale stars began to fade, and scrambled over the top, out of sight. She had done it!

  Weeping with joy and pain, Jerusha collapsed among the rocks. She had accomplished much more than scaling a mountain. She had conquered a private mountain, as well, climbing out of the emotionless wasteland she had inhabited so long, feeling joy and victory for the first time since giving birth to her daughter. Even Jerusha’s pain told her she was alive again, not one of Iddina’s lifeless possessions.

  But as the sun burned away the morning haze, Jerusha glimpsed the terrain that lay ahead and her triumph evaporated in defeat. She had merely scaled one of the foothills. A huge ridge of mountains loomed ahead, directly south. She couldn’t possibly climb them.

  Tears blurred her vision as she gazed at the cruel peaks blocking the path to freedom. If she returned to the road in order to find a mountain pass, she would never escape the horse patrols. But how else could she navigate such forbidding terrain? Despair engulfed her as she counted the rows of mountains she would have to traverse. It was impossible.

  Then, on the farthest peak, Jerusha spotted a patch of white. She leaped to her feet, squinting at the horizon, then cried for joy. It was Mount Hermon!

  Back home she could see the snowy peak on a clear day. Abba said Mount Hermon was the only mountain in Israel with snow. Fear argued that she was wrong. It wasn’t Mount Hermon—and she could never walk that far. But glimpsing the familiar landmark had renewed her hope. Jerusha clambered down the rocky slope toward home.

  Descending seemed almost harder than ascending as Jerusha’s aching legs continually buckled on the steep gradient, but she persevered, yearning to remain free, to go home. Three times the pitiless sun sank beneath the horizon on her right, and three times it quickly rose to become her enemy again, blazing in a cloudless sky, sucking moisture from her body until her tongue swelled and her lips cracked. She rested or slept only minutes at a time, then struggled to her feet to push on, never looking back.

  On the fifth day she spotted a road, threading out of the foothills, crossing a broad valley, then disappearing into the steep mountain range ahead of her. She sat down to eat her last bite of food and to decide what to do. Traveling would be easier on the road, but what if it was the same road she had left five days ago? Then her exhausting journey through the wilderness would have been in vain. The Assyrians would find her again. Fatigue turned her limbs to lead, and she had crossed only the first ridge. Rows of steep mountains still stood between her and Mount Hermon’s snowy peak—if it was Mount Hermon.

  Suddenly a flicker of movement on the distant road caught Jerusha’s eye. The Assyrians! Somehow they had overtaken her, even though she had walked nonstop. She sat motionless, straining to watch the ti
ny figures, and saw splashes of color instead of black. Then she noticed the slowly plodding camels. A caravan!

  Tears of relief sprang to her eyes, and without thinking, Jerusha ran down the slope toward the road, tripping and stumbling, exhausting her last reserve of strength. She had to reach the caravan. They would help her get home.

  But by the time Jerusha staggered onto the road, the caravan had disappeared. The flaming sun, now at its zenith, made her nauseated. Disappointment and fatigue left her defeated. Her food and water were gone. She couldn’t will her quivering legs to take another step. Jerusha crawled beneath a clump of bushes along the side of the road to rest, to think, to escape the blinding sun for a moment before going on. But her eyes drifted closed in total exhaustion, and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  She awoke hours later to the sound of breathing. She focused on a dark figure bending over her and saw a face, a bushy beard, a pair of dark eyes.

  Jerusha screamed.

  Jerimoth watched as Hodesh folded their bedding and tied it to the loaded cart outside their door. The family had eaten breakfast in silence, and when Maacah finished washing the dishes she added them to the cart, as well. Jerimoth gazed up the deserted road again, then reluctantly led his team of oxen from the stable and hitched them to the cart. His agonized wait for Jerusha had been unbearable. He couldn’t sleep or eat, and his eyes ached from the strain of watching for her. Day and night he had never stopped pleading with God for her safe return. But when she still hadn’t returned, he knew his brother wouldn’t wait any longer.

  Jerimoth looked north one final time. The pale dawn sky was clear, and he saw the snowy peak of Mount Hermon perched on the horizon. It was time to go. They had to flee Israel. Yet how could he abandon Jerusha? Jerimoth knew he could never leave.

  Tears slowly coursed down his face as he turned to his wife. “Hodesh, listen to me. I’m taking you and Maacah into Dabbasheth so you can go with Saul. But I can’t leave without Jerusha.”