Keepers of the Covenant

by Lynn Austin

  The litter bearers arrived with yet another casualty. “How’s the battle going?” the old man asked them.

  “We’re keeping them at bay,” one of them said. “They’re losing more men than we are.”

  “Good . . . good. Only a few more hours until sunset.”

  A blanket shrouded the body on the stretcher. The man was dead. But when Reuben glimpsed the man’s dangling arm and callused hand, he stopped breathing. He recognized that hand. He yanked back the covering and saw his father’s bloodless face.

  “No!” he cried out. “Abba, no!”

  Reuben collapsed beside the stretcher as the men quickly set it down. He grabbed his father’s lifeless body and shook him, pleading with him to live. One of the litter bearers had to pry him away. “He’s gone, son. It’s too late. I’m sorry.”

  All reason left him. Reuben struggled to his feet, the world spinning, and ran toward the battle, blinded with rage and grief. He had promised his father he wouldn’t leave the house of assembly, but Abba was dead, so what good was his promise? Reuben sprinted through the deserted streets until he reached one of the barricades where a fierce battle raged. He glanced around for a sword, eager to hack his enemies to death, then spotted a bow and a quiver of arrows, instead. One of his fellow soldiers rushed over as he picked them up.

  “Whoa! Whoa, son! What are you doing here? You’re only a boy.”

  “I came to fight!”

  “You’re too young. Give me those.” The man wrestled to take the bow away but Reuben fought back.

  “Let me go! I know how to shoot.”

  “Let him go,” another man shouted. “We need all the help we can get.”

  The man released him. “Fine. Do whatever you want. The archers are up on the rooftop. But don’t be foolhardy.”

  Reuben scaled the outside stairs to the roof. Four archers stood near the parapet, firing and reloading rapidly. Reuben looked down at the battle and took his stance. He set the first arrow in place with shaking hands and drew back the bowstring, taking aim at a Babylonian, remembering his father’s still, pale face. Reuben released the arrow in a burst of rage and watched it fly too far, missing its mark.

  He had to calm down, take his time. He grabbed another arrow and set it in place. He drew back the string, and this time the arrow struck its target. The Babylonian toppled to the ground. Reuben reached for a third arrow and carefully took aim—then fired. He aimed and shot again and again, letting his anger and grief power each arrow. And then the quiver was empty. He looked around at the other archers. They had stopped shooting. “It’s over, son,” one of them said. “There’s no one left to kill.”

  It was true. The enemy was in retreat. The mass of piled bodies below him didn’t move. The sun was setting. The thirteenth day of Adar was nearly over, but Reuben didn’t want to stop. He wanted to continue killing and avenge his father’s death. He reached to pull an arrow from someone else’s quiver, but the man laid his hand on Reuben’s arm, stopping him.

  “Enough. It’s over.”

  “We need to go after them! We can’t stop until we kill them all!”

  “No, son. There won’t be any more fighting today. Go home to your family.”

  His family. Abba was dead.

  Reuben dropped the bow and clambered down the stairs, running back through the streets. They were crowded now with returning soldiers and women hurrying out to meet them. Families gathered their children as they prepared to leave the shelter and go home. But Abba lay dead in the house of assembly. Mama knelt beside him, weeping and mourning, the baby squirming on a blanket beside her, wailing loudly. Reuben’s Uncle Hashabiah draped his arm around Mama, trying in vain to comfort her.

  “He fought bravely,” Hashabiah said. “Oh, how we will miss him!”

  “Why did he have to die at all?” Reuben shouted.

  His uncle looked up at him. “It was God’s will, Reuben.”

  The words were an arrow to his heart. God’s will. “Then I don’t want anything to do with God!”

  “Reuben, wait,” his uncle called as he stormed away. Reuben didn’t stop. He saw the jar of strong wine he’d shared with the old man and scooped it up. Liquid still sloshed inside. He took it with him as he kept running, returning to the barricade where his arrows had killed so many men. The sky was growing dark now, and he could barely see the enemy’s lifeless bodies littering the street on the other side. He shoved a wooden crate out of the way to clear a path over the barricade.

  Reuben’s anger burned like fanned coals as he walked among the slain, kicking them, tugging arrows from their bodies, arrows that he and Abba had made. He searched a few bodies for valuables, and when he saw a nicely woven robe on one of the men, he yanked it off and folded it up to keep as his prize. The Babylonians owed him.

  Reuben didn’t need God or anyone else. He would take care of his family by himself from now on, as he’d promised Abba. At last he returned to the barricade and sat down, lifting the jar of wine and drinking until it was empty, waiting for the pain and the sorrow he felt to drain away with it.

  Chapter

  18

  OUTSIDE BETHLEHEM

  Amina awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of screaming. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but she’d drifted off from exhaustion, curled into a tight, shivering ball. The terrifying cries brought her instantly awake. She leaped up, her first instinct to run into the storage room and hide. But no, thieves would look there first. She could crouch down and hide in the animal pen—but wouldn’t Abba’s enemies want to steal his herd of goats, too? What to do, where to go? She turned in useless circles as the screaming continued, her own panic rising along with it.

  The screams grew louder, closer. Suddenly the door burst open and a figure stood in the doorway. Amina stumbled backward, desperate to hide—until she realized that the hysterical intruder was her sister. Sayfah’s clothes were torn and smeared with blood. Her face was a mask of terror. Amina limped toward her, her heart pounding wildly.

  “Sayfah! Sayfah, what’s wrong?”

  She lunged at Amina, clinging to her, squeezing the air from her. “They’re coming! The Jews are coming! We have to hide!”

  Amina could barely breathe through her panic and her sister’s crushing embrace. If someone was chasing Sayfah, they would easily find both of them if she didn’t stop screaming. “Shh, shh . . . Be quiet, Sayfah. We’ll hide in here.” She dragged her into the storage room, and they stuffed themselves into a corner behind baskets of pistachios and jars of olive oil and grain. Sayfah buried her face on Amina’s chest to stifle her sobs as the screaming continued outside. Rumbling carts and running feet thundered past their house. “Where’s Mama and Abba?” Amina whispered.

  “They’re dead, they’re dead! Everyone’s dead, and I saw . . . I saw—” Sayfah made a high-pitched, keening wail that was certain to give them away.

  “Shh . . . Never mind. We’re safe here.”

  Sayfah finally quieted, then said in a trembling voice, “We have to run, Amina! Please! Let’s run!”

  “I can’t. You know I can’t run. Not in the dark. We’ll hide here until morning.” She held her sister tighter, stroking her hair as they clung to each other—for hours, it seemed. Smoke drifted through the windows, making them cough. Would their enemies burn their house, their village? Why had Abba and the other men ever started this terrible war?

  At last the screams and the sound of running feet tapered into silence. Any minute, Amina’s parents and brothers would return home, and she could come out of hiding. But hours passed and the room grew light, and only Sayfah had returned. Amina longed to ask her what had happened, what she’d seen, but she was afraid Sayfah would start screaming again. Sayfah hadn’t stopped trembling, but whether from cold or fear Amina couldn’t tell.

  She was getting hungry. So were the goats in the nearby pen. They needed to be milked. “Maybe it’s safe to come out now,” she whispered.

  “Amina, no!” Sayfah tighten
ed her grip.

  “My legs are falling asleep from sitting so long. I need to stand up.” Sayfah continued to cling to her as they both stood and peeked from the storage room.

  The front door to their house slowly opened. A man stood framed in the doorway, his clothes torn and bloody. It wasn’t Abba or one of her brothers. Before Amina had a chance to react, the man saw them. Sayfah screamed as Amina hurried to slam the storage room door closed. She was too slow. The man crossed the short distance and wedged his shoulder inside. “Shut up, girl! Stop that noise! You want the Jews to hear you?”

  Sayfah covered her mouth, whimpering as they both backed away from him. There was no place to go in the crowded room. Amina recognized the man. He was from their village.

  “Are y-you looking for m-my father?” she asked him.

  “He’s dead. I watched him die right in front of me. Your brothers are dead, too.”

  Amina didn’t know whether to believe him or not. “What do you want?” she asked. He didn’t reply. Instead, he pushed past her, nearly knocking her down, and began filling his arms with food supplies. When he could carry no more, he hurried outside with them. Amina grabbed Sayfah’s arm and pulled her from the room. “We have to hide someplace else before he comes back.”

  “Let’s run!” Sayfah begged. “Please, we need to run!”

  “I can’t run.” Amina dragged her sister outside to the narrow space between the rear wall of their house and the neighbor’s, and they wedged themselves inside. “We can watch him from here,” she whispered. “If he comes after us, then we’ll run.”

  The man hurried in and out of their house, returning again and again to empty their family’s storeroom, piling everything onto a donkey cart parked by their door. The cart was already full, but he piled more and more, taking all of her family’s baskets and storage jars, their oil and grain and olives. Amina could scarcely breathe. Her father and the others had planned to steal from the Jews, but why was this man stealing from his own people?

  The storage room must be nearly empty by now, but Amina watched him go through the courtyard gate once again, carrying a rope. She ducked down, holding her breath, terrified that he was searching for her and Sayfah. If only she had listened to her sister and run away last night. She heard scuffling sounds inside and the goats’ frightened bleating, the man’s angry curses. He finally emerged with Abba’s herd all roped together, and tied them to the back of the cart. Amina ducked again as he looked all around, her heart pounding painfully. Had he seen them?

  “You girls better get out of here if you know what’s good for you,” he shouted. “The Jews are coming.” He led the rumbling, overburdened cart and her father’s goats away.

  The Jews were coming. But where could she and Sayfah go? Where was a safe place to hide? “He said Abba was dead,” Amina whispered. “And the boys, too. Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

  Sayfah nodded. Tears filled her eyes, then spilled down her pale face. “We heard terrible fighting. And before we could move, the battle came right toward us. We were trapped, all of the women and Mama and me. We couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, and men with swords—our own men—knocked us down and trampled right over us as they tried to get away. The Jews were chasing them, and they had swords, too. The fighting went on and on, all around us. On top of us. The men were killing each other and people were dying, and there was so much blood. . . . So I stood up and started to run and—”

  “Hush, now.” Amina grabbed her sister and held her tightly to make her stop, afraid she would start screaming again.

  “I should have died with Mama, but I left her there and ran. I didn’t want to die!”

  A sob choked Amina’s throat. “Is—is Mama really dead?”

  “I shook her, but she didn’t move. She had blood all over her! I should have helped her. I should have stayed with her but I ran away!”

  “Don’t talk about it anymore, Sayfah.” Amina pulled her shivering sister close. The sun had finally risen, but it offered no warmth.

  “Let’s make a fire. I’ll see if he left us anything to eat.”

  “But the Jews are coming! We need to run!”

  “I’m too cold to run. And we need to eat something.” She squeezed out of their hiding spot and kindled a very small fire on the hearth, enough to warm themselves and roast the handful of grain she’d found spilled on the floor.

  “We have to run,” Sayfah repeated as they ate.

  “Run where? Do you know anyplace we can go?” Neither of them had traveled farther than the market in Bethlehem.

  In the end, they decided it was too dangerous to venture off alone, so they hid outside again in the narrow space between the houses, hoping someone from their family would come back to rescue them. They even managed to doze for a little while, exhausted from the long, endless night and cold, dreary day. Amina awoke again at dusk. The village was eerily quiet and deserted. Were they the only survivors?

  “Sayfah,” she said, gently shaking her. “Sayfah, I think we should walk to Bethlehem and look for the others. Maybe they’re hurt and need our help. We can’t live here all alone. That man took all our food.”

  “But what if it isn’t safe? What if the Jews kill us, too? He said they were coming.”

  “We’ll stay by the side of the road and hide in the bushes if we see anyone. It’ll be dark soon.”

  “But how will you walk? Once it gets dark you—”

  “I’ll manage. You can help me. I think we should try to find the others.”

  Sayfah finally agreed, and they set out like skittering mice, hovering in the shadows, watching and listening. Smoke hung like fog in the cool evening air as they left their deserted village behind. They inched their way along the familiar path to Bethlehem as if wading through a nightmare that wouldn’t end, the darkening sky lit by distant flames. Dead bodies lay scattered all along the road. Jackals barked and yipped in the twilight as if calling each other to a feast, and the dark shapes of birds circled overhead. Amina longed to wake up in her bed and discover that this was only a nightmare. Instead, she limped cautiously forward, clinging to her sister.

  At last they reached the narrow entrance to the market square in Bethlehem where the women had waited to collect the Jews’ spoils. Sayfah began to weep as if reliving the disaster, and Amina understood why. Scores of trampled bodies filled the street, women and girls their own age, girls they had played with only a few days earlier. They were dead. All of them—dead. So were the men from their village.

  “Can you show me where you and Mama waited?” Amina whispered. Sayfah shivered as she led her through the carnage. Even in the dark, Amina recognized her mother’s bloody, mangled body. She was dead. Trampled to death.

  “I should have died, too,” Sayfah wailed. “I was such a coward!”

  Amina sank down in the dirt and wept along with her sister, not caring if her enemies found her, not caring what happened to her. What difference did it make? Her family was dead, and she and Sayfah were all alone.

  She might have wept until dawn, but above the sound of Sayfah’s desolate sobs she heard voices. The Jews were coming. She yanked her sister to her feet as torches bobbed toward them through the streets of Bethlehem. “They’re coming! We have to hide!” Amina knew she’d never make it all the way back to their village in the dark. Should they lie down and pretend they were dead? Then she remembered the kind Jewish woman she’d met in the marketplace. The weaver’s booth was only a few steps away in the first row of stalls. “Come on. I know a place to hide.” She tried to pull her sister into the market square, but Sayfah wouldn’t move.

  “No! Where are you going? We can’t hide in Bethlehem. They’ll murder us!”

  “No one will think to look for us here. They’re probably on the way to our village. Come on.” She found Hodaya’s deserted booth and ducked inside, beckoning to Sayfah to join her. Her sister hesitated, then followed Amina as the voices and tramping feet drew closer. They huddled in the corner,
scared and shivering. They would decide what to do next when morning came.

  Amina closed her eyes, her tears falling as vivid images of the horrors she’d seen played over and over in her mind. She would never be able to erase them. She tried in vain to stay awake as a second night of terror dragged on and on, but grief and hunger and exhaustion overwhelmed her. She and Sayfah both slept.

  She awoke in the morning to the sound of voices. Three Jewish men stood over her. Amina couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw enough air to scream. “What are you doing here?” one of them asked. Sayfah stirred at the sound of his voice but didn’t wake up.

  “H-Hodaya . . .” Amina stammered. “W-where’s Hodaya?”

  The men looked at each other. “You’re that crippled girl from the Edomite village, aren’t you?” one of them said. Amina recognized Hodaya’s son. What was his name? “Go on . . . get out of here!” he told her. “You don’t belong here.”

  She didn’t move, couldn’t run. Desperation fueled her courage. “W-we have no place to go. Hodaya is my f-friend.” The men didn’t reply. Amina cowered beneath their gazes, waiting to die. If everything Abba said about the Jews was true, they would surely kill her.

  “I’ll go fetch Mama,” one of the men finally said. A long time seemed to pass before he returned with Hodaya leaning on his arm. Amina wept when she saw her friend.

  “Oh, you poor child,” Hodaya said, crouching to take her in her arms. As Amina moved into her safe embrace, Sayfah woke up. She crawled backward into the farthest corner, covering her mouth in fear, not making a sound. “It’s all right,” Hodaya told her. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “Do you know these girls, Mama?” one of the men asked.

  “Yes, Amina is my friend. She and her sister live in the Edomite village a few miles from here. You have to help them get home, Jacob. Amina is lame like me and can’t walk very well.”