Deborah Calling

by Avraham Azrieli

  Kassite followed the judge out of the basket factory, but paused and chuckled. “Let me guess,” he said. “Your Edomite slave has kept to himself the secret of how to mix the Reinforcing Liquid. Am I right?”

  Judge Zifron looked around uncomfortably. His eyes passed over Deborah without recognition.

  “Well?” Kassite kept a wide smile on his face. “Am I right?”

  “Yes,” the judge said. “But as I said, he’s not well right now.”

  “I may be able to help him feel better. Like every member of our extended royal family, I am versed in the healing arts.”

  After a brief pause, Judge Zifron relented. “Summon him,” he said to his son.

  Babatorr hurried up the stairs to the second floor.

  “Clever boy,” Kassite said. “You must be proud of him.”

  “He has a good head for business, which is fortunate, because his heart is too soft for battle. My firstborn, on the other hand, is a man of the sword—a fearless warrior, my pride and joy.”

  The reference to Seesya sent a chill through Deborah, and she prayed silently that he wouldn’t return while they were still in Emanuel.

  A few minutes passed.

  Babatorr reappeared at the top of the stairs. Behind him, two boy-servants carried a chair in which a pale old man was sitting, a wool cap covering his head. As the boys came down the stairs, Deborah was shocked to recognize the shadow of a man in the chair. It was Sallan. His fine coat, which had fit snugly over his stocky figure when she saw him last, hung loosely on his thin frame. His reddish hair and the golden fuzz on his arms had turned completely white. His formerly ruddy complexion was now waxy and gray, like old parchment, and silver stubble covered his sunken cheeks. It was hard to believe that, during her short absence, the vigorous foreman had turned into a frail old man.

  Deborah hoped to meet his light-blue eyes, but his head was slumped forward, his face toward the ground.

  “This is the slave I mentioned,” Judge Zifron said. “As you can see, he’s recovering from a brief illness.”

  The boy-servants put down the chair and helped Sallan stand. He slowly raised his eyes and looked at Kassite. A fleeting smile crossed his face, masked by a fit of coughing.

  “You’re standing,” Judge Zifron said. “That’s good. A few more days, and you’ll be back to work.”

  Sallan’s knees buckled, and his servants had to support him.

  “Look what an important guest we have,” the judge said. “Prince Antipartis came all the way from your homeland.”

  Sallan straightened up with an effort. “Great pleasure,” he said hoarsely. “An honor seeing you here, Prince—”

  “Antipartis,” Kassite said. “I am the king’s cousin, four times removed.”

  “Yes,” Sallan said, clearing his throat. “I recall Your Excellency.”

  The judge was pleased. “At least your head is in good health, remembering the prince after many years away.”

  Coughing again, Sallan said, “Few tall men in our land.”

  Kassite chuckled, adjusting his white leather hat. “And few who know the secret of the Strengthening Stew.”

  Sallan and Kassite looked at each other in silence.

  Of all the men and women watching, Deborah was the only one who knew the dramatic emotional conflagration that must have erupted in the hearts of the two old friends, finally reunited after eighteen years apart. They kept their emotions hidden, but she could see the thin film of moisture over their eyes and hear the slight tremor in their voices. She feared that they were going to fall into each other’s arms.

  “Sallan,” Judge Zifron said, “tell the prince what’s wrong with you. He’s a medicine man, too.”

  Sallan tried to speak, but couldn’t. He coughed again.

  “Take your time,” Kassite said.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Sallan shrugged. “My body is being crushed by the jaws of Mott.”

  Everyone froze at the mention of the Canaanite death god, whose name no one ever spoke out loud for fear of tempting fate.

  “Nonsense,” the judge said. “You’re getting better by the day.”

  “I will take a look,” Kassite said. “Your hands, show them to me.”

  He held Sallan’s hands and turned them this way and that.

  “Now let me see the inside of your mouth.”

  Sallan opened his mouth.

  “Wider,” Kassite said, peering inside.

  Everybody watched as he made Sallan turn so that light from the setting sun illuminated his gaping mouth.

  “Open your eyes wide for me.” Kassite peered into Sallan’s eyes. “Look up and down. Left and right.”

  Sallan complied, and while everyone was focused on Kassite’s examination of Sallan’s mouth and eyes, Deborah noticed that he never let go of Sallan’s hands, which he clasped so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

  After a long moment, Kassite stepped back, and their hands detached from each other.

  Sallan sat back down in the chair.

  “Take him back to bed,” Judge Zifron said.

  As the boys lifted Sallan and began to turn, his gaze found Deborah and paused briefly. In his eyes she saw a glint of gratitude, for she had kept her promise to come back for him.

  “Come, Prince Antipartis,” Judge Zifron said. “Let us honor you with food and drink, as befits an important guest and a future trading partner.” He led the way from the basket factory to the courtyard. Out of earshot of all the workers, he asked, “Can you help him? Give him medicine?”

  Kassite glanced back through the open side of the factory. “Not likely, I am afraid.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “There are many things that go wrong in an old man’s body. I know it from personal experience.”

  “Me too,” Judge Zifron said. “But he was in excellent health only a few months ago.”

  “Your slave knows the true condition of his body.”

  “You mean—”

  “He is dying.”

  Kassite’s words shot a bolt of sorrow through Deborah. She stood behind him, the leather helmet low over her eyes, her posture straight and alert as that of any soldier guarding his prince, but inside, she felt like crying.

  A table was set up, and servants ran in and out of the kitchen with bread, meat, fruit, and wine. Supervising the preparations was Vardit, who issued commands and pointed her finger here and there with authority. A little more than a year earlier, when Deborah and Tamar had first arrived here, newly orphaned and badly frightened, she had taken them under her wing, providing them with kindness and guidance, helping them adjust to life at Judge Zifron’s house. As the judge’s eldest wife and the mother of his heir, Seesya, Vardit was first among the women in the house, though her status didn’t protect her from the flogging she had received for failing to prevent Deborah’s first escape. The memory of Vardit’s back, the skin lacerated by the knotted lashes, was still vivid in Deborah’s mind. She longed to greet Vardit and hug her, but looked away quickly to avoid being recognized.

  “Before we eat,” Judge Zifron said, “let me show you our food stocks.”

  They entered the dark storage room off to the side of the courtyard, where the ground had been dug up, creating deep silos in which baskets and clay jars held flour, barley, seeds, dates, dried figs, hard cheese, and smoked meat, as well as wine and olive oil.

  When they stepped out, Kassite straightened his hat and declared, “You are blessed with true abundance. The gods have surely smiled upon you.”

  “They still do.” Judge Zifron smirked. “This is only part of our stocks. We also have several storage barns down by the gates. We keep them full until it’s the opportune time to sell. The foolish peasants, who plan poorly for the dry season, lose their crops and come here hungry, willing to pay any price we demand. Sometimes we get paid in land, can you believe it?” The judge laughed. “They give us their land for a few baskets of flour and a chunk of meat!”

&n
bsp; “We have a saying in Edom,” Kassite said. “Even the proudest son will sell his father’s land to feed his own children.”

  “True, but foolish. Children die all the time, and a man can produce new ones easily, but losing the family’s homestead is forever!”

  Judge Zifron’s words speared Deborah’s heart, as if he spoke specifically about Palm Homestead, which he and his son had stolen from her family. Touching the sword hilt by her hip, she imagined how easy it would be to draw her sword and run it through the soft flesh of the judge’s fat belly all the way in until the hilt sunk in and disappeared inside his guts, just as the Hebrew hero Ehud, son of Gerah, had done to the king of Moab, who had oppressed the Hebrews several generations earlier. Her vision fogged up from the stifling heat of rage, but she didn’t move. Yahweh had commanded, “Do not kill!” Stabbing a man through his gut wasn’t something she could do under any circumstances.

  Judge Zifron and Kassite sat down at opposite ends of the table, which was loaded with bowls of food and jugs of wine. The judge’s servants stood behind him, and Kassite’s Edomite soldiers, including Deborah, stood behind him.

  “Your hospitality,” Kassite said, “exceeds all boundaries.”

  Tipping his head, Judge Zifron chuckled, clearly flattered.

  “With your permission, I’d like to give thanks to Qoz before the meal.”

  The judge nodded.

  One of the Edomite men brought over the copper effigy. Kassite served it a plate of meat, cheese, and bread.

  “We thank you, Qoz,” Kassite said, “supreme master of the world, for the food that you deign to share with us, as well as for our new Hebrew friend, the esteemed Judge Zifron. May you bless his house and keep us safe on our travels until we reach our home in Edom and make sacrifices at your temple there.”

  The judge raised a goblet of wine. “To life!”

  Kassite raised his goblet. “To life!”

  Playing the gracious host came naturally to Judge Zifron. He urged Kassite to try each of the dishes and kept filling his goblet with wine. Eventually, Kassite sat back and pronounced himself full to the brim. Only then were the plates of food passed around to the other men, who had stood around and watched their masters eat. Deborah was too nervous to eat much, but forced down a piece of meat to deflect suspicion.

  Judge Zifron brought the conversation back to business. “Rest assured,” he said, “that our production of baskets will not slow down. The foreman is a strong man. I believe he’ll get better soon.”

  “May your words reach the ears of the gods,” Kassite said. “In my humble opinion, short of a miracle your slave is as good as dead.”

  “In that case, Babatorr will take over. My son has spent the last few weeks learning every aspect of the production.”

  “With one fairly important exception, it seems.”

  Reluctantly, the judge nodded. “He hasn’t yet learned how to make the Reinforcing Liquid. Perhaps that’s why the gods brought you here today, my dear Prince Antipartis.”

  Kassite held his arms wide open. “What can I do? It is forbidden for an Edomite man to reveal the secret formula, especially to the descendants of Jacob.”

  Judge Zifron pursed his lips, his face reddening, until he couldn’t hold back and slammed his open hand on the table. “I will not be held hostage by a bloody slave! When my eldest son comes home tonight, he will deal with the stubborn Sallan—torture him if necessary, until he tells us how to make the Reinforcing Liquid!”

  The news that Seesya would be coming home that night made Deborah’s chest constrict. She struggled to breathe and felt a tremor begin to build up inside her. With effort, she inhaled deeply, recalling what Kassite had said: “No one will recognize you unless you reveal yourself.”

  After the meal, the judge retired to rest. Kassite and his entourage were shown to the guest quarters on the second floor over the food storage. They took off their helmets and boots and lay down on straw mats, except for Kassite, who had his own room with a real bed. He covered his face with his hat and appeared to have fallen asleep.

  Having waited a few minutes to let the six Edomite slaves-turned-soldiers and the two servants doze off, Deborah could no longer contain her anxiety. She went into Kassite’s room and shook his arm.

  He groaned and removed his hat from his face. “What is wrong?”

  “It’s a disaster,” she whispered. “Seesya is coming back tonight, and Sallan is dying. We should grab him and escape right now. It’s our only chance!”

  “Did I not tell you to leave everything to me?”

  “You don’t know Seesya. He’ll make Sallan reveal how to make the Reinforcing Liquid, or Strengthening Stew, whatever you call it.”

  “Sallan will not talk.”

  “Oh, yes, he’ll talk. And talk. And talk. And then he’ll die. There’s no way Sallan can survive Seesya’s violence!”

  “You survived it.”

  She couldn’t understand why he was so cool about it. “I survived because I wasn’t an old and sick slave, and because I was lucky. I won’t survive tonight, not if Seesya recognizes me.”

  “I thought we put those worries to rest.” Kassite pulled himself up to a sitting position, his voice low but growing sharper. “No one will recognize you unless you reveal yourself to them, and the surest way to achieve that disastrous outcome is to lose your self-control like a stupid little girl!”

  Deborah recoiled from his insulting rebuke, but after a fleeting urge to cry, her fury exploded. “You’re calling me a girl? Why? Because I don’t want to lose my foot, or my ears, or my freedom? Because I’d rather take action than submit and become a slave?”

  Kassite’s face paled. He glared at her, and she knew he wanted her to apologize, but he had been the first to offend, and she knew he would lose respect for her if she backed down.

  Finally, he spoke. “Will you honor your vow?”

  “Which one?” Deborah looked away. “I vowed to return here to help Sallan win his freedom, and I vowed to obey you, but I didn’t vow to give away my life.”

  “That will not be necessary.” Kassite sighed. “Your worries are valid and the risks are great. There is only one possible course of action, and it requires patience and cool tempers. If we try to snatch Sallan and run, our end will come swiftly. We are in enemy territory, and our only advantages are subterfuge and manipulation.” He grasped her arm with his cool, long fingers. “I was wrong to call you a little girl. You have proven yourself to be braver and smarter than most men. I ask you to trust me—with your life, yes.”

  His words deflated her anger, but not her anxiety. He was right, of course, that the odds of surviving an escape with Sallan were small, but the thought of facing Seesya, even transformed and masquerading as she was, terrified her.

  “Do you trust me?” Kassite asked.

  “You were obviously wrong about Sallan.”

  “In what way?”

  “Master of the long game?” Deborah opened her arms in exasperation. “You expected him to prepare for our arrival, to set a strategy in motion so that we could follow his lead.”

  “Was I wrong?”

  “He’s dying!”

  “Sometimes good fortune hides behind misfortune.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “You will see.” Kassite chuckled and gestured at the door. “Get some rest. We have a challenging night ahead of us. Fatigue and anxiety will not help us win the game.”

  “Do we have a chance?”

  “A chance of getting out of here alive?” Kassite considered it for a moment. “I would say it is about one in three.”

  Part Four

  The Long Game

  Chapter 16

  When Kassite, Deborah, and the men returned to the courtyard, it was lit up with dozens of wall-mounted torches that made the air reek of smoke and burning oil. A group of soldiers were unpacking loot and tending to horses, but there were no slaves or women in sight. On the table where Judge Zifron and Kassite had
enjoyed a lavish meal earlier, Deborah saw an array of long knives arranged by size, including straight, curved, double-edged, serrated, and two-pronged blades.

  Judge Zifron and Kassite sat in large armchairs on one side of the table, with the judge’s servants and Kassite’s soldiers in a half-circle behind the two. A scribe sat on a stool at the judge’s feet, ready with a parchment, a bottle of ink, and a feather.

  Seesya came out of the house and marched across the courtyard. He wore leather armor and muddy boots and held a half-eaten apple in his hand. A new sword hung from his belt, the hilt made of stamped silver and decorated with jewels. The point of the blade, protruding from the bottom end of the leather scabbard, was dark with dried blood. Deborah watched him through narrow eyes, her heart pounding in her chest. He stood at the opposite side of the table, took another bite from the apple, and tossed it. She wondered to what extent his ears had healed since she’d pounded them repeatedly with her father’s fire-starters on the night of their wedding, almost three months earlier, but his oily black hair came down to his shoulders, hiding the ears.

  “This is my eldest, Seesya,” Judge Zifron said. “Son, meet our esteemed guest, Prince Antipartis of Edom.”

  Seesya bowed. “An honor,” he said.

  Kassite nodded in response and turned to the judge. “I have given our business some thought,” he said. “I will need samples of every type of basket your factory can make.”

  Judge Zifron used the tip of his boot to poke the scribe, who dipped his feather in the ink and wrote down a few words.

  “That way,” Kassite said, “when we arrive home in Edom, my men can use the samples to solicit orders.”

  “It shall be done.” The judge glanced at the open side of the now-deserted basket factory, where Babatorr was standing. “Did you hear, Son?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Seesya glanced at Babatorr and smirked. “Go on, boy, weave some pretty baskets with the women.”

  The soldiers laughed, and Babatorr lowered his eyes.

  “Once we have the orders,” Kassite said, “my men will add it all up, and I will send a caravan from Edom.”