Deborah Calling

by Avraham Azrieli

  “I don’t want it.”

  “He anticipated that you would argue.” Vardit smiled as she slid the ring onto Deborah’s finger. “He said to remind you that there’s always a shortcut, but you need to survive and keep going until it shows up on your path.”

  Deborah understood, but Kassite’s kind words of encouragement gave her no hope. Yahweh had shortened the way already, though not to her True Calling, but into Seesya’s hands—a shortcut to her final demise. She hung her head, tears flowing again.

  “Here, drink some water.” Vardit held forth a waterskin. “What shortcut was he talking about?”

  “It’s something I heard along the way.” Deborah took a sip. “When you pursue your True Calling, God provides the shortcuts.”

  Vardit glanced up at the sky. “I hope Yahweh knows it, too.”

  “Do you have a True Calling?”

  “Me? I’m a wife.” The older woman sighed. “I bore my husband’s children and now help his younger wives, who are like sisters to me. I make sure the slaves get the meals ready and the clothes mended. And when Seesya finally matures and gains wisdom and patience like his father, I’ll take pride in his achievements, because I’ve suffered through his growing pains.”

  What Vardit described didn’t sound like one’s True Calling, especially the part about Seesya, who would never grow wise or patient, Deborah was certain. Hearing the sadness in Vardit’s voice, Deborah didn’t say anything more.

  “After your escape,” Vardit said, “and the terrible flogging I received, Obadiah of Levi told me something about the future, which comforted me a great deal.”

  Deborah watched her, waiting.

  Vardit glanced at the guards and lowered her voice. “The priest said that, after death, sinners go to a place of fire and torture, but the righteous go to a place as wonderful as the Garden of Eden. That’s where I hope to go.”

  “A place like the Garden of Eden?” Deborah closed her eyes and imagined it. Could this be a person’s True Calling—to win God’s approval by living righteously in order to be rewarded after death? It was a tempting idea. Life was too painful and unfair. How pleasing it would be to arrive at a place where God made everything perfect, where He walked among the trees and greeted you. But was she righteous enough to be among those chosen to go there after death? Not only was she a rebellious wife, who had struck her husband and escaped her marriage, but she had also lied repeatedly to people during her quest to find the Elixirist, violated the Sabbath many times, pretended to be a man while carrying weapons, and participated in defrauding Judge Zifron—a game, a show, a fake!

  “The pain should ease up soon,” Vardit said. “Try to rest. It’ll be all over tomorrow.”

  “What happens tomorrow?”

  “A trial. Seesya sought his father’s permission to kill you, as any husband may do to a rebellious wife, but the Edomite prince complained that he’d paid you for your services in advance and deserved compensation if Seesya killed you.” Vardit adjusted her robe, making sure it covered her lower legs down to her sandals. “They searched your sack and found only a few coins, and my husband doesn’t like to part with his money, so there will be a trial in the morning. The prince can’t claim compensation if you’ve been convicted and executed by the townspeople according to the law.”

  “Seesya should be on trial,” Deborah said. “Not me.”

  “Poor girl.” Vardit caressed her head. “All the beautiful hair we dyed black is gone. What a shame.”

  “I didn’t want to hurt him, only to save myself. He’s the murderer, not me.”

  “It will be easier if you accept your fate.” Vardit’s voice broke. “Soon, your suffering will be over.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “A quick death is better than a painful life.” Vardit gestured at Tamar’s bones. “Your sister is waiting for you in the Garden of Eden, together with your parents.”

  The older woman left, and Deborah lay back on the ground with her eyes closed, shutting out the harsh world around her.

  When the sun went down, the soldiers started a small fire. They loosened the rope on her wrists and gave her a piece of bread and some water. After eating, she went behind the tree and relieved herself.

  Curled up on the ground, Deborah tried to sleep, but her wounds hurt badly and thoughts of the impending trial assaulted her mind with images of stones hitting Tamar’s bloodied head. She began to shake, which in turn caused her to become angry. Where had all her strength gone? Her resilience? Her masculine posture and male character? She had made it two-thirds of the way with determination, hard labor, and lonely suffering, accelerated by the first and second doses of the Male Elixir. And yet, despite coming so close to manhood, here she was, trembling like a little girl. It reminded her of the Edomite proverb Sallan had once quoted: “The higher the rise, the steeper the fall.” But she didn’t want to fall, didn’t want to let her fear take control, didn’t want to go back to the way she had once been, subjugated and helpless.

  The pain grew progressively worse. Her whole back was on fire, and she bit her lips to avoid crying out loud. Why had Yahweh forsaken her like this? Was this her punishment for all the sins she had committed?

  Deborah turned her head to look up at the night sky, but Yahweh didn’t answer.

  Thinking simultaneously of Yahweh and pain, Deborah remembered Miriam, the leader of the lepers who had sheltered her in Shiloh, saved her from capture by Seesya’s soldiers, and helped her reach Aphek. Miriam had explained why the lepers were missing limbs: “It’s the worst aspect of our curse. We lose the ability to feel pain. Mice chew our fingers and toes, fire burns our feet and hands, and boiling water peels our skin away—all before we notice anything. Pain is the real gift from Yahweh, for without pain, there is no life. You should thank Him for this gift, for your ability to feel pain.”

  And with that memory, Deborah began to feel better, because she realized that God wasn’t punishing her. He was rewarding her with pain, both physical and emotional, by subjecting her to flogging right under her sister’s remains. This realization changed everything. All this agony wasn’t a punishment, but a divine gift that tested her physical strength and mental resilience. God had given her a challenge whose harshness matched the greatness of her True Calling. As Miriam had said, she should welcome the pain as a gift from God. Had it not been the same with the terrible work in the tannery—stomping in urine and feces up to her knees, feet bleeding, blisters festering, lonely amidst a hundred Philistine slaves—which ultimately made her stronger? Yes, this new torment would make her even stronger!

  The shaking diminished, her tears dried up, and Deborah fell asleep.

  Long before sunset, traffic on the road became busy, waking her up. News of the trial must have spread through the region, and people traveled during the night to attend the event. They stopped by the Weeping Tree and held up their torches to look at her. Some yelled insults, others tossed rotting vegetables, and a couple of men pulled down their undergarments and urinated in her direction, which made the soldiers laugh.

  Part Five

  The Trial

  Chapter 21

  The girls came early to the stoning. They emerged one by one from the gates of Emanuel, which opened at sunrise, but in a break from tradition, they did not spread out across the barren hillside to collect rocks. The sentries watched curiously as the girls walked up the road to the Weeping Tree and put down offerings—a piece of fruit, a chunk of date honey, or a flower from a roadside bush. Deborah thanked each of the girls, who smiled shyly and went to collect stones.

  The pile of stones grew until one of the sentries whistled, and the girls gathered back to the gate area. They sat in a circle around the Pit of Shame and waited.

  Vardit came over a little later. She saw the pile of gifts and shook her head.

  Deborah raised her red robe to expose her back. Vardit applied a fresh layer of Kassite’s oily medicine on the wounds.

  “Thank you,” D
eborah said. “Do you know why they brought me gifts?”

  “Because they hear the lies.” Vardit pulled down the red robe, covering Deborah’s back. “Their ignorant, ungrateful mothers whisper lies about my son!”

  The words gave Deborah hope. The people of Emanuel knew that Seesya was evil, which was the reason she had tried to escape from him. Would they stand by and allow her unjust stoning to go through?

  “Don’t fool yourself,” Vardit said. “No one will speak up for you. If not for Seesya and the soldiers he commands, Emanuel and all the homesteads around it would be easy prey to the Manasseh tribesmen or the Canaanites.” Vardit handed her a clay bottle. “Sallan sent this to you. He said it would give you strength as it has done for you in the past.”

  The Reinforcing Liquid!

  Deborah was filled with gratitude. When Sallan had given her a cup of the Reinforcing Liquid to drink on the night she escaped Emanuel, he had said, “Your heart must not resist or doubt the magic of your strength, but allow it to grow and make you mightier than the challenges facing you and taller than the barriers on your path.” His words had come true as she went on to overcome impassable challenges and broke through impregnable barriers on her quest to find Kassite and convince him to help her. The Reinforcing Liquid had worked then, and it would reinforce her again today. She unplugged the bottle and drank its contents until the last drop.

  Vardit took back the empty bottle. “What was it?”

  “The Reinforcing Liquid.”

  “From the tub in the basket factory?” Vardit twisted her face. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Quiet,” one of the soldiers yelled. “Go home, woman!”

  Deborah turned to face him. “How dare you speak like that to the wife of Judge Zifron!”

  The soldier looked at her in disbelief and raised his spear as a club, threatening to strike.

  “Untie this,” Deborah said, raising her bound wrists. “Then you can try to hit me, and see what happens.”

  The soldier turned to his friends, and they all laughed.

  “Pray to Yahweh,” Deborah said as Vardit walked away. “Pray that He will save me.”

  The whole area near the gates filled with people, attracted not only by another spectacle involving the family of the town’s ruler, but also by the whispered stories about a young wife who might be a boy. Hundreds of men, women, and children spread straw mats and settled down, eating and chatting in eager anticipation. In the fairgrounds, vendors and shoppers cut quick deals for jugs of wine and baskets of food to enjoy while waiting for the trial. Beggars worked the crowd, taking advantage of people’s generosity, fueled by the mix of excitement and gratitude for being a spectator and not the one to die by the heavy hand of Judge Zifron’s justice.

  The sun had reached a third of the way up in the sky when Obadiah of Levi emerged from the gates in his white robe and bejeweled breastplate. The blue strings attached to the lower fringe of his robe swayed back and forth as he walked. Leaning on his oak staff, he gazed left and right in amazement at the size of the crowd. A dense mass of people covered the hillside and the open area between the road and the fairgrounds. Even the town wall had become a perch for spectators, who sat shoulder to shoulder, their legs dangling over the side.

  The priest looked up the road toward the Weeping Tree. Despite the distance, Deborah could see the sadness on his face. After a long moment, he raised the ram’s horn to his lips and blew. She remembered the same sound at the beginning of Tamar’s trial—low and scratchy like an angry growl that went on and on until the spectators quieted down and no one moved except for the scavenger birds that circled above.

  The seven elders appeared in their white Sabbath robes and solemn faces and sat on their bench near the gates.

  Obadiah blew the horn in a series of sharp bleats, and the audience stood up.

  Soldiers on foot marched out of the gates, followed by Judge Zifron on his horse, carrying the banner of the tribe of Ephraim on a pole. The aging sovereign wore no hat, and his shaven cheeks stood out in their whiteness. His young sons trailed him on ponies, starting with Babatorr, who seemed too big for his mount and too nervous for the occasion.

  The soldiers grabbed the reins of Judge Zifron’s horse before it had a chance to rear up in apprehension of the crowd. The judge handed over the banner and dismounted with some difficulty. He climbed the steps onto an elevated platform. His young sons sat at the foot of the platform.

  A soldier brought the effigy of Mott, the Canaanite god of death, and Judge Zifron held it up. The crowd muttered at the sight of the dreaded, human-like black figure with gaping wolf jaws, holding the scepter of bereavement in one hand and the scepter of widowhood in the other. The judge placed Mott on the platform by his chair and sat down.

  Seesya emerged from the gates on his white stallion at a fast trot, followed by a dozen mounted soldiers. He also held a pole, but rather than a banner, it brandished the golden effigy of Ra, the Canaanite sun god, which had a man’s body and a hawk’s head, crowned with a solar disk that had a serpent coiled around it. Seesya rode up to the platform, dismounted with a quick jump directly onto the platform, and grinned at the scattered applause, his scar burning red across his face from the left cheek to the right side of his chin. He wore his leather armor and the sword with the silver hilt, but no helmet, spear, or shield. He raised the pole with the effigy of Ra, and when the crowd didn’t respond, stuck the pole between the planks of the platform, where it remained upright beside him. The soldiers, meanwhile, rode on to the Weeping Tree and joined the three who were guarding Deborah.

  Obadiah climbed the platform and stood at the opposite end from the judge and his son.

  A trumpet sounded, and Kassite emerged from the gates on his horse. His wide-brimmed white hat and long leather coat looked worthy of a prince. Behind him came the eight Edomite men in leather armor and helmets, mounted on their horses, their backs straight and their faces stony. They carried all their weapons, and their horses were loaded with supplies for the road to Edom as they had been the previous morning. Deborah wondered about Sallan and his boy-servants, as well as her own horse, Soosie.

  The judge clicked his fingers at Babatorr, who stood up and announced in a thin voice, “Our honored guest, Prince Antipartis of Edom.”

  The audience murmured, probably wondering why an Edomite prince was attending the trial.

  Kassite climbed down from his horse and sat in a chair that had been set up for him next to the platform. The Edomite men dismounted, pulled the horses aside, and stood behind Kassite.

  Judge Zifron clapped a few times to quiet down the crowd and yelled, “Bring forth the accused!”

  The spectators turned to look at Deborah.

  One of the soldiers untied the rope from her wrists and ankles. She stood up, fixed the hood of the red robe over her head, pulled back her shoulders, and marched down the road toward the platform. Her wounds hurt badly, and she felt countless eyes staring at her, but there was no fear in her heart, banished by Sallan’s Reinforcing Liquid and by the knowledge that this whole trial was a gift from Yahweh, a challenge and a test that she was determined to pass. The horses’ shoes rapped the road behind her, and she imagined that the soldiers were following her not as jailers but as an honor guard.

  Reaching the platform, she turned to face it and looked straight at Seesya, who grinned at her, cleared his throat, and spat.

  Judge Zifron held up his hand. “Who among you wishes to accuse this woman?”

  “I accuse her.” Seesya spoke loudly, his voice reaching the farthest members of the audience. “First, while she was betrothed to be my wife, she ran away from here and conspired with a group of Moabite marauders to murder me on the road to Shiloh, which they tried to do, killing six of my soldiers. Second,” he counted on his fingers, “on the night of our marriage, after I possessed her in bed as my lawful wife, she hit me several times with rocks upon my head to kill me. Third, she spilled my blood, even though Yahweh made me in Hi
s image.”

  The audience burst out laughing. Even the elders sniggered.

  “Go on,” Judge Zifron said.

  “Number four,” Seesya said, “she rebelled against me, ran away, and came back here under masquerade, dressed up as a man and carrying men’s weapons, and when I recognized her, she tried to kill me again—this time with a sword!”

  All the men in the audience booed.

  “That’s right,” Seesya yelled. “She took up arms as a soldier!”

  Deborah wished she had her sling right now, fitted with a fist-sized rock in the pouch, swinging from her hand, ready to go.

  Clapping energetically, the judge managed to restore calm. “Let us hear the law!”

  “Hear! Hear! Hear!” Obadiah put aside his staff and pulled several parchment scrolls from under his white robe. “This is the law of Yahweh, our God, King of the world!” He glanced at the effigy of Mott, which stood by the judge’s boots, and the effigy of Ra, mounted on the pole beside Seesya. “Our one and only God, Yahweh, who gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, starting with the first commandment: ‘Do not take other gods over me!’ ”

  Judge Zifron grunted, but said nothing.

  The priest unrolled a parchment and read aloud: “A person who conspires against another, to murder a man by trickery, death shall be the punishment, even if you must pull the accused from my altar to be executed.”

  Putting this one aside, Obadiah unrolled another parchment and read from it. “A person who hits a man to kill him shall be executed and die for such sin.”

  From a third parchment, he read: “A person who spills the blood of a man, the attacker’s blood shall be spilled, too, for I created man in my own image.”

  “That’s it,” Seesya yelled. “He’s talking about me!”

  The crowd laughed.

  Obadiah shook his head and read aloud from a fourth parchment: “Men’s trappings shall not be taken up by a woman, and a man shall not wear a woman’s dress, for Yahweh loathes such abomination.”