“But why should we be bound?” Keren asked, almost crying. “We should be left in peace with our families—with those who love us!” Humiliated, she set the basin on a grass mat and knelt beside it, splashing the cool water over her face to hide her tears.
Tsinnah offered Keren a swatch of leather to wipe her face. Tears brimmed in the girl’s eyes. “Lady, don’t be ashamed to cry. We’ve all been crying. But we accept what’s happened to us. Perhaps we will love our new lives in the Great City.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Keren told her. A flicker in the light of the open entryway alerted them all to the presence of another: Sharah.
She was smiling graciously, as if she were already the preeminent lady of the Great City, deigning to visit lowly creatures. “My sister,” she said coolly, “your temper will be your death. The Great King is furious with you.”
Keren stiffened, loathing the very sight of Sharah. “Why are you here?”
“Only to be sure you’re well. And to admire your new possessions.” Sharah picked her way around the pallets and mats on the floor, moving toward the heap of tributes the other girls had given Keren. “These furs are lovely. And the trays are wonderfully crafted. Ma’adannah would be proud of the maker. She would be doubly proud of the one who made this.”
Lifting Keren’s showy gold necklace with the red stones, Sharah asked, “May I?” Without waiting for permission, she fastened the necklace around her pale throat, then picked up Keren’s beautifully polished obsidian hand mirror, shifting it this way and that, admiring herself.
“Take the necklace and go,” Keren snapped, eager to be rid of her. “Wear it at your ‘wedding’ tonight.”
Sharah lifted her pale eyebrows in surprise. “You’ve guessed that already? I was only told this morning that the ceremony would take place this evening. I would have preferred a celebration in the Great City, but my beloved says otherwise.” She fingered the ornate necklace and said, “You’ll be there, of course, my own shadow-sister. And you’ll wear your new ornament to honor me.”
“Didn’t you come to take it for yourself?” Keren stared in disbelief as Sharah removed the coveted necklace and set it gently on a pile of furs.
“I wish I could, but He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies won’t permit it. And you’ve worked him into such a temper already.…”
Sharah straightened, her pretended graciousness replaced by her usual irritability. “Really, your first name, Karan, is more fitting for you, Keren. You push the Great King too much. I’ll tell you: I didn’t want you to come with us to the Great City. You’ll be a nuisance. But He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies insisted, and our brother Ra-Anan has humbly requested the joy of meeting you. The Great King esteems our eldest brother, though he detests the others.” Sharah moved toward the open door of the tent, adding, “Remember what I’ve said. If you push the Great King too far, I won’t intercede for you.”
“You’ve already done enough for me, thank you, sister,” Keren answered, clenching her hands, feeling her nails digging into her palms.
As if she sensed Keren’s readiness to attack her, Sharah bent, preparing to step outside the tent. But she turned first, smiling. “By the way, your guards are here.”
Following Sharah to the entryway, Keren glanced outside. Lawkham and the forbidding Zehker were standing on either side of the entry, each holding a spear. Lawkham gave her a sidelong look and a trace of a grin, but Zehker stared straight ahead as if she didn’t exist.
Furious, Keren picked at the ties of the entry cover, wanting to block the two guardsmen from her sight. The other girls, silent and gaping the whole time Sharah was in the tent, hurried to help her now.
As soon as they had closed themselves inside, Revakhaw whispered, “I think I’ve seen more excitement in this one day than I have in all my life! Does your sister love anyone but herself?”
Before Keren could answer, Gebuwrah said, “She’s right to call you ‘shadow-sister,’ Lady. You look exactly like her except for your coloring.”
“You do, Lady,” Alatah agreed. “It’s obvious you were born of the same mother.”
“Speaking of looks,” Revakhaw whispered, her dark eyes dancing naughtily in the dimness, “did you notice our guards? I won’t mind having them follow us everywhere!”
Despite themselves, the other girls giggled. Their laughter grew, becoming hysterical, releasing them from the strains of the day. Keren allowed herself to smile. If she didn’t smile, she would cry.
As the others chattered and rested in the sultry warmth, Keren remembered Sharah’s comment about Ra-Anan. Why should you request the joy of meeting me? Keren wondered to her eldest brother. And why should that “Mighty
One” hold you in such esteem? It makes me anxious. May the Most High protect me from you. And from Nimr-Rada.
Relaxing against a battered stump just outside the Lodge of Noakh, Annah smoothed the sides of a large wooden bowl with fine sand. Later, she would polish the bowl with beeswax to enhance the beautiful grain of the wood. Shem had cut and shaped the bowl for her after noticing that her favorite mixing bowl was becoming worn, but Annah was finishing it to allow Shem time to help Noakh in the fields. The early summer weather promised good crops, which meant that they could stay in the highlands for the winter. They wouldn’t need to move down to the warmer lowlands to shelter and search for food.
Annah hummed, contented. This past month, Keren’s would-be husband, Yithran, had visited to introduce himself. And he promised that he would bring Keren to stay with them this winter after their marriage following the harvest. Yithran was a bold and forward young man—not at all the sort of husband Annah had envisioned for Keren. But he seemed to love Keren deeply. He spoke of her tenderly and had been delighted by even the smallest story of her childhood. Perhaps the fact that Yithran was the brother of Sharah’s husband, Bezeq, would bring Sharah closer to Keren over time. Sharah needed Keren’s softening influence. Or should I fear that Sharah’s boundless self-love and greed might harden Keren over time?
Pondering this, Annah set down the bowl, then stretched and glanced up at the sun. Near midday. She needed to go inside and help Naomi with the meal. A sudden burst of noise made Annah look toward the western fields. A covey of quail—small, plump brown birds—had taken flight. Shem and Noakh can’t have frightened the birds, Annah told herself. They’re in the south fields this morning. Perhaps a wild animal is approaching.
She grabbed a rush-and-resin taper, lighting it at the smoldering outdoor hearth. Where are you? she wondered to the unknown cause of disturbance. Leave us alone, as you know you should, by the will of the Most High.
Since the Great Destruction, wild animals usually avoided humans. But once in a while, a renegade creature would stalk humans and terrorize settlements. Certainly mankind’s growing fear of miscreant wild animals had played a part in the rise of that would-be-king, Nimr-Rada. No man alive could match Nimr-Rada for killing or taming wild animals. His power over the creatures of this new earth had seemed almost spiritual, which Annah shuddered to consider. She tensed, waiting.
But no animals appeared. Instead, two men emerged from the trees fringing the western field. One was Yithran. The other Annah quickly recognized as Bezeq. Annah studied them. They weren’t walking quickly, as two vigorous young men should. And their dark heads were lowered, as if they dreaded seeing the Ancient Ones.
O Most High, Annah thought, her stomach suddenly churning, what has happened? Did Keren—or Sharah, or her little Gibbawr—suffer some terrible accident? Neither Bezeq or Yithran had raised a hand to greet her, though they had undoubtedly seen her. Annah extinguished the burning torch in a pile of dirt, tamping it carefully. Then she watched as the two young men climbed the slope to the lodge.
“Ma’adannah.” Bezeq greeted her quietly, unable to meet her gaze.
The big, usually confident young man looked broken to Annah, haggard, unkempt, and emotionally wounded. His large brown hands clutched his long spear, as if it could save him from
further pain. Yithran looked less unkempt, but just as shaken. When Bezeq remained silent, Yithran spoke, his voice almost breaking.
“Ma’adannah … Nimr-Rada has taken Sharah and Keren … for his own.”
“What?” Annah stared at them, certain she hadn’t heard Yithran aright.
“Keren was taken,” Bezeq corrected his brother roughly. “But my wife went willingly.” Tears came to his dark eyes, and he choked out his story in a voice just above a whisper. “She was so infatuated with him! With his power and his gold—and the promise of living in his Great City on the plains. She’s been begging me all winter to take her there, and I refused. So she left. With him.”
Confounded, Annah shook her head. “But Sharah couldn’t … How could she leave you? And what of Gibbawr, her own son?”
Tears spilled down Bezeq’s coarse-bearded cheeks, but his eyes glittered with a growing rage. “She left him! She left my son—my son!—with as much ease as she left me. I had to give Gibbawr to Merowm and his Khuldah to be raised with Merowm’s daughter—so my son could live, Ma’adannah! So he wouldn’t starve!”
Uttering a growling, maddened cry, Bezeq slammed his long spear to the ground, then passed his big hands over his face and clawed at his straggling hair. Annah wanted to comfort him, but he was too hurt and angry to allow anyone to approach him. She turned to Yithran, touching his arm. He refused to look at her.
At last, wiping his cheeks with the back of one hand, Bezeq said, “The day they left, Sharah insisted that Keren should walk alone with her. None of my tribe saw them again. When we searched, we found hoofprints and horse dung in one of the surrounding fields. They must have chased Keren; we found her shawl and a digging stick and tubers all abandoned, her footprints heading into the trees. There, the ground was trodden. She must have been hiding in a tree. There were bushes chopped away …”
His eyes red, but filled with a desperate hope, Yithran said, “Keren’s father is going to the Great City to demand that Keren be returned. I’m going with him.”
“No!” Bezeq cried, leaning toward his brother, adamant, as if continuing an earlier quarrel. “You can’t go! Our father forbids it. That Nimr-Rada would kill you instantly. Our father left me in no doubt of your fate. Even Keren’s own father will be risking his life by demanding her return. And our father forbids you to marry her.”
Listening, Annah realized that they were speaking as if Keren was the only one Meshek could attempt to rescue. “What of Sharah?” she demanded as Yithran stalked away in anger. “You’re giving your wife to that Nimr-Rada?”
“She gave me up for him,” Bezeq answered curtly. “Why should I want her? If I see her again, I might kill her. But, Ma’adannah, pray for Keren’s father. I fear he will die when he goes to the Great City. Nimr-Rada will cut him to pieces.”
Horrified, Annah shut her eyes, breathing a wordless prayer for Meshek.
Ten
“HOW COULD ANYONE long to live there?” Keren asked, gaping at the Great City, which was endlessly outlined against the ruddy, dusky sky. The buildings looked heaped together, all squared, many enclosed by walls. She was oppressed just looking at them. O Most High, save me from this place.
She unconsciously tugged her horse to a standstill, overwhelmed. Lawkham rode up and rapped her horse’s rump with the butt of his spear, goading it onward. She grimaced at Lawkham, but he laughed. Sighing, she looked at the Great City again. “It can’t be real.”
“Indeed, it’s very real, Lady,” Revakhaw answered, leaning around Keren to see the Great City for herself. Revakhaw had been sharing rides on Keren’s horse for days; her companionship during this long journey had been like a balm to Keren. Playful as always, Revakhaw said, “Just tell yourself that it’s one huge lodge. Aren’t we all family? Though I thank the heavens that some people will reside beneath other roofs!”
“You refer to me, O talkative one?” Lawkham asked, not bothering to hide the fact that he had been listening to every word. He and Revakhaw had been trading gibes ever since they had departed from Revakhaw’s home settlement.
“Why should you think that?” she asked, sounding almost demure. “But, of course, O great Lawkham, you think that all women talk of none but yourself.”
“As they should.”
“As they laugh!”
“Stop,” Zehker commanded them quietly, looking forward. “He waits for us.”
He. Nimr-Rada. Keren followed Zehker’s gaze and saw that Nimr-Rada had reined his horse to a standstill. He was frowning at Revakhaw and Lawkham.
As they approached, Nimr-Rada said, “You will conduct yourselves with dignity when we ride through the streets of the Great City. If you do not, I will put you to work in the mud and slime with the other wretches who dare to disobey me.”
Nimr-Rada cast a baleful look at Keren, as if blaming her for some misdeed. Keren lowered her eyes so he wouldn’t see her indignation. Don’t worry, Mighty One, she thought. I won’t enjoy riding through the streets of your Great City.
As commanded, they rode into the city in stately silence. Keren’s depression grew. The buildings in the Great City were all uniformly squared and so precisely coated with the same shade of pale mud wash that they were devoid of warmth and character. By now, the citizens of the Great City were pouring out of their homes to stand in the hard-tamped clay streets and cheer their Great King.
Nimr-Rada rode proudly, nodding and occasionally lifting his elaborate flail, saluting those who praised his unequalled might. With some difficulty Keren looked away, reminding herself not to become like Nimr-Rada’s citizens, captivated by his physical and emotional attractions. By chance, she looked a citizen-matron directly in the eyes. The matron recoiled, jerking back her dark-braided head in shock.
“Look!” Keren heard the woman cry to someone. “Her eyes are the color of a mist rising from the river!”
“Impossible,” a man snorted.
Hearing this snatch of conversation, Keren focused on the tawny flickering ears and black mane of her horse. She would always be strange and frightful, never a normal woman.
In the street ahead, others were gasping aloud, evidently amazed by Sharah’s lack of color. Aware of the impact her unworthy sister was making, and embarrassed by her own looks, Keren lowered her head. This ride through Nimr-Rada’s city was a nightmarish torture.
“Keren!” a man’s voice cried to her right, his tone shocked.
Neshar, she thought, almost before she saw his face. For a fleeting instant she was delighted, eager to see one of her own brothers. Until she saw that his black hair was disgracefully cropped, his leather tunic worn out, and his arms and legs all scraped bloody and spattered with mud. He was no longer one of the handsomely attired, much-honored horsemen of Nimr-Rada. Instead he looked scraggly, hungry, and filthy. The lowest of the low.
Four other men were with him, all similarly shorn, scraped, and humbled. In a dawning horror, Keren recognized Mattan and Bachan. And the two men with them had to be her own brothers Kana and Miyka. Their resemblance to her father was so strong that Keren was jolted as if she had received a blow to the chest. Catching her breath, she cried, “Neshar!”
But Neshar shook his head and swiftly led his four attending brothers in a desperate scramble to get away. Keren almost fell off her horse as she twisted around to look back at them.
Revakhaw whispered at her frantically, “Lady, who are they? How do you know such men?”
“They’re my own brothers,” Keren said, miserable.
“Your horsemen-brothers? Oh, but … how terrible …” Her words trailed away as she apparently realized that Keren’s brothers were despised men who wanted nothing to do with her.
Swallowing, Keren lowered her head until her hair fell about her face, hiding her from the curious stares of others. She wanted to scream. She sobbed instead.
“No, Lady, please,” Revakhaw begged distressfully, patting her back. “Don’t cry yet. We’ll be away from all these people soon, I’m sure. Then y
ou can cry. I’m sorry about your brothers—so sorry! Whatever I can do to help you, I will do. By the heavens, I give you my word.…”
Keren forced herself to listen to Revakhaw’s sympathetic promises. Otherwise, she would begin to rage at Nimr-Rada. She saw no one else in this Great City with such scrapes, or so filthy and disgracefully shorn. Who could bring her brothers so low and inspire such fear in them? Only that Nimr-Rada. He was destroying their lives. How could she fight him?
She cried quietly until they came to a less crowded area of the city. Sensing a change in her surroundings, she lifted her head. There were fewer people on the streets here. And without exception, all the houses had high, pale walls enclosing trees within, promising calm seclusion. Ahead of her, Nimr-Rada waved his flail toward a broad reed gate, which opened as if swept by an invisible wind.
Looking back at her, Nimr-Rada said, “Lady, this is your dwelling place.” Then, noticing her tear-streaked face, he growled, “Go wash yourself! You disgrace me with such a show of misery. You will be in my courts in the morning. You and your attendants.”
“As you say, O King.” Keren suppressed a moist sniffle. If she behaved rudely toward Nimr-Rada, he might inflict some heavier punishment on her brothers.
Maintaining her respectful facade, Keren watched Nimr-Rada depart with the impatient Sharah. Since her “wedding” to the Great King, Sharah had visited Keren only during evening meals, which Keren regarded as a blessing. Sharah was now disgustingly haughty toward everyone except Nimr-Rada, whom she flattered, caressed, and teased audaciously. She didn’t even look back at Keren now to offer a parting nod. Instead, she urged her horse ahead, clearly anticipating the glories of her new home.
Farewell, Keren thought, silently offering the reluctant courtesy her sister had neglected. At least I’ll have my evening to myself. She was grateful for the respite. She had to find her brothers and learn the cause of their disgrace and their fear. Who could help her? She could think of only one person: their brother Ra-Anan.
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