Until the Mountains Fall

by Connilyn Cossette

  “What were those dyes made from?” I asked, returning to her side. “I’ve never seen such brilliant colors.”

  She did not respond and kept her eyes trained ahead, as if my words were merely a brush of wind against her ear. She would likely keep silent until she reached the inn unless I gave a nudge toward provocation.

  “Leaves of some sort, dried and ground into powder?” I nodded my head, as if impressed with my own conclusion. “Yes, that must be it. . . . But what kind of plant dye could be that bright? A grape vine? A root of some sort?”

  Handing me an easy victory, she groaned at my ignorance and stopped to glare at me. “It’s malachite. The ink was made from finely ground copper ore. No color from a plant could be so rich.” She lifted her palm, tilting the glittering streak back and forth in the sunlight.

  Pulling together every bit of courage I possessed, I reached for her wrist and bent to examine the swipe of color across her skin. “Hmm. Yes, I see it now,” I said, determined to keep my tone unaffected even while my heart pounded like a signal drum and fire coated my veins. My hand curled around her wrist, shackling it gently as I brushed a finger along the green line. Beneath my thumb, her pulse fluttered and she seemed to be holding her breath. I lifted my eyes to hers and held the gaze, unwilling to relinquish the simple pleasure of touching her.

  After a few delicious but fleeting moments, Rivkah twisted her arm away from my grasp. “You need not walk any farther with me. I am sure you have much to do.” Her voice was hushed, nearly lost in the melee of the market.

  “When Eitan went to be with Sofea, I closed up the foundry for the day so I could come see you. I wanted to talk—”

  “So you’ve abandoned Gidal’s trees already, have you?” The interruption was knife-edged, but I ignored the cut.

  “Actually, I do have something that needs tending in the grove today. . . .” I looked up, gauging the angle of the sun in the sky. “And there is something I’d like to show you as well. A surprise.”

  “What?” Suspicion colored her tone.

  “You’ll see.” I smiled, savoring the look of interest that had stolen into her amber eyes, and lifted a note of challenge into my entreaty. “Come. You know you are curious.”

  She pursed her mouth, seeming to dig in her heels.

  “It will be worth it, I assure you.” Opting for an underhanded tactic, I took a few steps back toward the storehouse. “Shall I ask your father first?”

  “No.” She released a huff of annoyance. “That isn’t necessary. I’ll come.”

  Smothering a grin of satisfaction, I walked away, only the smallest bit repentant that I’d goaded her into following me out of the gates of Kedesh.

  “Well?” she said as I led her up the western ridge and into the quince grove. “Why have you dragged me out here? The sun will be going down soon. I should help your mother with the evening meal.” Her lips were still pressed together in a tight line. She was either unimpressed or simply did not notice all the progress I’d made over the past weeks.

  Pride pricked by her dismissal, I took a moment to survey my own handiwork and was filled with surprising satisfaction at the sight of the well-pruned grove, now devoid of underbrush and stray saplings. Perhaps Gidal’s obsession with his trees was not so incomprehensible after all.

  “This is why I brought you here.” Pulling back a few branches to open a path, I led her into a small hidden clearing at the very center of the grove. I gestured to the three mounds there that I’d painstakingly reconstructed from straw and mud. A lifted brow was her only response.

  “Gidal had been working to establish these hives for nearly two years, and they’d finally started producing. But when he . . .” I paused, the truth still so painful to speak aloud. “When he died, they were forgotten and left out here during those storms last month. They should have been brought into the shelter.” I was ashamed that it had taken me until recently to remember the hives. Gidal would have been horrified to see his hard work had been undone by heavy rainfall and his once-thriving colonies abandoned.

  “One of the Levites is the grandson of a master beekeeper from back in Egypt. From the wealth of knowledge he gleaned from his grandfather’s stories, knowledge passed down through the generations and then carried through the wilderness into the Land of Promise, he taught Gidal the art of beekeeping. The same man showed me how to restore them.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she said. “Can one tend bees like one tends a herd of sheep?”

  I laughed at the imagery. “I had not either. But one of the few things I do remember Gidal telling me was that whenever honeybees are near fruit trees, those trees seem to be more productive, although he did not know why. My mother will be thrilled to have access to fresh honey this summer if I can entice the bees to repopulate the hives.”

  She murmured her agreement but glanced back toward the city, looking anxious to return.

  “The bread you brought me last week might have benefitted from some honey, don’t you agree?” I said. “If only to make that charred mess a bit more appetizing.”

  Her attention whipped back to me, immediately defensive. “Are you mocking my cooking skills?”

  “Not at all.” I widened my eyes in false innocence. “I am lauding your skill as a mischief-maker. I didn’t know you had it in you anymore.” Although she did not say anything and her face remained remarkably blank, the tiniest corner of her mouth twitched.

  “Truly, you are a master.” I dipped my chin, a palm to my chest in a gesture of homage. “If Eitan hadn’t revealed that your cooking skills are perfectly respectable, you might have succeeded in dragging out the ruse for a week or two more. I’d gotten quite adept at holding my breath while partaking of your meals—when they were actually edible.”

  I stepped closer, the amusement in her eyes making me bolder. “Although nothing could salvage that vileness you called ‘fish stew.’” The concoction had been little more than a few paltry hunks of dried fish, green olives, and some bland root vegetable boiled to death in vinegar. “I’m known for being willing to eat anything that is placed in front of me, but even I would not put that slime in my mouth.” Just the reminder of the atrocious smell that had emanated from the dish made me shudder.

  She rolled her lips inward, a paltry attempt at disguising the humor she’d been squelching, but a sudden bubble of laughter betrayed her before she could slap a palm over her mouth. Her body trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut, tears forming at the corners. I could do nothing to restrain the sharp burst of laughter that practically exploded from my mouth.

  At the same moment, and for the first time in my memory since her mother had died, Rivkah actually let go. She tipped her head back and laughed with gusto, the sound so full and lovely that my own amusement crashed to a halt and I could do nothing but stare. The notes of her laughter twirled through the air like butterflies alight on the breeze.

  It did not matter that she’d been trying to push me away, or that’d she’d made a fool of me to do so. It did not matter that my brother had married her first. All I could see were rosy lips, smooth honeyed skin, and amber eyes sparkling with unshed tears of mirth. The sharp-witted, vibrant girl I’d played with as a boy had transformed into this beautiful, brilliant woman who was soon to be my wife. Every bit of restraint I had dissolved. I slid my arms around her slender waist, pulled her to me, and kissed her, triumph and joy and relief entwining as I explored her lips with mine.

  For a brief, weightless moment she allowed the embrace. But then instead of melting into me, or returning my kiss, her body suddenly went rigid, a pillar of resistance in the circle of my arms. With her mouth set like stone, her hands fisted on my chest as she used her forearms to push me away. The laughter in her eyes had been swept aside by outrage so palpable I tripped backward two steps in cowardly retreat.

  “Why would you do that?” Her words pressed out through gritted teeth. “I did not give you permission to touch me . . . to kiss me.”
<
br />   Shame lay heavy on my shoulders. Gidal would never have done that to Rivkah, would never have just grabbed her like some animal. My eyes dropped closed. “Please . . .” I choked out, my throat burning. “Forgive me. I had no right. . . .”

  “No. You did not. How dare you lure me out here just to paw at me! You don’t own me. Yet.” These last words were tipped with venom.

  I lifted my palms in surrender. “No. Please . . . that was not my intention. You must believe me. I only wanted to show you the hives, explain my commitment to building trust between us, just as I did these mounds of mud and straw. I want you to see that I will honor my brother’s memory and that I will be a good and faithful husband to you, for his sake. I know you are grieving, but in time I hope that something good can come of this.” I gestured between the two of us. “I know you loved him—”

  “You know nothing of me, Malakhi.” She aimed an accusing finger at me. “You are the same spoiled boy you’ve always been, wanting nothing more than to torment me and get your way. I don’t want this. I will never want this. I never should have agreed to this in the first place.”

  She spun around to flee, pushing aside a heavy branch that whipped back and lashed me across the face when I tried to follow. But still she fled, leaving me battered and bleeding among the only remnants of my brother’s life, each of her parting footfalls another blow to the dream I’d not deserved, but had foolishly dared to hope for.

  CHAPTER

  seven

  Rivkah

  I found my father on the roof, on his knees. Bent in supplication toward the south, he faced Shiloh, where the Mishkan resided with the tablets of the Covenant at its heart. For my entire life, this had been his habit at the end of each day, his private prayers accompanying the sun to its resting place. Although normally a silent ritual, this evening his lips moved quickly, his whispers barely audible but full of such strong emotion as his body swayed in rhythm that my arrival went unnoticed.

  I’d gone straight to my childhood home from the grove, unwilling to cross Malakhi’s path at the inn after I’d left him so abruptly among the trees, but the stricken expression on his face followed me anyhow, as did the memory of that unexpected kiss. . . .

  The shock of Malakhi’s lips against mine had caused every rational thought to flee, leaving only the traitorous one that found the sensation all too pleasant, the one that called for more. But just as quickly, sense had washed over me, and I’d awakened to the certainty that the embrace was nothing more than another manipulation, an attempt to sway me toward this unwanted marriage. I shuffled my feet, as much to alert my father to my presence as to distract myself from the reminder of those brief moments when my body had nearly betrayed me.

  “Rivkah.” My father stood. “I was just praying for you.”

  I startled. It had been me he’d be laboring over in prayer with such passion?

  “How was your time with Malakhi?” he asked, his smile expectant. “He seems quite taken with you.”

  Ah, it must have been my capitulation he’d been supplicating for. I scoffed inwardly; not even Yahweh’s heavenly host could persuade me to be at peace with this decision. There had been hints in the grove today that perhaps Malakhi had matured beyond what I’d assumed—the way he’d taken my misconduct in stride and how he’d tended to Gidal’s trees and rebuilt the hives with such determination. But he’d not changed enough to overcome my misgivings, or the past.

  “He is little more than a child,” I said.

  His dark brows drew together. “He may be younger than you, daughter, but he is no child. He is already well on his way to becoming a warrior. He is fiercely loyal and a hard worker who will provide well for you and your children. And most importantly he is willing—”

  “To do your bidding,” I interrupted, a shade surprised at my own audacity, for although I’d made it clear the night before my betrothal to Malakhi that I was none too pleased with the arrangement, I’d submitted to my father’s authority. “He won’t question a command from a priest, nor from his own father.”

  “Rivkah.” The censure in my father’s tone made my mouth snap shut. “I understand you have reservations, but I would not have agreed unless I felt that Malakhi would be a good husband to you. And I would be remiss in my duties as a father if I did not ensure you were protected, my girl.”

  “What dangers are there in this city? This place may harbor manslayers, but there has not been a serious incident of violence here since I was a child.”

  “That may be true. But you have been surrounded by these high walls your entire life. You are oblivious to the perils outside Kedesh—dangers that you as a woman, as a widow, are far more vulnerable to. There are even rumblings that war may be on the horizon. Malakhi has been training with Darek and Baz for the past two years and is already rumored to have extraordinary skill with a sword. If something happens, I have full confidence that your husband will protect you and your children.”

  “But—”

  “Malakhi also understands the importance of honoring his brother. If he married another woman, his firstborn son would be counted as his own. It is to his credit that he would sacrifice that right in order to ensure Gidal’s legacy continues. Yes, he is young, but the simple fact that he would submit to the Torah in this matter shows that he will continue to grow in honor and uprightness.”

  He pointed downward, where beneath our feet lay the small chamber he and my mother had once shared. “I also have a chest full of silver and jewelry that shows just how much Malakhi and his family esteem you. They did not have to offer such riches a second time, Rivkah. But they wanted to make it clear to us—to you—that they do not consider this some leftover marriage, but a new and valuable union between you and their beloved son. Although the mohar is in my safekeeping for now, if something happens to Malakhi, you would be provided for. This is why I had you be the one to write out the ketubah agreement instead of one of my other scribes, so you could see just how treasured you are.”

  The reminder of Nessa’s father bartering her away for silver made my stomach sour. It didn’t matter whether my father saw the bridal gifts as some sort of insurance; I’d been purchased like a heifer, and Malakhi would have complete authority over me once he claimed me as his bride. It would be up to him whether I could even continue my scribal duties.

  “Am I not a help to you? Can I not just stay here, continue working as a scribe? You can keep Gidal’s mohar so I would not be a burden to the household. I vow to be more of a help to Lailah as well—”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “This house is already stretching its seams, daughter. With Lailah’s family now growing again, there is barely room for all of us as it is. This conversation is a fruitless one anyhow. You already committed yourself to the betrothal in front of many witnesses. You can either choose to struggle against this marriage and make both of you miserable or embrace the gift you have been given and seek joy in your life together. And whether you believe it or not, Malakhi is not entering this marriage solely for the sake of his brother; I see it in the way he looks at you. You are well matched—in truth, much better paired than you and Gidal ever were. I have faith that you will come to believe that in time as well.”

  I nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity. How could I possibly be compatible with the boy who tormented me nearly every day of my childhood?

  “At times you are willful,” my father continued, his tone softening as he brushed his callused palm down my cheek. “But you have the capacity to be a good wife to him; a compassionate help-meet for a young man who is still grieving the loss of his brother. You of all people understand what it is to mourn the death of someone you cherish.”

  He slipped an arm about my shoulders and turned me toward the stairs. “Now, come. Let us cease arguing over a decision that has already been made and join the meal. Your sister has prepared my favorite dish, and I would hate to see it go to waste.”

  My father would never bend. Would never hear me. It had be
en useless to even try. There was only one choice left that gave me any sort of control over my own future. Tomorrow I would meet Nessa at the boundary and determine my own path.

  “I did not think you were coming.” Nessa’s disembodied voice met my ears just as I neared the boundary stone. “We were almost ready to leave.”

  I peered into the dim, seeing three shadows against the predawn. “I had to wait until the gates opened for the morning,” I said. “And also convince the guard that I was merely delivering an urgent message to my sister’s husband out among the sheep.” Thankfully, my paltry explanation seemed not to have raised suspicions, but I’d held my breath until I’d passed the tree line and was out of sight of the city walls.

  Nessa approached, her features gaining clarity with each step. “I am so glad you decided to come!” She gestured at the two large shadows a few paces behind her. “These are Yoash and Kefa, my cousins who will be escorting us to the festival and back.”

  Nessa had assured me that the two young men were trustworthy, and in fact quite fiercely protective over her, but knowing that we meant to slip away from them at some point put me on edge, so I avoided meeting their eyes as they greeted me.

  “We’d best be on our way. It will take us a few hours to walk there, but we should arrive just after the noon hour,” said Nessa. “Lead on, cousins.”

  Yoash and Kefa complied, leading the way through the last of the olive grove and down over the eastern ridge into the basin. Nessa slipped her arm through mine as we trailed in their wake, leaning close to speak. “You’ve made the right choice, Rivkah. Together we will do well.” She squeezed my arm and launched into a multitude of details about Laish from the many times she’d been there before, but I heard little of it. Every step away from Kedesh felt like fighting against a rushing river. I could practically feel my home calling, beckoning me to return.