Reign

by Ginger Garrett

  Ahab chewed his lip, perhaps thinking of what he had seen in battle. Surely a soldier understood depravity. She had never seen it herself, but the tales had scared her as a child.

  Jezebel glanced to the window. “I met his father once, the first King Shalmaneser,” she said. “He visited Phoenicia to discuss trade. He was a sharp-toothed man, with a muddy beard and yellow eyes. He had bruises all over, the way some men have tattoos. I did not like him. His son was there, though he hid behind his father’s robes and leered at me. He stole sweets from the table when he thought no one saw, while the men talked and spit seeds on our floor. It is this boy who is in power, and takes his father’s name.”

  “The Assyrians will never conquer Israel,” Ahab said. “I have seen the conclusion of more wars than he will ever begin. That is why I want to build the cities to make Israel great. Every wall I build? Two rows of stone. Every tower? Archers, boiling oil, heaving stones. Every gate? Even the gods have to knock. No Assyrian will come near my cities or my bride.”

  Jezebel leaned back on her pillow. She was sleepy, though it was an early hour for her. Her body had changed so much, it was a stranger to her. “What news of Samaria? Has it rained?”

  Ahab’s muscles tensed, and he turned on his side. He fell asleep, leaving her alone with her sorrows in the still, quiet room, voices of the soldiers outside carrying through the walls.

  The child within her made her stomach feel tight and unsettled. Thankful no servant was in the room, she knew it was time for what she had planned to do. There was something poetic about Ahab in this bed with her tonight.

  She reached under the bed for a little dish she had hidden. She had brought it from Phoenicia, almost as an afterthought, realizing it might be of use if she needed to hurt someone. She just hadn’t known that someone would be herself. She hadn’t understood, then, that losing one crown would not be as painful and horrible as wearing one here.

  Jezebel sighed as her hands cupped the small round bowl with a carved head of a crouching lioness on top. Inside were a small ivory spoon and the powder she had left over from a sorcerer’s trade. She had given him her fattest emerald for this.

  Jezebel lifted the lid off the bowl and shoveled the powder under her tongue. She was breathing hard, frustrated by having to teach a man, frustrated at her own body that made her a prisoner, frustrated at being eaten alive from the inside, every day this thing growing and squirming and kicking her. She spooned a second batch of the powder made from the waxy green flower and waited. If the child died, it was no loss. Not to her. Not even to the kingdom. If Jezebel died, it wouldn’t mean much more. She wanted to feel death in the room with her, to believe escape was possible. She hesitated to reach for the spoon a third time, however. She wasn’t sure she trusted death any more than she trusted any other deliverer.

  She’d finally decided to reach for the spoon a third time when the drug blew through her veins, knocking her back onto her pillows as her back stiffened and she bit her lip. Blood ran down her chin, and she tried to wipe it, but could only swat loosely at her face with her limp hand.

  But she didn’t sleep. She lay there all night, with blood smeared across her face and the life within kicking her. Toward dawn, as Ahab stirred, she managed to turn away from him and face the wall.

  Ahab was gone when she awoke. The sun lit the room, making the colors too bright for her sore eyes. She called for servants to attend her and vomited up the breakfast they brought. Lilith laid wet cloths across her forehead and asked Mirra to send for a crock of warmed water.

  Mirra waited at the door for the water, and when it was delivered, she stood at the window, looking out, as Lilith began the slow, warm pour down Jezebel’s spine.

  “May I ask you a question?” Mirra asked.

  Jezebel looked up to see her staring at her with intensity. Although Jezebel did not reply, Mirra continued. “You left your home, you rule a people you barely know. We are so different from Phoenicians, aren’t we?”

  “You are Israelites,” Jezebel said. It was a clever reply, true and easily mistaken for polite discussion. It revealed nothing of what she thought, her disappointment that she had not bled on the sheets, that the child still kicked, that her own heart still beat. Jezebel wondered why, after all she had done, the goddess did nothing to help her. Asherah had yet to perform one wonder in this land, to offer one reassurance to Jezebel that all would be well.

  “But we are not Phoenicians.” Mirra sounded wistful. “In your country, there is wealth and exotic visitors, and entertainments, and every freedom.”

  Jezebel snorted in disdain but raised her fist to her mouth as if coughing. Lilith narrowed her eyes, but Mirra did not seem to notice.

  “There is freedom, yes. Women are free to do whatever they like. They are free to dress as they want, free to share their bodies, free to refuse a pregnancy. But do not confuse freedom with having what you want,” Jezebel said. “People are weak.” Jezebel shook her head, and her eyes burned. She was as weak as any of them. “They get swept into lives they never wanted.”

  There were no altars in Jezreel, no way Jezebel could alert the goddess that she was in distress. No hope of making an offering. Jezebel hated the sight and sound of infants. Ahab blamed her nerves as a first-time mother. Jezebel only resented that she could not offer a child up and end her misery.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Mirra said. “I don’t have any freedom at all.”

  Her question stirred Jezebel back to the moment, remembering what it was like to be a girl and have to trust a man. It was not any easier than being a woman and trusting a goddess. “Are you promised to anyone?”

  “No.” Mirra shrugged. “Omri has surrounded himself with soldiers. The elders are bringing in more visitors from other nations, but my father has not met anyone worthy.”

  Jezebel signaled for Lilith to be done. “Do not trust your father. He’ll do what is best for himself, not for you.”

  “If I was more like you, strong and wise, he would listen to me. I wouldn’t be so afraid of being given to some man I despise.”

  Mirra was like a vague shadow of the girl she might have been.

  “How frightened are you?” Jezebel asked.

  Mirra’s chin quivered. She had plenty of tears.

  Jezebel smiled. “Fear can be strength. Fear will make you do great things.”

  “Call Obadiah to us,” Jezebel instructed Lilith. “Mirra wants to send a message to her father.”

  Lilith raised an eyebrow, but Jezebel scowled, sending her off. Mirra was still protesting, horrified, as Obadiah entered. Lilith had draped a tunic over Jezebel, and was circling the princess with a sash worn low to accommodate her bulging stomach. He should have been red-faced to enter as his princess was being robed, but he did not seem to notice Jezebel at all.

  His face was very still, unreadable, yet his eyes betrayed him. They followed every breath that escaped Mirra’s lips.

  “Mirra, do you have a message for your father?” Jezebel asked.

  Mirra froze, refusing to say anything.

  Jezebel did not try to hide her disappointment. “Obadiah, I apologize. I thought Mirra was going to send a message, but I was mistaken.”

  Obadiah backed out, with a furtive last glance at Mirra, whose tears ran down her cheeks. Jezebel had the feeling that Obadiah blamed her for Mirra’s distress, but he could not know. Mirra needed to suffer. She needed to feel enough pain to make her rise above any feeling at all.

  That was the only way she could save herself.

  Obadiah

  A great black shadow crept up Obadiah’s back. Above him, a flock of birds migrated for the spring, just as the court now did. The winter had drawn to a close, and the court rode back toward Samaria after nearly six long months in Jezreel. He stretched up, sitting tall in his saddle as the birds flew overhead, and for one second, his shadow was lost in theirs. />
  The journey back to Samaria was a long, wearisome one. The court could not move fast, though many of Jezebel’s priests and servants rode camels. Camels covered a lot of ground with each step. Obadiah wished that there were more riders and fewer singers and dancers who announced the princess’s progress with every step taken. Ahab had hired them, thinking it would cheer Jezebel, who seemed distressed and despondent as her due date came closer.

  Ahab was anxious to return, to hear news from the scouts who were watching for Ben-hadad. Ben-hadad had waited for the winter rains to pass, as all kings did. If he knew of the curse, he had not believed it and had stayed home.

  Obadiah hoped for news of the first drops of rain. He looked back, straining to catch a glimpse of Ahab. Ahab rode with his father, and his defiant glare warned that he wanted no interruption.

  Obadiah knew the reason for his banishment on the journey. He had, just last night, warned Ahab to send Jezebel’s priests back to Phoenicia. There were hundreds, Obadiah had pointed out, and if a famine came, the court could not support so many without burdening the people. It was an excellent argument. The people supplied the food to the court and would be frantic to feed their children. Being forced to feed hundreds of foreign priests, while Elijah was whipping up passions against them, would push the country into civil war. This was Obadiah’s prediction and the reason for his punishment today. Ahab confused a legitimate concern for the people with antagonism for Jezebel’s gods. Maybe Obadiah did too, he thought. Those were closer than Ahab admitted.

  Toward dawn on the third day of the journey, they passed a white-haired Bedouin man milking a camel as a calf nursed on the other side, forcing the milk to flow. Beside him, a woman in a black veil sat on the ground, shaking a goatskin bag to make butter or curds. On this day, no less than six families traveling the road asked for, and received, permission to fall in behind the royal caravan. A royal caravan of this size was security for the lonely roads ahead. One mother had introduced her daughters to Obadiah, all six of them, with a hopeful gleam in her eye. He felt nothing but pity as he looked on their crooked faces. None were as beautiful as Mirra, but that thought seemed shameful to him, so he was especially kind to them all. Her first four daughters had inoffensive common names, after trees and flowers, but the fifth was Zaoule, “the nuisance,” and the sixth Tamam, “please, no more.”

  He wished them well and kept the caravan moving with a shout.

  The sky was dark gray, tempered with white edges. The hills beyond were shrouded in darkness; the trees that stood in the distance looked black. At noon they stopped to rest near a well and watched as a woman attempted to draw water. She pulled on the rope that twisted around an old, thick tree branch braced above the well. The water bucket came up fast and swinging. She peered inside, then lifted it to her mouth and shook, a scowl on her face. Her children stood at a distance, huddled together in dirty tunics, their faces confused and afraid. Ahab shouted the command to move on without waiting for Obadiah to do it.

  They had left Jezreel’s green world and entered the world of rocks and snags and dust. There were tricks waiting here; rocks the donkeys did not always see and stumbled on, thorns instead of blossoms. They entered the region of Samaria by noon. The afternoon shadows were long and dark. The hills were lower, and there were olive trees in groves but no green gardens to play in. The drought was revealing itself in a slow brown spread.

  The wall had been built up, though Obadiah felt cold disappointment to see the meager progress that had been made. Not as much as Ahab would have been able to accomplish had he remained here, without a wife, without trouble. Obadiah paused at the gates, which had not yet been set on their hinges but rested against the wall, which was only halfway to its proper height. He sat up straight, keeping watch over the caravan as it entered the city, conscious to keep his eyes on the horizon as Mirra passed.

  The gates seemed to him like judgment. The court was not entering Samaria; they were all passing into darkness.

  Jezebel

  Jezebel instructed Lilith to give extra attention to her hair and cosmetics on the third morning of the return journey to Samaria. No one in that city had set eyes on her for six months. Perhaps they would see her and know what she had done for them, her bulging womb a blessing to them, and proof of the injustice she suffered. She was meant for more, but this was all she was reduced to. She hoped they saw her condition and wept. She hoped her father heard of her pregnancy and realized all he had wasted.

  Lilith plaited her hair and pulled it back, using red cosmetics on Jezebel’s lips and cheeks and nails. Jezebel instructed her to use Egyptian green for her eyes, sweeping it far back into the hairline. She would ride in the litter with the curtains pulled back so the people could see her.

  Obadiah walked past Lilith at her work with the cosmetics, and Jezebel called to him.

  “Find Mirra and bring her,” she said. “She should ride with me.”

  Lilith chose this moment to apply the malachite to her eyes, so Jezebel did not see his reaction. He probably blanched or swallowed hard. It must be a terrible humiliation to love someone.

  “I have not seen her,” he replied.

  Jezebel stayed Lilith’s hand and opened her eyes. “I did not ask if you had seen her.”

  His face was red, but he turned quickly away, into the sun. He returned with Mirra.

  “Help her into the litter,” Jezebel said. “Lilith, ride behind us. Borrow a donkey.” She motioned for Lilith to be gone. Obadiah did not reach to help Mirra up. He seemed frozen. She grabbed his hand and did not see him flinch as if bitten. How long had he loved her? Jezebel wondered. Did he have a plan to end his suffering, or was he going to be its victim forever?

  Lilith grunted in disgust as she set off to find a donkey.

  As they approached, Jezebel sensed that a spell had been cast over the city. Instead of cheering for her, the people acted offended by her. As she was carried through the city’s main road, no one ventured past the door of their tent. They looked at her with dark, wounded eyes. But all had fat on their cheeks; no one looked gaunt or hungry. It had not rained since Jezebel’s arrival, but no harm had come. Everyone was still eating from last year’s storage. They had no emergency. They accused her with their eyes but refused to see what she had done for them, what she was giving them. Even if it was a girl, it had some value. It had Ahab’s blood.

  Jezebel had seen no barley growing in the fields as they approached, nor wheat. She stirred, uncomfortable to think that this spring would bring nothing but horrors. Hunger and a girl as the firstborn to the throne.

  As they made their miserable progress through the half-finished wall, Jezebel was careful to smile, especially with the daughter of richest man in town beside her, past the display of shields to the right, which would grow bigger now that they returned with soldiers. Mirra was a guarantee that the elders would not turn against her without forewarning. Mirra loved to talk of what she felt and what she thought and what she worried over. Jezebel would help her, yes, but Mirra would help her, too. Mirra would remind the people that their elders had supported this marriage.

  Ahab rode in front of her litter, sword at his side, his back straight and defiant. His throne was secure. He had held Jezreel for another winter. Now he returned to see that Samaria had almost finished her transformation. He had reason to be proud and certain. Yet he slowed when he turned past the display of shields and headed toward the palace, unwilling to speak with the people.

  Jezebel felt Mirra shift and saw her start to eye the ground, thinking perhaps she should now walk alongside the princess, instead of being elevated above the people she knew. Now that Mirra had seen into Jezebel’s eyes, she seemed to want to pull away. Temereh had wanted to pull away too, Jezebel remembered. She realized that she didn’t push Temereh into the fire pit; she had only let Temereh go.

  Jezebel grabbed Mirra’s hand and gripped it tightly, preventi
ng her from pulling away.

  The procession from the gate to Omri’s palace took no less than two hours to complete. Jezebel was pleased to see the amazed expression of the people as they saw all her priests and artisans traveling behind her, no fewer than five hundred souls. King Omri did not wait to speak to the people, did not even wait for Jezebel to get out of the litter before he entered the palace, but she knew he enjoyed the impressive entrance. A true king commanded vast resources.

  To the left of Omri’s palace, a small, modest residence had been built. It needed much work, Jezebel knew, but she was so grateful to have a private residence like a real queen. She sat up, thinking of all that must be done, including receiving whatever news from her prophet-killer. She needed to sit up to relieve her throbbing head. Lilith had perfumed the litter for the entrance, and it stank. Jezebel had lifted her head to catch a clean, pure breeze when she saw them. Men were appearing, one by one, on the low hills surrounding the city. Without a full wall blocking their view, they could see everything. They looked like black moving trees from this distance, but by instinct, she knew who they were. Prophets. Dozens of men like Elijah.

  She did not see Elijah, the plague prophet, among them. But she could not believe he could resist the chance to look on their glorious return; she narrowed her eyes and searched the hills again. He had to be among them.

  The child kicked within her, and she grimaced, anxious to be out of this litter. Panic began to rise, forcing bile into her throat. The people shifted and swayed in her vision; the litter was tossing side to side. Mirra grabbed her, calling for help.

  Jezebel couldn’t help the scream that escaped, shattering the silence of Samaria.

  The pain was like a vengeful knife thrown to rip Jezebel open, to force her into the pit with her sister. In her panic, she thought she saw a god, its flashing white teeth at her stomach and throat, tearing her apart, as the child began its bloody fight to emerge. Pitching to the side, clutching her belly, she was in danger of falling off the litter. The men carrying her stumbled at her scream, and she began to slide off. Her priests, traveling behind, were already racing toward her, taking hold of her shoulders and supporting her. Several grabbed the poles of the litter, elbowing the servants out of the way. The servants screamed at them and grabbed again at the poles, and mayhem broke out. Priests swarmed the litter, cursing the servants as others supported Jezebel and maids chanted in frightened, high-pitched tones. The screams came so fast and hard her head was forced back. She hadn’t thought the baby would come yet. The ashipu died without telling her the date. He had betrayed her.