I liked the name; it reminded me of the Ivory Gate at the heart of Our Lady’s House. And in spite of all the hatred and cold anger I felt for the High Priestess, I still loved Bright Atargatis. I had lost my heart-sister, and my trust in the Temple, but not my goddess. That faith, at least, I still possessed.
Samson
“Like a panther Delilah hunted Samson; like a serpent she beguiled him. And even Samson, stronger than a hundred men, was weaker than one frail woman . . .”
To the end of his long life, Orev never forgot how the dark dancer had claimed Samson’s future as if the days of his life belonged to her by right. Delilah had used no guile to ensnare him; no wiles to keep him. She had merely waited, patient as time, until Samson came to her.
The news that Delilah Moondancer, priestess in the Great House of Atargatis, had left Ascalon to dwell in the ivory palace in the Valley of Sorek traveled swiftly. When the tale reached Samson’s ears, he said,
“I go to the House of Ivory. Do you come with me, Orev?”
A chill slid through Orev’s bones. “Don’t, Samson. There is nothing there for you.”
“You’re wrong, friend harper. You heard her name. Now they have sent her whom my heart seeks.”
“They’ve sent a trap, Samson.”
“Yes.” Samson shrugged. “That’s a small matter.”
“It will be a great matter when the Philistines take you. They’ll chain you to a rock out in the harbor and leave you there for the fish to feast upon.”
Samson laughed—but his laughter was no longer the joyous sound it had been before he lost wife and child to fire. “You worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough. Forget about Delilah. Do you think those who rule Ascalon’s Temple have sent her because they believe they owe you another wife?” Orev knew speaking so brutally carried risks; he counted on Samson’s innate honesty and inability to lie even to himself.
For a moment Samson closed his eyes, shook his head as if to banish cruel memories. Then he said, “No, I think as you do—that the House of Atargatis has sent another weapon against me.” He gazed down the river valley to the west, as if he could see the House of Ivory before him. “But I told you, it doesn’t matter. I go to meet my fate. Come or not, as you choose.”
She stood waiting within a window, as if she knew not only that he would come to her, but when. Samson strode through the garden as if he had walked its path many times, and stopped, looking up at her.
“I am here,” he said, and she leaned upon the window’s ledge, gazed down into his eyes.
“Wait,” she said, and withdrew into the shadows behind her. A few moments later she came out to him, moving cat-soft, cat-supple, into the sunlit garden. She wore nothing but a skirt of blue-green silk sewn with peacocks’ eyes and a scarlet girdle knotted about her hips; the girdle’s long tassels fell almost to her ankles. A small coral fish upon a golden chain lay between her bare breasts. Samson reached out and laid his fingers gently upon the coral amulet.
“You wear Aylah’s charm.”
“Yes.” She lifted her hand, curled her fingers over his. “The High Priestess gave it to me, so that I might always look upon the amulet and remember how my heart-sister died.” She pulled away, held up her hand, the coral fish resting upon her palm. “Look upon it now, Samson. What do you see?”
Samson looked, and something changed in his face; the sun darkened. “I see truth,” he said. “What do you see?”
“I, too, see truth.” Delilah had tilted her hand and let the amulet slide back down between her breasts. “Come in to me, and we will share our truths. I have waited long days and nights for you, Sun of my heart.”
No, Delilah had needed nothing to ensnare Samson—nothing but herself.
Delilah
At first I was uneasy with him—I, Delilah Moondancer, Full Moon of Atargatis who had been the Goddess for a dozen men, felt fear coil beneath my heart. For this time I was not acting as Our Lady; no goddess used my body as Her own. Now, with Samson, I was only Delilah, a woman he desired and who desired him.
I felt lost, afraid, as if all my hard-learned skills had vanished. Would I please him? Would he think me a poor substitute for Aylah? Aylah, whom we both had loved, in our different ways . . .
So when I beckoned Samson into my bedchamber, I trembled as if I were a maiden again, and he the first man I had ever seen. When I took his hand, his warmth seemed to burn my cold skin. It took no great wisdom for him to see my heart-sickness.
When I sat upon the leopard-skins that covered the bed, and urged him to lie beside me, he merely sat next to me and put an arm about my shoulders. He touched my cheek, gently, and I flinched as if burned. “Do not tremble so,” he said. “You need not fear, I shall not force myself upon you. I thought you wished this, but if you do not—”
“I do,” I said, and then, willing myself to tell at least some truth, “But I fear I will not please you.”
Samson laughed, softly. “It is I who should fear I will not please you—you, the most desired priestess in Ascalon.”
“Only because Aylah chose you over the Temple.” I longed to know if he favored his memories of Aylah over me; I knew I should not ask. Whether he said yes or no, I would hate him for it. So I did not question him—not then. I drew a deep breath, felt the false amulet lying warm against my skin. “Samson, there are things I must tell you—”
He slid his fingers down my throat, between my bare breasts, touched the coral fish. “And things I must tell you. But must they be said now?”
My skin burned where his fingers had traced a path. “No.” My heart beat so hard I could only whisper my words. “No. Later will be time enough. Later.”
After that, we did not speak; there was no need for words between us. At last I held my golden hero in my arms, and I forgot all else. And for once, as I lay with a man, I was only Delilah, and not a vessel for my goddess. I shall always be glad that I remembered to lay wreaths of poppies and roses at Her feet each morning, that I gave thanks to Her for Her gift of human love.
But when the first hot swift rush of passion eased, we talked, Samson and I—talked until the sky darkened, and then through the cool deep hours of night. It seemed we had known each other always. And we spoke most of Aylah, whom we both had loved, and who had loved us.
That first night I told him everything I knew from Aylah, and from Derceto, and from my own wounded heart. Being Samson, he neither raged nor struck out at me. Instead, when I ceased speaking he asked only, “Is that all you know, Delilah?” Without waiting for my answer, he reached out and slid his fingers between my skin and the coral amulet. “My friend Orev calls me too trusting, but you are far more innocent than I.”
As I stared, Samson closed his fingers about the coral fish; with one swift tug, he snapped the thin chain that held it about my neck. As I touched my throat, Samson studied the coral amulet, then set it upon the cushion beside us. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me, Delilah, and although I am no harper, I shall tell you a story.”
“And I shall tell one in my turn.” I looked at the amulet Samson had torn away; reached up to touch Aylah’s true token hidden in the Lady’s Knot at the nape of my neck. “Tell yours first, Samson.”
“Who gave you that, Delilah? Oh, it looks like the sister-token you gave to her, it is a fine copy—but it is not the one Aylah wore.”
I smiled—or, rather, I bared my teeth, as if I were a hunting cat. “The High Priestess Derceto gave me that amulet with her own hands. She said you forced Aylah to abandon all that bound her to the House of Atargatis.”
“Your High Priestess lied.” Samson gazed steadily into my eyes. “Aylah told me—”
“I know what Aylah told you, Samson. For I spoke with her in the Sorek Grove, when you two had been half a year wed and she carried your child beneath her heart.” I drew a deep breath; there would be no retreat from what I must say now. “I know the High Priestess lied, my love. I know how she deceived you
, tricked you into wedding Aylah—”
“When I had asked for you?” He touched the little coral fish, stared at it as if it could summon back the past. “I know Aylah went to Sorek Grove to see you once more. Tell me what Aylah said to you at the Grove that day, Delilah.”
He did not look at me and spoke soberly; I knew what he asked of me was important. Slowly, that I might speak only what Aylah had indeed said to me, I repeated what I remembered of my heart-sister’s words. “And then, at the last, she asked me to call down Our Lady’s blessing upon her and the child she carried.”
“And that is all?”
I sifted the memories of that day again, then nodded. “Yes, that is all.”
“Then I shall tell you what Aylah did not.” Samson moved away, reclined upon the carpet at my feet, so that he might gaze up into my face. “She was a tool, yes, but not merely a bride to stand in your place. Your Temple never intended to lose her forever.
“Your heart-sister . . .” He looked at my fingers touching coral fish and went on. “She was commanded not only to wed me but to slay me. Aylah told me all before we reached our home in Timnath. Your High Priestess gifted her with hairpins filled with venom. Upon our wedding night, Aylah was to pierce my skin with those pins. I would have died before morning.”
“Yes,” I said, “I know. The High Priestess herself told me.” I remembered again Aylah’s eyes refusing to meet mine when we spoke at the Sorek Grove. She had not wanted me to lose my faith in the Temple and those who ruled over it. Oh, Aylah—you were kinder and wiser than I. Slowly, I reached into my braided and coiled hair, unbound the Lady’s Knot, and shook my hair free. I claimed the true amulet from its hiding place and held it out to Samson.
“This is the true sister-token I once gave Aylah. She gave it back to me when we met in Sorek’s Grove, that I might remember her always. Will you take it from me, Samson?”
He gazed down at the little fish lying upon my palm, red coral against honey skin. “I would cherish it, Delilah. But will you not regret giving it up to me? I know what Aylah was to you.”
“And still is. I need no token to summon her memory.” The true token would be given, as it had been before, with love. “Besides,” I said, “I have the other, the false token the High Priestess gave to me, when she told me you had caused Aylah’s death. When she sent me to murder you.” I paused, waiting, but Samson revealed no surprise. Well, only a true fool would not have suspected me, after the Temple had already sent one woman to kill him.
When he said nothing, I smiled, and held out the coral fish to him. The true amulet I would give to Aylah’s husband, whom I also loved. The false amulet I would keep, to remind me always that the High Priestess, the Goddess-on-Earth, had lied, and had sent my heart-sister to her death. “Take this token, with both Aylah’s love and mine. You can bind it in your hair.”
“You set it there,” he said. “Your fingers are cleverer than mine.”
And so with my fingers I combed out Samson’s sun-bright hair and braided the coral amulet into the soft golden mane. As I tied the final knot, I bent forward and kissed the hollow between his neck and shoulder. “There,” I said, “now you are bound to me.”
“A willing prisoner,” he said. “Sun and Moon—”
Fear sliced my heart, and I swiftly laid my fingers over his lips. “Do not say it, my love. It is ill luck.” All I could think was that once Aylah and I had been Sun and Moon together, and Aylah had burned, as if consumed by the Sun she had been called.
“Then I will tell you something sweeter to the ear,” he said. “Your hair is like summer night, and your breasts like full moons.”
“Now, perhaps. But what of when I am twice as old as I am this perfect day? My hair will dull, my breasts sag. What pretty words will you have for me then, when the years have changed me?”
“Everything changes, Delilah. You battle against Time itself. Against Life itself. You cannot win.” He smiled at me. “And you a priestess of the Lady in Ascalon!”
“You mean I should know better?”
“I mean you should believe life’s truth.”
“Oh, I know the truth.” I rolled over; my hair slid like midnight serpents across his sun-kissed chest. “Samson—” I hesitated, for what I wished to say to him was treason thrice over, and blasphemous as well.
He stroked my hair, coiled it into circles that burned dark against his skin. “Speak, Delilah. A trouble shared is a trouble—”
“Known to all the world within a month.” I sat up, my movement pulling my hair away from his body. Thus far we had spoken with a passionate caution, chosen each word, each tone of voice, with great care. “Not tonight, my love. I will tell you, but not tonight. Will you trust me, and wait?”
“I trust you, but why wait? Come away with me now.” He took my hand, laced his fingers through mine. “There is nothing to keep you here.”
Desire burned; desire to leave pain and grief behind, to follow him to world’s end. But I could not abandon my ghosts . . .
“Delilah?” Samson’s voice seemed to come from far away. “You summoned me here for more than a night’s passion. Will you not tell me why?”
“I will, I swear I will. But we have time—from full moon to full moon, before those who sent me lose patience.”
“And send armed men against me instead of a woman.”
“Yes,” I said. “Give me seven nights, Samson. Seven days and nights for us. Then—”
“Then it will be time to speak of what lies ahead.” His voice sounded hard as stone. I looked into his eyes and saw that he, too, lived with ghosts.
“Yes. But until then, we are free.” Of course we were not; all we possessed was the illusion of freedom. But for that short span of time, illusion was enough.
I longed to know all I could of Samson, and I had no shame. I asked his friend, the harper called Orev, to tell me all that Samson himself would not. It was from Orev that I learned how Samson wished only peace, how he had tried to guard the roads for travelers, even those unknown to him. From Aylah, I already knew how Samson loved women, was kind even to a bride he had been tricked into accepting. But to hear from Orev of Samson’s care for strangers, for the weak and helpless, human or beast, gave me an odd pleasure.
“You love Samson well, do you not?” I asked, and Orev said, “He is both the brother I never had and the son I never shall have. He is unlike any other man I have ever met.”
“A mighty warrior,” I suggested, and Orev laughed.
“Only because others claim him to be so. Samson is no warrior. What he loves best to do is build, to create useful things from wood and stone. He has no desire to rule over others or to gain great riches.”
“He lacks ambition? He, who could be a king among his own people?” I waited, as Orev frowned, choosing carefully what words he next would speak to me.
“Once Samson was a man of peace who would not choose a king’s glory over long happy days. Now—” Sorrow shadowed Orev’s eyes. “Now I do not know. Which would you choose, Delilah?”
“Neither,” I said. “I choose justice for the dead.”
“No matter the price?”
“Whatever the price is, I will pay it.”
Orev smiled, but his eyes still grieved. “I fear Samson is willing to pay it as well. Remember, Delilah, that the gods laugh at mortal plans.”
They were sweet, those few precious days I spent with Samson in the House of Ivory. For seven days we thought of nothing but each other, did nothing but play at love all day and all night. Aylah had been right: Samson had been formed of sunlight, and once no shadows had darkened his mind or his heart. Once he had been unthinkingly happy, as I had been—and for this short span of time, I wanted that happiness back for us.
I enjoyed teasing him; we would lie by the round pool at the heart of the Moon Garden, where all the flowers bloomed white, and I would tell my stories and beg him to tell me his.
He never wished to; he was the least prideful man I ever m
et. “There is little to tell, Delilah. I have done nothing that any other man might not do, if he chose. You should ask Orev, if you wish to hear tales of great deeds.”
I smiled; it was easy to smile at Samson. “That is not what I have heard, Samson. I have heard . . .” I shrugged, letting a veil slip away until the smoke-soft cloth barely clung to my breasts. “Oh, I have heard many tales of you. That you slew a lion with your bare hands. That you slew a hundred men with only an old bone as weapon. That you carried away the great gates of Gaza. Because of a woman, of course—a harlot, was she not?”
Here he laughed. “I have never lain with a harlot, and as for the gates of Gaza, I have seen them. A man might hammer out the hinge-pins, but the gates are taller than two men, and thick bronze covers the cedar. It would take a god to carry them off .” He paused, then said, “Or a man with a cart and stout oxen to draw it.”
It was that tale that sparked a plan in my mind; Samson knew how to make wood and stone do his bidding. I, too, laughed, softly; how like Samson to think of the way a thing might truly be done by a mortal man. “A cart and oxen? What true hero uses such poor things?” I asked, and he smiled.
“I am no hero, Delilah—nor am I god-begotten, which I have also heard said of me. I am only a man, with as many faults as any other man. You are a priestess, so I am sure you will believe what I will tell you of how my mother conceived me. Unless you would rather listen to Orev sing it?”
“No, I would always rather hear your voice, and of course I will believe you. I know you would never lie to me.” Of course he would not; never in all my life did I meet another man so pure of mind and heart.
“Listen then, and I will tell the tale as I was told it—and as my father was told it, and all those who dwelt in our village heard it.”
It was a common enough tale: a plain good man wed a girl for her pretty face. The years passed, and the pretty girl had no children. This was a hard thing for her to bear. A barren woman was reckoned worthless, a man without children reckoned cursed.
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