Delilah: A Novel

by Edghill, India

  He tugged at the knot to make sure the gold was safely bound, and then nodded. “As you wish, lady. Never say Yaddu failed to keep his part of any bargain. And when you’ve tired of teasing the man, call my name and I’ll let you out again.” He slid back the iron bar and pulled the door open. “I’ll wait here if you like. Most of them give up in less time than it takes me to drink a jar of beer.”

  I walked past him, paused in the doorway to darkness. “Do as you please tonight. I will not call until dawn.”

  “It’s seven steps down,” the guard said. “I can’t give you a lamp. Light is forbidden—and the man’s blind anyway.”

  “Thank you, Yaddu.” Courtesy cost nothing, and after all, the man had not needed to tell me the number of steps. Then I stepped through the doorway. I waited until the door closed and I heard the bar slide back into place before I reached out to touch the chill stones and walked down the stairs, counting each step. At the last, I paused again; I could see nothing. Not even shadows eased the blackness before me.

  “Delilah.” Samson’s voice whispered against the stone walls.

  “Where are you?” I said, and reached out.

  His hands caught mine. “Are you mad, to come here?”

  “No madder than any of the other women who wished to lie with you—dozens of them, if the guard is to be believed.” Of all the words I had thought to say to him, I had never thought that I would jest, or that he would laugh. How could I have forgotten that he laughed so easily?

  “How did you know it was I?”

  “By the way you move through the air. By the scent of your skin. By the very sound of the breath you take.” Samson began to pull me towards him, then stopped, holding me off.

  “What is the matter, Samson? Fear not, for I have paid the guard enough to spend all this night with you.” Even knowing he could not see me, I smiled. “We will not be interrupted, beloved.”

  “I—am not very clean,” he said, and for a moment I did not know if I would laugh or weep.

  “I do not care,” I said, and flung myself forward into his arms.

  When my hands touched his body in loving exploration, for the first time I was glad we met in darkness. I cared nothing about the dirt matting his shorn hair or the rank scent of his unwashed skin; it was the half-healed wounds, the feel of his bones sharp beneath his skin, that I could not bear.

  When the first rush of passion faded, I lay cradling Samson in my arms, savoring the feel of his body against mine. I stroked his nearly bare head; his short-cut hair rasped my palm. “I liked it better long,” I said, and Samson laughed, softly.

  “It will grow again. Now stop trying to hide your reason for coming to me. You must not risk yourself like this. Did Orev not tell you I said do not come here?”

  “I have not seen Orev since—since the day you were taken. And it would not matter if I had. I came because I could not live if I did not see you. And to tell you that tomorrow is the day you will be taken to the Great House of Dagon and chained between the pillars before the high altar, that all may look upon you and mock you and your god. The priesthood of Dagon’s Great House will be there, as will the High Priestess of the Great House of Atargatis in Ascalon.”

  “I know, beloved. And I tell you what I told Orev when he came to speak with me—that they may mock as they please, but my god will laugh as theirs falls into a pit of their own digging. By the favor of Yahweh, I shall have my chance to destroy evil.”

  I touched his cheek. “Did you not hear me, my love? You will be chained. Now you cannot—”

  “Now I cannot destroy Dagon’s Temple and live.” There was neither anger nor fear in Samson’s calm voice. “But I can still topple its stones.”

  “No.” My bones turned cold as I understood. “No, beloved. Wait. Let them display you, let them mock you. Then later, I can ask to—to be given you as a slave. Then we can—”

  Samson put his fingers over my lips. “Then we can what, Delilah? Live in Ascalon with you as priestess of Atargatis and me as your blind slave?”

  I grasped his wrist, pulled his hand away from my mouth. “We could go far away, to another land. We could live—”

  “No, my heart, we could not. Your Temple and City would hunt us to world’s end.” Samson stroked my hair. “I have had long hours to think of nothing but those iron chains. I know what I must do. Now you must promise me something, Delilah.”

  “Anything,” I said.

  “That you will not be there, in Dagon’s Temple. Nor will Orev—he did not come to you in Ascalon?”

  “No. Or if he did, he was not permitted to speak with me, or even send a message.”

  “I should have thought of that.” His fingers touched my cheeks. “Don’t cry, beloved. Listen. Orev must still be in Gaza; sometimes I think I hear his voice, pretending to jeer with the others. He foolishly watches for a chance to free me. You must promise to find him, and to flee Gaza with him before tomorrow’s ceremony.”

  I lay silent, remembering that a heartbeat ago I had sworn I would do anything he asked.

  “You promised, Delilah,” Samson said. “You and Orev must go; leave the rest to me. Remember our plan, beloved.”

  “A foolish plan,” I said. “We were mad to even dream it might succeed.”

  “It will succeed—but there is always a price, Delilah.” For a moment Samson sounded like Aylah’s echo, his words crystal-hard truth. “We were foolish only in hoping to gain the gift we asked without offering anything up in thanks for so great a favor.”

  “Then we both will pay that price.”

  “No. You promised me you would do anything I asked of you, Delilah. I ask that you live. Suppose you conceive a child this night? Would you condemn her to death before she even draws breath?”

  “Suppose I do not conceive a child? And even if I do, perhaps we will have a son, not a daughter.”

  “No. Our child will be a girl.” Samson spoke with a certainty that made me close my lips over objections and arguments. “We will have a daughter, beloved. A girl to live in love, and in laughter.”

  There was so much I longed to say to him—a lifetime of words that would remain unspoken between us. At last I said only “Let it be as you say, beloved. Now let us give my goddess and your god as much aid as we can in conceiving our laughing daughter.”

  As I had vowed to the guard Yaddu, I did not call for the cell door to be unbolted until dawn. The last hour of the night I had spent lying awake, staring into darkness as Samson slept in the circle of my arms.

  During that silent hour, I had given thanks to Our Lady—pure thankfulness for Her kindness, a prayer unalloyed by any taint of demand or desire of Her. I had called upon all the skills the Temple had inculcated in me, used the arts of passion to fuel the durable fire of love itself.

  Now is all there is— For the first time, I truly understood what that meant, and how to use that hard-won knowledge.

  Now is all there is. Freed from the bonds of pain and loss, for those few precious hours, we created paradise within a prison cell.

  For during that last dark night, love alone was enough.

  Wise for once, I slipped out of Samson’s cell in the elusive moment of half-dawn. Between darkness and daylight, I walked unseen through the streets of Gaza, my cloak giving me the look of a shadow, a shadow soon to be burned away by the light of the rising sun. I kept my promise to Samson; I did not return to the guest-chambers in Gaza’s Temple of Atargatis. Derceto would seek me in vain today.

  But I did not seek out Orev, and I did not leave Gaza. As the sun climbed above the eastern hills and the sky’s light transmuted from deep blue-black to silver, I made my way to the stairs leading up the city wall. A gift to the guard at the bottom of the stairway gained me permission to climb the stairs to the top of the wall—to greet the rising sun on this auspicious day, I said.

  Like the wall encircling Ascalon, Gaza’s city wall was wide enough for three chariots to drive side by side, and high enough that when I sto
od upon the smooth-set stones I could see across all the city. The new Great House of Dagon loomed, a great flawed beast, at Gaza’s heart.

  I walked along the wall until I reached the next gate tower. There I pressed myself into the corner where tower and wall met. My cloak seemed to melt into the dull reddish brown bricks and stones that formed the tower and the wall.

  A shadow on the wall, unnoticed among all the rest.

  Or so I hoped, and with good reason. Today all eyes would be turned to the Great House of Dagon, all attention focused on the dishonored ritual within a temple built upon a debased foundation.

  “Set enough pressure at the right spot, at the right angle, and the temple pillars cannot stand. The Master Builder washed his hands and abandoned the job rather than deceive with shoddy work disguised to seem strong and true. I can bring Dagon’s House down, Delilah. All who plotted such evil against those we loved will be destroyed.”

  If the Master Builder spoke truth. If Samson stood chained in the proper spot. If those we hated did not flee safely from the falling temple.

  If and if and if . . .

  I stared at the gilded fish painted upon the Temple roof. And no matter what else happened, Samson would die. Even blind, Samson might have escaped the falling Temple. But chained to Dagon’s altar, he was doomed.

  Yet I knew what he would say to that, as clearly as if he stood before me and spoke the words.

  “I will be with you, beloved. Never doubt that.”

  How, my love? I could not even enter Dagon’s Temple and go with Samson in death. I must live, for I owed Samson a life. I must cherish mine until our daughter was safely born.

  I stood all the morning there, watching and waiting. I knew Samson had desired me to leave Gaza after I kissed him good-bye in his cell, but I could not. I must see what befell with my own eyes. I had begun this dance of my own will; it was my duty now to tread the deadly pattern to its end.

  By midmorning the Gaza streets were full with people moving towards the Great House of Dagon like a bright river. For this day of dedication and triumph, those who dwelt in Gaza had donned their most festive garments.

  The priests and priestesses of other gods and goddesses moved through the streets in solemn procession. The crowds parted for them; I saw the crimson and gold of the palanquin in which High Priestess Derceto was carried as if she herself were Bright Atargatis.

  As the sun stood overhead, the streets lay quiet, almost empty. The Great House of Dagon had swallowed them all.

  Still I waited. I knew I would hear nothing of the dedication—not with half the city between me and the Temple. But I knew when Samson was brought before the people, displayed like a prize of war, for the roar of triumph swelled like a heavy wave through the air.

  Then silence again, silence heavy as stone itself. The Great House of Dagon seemed to shudder . . . and then there was sound again, an odd grinding, as if the Temple’s bones shifted and broke.

  Even where I stood, I could hear screams. Then a monstrous roar, as the Temple roofs fell in upon the Great Inner Court, and the walls followed, first the walls closest to the Inner Court, and then the others that circled them, the stones crashing down faster and faster. A pillar of dust rose up from the mass of fallen stones.

  The howl of shattered stone ceased. The screams still echoed over Gaza—few voices now, and fewer with each breath that passed.

  I looked upon the ruin of Gaza’s Great House of Dagon, and knew that Samson had been right. I should not have stayed to watch—and to listen.

  I think I was the only person that day—man or woman—who walked slowly through the dust-filled streets of Gaza. All about me people ran, either fleeing the ruin of the Great House of Dagon or hastening towards it to aid any who might survive. There were others, too, men who grasped the day’s tragedy as a chance to snatch whatever goods they could lay hands upon.

  I walked past them all until I reached the Temple of Atargatis, where High Priestess Derceto and her entourage had stayed while awaiting the dedication of Dagon’s Great House. The doorkeepers rushed up to me, gasping and pawing at me. “Priestess Delilah—you live! All the others are dead, buried beneath Dagon’s Temple. Praise Our Lady that you live—”

  I suppose they kept speaking, but I ceased listening. Pushing aside any who tried to grasp me, to weep over me, I went through the Temple until I came to the rooms allotted those who had come with Derceto from Ascalon. There I began, slowly, to set the few things I would need to carry with me into a small carved chest.

  Necklaces, bracelets, anklets, earrings—goods I could barter for my keep. A pair of sandals, a linen shift. A mirror . . .

  Don’t be a fool, girl. What need have you for a mirror now?

  For a breath I did not know the voice, then I remembered. The Seer at En-dor spoke in just such husky, sardonic tones.

  What need now? The words echoed as I lifted the mirror and looked into the shining disk.

  The woman who looked back was a stranger. Atargatis’s Dancer, Delilah the Full Moon of Atargatis, Delilah the Priestess—that girl was gone.

  Just as Samson the Son of the Sun was gone. Now I knew he had vanished even before the stones of Dagon had fallen upon ruler and captive alike. The Sun-Lord had ceased to exist the moment Samson had yielded, bent his neck before me like a suppliant before his goddess. All that had been left then was a man. A man like other men. A fool.

  So I told myself, striving fiercely to believe. A fool, no more than a fool. That is what love does. Breeds fools. Fools like Samson, hero of the Israelites.

  Fools like you, Delilah. The words fell cold into my mind. Cold as stones.

  Cold as your heart should have remained.

  But I had burned hot, not cold; I had led him in a dance that ended not in life but in death.

  As if in a dream, I heard him laugh once more, laugh and whisper, “Love me, my goddess-on-earth. Love me, my queen of night.” And my voice teasing. “Never. Never, never. Tell me, my sun of men, tell me your secret. Tell me . . .”

  A game we had played, thinking we both could win against City and Temple. Against life, against death itself.

  “Tell me, tell me . . .”

  The laughter of ghosts echoed; the laughter of two young and foolish children who had thought that the gods would dance to their bidding. That whatever madness they desired would come to pass . . .

  “Tell them you have discovered my secret, Night-Hair. They will not know until too late that I have discovered theirs.”

  A great shudder racked my body; I buried my face in my hands. Crimson hands, stained bright with henna. Bright with blood . . .

  No.

  I forced myself to raise my head, forced myself to bend and look upon my image in the silver mirror. Delilah. Delilah the temple dancer. Delilah the Lady’s servant.

  I knew Samson would never blame me for what had befallen him—never in this life or the next. If I summoned his ghost, I knew he would say that I had done only what he himself had asked of me. But I blamed myself. I seemed to hear my name echoing through the Courts of Time: Delilah the heart-taker, the heart-slayer; Delilah the heartless.

  Delilah the betrayer. Delilah, who sent great Samson to his death . . .

  Yes, that is what I was. It is what I am. It is what I shall be. Always.

  If only that had been true. If only I had never loved— I laid my crimson-stained hands over my stomach, swore upon my daughter’s growing heart that she should be wise, be free. Never would she suffer the pain I had suffered, the pain I now endured, the pain that would walk with me to my grave, and beyond.

  For now that it was too late, I knew what I had wagered, and what I had won. And what I had lost forever.

  I had betrayed everyone and everything dear to me. Samson. Aylah. The Lady Atargatis Herself.

  The woman in the silver mirror stared back at me, her eyes glittering silver-bright. All I do now, I do for my daughter. And for his.

  Staring into the mirror, I lifted my hands
from my body, raised them to my hair. Slowly I withdrew the ivory pins that imprisoned the tight-coiled strands, until my dark soft hair fell unbound down my back, slid over my cool skin to my knees. I looked for one last time upon Delilah in all her shining glory. Then I reached out to my dressing table and took up the waiting knife.

  The horn handle warmed to my touch; the bronze blade shone mirror-keen. For a moment I closed my eyes, seeing my heart’s desire as he had stood that first day, fair as the sun, powerful as love itself. Goodbye, beloved. And know that if I did not carry your child within me, I would join you now.

  But I had been entrusted with that duty, and I would not fail him again.

  Wait for me, sun of my heart. Wait.

  And then I opened my eyes, and lifted the new-honed knife to my midnight hair.

  Orev

  “And the Philistines chained mighty Samson before the altar of Dagon. There Samson called upon his god, and his strength returned to him fourfold. And Samson pulled upon the chains with which the Philistines themselves had bound him, pulled Dagon’s Temple down upon all those gathered within its dark stone walls to mock Samson and Samson’s god . . .”

  The dust had settled after a day; the screaming and the searching both had ceased. The Great House of Dagon lay broken, a mass of shattered stone at Gaza’s heart. No one seemed to know what should be done now, for both the Lady of the City of Gaza and the High Priest of the Great House of Dagon had vanished, their bodies crushed beneath the huge blocks of stone that were all that remained of the Temple. More, most of the noble families of Gaza had lost their leaders when Samson brought down the Temple, as had the guilds. Until aid came from others of the Five Cities, Gaza could not help itself. There was no one to give orders—and if there had been, there were few left to follow them.

  Children and slaves. That is all Gaza has left. Orev sat upon one of the fallen stones and gazed at the devastation before him. Perhaps someday I shall transmute this horror into a song, he thought, and heard a part of his soul mock, “ Perhaps?” Even now you struggle to grasp the right words to convey the noise as the stones ground against one another, and the way the dust turned men to ghosts, and the way the ground trembled from Temple to the city wall.