Deborah's Story

by Ann Burton

  “I thank you.” The garments were shabby and old, but finer than anything I had ever worn. I stepped behind a stall gate to change. “I will find a way home, Meji, even if I must hide myself on Hlagor’s wagon.”

  “Do not bother to come back.”

  My chin dropped. “What?”

  “You heard me.” He made a quick gesture in the direction of town. “Go to this Hebrew, and tell him of the plot against him as you planned, but stay with him. He will be grateful enough to take you with him. You will be safe in Ephraim.”

  “I cannot impose myself on a stranger. I know nothing of him.” As I pulled on the short kuttonet and kesut, I refused to think of the image from my dream, of sitting with Jeth beneath the strange palm. “Even if I did, if I were to escape the master, he would take out his anger on the rest of you. I cannot permit that.”

  “He will rage at us whether you come back or not. Better I take a beating for your liberty than for your death.” Meji’s mouth became a bitter twist, and he lifted his hand to my braid to tuck it out of sight under the collar of the kesut. “I put too much dye at your brow, it is going to run. Close your eyes for a moment.”

  I did so, and flinched as I felt warm breath, then a mouth against my mouth. Before I could gasp, the kiss was over.

  “Meji.” I touched my lips, my eyes wide.

  “I have cared for you since we were children.” He caressed my cheek. “If we were free, you are the only one I would take as wife, but no son of mine will be born under the yoke, or sold away from me on the block.” His hand fell away. “There is no reason to be sad. When I was small, just before your mother died, she told me how it would be with us. She knew as well as I that you would leave here with another.”

  My mother had spoken to him of this?

  “I did not know. I will never leave here. No one wants me.” The thought of running away seemed as ludicrous as wedding Meji. He was the closest thing I had to a brother. “I am sorry.”

  “So am I.” He looked over at the rattling, creaking sounds of the feed wagon as it approached the barn. “Come. It is time.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  Our plan was a simple one. Chemesh was too ill to risk trying to smuggle off the farm in the feed wagon, so I would take his place. Once the wagon reached town, I would go to the inn of Dhiban and find Jeth.

  I slipped out of the side door of the barn and hid myself in the shadows, trembling with nerves as I waited and listened for the signal from Tarn. Hlagor was already gone, but the master might come down from the house to inspect the delivery. Night had not yet fallen. If he saw me with my hair darkened and dressed thus, or even noticed that I was gone…

  “Shall I bring water for your oxen, Adon?” I heard Tarn ask.

  I crept around the side of the barn. The driver’s attention was on Tarn, and there was no one else near the wagon. This was my best chance. As silently as I could manage, I hurried over to the wagon and climbed into the back, crawling under the pile of emptied feed sacks until I had wedged myself against the board behind the driver’s planked seat. I pulled some of the sacks back and over me until I was completely covered with them.

  “No, seba, I watered them at the last stop.” The board creaked under my shoulder blades as the driver climbed onto the seat.

  I dared not move again until the wagon was under way. The feed sacks were dusty with fragments of seed and chaff, and I breathed through my mouth so that I would not be tempted to sneeze. Relief surged through me when I heard the driver slap his reins against the oxen’s broad backs. He had not noticed me. I would be able to escape the farm and find Jeth in Hazor.

  What if Hlagor has already killed him?

  “Hold.”

  The wagon, which had just begun to roll away from the barn, came to a stop.

  “You delivered ten measures of feed grain?” I heard Ybyon ask, not a foot away from where I lay hiding.

  “I did. The old one with the scarred neck watched me fill your bins,” the driver said. “Ten measures were all that were ordered.”

  “I see.” Ybyon sounded as if he did not. “My slaves did not ask you to deliver anything to town? A passenger?”

  I curled my fingernails into my palms. Please, Lord God, do not let him find me.

  “I haul grain,” the driver told him. “Not people.”

  The sound of the master’s heavy footsteps moved to the end of the wagon, and I heard some sacks being shifted. Did he see the outline of my form under the sacks? I did not dare breathe, for if Ybyon found me cringing beneath them—

  “Give my regards to your master,” my master said, and the driver grunted before the wagon began to roll again.

  I did not mind the smothering wad of sacks covering my head. I thought nothing of the jolting of the wagon as it traveled down the farm road. I had escaped Ybyon, and if Jehovah were generous, I would find Jeth before Hlagor did.

  After a few minutes, I dared shift one of the sacks to peek out. Behind the wagon, the grass and weed-patched pastures of my master had become the pale dirt of a well-traveled road. The wagon did not rattle so much now, but splinters of wood from the board behind me pierced my skin, and I had to keep myself braced by hands and feet to keep from tumbling over. The temptation to jump off the wagon was strong, but on such a deserted road, the driver might see me and force me to return to the farm.

  I had to wait, or all would be lost.

  Fear became my master on that ride into town, which seemed to be endless. Hlagor might already have Jeth sitting with him in a tavern and drinking wine drugged with the master’s herbs. I had not thought of what I would do if I found the two men together. My voice would betray me; Hlagor knew my face just as well. Perhaps I could send another to summon the Hebrew merchant away from the steward. But who would play messenger for a runaway slave playing the part of a dirty street urchin?

  I dared not attempt a waking dream; it would leave me weak, perhaps helpless. Instead, I held myself still and prayed for patience.

  Voices, the creaking of other wheels, and the sounds of mules, sheep, and other animals told me that the wagon had at last reached the center of town, but I made a gap in the sacks over me to have a look. Light from large torches atop thick poles that had been driven into the ground on either side of the road flared against a clear, dark sky. Faint, twinkling stars were just beginning to appear in the purple twilight. Like the standing torches, walls built of mud brick loomed over every side of the wagon, and some were so crooked, I thought they would collapse on me at any moment. My panic faded as another wagon passed close by, and I realized the street upon which we traveled must be very narrow.

  Town did not smell like the farm. The odors of straw, animals, and manure were fainter, muted by the smells of people, privies, fire, and cooking food. There were also other, foreign scents I did not know, that were sharp, spicy, and sour in turns. The air seemed thicker and warmer here, as well, but the walls likely blocked some of the cold winter winds.

  My mouth sagged as I saw a shabbily robed man pause in a space between two walls, lift the front of his simla, and make his water on the ground. He did so without hesitation, right there where anyone could see him. Others walked past him, evidently unconcerned.

  No wonder Hazor smells like an open privy, I thought as the wagon turned a corner. The people use it as one.

  I did not know how much farther the driver had to travel, but I did not wish to wait until his final stop to get off. I kept the sacks over me and crawled slowly on my hands and belly toward the edge of the wagon bed. When the driver passed through a shadowed area between two of the standing torches, I shook off the sacks and slid from the wagon to the ground.

  Ugh. I knew from the feel and the smell that both of my feet had landed in a chilly mixture of mud and manure. I did not wait to scrape it off, but hurried to the nearest dark niche I could find. The door within the mud-brick entry was closed, but I stood there only until the wagon had disappeared from my sight before stepping out o
nto the street.

  Jehovah save us. I tried not to stare as I walked along, but my eyes wanted to jump out of my head. I had never seen so many people in such a small place. Even during the coldest nights, when we brought the flock from the sheepfold into the barns and lean-tos to shelter them against the freezing air, it was not this crowded.

  The people of Hazor paid as much attention to me as they had the man making his water in the street. Some walked in groups, clustered together, as grapes on the vine, while others traveled in pairs or alone. Most were men in robes, but I saw a number wearing slave middo, and common laborers with their chests and arms bare, their stomachs and hips covered by a short cloth ezor knotted on one side. Some had ezor belted with a wide leather hagora, upon which hung a short sheath and sword, and I knew those to be the soldiers Tarn had worried might capture me. To run from them would only draw their attention, so I kept my head down and walked at an even, steady pace.

  I saw some women wearing long head veils and flowing kesut of many colors that covered them from shoulder to foot. They also had at least one man escorting them, as befitted a respectable female. There were few children in the streets—I knew from my master’s family that Canaanites were protective of their young ones, and did not permit them to wander off unattended—but those I saw did not wear the middo of the slave-born.

  Tarn had told me that beggars were restricted from entering Hazor and lived outside the walls of town, but I saw a number of free men who looked hungry and dirty, and who loitered nervously outside several doorways. One that I passed opened, and the man inside tossed out scraps of bread in a careless fashion. Before the door closed again, the waiting poor went down on their hands and knees on the muddy ground, scrambling to snatch up what crusts their hands had missed.

  I averted my gaze, for I knew the shame of being so hungry that even mud-soiled bread was a blessing.

  “Baal’s Eye, what a stink.” Something pushed at the back of my left shoulder, and a soft, flowery scent teased my nose. “Did you fall into a herd of sheep, boy, or what they left behind?”

  I glanced back and saw a broad, smiling face surrounded by short, gleaming brown curls. The man was short, with a thick body and prominent belly, but dressed in finely embroidered robes. His features had been colored with some of the same exotic Egyptian cosmetics that Ybyon’s wife wore, and the flower smell was coming from his person. I would have thought him a woman, if not for the style of his kesut and the high, pointed head covering with its hanging tassels, something that only the men of town wore.

  “N–neither, zaqen.” I could not call free men Adon here, or I would betray myself as a slave. I kept walking, hoping the odd fellow would not follow me.

  “Your stench is formidable.” The man caught up to me and touched my arm. “Fortunately, I have a tub and plenty of water jugs, soap, and perfumed oil. I also like to play maid. How much for this night?”

  He wished to buy the night? I shook my head, afraid to speak again.

  The man pulled me to a stop and peered at my face and neck. “By Dagon, my eyes are easily deceived. What do you here, young one? Have you taken leave of your senses, to be wandering alone in this quarter?”

  “I do not live here—my father is a merchant from the south, and we arrived this morning,” I lied in the lowest voice I could manage. “We became separated today at market. He has rooms at the inn of Dhiban, but I am lost and cannot find it.”

  “Indeed.” The red-stained lips pursed. “You have but to walk down two streets”—he pointed in one direction as he spoke—“then turn the corner right, and you will be standing before Dhiban’s inn.”

  My gratitude and relief were so sharp that my knees almost buckled. “I thank you, zaqen.”

  “I will walk with you and keep you company.” The man patted my arm. “Your father should be praised for rearing such a polite, determined, ah, person as you are. I am Parah, scribe and poet to whoever can afford my talents.”

  I could not run away from him; he knew my destination. There were two king’s guards standing on the other side of the street, and one of them was looking in my direction.

  I made my mouth smile. “It is not necessary to trouble yourself, Zaqen Parah.”

  “Nonsense.” He waved one hand back and forth. “What is your name?”

  “Meji.” It was the only male name that came into my head. “Your guidance was all the help I needed. And I think my father may be, ah, asleep by now. He was very tired.”

  “Sleeping? While his beloved Meji is missing?” Parah shook his head so that his curls bounced. “Surely not.”

  I could not think of what more to say, so I began to walk again.

  The stout scribe strolled beside me and kept talking, although much of what he said made little sense to me. “There are so many merchants and caravanners in town this month that none of my regulars are available. Then there are the Sea People, always sending their envoys and dignitaries here to bedevil our poor king, who must of course entertain them to keep the salt and purple dye flowing west. They say the torches at the palace blaze from dusk until midday. I would take my household and business and move south, if it were not for the Hebrews. My kind, they would doubtless hang from the first tree.”

  “Your kind, Zaqen Parah?” I had to ask.

  “Let me not enlighten you on that, Meji. There are some things that should remain a mystery to innocence.” He patted my arm again. “It will take days for you to wash that atrocious dye out of your hair, you know. Who wished you to look like an Egyptian beggar? Not this father, I hope. I shall have to thrash him.”

  “No, it was…” I remembered I had taken Meji’s name. “A friend.” I almost touched my head before I remembered the cinder-and-fat mixture. “I like it dark.”

  He chuckled. “You will never catch a husband looking like a Nubian boy.” I stumbled, and he put a surprisingly strong arm around me. “There, there, child, don’t look as if you mean to flee down the hill. Your breasts are small enough to be missed under that loose robe, but your braid slipped out of your collar one block back. There is not a man or boy in this town with hair that long.” He took my betraying braid and tucked it back under my kesut. “So, Meji, if that is your name, why do you pretend to be what you are not?”

  I wanted to tear out my wayward hair. “I cannot say. You will summon the king’s guards.”

  Parah laughed now. “I have no liking for those brutes, and I will not leave you alone until you tell me what you are about. I am not an innocent, you see, and as such, I am completely unable to resist such a mystery.”

  I was putting myself and Jeth in danger by doing so, but I suspected only the truth would satisfy this odd scribe.

  “My name is not Meji, as you have guessed, and I am not a boy, and the man I go to see is not my father,” I admitted. “He is a stranger visiting Hazor from Ephraim to buy sheep for his herds. There are men I know who wish to do him harm and steal his silver. I must warn him if I can.”

  Parah’s amusement faded. “Gods, child, what a tale. And I can see the truth in your eyes now.” He looked one way down the street and then the other. “It will do no good to bring the king’s men into this; such matters are better handled with discretion. We will go to Dhiban’s inn and find the man directly. What is his name?”

  “Lappidoth. He also calls himself Jeth.”

  “The Hebrew.” He did not wait for me to confirm this. “He hired me to record his purchases. A good sort, I thought, even if his people are bent on conquering Canaan one town at a time.” He eyed me. “Your name?”

  “Deborah.”

  “Another Hebrew name.” He picked up one of my hands and turned it over to run a thumb over the calluses on my palm. “You have the hands of a hard worker—or a slave.”

  “I am not running away,” I said quickly. “I only wish to keep our steward from killing this man. When I have warned Jeth, and he is safe, I will return to my master’s farm.”

  Parah gave me a shrewd look. “Yes,
I can see that you would. Come, then, Deborah. We must make haste.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  Parah said no more, and his step quickened as we hurried toward Dhiban’s inn. One young man called out to him from the window of a brightly painted building where men were going in and out, but the scribe only waved a hand and held on to my arm. It was seeing the painted face of the boy, and some of the others looking down from the windows on the second floor, that distracted me.

  “What is that place, Zaqen Parah?” I gestured back to it.

  “A brothel.” He tugged me around a half-frozen puddle and pulled his robe closer around his neck with the other hand, shuddering as a cold wind found its way through the labyrinth of walls and alleyways.

  I did not know the word. “What is that?”

  He gave me a sideways glance and uttered a laugh. “You are a farm girl, are you not? A brothel is a house of pleasure, where men go when they wish to buy time with a woman. You do know what men and women do together when they are wed?” He waited for my nod. “Those who work in a brothel are paid to do the same.”

  “But those people were all men.” I glanced back to be sure. “Do women go there to pay for them?”

  Parah laughed so hard, I thought he might do himself an injury. “Ah, Deborah,” he gasped when he could control his mirth, “I might have to buy you from your master and keep you for my own amusement. No, child, women never go there. Some men who do not care for the comforts of women do.”

  It took me a moment to work it out. “Oh, like the goat shepherds.”

  He smiled and took my arm to steer me around a corner. “Hmmm. I have heard such men called goats more than once, but never goat shepherds.”

  “I speak of two men at my master’s farm who care for each other that way. They were bought from a tribe of desert nomads. I once saw two of them exchange a kiss when they thought themselves alone.” I shrugged. “I spoke of it to Tarn, the oldest of our farmworkers. He told me that among our people such things are forbidden, but he himself did not condemn them. Love and comfort are blessed things.” I thought of Ybyon. “There is so little of it in the world.”