Deborah's Story

by Ann Burton

  “Release her,” I heard my master say, his voice sounding far away. “I am not a cruel man. You have only to tell me what you have done, and where Lappidoth is, and you will not be punished for your crime. In fact, I will reward you. I will move you up to the house, and you can work in the kitchen.”

  Ybyon’s mouth stretched wide as he said this. I had never seen my master smile at me, so it seemed a ghastly thing to appear on his face.

  “She would stuff herself until she burst,” Hlagor muttered. “They all do.”

  “No, I think she would be careful with my stores,” Ybyon said. “You would like working in the kitchen, wouldn’t you, girl?”

  I would. Although some of the kitchen slaves had been unkind, Seres had treated me fairly, and I thought it would not be a hardship serving under his direction. House slaves were worked hard, but they were also fed well. I would not be given overmuch, but I would never be cold or go hungry again.

  This seductive offer from my master was another bowl of honey, tipped into my hands—but if I tasted of it, Jeth would die. For his sake, I kept my silence.

  He motioned to Hlagor, who dragged me over to the side of the wagon. Then Ybyon cupped my chin with his hand.

  “Your mother once used her sight for me,” Ybyon said. “She foresaw my buying a herd of sheep, but they were diseased, and would have spread their sickness to the rest of the animals on the farm. I heeded her warning and did not buy them. Another farmer in Hatala did, and suffered the losses she had predicted. Of course, her gift belonged to me, as she did. As you do. Only you use your foresight to warn my enemy.”

  I shook my head, trying not to feel his touch, trying not to fall into a waking dream. “I knew of your intentions only because I overheard you speaking to Adon Hlagor about the Hebrew merchant,” I said, for that, too, was the truth.

  “You are my property,” Ybyon said, very insistent now. “All that is yours is mine. Your thoughts, your foresight, all of it. Now, tell me what you see.”

  I said nothing, for I saw what he had done to my mother.

  My master struck me in the face with his fist, knocking me down again. I could not control my fall, and my head landed heavily against the wood. I almost slipped into the darkness pressing around me, but I knew my life would end soon enough. I wanted to be awake for every moment left to me.

  A rough hand stuffed the rag back into my mouth.

  “Take her back,” I heard Ybyon say. “I must make arrangements for tomorrow.”

  “Why not cut her throat and dump her here?” Hlagor demanded. “It will save burying the body, and give me another chance to find the Hebrew again.”

  “No, she warned him well enough to scare him away from you; if he is wise, he will stay out of sight until the morning. He did not strike me as a stupid man.” My master turned away. “When you get to the farm, take her and lock her in the fleece shed. I will decide tomorrow how she dies.”

  My furtive trip to Hazor from the farm had seemed to take weeks, but the ride back lasted only a few minutes. I lay bound and helpless behind Hlagor, ignoring the jolts and bumps as I stared up at the night sky, and tried to accept what had happened to me.

  All that is yours is mine. Your thoughts, your foresight, all of it.

  My master had terrified me since I was first old enough to witness his capacity for cruelty, but his words betrayed his ignorance. He knew nothing about being a slave. He owned our bodies and directed our labors, and he decided how much we lived, slept, ate, and worked. That was his right, but that was all. That he believed he had the right to our souls made him seem greedy and ridiculous—a spoiled child. No one could own the thoughts and feelings of another. No one could call another’s gift of sight property.

  Was this why my mother had not fought harder for her life, the day when Ybyon had killed her? Had she finally seen him for what he was?

  I had been told that my master had killed my mother, but no one would speak of the reasons for it. Now, after enduring his touch, I knew what had happened.

  That ten sheep had died in the sickness pen overnight had not been Dasah’s fault, for they carried an uncommon kind of worms that killed swiftly. She and the other slaves had separated them from the flock, expecting them to die. The master had called her from the barn, and shown her the carcasses, and demanded to know why they were dead.

  I could see her calm face through his eyes, and the straightness of her back as she answered: They were too weak to be put to graze on well-used pasture.

  Ybyon became quiet, and asked her if more animals would die, and how many he would lose. When my mother shrugged, he struck her, and dragged her over among the dead sheep. Dasah made no sound when he threw her upon the carcasses, or when he drew his knife.

  Tell me what the worm sickness would do to my flocks, the master demanded.

  My mother told him the truth. They will end in the same place as the owner of the pasture upon which they graze.

  Hearing for myself her last words made my stomach heave, and I swallowed burning bile.

  I had been there, as well, little more than a toddler, following my mother when Ybyon had called her. I had stood by the gate of the pen, watching. The master had shown me to myself as he looked up just before he seized my mother by her hair and jerked back her head, putting his blade to her throat.

  Dasah’s gaze met mine, and a sad, gentle smile curved her lips.

  Tarn picked me up from the ground and clamped a hand over my mouth, so that the master did not hear my wordless screams as he pulled the blade from right to left. Through streaming tears I once more watched my mother’s blood gush onto the muddy ground. Tarn’s strong arms kept my writhing, kicking form from hurling itself over the fence to go to her.

  In my dreams, my mother had always told me that we were so much more than our bodies, or what we were made to do with them. Ybyon could never own that part of us that Jehovah had created, and that would return to Jehovah when freed from the prison of our flesh. I desperately wanted to believe that was true.

  Inside, we are always free, Dasah had said.

  The stars, which had always seemed so cold and distant, appeared quite beautiful to me now. Like tiny fires they were, shooting off sparks of color I could just make out. I had thought them white, but there were circles around them, glittering, perfect rounds of blue, green, red, and purple. Or perhaps it was the tears in my eyes that turned the starlight into tiny rainbow rings. I wondered if tomorrow night my soul would be up there in the heavens, wandering about those points of light.

  Do not fear death, my mother had said to me in my dreams. It will be like sleeping, but a peaceful slumber, not one filled with the torment of visions that we suffer as living beings. No, daughter, death will be an endless night of no dreams, spent cradled in the arms of one you have loved, one who went to Jehovah’s kingdom of heaven before you, and even now waits for you to join them.

  I did not think I was afraid of dying anymore. Everyone died. The only one who had ever loved me had been Dasah, so if she were right, I would see her very soon. Jeth, too, would have someone he had loved. Whoever it was, I hoped they had to wait for a very long time to embrace him.

  “Get up.”

  The wagon had stopped, and Hlagor reached over and prodded me. I struggled to get my knees under me, but I took too long, and he swore as he dragged me by a handful of my kesut off the wagon bed and onto my bound ankles.

  The dark fleece shed stood just beyond the wagon.

  “Your mother should have seen for me,” the steward complained as he tossed me over his shoulder. The master must have beaten him badly, for he winced or groaned with every moment. “I would have taken her to wife. He owed me that much.”

  If I had wished to answer him, the rag prevented it. But I had nothing to say to Hlagor. He was as blindly evil as my master, or perhaps worse, for unlike Ybyon, he had no reason to despise Hebrews.

  He stopped suddenly and put me down, holding me by the arm while he pulled the rag from my mou
th.

  “I know you are a witch. You will speak now or I will use my fists on you.” He did not wait for an agreement from me. “When will the master keep his vow to me? Soon? How many sheep will he give me?”

  I had no desire to summon a waking dream for one such as Hlagor, but his words acted like a spell. A vision of a storm filled my eyes from within, and a voice that was not my own began to speak of what I was seeing.

  “There will be no sheep, no fortune, no wife, no children,” I heard this low, terrible voice say. “You will have only your master’s lies, until you speak the truth before the king.”

  “King Jabin?” He cuffed me with his fist. “You are mad. A king would never listen to a common slave.”

  Even with my ears ringing from the hard blow, I saw his death, and the voice came from me again. “Jabin will listen, but that truth will not save you, nor will the king’s iron. At the mountain, you will run. Among the many, you will die alone. Where there is no water, you will drown.”

  Hlagor stared down at me, his face a pale smear against the black night. “Even Dasah did not dare curse me,” he whispered.

  “The lives you have taken have cursed you, son of Tamur,” I said before the vision dimmed, and the strength went out of my limbs. My body sagged between his hands.

  Hlagor dragged me over the ground and into the cold, dark fleece shed, where he dropped me like a sack of feed. He stood over me for a long moment, a silver blade in his fist.

  “I should kill you,” he said, his voice trembling. “It is not a difficult thing, you know. I have done it a dozen times. I can tell the master you seized my knife and plunged it into your own heart.”

  “With my hands bound behind my back as they are?” I gazed up at him, unsure of why I was taunting him so openly but not caring. “Better to untie me first, or make a better lie. Tell him that I stumbled and fell on it. He might actually believe you.”

  “You smirk at me now, when tomorrow he will have me tie you to the standing stones.” He put the blade back in the leather sheath tied to his hagora. “I will ask the master to give me the whip, and let me beat you. I will remove the skin from your back one strip at a time. Then we will see how you laugh, witch.”

  “You have done most of his killing for him,” I reminded him. “How much longer do you think he will permit you to live, steward?”

  Hlagor walked out of the fleece shed and slammed the door, bolting it from the outside. I could not see anything until my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and then I inched my way over to a pile of shorn, uncarded bundles of wool. They had not been washed, but they would keep me warm, and I squirmed under them. As I grew warmer, my shivering ceased. All there was to see inside the shed was the rough wood-planked walls and the dirt floor, but the familiar smell of sheep comforted me.

  Now all I need do was make my peace with God, for in the morning, I would die.

  CHAPTER

  9

  Deborah,” someone whispered urgently.

  I lifted my head and saw a bright eye looking through a knothole in one of the wall planks. “Go back to the barn, Meji,” I whispered back. “Hlagor may be watching.”

  “He took the wagon and rode out of here as though chased by wolves.” The wooden bar bolting the door lifted, and my friend came inside and knelt down beside me. He began working at the knots of my bonds. “You were caught in town.”

  “Yes.” I grimaced as the cords around my wrists tightened briefly. “By the master himself.”

  Meji shook his head and tugged the cord from my arms, and then he went to work on my ankles. “What of the Hebrew merchant?”

  “I found Jeth in time to warn him. He has taken sanctuary with a scribe who was kind enough to help me.” I rubbed my sore wrists. “Go, now, and tell Tarn and the others to be careful tomorrow. The master is very angry, and you know how he takes out his temper on everyone.”

  He removed the cord from my ankles. “Ybyon will kill you for this.” He threw the cord across the shed.

  I had never seen Meji so upset. “Do not be angry, my friend. It is the last time he will hurt me, and I am glad of it. By tomorrow night I will be with Dasah again, in the kingdom of heaven.” I was not sure of that, but I desperately wished it to be true.

  “Did you not see this happening?” Meji demanded. “What good is this gift of yours if it costs you your life?”

  “I could do nothing else. Jehovah expects much of us, but my sacrifice was not made in vain. I saved a man’s life.” I smiled, thinking of Jeth. “A good man, I think.”

  “Yes, a good and rich man. What will this Lappidoth do, once he leaves Hazor? Return to Ephraim, and live surrounded by luxuries until he is ancient and dies a painless death.” Meji made a disgusted sound. “It is not right.”

  I sighed as I reached down to rub my fingers against my ankles. “It is as it is.” I thought about telling Meji of Jeth’s offer to take me with him—that way, he would know the merchant was not so selfish as he thought. But Meji would be furious with me for not seizing the chance to escape. A sound from outside the shed made me go still—the heavy scrape and thud of wood against wood—and then the slide of footsteps through the grass.

  I scrambled to the door, but it was too late. Someone had dropped the bar into the bolt slots, trapping Meji inside the shed with me.

  The shed defeated every attempt we made to find a way out of it. Its walls were too thick, and the dirt floor beneath them too hard-packed to dig out with our hands. The bolt rendered the door immovable.

  “Someone must have seen you come here.” I gave up and sat beside the pile of fleeces. “You said you saw Hlagor driving away? Could he have noticed you and come back?”

  “He looked to be in a rage,” Meji said. “I do not think he would have seen an ox if it had crossed his path.”

  I stared at the wool beside me. “When the master comes for me in the morning, you will hide under the wool.”

  He drew back, indignant. “I shall not.”

  “Listen to me,” I snapped. “If you think the master will delight in finding you here, you are right. It will make him very happy. For him, real joy is having reason to beat to death two Hebrew slaves.”

  “So I should hide like a coward in here and starve slowly?” He snorted. “I would rather it be quick.”

  I ignored that. “I will find a way to make Tarn know you are trapped in here. No one will be watching the shed after the master finishes with me. By nightfall tomorrow, Tarn will likely free you.” Absently I reached up to brush the sticky fringe of hair back from my brow.

  “Unless the one who dropped the bolt betrays me,” Meji reminded me, his tone curiously one of satisfaction. “Then I think the master will have his great delight.”

  Weariness devoured my desire to stay awake on this, the last night of my life, and I lay back on the wool. “I am tired and cold. Come here and sleep with me.”

  “You are too restless,” he said, crouching down beside me to tickle my toes. “And your feet are as two lumps of ice.”

  I held out my arms. “Then hold me still, and warm me.”

  Meji crawled into the nest of fleeces and wedged himself against my back. His arm went around my waist, and I felt his chin touch the curve of my shoulder. “When you go to sleep, do you fear the dreams?”

  I shook my head and snuggled against him. “They are part of me, like my legs or my hands. How could I fear that?” It was almost true.

  “Easily.” He shifted, and kissed my shoulder. “If we are to die together tomorrow, it seems right that we have this last night in each other’s arms.”

  I turned so that I faced him. Meji was not handsome, but his smile lit up his countenance the way the sun filled the sky on a cloudless day. I cared deeply for him, but he had never touched my heart.

  Even on this, our last night, I could not deceive him. “You are my good friend, and I care for you and would make you happy, but…”

  He pressed his fingers to my lips. “I know how you think o
f me, Deborah. I—”

  Whatever he had meant to say was lost as the bolt outside was removed and the shed door flung open. Quickly I pushed some fleeces atop my friend to cover him before looking over. I expected to see Hlagor or the master stride in, but it was a woman who stepped over the threshold.

  “Let him up, stable girl,” she snapped, coming to stand over me. “You may die in the morning, but he will live, no thanks to you.”

  Meji pulled away the wool covering his face. The sight of the kitchen wench made him groan. “Not you again.”

  “I could not leave you here.” The woman’s voice became wheedling as she held out her hand to Meji. “Come. Everyone sleeps now, so it is safe. I have brought food from the master’s kitchen for you. More of the cheese that you liked so much.”

  I frowned. So he had been telling the truth when he said he hadn’t stolen it from Seres.

  “No.” Meji leaned back and put an arm around me. He looked rather defiant. “I will stay here the night with Deborah.”

  The kitchen wench didn’t like hearing that. “They find you here with her, you will be tied up and whipped beside her.”

  He moved his shoulders. “It matters not.”

  “Please. Whoever locked you in with her will return soon and punish both of us.” Her words did not move Meji, and tears began rolling down her plump cheeks. “I beg you, do not do this. You do not have to love me, but do not waste your life on her. She is not worthy of you.”

  From her tone, it seemed that she thought no one was.

  That explained her sneaking food to Meji, and her enjoyment in tormenting me. This woman was in love with my friend, who was indifferent to her—or was he?

  I reached out and grasped the other woman’s wrist, ignoring how she tried to wriggle out of my hold. The waking dream slipped over me, a veil of fine silk.

  “Wadina, daughter of a trader from the north and his favorite concubine,” I murmured. “You saw Meji cross from the barn to the shed. You bolted the door only to frighten him, so that he might have cause to be grateful to you when you released him. You wish me dead so I will not stand between you.”