“We must talk, daughter.”
I flinched at the word. “I have little to say.”
“You are angry with me,” she said, arms folded across her chest.
I matched her guarded stance. “You abandoned me.”
She winced and then dug her fingers into her bright curls on either side of her face, her expression tormented. “It was agony. Leaving you there. If I had turned a dagger on my heart and plunged it in a thousand times, it would not match the pain. I did not want to go. I fought it for weeks. But I was near to showing with Rahab, and your father was desperate.”
I wrinkled my brow. “He knew?”
“No.” She sighed. “I hid it well. But the rains had been gone for a long, long time. After those prophets came through town, the land dried up and hot winds blew every trace of green away. Most of his crops were languishing, and there was no sign of a reprieve. He was desperate enough to wish that he had something to give to Baal, an offering.”
Rahab. She ran to save my sister from death? “But why—”
“Did I not take you? Because he adored you, carried you about like a doll from the moment you were born. I knew he would never give you up. If I hadn’t been absolutely certain, I would not have left. I have never seen a father love a daughter so much—ever.”
She came closer, her steps tentative, and then slowly reached out to put a hand on my cheek. The feel of my mother’s hand, gentle on my face, brought a rush of unbidden memories. “I could not have made it to Jericho with you. You were too small and too many dangers lay along the path. My only option was to run.”
I searched her face. Now that I stood in front of her, that face was completely familiar to me. A few flickering memories had clarified in my mind as she spoke: her lullabies, walking with her among the olive trees, my father slinging me over his shoulder with a hearty laugh, even tracing that hideous tattoo on her hand with my small fingertips and asking her what it meant.
“Why did you come here?” I said. “To Jericho? Back to the temple? Wasn’t Rahab in just as much danger here?”
She lifted her chin, an echo of my own stubbornness in her expression. “It wasn’t my intention to go back to the temple. This was where my parents had settled after fleeing the Hittites when I was just a little girl.”
I lifted a brow. “But if your parents were here, then why . . . ?”
“My father sold me to the temple when I was thirteen.”
Moriyah’s age. My heart bled at the thought. “How? How could he do such a thing?”
She shrugged. “My family was starving. A plague had swept through the entire country, decimating thousands. I had five younger brothers and sisters who needed food. There were no marriage prospects for me, so I was sold.”
My mind screamed out against the injustice, the revulsion. Girls, no more than a commodity, were sold every day, sometimes to protect the family, other times to further a father’s fortune. It was the way of this land that I sprang from. A land where human life was held in such little esteem that infants were fed to a fire to placate greedy gods.
Yahweh’s laws insisted that women be protected, daughters not be sold as slaves, and men stay faithful to their own wives. I longed to be there, among the Hebrews, where my baby would be protected from such evils. But in this city, the level of degradation seemed to know no bounds.
I would do anything, anything in my power, to protect this life inside me. I would never allow anything to befall this child, even if it meant losing my own life. My mother’s justifications for leaving did not satisfy. “You should have taken me.”
She shook her head. “I could not.”
“Why? You could have paid a traveling caravan to escort you, found one with a few women perhaps, so you would have been safe—we would have been safe.”
“I knew they would not allow it.”
“Who would not?”
“The head priestess.”
“I thought you came back here to be with your family.”
Her voice quivered. “It was my hope that they would welcome me . . .”
“But they refused?”
“They did. They still could not afford to take me on, especially with Rahab on the way. I knew this was a real possibility when I left. One child was enough. Two would have been out of the question.”
“So you went back.”
Guilt hung heavy on her face, pulling at the corners of her eyes. Something I had noticed almost immediately when she’d shown up in that dark room—a depth of sadness that haunted even her laughter.
“I did. I wished I could have found a way. It was all I knew, other than your father. I met him here, you know, in Jericho, soon after his first wife died. Did you know that?”
“No. He never spoke of you except to say that you had run back to prostitution.”
She paused, taking a trembling breath. “I deserved that. I am sorry that I hurt him, but I did what I felt was right at the time. Perhaps I handled it poorly, did not give him credit. He cared for you well, didn’t he?”
She put up a hand again, to caress my cheek, but I stepped back.
“My father took care of me. He protected me, sometimes even from my brothers, but he could not take the place of the mother who left me. You have no idea the pain you caused. The isolation, the mocking that I endured at the hands of the people in the village. I was ‘the daughter even the whore didn’t want.’”
Tears filled her eyes, but I ignored them. The words begged for release, I’d held them in too long. “Perhaps you thought you were doing what was best for me, but what you did, abandoning me, was worse than if I had been offered to Baal.”
My mother wept, the kohl around her eyes dripping a black stream onto her pale yellow dress. I was almost glad for it; for as many tears as I had shed as a child, she deserved to weep. My breath was coming fast, and I threw my words like knives at her, each tip a little sharper.
“You left me. Alone. In a village that despised me. With a father who saw me only as a reminder of your abandonment. You stole my childhood, left me nothing, and walked away. I will never leave my baby.” I placed my hand over my belly and my mother’s eyes followed. I watched understanding dawn on her face. “I will never leave this child in the care of someone else, for anything. My heart beats for the child.”
She backed away, slowly, as if unsure of her balance, then turned and walked to the doorway. With a hand on the latch, she paused. “My heart has always beat for you, and for Rahab, as much as yours does for the child you carry. Perhaps I made the wrong choice.” She looked back over her shoulder, determination in the set of her jaw. “I know you have suffered, and Rahab has suffered. But you are alive, and Rahab is alive, and for that I cannot regret my decision.”
35
Tobiah
27 SHEVAT
1407 BC
CAMP AT ABEL-SHITTIM
The fire cracked and popped, sparks shattering from one of the logs as it disintegrated and tumbled into the ashes of its predecessors. Smoke burned my eyes as I stared into the glowing embers, wishing I could blink away the memories they stirred of the fire in Alanah’s eyes during the last of our hunts together six months ago—the day we came across the little fox in the woods and shut out the rest of the world beneath the tamarisk tree.
Tzipi startled me with a toe into my back. “You planning to guard that fire all day?”
I ignored her and leaned back on my palms, stretching my legs out as if settling in. There wasn’t much else I could do. The thrill of victory over the forces of Bashan had long melted into boredom. We’d been camped here on this large plain at the foot of a mountain range for months, watching the leaves fade and wither, shivering beneath our blankets as the snow glazed the tops of the nearest peaks with white, and then into a new season where an astounding number of birds traveled north above our heads. The river to the west had begun to rise as the snows melted, hurrying through the valley on its pointless rush to the Salt Sea.
“Tobiah,” sh
e insisted.
My sister’s persistence had become grating. For the thousandth time I wished Shimon were here to diffuse her relentless nagging.
“What do you want, Tzipi? Are you here just to harass me over Keziah again?”
“No.” She returned my scowl. “I want you to come with me to the traders that arrived yesterday, to see if I can barter some spices for these wool blankets.” She lifted a bundle in her hands to give testament to the statement.
“Oh.” I relaxed my fisted hands on my thighs. Perhaps for once I might avoid the cycle of arguments she constantly instigated. She didn’t need a guard to go to the traders’ wagons, her tongue was sharper than any sword lately, honed by grief over Shimon and Moriyah.
“But now that you bring up the subject—” She tucked the blankets beneath her arm with a pat.
“Tzipi . . .” Her name came out like a growl.
She lifted a palm like a shield. “Brother, I understand you are still upset over that Canaanite woman—”
Another protest kindled in my throat.
She pursed her lips. “I mean . . . over Alanah. But how much longer will this go on? She is not coming back and Keziah has been more than patient. She has loved you since we were children, Tobiah. She will be a good wife to you. You know this.”
I did know this. Keziah was everything a man could want in a woman. Sweet-natured, intelligent, attractive, Torah-abiding—and she had waited, far longer than I had expected.
Tzipi knelt down beside me. “I know I have been no better than a crow cackling in your ear over this, Tobiah. But I want what is best for you. You need a wife. You need a partner, like I had in Shimon. These battles will come to an end. You will not be a warrior forever.” She pointed toward the river in the west. “Over there is a new life. A home. Land where we can raise our children in the knowledge of Yahweh, just as our parents wanted. Let the past go and cross into your future. It is time to do the right thing.”
The right thing. I had always done the right thing. After my brothers wasted their lives on rebellion, my parents were heartbroken. Even as a four-year-old boy, I’d been keenly aware of the change, especially in my mother. She had wasted away to nothing, many days refusing to eat and spending her days lying on her pallet, vacant-eyed, staring into the void.
There were days she had rallied, smiling and chatting with us around the fire, but her laughter was hollow, as if all her joy had disintegrated. Less than three years later, she’d walked off a cliff.
My father had lasted only a few more years. If his spirit was crippled by his children’s and grandchildren’s deaths, my mother’s had destroyed it. It didn’t matter that I had always obeyed him, protected my sister like a lion, and never spoken a word of disrespect to either of them. It wasn’t enough to keep him from embracing death with both arms.
My sister reached over to ruffle my hair. “Come now. What’s the use of having a huge bear of a brother if he won’t protect me from those menacing traders?”
“I’ve heard most of those new traders are women, Moabite women, and a few Midianites as well.”
“Truly?”
I nodded. The Moabites must be cowards to send in their women to do their trading. Although after the way we had crushed Og’s fearsome army, I could barely blame them.
She shrugged a shoulder. “I would still feel safer if you came with me. You never know what could happen.”
“You are probably right.” I allowed a teasing smile to crawl across my lips. “Women are far more dangerous anyhow.”
I had always stayed away from the traders that frequented the edges of our camps and was surprised at the amount of wooden idols brazenly displayed on the tables. Surely no Hebrew would buy such a thing, especially in full view of the Cloud hovering over the mountains to the east, as if keeping an eye on the dealings. The strong smell of exotic spices stung my eyes as Tzipi fingered a headscarf with intricate purple embroidery.
“Do you like it? What do you have to trade?” said a Midianite woman behind the table. Her eyes were heavily rimmed in green and black kohl, and gold rings lined her ear from top to bottom. I attempted to keep my eyes only on her face, but the dress she wore was practically sheer on top and tied at the shoulders with only the thinnest of straps.
Tzipi glared at her but kept stroking the headscarf. “I have a wool blanket, but this scarf is not worth such fine craftsmanship.”
“What do you mean?” asked the woman. “This scarf was made by the Phoenicians, the masters of purple dye. They harvest a snail that emits this color and have perfected the process to ensure complete saturation. There is no other color that comes close to its beauty, do you not agree?” She raised a brow, challenging Tzipi to barter back. Once the spices my sister had been searching for were included, the deal was completed with ease. Tzipi turned away with satisfaction on her lips and the expensive headscarf tucked in her basket.
Before I could follow Tzipi into the crush of people gathered around the traders’ wagons, the woman slipped out from behind her wagon and grabbed my arm. “Will you be coming tonight? There is to be a festival, over there.” She pointed to the south, where the acacias grew in dense groves along the foothills. She looked me up and down, grazing my arms, chest, and face with unapologetic appreciation.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. “No, I will not be coming. I have a family to tend to.”
“A wife?” She tilted her chin to the side and peered at me.
The word pierced me. “No.”
“Surely a strong man like you has a wife?” She put a hand on my bicep, and I felt it flex without conscious thought. Her eyes glittered, black and dangerous.
A smile curled on her lips and she raised both brows. “Come,” she said, honey in her tone, “we are all related, are we not, sons and daughters of our father Avraham?”
Yes, the Midianites were related to us, descended from Ketubah, Avraham’s concubine. Illegitimate relations, and far from the worship of Yahweh.
Her teeth tugged at her lower lip as she stroked the beads that hung low around her neck, drawing my eyes where they should not go. “Perhaps we can find a way to meet later?”
The ache for Alanah had not ebbed since she had walked out of my life months ago, an ache that even the bloody battle of Bashan did not assuage. I missed everything about her, the curve of her full lower lip, those bewitching eyes full of mischief and allure, the smell of her skin . . . Perhaps Tzipi was right that I needed another woman to wash my mind of her—
No. This Midianite woman offered only a temporary solution to a lifelong problem, a solution that would cause me only more pain. This was certainly not the right way to erase my cravings for Alanah, and surprisingly I had no desire to do so, nor to entertain thoughts of replacing my wife with another. Perhaps I’d consider such a thing after we had reclaimed Avraham’s inheritance, but for now my place was alongside my brothers, sword in hand.
I jerked away from the Midianite woman’s clutch. “Take your wares somewhere else, they cost more than I am willing to pay.”
I walked straight west, pushing through the long grass until I could walk no more and the swollen river blocked my escape. The plains across the river were so green, so lush, it was almost painful to look and not be able to cross right away. The Promised Land my father had died before seeing was right there, in front of me now.
The river rushed through the landscape, threading between us and Jericho. I squinted at the city I knew lay far off in the distance at the foot of the western hills, a city rumored to be ringed by two fortress walls, guarded day and night by a huge standing army.
After seeing Og’s forces trod into the dirt by our own, with few casualties on our side, I had no doubt Jericho would be taken and, with the rush of frustration in my veins running as high as the water below me, I could not wait to plunge into the fray.
36
Alanah
27 SHEVAT
1407 BC
Arms folded, I leaned on the worn st
one sill. A breeze caressed my face, bringing with it the fragrance of the almond groves bursting with soft pink blossoms as I stared off to the east. Rahab’s inn was built against the high outer wall of Jericho, her windows exposing the view toward the orange hills of Moab off in the distance and, below them, although too far away to see, the Hebrews’ encampment. Jericho’s army lay between us, blocking any lingering idea I had of returning Moriyah to her family and giving truth to the rumors: The Hebrews were coming. Tobiah is coming.
Moriyah squeezed in next to me and patted my belly. “How much longer until she comes?”
I laughed at her dogged insistence that this squirming, kicking person inside me was female. “Not too much longer, I hope. This baby is a warrior, I assure you. My insides are one large bruise.” I arched my spine and rubbed my lower back, where a throbbing ache had taken up residence since yesterday.
“Well, she will be just like her ima, then.” Moriyah nudged me with her elbow. “Look at the Cloud over there. It’s so clear today. I think I see the sun sparkling off the river.”
The column of unearthly swirling colors hovered over the tallest peak directly east of us and, although it seemed small from where I stood, I knew its actual size well. Every morning for four months I had watched it, hoping it would move closer, signaling that the Hebrews were on the move. Every day it stayed anchored to the top of the ridge. Why are they waiting?
“When will they come?” Moriyah echoed my thoughts.
“If I knew”—I gestured behind me, in the direction of the palace—“the king of Jericho would be first in line to hear the answer, I am sure.”
My mother had informed me that the city practically vibrated with tension. Wild rumors abounded in the streets—tales of the vicious Hebrews and how they bested Pharaoh by smothering every firstborn in Egypt by hand, how they used powerful spells to walk through the sea on dry land, and how they destroyed King Og with fire from the magic box they carried at the center of their multitude. Mosheh was heralded as an ageless sorcerer with control over the glowing storm cloud, and Yehoshua, a giant descended from Ba’al himself.
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