Empty-handed, I turned to face my greatest regret.
45
Tzipi stood before me with an inscrutable expression on her face. I braced myself, anticipating the words that would fly from her lips, echoes of her last conversation with me. Murderer . . . pay for what you did . . . no mercy . . .
“Thank you,” she said.
I flinched in surprise, then clenched my jaw to prevent it from sagging open.
“Thank you for saving Moriyah. She would not have survived without you.”
I stumbled over my response. “I could not—I would not have allowed anything to happen to her.”
“She told me everything. The traders, the river, Jericho. How you took her place in the temple . . .” She choked on her words.
“I would have done anything to protect her.”
Tears glittered in her eyes. “But to offer yourself in place of a Hebrew?”
I shrugged. “Her life is worth more than mine.”
Tzipi pursed her lips and shook her head. “Moriyah is precious, but the sacrifice of your own life was a weighty thing. Do not discount it.”
“How can you say these things?” I felt a surge of something hot and defensive in my chest. “You know what I did.”
The corners of her mouth twitched down. “My Shimon was my heart. He was everything good and kind and strong and I loved him with my whole being. But he died in war, Alanah. It may have been your arrow that pierced his side, but it would have been someone else’s otherwise. Yahweh chose that time for him to die.” She paused, pulling in a heavy breath, looking toward the wasted city in the south. “I don’t know why, perhaps it was because Tobiah needed to find you so that you would be in Jericho at the right time to meet your sister and share what you knew with her.”
Facing me again, she took a step toward me, her voice growing stronger. “Think, Alanah, of how many lives were saved because of your presence in that city. The spies, your sister and her family, those girls from the temple.”
The memory of the Voice whispered in my ear. Yahweh had used me, even when I was an enemy of his people. He had surrounded me in protection, even when I had no regard for my own life. He had swept up the ugly chaff of my life, burned it away, and somehow what was left was worth more than I could ever imagine. The depths of such mercy astounded me.
Tzipi’s brown-eyed gaze fluttered to the ground. “I must ask your forgiveness.”
“My forgiveness? I killed your husband!”
“Yes, your forgiveness. Mine has already been given.”
“But why? I stole your sons’ father!”
“No. What you did, you did out of ignorance and hurt. If Yahweh gave you mercy, then I have no right to withhold my own.” The sincerity in her clear eyes astounded me, and I wondered for the first time if she and I could build a friendship from the ashes of such destruction.
“Tobiah loves you, you know,” Tzipi said.
I jerked back as if she’d slapped me.
“I must also ask your forgiveness for pestering him to marry Keziah after you left.”
“It is for the best,” I said, my heart plunging to the pit of my stomach. “I am glad that he was spared from more battle for the past few months. I’d rather he be married to Keziah than dead.”
Tzipi’s face contorted with confusion for a moment, before mystifying humor dawned in her eyes. A sly smile played across her lips.
“Tobiah is not married to Keziah, Alanah.”
“What do you mean?”
“Keziah was betrothed to another man, right after we crossed into Canaan. No matter how much I pushed him, Tobiah refused to ask for her hand.”
I heard her words but they did not make sense; they seemed garbled somehow, twisted. “But—but, why?”
“Because even when he thought you had left him because you did not return his love, he could not let you go.”
Tzipi’s form blurred in front of me, and the dam of my heart burst. I bowed my head and let the tears flow. The woman who had hated me with such passion rubbed circles on my back, speaking words of comfort and reassurance into my ear.
“But Shimon . . .” My voice warbled. “I killed his closest friend. How will I tell him?”
“He knows, Alanah. I told him after Shaul and Peniah told us they had seen you and Moriyah. He was devastated, but it did not change what he feels for you. If anything, it helped explain why you ran away and gave him hope that if he found you in Jericho, you would return to him.”
Hope? Was there such a thing left between Tobiah and me? I wiped my face with the back of my hand, my gaze cutting to the black mark tattooed there. How could I ask him to bind himself to such shame? What could bridge the river of pain and loss between us? My head snapped up as the answer came to my mind, along with another question. “Does he know about Natanyah?”
“We all decided to leave that revelation to you. He has mostly avoided camp since he brought you back from the city. I think he believes the baby is your sister’s.”
At least I had a small measure of leverage. “Where is he?”
“I believe he went up over that ridge.” She pointed to the southwest. “Someone spotted a pack of gazelles grazing there early this morning. He went to hunt.”
“Good. I’ll need a few things before I go look for your brother.” I lifted a brow. “One should always be well-armed for battle. Don’t you think?”
Tzipi’s lips curved into a genuine, conspiratorial smile. “How can I help?”
46
Tobiah
The herd of gazelles had left me trailing behind long ago. I’d given up easier than I should have. But for some reason I did not care, I only desired to get as far away from camp as I could. Lush green flooded the valley, all the way to where the river glittered under the midday sun. A field of flowers, their red heads bobbing in the quiet breeze, spread out in front of my resting place beneath a stand of flowering trees.
I was tired. More tired than I had been after crossing swords with some of the fiercest soldiers on the earth. Today my body felt the weight of my heritage dragging behind me and pushing against me from ahead. What would this beautiful land hold for me? And how long would it take before I could lay down my sword and simply rest in its abundance?
I leaned my head back against the trunk of a tamarisk and peered up through the feathery leaves, inhaling the sweet fragrance of its resin. Honeybees bumbled around between the pink blossoms.
The last time I had enjoyed the shade of such a tree, Alanah had been my wife. After delivering her unconscious body to the tent appointed by Yehoshua to her family, I’d spent the last two days in the wild and the night under the stars, away from the draw of the woman who caused such a violent reaction in my soul.
I missed her with every fiber of my being, but I would not force her to stay with me. She had found her family, a family that, by all appearances, seemed to love her. Her mother and sister had hovered around her like ruffled hens as we’d returned to camp, regarding me with protective suspicion in their kohl-rimmed eyes.
Moriyah, with her poor, damaged face, had sought me out to tell me what had happened after they were taken on the road. Her assurances that Alanah had done everything possible to protect everyone around her with little regard for her own safety and dignity, made my respect for her deepen even further.
But from the beginning, I’d told her I would not hold her to a vow she’d made under duress if she chose not to stay, and I would hold to my word, even if it slayed me all over again. I would release Alanah to Yahweh’s safekeeping alone.
A blue and green sun-bird fluttered into the sky from a branch above me, startled by some sound nearby, its wings flashing like metal in the sun.
“Tobiah? Are you there?”
Alanah? I hesitated, gathering my composure before coming out from under the tree. The contrast of bright light after the shadows under its canopy caused Alanah’s form to swim before my eyes for a moment. Was she truly here? Fording through a sea of red flowers t
o find me? Her fingers grazed the petals of one of the taller blossoms as she approached. Disturbed by her intrusion into their perches, a few orange-winged butterflies danced into the air behind her.
A mixture of nerves and eagerness that had no business thrumming in a warrior’s chest struck up a steady beat. Her hair had grown to her shoulders, and the sight of it shining red-gold in the sun added desire to the hum of anticipation in my limbs. The soft blue woolen tunic she wore reminded me of Tzipi, but as Alanah came within a few paces, I realized that the gaudy earrings and beaded nose-ring were still in place, though her eyes were no longer smudged with kohl. Surging indignation replaced the pleasant sensations from before. She was not returning to me. Moriyah had assured me that it was the priestess who had dressed her in such indecent garb, but after living all those months with her mother and sister, she must have assimilated back into life in Canaan. It still held her in its grip. A leather satchel was slung over her shoulder. Had she come to say goodbye before her family fled together?
“Why are you hiding?” she said, as if seven months had not passed behind us. As if she were simply wondering where I had been during a hunt.
I shrugged a shoulder, playing the game. “Getting out of the heat.”
Her gaze dropped to my dark green tunic, and one corner of her mouth turned up. “You are wearing the tunic I made.”
I smoothed a hand over my chest, remembering the pride and amusement I’d experienced when I’d discovered what she had done. “Of course I am, I found my brown one in pieces the morning you disappeared.” I lifted a brow in challenge.
A spark of mischief flared in her eyes. “Oh? I wonder how that could have happened? Perhaps wild animals? Surely not Bodo?” She frowned in mock concern, the tease in her tone giving me the smallest measure of hope.
“Oh, to be sure, a wildcat claiming her territory got her claws on it. But it wasn’t Bodo.” I pinned her with a look, my blood racing with the thrill of sparring with her again.
However, instead of volleying back, she turned to look out over the valley and the sparkling river to the east. She cupped a hand above her gaze. I watched her from behind, glad for the freedom to run my greedy eyes over her without notice. The breeze tangled her thin woolen dress around her legs and floated red curls in wild spirals. How I had missed this woman! How would I possibly let her walk away from me again?
The sun-bird she’d startled before returned. Hovering over us for a moment before landing again amid the pink-tipped boughs, he watched us, head cocked and one eye focused on us. He seemed to be deciding who might break the silence. I resolved that it would not be me.
“I cannot say that I regret going to that battlefield,” she said, but she did not face me. “I was hurt, confused, and alone.”
I held silent, not ready to betray my own confusion.
“And if I did not make such a foolish decision, I would not have been wounded and you would not have found me.”
A flash of memory stung me: her blood, those captivating eyes, a bright curl around my finger.
“But I wish I’d had the courage to tell you about Shimon. If I could go back to that moment, that awful moment before I released that arrow, I would. There is nothing I can do except beg your forgiveness.” She dropped her chin. The sun-bird in the tree chirruped, turning his head this way and that, as if gauging my reaction to Alanah’s words.
I felt the gentle push of Yahweh on the wall of my heart, the same push I had heeded when Alanah had exploded into my life. I obeyed the nudge. “I do not hold it against you.”
Alanah whirled, curls flying—oh, how I wanted to bury my face in their softness. “You truly forgive me?” The relief on her face was plain, she had not expected this reaction.
“You know as well as I do the risk Shimon accepted when he stepped onto that battlefield. You did not aim your arrow at my friend. Only at the people you felt had stolen your family. What you did, you did out of ignorance, Alanah. I just wish you had come to me, trusted me, when you discovered the arrow . . . instead of running away.”
That broken arrow. Why had I kept such a thing? A morbid keepsake, a reminder of the evil that had felled my brother-of-the-heart. I’d held onto it as some sort of tangible reminder of our mission to clear the Land of the Canaanites and their bloodthirsty gods, but instead it had cost me Alanah.
To my surprise, she moved forward. I planted my feet, folding my arms across my body, determined not to reach for her without invitation. Keeping her eyes on mine, she removed the gold ring in her nose.
“Put out your hand,” she said. Although I paused for a moment, I complied. She dropped the thing onto my palm. “When you found me on that battlefield, I was dead, Tobiah. As dead as if my bones had been plucked clean and left to dry in the sun.”
She removed one large gold earring and placed it in my hand. “But then Yahweh brought you to me. He granted me mercy, through your kindness. Through you, he lifted me out of my grave.”
The other gold earring landed in my palm.
“As you, and your God, began to chip away at my walls, something inside me began to be restored. And when that snake bit me, my heart stopped—it stopped, Tobiah. But Yahweh breathed life into me, revived me. He preserved my life, along with Moriyah’s and Natanyah’s, in that river. He surrounded us in protection. He never abandoned us. And since we emerged from that water, he has been continually making me into something new.”
She reached into her leather satchel and pulled out a pair of shears. “I cannot undo what is past. When I first married you, all I wanted to do was find a way to escape. But when I was taken by those traders, all I could do was think of ways to get back to you. To return to the husband I love.”
She took a step closer, her eyes swimming in tears I’d never before witnessed. I longed to drag her to me and drown in them, but her speech was not finished.
“The first time,” she said, “I complied out of desperation. But now, I want to shed everything of Canaan. I want to be your wife, with nothing of the past between us.”
She knelt down in front of me and held the shears in upturned palms, a look of raw, honest vulnerability on her face. “I offer you all of me, freely.”
Sliding one hand into her fire-colored hair, made all the more brilliant by the blaze of the sun, I accepted the shears.
“And you are sure this is what you want?”
She dipped her chin, blue-green eyes shimmering. “The outside of me does not matter, only that my heart is bound to yours for the rest of my life.”
I tossed the shears and the jewelry into the dirt, dropped to my knees, and pulled her into my arms. “You are my wife. The covenant was made the very first night, sealed with my blood. We are one.”
She trembled in my arms, tears flowing for the first time since I had known her. I brushed my lips across her cheek, tasting the saltiness of her surrendered burdens and broken-down walls.
Then I kissed my wife.
Seven months of separation melted between us like wax under a flame. Alanah, my warrior, my love, came alive under my touch. Although the feel of her lips beneath mine was familiar, something new sparked in the air, a result of the lack of barriers between us, and I could not wait to explore the depths of the heart she had finally, truly opened to me.
Behind us, the sun-bird chittered a loud chastisement as he winged into the sky. I dropped one last kiss on Alanah’s lips before relaxing my hold on her. “I guess our little friend there does not understand what it is like to be away from his wife for many months.”
With a small laugh she lifted her hand to caress my face. “Perhaps not. But I am sure his mate will be glad that he did not fly off with another.”
“Keziah is a lovely woman, but you . . .” I pulled her hand from my cheek and kissed her palm. “You set fire to everything I thought I wanted in a wife.”
Eyes locked with hers, I once again placed my lips in the center of her hand and then turned it over to survey the tattoo there. She grimaced and tr
ied to pull away, but I refused to let go.
“It is the only thing I cannot rid myself of.” Disgust edged her voice. “I’ll forever bear this mark of shame.”
“I am glad,” I said.
She looked at me as though my beard were on fire.
“Now that I know what you did for Moriyah, I will look at this and remember what a warrior I have for a wife and what pride I have to be married to a woman who would have such courage.” I kissed the black mark with a smile. “And I will ask you to repeat the story, so I can hear it all over again.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tobiah—”
“There is still one thing I do not understand,” I said as my mind wandered back through the story of her journey back to me. “Who is Natanyah?”
A mischievous grin spread across her face and she sprang to her feet. “Come,” she said with a jerk of her head that made her red curls shimmer sun-gold. “I’ll introduce you.”
Alanah’s family had been given permission to live on the outskirts of the camp, among the few foreigners who still traveled with us but had not chosen to bind themselves to Israel. Their numbers had dwindled significantly over the years, either through intermarriage with the tribes, the choice to submit to the Covenant and its laws, or the decision to part ways with us and return to wherever their ancestors had originated before they had been enslaved in Egypt. Alanah’s family would have to make the same choice in the coming days.
The campsite bustled with activity and, much to my surprise, Tzipi was among the women preparing a meal near the cookfire, along with Shira and her Egyptian friend, Kiya, who both acknowledged us with smiles before turning back to their animated conversation. During the walk back to camp, Alanah had told me the two women had been helping Rahab care for the temple girls and of course Shira had tended to both Alanah and Moriyah’s wounds. I’d be forever grateful that I’d crossed paths with the wise and strong-willed midwife the day of the battle.
Wings of the Wind Page 28