Though exhausted from lack of food and poor sleep, he kept careful watch all morning, right past the noon hour, lest one of the younger servants or women suffer injury from a stumbling beast. The official wedding party consisted of twenty men, including the king, Omri; his son, Ahab; and eight of his military officials. The other ten men were elders who could conduct private meetings during the visit and arrange the first series of trades. Obadiah, of course, didn’t count himself in the twenty. He offered neither advice nor assistance. As administrator, he was nothing more than an official scribe, and he hardly felt like a man in this elite company. Split between this band of men was a traveling army, half to ride ahead and half to follow behind. He prayed they would not need the security, but when the princess returned with them, it would be a wise precaution.
Four women traveled with them too, daughters of the elders; they would serve as maids for the new princess. They would help her acclimate more quickly and save Ahab from having to explain everything about her new home. One of the women was Mirra. Just thinking that name made his heart tense. He wished Ahab would keep better watch over her, so he would not have to see her face. But Ahab rode near the front with his father, and neither of them ever glanced back. Obadiah reached up occasionally and touched the scar on his cheek. Amon, Mirra’s father, had given it to him years ago, when Obadiah was running messages for the court. He had brought a message to Amon, but when he saw Mirra for the first time, he lost all ability to speak. Since he had no ability back then to read or write, the message was carried by mouth. Seeing him mute, Amon backhanded him, striking him with his fat signet ring. Mirra hid behind the folds of her father’s robe, her face twisted in sorrow. She had nodded to Obadiah, just once, and lifted the sleeve of her own robe. She was covered in welts. Obadiah grew to love his scar almost as much as he loved her. He had taken her father’s fury and spared her one welt.
The wedding party was finally on the last portion of the long march up toward the gates of Sidon, the jewel of Phoenicia, so near the sea that they could smell the sharp tang of brine. The sky darkened, but sunset was hours away. A storm was building. The air took on a heavy, sweet smell; the trees that grew with thatched trunks began waving their fronds in the wind. Where stones had littered the path this morning, he now saw broken shells lining the road. A few of the women stopped and picked them up, clearly delighted. This was a new world to them, too. Mirra did not get down from her donkey. Her father, ruler of Samaria and the richest man in Israel, had already given her every treasure imaginable. But she looked bored. Obadiah knew that serving another woman would be hard for Mirra, pampered daughter of Amon, who was second only to King Omri and his son, Prince Ahab. Obadiah prayed that Jezebel would never hit her.
He scanned the edges of the path as the women turned the shells over and over in their hands. They were surrounded by impassable hills, which he had read should keep them safe from attack, but he had an uneasy feeling. He didn’t know how to respond to it, except to look for predators lurking behind the trees. He glanced ahead. The last of the men was still visible, but Obadiah would have to hurry the women along.
He turned to call to them. Mirra was gone. Her donkey had wandered toward a clump of grass and nudged it with his nose, testing it for flavor, perhaps.
Obadiah’s heart lurched into his throat.
He saw her walking toward a cave about twenty yards from the path, its black mouth yawning wide. He motioned for the women to remount and join the men. He wanted them with men who knew how to handle a sword. Then he jumped from his donkey and went after Mirra. She had disappeared inside the cave.
He hesitated at the edge of its darkness. A strange sound came from deep within. Inside, he saw Mirra strain her neck in either direction, trying to discern where the sound came from. She did not look surprised to see him entering the cave. Perhaps the wealthy were never surprised to see servants following just behind. But he did not enter the cave because he was a servant. Silent, Obadiah held his hand out to Mirra, willing himself not to tremble at her touch.
She looked at his hand, not moving, and their eyes met. He broke the gaze first, studying the little pool of water that lapped at her feet, illuminated by the light breaking in from above. The only other sound was the steady rasps of his breathing. Obadiah thought he sounded like a brute animal in the darkness. He hoped he did not frighten her.
“I’m not running away,” she said. Obadiah looked at her again. She frowned at him, standing there with his hand outstretched. He felt foolish. Other men knew how to command a woman.
“I just wanted a moment to myself,” she said, “a moment of freedom, I suppose. But what could you know about freedom? You’re a servant.”
The wounds her words inflicted were exquisite. Obadiah’s chest burned with the delight of being spoken to, of seeing her mouth form words meant for him alone. If only she had said his name! But she did not know it. She never paid him any attention when she came to court. He had stayed hidden like a good, and invisible, servant, and she had kept her eyes downcast whenever her father presented her to Omri. He doubted she even remembered that day so long ago when he had suffered for her.
She had no idea how beautiful he found her, with her long black hair, unbraided and loose tonight. Her mother was not here to force her to wear it up. She complained to the other girls when she thought no one listened, saying such long hair was heavy and the tight braids gave her headaches. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but a small traveling party meant he heard a good bit more than he ever had before. Women were full of complaints and completely blind to their own allure—Mirra especially, with her generous pink mouth that he always fantasized was bruised from his kisses. He dreamed of resting a finger against it, of knowing if it was as soft as he imagined.
She turned to move deeper into the darkness. “I heard something.”
The air whipping into the mouth of the cave turned cold. It lashed at his calves, picking up the edge of his robe. A great shadow must have passed across the sun at that moment, because the cave turned dark, darker than when they had entered. His flesh crawled for no reason he could explain.
“We have to go back, Mirra. Right now.”
She turned her head back to him, a sly grin on her face. “You know my name. Do you belong to my father?”
Obadiah looked at the ground, embarrassed.
Mirra shook her head and stepped away from him again, her foot landing on something that crunched and shifted under her weight. She bent to inspect the material, and Obadiah rushed forward, grabbing her arm. It was a strange instinct. She glared at him, at the insult of a servant’s touch.
Obadiah dropped her arm and bent his head.
The floor of the cave was covered in soft, chalky stones and twigs, thousands of little hollow pieces that snapped and disintegrated beneath their feet into fine dust. Obadiah tested his growing dread by taking a few more steps.
Mirra bent down to pick one up and hold it to the light. Fear made his stomach tight and cold. He reached down too, to pick up a tiny flint no bigger than the tip of his finger. It split in two between his thumb and forefinger, a tiny bit of marrow smearing across his fingertip.
“Birds?” she asked. She looked above her for signs of bats. She wrapped her arms around herself.
His eyes grew wide as he picked up another one. It broke in half and fell. He scooped up a handful and held them to the light.
“Oh, no,” he groaned.
He held out one tiny speck about the size of a grain of rice. He had to be sure. Mirra squinted to see it.
“Get out!” he commanded. His tone shocked him. He didn’t look at her to see what impact it had. Obadiah had read about this before, when disease had struck distant lands and the ground was too hard to dig a grave. That’s all this was, surely. He had even read how shrewd merchants scooped up the bones later, grinding them and using them to make the blackest ink. The best ink, and the irony was not lost on Obadiah, whose greatest treasures were his scrolls, written by those long dead. Writing was always tinged with death. He had read so much about death, but never held it.
Obadiah pointed to the mouth of the cave. “Go! Join the others! Now!”
With a huff of outrage, Mirra left. She had not seen the skulls near her feet.
He waited until she was gone to let his knees crumple beneath him. He staggered, still holding the tiny prize. It was the bone of a newborn. Lightning exploded overhead, and in the sudden sharp illumination, Obadiah saw he was standing in a sea of infant bones, burnt and crumbling. A long brown serpent wound its way across the bones, its green eyes glittering.
He could not run for the light, not until sufficient time had passed. He had to prevent the rumor that Mirra had been alone with a male servant. Instead, he stood still, his breath like thunder in his ears, suspicion destroying the weak hope he had held onto for this marriage. The scrolls he had read, the writings that Ahab had rejected in his haste for obedience to his father, had been right. Jezebel’s god ate children, hundreds at a time, newborn or youth, drained of blood or burned alive. Worshipping the goddess meant death. Entire generations died through goddess worship. The people called her Asherah, or queen of heaven. Elijah, the most revered holy man in all of Judah and Israel combined, had called her a serpent.
Jezebel
Jezebel ran the edge of the arrow along her arm. No blood sprang up, which was good. Archery was delicate work, requiring the right arrow and perfect aim. She had practiced for three summers to be able to shoot an arrow on her own. At fifteen, she was better than any man in her father’s guard. She was glad she would never need those men again.
She walked along the top of the palace wall until she was at the corner, where she had a clear view of the ground below, and where no guards were posted. Her small, nimble feet moved slowly, and she eased each foot down so that she made no sound. Threading the arrow into its groove, she waited.
The bird spotted her from the sky and cried out as it flew past.
Jezebel let the arrow fly too, and the bird fell to the ground, hopping and chirping, one wing dragging through the dust.
“Did you hit it?” her maid Lilith asked, hands over her face. Though required to attend to Jezebel, she would never be compelled to watch.
Jezebel laughed and ran along the wall, down the stairs, and out to the bird, cradling it gently in her hands.
“Sshh,” she whispered to it. She opened her thumbs just a bit to look at its head.
Lilith followed, though she was slower and more careful. “It’s beautiful,” Lilith said.
Jezebel shrugged and walked around the palace wall in the direction of the royal stables, to the first entrance far away from the other animals. This was a private room, where her father had his hunting trophies skinned and cleaned. A long, wide wooden box sat in the corner on the dusty floor. Jezebel unlocked a small square door on top and dropped the bird in.
Lilith swallowed loudly, and Jezebel turned, giving her a withering look. A loud strike jerked the box, and Lilith screamed. Jezebel smirked at her maid’s weakness and lifted the lid a few inches to spy inside. She could see thick black coils and an orange head. The colored feathers splayed out from the edges of scaled lips. Death was fascinating.
A conch shell’s mellow call broke the stillness in the room. The king’s scout signaled that the hunting party was assembling in the courtyard.
Jezebel left the box, knowing she couldn’t do anything else until the next morning anyway. The courtyard in front of the palace was a wide circular area that allowed visitors to rest after climbing the steep hill. It wasn’t far from the stables, and the path she took was the best traveled in the whole palace complex. She could run here without shoes if she wanted. She had never really gotten used to wearing shoes and fine robes, but never again would she be without them. She had earned them all.
Seconds later, Jezebel bowed before her father, Eth-baal, the king of Phoenicia, assembled with the elders and their useless sons. Her father’s appearance still surprised Jezebel. Maybe she still imagined him to be the father she once knew. Eth-baal’s long, coarse black hair had been cut off at the shoulders when he became king. He had gotten quite fat in the last three years too, and his black beard had white streaks in it. He wore a lot of jewelry now, and not just the amulet of Pazuza, that demon that rode the winds. Eth-baal also wore a gold collar from Egypt and wide ivory bracelets from the nations below there. He had a ruby ring, a gift from the Sumerians, and it rested like a heavy flower on his right hand.
His voice hadn’t changed, though. He had once had to speak for the gods, and he was always too loud, demanding silence and attention. But his eyes had an emptiness, a fixed gaze as if he was watching for something, or someone, in the far distance. His thoughts were forever elsewhere. As was his heart. The elders liked that. They had what they wanted, Jezebel knew: a king they could manipulate. Yet today, when Eth-baal looked at her, he held her gaze, which he never did. He seemed to want to tell her something, but in front of the court, perhaps he couldn’t. Instead, he said that the hunt would be a good way to pass the hours. Jezebel had wanted to ask more, but the elders were so restless today.
Jezebel walked to the senior trade adviser, the elder Hetham, and he slipped her worn and fragrant leather vest over her shoulders. It had scratches from the struggles of dying animals and hung very loose, a fact that was not lost on Hetham’s son, who nudged a friend and smiled. They exchanged a coarse joke, she suspected, and Hetham’s son licked his lips.
Though old enough to bleed with the moon, she was no taller at fifteen than she had been two years ago when she had first bled. She suspected years of neglect had robbed her of length of bone. She stretched her neck, trying to stand tall, and though she could not look the boys in the eyes, she hoped they saw her hand go to the knife tucked in her belt.