Leah knew she should hold her tongue. How many times had Mama scolded her for being too outspoken? But the words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them. “The rabbi said the master could make me his concubine.”
“No. Oh, honey, no. Not Master Reuben. He loves Mistress Ruth very, very much. He would never hurt her by taking a concubine.”
Sorrow and relief and loss all flooded together in a surge of emotion. Leah covered her face and wept. Miriam gathered her into her ample arms and rocked her like Mama used to rock Matthew when he was a baby.
“Mm . . . mm . . . mm,” she soothed. “You go ahead and cry if you need to, honey. I know just how you feel. I had to leave my home and go to work for Mistress Ruth’s father when I was even younger than you are. I surely know how scared you are. But I promise you, no one here is ever going to lay a hand on you.”
“Everyone in town says . . . what a terrible sinner Reb Reuben is . . . so I thought—”
“It’s not true, honey. He’s no more of a sinner than you and I. Just a kind, lonely young man who has been handed a dirty job to do. I’ve worked for Master Reuben for more than seven years—ever since he and my mistress were married. I could have gone free—Ehud and I both could have. But see here?” She fingered a loop of gold that pierced her earlobe, the emblem of a bond servant. “We’ve chosen to stay.”
“I . . . I’m sorry about the plate.”
“Never mind. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to leave your family or your brother like that. We’ve surely seen some hard times with this drought, yes? But we have to keep trusting in the Almighty One no matter what.”
“How do we do that?”
“Why, once you know Him, it’s easy—He’s so very trustworthy. As the prophets said, ‘Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.’ Even in hard times we can find joy in the Lord.”
For the next few days Leah was given only light chores to do—cleaning fish, sweeping the kitchen floor, keeping the kitchen fires going. “Until you get settled in,” Miriam said, “and have time to adjust to your new home.” She was very kind to Leah and much more patient with her than Mama had been. Leah saw nothing of the rest of the villa except for a few brief glimpses of the central courtyard through the swinging door.
As she sat outside in the servants’ yard one morning, grinding grain with a hand mill, Leah realized that for the moment, she was alone—Miriam and all of the other servants were away on errands. She laid aside the grinding stone and smoothed a place in the dust to write. Matthew had taught her all the letters of the alphabet and the sounds they made, but she knew that if she didn’t keep practicing them, she would soon lose her new skill. Humming the alphabet song she had learned from Matthew, she carefully scribed each letter in the dust with her finger until she reached
ayin
. She couldn’t remember how to write the letter ayin.
Tears of frustration and homesickness filled her eyes. It was hopeless. Without Matthew or Gideon to help her, she would eventually forget all that she had learned. Leah lowered her head into her lap and wept as she struggled to remember. Suddenly she heard the outer gate open, then close. She didn’t know which to wipe away first, the writing or her tears. She tried to do both, quickly swiping at her tears with dusty hands, smudging her face with dirt. When she looked up, she was horrified to see Reb Reuben in his beautiful blue robe standing over her. Why was he coming through the servants’ gate? She was too stunned and confused to remember to bow to him.
“Your name is Leah, isn’t it?” he asked. “The new girl?”
“Y . . . yes, my lord.”
Leah took a good look at Reuben ben Johanan for the first time in her life and was surprised to see that he wasn’t nearly as old as she had always thought. Because of his stature as the district tax collector, Leah had imagined that he must be as old as Abba, maybe even older. But up close, she saw that he was barely thirty. His dark brown hair looked shiny and luxuriant, like a lion’s mane. His beard wasn’t long, the way the village elders traditionally wore theirs, but neatly trimmed around the curve of his strong chin. His eyes were wide and deep set, a dark, plummy brown like sweet raisins. As they held hers in his powerful gaze, she was astounded to see that they were filled with compassion.
“You’ve been crying,” he said. “Are you unhappy here?”
“No, my lord. It’s nothing . . .” She wiped her eyes with her fists.
“Then why?” He was waiting for an answer.
“It’s just . . . I couldn’t remember something, and my brother isn’t here to show me.”
“You miss your brother?”
“Yes, my lord.”
She bowed her head and stared down at ner feet, then saw that she hadn’t completely erased all of the letters.
Master Reuben must have seen them, too, for a moment later he said, “Did you write these letters, Leah?”
She nodded, too terrified to speak, afraid he would curse such foolishness as Abba would have done.
“Do you have an interest in learning?” he asked.
His deep voice was gentle, not critical. Miriam had said he was kind. Leah took a chance.
“Yes, my lord. My brother taught me the alphabet, but now I can’t remember how to write ayin.” She glanced up to see his reaction. One hand covered his chin as he thoughtfully stroked his beard. His hands were smooth, uncallused, his fingernails clean and oval shaped. He wore a beautiful ring on his fourth finger, with a deep blue stone the color of the sea.
“Come with me, Leah,” he said suddenly.
Her knees trembled as she followed him into the kitchen and through the swinging door. She would finally see the beautifully tiled courtyard. But Master Reuben’s stride was so smooth and swift she had little time to look around as she trotted behind him. He led her between two pillars, through another door, and into a side room. It was a workroom of some sort, with benches and tables that were littered with pots of ink, containers of reed pens, writing instruments, and piles and piles of scrolls—more scrolls than Leah had seen in her entire life. The musky smell of parchment filled the room. Two scribes worked side by side at the tables, beneath bronze lampstands. Leah was amazed to see that the oil lamps were lit in the daytime.
Before she could take it all in, Master Reuben picked up a wooden tablet coated with wax. She had seen the tablets Matthew and the other boys used in the synagogue to practice their writing, but those were crude blocks compared to this beautifully crafted one. Reuben sorted through a clutter of objects on one of the tables, found the writing tool he wanted, and carved something into the wax.
“Here,” he said, holding the tablet out to her. “That’s the letter ayin.”
Leah was so stunned she could barely speak. “Yes. Thank you, my lord!” She bowed low again and began backing away.
“Leah . . .” She froze. “You may keep this.”
She looked up, astonished as he held out the tablet and writing stick to her. “Yes, it’s all right, you may have them,” he said, “unless you like writing in the dust and getting dirt all over your face.” His smile was so kind, so warm, she couldn’t help but smile in return as she accepted his gift.
“Yes . . . I mean, no, my lord . . . I mean, thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome.”
He nodded in dismissal, and Leah fled to the servants’ quarters on a cloud of happiness, clutching his gift. She carefully tucked it away beneath her sleeping mat before returning to her task of grinding grain. Then, as she rolled the stones together in rhythm, Leah’s heart soared with the words that Miriam had taught her:
“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”
CHAPTER 10
THE VILLAGE OF DEGANIA—
A.D
. 48
G
ideon, come here. I want to show you something.” Leah led him down the dark passageway to the tiny chamber where she and the other serving girls slept. He had just returned that day from tending the master’s flocks after being gone all spring and summer. Leah barely recognized him at first. His skin was deeply tanned, his curly hair bleached golden by the sun. The oily smell of lanolin and sheep clung to his clothing. But it was Gideon’s nature that seemed the most changed; he looked restless, angry, and deeply unhappy. She pulled her writing tablet from under her sleeping mat and proudly showed it to him, hoping it would cheer him to see that she had been treated kindly while he was away.
“Where did you get that? Did you steal it?”
“No, of course not! I would never do such a thing. Master Reuben gave it to me.”
“You’re lying!”
The accusation felt like a slap in the face. She stared at him. “What happened to you, Gideon?”
“The same thing that happened to you—we were sold. We’re servants now, owned by the biggest sinner in Galilee.”
“We have no reason to hate Master Reuben. He’s kind to his servants, he feeds us better than we ever ate at home, he hasn’t overworked us or abused us . . . and he did give me this writing tablet, whether you believe me or not!”
“He has grown rich by working for our enemies. That’s more than enough reason to hate him.”
“You’re right, our master is very rich. But all the money in Galilee can’t buy him happiness. This is a house of sadness, Gideon. Miriam told me so. She’s worked for Mistress Ruth’s family since she was my age, and she came here when Ruth married our master. He loves his wife very much, but her babies keep dying before they are born.”
“That’s God’s judgment on him for his sin.”
Leah was so angry she gave her brother a shove. “What’s wrong with you? You sound just like the Pharisees! You’re not the brother I knew!” She turned to storm out of the room, but he stopped her.
“Wait, Leah . . . I’m sorry.” He ran his hand over his face as if to clear the anger from it, then sighed. “It’s just . . . it’s just so hard to take care of someone else’s sheep all day, knowing that it will do me no good if they fatten and prosper—they’ll never be mine. At least when I worked beside Abba and Saul, I knew that someday I would get a portion back from all my labor as an inheritance. But now everything is Reuben ben Johanan’s—the wool is his, the profit is his. I can’t even save for a wife or a future of my own. And nothing’s going to change for the next seven years. I’ll be an old man by then.”
Leah rested her hand on his arm. “Miriam and Ehud are both servants and they got married. It was their own choice to stay and work here.”
He smiled weakly. “Do you think any of the serving girls around here would want to marry me?”
“Well . . . not until you’ve had a bath.”
Gideon laughed, and he was the brother Leah loved once again. He took the writing tablet from her and ran his fingers over its smooth frame. “This is nice. Did he really say you could keep it?”
“Yes.” Leah told him the story of how the master had seen her writing the alphabet and had shown her how to write ayin. “I want to learn to read, Gideon,” she said excitedly. “Will you teach me how?”
“Why? What use is it for a girl to read, especially a servant girl?”
“I don’t know. I just want to learn. Please? It will give us something to do together and help pass the time.”
In the end, Gideon agreed. He sat down with her for a few minutes each evening after their work was finished and wrote new words on her writing board for her to practice. Leah carefully saved each sliver of wax whenever she scraped the board clean so that she could melt it down and coat the board with it over and over. By the time spring rolled around again and Gideon had to return to the master’s fields, he had taught her to read all the words he could remember.
“Do you suppose I know enough to read an entire scroll?” she asked him just before he left.
“I don’t see why not. Words are words, whether they’re written on scrolls or tablets. But where do you think you’re going to get a scroll, Leah? The master may have given you a writing board, but he’s never going to let you near his scrolls.”
Leah knew Gideon was right. She was a kitchen maid and wasn’t even allowed inside the other rooms of the villa where the scrolls were kept. Except for the day the master had given her the tablet, she had never been beyond the central courtyard. Once in a while Miriam would ask her to sweep it, and Leah would try to peek inside the other rooms if the doors were open. The main reception room was her favorite, its stucco walls beautifully decorated with ornate friezes and imitation marble panels.
Leah was sweeping the tiled courtyard on a warm summer day when she noticed that the door to the room where Master Reuben had taken her stood open. She slowly worked her way around the square with her broom, then stole a peek inside as she swept. The room was dark, the lamps snuffed out, the scribes gone home for the day. Leah glanced all around the courtyard, and when she saw no other servants in sight, she peeked again. A scroll lay propped open on a table.
The temptation was too great to resist. Laying her broom beside the door, Leah looked around again, then slipped inside. Careful not to touch anything, she bent over the opened scroll and began to read.
And you present to the Lord offerings made by fire, from the herd or the flock, as
. . . She paused, not recognizing the next word, then continued. . . .
pleasing to the Lord—whether burnt offerings or sacrifices, for special vows or freewill offerings or
. . . Again she skipped an unfamiliar word.
. . . offerings—then the one who brings his offering shall present to the Lord a grain offering of a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a
something
of a hin of oil . . .
She could read! Not every word, but enough of them to feel a surge of triumph that made her want to shout! She hugged herself in joy.
Suddenly the door from the street opened. Leah dropped to the floor like a stone dropping into water and hid beneath the table. She heard the door close, then footsteps crossing the room. She crouched into a tiny ball as Master Reuben glided past her. She saw his sandaled feet and recognized the fragrance of the scented lotion he always used. He was nearly through the door to the courtyard when he stopped.