“Master Reuben, wait!” Leah said, pulling him to a stop. She grabbed his sash and tore it off him. “Take off your robe! Put on this one!” She shoved her servant’s tunic into his hands. The coarse clothing of the working class looked much the same for a man or a woman.
“Leah! What are you doing?” Master Reuben pushed her away as she tried to yank his outer robe off him. Desperate, Leah turned to Elizabeth.
“You want your abba to come with us, don’t you?”
“Yes—”
“Then we need to play a little game. I’ll pretend to be your mama, all right? That’s what you must call me for a little while. But you mustn’t call your father ‘Abba,’ do you understand? We will pretend that he’s our servant. He’s going to dress just like one of them and carry you to safety. Can you do that for me, Elizabeth?”
“No!” Reuben shouted. “I can’t allow you to do this!”
“And I can’t allow you to sacrifice yourself!” Leah shouted right back. “What would Elizabeth do if anything happened to you?”
And what would I do without you
? she silently wondered.
Reuben stared at Leah as if shocked that anyone would dare to speak to him like that, especially his servant. But Leah didn’t care what happened to her once this was over. She had to save the life of the man she loved. She had been afraid to acknowledge it before, but at the thought of him being torn to pieces by the mob, she admitted to herself that it was true. She loved Reuben ben Johanan.
“My idea will work,” she said in a softer voice. “Trust me.” She tugged his robe off his shoulders while he was still frozen in shock, then helped him into her tunic. It was a tight fit, but it would do. “Take off your sandals,” she ordered. “They’re too nice. You’ll have to go barefoot.” While he bent to untie them, Leah dumped some oil from the lamp into the palm of her hand and mixed it with ashes from the charcoal brazier. Before he could protest, she rubbed the mixture into his silky hair. “It’s much too clean and shiny,” she said. “And give me your money pouch.” She took it from him and fastened it to her own belt.
“Just hurry, Leah,” he said, lifting Elizabeth into his arms. “We’re running out of time.” The noise outside in the street had become an angry roar.
Leah led the way through the maze of corridors to the slaves’ dormitories and quickly rounded up the rest of Master Reuben’s frightened servants. She was encouraged to see that they didn’t recognize their master at first. She explained what she was doing and hurried them outside through the rear gate of the compound.
The streets behind the building were deserted. Anyone who hadn’t joined the mob was barricaded inside his home. But as she neared the city gate, Leah saw a gang of armed freedom fighters standing in their path. She froze, hesitating as her courage suddenly deserted her. Then, realizing that it would look suspicious to fear her own countrymen, she quickly recovered and hurried toward them.
“Oh, thank God! You’re on
our
side!” she cried. She rushed forward, as if to safety. “Please, can you help my daughter and me get out of the city? We’re from Galilee and we’re trying to get home.”
“Galilee? What are you doing in Caesarea?” one of the men asked.
For a horribly long moment, Leah’s mind went blank. It hadn’t occurred to her that they would ask that question. Then a picture came to her of the stevedores loading cargo onto the boats in the harbor, the knot of passengers waiting beneath a canopy to embark.
“We came to see my husband off on a trading venture,” she said. “He sailed for Crete yesterday, to the city of Lasea.” She remembered the name of the port from one of Master Reuben’s voyages. She tried to read the man’s reaction to her lie and realized that he wasn’t looking at her. He was studying the servants’ faces behind her. She turned to follow his gaze and was horrified to see Master Reuben’s blue ring glinting in plain sight as he held Elizabeth in his arms.
Leah hurried over to him, and reached to caress the child. With her own body blocking the strangers’ view, she gripped Reuben’s hand and tugged on his ring to draw his attention to it, then she lifted Elizabeth from his arms.
“Please, my daughter is very frightened,” Leah said. As soon as Reuben’s hands were empty, he quickly put them behind his back to slide the ring from his finger. “I would be happy to pay you for our safe conduct,” Leah told the strangers. “My husband supports the cause of freedom. In fact, my brother Gideon joined a Zealot band a few years ago. Maybe you know him—Gideon ben Jesse, from Degania?”
The leader shook his head. “Is that where you’re from? Degania?”
“I was born there, but I moved to my husband’s village when I married.” Leah knew she would start tripping over her lies if this ordeal didn’t end soon. She shifted Elizabeth to her other hip and untied Reuben’s money pouch. “How much—”
“Keep your money,” the leader said with a growl. He gestured toward the gate. “Go. But I advise you to stay off the main roads.”
Leah bowed to him in respect, fighting tears of relief. “Thank you, my lord. May God go with you.”
When they arrived home two days later it was late in the evening. Leah had just finished putting Elizabeth to sleep and was preparing for bed herself when Miriam came to her room. “Master Reuben has asked to see you in the receiving room,” she said.
“Now? But Elizabeth is already asleep and—”
“He said for just you to come . . . without Elizabeth.”
Leah had already taken her hair down for the night, but she quickly coiled it on her head again and got dressed. What could he possibly want? He had never sent for her alone before. The thought of having his full attention, without Elizabeth, made her heart pound as if she were running a race. Then she remembered how disrespectfully she had talked to him in Caesarea, how she had ordered him around, shouted at him, and she was suddenly afraid. She started out the door, realized she was barefoot, and went back to tie on her sandals.
Master Reuben was seated in the chair where he always sat, with a small meal the servants had fixed for him on the ivory table beside him. It looked to Leah as though he hadn’t touched the food. He was wearing one of his own robes again, and his hair was still damp from his bath. He glanced up when Leah entered, and his gaze followed her all the way into the room. She bowed to him, then stood waiting.
“Please sit down, Leah.” He gestured to the leather stool where she usually sat when she came with Elizabeth. For a moment or two he didn’t speak but sat with his hand over his mouth and chin, stroking his beard. He wore the blue ring on his finger again, and it glistened in the lamplight like dappled sunshine on a brook.
“I’ve been trying for two days,” he said, “to find the words to thank you for what you did in Caesarea. I still haven’t found them. I owe you my life.” He lowered his hand from his face and absently twisted the ring with his other hand while he spoke.
Leah remembered the warmth of his smooth hand when she had grasped it, and she had to look away to keep from blushing.
“Since I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” he continued, “I will have to show you. I am setting you free, Leah.”
Leah’s head jerked up at his words. She stared at him in disbelief, her eyes meeting his plum-colored ones.
“I realize that your seven years are not quite finished,” he said, “but in the morning we will go before two witnesses and officially end your servitude. You will be free to go.” Leah was so stunned she barely heard the rest. “I have asked Ehud to prepare a gift of silver and two sets of clothing for you so you will not leave here empty-handed.”
Leave? She couldn’t leave Master Reuben! She was in love with him! How could she possibly go away and never see him again? She continued to stare at him, openmouthed, unable to speak.
“Leah? Is something wrong?” he asked.
Leah knew she was being very rude. He was offering her freedom and gifts besides, and she hadn’t even thanked him for his generosity.
She slid off the stool onto her knees in front of him, trying to form the proper words of gratitude. But when she opened her mouth to speak them, what came out was, “I don’t want to leave, Master Reuben. I want to have my ear pierced with an awl, like Miriam and Ehud did. I want to be your bond servant.”
He shook his head as if it was out of the question. “No! You saved my life!” he said angrily. “How on earth can I make you my bond servant for the rest of your life? No! I am setting you free. That’s the end of the matter. You’re dismissed.”
Her tears came once she was back in her room. Couldn’t he see that he wasn’t rewarding her, he was punishing her? What could she possibly do with her freedom? At twenty years of age she was too old to attract a husband, except an elderly widower, perhaps. Would any other man besides Master Reuben appreciate the fact that she could read and write—or even allow her to? And what about Elizabeth? Leah loved the child as her very own daughter. Why couldn’t Master Reuben see that? Why couldn’t he marry her and they could be a family, as they had been in Caesarea? But Leah knew it was hopeless to think that a man like Master Reuben would marry her, a mere servant. Even as a free woman she was far beneath him. Beautiful Mistress Ruth had come from a wealthy aristocratic family like his.
Leah loosened her hair again and lay down on her pallet as the horrible truth began to slowly sink in. Tomorrow she would have to leave the villa that had been her home for six years. Tonight was the last night she would spend as Master Reuben’s servant. She thought of all the fears she’d had on the last night she had spent with Mama and Abba before coming here and how wrong she had been about what life in this house would be like. Her biggest fear had been that Master Reuben would make her his concubine, and now . . . now she remembered being mistaken for his wife in Caesarea and realized how much she wished for that very thing. Suddenly another thought occurred to her. As long as he still owned her, it was legal according to the Law of Moses for him to take her as his concubine. And if he did . . . if she became his mistress, then they could both have their wishes. He could set his concubine free, but Leah could stay with him always.
She lay awake for a while longer until she was certain that the household was asleep. Then, with the story of Ruth and Boaz on her mind, Leah crept from her room and across the darkened courtyard to Master Reuben’s sleeping chamber. The lamps were out in all of the rooms, including his. She slipped inside and saw him asleep on his ivory bed beneath the window. Leah tiptoed across the floor and lay down on the bed at his feet as Ruth the Moabitess had done. He stirred in his sleep, then sat up a moment later, startled.
“Who . . . ? Leah . . . ? What are you doing here?”
She was trembling so hard she could barely speak. “I am still your servant, Master Reuben. According to the Law, you have the right to make me your concubine.”
He stared, blinking in the darkened room as if wondering if he was dreaming. When he didn’t say anything, she added, “I have come to offer myself, like the Moabitess Ruth offered herself to Boaz. You have the right to redeem me. I know I’m not beautiful like Mistress Ruth was—”
He reached to put his fingers over her lips, stopping her.
“You’ve grown to become a very lovely woman, Leah. . . . How old are you?”
“Twenty . . . nearly twenty-one.”
“And I am almost twice that.”
“Master Reuben, I love you.” She wasn’t able to stop the words. He stared at her in amazement.
“What?”
“Please don’t send me away. I can’t bear the thought of never seeing you again. That’s why I saved your life, don’t you see? I love you.” His eyes filled with emotion.
“How could you love me? I took you from your father and your home, I’m hated by everyone in the district . . . perhaps in the country—Jews and Gentiles alike.”
“But I know you, I know your heart. You’re not the man people think you are. Please forgive my boldness in coming to you, but you’re so sad, so lonely. I would do anything for you, Master Reuben.”
“You will be set free tomorrow. Why—?”
“I don’t want to be free. I want to become your concubine, as the Law says. I want to stay here . . . with you.”
When he suddenly turned away and climbed from the bed, Leah felt shattered. She knew she should leave now that he had rejected her, but instead, she stood and went to him.
“Master Reuben . . . what’s wrong?
“I’m not the man
you
think I am. You know nothing of my business dealings, Leah. You don’t know the people I’ve cheated . . . the money I’ve skimmed off the top like cream before sending what was required to Rome. I always figured those hypocrites deserved it. The Pharisees and everyone else in this miserable town deserved to pay for the way they treated Ruth. The more people hated me, the more I took from them, and I justified it in my own mind.”
Leah touched his arm. “I don’t care—”
“I care,” he said, twisting away. “I deserved to die in Caesarea. But if I had . . .” He paused, pressing his fingers into his eyes. “I remember how Ruth asked for forgiveness and accepted Christ when she realized she was going to die . . . and I know I’m not right with God, either. I believe that Yeshua is the Messiah. I know in my mind that it’s true. But there’s no room for Him in my heart because of my hatred.” He lowered his hand and looked at her. “You should hate me, too, Leah. I took you from your family when you were only fourteen. I stole six years of your life because of my own greed. Yet you risked your life for me. And now you’re willing to throw away your future, too, by offering yourself to me?” He shook his head. “I can’t allow it.”
“I love you—” she began, but he gripped her shoulders almost painfully, cutting off her words.
“Would you love me if you knew that I only had to take your brother to repay your father’s debt, not you? Would you love me even then?”
Leah closed her eyes as tears rolled down her face. It took a moment for her to comprehend his words. Master Reuben had cheated her father. He had cheated her. All these years she should have been free. She should have married, had a home and children of her own.
She opened her eyes again a moment later and looked up at him. “I forgive you,” she whispered.