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Shelter of the Most High Page 12


  A large group of people were gathered near the gatehouse, a jumble of agitated conversations lending an air of upheaval to the crowd. Catching sight of Moriyah, I made my way to her side, fully expecting to be warned away but determined to understand what was happening.

  However, instead of sending me back to the inn, Eitan’s mother looped her hand through my arm and gently turned me away. But not before I caught sight of the body of a man lying on the ground nearby, a dagger protruding from his chest. Eitan stared at me from the other side of the crowd with concern plain on his face.

  “He was a manslayer,” Moriyah said, her lips close enough to my ear that I could hear through the chaos surrounding us. “He was attempting to take refuge here in Kedesh. The son of the dead man caught up to him outside the boundary line and attacked. The manslayer was carried the rest of the way by his brothers, but he did not survive.”

  “A killer?”

  “It was an accident, Sofea. The man shot an arrow in pursuit of a deer and it hit a fellow hunter. There was no malice intended.”

  “No matter.” I shrugged. “Killers deserve to die.” The swift judgments my father instituted for such things were always meted out by his own hand, and every time he insisted that the entire village, children included, stand witness to the slaughter.

  “Our law differentiates between intended murder and manslaughter. Someone who kills by accident is allowed to run to one of six cities of refuge and take shelter from kinsmen who seek their blood. A fair trial must be held by a council of elders.”

  My face twisted into confusion. “One who kills you let live?”

  “Yes, the manslayer will live out his life in the refuge city, unless the High Priest of Israel dies first.”

  Profoundly perplexed by such strange ideas, I gestured to the body, my clumsy words tumbling out in a rush. “You say he come here for refuge. Why not those ‘six cities’?”

  Moriyah shifted to look me in the face, her black brows drawn together. “Sofea, I’m so sorry that we have not explained this to you before now. I know your father—”

  She stopped, as if reframing her words before she continued. “Prezi wanted you to feel safe and see that you could trust us before we revealed the truth. Kedesh is one of the cities of refuge. Many of the people who live in this town are here because they caused the death of another person.”

  A ringing began in my ears as I surveyed the crowd around me. My eyes flicked from one man to the other, wondering who among them was guilty of such a thing. There was no way to know. No way to determine who among them had snuffed out the life of another.

  Prezi knew all this and did not tell me? Why would she keep me ignorant of the true nature of this city we’d been brought to?

  Moriyah’s voice was soothing as she stroked my arm from shoulder to wrist. “I know it may seem frightening, but those who have taken refuge here will not hurt you.”

  “But they are killers!” My voice pitched high, and the eyes of everyone, Eitan included, landed on me, causing my skin to prickle.

  “No one will lay a hand on you or Prezi. You have my word,” she said.

  “How can you say such things? A killer does not change.” Seno’s final moments of brutality toward my innocent cousin had proven this quite clearly.

  “Because, my dear girl,” Moriyah said, her expression weighted with a mixture of compassion and regret, “I was the first to take refuge in this city.”

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  23 Tishri

  I stand on the highest cliff above my village, eyes trained on the azure horizon, breathing deep of the sea air. I inhale the familiar tang all the way to my bare toes.

  Home.

  Home.

  Home, sing the gulls as they loop through the sky. The sun lazily trails its fingers through the water, leaving a glittering path to the edge of the world.

  Home.

  Home.

  Home, sings my heart as the wind whips my curls into the sky, across my face. I brush back the tendrils, tugging the stragglers from my lips with a laugh, but the wind refuses to relinquish them, yanking them around my neck. A smooth laugh wafts from behind me. My fingers wrench at the rope of hair that begins to pull tighter and tighter with every moment. Toes gripping into the pebbled ground, I look down at my tunic. White. Pure white.

  Spinning, I register my father’s satisfied smirk before his hands lift to my shoulders. What better offering than blood? asks his sea-blue eyes before he pushes me backward, and I fly, fly, fly to shatter against the granite-hard surface of the sea.

  The salty darkness envelops my broken body, the sky and the seabed trading places again and again. A wicked undertow drags me sideways, slams me against a boulder, my head cracking against its invisible weight. My father’s voice slips through the silent, suffocating, churning blackness—“Take her, Posedao, she’s worth nothing to me.”

  With a gasp I sat up, hands at my throat, kicking at the wool blanket that had tangled around my body during the night. Hazy dawn filtered into the room through the wooden shutters as I pulled in breath after shuddering breath.

  Jostled by my violent awakening, Prezi sat up as well, her brown eyes wide, a hand splayed against her chest. “What is wrong?”

  I shook my head as the last wave of terror rolled through me. “We have to leave this place. We have to go.”

  “Why would we leave?”

  “You know why.” A cold knot of betrayal tightened in my gut. I spoke the words through clenched teeth. “You knew these people were murderers and you said nothing.”

  I’d not even spoken to her after what Moriyah had revealed last night. Horrified and furious, I’d walked from the gates, head swimming, and went straight to bed, feigning sleep when she finally came in.

  “No.” Scooting closer to me on the bed, she wrapped one slender arm around my shoulders. “No, they are not.”

  I jerked away from her tender touch. “Yes, they are! Moriyah admitted that she killed someone! And that man last night was slaughtered within only a short distance of this city. We are not safe here.”

  She sighed, folding her arms. “Did you ask her about what happened back then?”

  “What is there to know? She took someone’s life. And she said many of the people who live in this town have done the same. We are surrounded by killers. Surrounded!”

  Prezi released a low breath and leaned back against the wall. “I knew you would react this way, considering who your father was, and after what we witnessed back in the village.” She paused, her eyelids fluttering as if she were blinking away the horror. “This is why I asked them not to tell you before now.”

  Hurt and confusion tangled with my sharp response. “How did you find out?”

  “If one is quiet, one tends to overhear certain things. And after working with Binah and Sarai, who tend to gossip much”—a little smirk passed over her lips—“I put together the pieces of the mystery a couple of months ago.”

  The knot tightened in my throat, cutting my words to a strangled whisper. “Months? You’ve hidden this from me for months?”

  “You need to hear it all, Sofi, so you understand.”

  I shook my head, which was still filled with those nightmare images of my father pushing me off the cliff. “No. A killer is a killer.”

  “Even when the death was an accident?”

  “The gods demand blood, Prezi, you know this. Justice is a life for a life.”

  “True. But the Hebrews’ God is different from the gods of our island, cousin. Let me tell you Moriyah’s story.” She reached out, gingerly placing a hand on my cheek. “Please?”

  “It will not change my opinion. We must go. We are not safe here.”

  Instead of arguing with me, she scooted down, laying her head on the pillow and patting mine in silent invitation.

  Huffing a sigh, I lay back down and she pulled the blanket over the two of us, tucking it under my chin to fend off the morning chill that had begun to lengthen its
stay more each day for the past two weeks.

  Forcing myself to settle, I breathed the gamy wool and watched the reflection of the dawn rise against the back wall of the tiny room as Prezi told me Moriyah’s story: The tale of a girl, marred in a wicked city that fell beneath the mighty power of the Hebrew god. Of a young woman, pressed to the outskirts of society, shunned and mocked for the blasphemy foisted upon her. Of a betrothal, unwanted but accepted by the maiden to please a father. Of a deadly flower unknowingly placed in a stew. Of two boys whose last moments were full of agony, the manslayer forced to flee for her life, and the grieving father who vowed to spill her blood.

  “This city was her shelter, Sofea. Just as it has been for us.”

  I lay quiet for a few moments, absorbing the story, realigning what I now knew of Moriyah with the jagged path that chased her to Kedesh. “So the boys’ lives are worth nothing, then? Justice means nothing to these people?”

  “Of course it does. Life demands life. Blood calls out for blood. Moriyah explained that a murderer, one who knowingly and willfully steals life, does indeed forfeit his own. And this city, while a refuge, is also a prison. Moriyah will not leave Kedesh until she dies. Or until the High Priest dies and everyone goes free.”

  “All the killers in this city will go free?”

  “They will be allowed to return to their lives, their debt satisfied.”

  “Why would the High Priest have to die? Shouldn’t a manslayer simply go without punishment, then, if they are to be released someday anyhow?”

  She shrugged. “If there were no consequences for even accidental killing, perhaps others would be reckless, heedless of others’ lives. Yahweh seems to be inordinately concerned with the preservation of life. You’ve no doubt noticed as much as I that these people do not offer human life at the altar. It is only animal blood and drink offerings that are spilled in worship of the One God.”

  “This makes no sense. My father—”

  Her face twisted as if bitterness had welled in her mouth. “Your father was an evil man. If anyone deserved to die, it was him.”

  I jerked back a handspan, as much from the force of her words as from the venom that coated them. “My father was the high priest, given that divine right by the gods. It is blasphemy to say such things!” Even as the protest passed my lips I knew it was a lie. My own dreams illuminated the truth.

  Prezi was silent, her mouth pressed into a tight line, but her chest heaved, as if each breath through her nose was an effort. She closed her eyes. “You were there, Sofea. You dragged me to the top of the hill that night, so curious to know what was happening beneath the sacred trees. How can you defend any of that?”

  Chills razored up and down my limbs. “That was an ancient ritual to Atemito—”

  “It was an evil ritual, Sofea. You felt it deep inside you, just as I did. It’s why we’ve never spoken of it until now. And after living in Kedesh and seeing the way these people live, I cannot help but see it even more clearly.”

  I had no argument. I had felt the weight, the darkness of what we’d witnessed in the core of my being, as if some divine edict against such things had been scrawled on my heart.

  “Your father made his own law, Sofi. There was no justice in it. You know this just as well as I do. He took whatever he wanted and whomever he wanted, equating himself with the gods and justifying himself by their unholy deeds. In our village, maidens were tossed off cliffs to Posedao and babies left to suffer on the rocks.” Her voice wavered and she stopped, tears at the corners of her eyes. “Here, women are valued. Daughters cherished. Babies like my little brother, like Yoram, allowed to live and grow. Even the life of a manslayer is considered worth saving. Do you really think Moriyah should be slaughtered for the mistake she made without even a splinter of malice in her heart?”

  I’d never heard Prezi speak so many words at one time. The passion in her voice stripped away any response I might have made. How had my unassuming cousin, who’d always followed my lead without question, found her voice?

  She brushed her hand across my forehead and down my cheek. “I know this is a shock to you. You’ve been settling into life here, just as I have, which is why I did not tell you all I’d gleaned about this place right away. After all that happened, with your father, with Seno and our village . . . I begged Moriyah not to reveal it until I felt you were ready for the truth.

  “These are good people, Sofi, and I feel safer with them than I ever did on our island where your father took lives as he pleased,” she said. “How can we possibly turn our backs on a family that has done nothing but welcome and protect us?”

  Mind spinning with all she’d laid before me, I turned my eyes back up to the ceiling and she did the same.

  Twining her fingers into my own beneath the blanket, she whispered, “Given the choice between the gods our people venerated on that hill and the God who offers shelter for even the most undeserving, I know who I choose.”

  C

  HAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Eitan

  Working together, Nadir and I lifted the hip-high jug of first-press olive oil and moved it to the back wall of the dais. The raised platform that formerly displayed an enormous statue of Ba’al now held fifteen jugs of only the purest of oil, given to the Levites as their holy portion from all the villages that surrounded Kedesh. Since the elderly farmer who was hauling the jugs had his wagon break down near the city gate, Baz had volunteered me to transport the goods—entirely on foot. Thankfully, Nadir had offered to help.

  Once a Canaanite temple, this building had been ritually cleansed, its blasphemous idols stripped and destroyed. No longer a house of repugnant worship, this building now served as a storehouse for the Levites who administrated this town.

  I sat down on the edge of the dais, needing a break from trekking back and forth through town carrying jugs of oil and brined olives, and used the neck of my tunic to wipe the sweat from my face and beard.

  “Quite a commotion last night,” said Nadir as he slumped to the floor next to me and leaned his back against the knee-high stone platform. “Were you there when they brought the body in?”

  “I was. In fact, he did not die until after he’d been brought through the gates.” I winced at the memory of the manslayer, blood dripping from the dagger lodged in his torso, as his two panic-stricken brothers carried him to his last moments of life. If only Sofea had not witnessed the aftermath of the altercation. I’d seen her for a moment during the ruckus, pale-faced as my mother had explained the realities of Kedesh to her, but my desperate need to speak to her, comfort her, had been thwarted by her flight back to the sanctuary of her room.

  Nadir cut into my thoughts. “Was the Blood Avenger found?”

  “He was. Darek and Baz tracked him north, near Laish. There were witnesses who confirmed it to be a hunting accident. The manslayer simply did not make it to the boundary line in time before the go’el haadam exerted his legal rights to redemption.”

  We both went quiet. Nadir was undoubtedly considering his own experience with the boundary line that encircled our city in two thousand cubits of safety. From the few things he’d told me about his manslaughter conviction, it seemed Nadir had been escorted to Kedesh without incident. Nothing like the harried flight Moriyah and Darek had been forced to take here eleven years ago. Because of me.

  A rush of unseasonably warm air breezed in through the tall open doors, making the stuffy chamber more like my mother’s bread oven than a storehouse. I lifted my thick, sweat-laden braid, entertaining the thought of cutting it, of ending my vow, for the hundredth time since I’d begun training with Baz. But I would hold to the promise I’d made to Yahweh; in fact, I welcomed the discomfort. The weight of the hair on my head was nothing compared to the burden of Zeev and Yared’s deaths on my soul, nor the pain I’d inflicted on Darek’s family.

  “How much more can fit in here?” said Nadir. He swiped a palm across his forehead as he surveyed the tall chamber that had onc
e echoed with the chants of worshipers and other unholy things too disturbing to be imagined. Now jars of grain, barley, and dried foodstuffs lined the walls, stacked high on shelving that I, as a boy of nine, had a small part in crafting during the first year I lived in Kedesh.

  “There are two more years until the sabbath year. We’ve filled the underground storage rooms already with the more perishable items, but there is plenty of space.”

  I remembered the miraculous abundance of the sixth year in the last shmitah cycle well. Trees had bowed beneath the weight of enormous fruits, crops saw neither pestilence nor destructive storms to limit their yield, and herds seemed to multiply overnight. Being only two years old when we crossed the Jordan, I did not remember the taste of the manna in the wilderness, but I would never forget the way these chambers overflowed with provisions for Yahweh’s people.

  On the seventh year of the cycle, the Land would lie fallow. No planting, no pruning, no harvest. But Kedesh would be well stocked, ensuring that not only would the Levites and their families be well provided for, those imprisoned here would not go hungry either.

  “There are two more jugs of oil by the gates,” I said, rolling my shoulders back. “Then we can get to work on the farmer’s broken axle.”

  With a nod, Nadir followed me out into the sunshine, and I blinked against the brilliant blue morning. A flock of geese honked their way over our heads, their formation like an arrowhead pointing toward the lake nearby. Thankfully, after losing our wager the other day, Nadir had said no more to me about fishing; and from his willingness to help today, it seemed as though my victory had not severed our friendship either.

  Skirting the busy marketplace in favor of the maze of alleyways between homes, we headed toward the center of town. My hope that this last trip would be swift and relatively painless was dashed when two soldiers turned a corner, blocking our way.

  I groaned internally as I recognized one of them. Meshek. A bully of a boy who’d grown into a beast of a man, one who’d taken inordinate pleasure in mocking me in particular. The harassment I had endured as a child had ended only when Meshek came of military age three years ago and left Kedesh to join a regiment of soldiers stationed at Merom as a precaution against incursion from Tyre.