Between the Wild Branches Page 2

  After a quick sweep of my gaze to ensure that no one’s eyes were on me, I unlatched the door and slipped into the black room. Holding my breath, I waited, my heartbeat the only sound for a few long moments in which I wondered whether the detour to slake my curiosity about Lukio had meant that I’d missed my contact. Or whether he’d even come in the first place.

  “Do you have the names?” said a low voice, one that was familiar now after a few months of meetings like this one. However, since I’d never seen the face that matched that deep voice, nothing about this encounter was safe. It was not wise to remain here any longer than I must.

  “I do,” I said. “The house of Kaparo the High Priest took in two young boys of perhaps ten or eleven, and that of Rumit the scribe purchased a girl of fourteen or so.”

  “Any others that gave you cause to worry?”

  “They all give me cause to worry,” I retorted. “They are my countrymen. Brothers and sisters from the tribes of Yaakov.”

  He paused, only his slow measured breaths reaching out to me from the blackness. When he spoke again, there was a deep note of compassion in his voice. “You know what I mean. We can only do so much, my friend.”

  I cleared my throat of the thick coating of remorse. I had no cause to snap at this man who risked so much to meet me and who relayed the names of recently sold slaves on to people who carried out more dangerous tasks than I could imagine for the sake of the most vulnerable.

  This man I met in the dark could be anyone. I’d never seen his face, and for his sake and mine, had never even considered breaching the trust between us to tarry outside the storage shed and discern his identity. He did not sound Hebrew, so either he’d been in Philistia so long that the peculiar sound of our tongue had been washed away or he had chosen to help with this mission purely from a sense of compassion. I had no idea. But whatever his motivations and however he’d fallen in with those of us who did our best to help other slaves escape their bonds, he’d never given me cause to doubt his trustworthiness.

  “From what I was told, there were not more than ten brought in before the festival, likely a raid on a small hamlet, and most of them were men,” I said. “Only two were sold locally. The rest were taken to the port.” They were probably already on a ship bound for some unknown destination so far from the shores of the Land of Promise that they would never return.

  I had not seen the captives with my own eyes, of course, being only one link in a chain, but every time I received information about new victims of the Philistines’ campaign of targeted attacks on Hebrew villages, my chest ached with empathy. I did not have to guess what it was like to be dragged from your home, to watch your neighbors and friends slaughtered, to pray that the vicious men who’d stolen everything from you would simply kill you instead of—

  I pressed down those disturbing memories and the swell of nausea that always accompanied them.

  “I’ll pass the information on to my contact,” he said. “Send word when more arrive.”

  And there would be more. Whatever fear had been put into the Philistines’ hearts by the resulting plagues and famine from stealing the Ark of the Covenant had eroded with every passing year. By the time my husband moved us to Beth Shemesh just after we were married, raids on villages in the shephelah were commonplace. True, our enemy had not come at us with their collective might like they had at Afek, when the five kings of Philistia took the Ark from the battlefield and then laid waste to Shiloh, but they’d been relentless in nipping at our heels, making certain that the people of Yahweh were never able to rest in the peace we’d been promised a thousand years ago. Peace I would never have again but hoped that I might give others a chance to reclaim.

  “I should go,” I said. “My mistress will be looking for me now that the fight is over.”

  “Who won?” he asked, the question dragging me right back to that balcony when I’d looked into Lukio’s eyes for the first time in ten years.

  I swallowed down a sharp response. He would have no reason to know of my connection with one of the fighters in that match today and had not meant to wound me by asking.

  “The champion of Ashdod,” I replied, the words feeling like rusted blades in my throat.

  “Of course,” said the man with a chuckle. “He doesn’t lose. Perhaps I should have put a piece of silver or two into the pot.”

  With that comment, one of my many questions about the man I’d been passing information to was answered. No kind of slave would have a piece of silver to gamble on a fight. And certainly not two. This man was free. Someone able to walk about unfettered in the city, to come and go when he pleased.

  I left the room without further comment. I had no interest in discussing Lukio’s violent tendencies with anyone, let alone a faceless person in the dark.

  Slipping back into the palace through a rear entrance, I made my way toward the opposite side of the complex, where those with more than enough silver to waste had gathered to observe the festivities and make their own wagers. By the time I found my mistress, any evidence of the fight on the courtyard grounds was gone, replaced by a troupe of half-naked dancers who were performing a complicated sequence of movements, leaping and contorting their bodies in impossible ways. To my profound relief, Lukio was nowhere in the vicinity.

  As was my duty, I took my place behind her shoulder, grateful that she was so absorbed in an animated conversation with her two sisters about the dancers that she did not seem to notice my return at all.

  Once my heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm, my eyes dropped to the infant in the arms of her oldest sister. The little one gazed over the woman’s shoulder toward the vibrant blue-and-red walls at my back, drawn to the ornate shapes and swirls, even though she could not yet comprehend the mural depicting the subjugation of my people by the Philistine ancestors who’d arrived on our shores hundreds of years before. Then the baby turned her eyes toward me, peering up at me with her wispy brows drawn together, and I was nearly leveled by an overwhelming wave of grief and longing.

  Ten years ago, I’d lost the boy I’d thought I would marry, and at that time, it had been the most devastating thing in my life—even more than my mother slipping away after a long illness when I was eight. But nothing compared to the soul-shattering loss of my children, and nothing ever would.

  Three

  Lukio

  Teitu scrubbed my head with a linen cloth, squeezing the water from the ends of my hair in a methodical way that had become familiar to me over the last four years.

  I’d been tempted more than once to lop off the excessive length, as the effort it took to fashion it into the distinctive style expected of a fighter of my stature was tedious. But as I’d come to discover in the years since I’d put myself in the public eye, the performance was as much a draw for the crowds as my skill, and I’d learned to play up both for maximum effect, no matter that such antics made me feel dirtier than the sweat and grime that coated my skin after a match.

  “There you are, Master,” Teitu said, giving my shoulder a pat, his one eye meeting mine for only a moment. “All finished.”

  It had taken two washings with natron powder to remove the grime from my body. Between the thick olive oil used to tame my curls into a long, spiraled queue and coat my skin, the profuse sweat trailing down my face, and the dirt stirred up on the fighting grounds, I’d returned to my house looking and smelling like a wild boar. But Teitu was used to the aftermath of my matches, unflinchingly tending my wounds before I soaked my aching body in the sun-warmed rooftop bath he’d prepared hours before.

  Teitu had been the first of my servants when I built this extravagant house. A couple of years older than me, he’d always been vague about his origins, other than to say that his father was Egyptian, which was evident in his bronzed skin and black hair. But he was so skilled at anticipating my needs that I did not press him about his past. I cared little where he came from and only hoped never to have to replace him.

  “Shall I bind your ha
ir again?” he asked as he ran a bone-handled comb through the tangles.

  “No,” I replied. “Leave it free to dry.”

  He nodded and spread the locks across my back, shaking more water from the length as he did so. When one of the damp golden-brown spirals slipped over my shoulder, I scowled at it. My sister’s hair was so similar in color to mine, and ever since that apparition from my past life had appeared today during the fight, memories of Risi had been crowding in on me.

  It had been years since I’d indulged in imagining what all had happened to her since I’d walked away from Kiryat-Yearim and left her to begin a life with Ronen, the Levite who’d once betrayed her and those she called adopted family. The fact that he’d feigned friendship with me to learn the location of the Hebrews’ sacred box for the purpose of stealing it—and also to get his hands on my sister—was a sin I would never forgive. How she could do so, after he’d lied over and over to all of us, was far beyond me. But she’d made her choice and betrothed herself to Ronen. I’d heard it with my own ears before I’d made my decision to leave that place for good.

  I flicked the wet curl back over my shoulder as Ekino, another of my servants, entered my bedchamber with a tray of fruit and bread, along with a jug of wine. He left the food on a table, affording me his usual silent, deferential nod as he strode from the room. All my servants were well aware that after matches I preferred lighter fare instead of full meals, and that they were expected to go about their duties as unobtrusively as possible for the rest of the day while Teitu alone tended to my needs. Unlike most other fighters I knew who celebrated victories with feasts and raucous entertainment, I preferred solitude after a day of bone-rattling collisions on the fighting grounds and ear-shattering screams from the surrounding crowds.

  “Your lip is bleeding again,” said Teitu, dipping a finger into a pot containing a honey-herb mixture. The moment he dabbed the ointment to the wound, its earthy fragrance caused an unexpected stab of longing in my ribs. I could almost feel the green-scented breeze trailing over my skin, hear the crunch of vegetation beneath my sandals, and taste the smoky haze that blanketed the thick forests of Kiryat-Yearim on soggy days.

  Ignoring Teitu’s ministrations to the other cuts and bruises on my face and body, which I barely felt anymore after so many years of constant abuse, I stared down at my hands and flexed my fingers wide. My knuckles were heavily callused and thick, having been broken many times over the years, and one small finger was permanently bent inward. It had been ten years since I’d felled a tree in that mountaintop forest, but somehow, I could still remember the sensation of gripping my ax, feel the satisfying vibration in my bones when its iron head bit into the thick bark of a tree for the first cut, and hear the crackle of branches as the giant toppled to the forest floor and shook the ground under my feet.

  Annoyed that such memories had begun to rear up, I was almost grateful when Mataro strode uninvited into my bedchamber and dropped his overfed body onto my cushioned couch with a grunt. He tossed a jingling leather purse onto the small table between us, one that looked to be half as full as it would have been when Mataro collected my winnings. I knew I should count the silver inside, make certain he was not skimming off more than the amount we’d agreed upon, but frankly I didn’t care. I had plenty of wealth, including olive orchards, vineyards, and rolling hills of wheat and barley outside the city, and now was not the time to question the far-too-generous portions of my earnings he helped himself to. I’d deal with that later, once my plans were implemented.

  “Where did you go?” he said, flicking a commanding finger at Teitu. “There was a group from Gaza I’d arranged for you to meet after the fight.”

  Used to Mataro’s wordless demands, my manservant poured him a cup of wine and placed it in his hand, his blank expression betraying none of the disdain that I somehow sensed he held for my cousin.

  “I was done,” I said with a shrug, knowing Mataro would not grasp my deeper meaning. Let him think I was merely overtired after my bout with the Phoenician.

  “These men have the ear of the seren of Gaza, Lukio. We can’t afford to brush off such connections. They were eager to meet the champion of Ashdod and interested in arranging a match with one of their best fighters, a mute Egyptian who they say is more beast than man.” His eyes flared as he swept his hand through the air, heedlessly sloshing wine onto the limestone tiles. “Imagine what sort of wagers such a bout would inspire.”

  My cousin lived as a rich man and not because he was particularly savvy with his silver. Indeed, he gambled away nearly as much as he brought in and walked a fine line with his debtors. But when I was fifteen and wide-eyed after my return to Ashdod, it was Mataro who’d taught me the rules of this city and filled the right ears with word of my raw talent in order to arrange the fights that had started it all.

  Would I have survived in Ashdod without him? Found a path to the fame I enjoyed now? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I’d repaid him a thousand times over for any help he’d given me in the beginning. These past years he’d been little more than deadweight, and I was done pretending he held any sway over me.

  He may have fooled fifteen-year-old me, acting as though he’d grieved over my loss and counted me as a son, introducing me to his drunken friends, and arranging sordid feasts that lasted for days. But it was not long before I’d realized that I was nothing more than another of his unfortunate slaves, wearing shackles that I’d willingly slipped onto my own wrists. Of course, by that time, I’d grown used to my bonds, and instead of fighting them had pretended to enjoy their weight. I consumed whatever he gave me—be it drink or women or hollow praise—and buried any regrets beneath an ever-growing pile of riches.

  “What happened out there today?” Mataro tossed a handful of sweet grapes into his mouth and then spoke through the purple mess. “You nearly lost to that Phoenician—and in the middle of a festival no less!”

  A flash of the vision I’d imagined earlier rose again in my mind. Looking back now, it was obvious that I had simply conjured up those enormous hazel eyes, the freckled skin, and the perfectly pink mouth rounded in shock—a product perhaps of one of the harder hits that Phoenician managed to land, along with the recent realization that this ridiculously extravagant house was far too empty and that it was time to do something about it. The futile longings that had been entangled with that decision had caused more than a few restless nights thinking about the girl who’d betrayed me, who’d walked straight into the arms of my enemy and had borne who knew how many of his children by now. I swallowed down the bile that coated my tongue at the thought of his greedy hands on her.

  “I don’t lose,” I said, wishing it had always been the truth.

  Mataro sneered and shook his empty cup at Teitu, who’d been at silent attention behind my shoulder. “You’d better not. My reputation is at stake.”

  I swallowed my disbelieving laugh. It was my consistent wins that kept his purse full of silver. My prestige as an unbeatable champion that ensured he was invited to the homes of those in high places. My blood and sweat that enabled him to call himself anything more than the sluggard and swindler he truly was. If only his perpetual inebriation and gambling were the least of his sins.

  Just before I left Kiryat-Yearim, Risi had insisted that Mataro had killed Azuvah, the old Hebrew woman who’d cared for us after our mother died, on the night we’d run away from Ashdod. I’d scoffed at the idea, certain that our cousin would not waste the life of a valuable slave. I’d clung to the explanation even after I’d returned to the city of my birth, desperate to hold to the notion that Mataro could not possibly be as vile as Risi insisted.

  But then, a few years ago, just before I’d moved into my newly constructed villa, I’d overheard two of Mataro’s slaves fretting over a burned batch of stew before a banquet and whether they might be beaten to death and thrown from a window like that “old Hebrew.” Immediately, the story I’d told myself about my cousin was shown for what it was—a many-layered blindfol
d I’d tied over my own eyes.

  Not only was Mataro a lecher, a drunk, and a thief, he was a murderer. And I’d refused to believe my sister, the only person who’d ever truly loved me—with the exception of perhaps the slave he’d destroyed.

  Disgusted with both myself and the man to whom I’d entrusted my future, I’d begun plotting then how to cut the ties between us. It had been more complicated than I’d hoped and taken longer than I’d anticipated, but this morning, while my cousin was occupied with aggrandizing himself to those men from Gaza, the final piece of the game I’d been playing without his knowledge had slipped perfectly into place. An opportunity provided by none other than Nicaro, the king of Ashdod himself.

  “And I’ve been thinking,” said Mataro, oblivious to my silent gloating, “that it’s time to think larger.”

  “How so?”

  He stood, pacing back and forth a couple of times. “When men from Gaza are making the journey here just to see you fight, it is plain that your reputation has far exceeded the territory of Ashdod. Even the king sees the potential or he’d not have invited that Phoenician down for the festival.”

  I sat back, amused by this rare and strangely vigorous burst of energy from my cousin. I took another long draft of well-aged wine from my own prolific vineyards while he blathered on about new connections he’d made and places he planned for us to travel in order to fight local champions. Little did he realize that not only had I long been considering such things and making plans to leverage the fame I’d already garnered, but that the king had indeed seen my potential—and not only on the fighting grounds.