Shelter of the Most High Page 21

  “That shepherd needs to be tied up before he comes to his senses,” I said. “He meant to kill her.” Considering the pool of blood shining on the cobblestones, I wondered if he might well have accomplished his goal. But if Raviv had sent him, why would he attack Binah instead of my mother? None of this made any sense.

  “We’ll take him to a holding cell.” Chaim gestured toward my lip, which seemed to be split and swollen. “You’d best take care of that. And get some sleep, there’s nothing more to be done tonight. We’ll sort this out in the morning.”

  My body sore and weariness filling the places where anger had reigned during the altercation, I headed toward the inn to ensure that my mother was safe. She would be beside herself when she discovered what had happened to Binah, whom she’d taken into her home and under her wing nearly eight years ago. She’d undoubtedly insist on rushing to Dov’s home and aiding the healers in whatever way she could. No matter how exhausted and heartsick I was, the oblivion I craved would likely elude me this night as well.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  29 Tishri

  I drew in deep breaths of cool predawn air, hoping to infuse my body with vigor as I approached the gatehouse. I’d gotten a few hours of sleep at Dov and Rachel’s home while my mother tended to Binah, but woke before the sun, plagued by questions about the young shepherd and desperate to know exactly what had happened with Sofea. I prayed that Nadir would return today and ease my mind. If he’d taken her to his village like I guessed, at least I would know she was safe—even if I’d never see her again.

  Shaking away the howling despair the thought provoked, I knocked on the door and Chaim appeared, his expression grim but looking not at all surprised to see me before sunrise.

  “Is he awake?” I asked.

  Chaim glanced over his shoulder. “Just coming around. So far he refuses to say anything.”

  “Binah is alive, but barely.” My voice came out rough. My mother was still at her side, her lips moving in constant prayer for the woman who’d become part of our family. “Let me talk to him.”

  He stepped forward and closed the door behind himself. “I’m not sure that is a good idea, Eitan. I wasn’t sure he would wake up after that hit you delivered.”

  “That shepherd boy has been spying on my family, Chaim. He may be involved with Raviv. If Binah dies and he is hauled off to a trial, I won’t get the answers I need.”

  Chaim lifted his palms in concession. “All right. After everything Darek and Baz have taught you, you may be able to get more out of him than us anyhow.”

  We entered the small room, which served as both sleeping quarters for the guards and as weapons storage. Dwarfed between the two guards who held his arms, the shepherd looked even younger now than I’d assumed. His jaw and right eye were grotesquely swollen from our fight, but I had no sympathy for anyone who would attack a defenseless woman in the street.

  Chaim stood in front of him, arms folded across his chest. “What’s your name?” Although a shadow of something like fear flickered through the boy’s eyes, he kept his mouth firmly closed.

  “Why did you attack that woman?”

  Still nothing.

  Chaim attempted a few more questions that resulted in only blank stares from the boy. He turned to me with a shrug and a gesture that it was my turn to try. Although it seemed unlikely I would succeed, I took his place in front of the defiant shepherd.

  Up close I could see that whiskers were only just beginning to sprout on his face. He could not have been more than fourteen. He’d fought me off fairly well for being so young.

  Drawing on that stillness that Baz had pounded into my head, I fastened my gaze on the boy with as much precision as I used when lining up a shot with my sling. Keeping the image of Binah’s bloodied body in my mind, I poured fury into my expression and waited. Silent.

  For a few moments he stared back, his mouth like stone and hands balled into bloody-knuckled fists. But when I refused to so much as move or blink as I regarded him, his eyes fluttered away. I let my shot fly.

  “What sort of coward attacks an innocent woman in the dark?”

  “She’s no innocent.” A sneer formed on his lips. “She’s a killer.”

  Although surprised by the accusation, I kept my expression carefully blank and waited. Unmoved. Unflinching.

  He spat out an ugly word. “I’ve only delivered justice where it was lacking.”

  Although it was common knowledge that Binah had taken refuge in Kedesh all those years ago, I knew little of her past. I had no doubt my mother knew the circumstances, since she’d gained Binah’s trust and loyalty within the first few months of her arrival. But she was insistent that none of the convicted manslayers in this city be defined by their horrific mistakes and guarded those details zealously, much as she had done for me.

  “You could not have been more than five or six when she came to this city. What could you know of the incident?”

  “She murdered my mother. Threw her into the fire and watched her burn.” He swallowed hard, his lips trembling slightly.

  Unbidden, the awful night of Zeev and Yared’s deaths surged into my mind . . . the scrape of the mud-brick on my cheek as I hid in the shadows . . . the horrific retching by the boys . . . the keening of their distraught father. I knew exactly why this boy had come to Kedesh. Empathy pooled in my gut. “You saw it happen, didn’t you?”

  All the fight went out of him, and his head dropped forward. “I didn’t know her name. Didn’t remember her face. Took me months to figure out who and where she was.”

  That day by the palm tree he hadn’t been watching me or my mother. He’d been watching for Binah, waiting for his chance to catch her alone.

  “You understand what will happen if she dies?” I asked. “Your life will be forfeit.”

  He lifted his chin, his brown eyes piercing. “I watched my ima burn. She was with child at the time, so my father grieved himself into the grave within months. She stole my entire family.” His face hardened back into the resolve from before. “If I die, then so be it.”

  The complete indifference to his own fate shocked me. How had he survived since that day? I wondered whether he too had been forced to live with a family that cared nothing for him. Slept on the cold floor. Devoured tossed scraps like an animal. Was that what had turned a child into an unrepentant murderer? Was this who I would have been without Moriyah?

  As if he somehow sensed I was on the verge of breaking apart, Chaim interrupted. “This was found in the street last night. Where did you get this weapon?” The dagger he held in his outstretched hand was bronze with distinctive scrollwork in the black walnut handle. My stomach tumbled over. A weapon I had made with my own hands was now encrusted with Binah’s blood.

  The shepherd glanced away. “Someone gave it to me.”

  “Don’t lie to us. You stole that from my workbench,” I said.

  “I’m no thief,” he snapped. “A man found me outside the city and gave it to me.”

  “Raviv?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know his name.”

  I moved forward, two handspans from his swollen face, my voice like granite. “How long have you been spying for him? Did he send you to kill my mother too?”

  The boy’s face screwed into a mask of belligerence. “I came here only to right a wrong. I don’t know anything about your mother.”

  “I saw you spying on my family.”

  “Only enough to find that woman.”

  Confusion swirled in my head. “That dagger was stolen from my workshop months ago, just after the Feast of First Fruits. You had to have taken it.”

  “I said I did not take it.” His defensiveness was laughable in light of the act he’d committed last night, and yet the expression on his face communicated nothing but sincerity.

  “This man you claim gave you the weapon—what did he say to you?”

  “I woke up with that dagger at my throat one morning. He must’ve followed me
to the place I’ve been sleeping in the apple orchard. He threatened to kill me if I didn’t tell him why I was in Kedesh, so I did. He told me I was justified and then gave me the knife.”

  Of course Raviv would encourage such a thing. He was undoubtedly dreaming of the day he could do the same thing to my mother. And me. But if he hadn’t directed this boy to kill my mother . . . was someone else in this city charged with the task? Someone had to have stolen that knife from my workbench. My blood stilled.

  “What else did this man say? Did he mention the name Moriyah? Is someone else coming after my mother?”

  His belligerence flared again. “I told you, he didn’t talk about anyone else.”

  I had to get back to Dov’s home, make sure my mother was safe. I turned to go, but the shepherd boy spoke again. “If he wanted to kill your mother, he had plenty of opportunity on his own. He wouldn’t need me.”

  I spun around. “What do you mean?”

  “The man who gave me the knife. He was with you when you saw me outside the inn.” He gave an indifferent shrug. “Looked to me like you were friends.”

  My thoughts careened back to the moment I’d seen the boy leaning against the palm tree. My bones turned to water. The only person with me that day was the same man who now held Sofea and Prezi’s lives in his hands.

  I crept through the room I shared with my brothers, trying not to wake the slumbering boys. Once my eyes were adjusted to the dim light in the chamber, I retrieved my sword from the hiding place between my bed and the wall. The fact that Nadir had carved the handle on this very weapon was not lost on me. Betrayal coated my tongue with bile. If he had hurt Sofea, I would bury this blade in his belly—

  “What’s wrong?” asked Gidal, interrupting my bloodthirsty thought. Sitting up on the bed he shared with Malakhi, he was sleepy-eyed, night-tousled hair poking out in every direction. “Did you find Prezi and Sofea?”

  “Not yet,” I whispered, my voice raspy from the fury that had been my constant companion since I’d lurched out of the gatehouse like a madman. “Go back to sleep.”

  I yanked my woolen mantle from a hook in the wall, then rolled and pressed it into a leather satchel. The air was growing cooler by the day and I’d have need of the mantle’s warmth at night. I had no time to say good-bye to my mother. But I’d heard the stories of the ways both Darek and Moriyah had placed their lives on the line for each other during the treacherous journey to Kedesh and knew she would understand my drive to save the woman I loved—she’d intimated as much yesterday.

  “Where are you going?” Gidal’s voice strengthened, all slumber pushed aside in favor of keen curiosity.

  Although I considered deflecting the question, Gidal’s gaze was unwavering, full of concern, and surprisingly sharp-eyed for a ten-year-old boy. For as wild and impetuous as Malakhi was, Gidal was his opposite. Steady, quiet, and reserved.

  “Nadir is a traitor,” I said, the truth solidifying as I spoke the word. A man whom I’d trusted with my most guarded secret had betrayed me, betrayed everyone in this town. “He took Sofea and Prezi. Fled south with them.”

  Malakhi too had awoken and gasped at my revelation. After glancing at the sword now at my belt, he threw off the blanket, crawled over Gidal’s body, and rushed toward me with terror on his face. “He won’t hurt them, will he?”

  Placing my hands on his small shoulders, I looked down at my youngest brother and into the light gray eyes he’d inherited from our mother. I pressed aside the small twinge of jealousy that niggled at me when I considered my younger brothers following in Darek’s footsteps someday. For unlike me, there would be nothing to stop them.

  “No, Nadir is not an honest man, but I don’t think he will hurt them.” Although the reminder of Binah’s assault last night did little to back up my words, and my mind skittered through other crippling fears I’d been straining to tamp down. Even as he lied about accepting my marriage to Sofea, Nadir had not hidden his desire for her. A man who had no respect for the life of one woman might well have little respect for the virtue of another. . . . A deep throb of rage began to pulse behind my temples. I slung the satchel over my shoulder and turned toward the door. “I have to go.”

  “How? Didn’t Abba make it so you can’t leave?” said Gidal as he slid in front of the doorway and blocked my exit. “The guards won’t let you pass.” Always astute and watchful, the boy must have overheard a conversation about Darek’s edict.

  “I’ll find a way.”

  “I know!” said Malakhi, also pushing his little body in front of me. “You can climb out a window like Ima helped the spies do in Jericho! We will help!”

  In spite of my urgent drive to leave and make Nadir pay for whatever he’d done to the woman I loved, I laughed at his suggestion and scrubbed his wild hair. “I’m not sure the two of you would be able to bear my weight if we attempted such a thing.”

  He frowned, his eyes filling with tears as he looked up at me. “But I want to help find Sofea and Prezi too. Can I come?”

  “If I could take you with me, I would. But I need you both here to protect Ima and to be a help to her until I return.” I divided a stern glare between the two of them. “Can I trust you both to do your duty?”

  They nodded their heads, and their solemn expressions gave me confidence that they viewed that obligation as sacred. Although we were not related by blood, the bond I had with these two boys went soul deep. I grabbed them both by the back of the neck and yanked them toward me, gripping them in a tight hug. “Good,” I said, an idea suddenly coming to me. “For now though, I could use some help getting past the guards. . . .”

  As I had anticipated, Chaim stopped me at the gates, determination etched in his heavy jaw as he placed a palm against my chest, his posture befitting his status as captain of the guard. “I can’t let you go, Eitan. I have orders.”

  My voice whipped out with venom. “He has Sofea, Chaim.”

  His hand dropped to his side, understanding on his brow. “I know. I gathered by your reaction that it was Nadir the boy was speaking of. But that doesn’t mean he would hurt her.”

  “He not only encouraged the shepherd to kill Binah, he gave him my dagger to do it with. Sofea is not safe with him.”

  He stared at me, scratching at his thick beard uncomfortably, and I knew he was weighing our years of friendship against his duty to Darek. “I’m not asking permission. I am going. If you don’t let me walk out that gate, I’ll find another way. You know this.”

  Indecision flitted across his face and a low warning growl came from his throat. “This is a bad idea, Eitan.”

  A surge of victory welled up. “Just make sure my mother is guarded well until Darek returns. If Raviv has someone else in the city, she must be protected.”

  “I already sent two of my best men to Dov and Rachel’s home.”

  “Thank you.” I clamped down on his shoulder to communicate my gratitude. “Now, let me go.”

  “I can’t just let y—”

  I glared and cut him off. “Darek only wants to keep me from following him to Laish, and I have no intention of going there.”

  “He wants to protect you—”

  I threw up a palm, again silencing his argument. “What matters to Darek is my mother. And she knows, just as well as you do, that I have to do this.”

  He studied my face for another agonizing moment, his lips pressed tightly together, then poked me in the chest, his tone lighter. “All right, but if Darek hangs me from the walls, it’s your fault.”

  I smiled briefly, knowing Darek would do nothing of the sort. “The Sea of Kinneret is only a day’s walk. Most likely I’ll be back before he even knows I am gone.”

  His brow furrowed. “What will you do with Nadir when you find him?”

  I’d been weighing out all the implications of this revelation. If Nadir had betrayed me by encouraging Binah’s murder, what else had he lied about? Since the words had left the shepherd’s mouth, I’d been scouring back through every c
onversation I’d had with him, digging for inconsistencies. I could not fathom how the reserved, unassuming man with whom I’d worked side by side and shared laughs and jokes could have stolen my dagger and put it into the hands of a young killer. Had he hoped that I would be implicated in Binah’s death?

  The night Sofea had walked through the door to the inn, we’d playfully lifted our cups to the challenge of capturing her attention. But he’d never planned to fight fair in the first place. What sort of man would be so callous as to encourage murder in pursuit of a woman? I pinned a hard gaze on Chaim. “All I know is that I’m not coming back without her.”

  A sudden commotion rose behind me, and Chaim lifted his eyes over my shoulder. My brothers had taken advantage of the time I’d been arguing with him and managed to spook two horses and three donkeys by pelting them with rocks from atop the ramparts. One of the horses reared and a wagon tipped over, spilling wares all over the ground.

  With a sly glance toward me as he recognized Gidal and Malakhi, Chaim began shouting, “You boys! Stop!” before stepping to the side to chastise the two culprits. It was the perfect distraction to keep the eyes of the rest of the guards off me as I slipped away, and the perfect story for Chaim to feed Darek when he returned. After two long strides that took me out of the gates, I broke into a run that took me down the road and all the way to the edge of the city’s territory.

  I glanced back over my shoulder and took a last look at the walls of Kedesh, hoping my mother would forgive me for ignoring the edict she’d given me eleven years ago. Then I stepped over the invisible line that kept me protected from the man who’d vowed to spill my lifeblood when I was nine.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  Since I’d last seen this lake eleven years ago during our journey to Kedesh after the trial, a number of the abandoned Canaanite fishing villages had been resurrected by Hebrews. I’d passed through four so far today, stopping in each of them to ask whether a fisherman named Nadir had ever lived there. Although the villagers were welcoming, a few of them offering hospitality in the form of a meal, no one seemed familiar with anyone of his description.