Shelter of the Most High Page 6

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  Eitan

  “We should call up the men of Asher, Naftali, and any other tribes that care to defend Israel, and push north. Why wait? We should strike first, ask questions later.” Baz’s low-toned challenge to Darek greeted me as I ascended the staircase toward the rooftop where they’d stolen off to after the meal, taking the rain-slick stone steps two at a time.

  “It’s not the time, Baz,” said Darek. “Yehoshua ordered us to conquer the cities within our own territories, not cast our sights outside our boundaries.”

  “But if we don’t take the fight to them, they’ll come here.”

  “Who is coming?” I said as I strode over the last stair. Standing near the hip-high stone parapet that surrounded the inn’s rooftop, the two men snapped their attention to me, expressions wary, as if I’d surprised them. Unlikely, as these two had spent the last eleven years spying for the armies of Israel among the various leftover tribes of Canaan. Darek’s men were trained well in the arts of silent observation and stealth. It was likely they’d both known I was approaching before my sandal had landed on the second stair.

  “No one,” said Darek, waving a dismissive hand. “Baz is exaggerating.”

  I stared at Darek, my fingers curling into fists at my sides as shadows of our argument five years ago floated to the surface. “I am no longer a child.”

  Darek raised his brows. “I am well aware, Eitan.”

  He’d always been too careful around me, keeping the truth of his missions close to his chest, doling out tales to entertain the children but always stopping short of any gruesome specifics. I had been starving for details, as any man of full fighting age would be. I would be satisfied with crumbs no longer.

  Therefore, I matched his unyielding expression with one of my own. Not since that day we’d clashed when I was fifteen had I dared to stand so firmly against him. Surprisingly, his stance softened after a few moments. He dropped his head and folded his arms over his chest, as if he was actually considering whether to reveal what he knew. Tentative excitement stoked in my blood. If he was willing to open a window to his secretive world, would he finally yield and invite me inside the circle of his most trusted men?

  “All right.” He released a long, drawn-out sigh. “I will tell you what we know. But you will keep this to yourself, understand? I have no desire to spark panic among the people unless the threat becomes more dire.”

  Although victory crackled in my veins, I simply dipped my chin in stoic acknowledgment.

  “We are surrounded by enemies, Eitan. To the south, Egypt’s vengeance simmers. To the east, Ammon and Moab’s long-held jealousies build day upon day. To the north, Aram beyond the Euphrates licks its chops as it waits for Yehoshua to be gathered to our fathers. And among us, the remaining enemy tribes chip away at our foundations. The tribe of Asher has been far too amenable to peace with our enemies; the Benjamites have instituted a tribute from the Canaanites instead of banishing them, and Manasseh has flouted Yehoshua’s command and cut a treaty with Megiddo.”

  “There are also tensions between the tribes, arguments over boundaries and the like,” said Baz. “Simeon is none too pleased with their lot, surrounded as they are by Yehudah’s cities and close enough to the strongholds at Gaza and Ashkelon that they are vulnerable to attack by the Philistines.”

  Darek nodded, his expression dour. “Dan is highly dissatisfied with their portion as well, especially since they’ve only been able to inhabit one valley due to the strength of Yaffa’s army. There’s a rumor they plan to send scouts north to search out a new place to pitch their tents.”

  I stayed quiet, absorbing the flood of information they’d finally entrusted to me. For all these years I’d believed that the victories Israel had claimed, before and after Jericho, were enough. That the sons of Yaakov had their territories well in hand, were enjoying success in driving out the Canaanites, and that with the Ark at our core, our fledgling nation had little need to fear incursion. I may no longer be a child, but I’d certainly been naïve. Protected within the thick walls of Kedesh, I’d been duped into believing that such safety encompassed the borders of Israel as well.

  I yearned to use the bronze dagger now tucked into my belt, like the ones I’d crafted for Darek’s men, against the enemies of Yahweh. Every bone in my body begged to be used in such a battle.

  “Teach me.” I slipped the weapon from its leather sheath and held it out to Darek, praying that his arguments from five years ago had withered with time and that I’d proven myself to be useful, worthy of the effort it would take to share his expertise. “Train me to use these weapons I’ve been creating for the past few years.”

  Darek accepted the dagger. Then, holding it up in the waning light, he turned it back and forth as if he were examining a rare jewel. It glimmered like a flame as it reflected the sunset. Gripping it by the wooden hilt, he swiped the blade through the air a few times, getting a feel for the balance of the piece. I could tell by the satisfied look on his face that he was impressed. Pride swelled in my chest, threatening to erupt into a shout of triumph as he admired the product of my labor.

  After handing the knife to Baz, who also expressed appreciation for my craftsmanship, Darek scratched at his stubbled chin, his beard finally filling in after a few weeks of shaving to approximate the odd fashions of the Canaanites. “I suppose we should,” he said, his tone uncertain. “You’ll need to defend Kedesh should anything happen. If Yehoshua dies and the Arameans come south—”

  “No.” I clenched my fists at my sides, determined to not give in this time. “Not just to defend the city. I want to go with you. I am ready to be on the front lines of this war, to scout with you. To be of service to my people. I am tired of hiding behind my mother’s skirt.”

  “You know that is not an option, Eitan. You must stay in the city.”

  “I was a child! Who would know—or care—if I left?”

  “Raviv lives within an hour’s walk—”

  “Is he sitting at the gate waiting for me? It’s been eleven years, Darek. Eleven years. If you haven’t noticed, I don’t look the same as I did when I was a boy.” I gestured with a sweep from the top of my head to my feet, bringing attention to the fact that I now stood nearly a head taller than Darek himself. “I’ve endured being trapped in this city since I was nine, and I’ve kept my mouth shut about why, for Ima’s sake. But I can’t bear sitting on my hands while you wield the weapons I make against our enemies.”

  “You don’t know my brother. It doesn’t matter how many years it’s been.” The line of his mouth hardened. “He will never forget your part in the death of his sons. He will never let it go. You are in mortal danger if you slip one toe over that boundary line, and I have little doubt that he has spies within this very city.”

  “I can take care of myself,” I scoffed. “And if you train me, then all the better. In fact”—I narrowed my gaze on him—“you should have begun five years ago.”

  Darek grabbed me by the arms, shocking me into stillness with his thunderous expression. “Baz and I will train you to defend Kedesh, but you will not leave this city. Moriyah would shatter if you were killed, Eitan. I know you don’t consider me your father, but you will honor your mother.”

  Releasing me with a jerk, he strode away and disappeared down the staircase, leaving Baz and me in stunned silence. The last of the sunlight flared over the western hills, and the haze of twilight gathered around us.

  Suddenly Baz released a deep-chested laugh and slapped me on the back. “Excellent work, young man.”

  Annoyed with his joviality after such a heated confrontation, I turned a confused scowl on the man I’d known, and practically worshiped, most of my life. Baz had been a help to my mother during her escape from Shiloh when her life was in peril. Then after his young wife died in childbirth, he’d joined Darek and served alongside him for all these years. Since Darek’s own brother had disavowed him and declared a blood feud on his wife a
nd her son, Baz had stepped into Raviv’s role, filling the empty space with his enormous personality and unswerving faithfulness.

  “I haven’t seen Darek that worked up since Moriyah was on trial for murder. When I arrived in Shechem to bring him word that the trial had been delayed, I thought the man might rip my arms off. Not much gets beneath Darek’s skin. I’ve seen him take on one of those vicious giant Anakim alone without so much as a twitch of his little finger.” Another story I’d never heard—and wagered that Ima hadn’t either. “But he won’t tolerate a threat against someone he loves, not for a moment.”

  “I can handle my mother, Baz. I have no intention of threatening her peace of mind.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Moriyah, boy. I was talking about you.”

  I had no response to such an idea. Darek had married my mother a few months after we’d been moved from Shiloh to Kedesh, and although wary of him at first, I truly had revered him as a boy. But I’d always known that in his eyes I was Moriyah’s son, not his. Not to mention that it was my fault his own flesh and blood had turned on him . . .

  Brushing off the reminder, I strode across the rooftop to the city wall where it abutted the inn. Leaning my elbows on the stone, I peered over the rampart into the dusk. Something about the deepening blue of the western horizon reminded me of Sofea and I grasped at the distraction.

  “Tell me about those girls you brought here,” I said. “The whole story this time.”

  Baz leaned next to me, his back to the wall and the hazy landscape around Kedesh. “Not sure how much more I can tell you. I found the tall one, Prezi, sleeping beneath a palm tree, curled into the dirt like a sand crab. I didn’t mean to frighten her, but her eyes flew open and I thought she’d scream, had myself prepared for some loud squalling. But instead she just looked up at me, all quiet, as if she’d already accepted I was going to hurt her and didn’t even care.” His brow furrowed. “A strange reaction. But then the little one, Sofea, came tearing out of the bushes, not minding my size a bit as she threw herself between us. She’s like a tiny wildcat, that one. Claws out, hissing and flaring her tail.” There was subtle admiration in Baz’s laugh. “Darek did his best to calm them, and we tried speaking every local dialect we’ve learned over the past few years, but they were just blank faced, like we were braying donkeys instead of men.”

  “Why do you think they came so willingly with you?”

  He pushed out his lower lip, contemplating. “The only thing I can think is that they just had nowhere else to go and no one left. They didn’t try to flee, even though they have had plenty of opportunity over the past few days. Sofea could have run at any time, but she’s so protective of Prezi that I doubt she’d leave her for anything.”

  “I wonder what happened to them,” I mused.

  Baz shook his head, thick concern on his brow. “I don’t know, but I have a feeling it was something awful. The Great Sea is no little puddle and can turn wicked fast.” He went quiet, perhaps conjuring the same horrific images I was of the two of them being tossed about by the waves, enduring the splintering of a vessel, and perhaps watching others drown around them.

  Baz spoke again, his voice low and hesitant. “From what I’ve seen of Tyre, the men who command those trading ships are not at all gentle with the maidens, if you catch my meaning.”

  The thought gutted me. I’d considered the shipwreck, but not whether Sofea and Prezi had been violated. I’d been helpless to protect my own loved ones for far too long, and I had the sudden, overpowering urge to destroy whoever had hurt these women.

  “I’m not backing down on the training, Baz.”

  “I know. I’ve been telling him this for months.” He handed the knife back to me. “It’s not that he doesn’t have faith in you, Eitan. Hear me in this.”

  “Then why?”

  “This place”—Baz gestured with a wide sweep at the high-walled city around us—“this city has not only been a refuge for you and your mother. It is here that Darek can retreat from the horrors he’s endured. The filth that marks the cities of Canaan. The reminders of bloodshed and war. We took a large portion of this land fairly quickly, you remember, and most of us expected that the rest would fall easily into our hands, that the peace and bounty that Avraham was promised would already be achieved. I think perhaps Darek hoped it would be over by now, that you’d be spared the savagery of battle.”

  I’d only been seven when Yehoshua gathered the Hebrew multitude at Shechem to set up a white memorial stone and renew the covenant between Israel and Yahweh, but I remembered thinking that the fight was over then, that we had conquered the whole land, and our enemies had been vanquished. Had Yehoshua, the mighty man of God I’d considered practically supernatural as a child, failed in his quest? Perhaps he was human after all.

  “He won’t admit it,” Baz continued, “but I think Darek looks at Kedesh less like a prison and more like a shelter from the storm, with his family tucked safely inside. It’s becoming increasingly clear that idea was only an illusion. Like he said, there are enemies all around us and enemies within. If the tribes continue to mingle with the Canaanites, allowing the creep of idolatry to ensnare us, it will only get worse.”

  “Then teach me to protect myself, my family, and my people. Eleazar won’t live forever.”

  Baz dipped his chin. “I agree. We start tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Sofea

  8 Iyar

  Prezi refused to get out of bed. I’d done everything to coerce her to rise, but she simply rolled over, blank-eyed face to the wall, mumbling something about no longer wanting to be pushed around by me.

  Would our masters be furious we’d slept too long? The sun had already risen, reaching through the high window to paint the opposite wall with morning gold. She may have seemed kind the night before, but the mistress of this grand residence very well might swoop in soon to demand that my cousin begin her service, regardless of her lame leg. I was determined to keep attention off Prezi as long as I could. I would do the work of two for as long as it took for her to heal.

  If Prezi lay crosswise on the stone floor of the room we’d been given, she’d likely be able to touch both walls, but there was a low bed in the corner, a small table that held a pot of water for washing, and a three-legged stool. I’d been so exhausted from the long days of foot travel with Darek’s men that last night I’d barely noticed our surroundings, but after standing on the stool to peek through the window, I discovered that our room was situated on the bottom floor of the inn and that our door led out to a large central courtyard.

  Ignoring my own bruised ribs and tender feet, I stepped out into the morning. A large number of people I hadn’t seen last night were gathered around a long, low cedar table. Seated on pillows and partaking of a meal, they all spoke that strange language and seemed oblivious to my presence in the courtyard.

  Darek, Baz, and the two younger men from last night were absent, but I caught sight of the head wife, the one with the brand on her face, standing with her back to me, patting dough between her hands and slapping rounds of it inside the gaping mouth of a towering stone oven. The other two wives were weaving in tandem on a large linen loom beneath a shelter in the corner, shaded by the palm-branch roof and trading quiet laughter as they worked side by side.

  At least Darek’s women seemed to get along, unlike my father’s wives who were near cutthroat in their competition for his attention and the power that came with it. Being the most beautiful of the lot, my mother had never had to fight for his favor, and she’d borne him eight children, five who’d survived past infanthood.

  Catching sight of the stone stairway that led to the second level of the building, I marveled at the way these people lived, stacked on top of one another like mud-bricks. Another stairway above led to the rooftop that was surrounded by a stone parapet. Curiosity sparked, and I was suddenly consumed with a desire to climb those stairs to the roof, survey the landscape around this city, and
explore this foreign place I’d been taken to.

  Although the journey here had been grueling, the towering white-headed mountains I’d seen on the northern horizon fascinated me, as did the sweet, rushing streams we drank from and the thickly forested hills that we’d traveled over to reach this high-walled city. This green and fertile land seemed to go on forever, nothing like the world I’d been born into, which had been surrounded by the sea on every side.

  The two little girls who’d stared at Prezi and me as we ate yesterday were playing a game in one corner of the courtyard, something that involved rocks and circles drawn on the ground with charcoal. I had the ridiculous urge to join them, to partake in the innocent activity and their girlish laughter—anything to forget the sound of keening that rose up in my mind every time I thought of my brothers’ and sisters’ bodies lying exposed beneath the relentless sun, decaying. Swallowing hard against the nausea that surged with the conjured memories, I turned away from the girls. It was time to lock such thoughts away and accept my lot. Nothing could ever bring the dead back to life, nor could innocence be reclaimed. If anything, these last two weeks had taught me such things. Prezi needed me to be a bastion of strength. I would not succumb to pointless mourning, no matter that I had barely slept since we washed ashore, in fear of the horrific images that lay in wait behind my eyelids.

  Spying a small pitcher at one end of the table, I strode over and grasped the handle. Some variety of juice sparkled inside the earthen vessel and the sweet, tart smell of the liquid made my mouth water. I began to walk around the table, bending to fill cups as I went, eyes averted from those I was serving. By the fourth cup I’d filled, the chatter around the table began to fizzle, then faded to a halt. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I scrambled to understand what I had done wrong.

  A vision of Seno’s face as he raised the whip flashed through my mind. Would my back soon carry the same marks as Prezi’s? I was nearly grateful at the prospect—she’d taken that beating for me, and although I could never repay her, I would empathize better with her pain if I bore stripes of my own.