by Lynn Austin
“I already did tell you, Father.” He was such an accomplished liar that he could look his father in the eye without flinching, remaining calm and cool. “I don’t know why these servants have a grudge against me, but you can’t possibly believe them. Maybe they’re trying to get even with you for not setting them free. That girl is behind it all. She’s a troublemaker.”
Malkijah spread his hands. “Who am I supposed to believe?”
He turned to Chana, who hadn’t said a word since kneeling beside Nava. She looked up at Malkijah now and said softly, “I think you do know the truth in your heart.”
Malkijah’s expression hardened in anger. Nava couldn’t guess who it was directed at. “I need to return to my guests,” he said. “Go inside, Aaron. Someone get a litter and help Shimon to his bed. I’ll deal with this tomorrow, after my guests leave.”
Chana rose to her feet. “Leave the servants to me, Malkijah, and go back to the table.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. It will be my job to oversee them after we’re married, won’t it? Please make my excuses to our guests.”
Nava knelt beside Shimon while she waited for the men to fetch a litter, holding his hand tightly in hers, weeping at the sight of his bruised, bleeding body. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough. You saved me, Shimon, you saved me! And now look at you. What can I do? How can I help you?”
“I’m just glad you’re not hurt, girlie.” She could tell by the way he breathed that he was in pain.
“I’m so sorry,” she wept. “I never should have gone out alone. I should have known this would happen. I should have known!”
“Maybe this will finally open our master’s eyes . . . show him what his sons are like . . . show him his own soul and the lies he’s been telling himself.”
“But I don’t think he believes us, Shimon. I think he believes Aaron.”
Before Shimon could reply, Chana returned with a blanket for a stretcher and four servants to carry it. Shimon cried out in pain when they lifted him onto the litter, then moaned again when they laid him on his pallet in his room near the goat pen. Nava felt helpless as Chana and Penina hovered over him. “Please take care of him,” Nava begged. “He has to be all right again, he has to! It’s my fault he got hurt. He was trying to save me.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Chana said. “My father has been ill, so I know some herbs and leaves we can mix to help with the pain.” She told Penina what she needed and the little cook hurried off to prepare them.
“Master Malkijah will never believe me,” Nava told Chana while they waited. “Now everything will be worse because Aaron will try to get even with me for accusing him. And you’re on their side, too, aren’t you?”
“No, Nava,” Chana said. “I believe you. And I’ll try to convince Malkijah to believe you as soon as his guests leave. But he’s a very proud man. And he loves his sons. It’s going to be very difficult for him to accept the truth.”
Nava was reluctant to trust her. Chana had failed once before when she hadn’t convinced Malkijah to set his servants free. She would probably fail again. “Are you part of the conspiracy, too?” Nava asked her. “One of tonight’s guests is the man I heard talking with Master Malkijah in Jerusalem.”
Chana pulled Nava aside, away from the others. “Please don’t tell anyone, but Malkijah is secretly on the governor’s side. He’s trying to find out who the other conspirators are and what they’re planning. That’s why he had to return to the table tonight.”
“And you believe him?” Nava asked. “How do you know he isn’t lying to you? Maybe he doesn’t want you to know he’s really a traitor.” For the space of a heartbeat, Nava saw a flicker of doubt in Chana’s eyes.
Then she shook her head. “No, I know he isn’t. I helped him pass the traitors’ names to Governor Nehemiah.”
“Are you sure the names were real?”
Chana looked away. “I have to trust him, Nava. He’s going to be my husband.” She returned to Shimon’s bedside, and they waited in silence for Penina to return.
After feeding him the brew and doing everything she could to make him comfortable, Penina beckoned to Nava. “Come on. That’s all we can do for now. We need to go back to bed.”
“I want to stay with Shimon.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Chana said. “You can go. He’ll be asleep soon.”
But nothing could make Nava move from her friend’s side. “Do whatever you want,” she told the others. “But I’m staying.”
Chapter
47
BETH HAKKEREM
Chana awoke early the next morning and quickly dressed so she could go out to Shimon’s room near the goat pen to see how he was. He was still asleep, and Nava sat close by his side, where she had obviously spent the night. She wore the clothes that Aaron had torn last night, the edges held closed with a piece of twine. At first Chana wondered why Nava hadn’t changed out of them, then realized the girl probably didn’t have anything else to wear. She rose to her feet when Chana entered. “Will you stay with him, miss, while I take care of the goats?”
“Of course. Take your time.” She settled into Nava’s place, looking down in pity at the poor man. Purple bruises marred Shimon’s craggy face. His bottom lip was puffy and split. Chana had seen the marks from Aaron’s blows on his stomach and ribs last night and couldn’t imagine the coldhearted cruelty it took to strike an elderly man. His midsection resembled a pregnant woman’s, swollen beneath his thin undergarment. After a few minutes Shimon stirred and opened his eyes. “How are you feeling?” she asked. “Are you in pain?”
“It’s not so bad. . . . Where’s Nava?”
“She went to feed and milk the goats. She stayed with you all night.”
“She’s special. Like a daughter to me . . . She thinks last night was her fault, but it wasn’t. God is at work in this. Will you help me convince her?”
“I’ll do my best.”
He tried to move, then stopped and groaned in pain. Chana dipped the rag in the bowl of water Nava had been using and let Shimon suck on it for a moment. “I know I won’t survive this,” he said afterward. “I’ve been around a long time and seen enough to know that my hip is broken. Old bones don’t heal. Nava needs to be prepared for it.”
Chana wanted to contradict him, to urge him to be strong and believe that the Almighty One would heal him, but she could see the calm acceptance on his pallid face and knew better than to offer words of false hope. “I don’t know what to say, Shimon. I’m so sorry this happened.”
“I’ve lived a long, full life. But if you could help Nava accept that it wasn’t her fault and that God is at work, I’d be obliged.”
It was the second time he’d said that God was at work. Chana didn’t understand. “How do you see the Almighty One working, Shimon? What Aaron tried to do to Nava—what he did to you . . . was so horrible, so cruel.”
“You believe we’re telling the truth and that Aaron is lying?”
“I do.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Are you going to marry Master Malkijah?”
She was surprised by the change in topic. “Yes. In a few weeks.”
“Is it true what Nava overheard? That he’s a traitor? That he’s plotting against the governor?”
For the space of a heartbeat Chana felt a flicker of doubt as she remembered Nava’s question: “How do you know Malkijah isn’t lying to you? Maybe he doesn’t want you to know he’s really a traitor.” It vanished just as quickly. “I know he isn’t a traitor, Shimon. I helped him pass information about the conspiracy to Governor Nehemiah. He’s only pretending to join them so he can learn their plans and expose them.”
Shimon’s entire body seemed to relax. He smiled faintly. “I knew he wasn’t capable of such a thing.”
Chana remembered Malkijah’s disbelief that his son might be guilty and saw the same love and devotion in the elderly servant. “You seem very fond of Malkijah. I guess you’ve known h
im for a long time.”
“I was already working here when he was born. He loved the outdoors when he was a boy, and his father used to let me take him up into the grazing lands with the herds. Malkijah enjoyed the adventure of being out in the open, away from his mother’s coddling. He was their only child.”
Chana had noticed the ring in Shimon’s ear last night and knew what it meant. “You were a bondservant, yet you chose to stay and work here?”
“I could have been free many years ago.”
“I suppose that says something about Malkijah’s kindness to his servants. But I’ll be honest—I was disappointed when he didn’t set them free a few months ago like so many of the other men did. He explained that he couldn’t run his estate without workers, but I feel so sorry for young people like Nava who face six years of bondage. That’s such a long time for someone so young.”
Once again, Shimon studied her carefully. “You are a very compassionate woman, miss. Not many rich ladies would come down to a shepherd’s shack to help a crippled old servant. I’m glad you’ll be part of Malkijah’s life.”
“I only wish I could do something more for you.”
He stared up at the rafters for a long time before saying, “Maybe there is something. Can I trust you with a secret?”
“A . . . a secret? About you?” She wondered if he’d committed a terrible crime in the past. He seemed like such a kind, gentle man.
“I’ve carried it all these years, and I need to get it off my chest before I die.”
Chana leaned closer, not sure she wanted the burden of Shimon’s secret. But she remembered how Abba had helped people by listening to them and becoming involved in their lives. And she also knew that Shimon was right about dying—few elderly people survived a broken hip, and if they did, their final years were pain-filled and difficult. She took his hand, giving him permission to confide in her.
“Of course you can trust me.”
He sighed and stared up at the rafters again, as if searching for a place to begin. “I became a bondservant to Malkijah’s father when I was a young man, newly married. I worked as a shepherd in charge of his herds. My master wanted a son more than anything else in the world, but his children kept dying—three of them before they were born, two of them surviving for only a few days. It grieved him and his wife no end. About a year after my wife and I married, we had a son. We named him Matthias, God’s gift. It was one of the happiest days of my life. That boy was the world to me from the moment I laid eyes on him. I held Matthias in my arms and promised him that when my bond service ended, I would build up the finest herd of sheep and goats in all of Judah—just for him. I would do it all for him.
“But something went wrong, and my wife couldn’t stop bleeding after Matthias was born. There was nothing the midwife or I could do except watch the life drain out of her. And the night she died, my master’s wife went into labor for the sixth time.”
Chana covered her mouth, afraid of what he was about to say. He saw her and nodded. “You know what happened, don’t you? When my wife died, I wanted to die with her. My newborn son was crying to be fed—and his mother was gone. Who was going to feed him, take care of him?
“The midwife was running back and forth between this room and the big house, looking after both women. And when the master’s newborn son died like all the others had, she convinced me to give my son Matthias to them. Neither the master nor his wife would ever know, she said. My son would grow up to be a nobleman instead of a shepherd. He would inherit everything—land, riches, a title. . . . So I agreed.” Shimon paused, his voice choked with grief, as if his loss had occurred yesterday, not thirty-seven years ago. “I gave away my son and buried my master’s son with my wife.
“I made a terrible mistake that night, and I’ve been paying the price ever since. I should have raised my boy myself. We would have been poor, but maybe then my grandson wouldn’t be . . .” He couldn’t finish. Chana squeezed his hand, remembering last night. Shimon would likely die from his own grandson’s brutality. Chana wished she could ease his terrible grief.
“Does Malkijah know you’re his father?” she finally asked.
Shimon shook his head. “He almost found out, once. My brother’s sons thought they’d figured it out after hearing rumors and gossip over the years and seeing the family resemblance. They were jealous of their rich cousin who had everything when they had so little. They picked a fight with him when we were all together one night up in the pasturelands. I wasn’t there to witness it, but they accused him of looking down on them, thinking he was better than they were because they were poor shepherds and he was a nobleman. They weren’t entirely wrong—Malkijah did act superior sometimes and liked to throw his weight around. But when they accused him of being nothing but a dirty shepherd like them, he went after them. Got into a brawl and got his nose broken. It’s still crooked to this day.”
“Did he believe what they said?”
“No. Because even his parents didn’t know the truth of what I’d done.” Shimon paused and sighed again. “I stayed here all these years so I could watch my son grow up. And I kept my promise to build up the finest herd of sheep and goats in Judah for him. I’m proud of him in so many ways. He’s a wise and wealthy man, a well-respected leader. But he’s far from perfect. My unanswered prayer after all this time is that God will change Malkijah’s heart. My son is blind to the greed that’s hidden there. He doesn’t fully trust God and would be angry with Him if he lost his wealth. He’s afraid to set his servants free or cancel their debts because he doesn’t believe that it all came from God to begin with. He thinks he earned it with his hard work and that he has to keep on earning it, keep hanging on to it for security. God should be his security.
“It’s the same with God’s grace,” Shimon continued. “Malkijah believes that if he follows all the rules in the Torah, God has to bless him. He doesn’t see that the Almighty One’s blessings are a gift that none of us deserves. Blessings aren’t earned. And his cousins were right—Malkijah still believes that his noble birth puts him above the common people and gives him the right to rule over them. And so every day I pray that God will give him compassion for people like his lowly shepherd father. That He’ll open Malkijah’s eyes to what his sons—my grandsons—are really like. You and I can’t change him, miss. Only God can do that. But I see Him at work in what happened last night to Nava and me. And He brought you into his life. I trust that God is finally going to answer my prayers.”
By the time he finished, Chana’s heart felt as if it was breaking along with his. “What can I do, Shimon?” she asked softly.
“Pray for him after I’m gone. The way I’ve been doing.”
“Should I tell him the truth about you? About his birth?”
“That’s up to you. Maybe someday, if God shows you that the time is right. The right time never came for me. Malkijah is . . .” He was about to say more when Nava returned.
“I finished the milking, Shimon. And Penina gave me permission to stay with you today. You can leave, miss,” she told Chana.
Chana saw the mistrust in Nava’s eyes and wondered how she could earn it back. “Come to Jerusalem with me, Nava. We’re leaving this morning. I think you should get away from here for a while.”
She shook her head, her chin lifted. “I won’t leave Shimon until he’s well again. He saved me.”
“But you’ll be alone with Aaron.”
Nava’s expression turned hard and cold. Chana could tell that it was anger, not fear. “Master Malkijah still doesn’t believe the truth about Aaron, does he?”
“Not yet. But I pray that he will.”
“What about justice for Shimon? And for me? Why won’t he do the right thing?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Chana replied. “I promise that I’ll do whatever I can on your behalf, but I’m not Malkijah’s wife yet.” She gave Shimon’s hand a comforting squeeze and quietly left. She didn’t know if the weight of his secret had
lifted from his shoulders, but it certainly felt very heavy on her own.
Chapter
48
JERUSALEM
Nehemiah rose at dawn and walked across the Hill of Ophel and down the Street of the Bakers to his headquarters inside the Valley Gate. With the wall completed, the craftsmen now used the space to create the massive doors of Jerusalem’s gates. Today they would hang the Yeshana Gate in place. Shipments of timber for the doors arrived by oxcart caravans from the king’s forest and lay piled in rows, ready for the carpenters to saw them into planks. As Nehemiah surveyed the work in progress, he felt the same excitement and elation he’d felt two months ago when he’d first entered Judean territory and had approached his destination after a long, weary journey. He had accomplished his goal and completed the wall in nearly the same amount of time it had taken him to travel from Susa. He marveled at how drastically his life had changed in only a few short months. And now with his work all but done, he wondered what the Almighty One would ask him to accomplish next. The more he’d thought about Noadiah’s prophecy and listened to the people’s praises these past few weeks, the more he wondered if he truly was destined to be Judah’s king.
He heard footsteps, saw men approaching, and watched as the guards on night duty at the open gate transferred their watch to a new shift of men, exchanging swords and shields. The unfinished gates were the only places where soldiers still stood watch, and most of the men who’d labored on the wall and guarded the workers had returned to their own villages and farms.
By the time the sun crested the eastern ridge, Nehemiah’s carpenters arrived and the sound of sawing and hammering filled the morning air. Outside the gate, blacksmiths fanned the coals until their makeshift furnace blazed. They would spend the day forging bars and hinges and nails for the new gates. The sound would soon echo off the new walls.
Later that morning, the chief carpenter informed Nehemiah that the pair of doors for the Yeshana Gate was ready. “Would you like to watch us hang them, Governor?”
