by D. J. Niko
Dedication
For my daughter, Anastasia,
and for all daughters brave enough to make a stand for God and country
Published 2016 by Medallion Press, Inc., 4222 Meridian Pkwy, Suite 110, Aurora, IL 60504
The MEDALLION PRESS LOGO
is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.
If you purchase this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Copyright © 2016 by D.J. Niko
Cover design by James Tampa
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress
“The wisest of women builds her house,
but folly with her own hands tears it down.”
Proverbs 14:1
1
Tel Megiddo, 925 BCE
The saffron light that signaled the decline of day grew leaden while a cloud of dust, parched as the ground from whence it came, gathered on the western horizon. The plains stretching like earthen waves beneath the tell were consumed, little by little, by the haze rolling across the Way of the Sea. The faint sound of horses’ hooves, thousands of them, was a slow torment, the harbinger of an inescapable fate. In the distance, a flash of gold flickered as the waning sun cast its rays upon bronze chariots: the lightning before the thunder.
It was Adar, the twenty-ninth day. In better years, this would be the season of promise, when buds sprang from the rock and newborn lambs struggled to find their legs, a time of deliverance from the melancholy storms that battered the land all winter. The valley to the east was only beginning to wear its coat of green, and the sea had given up its anger. But the naissance was as short-lived as the fragile spring flower. Life, new and old, would soon buckle under the iron grip of the advancing army.
There was no surprise as she regarded the onslaught. She knew they would come. Destruction followed moral decline as surely as vultures descended on decaying flesh. Even as the daughter of a king, she was powerless to stop it. Her will, however fierce, was a grain of sand in the face of divine wrath.
She lowered her head and gazed absently at the ashlar stones beneath her feet. So perfectly hewn they were. Her father had insisted on such precision. He built his fortress as he did his kingdom, and his kingdom as his character: formidable, abiding, immovable. She ran her sandal-bound foot across a hairline crack. Faults like this, left untended, could tear a stone asunder. That was how walls crumbled, making way for enemies to enter unchecked.
She looked up with a sigh and reminded herself who she was: Basemath, beloved daughter of King Solomon by the wife he adored like no other, the wife who loved him mightily and tainted him and ultimately destroyed him. For all his flaws, he was the most powerful king in history, the one in whom the Lord placed his trust, the one who made the world bow to Israel. To be the progeny of such a man, to honor his memory and keep his spirit alive, was a responsibility she did not take lightly.
“Mother?”
Basemath faced her twelve-year-old daughter, a honey-skinned, wild-eyed beauty with silken black hair cascading to her waist. The girl wore a simple gray cotton tunic hardly befitting her royal status. It was as if she, too, could sense that ruin drew nigh. She dressed like the commoners, for she would soon have to stand among them and fight on a battleground where there were no titles or privileges or stores of gold.
“I have searched the whole of the palace for you. The men have gathered in the courtyard and are saddling their horses. There is confusion among the people.” She looked past her mother’s shoulder and out the narrow window. “What is out there?”
Basemath drew a sharp breath. There was no reason to hide the truth from her. The way of the women of Judah was to be brutally honest, no matter what it cost. “What we feared has come to pass, Ana. The Egyptian enemy is upon us.” She nodded toward the window. “They will be here by dusk. We must be ready.”
“Is it why we fled Shechem to come here?”
“Megiddo is our fortress, girl. It will protect us. My father built it as he did his palace in Jerusalem. It is nigh on impenetrable.” She believed it, and it gave her comfort. “Now make haste. We must guide the others. Have the women and children assemble in the courtyard.”
Ana did not hesitate. She spun on her heel and started down the spiral stairway of the tower, her black locks billowing behind her like the mane of a trotting thoroughbred.
Basemath lingered a moment longer. She reached inside her white linen gown and pulled out the golden chain that hung on her bosom. She let the object dangling from it rest on her hand and felt the weight of it. The ring, forged of iron and crowned with a disc on which were embedded four gems, was a thing of substance, a physical manifestation of supreme power.
It was her most cherished possession, given to her by her father only days before he died. Solomon could have bequeathed it to his son and heir, the reigning King Rehoboam, but he chose against it.
“This must go to one who is pure of heart and spirit,” the aging, emaciated king had said as he’d tucked his bony fingers into her palm, releasing the mystical symbol of his sovereignty. “You, and you alone, are worthy of it, my daughter. All others have failed in the eyes of the Lord.”
When she protested, telling him the ring ought to accompany him to the world to come, he offered a pale smile. “There is much I cannot tell you. You must trust your old father. Take this ring and keep it close to your heart. Let it remind you the blood of the house of David runs through your veins. Kneel to no one, even when the winds change.”
Basemath gazed out the window at the approaching column of men, their war cries suspended in the ruach qadim. Solomon’s words seemed prophetic now, some five years after his death. He had known this day would come. In many ways, she had too.
She clutched the ring and made a silent promise to her father: They will not win.
She kissed it as if it were still around his finger and tucked it back inside her gown. She tightened the pins on the white gauze veil that covered the back of her head and draped down her back over a long sweep of chestnut waves. She placed a hand across her abdomen to calm the gnawing sensation. The serenity that was unequivocally hers during thirty-eight years of life was fading like the splendor of youth erased by age.
“God be with us,” she whispered, and made her way to the courtyard.
On the ground level of the palace, a chaotic scene unfolded. Beyond the double arches that formed the wide terrace, in happier times a place of genteel repose, the men gathered to be fitted with armor. Army officers stood on stone altars and shouted: “Fight for the kingdom! Fight for your right to be on these lands! Fight in the name of the Lord!”
Basemath’s husband, Ahimaaz, was one of the military leaders. He was on horseback, instructing his garrison of soldiers who were readying to ride out of the palace gates. In times of peace, Ahimaaz was governor of Naphtali by appointment of King Solomon; in wartime, he was a captain. She had not seen him step into that role before that day, and she felt a pang of anguish at the newness of it. She willed it away, for it was a futile sentiment. This was no time to fear the unknown but rather to charge it head-on.
Basemath had faith in her husband, for he had a holy man’s heart and a warrior’s instinct. In his youth Ahimaaz had been a priest, trained in the ways of the Lord by his father, the high priest of Solomon’s kingdom. Yet he also knew how to wield a sword, and he had been called upon to quash a rebellion against his king. Solomon rewarded Ahimaaz’s victory with an important governorship and the most precious prize of all—the hand of his first daughter.
She caught Ahimaaz’s eye and held up a hand. He returned the gesture, and the two stood for a long moment facing each other, silently contemplating their fate. What awaited them wasn’t good, and they both knew it. The man who hunted them, Pharaoh Shoshenq I, was a formidable foe. He took what he wanted, without warning, without mercy; this he had proven over and over during his reign.
Word of his campaign in Kush had reached Jerusalem years before. His men had ambushed the border towns in the middle of the night, burning villages and butchering people as they advanced toward Napata, in the name of controlling the gold trade that flourished there and expanding the boundaries of Upper Egypt to the fourth cataract of the River Nile.
Perhaps the Kushite invasion was training for Shoshenq’s conquest of the lands on which he had ultimately set his sights: Israel and Judah. While King Solomon was alive, the Libyan-born pharaoh of Egypt didn’t dare attempt to breach the impenetrable fortress of Jerusalem. But during the king’s final years, it had become clear the state was hemorrhaging, politically as well as spiritually. Egypt had smelled the blood and circled round, waiting for the opportunity to strike.
Some weeks ago, the messengers spoke of Shoshenq’s Egyptian army riding north along the Way, destroying everything and everyone standing between them and victory. Word came of threescore thousand men and five thousand chariots, some heading north along the sea route, others turning east toward the holy city. Canaan had been taken, the messengers said. Scores of cities had fallen. Houses had been torched, their inhabitants skewered. Blood had stained the rocky soil in the south. There was no way to know the death toll, but the mere imagining of it made Basemath shiver with dread.
Ahimaaz lowered his helmet over his shoulder-length, silver-threaded ebony hair and shouted to his men, igniting the spark of the offensive. Armed with their spears and their courage, the horsemen followed their captain out of the palace gates and spilled down the tell and onto the valley.
Basemath said a silent prayer for their safety. Ahimaaz led not a conventional army but rather a resistance movement. Men rode from all parts of Israel and Judah, organizing in the crags of Gilboa, southeast of Megiddo. The Gilboa wilderness was hostile to the Egyptians and therefore ideal for the resistance fighters, who knew the caprices of the mountains. Their mission was to weaken the enemy by gathering intelligence and mounting flash strikes while the Egyptians’ guard was down. In the face of Shoshenq’s mammoth army, it was the best, and perhaps the only, hope they had.
Basemath turned toward the terrace and scanned the faces of the women and children who had assembled, waiting for direction. The little ones blubbered, their plump tawny fingers clinging to the skirts of their mothers. Babies screamed inconsolably, prompting their mothers to insert their breasts into their mouths, offering whatever comfort they could. Even the women, usually stoic in the face of danger, were restless with fear. One young maiden had to be propped up by her kin, who took turns stroking her hair and her tear-soaked cheeks. Another kneeled by one of the columns and retched, expelling the demons that tormented her.
She turned her gaze to the old widow Hannah. Her face, though etched with the rivulets of age and trials, was as soft and peaceful as a virgin’s beneath the shadow of her charcoal-gray head veil. As the others buzzed around her like bees in a honeycomb, Hannah stood still as a column, her gaze turned downward and her palms open to the heavens. Her lips moved ever so slightly as she offered up a prayer.
Basemath could not hear the old woman’s entreaty, but she felt the loveliness of it. She was certain Hannah’s was a call for divine union, a birdsong offered without expectation or conscious effort. She envied her peace.
Basemath searched the crowd for her daughter. Ana was instructing a group of girls her age on the art of wielding the khopesh, the Canaanite sickle-sword. She stood behind one, guiding her hand with her own, showing her how to parry. It was a maneuver her father had taught her, at her own insistence, when she was eleven. It was her rite, Ana had said, for becoming a woman.
Now almost thirteen, Basemath’s only daughter was mature beyond her years, a reflection of her royal heritage and the line of leaders to which she was born. She watched Ana demonstrate a sickle-sword sequence to her young friends. She commanded the blade as if it were an extension of her arm, dodging a pretend enemy. She spun on her heel and swung round to strike, her uncovered hair whipping like long ribbons of black silk.
One day, Basemath thought, she will marry a king. It was more a premonition than a passing fancy, and it fueled her will to fight. She owed a future to her daughter, to all daughters.
“Hear me, sisters.” She waited for the buzz among them to die down before continuing. “The Egyptian enemy is at the gates of Megiddo. Our men are doing all they can to hold back the army. The mightiest weapon we can wield now is our faith. Be strong in the eyes of the Lord. Pray for our soldiers. Pray for Israel.”
“I want to fight, Mother,” Ana said. “I want to show those men what the women of our country are made of.”
“There will be time for that, girl. Now it is our duty to protect our children and ourselves so we may perpetuate life. We must retreat to the tunnel.”
Ana’s eyes widened. “But, Mother, that’s cowardly . . .”
Basemath held up a hand. “Be silent and obey. Can you not smell the smoke of their torches? Can you not hear their savage cries? The Egyptians are ruthless. They mean to crush us. Our best defense is within the bowels of the fortress. Let us save ourselves lest they smite our breed.”
The girl lowered her head and spoke not another word.
Basemath continued in a louder voice. “The enemy knows nothing of the tunnel of Megiddo. King Solomon built it to protect our water supply in times of war. It is secret to all but the royal family and the highest-ranking governors.” She paused and held the gazes of several women to emphasize her point. “We will be safe there.”
The women were afraid. She could see it in their pinched foreheads, in their clenched jaws, in the shadows behind their eyes. It was her duty to protect them, not only from the enemy but from themselves. Their faith was a fragile thing, cracking in the face of adversity. Only Hannah and a few of the elders held strong, for they had seen times like these and survived them.
She turned to Ana. “Lead the womenfolk to the tunnel. Do it now.”
The girl did it without protest. For all her willfulness, she knew when not to challenge her parents. It was an unspoken dance among the three of them: each knew when to support the other. It was why there was harmony in their house.
The ground shook. Basemath snapped her head toward the ramparts and saw the massive boulder flung off a catapult break Megiddo’s defenses. The screams of the men stabbed her gut. Her ebony eyes misted. It would be only moments before the Egyptians were through the gates.
She turned toward the bewildered women and children. “Make haste. There is little time.”
She took up the rear of the column, ensuring no one was left behind, and spurred them on to the east side of the palace, stopping at a grassy patch by the vegetable gardens. The four-cubit-square stone covering the chamber entrance was so perfectly camouflaged by the vegetation that no one would know it was there.
Basemath kneeled down and felt for the handle in the brush. Her hand ran across the iron bar gritty with oxidation. It measured about two palms in width, big enough to be grasped by two male hands but small enough to be disguised in the thicket.
She felt a momentary pang of doubt. It took four men to move that stone, and that with some effort. How would a group of wo
men accomplish such a task?
The ground quaked once more. Though she could not see the west side of the fortress, she could hear the wretched cries of men plunging to their death. She looked to the sky. Give me the strength.
She turned to the women and picked five of the youngest and most able. “Ana, Leah, Nava, Shifra, Sarai. Untie your waist sashes.”
Each removed the strips of cloth binding her own gown and handed them to Basemath, who plaited them with nimble fingers. She tugged on either end of the makeshift rope and was satisfied with the weight. She threaded it through the handle and turned back to the women. “Now we pull.”
The five rushed to her side and followed her hand gestures directing them to each side of the rope. They dug their feet into the ground and held tight.
“Heave!”
They pulled with all their might, but the stone barely budged.
Basemath’s biceps burned and the tendons of her neck strained. She called again: “Heave!”
Without waiting for her command, some of the elders, though feeble, stepped out of the crowd to offer their assistance. Some twenty women pulled on the fabric rope’s two ends, their heels scuffing the earth. Their grunts were drowned by the thumps of a heavy weapon battering the wooden planks of the palace gate.
At last, the stone gave way, popping open like a lid.
“The Lord be praised.” Basemath wiped the perspiration from her forehead and gestured to the women to enter the shaft.
They scurried down the rough-hewn stone steps helter-skelter, each of them aware time had run out. In a matter of moments, the fortress of Megiddo would be overrun. When the last of them had gone inside, Basemath followed. She plucked a torch hanging from an iron brace on the wall and lit it by striking a piece of flint against the stone. She handed the torch to a pair of waiting hands and pulled the handle on the inside of the stone. It swung down with the help of gravity, shutting out the light of day.
