“We have no choice,” he said, tight-lipped.
She followed his lead without a word, the donkey between them. But the donkey seemed to sense the odor of the more recent dead. The stone Tendaji had rolled from the cave was one that had not sat sealed as long as the others, making it easier to move. But the smell as they wandered deeper into the cave grew putrid. The donkey stopped and brayed.
Rahab stroked its nose. “There, there,” she said softly. “You don’t have to keep going.” She looked at Tendaji. “We can’t. They will hear us if he grows stubborn.” She inclined her head toward the animal, which had taken two steps back and strained at the reins to turn and head toward the entrance.
“We will have to let him go then. Help me grab everything from his back.” Tendaji untied the saddle and tossed it in a corner, and the two of them tucked every provision they could carry into the pockets of their cloaks. Tendaji led the animal to the cave’s entrance where the stone stood slightly ajar and allowed it to run free, slapping its bottom to direct it to leave them. The donkey moved a few paces and stopped, refusing to budge.
Tendaji mumbled under his breath words in his Nubian tongue. Rahab huddled against a wall, shivering. Men’s voices drew nearer. Tendaji left the opening and joined her, taking her hand in his and tugging her again toward the wrapped corpses. “Stubborn animal won’t leave.”
“He will give us away,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
They moved in silence until they had gone as far as they dared. If they got locked in here, they would soon become like the men and women resting on the stone slabs.
Rahab placed a protective hand over the place the babe grew. Please, Yerach. But she felt as though her prayers did not move beyond the cave’s walls.
Voices grew louder and closer. They had entered the cave. There was no doubt now.
Rahab stood rigid, hoping the shadows would hide her. If only she had time to unwrap one of the dead bodies and encase herself in the grave clothes.
But as the sound of heavy feet clomped toward them and a torch lit the area not far from where they stood, she knew it was too late. They were caught. Yerach had not heard.
Dabir’s hand connected with her cheek once, twice, bringing swift tears to the surface. “Did you honestly think you could escape without my notice, Rahab?” He glanced at Tendaji, whose hands were tied behind him, on his knees at her side. “And you! Such betrayal is reprehensible.” He spat in Tendaji’s face, then looked at his guards. “Take this man and strip his virility. He wanted to spare the prostitute’s child? He shall remain childless all his days.”
“No! Please, Dabir. Tendaji did nothing but obey me. Please do not punish him.” Rahab’s pleading brought another slap to her cheek. Dabir yanked her up from her kneeling position and motioned to the guards, who grabbed both her arms and carried her through an adjoining door. But not before she caught the shock registering on Tendaji’s face, his dark skin paling.
Two burly guards lifted him with ease, as though the man had lost all strength to fight, as the anteroom door shut in her face. “Tendaji!” She screamed his name over and over, at last dissolving into tears. “He did nothing wrong!” But her angry tirade went unanswered, and the sounds coming from beyond her small prison grew silent.
She wanted to die.
The door swung open moments later, with Dabir filling the archway. He stomped forward, grabbed her bound hands, and dragged her back into his chamber, tossing her onto his plush couch. He towered over her and grabbed a strip of leather hanging on his wall, a whip that she always thought ornamental, to intimidate those who sat before Dabir’s judgment.
“The Nubian will return to guard you after he has recovered,” Dabir said through gritted teeth. “Fortunately, eunuchs make good guards when the prize is a weak woman.”
The sting of the lash came down on her calves. “Lest you think you can run from me again.”
She could not stifle a cry as he beat her again and again. Rahab’s stomach grew queasy. Was this how he intended to make her lose the child?
“Please, my lord, forgive me.” Her voice cracked on hoarse tears.
He dropped the whip even as he stared down at her. Silence was broken only by his heated breathing. “What am I to do with you, Rahab?” His angry tone now sounded hurt. “I trusted you.” He turned away from her then and walked to the window. She curled into a ball, weeping, her bound hands protecting the babe.
He stalked back to her, straightening to his full height. “I should have known you would run when I insisted you could not keep the child. How can you even want the thing when you don’t know the father? Prostitutes don’t raise children!” He pushed her aside until she fell onto the floor, then sank onto the couch in her place. “Will you say nothing in your defense?”
Every nerve ending hurt from his beating, but she knew she dared not ignore him. He had made his power over her very clear. She looked up briefly, then lowered her eyes in a gesture of respect. “I should not have disobeyed you, my lord. I did not want to hurt anyone.”
“But you did, Rahab. Surely you knew Tendaji could not go unpunished for helping you.”
She closed her eyes, her tears salty on her tongue.
“I have no choice, Rahab. You have left me no choice.” He sounded angry, and yet the wounded tone came through once more. “If you’d wanted a child, you should have told me long ago. Perhaps other arrangements could have been made.”
He sounded so magnanimous, but she had listened too long to his lying tongue. “If other arrangements can be made, then let me carry this child to term. Even if I must give him up, let me give him life.” She couldn’t bear to let them do what she had heard from Cala’s gossip. Temple prostitutes who managed to become pregnant were forced to drink bitter waters to expel the child from them. The ordeal left most to choose any means possible to prevent any further pregnancy.
Moments slipped past as Dabir stared down at her. “It is not possible,” he said after many breaths. “Too much is at stake. You already know this.”
Too much money to be lost, which was why even his beating was so careful. He knew she would heal from both the miscarriage and the bruises together.
He stood and gripped her bound hands, lifting her up. “Come.” He turned her about and led her through the halls, down several more corridors toward the king’s harem, to the palace midwife. He stopped at the door and checked her bonds, tightening the rope until she winced. “I do not trust you, my dear.”
He knocked on the door and spoke quietly to the woman, who took Rahab’s arm in silence and led her to a back room. “She can return home in three days,” the woman told Dabir.
Rahab heard his retreating footsteps but caught sight of the guard he left standing near the woman’s door.
“It’s quite a mess you’re in, young one.” She tsked her tongue and shook her head, her expression sad. “It’s harder the longer you wait.”
“I don’t want this,” Rahab said, her voice cracked like broken pottery.
The woman’s gaze held sympathy as she patted her arm. “I know. But there is nothing I can do.”
Rahab sat on the cot the woman indicated while she set about mixing a brew of herbs. “If the gods are smiling on you, this might not work,” she said, glancing at Rahab. “In that case, I will tell the king’s advisor there is nothing to be done but wait until it is born. Pray the gods have mercy.”
Rahab felt the slightest flicker of hope at the woman’s words. But all thought of the gods whisked the hope from her. If the gods favored her, if Yerach had done as she asked, she would not have been caught, Tendaji would not suffer the fate Dabir had assigned him, and she would be free.
But as she drank the bitter water, she prayed just the same.
Rahab awoke still groggy from the effects of a drug-induced sleep. She rolled onto her side and rose up on one elbow. What day was it? She closed her eyes against the onslaught of a violent headache and rested her head once more on the pill
ow.
The room was one she did not know, and for a moment she could not recall where she was. Sunlight streamed through low windows, and movement in the room caught her eye. The palace midwife. Memory rushed in on her with awful clarity.
“So you are awake at last. Good.”
Rahab squinted against the glare and tried to hide her eyes from the woman. She pressed a hand to her flat middle. So the herbs had done their work. The thought tasted acrid on her tongue. She turned away from the woman. “Leave me be!”
The woman stood silent a moment, but Rahab refused to face her. “It is my duty to see that you come through the ordeal without complications. Dabir considers you a great asset, Rahab. I am here to be sure you make a full recovery.”
“Dabir can go to the pit,” she spat under her breath. Overwhelming hatred for the man nearly choked her.
“I am going to pretend I did not hear that last comment, mistress.” She cleared her throat as though she felt somehow uncomfortable. “I have ordered a meal of fresh herbs and cheese and fruit to help you regain your strength. And I have put healing balm on your wounds.” She paused. “I don’t know what you did to deserve that man’s wrath, but he obviously still wants you in his service or he would not have gone to this much trouble.” She touched Rahab’s arm, but Rahab shook it off.
“Think what you like,” the woman said, her voice kind. “But you are worth far more than you know.” She headed toward the door. “When you are done pouting, come out and have something to eat.”
Her footsteps receded, and Rahab waited, relieved when at last the door shut and the room grew quiet. She sagged against the thin cot, no longer able to keep the pain held tight within her. Pain that went far deeper than the wounds Dabir had inflicted. Memories of the cramping and fear, of the tears she could not stop, would not be put off. She had kept silent during most of the suffering, but now . . .
Now, as the silence lingered and the room remained empty, she gave in to the crushing emotion. Oh god, oh god! How could Yerach have allowed this to happen? Even her silent prayers, as the woman had suggested, had not caused the herbs to fail.
She rocked forward and back, tucking her knees beneath her, drawing herself into the position of a newborn babe. Let me die. Please let me die.
But her prayer, like every other she had ever uttered, went unanswered, and the wound in her heart bled with every tear.
14
Rahab sat listless at her dressing table three months later, while another new maid dressed her hair in jeweled combs and draped dangling earrings from her ears. Once she had healed, Dabir had increased the number of men she was required to entertain each week, which left her little time after sundown to ready herself. Sometimes she even allowed the occasional visitor during daylight hours to give herself time to recover.
She was a role player, acting with each new man as though she truly cared for him. She played on their fears, then soothed their bruised egos, all the while knowing she meant none of it. She was dead inside.
Especially since Tendaji had returned to her a broken man. Though not really a man but a eunuch, his courage and determination—even his hatred of Dabir—apparently gone. As Dabir had ruined her, he had destroyed Tendaji’s manhood.
She wished she had never been born.
The servant finished the work on her hair without a word, for Rahab could not abide frivolous talk with women who came and went as often as she changed her garments. Rahab stood and out of habit smoothed the faint wrinkles out of her purple robe. She moved slowly to her chamber door toward the outer courtyard. She found Tendaji where she expected to, standing at the gate as he had always done.
He glanced up at her approach, the light gone from his eyes. “Can I help you, mistress?” His voice sounded flat, and where he had once held compassion for her, there was no resemblance of it in his gaze now.
“I came to see how you are doing, Tendaji.” She paused, thinking how foolish she sounded. “That is, I wanted to tell you how very sorry I am for getting you into such trouble. I should never have told you about the babe . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she studied the tiles at her feet. “If you ever want to leave, I will understand. I will not stop you.” She looked up but glanced beyond him, unable to hold his gaze.
“It was my choice to take you away from Jericho, Rahab. I knew the risks.”
“You did not know Dabir’s cruelty as I did. I should not have expected to escape him.” She looked into Tendaji’s eyes, surprised to find the hint of compassion flickering there. “He has kept my family living in fear since Gamal’s foolish acts. Even my sister is no longer allowed to visit me.”
She turned to go, her heart like a stone within her.
“Did you betray me to Dabir? Did you even hint at our plans to escape?” Tendaji’s quiet words stopped her cold. So even he did not truly believe her.
She turned once more to face him. “When would I have done such a thing? We were never apart.”
“We were during the hours you spent in your bed and I guarded the gate.”
“And you will recall that no one visited during that time.” He had every right to hate her, but his distrust pained her.
“There were servants.” He glanced beyond her as though he expected one to appear even now.
Realization dawned. “I wanted my baby, Tendaji. Why would I have ever done such a thing? Do you think me so evil that I would seek to hurt you or my babe . . .” She swallowed hard. “Who will never see the light of day?”
His face softened as her words settled on him. He nodded. “Then Dabir acted quickly once the servants discovered we were gone. He found us too easily. One or more of your servants spies on you for him.”
“I have always known it,” she said, holding his gaze. “Why do you think I feared to trust even you?”
He nodded, then looked away, and she knew instinctively that his new status had yet to settle with him, and he could not abide the embarrassment given his lost manhood.
Silence passed between them, but it held less anger.
At last Tendaji leaned close to her ear. “One day Dabir will regret what he has done.” He straightened, unsmiling, but one look into his eyes told her he had not lost all courage. Revenge could carry him far.
She touched his arm and nodded, then walked away. She made her way to her chambers and closed the door behind her.
At the window where she and Tendaji had plotted their escape, she looked out over the valley toward the Jordan, toward the camp of Israel, then searched the hills in the opposite direction. They had gone far in a single day. But not far enough.
If only they could have made it. But now, with added servants—Dabir’s spies—her prison remained stronger than ever. Worse, she had sacrificed her virtue, putting her soul in bondage. She needed rescue from herself, for she hated all she had become.
The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.”
Joshua 2:1–3
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz.
Ruth 4:19–21
15
Rushing waters sped over protruding rocks and tree limbs in the Jordan, overshadowing this narrower place in the river. Salmon stood at the edge, sensing Mishael’s nervous presence at his side.
“The overhanging branches almost meet in the middle. We should be able to hold steady to them to cross,” Salmon said, glancing from the slippery rocks below to the sturdy tree branches above.
“God will be with you. Be strong and courageous.” The elder, their leader Joshua, stood behind them, one hand on each of their shoulders. “Once you have crossed, wait to join a caravan of merchants to enter the city. The
y should not be able to tell you apart from any other travelers. At least we can hope for that much.” He paused and they turned to face him. “Once you are in the city, do not draw attention to yourselves. Just act like travelers and listen to what the people are saying. Lodge there if you can.” He handed them a bag of silver.
Salmon took the bag and nodded, his faith rising with Joshua’s confident tone. “We will do as you have asked. And make no mistake, we will not fail.” Not like the spies Moses had sent to see this land. He would not live with their regrets or their consequences.
He glanced at Mishael. “Let’s cross this river and get to Jericho.”
On the other side of the river, Salmon ungirded his robe and retied his sandals, which had been dangling about his neck. He pulled the turban from his pocket and tied it with a leather strap, while Mishael did the same.
“That was easier than I expected,” Mishael said, brushing the last of the dirt from his feet. “Let’s hope getting the information we need is as simple.”
Salmon looked toward the formidable walls of Jericho, still half a day’s walk from where they stood. “How hard can it be?” Though his thoughts carried the same concerns.
Salmon and Mishael searched the bank for branches large enough to use as walking sticks, hacked some of the dangling stems from their edges, and started walking.
“I hope we don’t have to use these or the daggers in our belts.” Mishael thumped the ground with his new staff and gave Salmon a mischievous smile. “I could whack a few heads with this, though—don’t think I couldn’t.”
Salmon laughed. “I have no doubt about your ability to whack heads, my friend.” The thought brought to mind the times when they would wrestle as young boys.
“Zimri always beat you.” Mishael spoke as though he had read his thoughts.
Crimson Cord : Rahab's Story (9781441221155) Page 11
