Angels at the Gate

by T. K. Thorne

  It is not difficult to keep awake now. I do not want to die at the hands of these men. Nami nestles close, and I put my hand on her head. The contact clears my mind, and I can think. If they hold true to the plan I overheard, I may be able to warn Raph tomorrow, but what if our guards change their minds and decide to slay us tonight?

  I wait until the sliver of moon has begun her arc across the sky and slip my blanket to the side. Nami pushes against me, stealing the warm space I vacated. “Stay,” I tell her softly, reinforcing the command with a hand signal. She lifts her head. In the scant moonlight, she is difficult to see. I know she watches me as I slip to the other side of the wagon where Raph sleeps. He lies on his side with his back to me. He is a warrior, but I am stealthy, and I approach him without alerting him. Proud of my skill, I reach out to touch him, and my heart drops like a stone in water.

  Raph has used my old trick. My hand connects with hard rock beneath his wool blanket.

  CHAPTER

  36

  If I am not for myself, who is for me? And being for my own self, what am I? If not now, when?

  —Hillel, Sayings of the Fathers

  RAPH HAS LEFT US. CHIRAM is a cook. I am a woman. What can we do against three armed, trained warriors of Babylonia?

  What is the right question, Father? Asking this calms my mind enough to think. The right question is this: How can we survive? I do not relish seeing more death, but I am not prepared to see my own. And what would happen to Nami?

  Yet what can I do? I have still not recovered from whatever Mika had me drink the night we sought heaven. I would not be of much use in a fight. The guards will return soon, and they will post a watch. Even if I could get to Chiram’s pallet without notice and explain it all to him, how would we escape? There is river to our right and desert to the left. Our tracks would show in this soil, and the wind is still. No dust demons here. We would be found quickly.

  What if we slipped into the river? I bite my lip. I have not the strength to fight the current, and Chiram cannot swim; he would never do that. I scowl. What good is he? Then I remember Chiram’s deadly accuracy with his knives. At least we have that, but again, it does not seem a battle with much chance for winning.

  So if we cannot flee or fight, what do we have to bargain our lives? They could simply take our silver, our donkey, and the camel. I consider trying to wake Chiram and explain why I need his silver. I cannot imagine his listening to me or giving it over, so I rise and do what I can.

  WHEN I RETURN, I wake Chiram. We have a slim chance of cutting the sleeping guards’ throats and perhaps Chiram’s knives can take out the one standing watch. Chiram would want to fight. I believe that of him, at least. I kneel beside him and shake his shoulder. He wakes easily, despite the loud snores, and narrows his eyes at me. “What?”

  “Quiet,” I whisper. “Listen to me.”

  He sits up, hands going to the knives that stay tucked in his sash even when he sleeps. “What has happened?”

  I have no chance to answer. A sound behind me makes me turn and when I turn back, sickle-curved swords prick both sides of Chiram’s neck and then the small of my back.

  “Where is the warrior, Raph, who traveled with us?”

  At first I cannot speak. My chest is filling as it did when I ascended the steps of the goddess temple, but this time not in fear of love.

  “He is gone,” I manage, concentrating on my breathing, remembering Mika’s hand on my arm, his calm voice in my ear: As contrary as it seems, you are getting too much air. I slow my breath, forcing myself to ignore the demands of my lungs. Trust me … I am a healer.

  “Get up.”

  I stand on shaky legs, grateful I am not skewered here and now or savaged. A quick glance at the guard’s face—he is the man I call Scar—reveals he is too concerned with Raph’s whereabouts to bother with me now. He does not want an arrow in his back or a blade. With a powerful shove, he pushes me forward. “Be silent or I will slit your throat and leave you for the hyenas.”

  Nami appears, visible only as a darker stain in the dark night. Scar grasps my arm, and Nami growls, a sound low in her throat. “Shut that dog up, or I will kill it,” Scar says.

  “To me,” I say, patting my thigh. At first she does not, keeping her focus on Scar. I pat again, my heart stuttering with fear that she will disobey. It is a moment that seems an eternity until she pads to my side. I exhale, and Scar marches me toward the hillside where I overheard him and his compatriots planning our death.

  I LIE IN the dark of the cave, my hands and feet bound with rawhide strips. What have they done to Nami? It took two men to tie her mouth shut. I am ill with worry for her. I shift, trying to move the cylinder seal my father gave me, which is digging into my chest.

  I am not alone. There are sounds of breathing. A familiar stink drifts to me.

  “Chiram?” I ask the silence.

  He grunts.

  I close my eyes.

  Chiram shifts. “Where is that good-for-ill, Raph? I thought he was such a mighty warrior.”

  “Gone,” I say. “Back to his people.”

  “Convenient timing.”

  I agree, but say nothing. My anger at Raph does nothing for our circumstance. “What do we do?” For a moment I am stunned that this question, this plea, has come from my mouth to Chiram. Never have I turned to him for advice or help, though he has been a presence in my life for its entirety.

  There is silence on his part, and I regret my outburst but, finally, he says. “We wait. What else is there to do? Perhaps they will make a mistake.”

  “And if they do not?”

  “We are dead.”

  I can trust Chiram not to sweeten his words, but the fact is death—at least a quick one—may not be my fate, at least not at first. My mouth is dry as the desert dirt.

  Another scent comes to me—blood. “Chiram, are you hurt?”

  “Ehh …”

  “Chiram!”

  “I did not take kindly to being woken with a blade at my neck.”

  “Where are you wounded?”

  “Well my neck, for one, but that is not serious. That arrogant Babylonian thought I was too fat to move fast.” A weak laugh.

  “Where else, Chiram?” I insist.

  “I imagine there is a lump the size of a salt mound on my head.”

  “I smell blood.”

  “Eh, get some rest.”

  “Maybe I can roll over to you and—”

  “Not if they have tied you to a boulder, as they have me.” His breathing is labored. “These are no shepherds playing at war, Adir.”

  “Adira,” I say faintly. “My name is Adira.”

  SO WE LIE in the gravelly dirt, smelling it, tasting it, and feeling the pinch of every pebble as the night crawls its way to dawn.

  With the first light, Scar enters with the others—Puzir and Kuri.

  Puzir, the taller, speaks. “Now you have had a night to eat dust, we ask you again. Where is the warrior?”

  Somehow, Chiram manages to spit through his bloodied lips. “Do not know. Would not tell you if I did.”

  A hard kick in his back knocks a groan from him.

  “Do not hurt him further,” I say. “He does not know.”

  Scar comes and squats beside me, cupping my breast in his hand like an orange. “And do you, sweetling?”

  I consider. What would motivate them more—wariness of Raph’s return or silver?

  The pressure on my breast increases, making me gasp. Silver, I decide. “He is gone to his people.”

  “Why? And why should we believe you?”

  I tell the truth and allow anger to leak into my voice. “He abandoned us to return something of value to his people.”

  “I knew it!” Kuri rages. “What was it?”

  Now I lie. “I do not know. He was too selfish to tell me.”

  Kuri’s fists clench. “She lies! I will beat it from her.” He takes a step forward, but Scar puts out an arm to stop him. “What if she doe
s? He is gone and left no track. We have searched and found none.”

  Scar wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. “Let us return to what’s important.” He stands and gives me a little kick, not the blow given to Chiram, just a sharp nudge to get my attention.

  “We have Fat Man’s silver, but what about yours, woman? It was not on your arms or ankles or in your packs. Where is it?”

  “I hid it.”

  Scar gives a scoffing laugh. “When?” I twist my head to see him. My father’s knife is tucked in his sash.

  I shrug, although it might not be a recognizable gesture from my bound position. “It does not matter. You will never find it.”

  The blow catches me by surprise and my left ear rings from it. A coppery taste fills my mouth where my teeth stabbed the flesh of my cheek. Another blow meets my silence—this time a kick to my upper abdomen. All the breath rushes from me, and it seems a very long wait for it to return. I hear Chiram cry out in protest and then in pain.

  “He does not know,” I mutter through torn lips.

  This time the blow is to my belly.

  Finally, they leave us.

  After a while of labored breathing from us both, Chiram asks, “Why do you not tell them? They will keep hurting you.”

  “If I tell them, and they have what they want, what then?”

  A grunt.

  “If they beat me to death, they will not find the silver. That secret is all we have.”

  “They may beat you until you beg for death.”

  At this I am silent. It is a possibility.

  “Where did you hide it?” Chiram asks.

  “If I tell you, then they may beat it from you.”

  “I would not tell those slimy piles of pitch anything!”

  “Even to save me from harm?” Why say this? Chiram has never cared whether I lived or died. He shouted at me when I got in his way or stole a piece of food or countless other things.

  “A point,” he concedes. Then to my surprise, he grumbles. “You were a fine boy; why did you go and become a girl?”

  I want to laugh, but it comes out as a choking noise.

  “It must have been your mother,” Chiram says.

  “What?”

  “She wanted a boy to give your father.”

  This was more than Chiram has ever said to me. “I did not know you knew my mother.”

  “I did. Oh, I did.”

  There is something in his voice, a longing? Had he cared for my mother?

  “I do not remember much about her,” I say carefully, afraid he will stop talking.

  “She was a beauty, but—”

  “What?”

  “I have said enough.”

  “Curse you, Chiram. Tell me about my mother. The truth.”

  He sighs, a ragged sound. “Why? She is dead.”

  “Because I am lying bound in a cave and have little to think of but where the next blow will land when those men return. Tell me what you know of my mother.”

  There was a silence. I hold my breath.

  “She was beautiful. Red hair, darker than Mika’s. It curled like yours. She wore it mostly in a braid, but down at night.”

  “How would you know that?” My stomach twists. There is so much I do not know.

  “I caught glimpses a time or two when your father lifted the tent flap. She would be waiting for him inside.”

  Blood drips from the side of my mouth. I wonder if I bleed inside too. The pain is deep.

  “Tell me more.” It is a demand. I need to know.

  He sighs. “She was beautiful and gentle, a helpmate to your father in every way until—”

  “Until what, Chiram? What happened to her?”

  “When we left to fight against King Chedorlaomer, she was pregnant. She went throughout the camp, telling everyone her son was coming soon and would set things right.”

  “What did she mean? What was wrong?”

  “Nothing was wrong, but the women could not convince her. She seemed to think Zakiti would not return unless she bore him a son. Her mind was not well.”

  I am uncertain what to do with this knowledge.

  “Some said she had fallen under the influence of the desert demons,” he says.

  “No.” I would not believe that.

  “She was certain she must have a boy child to make whatever was wrong right again.”

  “And I was that son.”

  “I was not there at the birth. She would not have anyone present, save your father. We had only just returned from the fighting, and he would deny her nothing. I can only imagine she was much disturbed when you were not the boy-child she had predicted, or maybe her anguish blinded her, and she thought you were a male. Maybe she made your father swear to proclaim you so. I do not know, but for three summers until she died, she raised you as Zakiti’s son.”

  I marvel at hearing so many words from Chiram. “My father thought to protect me by keeping me as a boy.”

  “I do not know what nonsense he thought. Maybe he was honoring his oath to his wife. He was a man whose word was more important than his life.”

  I know that truth as I know my own bones and blood. I swallow. “He taught me to think and act as a boy.”

  “And so you are here.”

  “What do you mean?

  “It was a son who left his dead father’s side to avenge him. A daughter would have followed his wishes and returned to Sarai’s tents.” Bitterness stains his voice.

  I am silent.

  CHAPTER

  37

  What I always feared has happened to me.

  What I dreaded has come true.

  —Book of Job 3:25

  WE LIE THUS THROUGHOUT THE next day. They feed us nothing and only bring a little water. To keep back the blackness that hovers, I live again the night in Mika’s arms. Such a tiny moment together, finally acknowledging what we were to each other. I hold it clutched in my mind’s palm, a star whose brightness burns back the darkness and burns me with the understanding that it will never be like that again.

  I do not ask about Nami. If I show my concern, they may harm her to get me to speak. And I cannot speak until I am ready for death.

  “What am I waiting for, Chiram?”

  The barest of grunts answers me.

  It is a question I revisit when the Babylonians return.

  The first kick starts the blood flowing again from my mouth. I can feel my cheekbone shatter and imagine Sarai would not have an easy time wedding me off.

  Chiram’s groans are subdued, but I scream.

  WHEN THEY ARE at last gone, it is night again, and a wind finds us, bringing the scents of the river. At first its touch is cool and welcome, and then it tears at tender skin. Strange, I have endured what I have endured, yet wind on my skin is unbearable.

  “We are near death, Chiram. Tell me—” My lips are so swollen, I am not certain my words are clear enough for him to understand, or why I need to know this. “Tell me why you killed my father’s slayer.”

  His breathing is shallow and labored. “What do you … mean?”

  “Why did you … throw a knife to … keep him silent?” It hurts to speak. It hurts to breathe. There are broken things in my chest.

  I hear a weak spit. Where does he get the moisture? Perhaps it is blood.

  “You were about to … promise him life—your father’s killer.”

  “You cared so much about my father?”

  “He showed me kindness. I fought at his side.”

  “You loved his wife.” I cannot help I know this from only a tone in his voice. My father taught me to hear such things.

  A scrabble—nails clawing into the hard gravelly ground—is my only answer.

  “One … more question, Chiram,” I pant, wondering why I do not leave him alone. He is in as great pain as I, perhaps more. In the daylight, his face had been pale as the moon.

  “Ask your question.”

  He did not try to deny he loved my mother.


  “Were you truly—?” Pain lances my belly, and I have to pause to wait for it to subside. “Were you going to cook those pups?”

  A strangled sound that might have been a laugh worked its way through the mess of his lungs. “I won that … dog in a game of stones with a desert chieftain. Thought a pup might take your mind from … your herder dog.”

  I say nothing more. The wet salt that makes its way over the bruised mounds and open wounds on my face and into my mouth is not all blood.

  CHAPTER

  38

  My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

  Why are you so far away when I groan for help?

  —Book of Psalms 22:2

  I HAVE LOST THE FLOW OF time. Days slip into night and then back to day in an endless loop, and sometimes I cannot even remember why I am holding onto the secret these men want. Or what it is. I cannot tell one part of my body from another. All is pain. Oh, Father, the moon has fallen from the sky.…

  Chiram is silent. There is nothing left to say.

  A shadow on the cave floor tells me someone has come. I blink, only able to open my eyes in a narrow slit. Light frames the man who stands in the cave opening.

  Like an angel.

  Mika holding the blue fire.

  But it is not Mika; it is Scar. Today, he is my angel because he will help me die. I remember the secret today, and I will tell him. I will tell him where I hid the silver, and he will kill me. It is a good thing to leave this world, this pain. I am sorry, Father, that I could not live up to the meaning of my name, that I could not be strong or honor my oath to go to Sarai. My own choices have brought me to this place. Forgive me.

  Scar steps deeper into the cave, closer. Puzir follows.

  I open my mouth to tell him before he can strike, but I cannot remember how to speak. I want to laugh; it is such a simple thing, speaking. What are the words? I focus. I need the words first, before I speak them. That is the problem. The silver is—

  My body shatters into shards of agony. I do not know if he has struck me with a fist or kicked me. The words I had so carefully prepared fragment in my mind, skittering back into the darkness. I reach after them. No!