Angels at the Gate

by T. K. Thorne

  “They never have,” Thamma says.

  Pheiné shakes her head. “But Mot’s Tongue has never erupted the day before the Spring Rites and—” She glances at her father, knowing as well as we his ranting has increased the ire of the Sodomites to a high pitch. “—it has still not rained,” she says instead.

  “I have said nothing El has not blessed,” Lot declares.

  To my surprise, Thamma, who sits upon the raised hump of earth in the courtyard as though it is a throne, says, “Has it truly been El’s desire that you be so important, Father, or is it your own desire?”

  Lot’s fingers curl into fists. “What have I raised? Daughters or backbiters?”

  She flushes, but does not apologize. It is that kind of night.

  “The water is boiling,” Lila says to distract us. At Mika’s instruction, she pours it over the crushed herbs in his bowl. When he is satisfied with the color, he calls Lila to him and cleans her arm where an old knot of scarring mars her skin. He allows nothing to touch it until it is dry. “You must hold very still, or the mark will not be readable.”

  Lila nods, her chin high. “I will not move.”

  She does not, her gaze steady, looking out the window to the sea. The moon has not yet risen, and it is dark. Normally, we can hear the waves, but tonight the sound is lost among the cries from the streets. I wonder what Lila is thinking—of her mother? Her past? Or her future?

  Mika places the hot stone cylinder on her arm and rolls it, as one would on clay, leaving the fiery red imprint of the goddess, Lama, on her skin. Wasting no time, he sets down the seal and covers the burn with a thick salve.

  “Does it hurt much?” Danel asks, drawn from his sorrow by concern for her pain.

  She looks at him, her eyes wet with unshed tears. “I welcome the pain of freedom.”

  Danel turns to me. “Thank you, Adira. But why? I offered to buy her. I would have freed her myself.

  “I know.”

  “Then why?”

  “Then she would have been in your debt. Now, she is not, and it is her choice whether to wed you.”

  As Danel digests this, another irony pricks my mind. I, who was a free woman, had to marry the man my family chose for me, but Lila, a slave, is now free to marry whomever she chooses. It is a strange world.

  The world chooses this moment to become even stranger.

  CHAPTER

  56

  But before they retired for the night, all the men of Sodom, young and old, came from all over the city and surrounded the house. They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to spend the night with you? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”

  —Book of Genesis 19:4,5

  PHILOT’S EARS TWITCH, AND HE peels back his lip, exposing his upper teeth, a donkey’s signal that he smells something strange. It is the only warning we receive before a deep rumble and spate of shaking, lasting no longer than an exhaled breath. This one has thrown Thamma from the mound of raised earth, but not altered the ground. I am thankful Mika was not in the act of applying the freed-mark to Lila’s arm.

  “El is angry,” Lot declares. “But he will protect us. Has he not sent his angels to us?”

  I almost laugh at Thamma’s rolled eyes, which her father, thankfully, cannot see. Something has changed her since I slapped Pheiné. Perhaps she is no longer in her sister’s thrall.

  “I hear voices,” Raph says, stepping toward the door. Pheiné steps aside, and he opens it. I clump across the floor with my staff and peer under his arm at the living wave of torches that approach.

  Raph closes the door. “They are coming this way. Is there a way to barricade the door?”

  “Where is your guard, Father?” Thamma asks, a note of panic in her voice.

  Lot shrugs. “He left when I could not pay him with water.” He lifts his arm toward the door. “I do not fear them. El is my god. He is friend to Abram, my uncle. He will not let me die.”

  “Everyone dies,” Raph snaps. “If you do not wish it to be your day, help me with the door.”

  He shrugs. “I have nothing to barricade the door, but it will not be needed. In Sodom, it is the worst of manners to disregard the door of another’s house.”

  “These people are angry and frightened, Lot,” I say. “And probably drunk, as well. They do not care a whit for manners.”

  Within moments, they are here. We can see the glare of their torches through the door seams and even at the back window where I have closed the lattice. Perceiving that as the most vulnerable point, Raph draws his sword and takes a stand there. Danel pulls his own knife from his sash. I am glad to see it. City dwellers do not always go about armed, but Danel spent most of his life, as I, on the caravan trail.

  Pheiné and Thamma cling to one another, and Lila goes to comfort them. I am amazed at her, considering all she has endured from them. Perhaps being a freed woman is not yet a reality for her. Or perhaps she does care for them, in spite of their ways.

  I do not.

  The mob shouts. Stones strike against the door with sharp thwacks. Philot brays and pulls back against his rope. I draw my knife. I may be crippled, but the man who comes at me, the first one at least, will pay a price.

  Suddenly, the noise quiets, sending a chill racing up my spine. A voice shouts, “Lot, don’t hide behind Abram’s robe!”

  Lot moves to the door and shouts. “What do you want?”

  Another voice calls out, “We want those men you say are here in the name of your god!”

  “Yes, give them to us!” another yells.

  Fear, fury, and lust fuel the mob’s laughter. The sound washes cold through me despite the sweltering head, an echo of the jeers of the Babylonian guards as Chiram and I lay at their mercy.

  The loudest voice raises again. “If these so-called ‘angels’ do not join our rites and have our women, give them to us, and we will know them!”

  Lot’s face burns with anger. It is a great insult for one man to threaten to rape another. Before Mika can stop him, Lot is out the door, closing it behind him. Pheiné rushes forward, but Mika holds her back. I step close to them.

  “Pheiné,” I say sharply into her ear, as she struggles, “if Mika has to fight to protect us, he does not need his hands full with you.”

  She stiffens but is still, and Mika releases her.

  “People of Sodom,” Lot’s voice rises over the din. “Do not do this wickedness!”

  “You dishonor our god, Lot! It is Spring Rites. Baal must ascend from Mot’s grasp. Are you blind that you do not see the spouting of his Tongue? His anger at Baal’s struggle?”

  “These men are my guests,” Lot cries. “Take my daughters. They have never known a man. Do what you wish to them, but don’t touch my guests who are under my roof.”

  I am stunned, but not more so than Pheiné and Thamma. These men are not here observing the rites of their gods. They hold Lot responsible for disaster. Vengeance and violence drive them.

  Thamma begins to cry. Pheiné backs from the door as though to put distance between herself and her father. Mika grasps her arm to get her attention. Her look is one a sacrificial lamb might give at the cut of a knife into its throat.

  “We will not allow this,” Mika says firmly. “Go back to your sister.”

  Pheiné stumbles to Thamma’s side.

  A new voice, full of rage, shouts, “This Lot came among us as a stranger, and now he judges us!”

  The crowd roars. “We will punish Lot instead! Give him up to us!”

  Raph is at my shoulder now, leaving the quieter back window to Danel. He moves me aside and, with a glance at Mika, opens the door, grasping Lot by the back of his robe and hauling him inside while Mika slams it closed and leans against it. Raph adds his weight, as do I, feeling the wood shake with pounding blows. It is only a matter of time before it splinters.

  Pheiné whirls on Lot. “What are you doing, father? You would give us up to them for the sake of strangers?”

  “They are my gu
ests,” Lot says shakily, “and holy men.”

  I am furious beyond thought. “It is more than that, husband.” I spit the last word, tasting its foulness. “It is your precious reputation you wish to preserve, but not for the sake of hospitality.” All attention is upon me, even though Raph and Mika continue to press hard against the battered door.

  “What do you mean?” Lot’s voice is hoarse.

  “I mean you would throw your daughters to this mob of men, hoping, if they live, to claim that as the reason they are with child!”

  Thamma gasps and begins to cry again. Pheiné stares at me.

  “I am crippled,” I say, “but I am not a fool. All those nights you spent in your daughters’ room were not because you could not bear to lie beside your ugly wife.”

  I had been a fool, but Lila had told me the girls’ moon blood had ceased, and then I understood. My voice lowers, but still pitches above the noise of the rabble. “I know, as well, how Hurriya died.”

  “No!” Thamma screams. “She fell!”

  “Quiet,” Lila says to her. “Let all the truth be told.”

  Lot is as pale as Shem’s white camel. “My wife fell from the cliff.”

  I would give him no mercy, not when he had tried to cover his sin by giving his daughters to the men who hammered at our door. Perhaps Lot had not thought it through, but I know even if those men did nothing more than rape Pheiné and Thamma, with so many, it would be a horrible death sentence. “Your wife, Hurriya, the mother of your children, chose her death and walked into the Dead Sea.”

  “No,” Thamma cries again, and my heart goes out to her, but I cannot stop. “She knew what you did with her daughters, and she could not bear it.”

  Pheiné bites her lip until blood wells at the corner.

  It is a hard thing to know you are responsible for your mother’s death. Though both these women are older, I turn to them. “If he came to you when you were children, you are not to blame. Your father should bear the burden.”

  With a wild scream, Thamma lunges at me, her fingers clawing my face.

  The weight of her attack knocks me off-balance, and I stumble backward. Lila pulls her off as Danel shouts, “They are coming in the window!”

  CHAPTER

  57

  So Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him. “Please, my brothers,” he begged, “don’t do such a wicked thing. Look, I have two virgin daughters. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do with them as you wish. But please, leave these men alone, for they are my guests and are under my protection.”

  “Stand back!” they shouted. “This fellow came to town as an outsider, and now he’s acting like our judge! We’ll treat you far worse than those other men!” And they lunged toward Lot to break down the door.

  But the two angels reached out, pulled Lot into the house, and bolted the door. Then they blinded all the men, young and old, who were at the door of the house, so they gave up trying to get inside.

  —Book of Genesis 19:6-11

  THE LATTICE ON THE WINDOW shatters. Danel’s knife meets the first man who tries to crawl through. His blade slips into the man’s chest. No blood escapes until Danel wrenches it free. Hands reach up from below to pull the man’s body out of the way, so another can come through. Blood runs down the inside wall.

  For a fleeting moment, I wonder if I brought Danel into danger by insisting he come to our house, rather than protecting him from it, but selfishly, I am glad of his presence.

  “Get the women into a room!” Raph yells to Lot, who is staring at the blood on his wall. But Lot stands motionless. It is Lila who herds Pheiné and Thamma into our sleeping room, though not before she snatches one of the cooking knives. I slip my knife back into my sash and move to one side of the window, leaning against the wall for support, my staff in both hands. If a head shows, I believe the stout wood Ishmael chose from the sacred trees at Mamre will do its part.

  Just as the door splinters, the world outside the window and around the door seams flashes white, followed by a thunderous noise. I blink, blinded for an instant. Confusion reigns both inside and outside the house.

  “What has happened?”

  “Which god?”

  “Is the world ended?”

  I am not certain who asks the questions, but no one answers.

  When I can see again, the torches are gone from outside the window, though we can still hear voices at the front of the house.

  Danel stands, staring at the bloody knife in his hand. He raises his gaze after a long while to me. “I have never killed before … not a man.”

  “Danel!” Lila has left the daughters in their room to fling herself into his arms. “What has happened?”

  There is no answer still, but the smell of brimstone is strong.

  A few minutes later, a pair of hands appears at the windowsill. I raise my staff, but the fingers that grasp the edge are small; they can belong only to a child or a small woman.

  I know the face that appears briefly to scan the inside, though I have not seen it since I left Yassib’s tribe to go to Babylon in search of Raph. I remember the child I saw running through the back streets and suddenly know why he seemed so familiar.

  “Shem?”

  His eyes track to my voice. “Adir?”

  It can be only Shem who calls me Adir in Sodom. I lean over the sill to look down at him. He has a thick covering over his head. Still, I can see he is thin, and his cheeks are hollow. I do not need to see his arm to imagine the slash of a slave mark. There is no other reason he would be here. My belly turns, remembering the happy boy in the desert, so proud of his white camel. “Shem—” is all I can manage.

  A smile breaks across his solemn face. “Yes-yes, Adir.”

  “Adira,” I correct without thought.

  “I wanted to come before,” he says in a rush, “but I could not. My master watches too closely, but he is gone with the celebrations. I saw him at your door; now everyone is scattered.”

  “Because of the bright light? Did you see it? What was it?”

  “A son of Mot’s Tongue erupted closer to the city. It is bigger than the first and weeping ash and bits of burning oil. The city is aflame!”

  At that moment, I hear Mika cry out that our roof is burning. “Everyone to the little gate!”

  “I am closer to the window,” I shout to him. “I will go that way!”

  Shem helps me down, though I have managed myself many times. Wind from the sea tosses my hair, which has worked its way free of its braid and curls in sweaty ringlets around my face. “Did you say the men are gone from the door?”

  “Yes-yes, they are gone.”

  I relax my grip on my staff. “Why are you here, Shem? What has happened to you?”

  “The horsemen returned after you left our tents, Adir. They killed all the men and sold the women and children.”

  I am sick with the image of this in my mind. “Mana too? Your mother, Shem, where is she?”

  He draws himself straighter. “She threw herself at the enemy, her knife in her hand.” He looks away and then back at me. “They killed her, but first she drew their blood.”

  “I am so sorry.” I take a breath, trying to grasp all this. “How did you come to Sodom?”

  He shrugs. “My master here was once a nomad and still has connections here. Once, when he had drunk too much, he told me that the raiders owed him for information he gave them about you. I was payment.”

  This spikes my curiosity, but something stings my left arm, and I flick at it reflexively. A small red disc blossoms on my skin. A burn.

  “Here,” Shem shoves a thick outer robe into my arms. It reeks of old sweat. “Put it on, quickly. I brought it to disguise you, but it may offer protection.”

  I do. He also hands me a heavy wool head covering in the style a man of the desert would wear.

  “Do you wish your dog back?” he asks.

  My heart stutters. I grab his shoulders. “What did you say?”


  “I know where Nami is. You should come. Quickly, we have very little time.”

  I try to wrap my arms around him, but he winces and steps back.

  “Take me to her, Shem!”

  He starts to say more, but then decides not and leads me down the alley that runs behind the houses. To our right, the sea boils great belches. Shem says another tongue of Mot has thrust through the earth. Where is El? Is he watching or wielding? These questions dance in my thoughts like tiny stars around the central sun that is hope of finding Nami. My heart gallops. I want to stop our flight and make Shem tell me she is well, that she will bound out to meet us, her feet light on the ground in her excitement and joy. But I dare not stop.

  I take a quick glance down the alleys that connect to the main streets as we pass them. Glowing embers and bits of burning oil have thickened into a rain of fire. Perhaps the wind off the Dead Sea is holding them in the city’s heart. I am grateful our house sits on the far northeastern end near the sea. Even though Shem and I track the sea’s edge, the foul air thickens with burning ash, and the smell of singed wool makes me grateful for the heavy robe and headdress, despite their rankness. What will happen if the wind fails?

  We are fortunate a layer of dirt freshly covers the garbage in the alleyways, making our way smooth. Shem runs ahead and then waits for me, impatient and plainly anxious that I hurry. I do, though it awakens the pain in my hip and leg. The vision of Nami pushes me through the ache. I hope all in my household made it to safety … wherever that might lie.

  AT FIRST, I do not recognize the building we come to because we approach from the side, but as soon as we reach the front, a stall full of rugs: I know it. We are far from our house, but still near the Dead Sea. The fire has burned holes only in a few of the merchant’s wares, though I can see a nearby jar of pitch is burning. The air above it ripples blue and yellow.

  I stop as soon as we reach the protection of the awning, though it is thatched and already smoldering in spite of the wind. We cannot stay here long. Shem leads me through the area that is normally a house’s little gate, but here is a room stacked with carpets. “I have been to this place before,” I say. “Whose shop is this?”