by Stant Litore
Devora was almost shrieking the words now, the heat of the future, of prophecy and curse, crackling along her skin, making her hairs rise. Nimri’s face had gone white. “You will be a leper, unclean, begging at the roadside with stumps where your hands were. Your manhood will decay and fall off. You will be spat upon by all who are true to their Covenant. I, Devora, the navi, who sees what God sees, I speak this curse. Whatever covenants you made with Barak ben Abinoam, you must abide the consequences of their breaking, for you will never again march with other armed men.”
WORDS OF GOING
DEVORA HAD seen too many burials; this one was harder than most, for it seemed to promise other burials to come. An hour after banishing Nimri from the camp, Devora led a procession through the heather and up the slope of her hill to the forest of stone cairns. As she climbed, she glanced to the east and saw that Barak’s camp had indeed slipped away. The tents there were gone, leaving only spaces of trampled dirt amid the weeds. Like guilty men leaving a corpse. Her face tightened. Nimri had spoken mockingly of Barak ben Abinoam, yet Barak had left him behind to bring the Ark and the navi north. What commands had Barak given him? Had Barak meant to seize the Ark by force? In either case, for loosing this wolf on the tents of Levi, Barak had much to answer for.
Behind the navi, twenty priests climbed the hill, and Shiloh’s last few nazarites climbed with them, each bearing a body safely wrapped in a linen shroud. Behind the bearers walked women from the camp, veiled in their grief like northern girls, climbing in silence. The morning’s terror had left them too exhausted even to weep. Hannah was with them. Zadok walked just behind the navi, carrying Eleazar in his shroud.
Devora led them among the cairns without word or cry, but her mind was loud within her, and she could not calm it. She struggled to understand how this thing could have happened, that Hebrew men—Hebrew, not heathen—should try to seize the Ark from the priests by force. She knew the People had been spreading out through the land, further and further from the Ark and from God and from the Law at Shiloh. What if they were ceasing to be a People—becoming mere scattered encampments, no longer tribes but homesteads, isolated among the homes of heathen? She repressed a shudder. Was that why the dead had come, surging out of the cedar forests in the far north? To drive the People together again, like scattered deer fleeing a storm, rushing together down long slopes to gather in one valley, before one Law?
Or were the People altogether forsaken, and the dead here merely because God’s hand had been removed from covering Shiloh and the land? The urim and thummim had suggested otherwise. Yet. She remembered the malakh ha-mavet and the way the Tent of Meeting had been cut open and no fire from God had withered those who toppled altar and Ark. Devora did not know, could not know, if the herds of dead moving in the north were a chastisement meant to drive the People together, or a revocation entire of the Covenant and the promise.
Here among the cairns, the men from Shiloh set out the bodies in a great line, as they had once before, thirty years ago, after another attack on the camp. Devora stood by the bodies, her head bowed, feeling the memory settle heavy on her shoulders. All about her, the men gathered up stones, mighty stones to bury the dead. Zadok stopped a moment beside the navi without speaking, just giving her the comfort and solidity of his presence. She glanced up at his face, saw it drawn with pain. The memories were heavy on his shoulders too.
Devora looked out over the cairns. Many of the corpses beneath them, especially the oldest ones, had become anonymous now, hidden in a field of dead whose names she didn’t know. One of the cairns was even crumbled in upon itself, as much a ruin as the body it buried. For the human memory is short, and even when we write it in stone we quickly forget and the stones crumble and even those stones then forget.
The men laid Eleazar in a shallow grave and then piled the stones above him, a house humbler than the pyramids of Kemet but alike in purpose and no less effective. Devora wished for a moment that she could see his face, but he was shrouded, and then there were stones over him and she couldn’t see even his shape, and his laughter and his love for his wife and his exuberance for the Law were buried forever.
When the cairns were finished, Devora stood facing Eleazar’s with her arms folded, preternaturally straight and still, her gaze fixed on the pile of rock. She lifted her voice, clear on the crisp air, chanting the Words of Going. There were words in that lament that were Hebrew, and there were words of Kemet, for many generations of their mothers and grandmothers had sung those words over the bodies of their sons, beaten to death in the labor of raising the great tombs and cities of the dead in that land of river and dark earth. In those words could be heard the tears of all the women of the People and all the tears the men had feared to shed. The song was older than the Shirat ha’Yam, older than the praisesongs of the kohannim, older than any navi or any vision given to man or woman by the God of their Covenant. The People had known death and loss and despair, and the screaming in the desert, before they had known God.
Devora sang for Eleazar and for the other dead priests, and for the nazarite Nimri had slain. And, after the briefest hesitation in her heart, she sang even for a small child, a nameless child with a Hebrew father and a heathen mother, who had died somewhere in the north and then been buried here. She sang for the child because the infant’s mother had no way to say farewell herself, here, so far from the water. She sang for the child because of her dreams and her terrors of the night before. Because when the unclean death separates child and mother, some atonement must be made, some words of parting. There were no words in the Law that demanded she sing over a child who was not of the People. But there was a Law written on her heart that did demand it.
The young Canaanite didn’t stand as Devora approached her on the outskirts of the camp, her blade still held in one hand, her throat a little hoarse from singing over the cairns. Hurriya was lying in thick pelts that Zadok must have thrown there on the earth, and nearby there was another hide rumpled, where Zadok had probably slept. The navi considered her a moment. This wouldn’t be easy. Bracing herself, she stepped toward the girl.
“I need a guide in the Galilee,” Devora said.
Hurriya lifted herself up on her elbows with an effort, and the pelt that covered her fell away from her. Devora recoiled half a step, appalled at her condition. The girl smelled of sweat and blood and dirt; her face was very pale, and her salmah looked stiffened. Devora wondered how long it had been since either that woolen cloth or the girl within it had been washed. There were hollows under Hurriya’s eyes as she looked up at the navi.
Perhaps the Canaanite girl had kin in the north. Someone who could care for her there.
“I thought I was unclean,” the girl said, and the bitterness in her voice was like a slap.
Devora glanced about quickly, noting a discarded waterskin and a cloth that had probably been brought here in the morning with bread in it. She let out her breath slowly. The girl had been fed at least and given water to drink. But she had given birth to a child not long ago, and her body had not healed well from it. The walk down from the Galilee, in exhaustion and terror, must have been brutal. It was a wonder the girl was even conscious.
“You’ve lived all your life in those hills,” Devora said. “Neither I nor Zadok have ever been in the Galilee. And you know more about what’s happening there than anyone in this camp.” She didn’t add that she would trust a heathen before she’d trust that dog Barak and his chieftains. “If Zadok rigs a sidesaddle for you, can you ride a horse?” she asked aloud.
Hurriya just sank back and closed her eyes. “I’ve never ridden a horse.”
“You’ll ride before me on my husband’s horse, then.”
She shook her head, pale with misery. “Let me die, navi,” she whispered.
“I am not going to do that,” Devora said sharply. “You came to me. I have an obligation to you, girl; I mean to keep it. I am taking you north. You can show me when to turn to the left, when to the right, unti
l we get there.” She thought for a moment. “We will have to get you your own waterskin, and keep your skin covered at all times, to prevent contact. You are unclean.” Her heart sank; she couldn’t bear to lose the hours it would take to gather up a spare waterskin and food and supplies for the girl and to beg clothing for her from one of Shiloh’s women, clothing that could not be returned. She had to leave, now. She meant to catch Barak.
“I am unclean,” Hurriya repeated. “This whole land is unclean.” Hurriya began laughing, a cold, bitter laughter that shook her until she coughed and clenched up in pain. Devora gazed down at her in dismay.
“I don’t care what you do,” Hurriya whispered after a few moments. “Tie me to your horse if you like. I don’t care.”
Before she could reply, Devora heard hooves behind her and turned toward the tents. There were two horses approaching, one dark as beer from Kemet, and massive, the other smaller and white, with a dark patch near its nose. On the dark horse rode Zadok, who seemed even more massive in the saddle. He wore a breast-piece of bronze, and his spear was strapped to the side of his saddle, counterbalanced on the other side by several waterskins—bless him, that solved one problem—and a small pack. The man’s face was grim. He sat that dark horse like danger and threat incarnate.
Lappidoth rode the white horse, his face drawn and pale. Devora cried out when she saw him, fearing for a moment that he meant to ride with her, whether she willed or no. But he saw her face and shook his head.
“The horse is only for you, Devora,” he said. “I am staying.”
Devora blushed. Of course. When Lappidoth her husband made a promise, he kept it.
“His name was Arvad, the wanderer,” Lappidoth told her gravely as he halted near her, “for he was wild on the steppes before a caravan from Midian brought him to Shiloh. Now he is Shomar, because he guards his rider.” He slid from the horse’s back. Zadok drew his horse up beside but stayed in the saddle.
“I need speed more than safety,” Devora said. She noted the bedroll and other supplies attached to Shomar’s saddle. Her heart was warm with love for the man. Here was one man in Israel who kept his covenants, all of them, every one.
“Oh, he is fast, wife.” Lappidoth shook his head and patted Shomar’s neck. Devora stroked the other side of the horse’s neck, marveling at the animal’s beauty. She felt powerful muscles move beneath her hand when the horse turned its head to nuzzle her ear. Devora’s eyes shone. Horses were rare in the land.
“He is fast enough,” Lappidoth said, “but then, Barak’s men have few horses. They will be on foot. So safety will matter more than speed. I will not have my wife falling from a fast, nervous horse who startles at an asp on some hillside far from my tent.” The horse whickered, and Lappidoth caressed the animal’s chin. “He is a good horse,” he said slowly.
“There are three other nazarites still alive in Shiloh,” Lappidoth added in a lower voice. “Will you take them with you, wife?”
Devora shook her head. “They’ll be needed here. And Zadok rides with me. I am kadosh. Why should I fear to journey in the land of our People?”
Lappidoth looked troubled. “You are kadosh. Yet men lifted arms against you this morning. The Ark is kadosh. Yet men turned it on its side, trying to drag it from the Tent where we meet God. Eleazar was kadosh. Yet he lies dead.”
Devora swallowed against a tightness in her throat at these grim reminders of the day’s evil.
The men of the north had much to answer for.
“I do not trust the northern tribes,” Lappidoth said.
“Nor do I. But they will have what they want. They will have the navi, to remind them God is with them as they cleanse the land.”
“Wife,” Lappidoth said, and the hard, urgent way he said the word made her focus on him.
“Take the men,” he said. “Please. You are kadosh, and it has not been my way to command you or to govern you too firmly. But please take the men.”
She hesitated a long moment, then shook her head. “Shiloh is my home,” she said softly. “Husband. Shiloh is my home. I can’t leave it without its spears. Thank you—for worrying for me. No one will harm me while Zadok is with me. Even if they should wish to.”
But Zadok’s own brow was furrowed, as though he himself was uncertain of the merit of either accepting or refusing Lappidoth’s plea. His eyes were pools of grief and guilt—a guilt Devora knew too well. The burden that settled, hot and tight, in your breast when you could not save those lives that were your responsibility.
Quietly Zadok dismounted and helped Devora bind Mishpat to her saddle.
After a long, searching stare at Zadok, Lappidoth gave his wife a brisk nod. Seeing this, Devora’s heart went warm with gratitude—for a husband who could remain behind without it breaking his pride and his strength, and who could watch a younger man guard his wife without jealousy, and who could trust her when she said she would be all right.
“I know Zadok will keep you safe,” Lappidoth said gruffly. “He is an able man.”
“And you are a good man, my husband,” she whispered. “You have my heart.”
“Just bring Shomar back.” He forced a smile. “I traded ten head of my cattle for him. I have never seen a finer horse.”
He stepped back, and Devora tried to think of some further word of farewell, but words failed her. She just held his gaze, her eyes full of her heart. Zadok bent and lifted the Canaanite from the ground, careful not to touch her bare flesh, his face grim at the small cry of pain she made. He settled her into the saddle before Devora, then gave Shomar a pat on the gelding’s rump and muttered, “Keep these women safe, horse.”
Devora put her arm about the Canaanite’s waist and held her tight, fearful the girl would panic and spook the horse. Hurriya’s eyes were wide. “Shomar is my husband’s,” Devora whispered near her ear. “He will not let you fall.”
The Canaanite gave a terse nod. “Don’t leave me alone with him,” she whispered.
“What? The horse?”
“That man.” The girl was gazing at Zadok, wide-eyed.
“Peace, girl. Zadok won’t harm you.”
Though affronted for Zadok’s sake, Devora was grateful to see the girl’s fear. Fear was better than numbness, better than despair. It meant her heart was still beating, her blood still loud in her ears. That was perhaps the best Devora could hope for; she didn’t want the girl to die on her along the way. And making sure she didn’t would give the navi something to distract her from the vast lake of grief that lay dark beneath her feet, ready to swallow her.
“Navi,” Zadok murmured. “Hannah sends a message.”
She glanced down at his hard face. She was certain she could guess what the wife of Eleazar had in her heart.
“She says, I call for judgment on Barak ben Abinoam, who killed my husband and the high priest of Israel. She asks you to do this for her in memory of the day in the reeds. She says you have always protected her and those bound to her.”
“That is true.” She gazed to the north, thought of the shambling dead, and wondered if God had already prepared a bitter judgment over the men of the north, Barak and others. “Barak will atone for what his men have done,” she said.
As Zadok remounted his own steed, Devora glanced back at Lappidoth, and the man looked wearier than she had ever seen him. “God be with you, Devora,” he called to her.
“And with you, Lappidoth,” she said.
She dug in her heels. “Hai!”
Shomar carried her over the uneven ground at something near a gallop, and the tents sprang away behind; then they were in the heather, Devora and her horse, riding around the edge of the camp. She glanced back once, her hair streaming across her face in the wind. Saw Lappidoth still standing by Hurriya’s discarded bedding, one hand lifted. Gazing after her.
STRANGERS IN THE LAND
DEVORA, THE navi and judge of Israel, rode from Shiloh with Hurriya before her and Zadok beside her. They rode as though their horses had caught
the scent of God and were rushing to find him. Yet God was behind them, not before, and the blasphemy of that torn veil had perhaps ensured that God would not follow them into the north. Devora spurred Shomar on, almost cruelly, her insides so hot with rage that she saw nothing to the left or to the right. She rode blind. Her only thought was to find Barak ben Abinoam and demand of him a dire atonement for the evil of this day. That he could have treated their God—el kadosh, the weighty, the mighty, who could rise over the land in fire and storm and scorch it to a desert that would not bear seed for a thousand years, or who could fall gentle as rain and urge wheat from the soil that would grow at his touch taller than the height of a man—that Barak could have approached this God, this God, and treated him as a mere object to be acquired and moved about. Did he think he was dealing with one of the wooden not-gods of the Canaanites, a mute thing that you might carry in the palm of your hand? She hissed Barak’s name as she rode, and the midmorning sun lifting over the land found her horse streaking through the fields, and Zadok on his own steed a spear’s cast behind her, laboring to catch up.
Yet she could not keep that pace; it left Hurriya shaking and faint. Devora didn’t know how much of that was her anguish and how much of it fear of being on horseback, but the sight of her pain cooled the navi’s fury, and she slowed, consoling herself with the thought that Barak and his men were on foot.
So they trotted their horses northward through fields white for harvest. From time to time, Devora leaned to the side and let her fingers trail through the high wheat or plucked up some to chew as they went. This was the land, beloved of their mothers and fathers, and its beauty pulled at Devora’s heart and abated her anger, almost brought her tears. The day was long and her wrath burned out, though no doubt it would flicker into fresh fire when she caught up with Barak at last. With the land of promise rich and fruitful about her, a kind of quiet awe settled over her. Each field and each hill about her was shaped delicately by the hands of God, each one with a name and a story. Here, the dead seemed only a tale told to frighten. An impossibility. Yet there in the north, where the hills were taller—they were there, somewhere. Hurriya’s pale face was testimony to it.
