Love Amid the Ashes

by Mesu Andrews

  Nogahla nodded, but Dinah wondered if she truly comprehended any of their instructions. The girl was smitten—deeply, completely, undeniably.

  Dinah held Aban’s gaze, and to the man’s credit, he didn’t flinch. “She’s ready, Aban. Nogahla is my most treasured friend. You will keep her safe.” It was a command, not a question, and the big man nodded. “I will join Nogahla and Job at the ash heap when the moon is at its peak. By then the visitors should be sleeping, and I can sort through the new supplies to find the best herbs for Job’s sores. I’ll tend his wounds and move him to a dry pile at night so as not to offend . . . anyone.” Dinah’s voice broke, and she looked away. Why did she have to sneak like a thief to tend the wounds of her dear friend, and why did Zophar still frighten and shame her?

  “We will be waiting for you there, Mistress Dinah.” Aban’s voice was gentle.

  She nodded, emotion strangling her voice. Nogahla kissed her cheek and scooted down the incline of rock toward the path. Dinah watched Aban hoist Nogahla onto his sleek stallion and then disappear into the siq.

  Nogahla felt like a queen. Never had she dreamed she would ride a stallion as beautiful as Aban’s dapple gray. “My first childhood memories are of my father’s stables,” she said, hoping Aban would speak freely about the new revelation of his father. Nogahla hadn’t heard Aban’s first declaration to Mistress Dinah and Mistress Sitis, but the women had told her later while tending Dinah’s head wound.

  “You mean, you remember horses when your father worked in a master’s stables?” Aban’s tone was easy, conversational, as if they were strolling through a quiet meadow rather than emerging from the great siq toward a visiting army.

  “No, my father was the master of a grand Egyptian estate, one of Pharaoh’s officials, and my mother was a Cushite slave in his household. My father’s wife hated my mother and sold me to Ishmaelite slave traders when I was five winters old—just to be mean.”

  Aban walked beside the horse, loosely holding its bridle in hand. “I’m sorry, Nogahla.”

  “It’s all right.” Nogahla looked up at the moon and stars. “The last words my mother said to me were, ‘My little princess, the night sky will always unite us.’”

  Without altering his stride, Aban turned and offered up a smile. “So I was wrong before when I called you ‘little Cushite.’ I should have said ‘Egyptian princess.’” His eyes sparkled even in the dim shadows of dusk, and Nogahla thought her heart might burst.

  He resumed his forward gaze and reached a brawny arm under his stallion’s powerful neck, patting the other side. Bowing his head, he spoke in soothing tones to the beast, and Nogahla wondered what secrets they shared. Suddenly mesmerized by the sinewy muscles of his back, she noted the proportions of his shoulders and waist like a finely shaped funnel. Oh my! She clapped her hands on her burning cheeks.

  “Nogahla, are you all right?” Aban turned, stopping in a warrior’s stance, his eyes darting in every direction.

  Nogahla squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm herself. Now she really felt foolish. “Yes, Aban. I’m just a little frightened.” It was the truth—though he didn’t need to know why. What if Dinah was right and Aban could not be trusted? What if her heart was leading them all astray?

  Nogahla met Aban’s gaze and saw only tenderness and sincerity there. Please, El Shaddai, let me return with a good report to Dinah and Mistress Sitis about this man. Let his words be true and his heart pure.

  As the final words of her prayer ascended heavenward, Nogahla heard terrible wailing echoing from the canyon.

  “Hold on to the riding blanket!” Aban shouted to Nogahla as the stallion broke into a trot to keep pace with the soldier’s long stride. They weaved through the visiting army, whose shmaghs and keffiyehs were pulled over their faces. Some of the soldiers within sight of Job were even coughing and retching.

  Nogahla soon spotted the source of the keening. Three exquisitely garbed older men tore at their robes and threw dust on their heads, while Elihu faced Job’s ash pile, his head bowed.

  “Are those his relatives?” Nogahla asked, leaning across the horse’s neck. Aban slowed his pace as they drew near the display, walking now between the front lines of soldiers. “Why are they remaining so far from Master Job?” she whispered. “They’re not even as close as your four perimeter guards.”

  Aban hesitated, and Nogahla wondered if he was winded from his run or searching for polite words. He leaned close so she could hear him over the wailing. “I’m guessing they’re not accustomed to the odor.”

  Nogahla nodded her understanding. Torchbearers dotted the perimeter of Job’s ash heap, but the visitors remained at least one hundred paces away. Like an invisible barrier, the sight and stench of Job’s suffering warded off any true comfort his friends might have attempted.

  Nogahla slid off the stallion easily, remembering the long-ago days in her father’s stable, and Aban was there to catch her. When she and Aban passed Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the men barely paused their cries long enough to notice a lowly servant girl and a guard.

  Elihu nodded a silent greeting to Nogahla, and she returned it coolly. She would tell him later exactly what she thought of him. Nogahla felt Aban’s grip tighten on her arm and noticed the fiery stare pass between the two men. She wondered how Elihu, whom she had thought so kind and benevolent, could become so angry, while Aban, trained to fight and kill, could be so kind.

  Then she saw Job, and every other thought was lost to the depth of his suffering. If one could stare into the abyss and continue breathing, Job was doing it tonight. If one could eat and sleep and speak while a wild beast tore at his flesh, Job was living that too. If one could love after his heart had been ripped from his chest, Job had surely achieved that ability.

  He smiled when Nogahla began her trek up the dung pile. She poured mint tea into his mouth to soothe his wounded throat and spoke her simple wisdom to lift his weary soul. And when the fervent pitch of keening clouded Job’s face in lonely torment, Nogahla sang melodies from her heart, drowning out his distant friends.

  17

  ~Job 2:13~

  Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

  Sayyid watched from his moonlit perch as Job’s friends dissolved into sniveling mounds of grief. Their spectacle had been more pathetic than he could have imagined. Sayyid loved the poetic justice of it. Job, who had mourned and touched so many in their times of need, endured his relatives’ mourning without a single encouraging word or—gods forbid it—tender touch. A lingering smile stretched Sayyid’s lips.

  His only grating concern was Aban. Was he friend or foe? Casting another glance over the balcony, Sayyid stayed in the shadows but saw Aban’s tall, imposing form stationed at Job’s breached courtyard wall. What are you about, Aban, my son? He’d remained there since escorting the little Cushite early in the festivities. He left only long enough to accompany the servants to deliver the guests’ meal, and then he joined Sayyid in offering sympathetic drivel about Job’s circumstances. After a sufficiently hospitable show, Sayyid had returned to his balcony and assumed his captain would follow for their nightly debriefing. But Aban lingered in Sayyid’s kitchen and then resumed his place near the dung piles. What keeps you so close to Job’s stinking heaps?

  Sayyid noticed Aban making his way to the peak of Job’s current perch. “Now this is something new,” he said aloud. He’d never noticed his captain join the wasting figure at the pinnacle of mire.

  The full moon offered enough light to see another figure, this one a woman, with Job and the Cushite on the heap. Sayyid’s heart slammed against his chest. Is it Sitis? Aban, you could prove your allegiance to me now by strangling her with your bare hands.

  But even as the thought raced through his mind, he knew Aban would never harm Sitis. He had winced when Sayyid issued the order to kill her. Something about Sitis had pierced the big man’s heart. Sayyid sm
iled. Of course it has. He must have inherited that vulnerability to her charms from me.

  “Now who is this woman on Job’s dung pile,” he whispered to no one, “and what will you do with her?” Sayyid waited patiently, watching the woman’s gestures, the tilt of her head, the way she moved her hands. It was Dinah. He could tell by the soft curls that fell over her shoulders when she bent toward the Cushite.

  Sayyid chuckled and fingered the soft locks of Sitis’s hair still reverently held in the folds of his robe. Job will never run his fingers through his wife’s hair again. He has no fingers, and Sitis has no hair! Oh, how he wished he could laugh without waking the whole canyon. Perhaps tomorrow he would summon the Nameless One and share his wicked delight. Certainly Aban wouldn’t appreciate his humor. He’d become too friendly with the enemy.

  Sayyid noticed the tall, dark figure descending the ash heap. At the bottom, Aban hesitated.

  “Yes, think carefully, my son. Consider your options.”

  His captain seemed to be weighing some great decision, leaning one direction and then the other.

  Sayyid smiled, amused at the moments in life that defined fate, destiny, survival. “Choose wisely. Your life depends on your allegiance.”

  Though Sayyid’s voice was but a whisper, Aban’s foot took its step the moment the last word was spoken.

  In less time than Aban’s mother had required for wooing, Aban was knocking at Sayyid’s bedchamber door. He burst in without waiting for an invitation and spoke without a greeting. “Father, I have a request.” A slight bow was his only attempt at fealty.

  Sayyid feigned a yawn. “How dare you storm in, waking me at this hour, demanding—”

  Aban straightened, waving off his father’s protests. “We both know you’ve been watching from your balcony all night.”

  Sayyid’s battle between indignation and amusement was quickly nullified by Aban’s urgency.

  “I believe the best way to win the favor of Job’s relatives is to make a grand show of gifts—to both his relatives and to Job himself.” Before Sayyid could comment, Aban rushed on. “I think we should begin with offering medicinal supplies for Job—immediately.”

  Medicinal supplies. Aban’s motives were becoming clearer. He was a man in love, trying to impress the woman of his heart. Dinah. “And what will we tell Job’s relatives when they ask why we haven’t provided medical care for Job previously?”

  “I don’t know, Father. Lying is your expertise. I’m simply trying to keep peace with an army that triples our manpower and makes our weapons look like toys.”

  Sayyid held up his hands in mock surrender. “I know we’ve established that I’m the liar and you’re the truth teller.” He smiled mischievously. “So tell the truth, my son. Is it peace you hope to gain with this benevolence, or the love of Job’s blonde nursemaid?”

  The shock on Aban’s face was priceless. “I am your captain, acting on your behalf, Sayyid. The request has nothing to do with Dinah.” He straightened into a rigid military pose. “My job is to convey your explanation of previously forestalling Job’s medical care.”

  “Well, oh truthful one,” Sayyid said, chuckling, “why don’t you take a stab at this lying business. Evidently I’m quite good at it, but you need a little practice.”

  Aban’s eyes hardened at the mocking, but Sayyid was determined to mete out some retribution for his son’s divided public loyalty.

  “Perhaps we could say that your physician refused to treat Job for fear of the gods.” Aban lifted one questioning black eyebrow.

  “Yes, I believe we could say that. But what if they ask why we didn’t provide more herbs for your beloved Dinah to treat Job?” Sayyid delighted when Aban’s nostrils flared at the mention of his attachment to Dinah and watched with a measure of satisfaction as his son crushed his weak emotions and stiffened his back with purpose.

  “We will play on their disdain for Dinah,” Aban said flatly, “and tell them we refused to provide supplies for her bloodstained hands. We’ll leave it up to them, now that they are here, to employ another physician or let her continue his care.”

  Sayyid’s chest barreled with pride. At the outset, Aban had seemed torn at the thought of the deceit and disgrace that would shadow lovely Dinah, but he had seemingly overcome his rudimentary quibbles with integrity and sacrificed them on the altar of success. Sayyid slapped Aban on the shoulder. “My boy, you might just make a suitable heir someday.”

  “Where will I get the herbs at this hour?” Aban said, turning toward the door without any appreciation for Sayyid’s esteem. “The moon is three-quarters past, and the whole town sleeps.”

  Sayyid stood still and let his words halt his captain. “You can demand anything at anytime, Aban. You are my son.” His captain turned as expected, meeting his father’s gaze. However, something in the man’s eyes sobered Sayyid.

  “I will demand no more than what is fair and right, Father. Just what is fair and right.”

  Sayyid felt Aban’s self-righteous undertone as if Sheol had opened the earth and swallowed him. How dare this boy censure me! Sayyid narrowed his eyes in warning. “You will go to the Edomite Bela and have a detachment of guards escort him here to me. Then march your troops to my physician’s home and seize every jar of herbs and potions he owns.” Sayyid approached his captain with the slow, steady prowl of a lion on the hunt. “It is fair and right, Captain, for Bela to share my dread when his kinsmen arrive with an army. And isn’t it also fair and right for my physician to offer up whatever supplies my grain has purchased for his livelihood?”

  Aban stood stately and stiff, staring into the distance.

  Sayyid’s anger simmered in the face of his son’s impeccable military calm. “Go,” Sayyid said after a long silence. “Get Job’s precious supplies and bring Bela to me so I can keep us all out of burial clothes.”

  “I can’t stand it, Dinah. Why don’t they come closer?” Job raised his arm so Dinah could wrap the linen bandage around his chest. “It’s been six days, and still my so-called friends, my relatives, can’t stand the sight or smell of me. Ahh!” The night sky echoed his cry.

  “Job, I’m sorry!” Dinah eased the bandage away from the tender area, her tears immediate.

  Job hated himself for crying out, hated that he made this compassionate woman cry, hated that his wife had to hide in a cave like a caged animal. But none of it was Dinah’s fault. “I’m sorry for shouting, and I’m sorry you have to come here like a thief in the night to bandage my wounds. And I’m sorry I cry out like a child.” Would this humiliation never end?

  Nogahla ducked her head to meet Job’s gaze. “Master Job, you are much quieter than a child.”

  His temper deflated at the sincerity in her eyes.

  Matter-of-factly, she picked up a worm that had fallen from one of the sores on his shoulder and returned it to its festering home. “There you go, little worm. You can’t leave until Mistress Dinah’s myrrh kills you dead, dead, dead.”

  Job and Dinah shared a glance, transforming their tears to wonder. Dinah’s lilting laughter was met with a cautious grin from Job, the joy of the moment worth the pain of his upturned lips.

  “Thank you, faithful assistant,” Dinah said and then looked at Job. “The worms are managing your infection, and the myrrh has reduced some sores to scabs in less than a week. That’s reason to hope, Job.”

  He swallowed hard and nodded. Anything else would have sent more tears searing through the open furrows on his cheeks.

  “Though your voice is still a whisper,” she said, “it’s becoming stronger, and you’re able to eat broth and egg whites now.”

  Dinah seemed as intent as the Cushite to battle his despair. She pulled away the strips of cloth from the tender flesh under his arm. His whole body trembled at the pain while a low, guttural moan escaped between chattering teeth. Tears flowed down Dinah’s cheeks as she worked. “If you would allow Aban to accept the qat leaves Zophar brought from Saba,” she said, anger rising in her ton
e, “we could manage your pain better. Now that the sores in your mouth have healed, you could chew the leaves or use Zophar’s pipe to smoke them.” It was the second night in a row she had broached the subject.

  “I told you before,” Job said, gritting his teeth against the pain, “I need a clear mind when Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar find the courage to finally come up here. I can’t be dazed and witless, chewing on a wad of qat, while they argue away my home and land.”

  Dinah’s hands grew still, her voice kind but disbelieving. “Do you really think that’s why they came, Job? Do you think they brought their army to take your home and your land?”

  Job could feel his chin quiver. Please, El Shaddai, hold back my tears. The pain is too great. He breathed deeply and forced out the words that had been churning inside for six days. “I think their original intention was to protect my home and land, Dinah. But every day they come to the edge of the dung pile, Bela and Sayyid leading the two elders by the hand, Zophar walking beside them. They listen to Sayyid’s lies, eat Sayyid’s food, and enjoy Sayyid’s entertainment. When I try to call out, they hear only my whisper, and Sayyid coos in their ears, saying, ‘Look at how the poor man suffers.’

  “Bela remains silent, but he fawns over Uncle Eliphaz shamelessly, and I know he presses his own agenda. He wants to see me ruined so he can rise to power as the first Edomite king. My three relatives seem oblivious to everything but their distant mourning, content to be well fed and deceived by my enemies.” Job’s tears finally overflowed, and he inhaled through clenched teeth.

  “Master Job.” Nogahla’s quiet voice broke through his shroud of pain. “I want you to know that Aban has told your relatives everything truthfully, just as it happened.” Her eyes glistened in the moonlight, and Job knew she bore a great weight of responsibility.