Deborah's Story

by Ann Burton

  Praise for Women of the Bible: Abigail’s Story

  “Burton brings the ancient setting to life at least as well as Anita Diamant in The Red Tent.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “An intriguing glimpse at family life of shepherds, warriors, and artisans…terrific biblical biographical fiction, the genesis of a new series.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Beautifully told as a rich tapestry of life in biblical times…[with] authenticity and panache…David and Abigail’s story of love [will] capture your heart and fire your imagination…. You will not want to miss one of these novels…. It is not often that such an exceptional novel comes along, and this is only the first from Ms. Burton’s talented pen…. Abigail’s Story is for everyone who savors the enjoyment of beautiful words and lyrical prose. A novel of faith, conviction, love, and devotion, Abigail’s Story is a feast for the imagination, bringing to life one of the oldest tales in our time.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  Rahab’s Story

  “Detailed with life as it was in Rahab’s time.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “This stirring story will fascinate readers who enjoy ancient history.”

  —Romantic Times BOOK club (four stars)

  W OMEN OF THE B IBLE

  Deborah’s Story

  A NN B URTON

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

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  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1988-1

  Copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2006

  All rights reserved

  Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

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  Contents

  PART ONE: Song of Jeth

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  PART TWO: Song of Barak

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  Discussion Guide

  Glossary

  Recommended Reading

  PART ONE

  Song of Jeth

  CHAPTER

  1

  It was through a lush and green garden that I walked, pausing occasionally to admire a bloom. Such fragile things flowers were, and yet here they burst forth as a thousand shofar, trumpeting their colors and beguiling the nose with their sweet scents. Morning dew kissed my toes, and birds chirped merrily to me from their perches in the labyrinth of cedar branches overhead.

  I loved this place, and came here whenever I could.

  Someone had built a fountain in the center of the garden, and that was where I walked now. It was a marvelous wonder, carved of polished ivory stone. The water splashing in the basin bubbled up from a hidden spring, so it never ran dry. I scooped some with my hand and brought it to my lips to drink.

  “Deborah.”

  I turned toward the sound. “I am here.”

  “I have been waiting for you.” My love’s voice was a warm and welcoming presence that promised laughter and happiness.

  I could not see him, but he liked to tease me by hiding. “Where are you?” I left the fountain and began to search for him, smiling as I went. Any moment now, he might jump out and catch me in his arms and whirl me about. “Come out, beloved.”

  “Deborah.” His voice changed. “Deborah, I cannot see you.”

  The bright sunlight had faded a little, and I looked up to see the sky turning dark with storm clouds. It would rain soon.

  “I am here.” I pushed aside a tangle of vines. “Come to me, and we will go back into the house.” If I could find the way to the house. It had grown so dark, I could not see the path leading out of the garden anymore.

  “I cannot find you.” He sounded anxious. “Deborah, hurry.”

  Lightning slashed across the black clouds, and wind rushed through the garden to tear at my clothes. I threw up my hands as leaves pelted my face. “I must leave you now. Take shelter.”

  “Deborah, do not go!”

  I turned this way and that, trying to avoid being lashed by the waving branches of the trees. Flowers flew away on the wind, torn from their stems. The light was gone, the sun swallowed by the storm, and I reached out my hand to feel my way.

  A hole appeared a few feet away from me on the ground, jagged-edged and black as pitch.

  A sharp pain struck my shoulder, and I cried out as I fell. I did not want to leave the garden, for it was the only place I felt safe, but I would die if I stayed. “Farewell,” I sobbed, crawling toward the ugly scar in the earth. “Farewell, my love.”

  “Deborah, come back! I shall get you to safety! I shall get—”

  Get.

  Get up.

  “Do your ears not work?” Something slammed into my shoulder again. “Get up, yo
u lazy slut.”

  The hard kick knocked me forward, so that I lay facedown in the straw. I bit back another cry and quickly curled over, pushing myself up onto my knees.

  Ybyon stood over me, his broad face a mask of ugly shadows, his eyes narrow with contempt. “On your feet, girl.”

  The corner of the barn where I slept was silent, and only the light from the hanging lamp the master carried illuminated the darkness. The others who slumbered next to me in the straw were already gone; I had slept too long again.

  “Forgive me, Adon,” I begged as I stood and tugged my middo down over my thighs. It hung loosely, for it had once belonged to one of the kitchen wenches. I was given it when it became too stained and threadbare for her to wear. That it was too large did not matter to me. It covered my body and gave me a little warmth at night when I slept.

  Ybyon paused, as if deciding whether to kick me again. “Get to work.” He turned and stalked out to the pens.

  Because it was so near dawn, I did not dare leave the barn and go to the kitchens for my bread. Instead I retrieved my pan from where it hung on the wall and carried it to the first stall. The old, bad-tempered spotted goat kept there was eating a pile of scraps from the kitchen refuse heap, and she bleated her annoyance as I crouched beside her.

  I said nothing when she butted my aching shoulder. I milked her quickly and whisked the pan from beneath her before she could kick it over with her hooves. Her milk warmed the pan and floated, thick and foamy around the edges. I looked from side to side and then bent my head to drink a mouthful before I carried the pan out of the stall.

  “Deborah.” Meji came and took the pan from me, and he looked about before saying in a whisper, “Sorry. I tried to wake you, but you would not move, and then Hlagor shouted for me.”

  “It matters not.” That I had slept too long on a morning when I knew Ybyon would come to inspect the barns and stables was my fault. I had sat up alone last night, watching stars shoot across the sky, when I should have been sleeping. I heard the master’s voice drawing close and touched Meji’s thin arm before I hurried out to the pens.

  Ybyon owned five hundred sheep and two hundred goats, as well as some cows, mules, oxen, and onagers. One of his businesses was the buying and selling of beasts, so the number occupying the pens and stalls constantly changed. My morning task was to check the sheep pens and see that no lambs had been dropped or injured during the night. In winter I hated going into the pens, for I always found too many of the early births had expired from the cold or been trampled to death. Now that it was almost spring, I would have to be more vigilant; the fat ewes would begin dropping their lambs by the dozen each night.

  The sheep pen smelled much worse than the barn, and the ground beneath my bare feet was slick with manure. Many of the sheep needed their hooves cut back and cleaned out, for they had grown over, but that would not be done until they were sold. Their wool was thick and greasy to the touch, and their dark narrow heads turned to look at me as I waded through them.

  I saw one of the ewes by the fence, standing as far from the herd as she could manage in the confines of the pen. A stringy, wet mass was hanging from beneath her chubby tail, the afterbirth that spilled from her after dropping the lamb that lay curled on the ground beneath her.

  The lamb was at suck, and the ewe lowered her head as I approached, but I did not disturb them. If I tried to take the lamb now, the ewe would charge me. Instead I watched the little one have his first meal. I had never known my own mother, so such things drew me.

  “Girl!” Ybyon strode toward me, driving the sheep out of his way. “Why do you idle there?”

  I bowed my head. “It is a new lamb, Adon.”

  “Yes, yes, I can see that.” He clouted the side of my head with his fist. “Why do you not carry it to the lamb pen?”

  I cringed and pressed my fingers to my throbbing ear. “It is nursing, Adon.”

  Ybyon reached down, tore the lamb from its mother, and shoved it into my arms. “Now it is not. Take it.”

  The ewe reacted strongly to this intrusion by charging Ybyon. The master caught her by the neck and spun her around, flinging her into the fence. She lay there, stunned and unmoving.

  “If she does not rise to go to graze, have one of the shepherds cut her throat,” Ybyon told me before he stalked out of the pen.

  “Yes, Adon.” I cuddled the bleating lamb close to my chest. I did not dare take him back to his mother to try to rouse her. I never disobeyed Ybyon or questioned what he wished done with his property. No matter how cruel or unfair his orders were, I always carried them out.

  I did this because I, too, was Ybyon’s property—his slave, from the moment of my birth, just as my mother had been. If I did not do exactly what my master said, he would not send for one of the shepherds to cut my throat.

  He would do it himself. As he had when he killed my mother.

  By the time I returned from carrying the struggling, bleating lamb to the newborn pen, the ewe had risen from the mud. Now she nosed her way through the flock as she baaed, wide-eyed and frantic, for the lamb I had taken from her. I saw under her tail the bulge of the watery sac that had held the lamb inside her, and saw it drop onto the cold muddy ground. Quickly I picked up the sac and ran with it back to the lamb pen, where I rubbed it all over the newborn, soaking its wool with the fluid, especially its bottom end. A shepherd had taught me the trick; if the lamb was permitted to rejoin the herd, the ewe would recognize him by the smell.

  I shut my ears to the sound of the lamb’s loud calls for his mother, and looked away from the confusion and fear in his small dark eyes. I had done all I could for him; the rest would be the master’s say. The newborn might rejoin the herd, or he might end up a fancy dish on a rich man’s table. The master did not keep many rams.

  Most of the animals Ybyon kept were fattened and sold at market, many purchased by other rich men in Hazor for their meat. The best were butchered to feed Ybyon’s family, for greatly beloved as they were by my master, they ate meat every week.

  “She is strong,” Meji said as he came to walk back to the main herd pen beside me. “A good breeder, too. The lamb will thrive.”

  “Not if he cannot suck.” The first days of feeding were the most important, too, for the ewe’s milk was especially thick and rich with something that helped its lamb grow large and strong. Too many times I had seen a nervous ewe that had never birthed before reject its lamb without allowing it to suck. Even when fed with a milk-soaked rag, the little one almost always died. “Why did the master not let her stay behind?”

  “Why does the master do anything? Because he wishes to.” Meji’s worn, dirty middo was covered with bits of dried grass from the bale of new green grass shoots he carried to the lamb pen. He nudged me with a bony elbow, and held out something to me. “Here, Deborah. To keep you strong.”

  I did not feel very strong, not when he tucked a slightly squashed wedge of white goat’s-milk cheese into my hand. “Meji.” I had not tasted cheese in months, and quickly closed my fingers over it. “I am more grateful than I can say, but if Seres ever catches you stealing from the kitchen—”

  “I did not steal it—I promise you.” Meji grinned before he carried the bale away from the hungry mouths of the sheep and into the barn.

  I looked around carefully before I lifted my hand as if to cover a cough and took a secret bite of the cheese. Newly ripe, it tasted fresh and soft and made my mouth water. It was hard not to gobble up the rest, but my stomach felt so empty that I feared I would retch if I did. I lowered my hand, tucking the rest of the wedge in the rolled edge of my sleeve before I walked after Meji.

  The flock would be kept outside until the shepherds came with their dogs to herd them down the hill. There, in the green pastures by the river, the sheep would graze and nap in the sweet grass until the sun began to sink into the western skies, when the shepherds would drive them back up the hill to the farm.

  What would it be like, I wondered as I looked out
at the valley beneath the city, to spend the whole day doing nothing but eating and sleeping? Far in the distance, I could see the shimmering blue of Lake Huleh. I had never left Hazor, but I often daydreamed of walking across the valley to the lake and bathing in those cool waters.

  I wonder if there are flowers there, I thought, recalling my dream of the beautiful garden. And that man who searches for me—

  “You, girl.” Hlagor, the master’s stableman, scowled at me as he walked past with a sack of grain balanced on his shoulder. “Stop standing about, and get to work.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  I hurried back to the barn. My next task was to use a rake to clean out the soiled straw from every stall and pen, pile it in the muck cart, and haul it to the dung heap. It was filthy, odorous work, with flies buzzing all around me, but it had to be done or the animals would become footsore. While I raked up the urine-and manure-stained straw, I also had to kill any vermin I found. It was another burden I disliked, but my master had a particular and intense loathing for rats, and he would beat me without mercy if he saw or heard any in the barns.

  As soon as I cleaned out one area, Meji and some of the other young men would carry in sheaves of fresh dried straw to spread over the muddy floor. The clean bedding kept the animals from developing sores on their hooves and bodies, and it lightened the ever-present odor of dung from the barn.

  Hlagor kept a sharp eye on all of us as he made his rounds, filling the clean feed troughs with grain. He was short and thick-bodied, and kept the wiry black hair on his skull and face cropped close to the skin. Although he was slave-born like the rest of us, Hlagor held the position of a free man. Ybyon treated him differently, too—almost as if he were paid instead of owned.