Deborah's Story

by Ann Burton

  “A generous love you have, Wadina,” Meji sneered, “that you would see my best friend dead.”

  She reacted to his words as if he had slapped her. “You cannot believe her. She lies!”

  “Deborah is a truth-seer,” my friend said, completely disgusted now. “Jehovah has made her so that she is incapable of lying.”

  I released the woman’s wrist and moved away from Meji. “Go with her,” I told him.

  “And leave you here to face the morning alone?” His mouth became a thin, hard line. “No, Deborah.”

  “I saw you with this one,” I told him, nodding toward Wadina. “In a field of wheat. It was near a simple farmhouse, in the mountains beyond the lake. You were plowing the soil, and she carried your son on her hip. There were flowers, and a little girl child picking them. A child with her hair and your smile.” I would not feel envy. I would not. “You must go with her. She is your freedom, and your destiny.”

  “A son? A daughter? A farm?” Overcome, Wadina covered her face with her hands and wept again.

  “How can I have children with such a soggy female?” Meji complained. “I do not even like her. And we will never be free. I told you: I will not have children born only to be sent to the auction block.”

  The kitchen wench wailed and ran from the shed.

  “You will be freed, very soon,” I promised, my eyelids drooping. “Go now. She loves you, and will make a fine mother to your children.”

  “I cannot leave you like this.”

  I did not wish to tell him what else I had seen in the vision, but it was the only way to make him go. “If you do not, and you are found here in the morning, those children will never be born. The master will kill you.”

  “How can you say such things to me?” He sounded appalled.

  “Because they are the truth,” I mumbled. “As you well know.”

  “Deborah—no, do not sleep—I will go, but you must come with me.” He shook my shoulder.

  Tarn appeared in the open doorway. “Meji. Come away now.”

  I might go with them and flee into the city, but Ybyon would know someone had released me, and every slave on the farm would be punished for my escape.

  “Go with him,” I mumbled, “and do not waste the gifts Jehovah offers you.”

  Tarn came over and pulled Meji away from me. I snuggled down into the fleece, sighed, and fell asleep.

  I sat on the edge of the ivory stone fountain, looking down at a ghostly reflection. The water was as flat and lovely as the gleam of light on silver, and I could see the face perfectly. I did not wish to look at it, or to be here. I wanted only to sleep. Could I not have one night without the dreams?

  “For the work to be done, your heart must be open to God, Deborah,” a sweet, low voice said. It was coming from the water in the fountain.

  I looked down at the reflection. If not for the eyes, I would have thought it the image of my mother, Dasah. But no—the woman in the water was me.

  I had never looked so strange to myself. My hair fell around the face in soft waves, but it was much longer and cleaner than I had ever worn it. There was a strange scar on my face, as well: a dark patch in the shape of a crescent moon.

  I lifted my fingers to touch the mark, but could not feel it. I ran my palm over my hair and felt the stickiness of my cinder-and-fat dye.

  “Fear not what your eyes tell you,” the reflection said. “For we are one and the same soul.”

  I wanted to get up from the fountain and run away. Instead, I watched my red, work-callused hand reach out toward the water. The reflection lifted her smooth white hand as if to take mine. Around the base of her fingers were narrow bands of silver, one studded with two dark red stones. A finely worked chain of copper glittered around her thin wrist.

  “Why do you come here?” I demanded, snatching my hand back. “What do you want from me?”

  “You bring others to drink from the fountain of God, yet you go thirsty.” She smiled, as if this amused her. “Why have you never sought a vision of your own future, daughter of Dasah?”

  “It is forbidden.” I turned away from the reflection, feeling sick. Now the storm would come, and all would be dark and frightening. To my surprise, the sun still scattered buttery yellow light through the thick green leaves, and the birds continued to sing. I rose and looked around me. “Heavenly Father, tell me what I must do.”

  “Deborah.”

  The voice was Jeth’s, and he was somewhere close to me, but I could not see him. Tears of anger burned my eyes. I knew I would never see him again, but to be denied his memory here, in this place…

  “You must believe in the Lord God’s love,” Jeth said. “Trust in Him above all others, and He will fill your eyes with wonders.”

  “I do not want wonders. I only wanted—” Furious and wretched, I fell down onto the ground and beat my fists into the rich soil. “Yes, I wanted more. I wanted you. I wanted my mother, here, alive. I wanted freedom from Ybyon. I have none of it. I have nothing. I die with nothing.”

  I had screamed the words, releasing them like vile fluid from a festering wound. As they left me, I felt my heart go still, and then cool, gentle hands touched my face. I was embraced, held like a child, my cheek touching against a soft shoulder.

  I looked up into Dasah’s eyes. “Mother.” I felt horribly guilty, behaving like a shrieking, ungrateful brat in her presence. “Forgive me.”

  “Shhh.” She cradled me in her arms. “There is nothing to forgive. You have carried your burden alone too long.”

  We sat thus in silence for a long time, and I would have happily done so forever.

  “Do you remember how the little newborn lamb bleated when you took him from his mother?” Dasah asked softly. “After the master struck her down?”

  How could I forget those frightened, plaintive cries? “Yes.”

  “Such cruelty, such a terrible parting, and yet the lamb thrives, and the ewe, even though she was separated from him, provides nourishment for him.” She tilted my chin to make me look up at her. “Why do you think that is, Deborah?”

  “I rubbed him with her birth water.”

  Dasah laughed. “Yes. You did. Perhaps I should try the same.” She reached into the fountain, scooping up a handful of water, and poured it over my scalp. It felt so cool and clean as it ran through my hair. “You are my beautiful child. The moment you came into the world was the greatest blessing of my life. What joy you brought me, Deborah. What joy.”

  Her words did not make me feel the same. They tore at me as cruelly as if she had shouted hatred of me. “I am not a lamb,” I whispered. “I never knew you. We shall never be together again.” I wished there were such things as curses, for I would have put one on my master for taking Dasah from me.

  “We are together now.” My mother anointed me with a second handful of water. “With nothing but our souls do we come into the world, and with nothing but our souls do we leave. It is the will of Jehovah, my daughter. Do you know why that is?”

  The sunlight filled my eyes, and something warm and wonderful entered my heart. “Only our souls can make the journey. Nothing else may go.”

  “Yes.” She pressed her lips to my brow. “Jehovah has granted you the power to see the future, and the strength to carry the burden of speaking only truth. When it is your time, He will welcome you into the kingdom of heaven, and I will be waiting for you there. But your earthly journey is not yet come to an end.”

  “It will tomorrow,” I told her.

  “Perhaps.” She brought a cupped hand to my lips, and I drank from it. The water was softer and sweeter than honey. When her hand was empty, she kissed my brow a second time. “I loved you from the moment you were put into my arms. You were so little but perfectly made, and such a good baby.” Her eyes glistened. “How I have missed you. How I have wanted you back in my arms.”

  “Mother.” I buried my face against her breast and wept like a lost lamb.

  CHAPTER

  10

>   They came for me in the gray light before the sun rose, and dragged me from my bed of fleece. Neither of the master’s guards seemed surprised that the cords from my wrists and ankles lay on the ground, but retrieved one length and tied my hands before me. They moved quickly but with the reluctance of those who did not relish their tasks.

  I saw what the master had planned for me as soon as I was pushed out of the shed. Instead of the stone massebot to which Ybyon preferred to tie slaves for punishment, two long, thick pit stakes had been hammered into the ground on either side of one of the terebinth trees that surrounded the slaves’ privy. There were short ropes tied to the stakes, and these had been fashioned into loops.

  I did not see Hlagor waiting for me, but the master was there, as were all the other slaves and shepherds. Guards armed with spears and knives stood before them, and Seres stood off to one side, a coiled ox whip in his hand.

  “Bring her forth.” My master sat on a decorated chair someone had brought down from the main house. His robes were the finest I had ever seen him wear, and he sipped wine from a bronze goblet. As if this were all some sort of entertainment being put on for his pleasure.

  Perhaps that was all I was.

  The guards escorted me to stand before the master, who waved his goblet. “Put her on her knees so that she may entreat me to spare her.”

  I lifted my chin. “I shall not beg for my life, Adon.”

  He seemed startled. “Did you learn nothing from your mother, girl?”

  “I learned much before you killed her,” I said, not taking my eyes from his. “She did not fear death, and neither shall I.”

  “Then you are as foolish as she was.” Ybyon motioned with one hand. “Put her to the tree, then. The lash will sweeten her tongue.”

  I did not resist as the guards guided me over to the tree. I faced the rough bark and held out my hands so that they could be tied by the wrists to the pit stakes. The wooden rods were just far enough apart to stretch out my arms.

  “Deborah.” It was Seres’s voice, coming from just behind me. “The master has ordered me do this thing. I will make it as quick as I can, but…”

  I understood. Beating to death a young woman, even one as thin and undernourished as I was, would take some time and effort. “I am sorry that this task was put on you, Seres. It should be Hlagor’s lot.”

  “He ran off last night. I hope I am chosen for his turn at the post, for that one I would enjoy slicing to pieces one lash at a time.” The kitchen master hesitated, and then said, “What I do here this morning, girl, is not of my choosing. I would have it any other way. They say you cannot lie, is this so?” I nodded. “When you go before the Gods of the afterlife, will you…speak well of me?”

  “I do not believe in your gods.” I leaned my head against the rough bark of the tree. “But in truth I hold no animosity toward you for this, Seres.”

  He thanked me and stepped back. One of the guards tore the kesut from my shoulders, and rent the fabric beneath until I felt the damp, cold morning air on the skin of my back.

  “Deborah, daughter of the slave woman Dasah, broke the law and ran away last night,” I heard the master say. “She knew she was forbidden to leave the farm, but to spite me she escaped. In town she conspired with a dishonest merchant to cheat me out of full payment for a debt. The Gods smiled upon me, however, and led me to discover her plotting. I caught her in Hazor last night and brought her back here to face just punishment.”

  No one made a sound. I turned my head, resting my cheek against the tree trunk so I could see the master’s face. He looked almost pleased, but I felt a surge of sadness. How horrifying, to be so perverse as to feel pleasure only by causing others pain.

  “I am troubled by this incident,” Ybyon said, belying his happy expression. “By her actions, and the silence of those who should have told me that she had fled the farm, I am within my rights to punish all the barn stable slaves.”

  I heard the hiss of braided leather some feet away from me.

  My master waited several moments before he spoke again—probably to relish the fear on the gaunt faces around him—and then he said, “I have decided to be generous. No one but this ungrateful, evil girl will be whipped. I will not hold back food from your mouths.”

  My hands uncurled, and I went limp against the tree, such was my relief. He will not starve them more. They will be given enough to go on.

  “But remember what you see done here today,” Ybyon continued. “If another of you ever attempts to escape your duties to me, I will have every slave on this farm tied up and given thirty lashes.”

  Seres muttered something that sounded ugly, too soft for the master to hear. That gave me some hope that he might show more sympathy toward the slaves. They would need someone like him after I was gone.

  Another hiss came, much louder, as the whip divided the air. I was going to die now, and to my shame I was shaking. He promised to make it quick. Jehovah, give me strength. I tried to summon the image of Dasah’s face, and the love in my dream-mother’s eyes, and braced myself.

  Bright, hot pain slashed across me from shoulder to hip, and I jerked, surprised at how much it hurt.

  “One,” Seres called out.

  It seemed only a heartbeat before the whip struck me again. It seemed to hardly touch me; then the pain exploded as the knotted hide slithered off my flesh. I shook all over, and my brow scraped against the tree bark.

  “Two.”

  I bit my lip, determined not to scream. Take me soon, Heavenly Father, I prayed to Jehovah. Let me see my mother waiting for me with her arms—

  “Three.”

  My back became a web of fire, and I would have fallen but for the ropes around my wrists. Somehow I kept my feet under me, but I could not rest my full weight against the tree to be ready for the next.

  “Four.”

  The whip caught my braid and jerked my head back. My chin bounced, and my teeth slammed together as Seres jerked it loose and lashed me again, this time slicing my back from one side of my ribs to the other. Dimly I felt something warm and wet trickling down my back and between my legs as the whip drew blood and I let go my water.

  “Five.”

  Seres was too quick; I was still writhing from the last blow when the next landed. A cry spilled from my throat as the stretched muscles of my arms and back cramped and spasmed under the agony left behind by the heavy lashes.

  Panting through the pain, I turned my head and saw the master had moved his chair closer, so that he sat only a few feet away from the tree. Ybyon did not take his eyes off me as he handed his goblet to the servant hovering behind him. “More wine.”

  How could he sit there and watch this? How could anyone hate so much?

  The whip hissed again, and something cut into my cheek as the force of the blow drove me against the tree. My knees buckled, and the ropes bit into my wrists like hungry rats. I could not stand, I could not fall. I was not sure how much more I could take without screaming.

  “Six.”

  I screamed. The bitter wine of blood and tears flooded my mouth, and as I tried to breathe, I discovered there was no more air. My face was bleeding from scraping against the tree’s rough trunk, and the ropes were eating into my flesh. The tree and the whip were going to grind me slowly between them.

  “Seven.”

  It was too much. The world became the end of a branding iron, and I could not see the master or even the tree anymore. Beyond the buzzing sound in my ears, I heard men’s voices, and an angry shout, but I did not care. I waited for the next blow, sure this one would kill me, but it did not come.

  Why does he not hit me? My thoughts felt thick and useless, like the blood on my tongue. He promised. He promised.

  “Cut her down.”

  The rats at my wrists ceased gnawing, but I could not see clearly to thank whoever had chased them away. I tried to fall to the ground so that I could die, but there were hands, and they would not let me.

  “Deborah.” />
  Something light and soft touched my back, but even that was too much, and I cried out. The same softness moved over my face, caressing and gentle.

  “Look at me, please, Deborah.”

  I would have ignored the voice and slipped into the waiting darkness, only it belonged to Jeth, and surely he could not be here. I forced my eyes open to see his face close to mine. In his hand was a bloodstained cloth, which he used to wipe my mouth and chin.

  The blood was mine, but I did not care. I could not believe he was here, where the master could do whatever he wished to him. I made my mouth move. “You…should be…hiding.”

  “She needs a healer,” Jeth said to someone nearby before he looked down at me. “I knew I should have come for you last night. Forgive me for not preventing this.”

  “Whatever this Hebrew has told you is a lie,” my master’s voice said close by. “His sheep will be delivered as we agreed. I am outraged that you would come here to question me. Do you not know who I am?”

  “We know you well enough, sheepherder,” a strange voice said. “What about the girl? Why do you have her beaten?”

  “She is a slave, and she ran away,” Ybyon replied. “As her owner, I have the right to punish her for such. She is my property.”

  “Tell them why she ran away,” Jeth said as he lifted me carefully into his arms. “Tell them how she came to town to warn me of your plot to have another of your slaves kill me for my silver.”

  Murmurs swept through those around us. I was able to see better now, but I could not make sense of it. Why were the king’s guards here? They never came to the farm.

  My master laughed. “You Hebrews think the world wishes you dead. Well, I wished only to sell you some sheep. That is not a crime.”

  Beyond Ybyon and the guards surrounding him, the slaves stood clustered together, watching everything. They parted as a man walked through them and toward us.