by Ann Burton
Jeth nodded but walked with me toward the prison window.
Ybyon’s knuckles bulged as he saw me. “Those are my sheep,” he called out in a loud, plaintive voice. “These men driving them are my shepherds. I have been robbed by this lying Hebrew. Does no one hear me?”
I went to stand before the window, but had to step aside as my former master spat at me. It was hard not to keep going and leave behind this man who had been the cause of so much of my pain. “I wish to say something to you.”
“I do not converse with slaves,” he snarled at me before calling out again. “Has Hazor been conquered? Does Jabin fear Barak so that he would allow a Hebrew dog to dictate the fate of a free Canaanite?”
People along the street passed by without giving Ybyon a single look. Judging by the lack of reaction and the faint rasping sound in his voice, it seemed that he had been shouting at them for some time.
In that moment I felt every lash mark on my back as keenly as when they were made, but I tried again. “I wish to say that—”
“Did you not hear me, merchant’s whore?” he shouted, at the same time yanking at the unmovable slats. “Get away from me.”
It was terrible to look upon the hatred in his eyes, and hear it hurled at me in his words, but I had to do this. Not simply say the words, but also mean them. Even if he did not listen. Even if they meant nothing to him.
“I wish to say that I forgive you for all the wrongs you have done to me.” I straightened my shoulders, ignoring the discomfort of my back as I added, “And I forgive you for killing my mother.”
“You stupid slut.” His jaw tightened, and I heard the sound of teeth grinding together. “I should have cut your scrawny throat while your mother’s blood was still fresh on my blade.”
I clasped my hands together and bowed my head, as I had so many times in the past. It seemed fitting to do so, not as a slave, but as a free woman he could no longer harm. “May the One and True God be merciful to you.” I reached out and touched his hand, and then I saw what Dasah had always tried to conceal from me. I removed my hand. “I will pray for you…Father.”
CHAPTER
13
Enraged, Ybyon began shouting again, but I paid no attention to his threats and insults. My soul felt cleansed of the last trace of darkness that his shadow had always cast over my life. I knew I would not think of him again with anything but pity.
Jeth came to my side and peered down at me. “You show him kindness and respect? After all that he has done to you.”
Apparently he had not heard the last thing I said to Ybyon. Which was well, as I was still reeling from learning the truth about my parentage.
No wonder Tarn never wished to speak of my mother, or let me touch him. He had feared I would see the truth about Dasah and Ybyon—but why? Had he known my mother’s shame? Had she felt guilt? Ybyon had been her master; she would have had no choice but to surrender herself to him. I could not imagine the master asking politely if she would relieve his needs. Was that why Tarn had not told me?
“Deborah?”
Jeth’s concerned voice rid me of my unwelcome thoughts. “‘Revile not he in whose steps you may someday walk,’” I said, quoting Tarn’s favorite proverb. “I know the path he will follow now only too well.” I saw the town gate ahead and heard the shepherds whistling to their dogs. “We are almost there.” I forced myself to smile up at him. “I have never seen a boat, much less sailed on one.”
“The first journey I made by water was a trading trip with my father on the sea, from Dor to Sidon,” Jeth said. “The ship rocked so that I spent the first three days deathly ill, losing my meals over the side and wishing I was dead. Happily, river travel does not have quite the same effect.”
“I am glad to hear it.” So was my belly. I did not have so many meals that I could afford to lose any.
I knew from Chemesh’s tales of the Sea People that water vessels came in all shapes and sizes, and could be as small as a wagon or as large as a barn. But when we reached the docks outside town, the sight of those waiting for Jeth and his herd astonished me.
Three long, flat boats made of wood floated at the end of sturdy ropes tied to a walkway that began on land and ended in the water. Images of strange animals and people had been painted on the sides, and at each end was an upright, carved wooden statue of a large man’s body with a bulging, rather terrifying animal’s head. The top of the boats were fashioned of smooth planks, the edges railed with tight bundles of reeds. Each boat was so large that the contents of the farm’s stable might have fit comfortably on each one.
“Do they belong to you?” I asked Jeth, awed by the size and beauty of the strangely elegant vessels.
“No, I hired them for the journey before coming to Hazor. I make river trips only every three or four years.” He lifted a hand to wave to one of the men standing on the nearest boat. “These are owned by Egyptians who hire their barges out to traders and travelers all along the river. As long as their price is met, they will transport anything.” He walked forward toward the man from the boat, who had leapt nimbly onto the half-floating walkway and was coming to greet him.
I looked back over my shoulder at Hazor. It seemed small now, not at all so grand and intimidating as it had the night I met Jeth in town. For a moment I thought of the farm beyond the town, and Meji and the friends I had left behind there. May Jehovah and Parah watch over you and keep you safe.
Traveling by river from Hazor to Ephraim took many days. The long, flat boats made slow progress, owing to the needs of the herd Jeth had purchased. Although the sheep and goats numbered fewer than one hundred, and could be watered and fed baled grass and grain from troughs set on the straw-covered flat deck, the animals still needed some exercise and a chance to forage. Thus we stopped at likely spots along the riverbank and drove them across wide ramps so that they could spend some hours grazing.
At first Jeth had wanted to mask the aggressive young rams by strapping a piece of leather over their faces, which he said would keep them from butting each other. It was a foreign method and intrigued me, for rams were natural fighters, but I guessed it was more for the pen and might hinder open grazing. I showed him our way of using a clogging strap, made from a piece of wood and a leather thong.
“It does not interfere with his movement, or hurt him,” I said as I strapped the wood to the ram’s foreleg. “But he feels the weight of it, and will not charge another ram as long as he wears the strap.”
When we stopped to graze the herd, the bargemen, all dusky-skinned Egyptians who kept their heads shaved and wore little more than abbreviated ezor, would take advantage of that time to clean the decks. First they used odd-looking, long-handled brooms to sweep the soiled straw off the side of the deck, and then they tossed bucket after bucket of water across the planks to rinse the wood clean. After the sun dried the wood, they spread fresh straw and scrubbed out the water and feed troughs.
I was fascinated by the bargemen. They spoke little of our language, so we communicated largely by gestures. With each other they chattered openly in their native tongue, which sounded like exotic music to my ears.
Although the bargemen spent most of their lives on the water, with no real home but the decks of their boats, they loved and revered animals. Jeth’s goats and sheep were treated with respect and affection, as if they were beloved children instead of herd animals. The men who worked on the barge also appreciated the pans of milk we shared with them each evening, something I guessed was a treat they did not often enjoy. In return, they gave us some of the fish they caught each day, served crisply fried on the flat, seeded lehem they baked on wide stones heated by the boat’s braziers.
At first I was reluctant to taste the fish—Ybyon had denied us meat of any kind—but Jeth insisted I have a portion, and he skillfully removed the thin bones for me. “You will like it.”
I put a small morsel in my mouth and chewed. The bargemen used strange spices on their food, but they enhanced the savory tas
te, and I smiled. “It is wonderful.”
“It is not something you should grow accustomed to,” Jeth warned.
“Oh no, I would never…” I saw the twinkle in his eye. “Why not?”
“We must get our fish from the river Kishon, which is many miles from my home,” he told me. “I do not wish you to acquire a taste for something I cannot provide. If you do, before we reach Ephraim I may lose you to a bargeman who is clever with a fishing line.”
I chuckled and assured him I did not like the fish that much.
Nighttime on the river was peaceful and filled with the sounds of crickets and the few frogs that had not retreated into their burrows for the winter. The bargemen poled their way to the bank, then tossed over the heavy sacks of stone tied to the four corners of the boat to moor it there until morning, for in the dark they could not navigate.
Jeth had great plans for his new animals. He told me of them one evening after we had finished milking the herd, and had settled them down on the deck for the night.
“I have needed more rams to breed my own ewes. If I can keep the new ones healthy, our flock should increase by three hundred come spring.” He checked the eyes of one lamb curled up by its mother and gently used a soft cloth to remove some debris from the eyelid. “My hope is to employ all the shearers on the mountain next year.”
“Do you sell much wool and goat hair from your herds?” I asked, curious about how he managed his flocks’ resources.
“All that I can spare,” he said. “My household is large, however, and uses about half what the flocks produce for our needs. I must sell weaned lambs every year to make up the difference.”
No wonder he was making trips to buy new animals. I thought for a moment. “What of your dairy?”
He took a small knife from his belt to cut away a knot of burrs in the wool of one ewe’s flank. “My grazing land causes the sheep to give sweet milk, so our cheese and butter are highly prized, but that, too, is mostly used by the household.”
“You might invest in more goats,” I suggested as I checked the clogging strap on one of the older rams. “They do not require as much sweet forage or attention as sheep, and yet they give twice the milk.” I hesitated. “Hebrews do like goat’s milk?”
He nodded. “Very much.”
I went around to extinguish the torches we had lit to encourage the flock to climb the ramps onto the boat, and to check dividers, made of bundles of reed so piled as to keep the herd from following their instincts and gathering in one corner of the deck, which Jeth said would unbalance the boat.
The weather was growing colder by the day, and I shivered as a damp, chilly breeze came up from the east. I had always thought it a shame that people did not grow warm, woolly coats, and were dependent on sheep to let us share theirs. The sudden thought of Seres covered in gray fleece with curling horns at both temples made me giggle.
A hand touched my back. “What makes you laugh?”
“I was imagining Seres, the kitchen steward, as he might look as a ram.” I put my forearms against the deck rail and watched the moonlight sparkling on the waves. “It is so beautiful here on the river. I can understand why the bargemen would spend their lives traveling it.”
“I should never have let you taste that fish,” Jeth said in a mock-grave tone. “I knew it would spoil you for Ephraim.”
“What is Ephraim like?” I knew only the farm, and a little of Hazor.
“Where we live in the mountains is beautiful in spring and summer. Colder and less green during the fall and winter,” he admitted. “We would do better if we could move our farms into the valleys, but since the time of Ehud, the Canaanites have gradually taken them from us, as we have little defense against their chariots and pikemen.”
“Who is Ehud?”
He gave me a startled look, and then relaxed. “Forgive me. The story of my ancestor is the first one told to every child in the tribe, but of course you would not know. Ehud was a great man; a judge of Israel.”
“A judge.” I pondered that. “Are your judges like the magistrates in Hazor?”
“More so to us. Our judges are chosen from the wisest men of the tribe, and they interpret God’s law. They settle our disputes and guide us through terrible times,” Jeth said. “In Ehud’s day, our people had allowed themselves to become corrupted by the Moabites, and much of Israel had fallen into sinful ways. Losing their faith with Jehovah allowed Eglon, the king of Moab, to drive them out of the fertile valleys and into the mountains.”
I frowned. Such a thing would not happen in Hazor, for like many Canaanite kings, Jabin was said to be meticulous about keeping his army well-armed and at constant readiness. “Could they not fight back?”
“The Moabites viewed us as invaders, and they were very determined to take the land from us,” Jeth admitted, “and so gathered mercenaries from among the Rephaim to help them. Even when our people had fled the valleys, Eglon inflicted many more cruelties upon them for a span of eighteen years. Then came Ehud, son of Gesa, who rose up to defy the Moabite tyranny. He told the tribe that Jehovah had spoken to him, and would permit no more abuse of Israel at the hands of Eglon.”
“What happened next?” I asked, shivering from the cold but caught up in the suspense of the tale.
“With only the power of his vision, Ehud raised an army of ten thousand men from the tribes and trained them in the ways of battle.” Jeth paused to remove his outer kesut and drape it over my shoulders. “When they were ready, he told them that he would strike the first blow against Moab alone.”
I frowned as I absently drew his cloak around me. “If that were so, then why did he make an army?”
“I think he knew he would need them later.” Jeth grinned. “Ehud went with a caravan carrying tribute to King Eglon—our tribes had to pay all manner of unreasonable tribute to Moab to keep them from slaughtering our settlers—and directed the bearers to lay out the finest Israel had sent before the king. Then he sent the bearers from the room and told the king that if he would also send away his lackeys and guards, he would give him the word of God. Eglon, being a greedy man, was intrigued, and so dismissed his court so he could be alone with Ehud.”
“That was silly,” I commented. “The king in Hazor would not have done that. He would have had Ehud imprisoned and had the word of God beaten from him.”
“It is good that Ehud did not have to face Jabin, then,” Jeth said wryly. “As soon as they were alone, Ehud locked all the doors and then told Eglon he would have to rise from his throne to receive the word of God.” The side of his mouth curled. “We imagine that this took a few minutes, for the king was said to be an obese man, but at last Eglon got to his feet and demanded the word.”
I leaned closer. “So? What did Ehud tell him?”
“He delivered the word of God,” Jeth said. “He drew his sword from his right hip and thrust it into the king’s belly, slaying him on the spot. Then he made his escape, leaving the king to be found dead, alone, still locked in his throne room.”
I gaped. “Never say he did.” What sort of man had the audacity to slay a king in his own palace? I thought about it for a moment. “Wait, if Ehud locked himself in the room, and the king was found dead in the locked room, then how could he have escaped?”
“The stories about him say Jehovah whisked him from the court and took him back to the mountains,” Jeth said, “but my father was kin to Ehud’s family, and said it was no miraculous thing. After Ehud slew Eglon, he used a rope to scale the wall and climbed through an open skylight in the roof.” He spread his hands. “Thus Ehud became legend.”
“But what happened when the Moabites discovered their king slain?” I demanded. “Surely they did not surrender to Israel just like that?”
“No, they marshaled their forces, but the terrifying manner in which Eglon had been slain frightened them, and it was said that they went into battle feeling cursed and defeated by Jehovah.” Jeth caught a strand of my hair blowing across my eyes and tucked it
back into the cable of my braid. “The Moabites were met in the mountains and the valleys by Ehud and his army, who were waiting for them, and there soundly defeated. For eighty years after, our tribes dwelled in peace, until the Canaanite kings began to invade the land of Moab, and the harassment and persecution began all over again. Today it is almost as bad for us as it was for the tribes before Ehud rose up.”
Tarn had told me some other tales of how Hebrews were made to fight over and over for their right to Israel. It did not seem fair that so many wished to steal the land God had promised them.
“You have no one now like Ehud to drive the Canaanites away?” I asked.
Jeth shook his head. “Our judges are still the wisest men of the tribes, but none have received direction from Jehovah on how to engage this new enemy. It was said that a mighty judge would come in the last of the line of Ehud, but it is said that his last descendent died many years ago with no children.”
Thanks to Jeth’s warm, thick cloak, I did not feel the cold of the wind, but something just as chilling passed through me. “Not all old stories are true,” I said, feeling very uneasy.
“No, but I am selfish enough to wish that this one were.” Jeth looked out over the water toward the south, and his tone became grim. “I love the land of my father, and my tribe, but each year I see more and more of it claimed by greedy invaders who murder and drive off Hebrew settlers. I fear that they will stop at nothing to take it from us. If we do not soon answer their challenge, then surely this time we will be the ones who are driven out.”
CHAPTER
14
Our journey did not end when the bargemen docked a few days later in the southern land belonging to the tribe of Benjamin, for we still had to drive the sheep a short distance down a road that passed through two mountains. Beyond them stood a third, Mount Palma, where Jeth told me his farm and village lay.
