Deborah's Story

by Ann Burton

  “Jeth told me that she died.” I gave her a sympathetic look. “How sad.”

  “That is the time I know least about, for one day she was my playmate, and the next I never saw her again. I remember a morning when Gesala came, weeping and hysterical, to fall into my mother’s arms. Then Gesala went away, and other kin took over their farm. Indeed, I would never have known what had happened, had my mother not told me when she grew sick. There had been a raid, you see, while Gesala was visiting friends. Her husband, his brothers, and their daughter had been slain, although they never found the body of the child. It was thought that wild animals had dragged her away. Gesala was the only one of her family to survive.”

  That must have been worse than knowing her dead. “The poor woman.” Impulsively I touched Urlai’s hand. “I am sorry about your friend.”

  “So was I, until yesterday, when you came, child.” She gestured to my face. “For you have her eyes.”

  “I remind you of her?” I was touched. “I hope it does not make you sad.”

  “In some ways it does, for now I think I know her fate. She was not killed, I believe, but taken by the raiders. It would have been easy to subdue a child, and later sell her to slavers. Given your age, Deborah, Dasah could have been your mother.”

  “Dasah?” I felt as if my heart might stop. “Dasah was the name of Gesala’s daughter?”

  Urlai nodded. “Dasah, daughter of Gesala, granddaughter of Ehud.” She smiled at Jeth. “A fine choice, I think.”

  “No.” I shook my head and forced an uneasy laugh. “I do not think she and my mother can be the same person. It is only a coincidence of the names.”

  “But you have her eyes,” Jeth’s mother insisted. “I have never forgotten them.”

  “The other slaves on my master’s farm said that my mother had been branded a witch, like so.” I traced the mark Tarn had described to me across my forehead. “Did your people brand Gesala’s daughter?”

  “Oh, no, my dear. We would never harm a child so.” Urlai turned to Jeth. “You know more about slave traders than I. Are they superstitious enough to brand a little girl they feared?”

  “Among the hill people to the west, yes, there are some who fear evil and demons in anything strange. They brand, cut off ears and noses, and even geld boy children born with certain marks or deformities. It is possible they were the ones who took Dasah.”

  I shook my head. “It cannot be me. I am flattered that you would think me the descendant of such a noble family, but Dasah must be a common name.”

  “I can tell you that the disappearance of Gesala’s child troubled all the women of the tribe,” Urlai said. “So much so that no one has named their daughter Dasah for two score years. They feared it might bring bad luck upon the child.”

  Jeth rubbed his brow. “The hill people are not the only ones with superstitions.”

  “I never knew my mother,” I said, “so I cannot prove or disprove your claim. Though I would rather not claim to be someone I will never be sure I am.”

  “There is one way to know.” Urlai made a circling gesture in front of her nose. “Were you born with a mask of skin here, over your face?”

  “Yes, but…” I looked helplessly at Jeth. “You told her?”

  “I did not know of it myself. I do know the stories of children born thus. They are blessed by Jehovah to be prophets, and judges.” He paused and gave me a thoughtful look. “Because they can see what will be, as well as the truth in all other men.”

  “It is also said that they cannot lie,” Urlai put in.

  The walls were closing in on me, just as Jeth’s mother had predicted. I pushed myself up from the pillows and stood. “May I walk outside?”

  “Of course.” Urlai looked as if she wished to say more, but then she lapsed into silence.

  “I will go with you.” Jeth followed me out.

  CHAPTER

  16

  The air outside was cold and damp, heralding the rains of which Urlai had spoken. Clouds blocked out the stars, and over the mountains they lit up with lightning from within. I walked quickly away from the house, distressed and angry, and wishing to be neither. My benefactor stayed at my side until we reached the first of the fences protecting his flocks.

  “My mother did not mean to offend you,” Jeth said.

  “It is too much,” I said, unsure if I was answering him or reassuring myself. “I know you to be kind people, and I am grateful for all you have done. But I cannot be made a replacement for a long-dead child.”

  “Her body was never found,” Jeth pointed out. “Do not be angry at my mother. She sees you, the same age as Dasah’s child might be, with the same eyes as her childhood friend, born different as Gesala and Dasah were. I think it natural for her to make the connections.”

  “Many children are born with masks of skin. The Canaanites take the skin and keep it in a jar, if you can believe that. They think to destroy it will bring evil upon the baby.” I went to the paddock fence and looked out over the slumbering sheep. “There is no need to do this for me. I would be happy to serve you and your mother for the rest of my days. I do not need a new life invented for me. I am not ashamed of what I am.”

  “If you are Gesala’s granddaughter, then why would it be repugnant to you?” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “Ehud was one of our greatest leaders. Your family is gone now, but they were greatly honored.”

  “You yourself told me of the prophecy,” I reminded him. “That the last of Ehud’s line would become a judge of Israel.” I released a bitter laugh. “Here I am, Jeth. A woman. Worse, a slave woman. What sort of judge will I make, do you think?”

  “I cannot say,” he admitted. “We have never before had a woman judge.”

  “You see?” I threw up my hand. “Better you look for another slave woman by the name of Dasah, and see if she has given birth to a son.”

  He turned me to face him. “I do not understand your anger.”

  “Do you not?” I nodded toward the house. “You live like a prince here. You have never gone hungry, I think, or lain in the cold, wishing for a blanket. You have never been beaten for an imagined wrong, or been whipped for telling the truth.” Tears crowded up in my eyes. “I have no living family. I have never belonged to anyone. Now you would make me something I can never be. Your mother called me a fine choice? Well, I am not. I am no one, nothing. Let me work with the servants, or put me out in the fields with the herds. Give me something that I know, that I understand.”

  “I should have said something before now, but I did not wish to rush you any more than I have already.” He took my hands in his. “Deborah, when my mother spoke of you as a fine choice, she did not mean as Gesala’s daughter. Nor did I bring you here to be my servant, or to fulfill an old legend.”

  Suddenly, deeply ashamed of my outburst, I ducked my head. “I did not expect you to give me work. Of course I will find a position in another household. If you will but recommend me to one of your neighbors—”

  “I brought you to my home so that you could meet my mother,” Jeth said softly. “I wanted to show you my farm and introduce my family and friends to you. Our tribe is large, so we have many. I want to take you to our temple, so that we may both receive Jehovah’s blessing.”

  “You wish to adopt me?” My mother had explained some Hebrew customs to me, but nothing like this.

  “No.” He bent and brushed his mouth over mine. “I wish to make you my wife.”

  It was more of a shock than when Parah had told me I would be freed, but I did not faint this time. I held on to his arms with my hands, convinced the earth would begin rocking under my feet at any moment.

  Jeth drew back and looked down at me. “You are still weary from the river journey, and this story of my mother’s has unsettled you. Perhaps we should talk about this tomorrow.”

  “There is nothing to say, except…why?”

  “Why do I ask you? Well, I know it is proper for a man to go to the woman’s family, but they
are all gone now.” He brushed some hair back from my cheek. “Do you wish me to go to the tribal leaders? They will give consent in place of those who are gone.”

  “Stop it,” I whispered. “If you are not jesting with me, then you must know my answer.”

  “I do not have your gift for seeing inside people, but I hope the answer is yes.” His white teeth flashed. “Is it yes?”

  I moved away from him. “You should have said this to me in Hazor. Had I known your intention, I would not have come on this journey with you.”

  Jeth’s easy smile faded. “Why? I know I am asking you to do me a great honor, but you are under no obligation to accept. All you need do is tell me no.”

  “A great honor, to marry a slave?” I gestured at my shabby clothing. “A woman who has done nothing but take care of sheep, and live like them, all her days? I could see how you might fool yourself into believing me the granddaughter of Gesala, but how could you even think of me as a wife?”

  “I have thought of little else since the day we met, when you came running from the storm. Even then, I thought you the most beautiful thing I had seen on my journey.” He walked toward me. “And you cannot call yourself a slave anymore. You may be the last of Ehud’s line. Even if you are not, you are a free woman now.”

  “I have been a free woman barely two weeks,” I reminded him. He cornered me; to evade him I would have to jump over the fence. Since I did not wish to startle the flock, I stayed where I was and tried to reason with him. “Jeth, you are a wealthy man. Any woman would be honored to be your wife. But you should ask someone who has lived as you have, who knows your people, your ways—”

  “Ah, but I want a woman who is strong and practical and brave,” he said, running his hand over my long hair. “Strong enough to survive many years of hardship and deprivation. Practical enough to cover her hair with evil-smelling muck and pretend to be a boy to warn a foreigner of danger. Brave enough to take a savage beating and face death rather than betray a stranger to whom she owed nothing. I know of only one woman who is all those things.”

  I felt desperate and angry. “Are there no unmarried women in this village, that you must make me your choice?”

  “There are many women, and many will be disappointed that I did not choose them, but among them I will never find one as courageous and beautiful as you, Deborah.” He cupped my cheek. “Say you shall.”

  “I shall be nothing but trouble for you.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “I have a slave brand, no dowry, and a bitter past. I cannot lie. Every time I touch you, I would know if you had lied to me. Is that the woman you wish for a wife?”

  “You will make a very honest man out of me.” He pulled me into his arms. “Say you will be my wife. Say you will.”

  I could feel his body, and how desire had changed it. There—there was a way out of this impossible tangle. “If you wish me to service you, I shall do so. You do not have to marry me.” I had to be truthful. “I have only seen others do it, and looked away before I saw much, but you could tell me how.”

  “No, my brave girl.” Instead of being amused or offended, he kissed my brow. “Your maiden night is not enough for me. I want you with me forever.”

  A waking dream rose inside me, for I was touching him, and I could see into his heart in that moment. He did wish me to be his wife. He saw me as so many things: his friend, companion, lover, the mother of his children, the keeper of his home. He hoped that I would grow to love him, too, for without me he would never feel complete again.

  Jeth did love me.

  I did not think I could be all the things he wanted. All I knew of love was from my mother. But my heart cried out for Jeth, and knowing his feelings made it impossible to deny my own.

  “I’m afraid. I do not know what will happen to us if I am…” I could not bring myself to claim the mighty lineage of Ehud. Not yet.

  “So am I.” He held me close. “Say you will anyway, Deborah.”

  “There is something else you must know.” I pulled back a little. “I discovered just before we left Hazor that Ybyon is my father. I saw the truth when I touched him at the magistrate’s window. He used my mother for his own pleasure, and then he doubtless threatened to hurt me to make her see for him.” I had hoped to dismay him, but he did not seem at all shocked or angered. “Do you still wish me to say I will?”

  “I do not care if King Jabin was your father,” Jeth said, his voice stern. “I shall have no other.” He sighed. “Do you not remember what that old soldier at the beggar’s gate said to me? I will know no want or hunger in this lifetime. If I cannot have you, I will go on always wanting.”

  I could be a slave to the past and live in silent shame because of it, forever. Or I could seize the gift Jehovah offered me: a husband I could cherish, a man I already loved—and possibly the honor of the family I had been denied since birth. “I cannot defy the blessing of an old soldier, I suppose.”

  He smiled. “They are always right, you know. That is why they live to be so old.”

  “Very well.” I faced him as I did my destiny. “I will be your wife, Jeth, son of Lappidoth.”

  In proper Hebrew marriages, the betrothal was supposed to last several months, and the bride was not seen by her intended husband until the day they entered the wedding chamber as man and wife. That, as Urlai informed us, was how marriages had been performed for hundreds of years.

  “I do not care what the tribe does,” Jeth said. “Deborah and I will be married on the full moon, or I will carry her off into the mountain forests and have my way with her there.”

  “I would remind you that I am still quite strong, and you are not yet too old or big for the switch.” Urlai turned to me. “Are you quite certain that you wish to marry my son?”

  I suppressed a smile. “Yes, lady, I am.”

  There was another reason for Jeth’s haste. Sisera’s forces were attacking trader caravans, and the tribal leaders were meeting to decide what could be done before all trade to the towns and villages was completely cut off. When the men from the tribe of Benjamin were summoned to battle, Jeth would be among those who answered the call.

  “Very well. If we are not to have a proper betrothal—and the Lord God only knows how I will explain that away—we will have a proper wedding feast,” Urlai decided. “A feast to last seven days, and no less.”

  I feared the expense more than the rituals involved, but Jeth assured me that everyone would contribute something of their own making, and having the feast would raise the sagging spirits of the villagers and surrounding farmers.

  “We may not be able to celebrate again like this for some time,” he said, and looked to the north, as he often did when he spoke of the future.

  To the north lay Sisera, the general of King Jabin’s armies, and the Canaanite forces that were said to be growing stronger each day.

  There was much cooking and cleaning to be done to prepare for the wedding feast, and I refused to remain idle as Urlai urged. Indeed, I was happy to join in and work alongside the women of the household, for it made me feel more like one of them. Only on the Sabbath did we rest, and on that holy day, Urlai and Jeth both helped to fill in the gaps of what I did not know about the Hebrew people and their faith.

  Jeth’s brothers and their families arrived just as we were nearly finished preparing the food for the weeklong wedding feast, and I was formally introduced to them.

  The middle brother, Imen, was big and quiet and dignified, and it did not surprise me to learn that he was, like Parah, a scribe. It also explained how Jeth could read, for his father had insisted all three boys learn.

  “You are very welcome to us, sister,” Imen said, gallantly bowing over my hand.

  The younger brother, Syman, was shorter and more lively, but he was broader than both his larger brothers, and attributed his powerful arms and chest to the labor involved in his work as an iron-smith.

  “As you see, I am short, but shaped like a brute,” he told me cheerfully. “I should h
ave gone into raising lambs or learning to make little marks on clay tablets and scrolls, but then one of my brothers would have no trade, and our tribe no decent spearheads.”

  “What Syman does not say is how much he liked to dally with fire too much when we were boys,” Jeth said. “Once he near burnt down the barn, trying to build a fire in a brazier hot enough to melt a bit of ore he had dug up.”

  Imen’s and Syman’s wives and children altogether numbered fifteen, but each greeted me as one of the family. It was in the midst of this noisy brood, all trying to talk at once, that Urlai clapped her hands together and silence fell over her children and grandchildren.

  “There, now I may hear my own thoughts.” She pointed to Jeth. “Take your brothers and their offspring out to see the new animals. It will give the children a chance to stretch their legs after the long wagon ride from the city.”

  The men good-naturedly herded the children out of the house, leaving me alone with Jeth’s mother and sisters-in-law.

  “That is better. I vow I will enjoy growing old and deaf, for they become noisier with each visit.” Urlai gestured to me. “Come, Deborah, we must prepare your wedding robes and decide how to dress your hair for the ritual.”

  Many lengths of cloth waited in the women’s quarters, and as my knowledge of fine garments was sadly lacking, I let Jeth’s mother and his brothers’ wives decide which should be made into my marriage clothes. After much debate, they chose a soft cream-colored wool, finely woven and embroidered with white wool thread flowers, leaves, and fruit around the collar and hems. For a sash, they selected a length of hand-knotted wool so airy and light, it appeared made of cobwebs.

  The only protest I made was when Urlai sent one of the maids for her chest of jewels.

  “I cannot wear jewelry,” I said. “It is too much.”

  “It is not too much,” she countered. “A bride on her wedding day must be the loveliest woman present. I know for a fact that every unmarried woman in the village will be attending with their families, and will adorn themselves from head to foot with every bauble they possess.” She chuckled. “If only to remind Jeth of the hefty bride portions he has forsaken by not marrying them.”