Deborah's Story

by Ann Burton

  “When I went to trade in Hazor, I met Deborah there,” Jeth said as he came into the room to stand beside me. “She was a slave to an evil man who abused Hebrews, and learned he intended to slay me. Like you, I did not believe her word at first. But she risked her life to warn me, and saved my life by convincing me to listen. Do you know what was her payment?”

  Barak gave my husband a hard look. “You were so grateful that you married her?”

  “No, I married her because I love her. You may look upon the cost of that truth.” With a gentle hand my husband turned me so that my back was to Barak, and pushed the loose collar of my robe down far enough to expose the lash marks at the top of my spine. “The scars reach down to her hips.”

  “How was this done to her?” Barak asked in a low, disgusted tone.

  “She was tied to a tree and whipped,” my husband said. “They had nearly beaten her to death before I could get to her.”

  Barak moved closer, as if to examine the whip marks. “This happened on the full moon two months past?” Jeth nodded. “I felt it. There was a night in that time that I woke from a terrible nightmare, my back afire. The pain did not go away for many days. I could barely move.”

  “There is a reason for that, as well,” I said, shrugging my robe back into place and facing him. I did not have to touch him, for I saw the truth in his face. “Your mother is a Hebrew, but your father was a Canaanite.”

  Now Barak looked astonished. “How could you know that?”

  I grasped his wrist. “Barak, son of Lena, maidservant in the house of a Canaanite trader. Lena, who was violated by one of her master’s guests. She returned to her family, and they arranged a marriage to cover what had been done to her.” I released him and met his horrified gaze. “You felt my pain because we share the same father, Barak. You are my half brother.”

  I thought for a moment he might raise his hand to me. After touching him, I knew that he had the same capacity for brutality as Ybyon. But Barak had been raised by his gentle mother, who had never faulted him for the sins of our father. It was she who had tamed the anger within him and shaped him into the warrior who sought justice, not revenge.

  The proud warrior fell to his knees and bowed his head. “I submit myself to you, last of Ehud’s line, Truth-seer, Judge of Israel.” He looked up. “I will do as you wish.”

  I stared at the cropped silver-black of his hair before I held out my hand to him. “Then rise, brother, and call me Deborah.”

  We had been speaking for only a few moments when my mother-in-law and two servants came with tea, cheese, fruit and lehem. The repast was generous, and I gave Urlai a smile of gratitude.

  “I am glad Jeth is here,” she murmured to me. “Do you wish me to stay?”

  “No, Mother. All will be well.”

  With one final suspicious look at Barak, Urlai herded the servants out of the room and closed the door.

  “She is very protective of you,” Barak said.

  I poured a cup of tea for him. “She is a good mother.” I sat back and let the men talk of trade routes and travel until the meal was finished.

  “I must go and tend to my flocks,” Jeth said, rising from his chair. “Barak, you are welcome to stay with us for as long as you wish.” He bent over and kissed my cheek. “If you need me, send for me.”

  Barak watched my husband go. “He seems a good man.”

  “He is.” I studied my brother’s face. “Our father was made to pay for the evil he has caused so many. King Jabin seized his property and had him sold into slavery.”

  “I have always wished to know of him,” Barak admitted. “Each time I fought Canaanites, I wondered if I might be crossing blades with my own father.” He went to look out the window. “So I am here, sister, and I am in your hands. I have been dreaming for weeks of a coming battle. Jehovah showed me my men littering the ground, their blood turning the sand crimson. He said if I did not follow the Truth-seer’s word that this would be the outcome.”

  I stood and held out my hands. “Come, then, and I will deliver the word to you.”

  He came, and took my hands in his.

  I closed my eyes and summoned the waking dream. “The Lord God has commanded you, Barak of Kedesh. Now you will summon ten thousand of the tribes from Naphtali and Zebulun, and go to Mount Tabor, and meet you there the ten thousand men of the southern tribes. There shall be drawn to the river Kishon the enemy, Sisera, commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his multitude. Do this, and I will deliver him into your hands.”

  “I may be able to raise ten thousand from the northern tribes,” Barak said as soon as I released him. “But the southern leaders do not know me, and they will give me nothing.”

  I groped for a chair and dropped down onto it. “I have already spoken to our tribal leaders in Rameh some days past. As we speak, they are readying their men. They know you have been chosen to lead them.”

  “And I am to lead twenty thousand men to Mount Tabor, and wait there for Sisera to attack?” He shook his head. “This is not a sound battle plan. I know that land. The plains around the mountain are open and provide no cover. Sisera has a thousand chariots under his command. The only retreat is into a swamp by the Kishon.”

  “You are not to occupy the plains or the swamp. You are to climb the mountain and maintain a defense position there,” I told him, leaning back and willing myself to stay awake. “The southern troops will arrive, and at a sign from Jehovah, we will send down a diversion, and draw them away to the Kishon, where the final battle will happen.”

  “I cannot understand this,” he said, making a frustrated gesture. “I am to begin a war by hiding from our enemies on a mountain, and then leading them away from it? How may I do that if we are on the mountain? What is this sign from Jehovah? What diversion do we use?”

  “I do not yet know all the details.” I rubbed my eyelids. “He will make them known to me when it is time.”

  “So we go to war without knowing what we are to do, until you are told.” Barak began pacing again. “Are you certain this is God telling you these things?”

  “Sisera will meet defeat at the Kishon,” I told him. “It is God’s will.”

  “Very well. If we must all die to serve Jehovah’s purpose, then so be it.” My brother took hold of my wrist this time and stared down at me. “But I shall not lead men to their deaths by myself. If you will go with me, then I will go, but if you will not go with me, then I will not go.”

  Jeth found me sitting in the lambing pen some time later, a little newborn ewe on my lap. “Deborah.”

  “I have missed caring for these little ones. They are so beautiful and perfect when they are small, and in need of so much affection.” I looked up at him and saw the bleakness in his face. “Barak has told you we are leaving today.”

  My husband climbed over the fence and came to sit with me. “I will go with you. I need only a few minutes to tell Urlai and give my shepherds instructions on what to do while I am gone.”

  “You cannot. You are needed here, and there will doubtless be skirmishes around the towns and villages. The people here are sending most of their men to war. Someone must stay behind, and it is you.” I moved the sleepy lamb onto a soft pile of dried grass and turned to Jeth, curling my arms around his neck. “I will be gone until the war is over.”

  “Is there no other way?”

  I shook my head. “Barak can lead and fight, but to win, he needs to see beyond what can be seen. Only I can do that for him.” I sighed. “He regards me as a sister now. He will care for me.”

  “Not as a husband would.” Jeth pressed me close. “What will I do if you never return? How can I continue without you, beloved?”

  “We will never be apart here.” I placed my hand over the strong beat of his heart. “If the worst happens, then know that I am waiting for you in the kingdom of heaven.”

  Urlai had garments and food packed for the journey by the time Jeth and I walked back to the house. She did not bother
to conceal the fact that she had been weeping, or that my second abrupt departure disturbed her.

  “I am calling for the holy one again, and I will have him explain to me why a young woman must go to war and leave behind her husband and those who love her.” She instructed the maidservants to take the food baskets out to Barak’s pack animals. “This newfound brother of yours is waiting outside. I have already told him what I will do to him if you are not returned to us. He has no manners to speak of—do they raise nothing but barbarians in the north country? Ah, well, it matters not. Is there anything else I may do?”

  “You may take care of Jeth for me.” I kissed both her cheeks. “I thank you, Mother.”

  Jeth and I had said our farewells at the lambing pen, but as I walked out to join my brother, I hesitated and turned to embrace him once more. Between us, my belly tightened, and in that moment I somehow knew that I was carrying his son.

  I would not tell him this. Not when I could not know if I would live to give birth to Jeth’s child. Instead, I framed his face with my hands and kissed him. “I shall think of you every day and night, my isi, my husband.”

  Tears ran down his face, but he did not bother to wipe them away. “So shall I, as I wait for your return, my isti, my wife.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  For all that I had longed to have family, and was glad to know that Barak and I shared the bond of blood, it seemed unbearable that I would have to abandon Jeth and Urlai. I missed them more with each passing hour, and was too heartsick to summon a waking dream to know if I would ever see them again. I was afraid to know that I would not, and brooding on this kept me silent as we journeyed from Ephraim into the wilderness.

  Barak stopped only long enough to give the priest in the village a message to send to the tribes in the north, and receive his blessing on our journey. Then we rode miles through the mountains, often on narrow and stony roads, and camped in likely spots when the sun went down.

  At night I prepared food and did what I could to make my brother and me as comfortable as possible, but even then we did not speak much beyond only the necessary words. He seemed to fall to sleep the instant we stretched out on our sleeping mats, leaving me to shed silent tears and muffle sobs as I thought of Jeth.

  On the third day of our journey, Barak said, “I do not like hearing you cry yourself to sleep.”

  “I miss my husband,” I said. My voice, so long silent, sounded like the gravel crunching under the pack animals’ hooves.

  “I miss my wife, too. You could speak more and keep my thoughts from wandering,” my brother complained. “I begin to think you dislike me.”

  “I hardly know you well enough to like or dislike you,” I replied, “and you have not much to say for yourself.”

  “I have never had a sister. I suppose I am better at issuing orders to soldiers.” He was silent for a time, and then he asked, “What is he like? Our father?”

  “I am a truth-seer,” I warned him. “I cannot tell you pretty lies about Ybyon. Indeed, I would rather not tell you anything about him at all.”

  “It is probably for the best. But I look like him a little, do I not?” He rubbed his chin. “I must, for I do not resemble my mother or her kin.”

  “You have the best of his looks.” I remembered my former master’s harsh features, and tried to think of something about him that would not disgust my brother. “He was not entirely a bad man. He showed much devotion to his Canaanite family. He saw to it that they always had the best of things.”

  “While my mother had to marry a man she did not love to avoid shame after he raped her, and you were treated like a dog,” Barak said, the same pleasant note in his voice that our father affected when he wished to cover his rage.

  “We cannot choose who sires us,” I reminded him. “I am glad that we have found each other.”

  “You are?”

  “I grew up alone, with only other slaves as friends, and no family to call my own.” I smiled at him. “I always thought it would be a happy thing to have a brother or sister.”

  “We find each other on the brink of a war, which you must foresee and I must lead.” My brother shook his head. “Sometimes I think I will never understand the will of Jehovah.”

  That conversation seemed to end most of the tension between us, and we spoke casually after that. I did not say much of my life in Hazor, but I told Barak tales of Syman and Imen, and the wedding feast Jeth’s family had given for us. I also described the river journey we had taken to Ephraim, and what I had seen along the way.

  “I do miss the fish the bargemen cooked for us,” I admitted. “Though I will never say so to Jeth. He was worried the whole journey that I might stay behind and take a bargeman for husband.”

  In turn, Barak told me a little of his life in the north country. As tribal leader, he had to direct many things, but made time to spend with his wife and their children. I was pleased to know that I had two nephews and a niece in Kedesh.

  “Tere, my daughter, looks much like you. I thought that the first time I saw your face,” my brother informed me. “I imagine your children will share some of my looks.”

  “That is the way of it,” I agreed, and touched my stomach with my hand.

  Barak stared at me. “You are with child? Now?”

  “I think I may be.” I rubbed a circle over the flatness beneath it. “I will not know for another moon.”

  “I already have enough to worry me,” my brother grumbled. “Now I will be fearing for your unborn.”

  We came to the place where the tribes would assemble, and went about setting up camp. By nightfall men from the northern tribes began to arrive, and Barak attended to them while I saw to the food and supplies that came on the wagons with them.

  It took only another two days before a force of ten thousand men had gathered and were ready to march.

  Barak was so busy, he rarely ate and hardly slept. As the only woman in camp, I stayed out of the way by confining myself to his tent, tending his fire and preparing his meals. He left one afternoon when reports of a skirmish nearby came to him, and did not return until well past nightfall.

  I was stirring the pot of soup I was keeping warm when my brother stepped into the tent. He was still wearing his leather battle armor, and carried a sword. I did not look at the blood on his weapon or the weariness in his face. Instead, I prepared his tea and carried it to him in silence.

  He did not wish to speak to me, either, but after a time the words came from him, low and angry. “They were common raiders, paid by Sisera to attack Hebrew settlements. They took two farms to the south before we reached them. They killed all the livestock and butchered the families. Even the children were not spared.”

  My stomach, already tight with nerves, rolled. “I am sorry that you had to see that.”

  He reclined on the fine pillows provided for the rest he never took. “My mother said the truth is never easy. Neither is death.”

  The next day the army broke camp, and we began the long march to Mount Tabor. I rode with my brother at the front of the troops, and as it was the first time many of the men had caught sight of me, we received many curious looks. I did not encourage the officers who rode beside my brother to speak to me, and I kept myself modestly veiled during the hours we marched. The last thing the men needed now was a distraction or a reminder of the wives and mothers they had left behind.

  Mount Tabor rose from the center of its surrounding plains, a steep and rather ugly-looking sight as we came down from the hills toward it. I could see the wisdom of Jehovah in choosing this as our base, for Sisera’s chariots would find no purchase on the steep slopes. There were many caves, natural stone shelves and other niches where our men could repel any infantry attacks while easily defend their own positions.

  The work of moving the army up the mountain and settling them in place required a full day of hard effort, for weapons, supplies, and food had to be carried on the men’s backs as they climbed. Once above the bas
e, however, the slope of the ground decreased and offered many places of rest for the tired troops.

  Barak set up his command center in the largest cave, and had me ensconced in a small chamber at the back with his weapons and food. He himself spread out my sleeping mat and ordered me to sleep.

  “I can make my own meal this night,” he told me when I argued, “and you look ready to collapse. Go and sleep, sister, for tomorrow I will need your counsel.”

  The men from the southern tribes had not yet arrived as promised, and I wondered if the old village priest had delivered my message to the leaders in Rameh. Then I worried that the leaders might have changed their minds and decided not to send their troops.

  We cannot fight the Canaanites with only ten thousand men, I thought as I drifted off to sleep. They will overwhelm the sentries and come up over the mountain like a swarm of ants.

  The dream that came to me that night was not of Jeth or my brother, but of the farm I had left behind in Hazor.

  I walked past the empty barn and saw the pasture grass had grown very tall. There was no sign of the flocks, or any farmworkers. The main house, too, appeared abandoned, and I would have thought myself completely alone had I not spotted a lone man standing beyond the fleece shed, working the soil with a long-handled spade.

  Thinking it might be Meji or Tarn or one of the others, I hurried toward the man. Only when I drew close did I see it was my former master, working to fill in the brimming, odorous pit of a well-used privy.

  I backed up a step, but a twig snapped under my sandal, and Ybyon looked up at me. He was thin now, and his skin had turned bright red from working under the sun. Someone had shaved the hair from his scalp, leaving only sparse stubble, and upon his brow were scabbed-over marks, the brands given to thieves and murderers.

  “My daughter Deborah.” He smiled, dropped the spade, and walked toward me. His body was covered with filth and flies from the privy, and on his hips he wore only an old threadbare ezor tied with some twine. “It has been too long. Why do you frown? Are you not happy to see me?”