A Light on the Hill

by Connilyn Cossette

  With the sun now fully risen, the hills that rose all around us displayed their varicolored rocks and grasses with pride. Wildflowers laced the hillsides with riotous color: purple, yellow, and red. Following Yuval up and down their slopes, I did my best to ignore the presence of Darek at my back. But I could feel him there. Angry. Condemning.

  We stopped at a small stream that burbled its way through a break in the hills. We all crouched on our knees, desperate for a drink. Lifting the bottom of my veil with one hand and bringing a palmful to my mouth, I satiated my severe thirst. But from the corner of my eye I noticed Darek staring at me and immediately tucked the fabric back into place.

  Trying to ignore the notion that he’d been watching my lips as I drank, I stood and brushed dust from my tunic and mantle. A futile attempt. After a night of fleeing through the hills, trudging through undergrowth, and hiding beneath the trees in a nest of pine needles, it seemed every inch of me was covered in dirt and debris. And now, after squatting next to the stream, heedless of the mud in my thirsty state, my feet were slathered with grime.

  At least I could do something about that. I knelt and untied my sandals before stepping into the water. With a sigh I stood still, eyes closed, enjoying the fresh coolness as it caressed my tired feet, not even caring that my hem, too, was getting soaked.

  “Moriyah, do you need a moment of privacy . . . ?” Yuval gestured back toward a group of thick bushes nearby. Embarrassment buzzed in my limbs. Such a strange and uncomfortable position, alone with two men in this wild country, especially when I had no cause to trust one of them.

  After taking him up on his offer, I returned and Yuval disappeared in my place, but not without another warning glare toward Darek, who leaned against a tall oak nearby, and a pointed “I won’t be far” directed toward me.

  Unsettled, I turned away in the guise of surveying the scenery across the valley but kept Darek in the corner of my sightline, in case he lunged.

  “I told him I was not going to hurt you and I mean that. I simply want justice.”

  I stiffened at the sound of his voice.

  “You have every right to take it yourself.” Although Raviv was the closest kinsman, Darek could assume that role legally as well.

  “I do.” He was silent for a moment. “And my nephews are dead by your hand.”

  “I know.” My throat burned, unshed tears forcing their way to the surface. “But, please. You must believe me. It was an accident. A horrid accident. The leaves . . .” I stopped, seeing again the green shards of evidence on the dirt floor of my home. I pressed three fingers against my forehead, as if I could push away the truth. “I was distracted and put them into the stew without knowing.”

  “Have you forgotten? I heard you threaten Zeev.”

  “I only meant to protect Eitan.”

  “Who is Eitan?”

  “A little boy. He was with me. The twins—” I stopped, reticent to point an accusing finger at two dead children.

  Darek lifted his brows, waiting. Unrelenting.

  I sighed. “Yared went after Eitan, and he is so small and has an affliction in his ear . . . and I . . . I lashed out to protect him.”

  “And why should I believe you, when you’ve deceived me before?” Disdain edged his question.

  I snapped my gaze to his. “What do you mean?”

  “You knew. Didn’t you?”

  My thoughts spun backward in a vain attempt to divine his meaning. “Knew?”

  “Why did you pretend you didn’t know my brother was coming to claim you the next day?” He turned his face away, looking out over the valley as I had done. “You knew. All through that walk in the vineyard. You knew.”

  His meaning hit me square in the chest, no less forceful than if he’d hurled a spear at me. It had not been my imagination then . . . the connection we’d seemed to share that night . . . the buzz of something in the air.

  I closed my eyes, grasping for words and coming up with nothing but the truth. “My father only told me your father’s name,” I said. “When you said you were Pekah’s son, I did not realize . . .” I drew a shuddering breath and whispered, “I thought it was you.”

  His head jerked back toward me, his eyes wide. “You thought it was me coming for you?”

  Grateful my veil concealed the flash-burn flushing my skin, I nodded.

  He went still, his expression unreadable. “And what would you have done, had it been me that morning?”

  I dropped my eyes to the ground, fidgeting with the embroidered stitches along the edge of my headscarf. Although his question hung in the air like a dandelion tuft on a gentle gust of wind, I could not decipher whether it was meant to mock me, test me, or was because the answer truly had meaning for him. Defeated by the attempt to guess, I looked away. “Does it even matter anymore?”

  A long, barren pause followed. I agonized over the desire to connect with his gaze again, but afraid of what I might find, or what might be missing, I focused on a red-leafed bush that taunted the stiff breeze with fluttering fingers.

  “No—” he finally said, his low voice almost a hum from deep in his chest. “No, you are right. It does not matter anymore.”

  “We should not wait any longer,” Yuval said as he stepped out of the thick brush. He directed a quick glance between Darek and me, as if sensing the tension between us. Suspicion settled in his expression as he said, “We’ve wasted too much time here.”

  Aside from a few tense words between Yuval and Darek about the direction in which we were traveling, none of us said much of anything as we walked over the next few hours. I settled into a rhythm beside Yuval, broken only when he had to help me navigate a steep, rocky slope or the few times I begged for a moment or two of rest.

  I did my best to leave behind thoughts of the exchange I’d had with Darek and the trial that would meet me at the end of the journey. Instead I concentrated on straining my ears for new birdsongs and breathed in the familiar scents of various herbs we passed on the winding trail.

  By the time the sun touched the western ridge, the path had evened out, bringing us into a wide, fertile valley. A long ridge of hills lined the eastern boundary of the flat land for as far as I could see, covered by thick trees of every shade of green and every variety.

  “We must find a place to spend the night,” said Yuval.

  “No. We should keep moving,” Darek said, with a glance over his shoulder at the sunset. “At least a couple more hours.”

  “Moriyah is nearly asleep on her feet.” Yuval’s words echoed my thoughts. There was not a place on my body that was not sore, and I’d long past given up thinking about anything except a place to lay down. “She’ll move faster if she can get some rest. She is not a soldier.”

  Without a word, Darek complied, leading us off the path. We climbed a steep incline, Yuval forced to half carry me most of the way, and found our way to a ledge that overlooked the plain to the west. By the time Yuval settled me on the ground, with my back against a tree, I could barely hold my head upright. I tried to keep my eyes open, but I gave in, slid down to lie in the dirt with my hands folded beneath my cheek, and succumbed to sleep.

  CHAPTER

  Fourteen

  The smell of roasting meat and the acrid tang of smoke roused me. Although my greedy stomach snarled, my mind went first to my veil. Had it slipped down in the night? Was my face on display?

  Fearful of opening my eyes in case they were watching me, I released a gentle gush of air, testing. Thankfully my warm breath stayed trapped against my skin. My exhaustion must have caused me to sleep without moving; I was in the same position, hands beneath my cheek and curled up in the dirt.

  “Where are your people?” Darek said from somewhere nearby, low enough that I guessed he was speaking to Yuval and not me.

  “I don’t know,” Yuval said, from somewhere near my feet. “I was taken captive as a child of three, or perhaps four.” I held my body still, surprised that the two men who’d been so suspicious of ea
ch other last night seemed to be having a cordial conversation while they assumed that I slept. What had changed during the night?

  “My Amorite master never told me where I was from,” said Yuval. “Only that it was far to the north.” My father had told me Yuval had been very young when taken captive. But hearing it now from his lips, I mourned for the tiny child who had not known the love of a mother or father. Eitan’s sweet, freckled face crossed my vision and I choked back the regret that pressed up my throat. With his family so apathetic to the orphaned boy, who would show Eitan such love now that I, too, was gone for good?

  “I am sorry to hear that.” Darek’s response seemed surprisingly sincere.

  “It is my lot,” said Yuval with the air of indifference.

  “Why did the Amorites not take you when they left Shiloh?”

  “You Hebrews surprised them. Vowing that nothing would be left to the enemy, my master set fire to the vineyard and began slaughtering every one of his slaves. He left me until last, tied up, forced to watch . . .” His voice wavered and then he paused for a long while. I could only imagine the horror of enduring such a massacre.

  “If it were not for Moriyah’s father, who arrived with his men and killed my master, my throat would have been slit alongside everyone else’s. A merciful man, Ishai. I owe him everything.” The sincerity of that statement and the realization that Yuval was here because of the life-debt he owed my father was sobering.

  “I remember that day. I was there when we moved into Shiloh and found the bodies—men, women, and children—of the prisoners of war. There were even a few Hebrews among them, taken during a battle that we lost at Arad years ago. They’d been so close to reuniting with us.” The reminder that Darek was a battle-hardened warrior seemed incongruous to the winsome, kind-natured man I’d glimpsed during the festival.

  “And you are now indentured to Ishai?” Darek asked.

  “I am. I have fulfilled over four years of my term. On the seventh year I will be a free man.”

  “And what will you do then?” asked Darek. “When you are able to choose your own path?”

  Yuval paused, as if deciding whether to reveal more of himself to this stranger. “If Ishai will allow me, I will stay on at the vineyard as steward. He is a good man. I would be honored to pierce my ear and pledge my life in service to him.”

  “You would bind yourself in service for the rest of your days?”

  “I have never known anything but Shiloh. I grew up among the vines and plan to be buried beneath their shade. I would not know what to do with myself in any other place.”

  “So you do not . . .” Darek paused and cleared his throat. “Have intentions toward her?” Shocked by the bold question, and a bit curious for the answer, I held my breath.

  Yuval heaved a sigh. “Moriyah is the daughter of my master. I consider it an honor to protect her for his sake. I see her only as the younger sister I never had. She has always been impossibly kind to me. Never once has she ever treated me like a slave.” Relief filled the space where surprise had been, and once again I compared Yuval to Shimon, a man whose honor outweighed his every human failing and who had died in service to the God he revered.

  The men went silent, and after a few minutes I braved a glance around. Yuval was nowhere to be seen and Darek sat on the ground across the small clearing, his back against a myrtle tree, staring into the small fire. Some sort of animal carcass lay roasting in the coals—pheasant, from the smell of it.

  His attention lost among the glowing embers, Darek tapped a steady rhythm against his knee. The minute gesture caused my thoughts to revisit the festival, when a relentless drumbeat and the flicker of brazier flames had encircled that brief moment when he’d smiled at me and taken a step in my direction. Sunlight peered through the trees, gilding his hair with fiery tones, another reminder of that night.

  He looked up to catch me watching him again and captured my gaze for an excruciating moment, a moment overladen with seven days’ worth of regret, pain, and confusion. He was so quiet. So different from that night when his laughter had flowed like new wine and his descriptive stories had drawn vivid images in my head. This Darek was too much like Raviv: cold, withdrawn. Did he suspect I’d been listening to the conversation between him and Yuval?

  I barely knew him, had only spent that one evening in his company before the world tipped sideways. So how was it that every glance he gave me made me thirst for another? No matter that my empty stomach dipped and swayed, I could not look away.

  “You’re awake. Good.” Yuval’s voice from nearby fractured the connection. He emerged from the thick undergrowth between the trees across the small clearing. “Darek snared this pheasant this morning while scouting the area.”

  I pushed up to sit, leaning against the tree at my back, and secured my veil, noticing that the sun had risen much higher than I expected. “Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  “I tried to rouse you before sunrise, but it was like trying to raise a stone to life.” Yuval’s gentle smile teased one of my own, but I flushed at the thought of him attempting to wake me as Darek watched.

  “We eat and then go.” Darek’s demand was stern, but not unkind. “Raviv and his men will not stop for more than a few hours at a time. We spent weeks on the trail with little sleep for the past few months. They are accustomed to such travel.”

  “What hope do we even have then, of making it to Kedesh before him?” I said.

  “I will not lie to you. When my brother is determined, there is little to stop him.” He knelt to remove the pheasant from the fire, hissing at the sting of hot meat on his fingertips, then laid the carcass on a flat rock nearby to cool. Fragrant steam teased my stomach to life. “However, I am a far better navigator than Raviv. And I made friends with one of the mapmakers who traveled with us. I have the way, here . . .” He pointed to his temple. “I can see it quite clearly.”

  I excused myself to tend my needs nearby, and as I returned, I scoured the ground for herbs to add to the pheasant and was rewarded with a few coriander blooms.

  Briefly, I wondered whether Darek would think I was trying to poison him as well. Spying a mallow plant, I bent to pluck a few leaves, hoping that if I ate first, he would not suspect me of foul purposes. The thought brought back a rush of guilt and grief over the boys. Would I ever enjoy cooking again after such horror? As it had for the entirety of the run from Shiloh, the never-ending cycle of questions pointed accusing fingers at me.

  How had I missed those leaves in my basket? If only I’d been focused on the herbs beneath my knife and not my anger at the twins. If only I’d not opened my mouth, allowed such vitriol to spill out. If only—

  A crackle from the undergrowth behind me jerked my mind to attention. Holding my breath, I listened without moving my body. The back of my neck prickled.

  Although I heard nothing more, a large shadow shifted across the ground to the left of me. Something, or someone, was behind me. I gasped and broke into a run that left my pulse stuttering to catch up.

  Darek, sword drawn and body tensed for battle, met me on the edge of our campsite. “Is it Raviv?” The words punched out like a command as he reached out and pushed me behind himself, toward Yuval.

  “I don’t know. . . . I saw a shadow and I ran.”

  “Smart girl,” said a voice from beyond the thick brush at the edge of the clearing, before an older man pressed into the open space. Clad in a striped black and brown tunic that bared slashing tattoos down both arms, the grizzled Canaanite smiled, as if he’d told some sort of joke, a large gap between his top teeth revealed with the move. “Fast too.”

  “What do you want?” demanded Darek, his voice as steady as his outstretched sword.

  The Canaanite halted three paces from Darek, hands upraised in surrender. “Ah now. I just smelled that delicious meal. And I said to myself, ‘Now, Rossim, those kind travelers might just be willing to share their spoils with you.’ And so I followed my nose and came across that lovely
there,” he gestured toward me with his grey-stubbled chin. “You aren’t afraid of old Rossim, are you now?”

  Although his words were friendly and smoothly crafted, the way his eyes slid down my body made me step closer to Yuval.

  “Lay down your weapon,” Darek said. “And perhaps we might accommodate your stomach.” He tipped his head toward the cooling pheasant on the rock. “Moriyah here is an excellent cook.”

  What was Darek doing? This man’s intentions were anything but honorable!

  Rossim’s eyes darted to me. “Oh? Is she now? It’s been a long while since I’ve tasted a meal from the hands of a woman.” Nausea swelled. Surely Darek did not believe this ruse?

  Darek wiggled the tip of his sword at the man. “Perhaps this day smiles on you.” He lifted his brows. “Your weapon?”

  Rossim pushed out his lower lip. “Of course.” He lowered one hand and slipped a curved kopesh from his belt, Egyptian-made from the look of it, with a bejeweled handle that spoke of much more wealth than Rossim looked to hail from. “There now.”

  “And your dagger.” Although Darek’s slight smile was welcoming, subtle warning honed each word to a fine point. Understanding cooled my overheated blood. He had not misjudged. He knew the Canaanite was dangerous, perhaps much better than I did, but he was taking his time and using his naturally affable demeanor as a tactic.

  With a wisp of annoyance in the set of his jaw, Rossim slipped a dagger from behind his back, this one ivory-handled and with an obsidian blade refined to a wicked point. He lifted it in the air, jiggling it back and forth loosely, as if to prove he meant no harm. “See, now. You’ve got me completely at your mercy. And all for a bite of that bird there.”

  “Just put it down next to your sword,” Darek said.

  Rossim bent to comply but suddenly lunged forward, jabbing the dagger at Darek, who dodged the vicious tip with a swift tilt of his left shoulder. At the same moment, a crash and a guttural cry emerged from the forest behind me as another Canaanite barged into the clearing. Yuval knocked me backward, and I fell to the ground so quickly that I could not react. My elbow slammed into the hard-packed earth, sending shooting pain up my arm. Chaos had erupted. Darek was grappling with Rossim, and Yuval was fending off another man, younger than the first, but with bloodlust slathered across his tattooed face.