Between the Wild Branches

by Connilyn Cossette

  The king shook his head ruefully, as if he questioned my sanity. “I’ll allow it. But if there’s any trouble, he goes back to the priests.”

  I shrugged, as if the condition meant little. “That’s fair.”

  Nicaro waved off the soldiers, giving them leave to drag the two sobbing girls out of the courtyard. It took every bit of restraint in my bones not to chase them down.

  Again, I felt that strange urge to plead for mercy to the heavens but pushed the foolish idea aside for the truth. There was no one to rely on in this situation but myself, and I was only one man. I could not save them all.

  “For now, he’ll tend to Igo,” I said, dragging him to standing with little mercy. He would have a large bruise on his arm tomorrow, but at least he’d be alive and safe.

  “Your dog?” said Nicaro.

  “Indeed. Someone has to clean up after the brute.” I made a gesture to Igo, who’d been paralyzed halfway down the stairs, stuck between coming to his master’s aid and terror for what might befall him. As if released from his panic by my summons, he bounded down the last few steps and came to my side. “The waste this animal puts out is commensurate with his size, I assure you. And who better to deal with dung than a Hebrew simpleton who needs to learn his place in my household?”

  Nicaro chuckled, convinced by my performance. “I’ll be out to view the land you’ve donated in a couple of days. I expect to see progress.”

  “That you shall, seren.” I made a bow. “I think you’ll be surprised at just how quickly it all will be accomplished. Well in advance of the solstice, that’s for certain.”

  “Oh, I know you won’t let me down, Lukio,” he said, his smile razor-edged. “You are anything but a fool.”

  He waved me off and turned his back, leaving me with the distinct impression that I’d just been ever-so-politely threatened by the king of Ashdod.

  Sixteen

  The boy continued to struggle as I dragged him through the royal compound, filling my ears with every Hebrew curse he could think of, not knowing that I understood every word. I chuckled to myself. He was a strong child to be certain, and not just physically. But he was also frightened and had just watched people that he knew, possibly his own family, be hauled away to endure unthinkable fates.

  But revealing myself to the boy was not wise until we were in a more private place, so I kept him in a strong grip and let him fuss and wrestle as we passed down the long open-air, colonnaded corridor that would lead us out of the palace.

  Igo remained close to me on the other side, his attention swinging back and forth between me and the boy. The boy, too, eyed my dog anxiously, and I had the sense he was nearly as intimidated by Igo as he was me. Regardless, he kept up his litany of foul curses and clawed at my arm with his bloody fingernails. Dragging the child through the city like this would draw far too much attention, so when we were nearing the most southeastern corner of the palace, near the extensive gardens, I took advantage of a small alcove we came upon and pressed him inside.

  “Stop!” I hissed in his native tongue, looming over him. “I just saved your life, and if you don’t cease fighting me, people will wonder why I am not bothering to knock the teeth from your head!”

  The boy’s brown eyes were huge and full of confusion. “How do you speak—?”

  “That is for another time. For now, you need to stop screeching like a speared boar and trust me.”

  A hint of defiance slipped back into his expression and his chin lifted. “You’re a Philistine. Your word means nothing.”

  Again, I held back a laugh. This young Hebrew was so like me when I was a boy, reacting to a fearful situation with fire and spirit to cover his terror. With strange clarity, I remembered the day Ronen had come upon Risi and me in our hiding spot behind a broken-down sheepfold and how I’d wished to be as big as him so I could protect my sister and how I’d also been determined not to let the strange Hebrew man see how my entire body trembled. But Ronen had been so calm and gentle with us, vowing that we would be safe with him. And somehow, even though I had no reason to do so, I had believed him.

  Therefore, I used his same words, hoping they would calm the boy as well. “In the name of Yahweh, the Holy One, I vow that I will not harm you.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw the door to a nearby garden shed inch open from the inside, so I pressed farther into the alcove, hoping no one would see me standing here with a bewildered Hebrew child and an enormous dog that was nearly as frightened as the boy.

  To my profound confusion, Shoshana emerged from the door, surveying the area carefully before she fled in the opposite direction. I’d seen her only a little over an hour before up in the women’s courtyard, watching her mistress play games. What possible reason would she have for skulking about in a garden shed now?

  Before I could collect my thoughts or even decide whether to call to her, the door opened again, and a male head poked out, looking in the direction Shoshana had gone and then swinging his gaze back in the other direction.

  Rage shot through me as I jerked back into the alcove to prevent being seen. Because not only had Shoshana obviously been trapped in a small room with a man at least thirty years her senior, that man was Jaru, the very same captain of the palace guard I’d just met in Nicaro’s chambers. And there was only one reason a Philistine man would force a young slave woman into a dark room. I didn’t care if he was the head of the royal guard. If he’d hurt Tesi, he would pay.

  A nearby shout from one of the garden workers to another made Jaru pull back into the shed, and the door closed again. My fists ached to plow into the lecher’s face, but what could I do with a child and a dog in tow?

  “You cannot move,” I said to the boy, “not for anything. If you run off, the guards will consider you a runaway slave and they will not hesitate to kill you. They won’t ask questions. Do you understand me?”

  He furrowed his dark brows and pressed his lips together. I had no time to wait for his acquiescence, however. I needed to deal with Jaru.

  “Igo,” I said, pointing at the ground in front of the boy. “Don’t let him move from this place.” Thankfully, the dog obeyed without pause, stretching his huge gray body in front of the alcove. To keep the child from getting too brave, I added, “And if he tries to get past you, do what you do best.”

  From what I’d seen of Igo, what he did best was tremble and whimper at the first hint of danger, so I doubted he would chase the boy down if he attempted to run, but by the way the child’s face paled, he hadn’t guessed that my enormous canine was no more ferocious than a rabbit.

  I left the two of them behind and strode toward the shed, allowing anticipation to flood my muscles as I readied my body for a fight. I plowed through the door with all the force of my fury, and Jaru was in my hands in the next moment, with my fingers around his throat.

  “What did you do to her?” I snarled through gritted teeth, the images that had tormented me since she’d revealed the truth of Beth Shemesh slamming into me all over again, but this time with Jaru as the one assaulting her.

  His dark eyes bulged, the spare light though the open shed door illuminating the confusion on his bearded face.

  “Who?” he rasped.

  “The girl you had trapped in here with you, you swine!”

  “Nothing,” he choked out with the little breath I allowed him. “I swear it is true!”

  I shook him. “I saw you. Did you violate her?”

  “Of course not.” He grabbed my wrists in a vain attempt to pull my hands away from his throat. “I would not touch a slave-girl.”

  Again, I was struck by that same sense of familiarity as he struggled against me, the severe expression on his face tapping at some memory in my mind that I could not place. Then, something on his own wrist caught my eye, dragging my attention away from the man struggling to free himself from my unbreakable hold.

  A worn cord was wrapped around his wrist, so dirty that its original color was obscured. But filthy as i
t was, I would know the distinctive knots along what used to be its blue-and-white length anywhere. It was the very same makeshift bracelet my sister had worn since the night we fled Ashdod—a Hebrew tzitzit given to her by Azuvah. In fact, it looked identical to the one I used to skim my finger back and forth over every time Azuvah told us stories at night. I remembered how the motion soothed me while the Hebrew woman sang us to sleep in her gentle tones.

  “Where did you get that?” I demanded, another wave of fury making my hands tighten on his neck, even as they began shaking. Had this man taken Risi’s bracelet off her body? Was my sister dead?

  Jaru blinked in confusion, his brows pinching. “Get what?”

  “Where did you get the tzitzit that is on your arm? A raid? Where is the woman who wore it?”

  His mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “There was no woman,” he said. “I’ve worn this string my entire life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He paused, his body tensing and his eyes searching behind me for a moment, as if he wasn’t certain whether to say more. I shook him again, determined not to let him deflect the question.

  “I’m already ready to throttle you for Shoshana. If you killed my sister, I won’t bother to do it quickly.”

  “I was abandoned as an infant on the shoreline,” he said. “It was wrapped around my wrist when I was found. I don’t know who put it there or why, but I’ve always had a strange compulsion to wear it. I’ve never taken it off.”

  My head jerked back at the revelation, and I gaped at him. Surely it couldn’t be . . .

  A whispered conversation came back to me, from some night long ago. On the edge of sleep, I’d been curled up between Arisa and Azuvah while they spoke in hushed tones, thinking I wasn’t listening as the Hebrew woman revealed her secrets.

  “Azuvah?” Arisa had said hesitantly. “You had a child?”

  Azuvah sucked in a pained gasp. “I did. But he was taken from me.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I am but a slave, sweet child,” she replied, her words so sad it made my stomach hurt. “I will never know. But you know your people and their hatred of mine. He was probably left on the rocks to die, swept into the sea. I was only able to hold him once.”

  She paused and then sighed. “I had just enough time to wrap one of the tzitzit I’d cut from my garment around his tiny wrist before they took him away. A paltry consecration to Yahweh, but it was all I had to give him.”

  Suddenly, the odd sensation that I knew him from somewhere made sense. Could Jaru be that same babe taken from the woman who’d raised me from infancy, the one who’d died trying to help my sister and me escape Mataro’s wrath?

  “I didn’t hurt the slave,” he said. “And I have not killed anyone. I swear it on the life of my wife and children. And I was only meeting the girl here for . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Why? Why else would you force a young Hebrew slave into a dark shed?”

  He gritted his teeth. “I did not lay a finger on the girl. I cannot say why I was here. It’s too dangerous.”

  “She’s in danger?”

  “Although I have no idea why the champion of Ashdod would care about some slave-girl, I vow to you that she is in no danger from me. She merely. . . .” He took a long breath. “She merely relayed a message.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “From Mariada?”

  “No.”

  “Then who?”

  “I—I cannot say.”

  I leaned in close, hoping he could feel the heat of my anger. “You will say, or I will ask Nicaro why the captain of his guard is wearing a Hebrew tzitzit on his wrist, a distinctive marker of not only enemy heritage but also the signal of Torah law obedience for those who partake in the covenant with Yahweh.”

  Even in the paltry light, Jaru’s face grew paler and he squeezed his eyes closed. “All right,” he said. “I was attempting to help someone. A child who is in grave danger. The slave-girl . . . Shoshana, you said her name is?”

  I nodded, allowing my grip on his neck to loosen a small measure.

  “Shoshana brought me news about a complication in rescuing that child. That is all. We spoke for only a short while and then she left. Untouched and unharmed. You can ask her, since it seems you are acquainted. I would never harm a woman, let alone a vulnerable slave who is younger than two of my own daughters.”

  His explanation provoked more questions than it answered, and perhaps I was swayed by the love I’d had for Azuvah as a child, but something deep inside told me that he spoke the truth.

  “How would you know about the cord?” he asked. “And why would you think it belonged to your sister?”

  I released him from my grip and took two steps backward before running my hands down my face to collect myself. Since Igo hadn’t wandered into the shed yet to find me, I guessed he and the boy were still waiting in the alcove. At least I hoped that was the case.

  “It seems you and I have quite a few things to discuss,” I said. “But this is not the place. Meet me at my home in an hour where we can talk privately.”

  He paused to stare at me, likely trying to determine if I was leading him into some sort of trap.

  “I know who put that cord on your wrist,” I said. “And why. I’ll tell you everything. But first you will explain what danger Shoshana is in and what exactly she is involved with.”

  Teitu closed the door behind himself, giving Jaru and me the necessary privacy to speak our minds. I’d charged my head servant with guarding the door, since it was clear that whatever we said needed to go no farther than this room, and I trusted no one more than my faithful manservant.

  On the other side of the room, the Hebrew boy, who’d reluctancy told me his name was Zevi, was sitting on the floor, eating the food Teitu had brought in on a wooden tray.

  Beside him lay Igo, who’d decided that the tray of food was far more interesting than the conversation between Jaru and me. Somehow, during the short time I’d left the boy and the dog together, they’d struck up a friendship; probably once Zevi had discovered that Igo had no more malice in his big gray body than a feather-down pillow. But at least he’d not run away.

  “Tell me,” I said, the moment the door closed behind Teitu. “What is Shoshana involved in?”

  “What is she to you?” he asked.

  How was I to know that I could even trust this man? I’d just met him this morning in a meeting with the king—one in which Nicaro had seemed more than a bit suspicious of me for some reason.

  And even if this was Azuvah’s child, he was obviously raised Philistine and he’d risen in the ranks as a guard in the palace—something only accomplished by a man of extreme ambition. Was I placing my trust in someone who could not only destroy everything I’d built but might possibly endanger Shoshana even more? But then again, if one of us did not step into the unknown and speak, neither of us would get the information we wanted. He had little reason to trust me either.

  Instead of pressing the question, Jaru instead gestured toward the boy. “Why did you bring him here?”

  I hesitated for another moment but then decided that we had to begin somewhere. I would crack open the door of trust, if only a sliver. “He was brought into the royal courtyard with a group of slaves. He was destined for the temple.”

  Jaru’s lips pressed firmly together. The twitch in his eye told me that no further explanation was necessary and also that the idea of a child being treated in such a fashion was just as repugnant to him as it was to me. So, I pushed that door open further and told him the rest. About the men I manipulated Nicaro into sending to work on my olive farm. About the violated women who’d been sold to a southbound trader and the two girls who pleaded for their mother as they were led away. As I relayed how I cajoled the king into letting me have Zevi, I noticed that the suspicion had melted from Jaru’s countenance.

  “I cannot help but wonder what I could have done for the girls, though,” I said, my eyes on Zevi, who was now
feeding Igo crumbs from his bowl and talking quietly in Hebrew to the dog. Their desperate cries of “Ima” refused to stop echoing in my mind.

  “You did what you could,” he said. “Anything more would have caused suspicion.”

  “Perhaps I could go tomorrow and say I need them for—”

  “Lukio,” he interrupted. “You did well. Leave the girls to me.”

  His tone was gentle but firm, leaving me with the strangest sense that I could indeed trust him to aid the children. And now that I’d had the chance to study his face, it was even more apparent to me that he was Azuvah’s child. His dark eyes were the same as hers, along with the shape of his nose and mouth.

  “Tell me,” I said. “What do you know of your origins?”

  He took a deep breath and then released it slowly before speaking. “I could be killed for revealing this to you. And my family would suffer too. I don’t know how to trust you.”

  I nodded, resolving in my mind what I needed to say to prove my trustworthiness to him. “When I was seven years old,” I said, landing on the thing I knew Nicaro would despise the most about my past, “my sister and I ran away from Ashdod. We ended up in Hebrew territory and were taken into the home of one of their priests. I grew up speaking their language and, for all intents and purposes, living as a Hebrew. It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I returned, determined to become a fighting champion. No one besides my cousin knows the truth of my past.”

  He scrutinized my face for a few long moments and then nodded, seeming to accept my offering as sufficient.

  “And Shoshana?”

  “A friend from the town in which I lived. I only recently learned she was in this city.”

  He hummed acknowledgment, then leaned back into the cushioned couch. “As I said, I was found on the rocks one morning by a young woman who’d come to collect shellfish at dawn. She heard my cries and had pity on me. Her husband was a guard in the home of a rich man. They raised me as one of their own but did not tell me of my origins until I was nearly a man. They told me only that the cord on my wrist was a talisman that had saved me from being swept into the sea and never to remove it.