Wings of the Wind

by Connilyn Cossette

  “Why?” she mumbled against my chest. “Why do you care? I am your enemy. I am broken. Possibly beyond repair.”

  “No.” I pulled back to look into her shimmering blue-green eyes. I put my hand on her cheek and, miraculously, she leaned into it. “I took our marriage vows seriously, even though I did not know you. Yahweh led me to you on that battlefield. He had a plan. From the moment I held you in my arms you were no longer an enemy. Alanah, you are my wife. And when that snake bit you . . .” The agonizing fear I’d felt when I saw her body jerk forward and then fall into the white field of manna crashed into me again, and with a groan, I gave in to the compulsion to press my lips to hers.

  She stiffened for a moment and I waited for her to put distance between us, but instead she gripped the neck of my tunic and yanked me closer, her lips demanding a response that I was all too happy to give. Since the moment those entrancing eyes had opened on the battlefield, I had craved this woman—a yearning that had only deepened with every fascinating layer she unwittingly exposed. Each excruciating day had tested the limits of my restraint more than the last. Now unfettered, the spark that had crackled between us from those first uncomfortable days burst into bright flame.

  “I am . . .” she murmured as she brushed her lips up my cheekbone and to my ear. “I am your wife. And you are my husband. I choose to stay—with you.” She leaned her head back—fingers locked behind my neck—with mischief in those eyes and a tantalizing arch to her brows. “And so, my husband, I do believe the thirty days are finally completed.”

  23

  2 SIVAN

  1407 BC

  CAMP AT OBOTH

  Alanah lay tucked against my side, her warm breath soft against my neck. Even after two weeks, it still seemed a dream that I was allowed to hold her, that she was flesh of my flesh for the rest of my days. Her head-wrap had long since fallen off during the night and her short red hair glinted in the light peeking through the seams of our tent.

  Sunrise had come long ago, but thankfully it was a Shabbat morning and no collecting of manna would be necessary today. Even if I had not collected enough for two days yesterday, I would have been altogether unwilling to leave my wife, hunger notwithstanding, especially after a week of grueling travel through the foothills south of Edomite territory to reach the wide plateau we now camped upon.

  Peace graced the planes of Alanah’s face this morning, a surprising calm that had enveloped her since the night she was healed. I could not help but caress her cheek and wonder at the change. She smiled before her eyes fluttered open. I ran a finger across her cheekbone again and then behind her ear. She arched an eyebrow but then frowned.

  “What is it?”

  She grimaced. “My hair. I miss my hair.”

  I trailed my fingers through the short curls. “I do too. But it is growing back. Soon it will be just as lovely as it was before.”

  “Am I so ugly without it?”

  “You”—I pulled her close to me—“are extremely ugly. So breathtakingly ugly that all I want to do is stay in this tent with you for the rest of my life, so no one ever sets eyes on your hideousness again.”

  “Is that so?” She laughed, the sound like rare gold touched by sunlight. I was desperate to hear it again.

  “It is. For any man will be extremely covetous of such an ugly wife and desire to steal you away.” Her silly cat tried to press in between us and I brushed the jealous animal away.

  “So the command from the elders did not work? I am still desirable?” She pulled a sly smile. “At least to men who like ugly women?”

  “Not one bit. In fact, I think we will keep your hair short.”

  She lifted a brow again.

  “Makes it so much easier to do this . . .” I kissed her shoulder, where the scar from the arrow still glowed red against her skin. I moved my lips up her neck and whispered into her ear. “And this.”

  She pulled in a quick breath but then laughed and pushed me away. “You can’t keep me trapped in this tent forever, you know. I’m not your captive anymore.”

  “You never were.”

  She poked her finger into my chest. “You laid across the tent flap every night, Tobiah.”

  “Don’t remind me. That was the longest thirty days of my life, with you sleeping four paces away from me.” I made a guttural noise and nuzzled her ear. “Never again.”

  “Your words may sour when you are stuck with me for the next year and forbidden to go to war.”

  Her jibe struck a nerve. As much as I wanted to be with Alanah, the thought of my tribal brothers heading to battle without me was like a dull blade to my gut. Staying behind to protect the women, children, and old people did nothing to stir my blood.

  My expression must have betrayed my ambivalence, and Alanah peered at me. “Regretting?”

  “Never. You?”

  She shook her head, but a shadow passed across her features.

  I lifted her chin with my knuckle. “What is it?”

  Her gaze darted away. “I miss my home.”

  Disappointment curled in my stomach. Of course she would miss the place where she was raised. I could not expect that she would see this flimsy tent as her home. “Tell me about it.”

  Her lips twitched. “I already told you . . . at the wedding, remember? The wine?”

  “You told me a few things, but I want to hear more.” I grinned. “Or do we need more libation?”

  She sat up and folded her arms across her knees. “What is it that you want to know?”

  “Tell me your best memory.”

  Her brow pinched with such sadness I nearly apologized for asking such a thing. “Harvest,” she said with a sigh.

  “Isn’t that difficult work?” Other than the stories told around the campfire of the labors of my forefathers in the land of Egypt, I had little knowledge of farming.

  “It is. There were times when I could barely use my raw hands after harvesting the wheat and barley. My father was a rich man and employed a number of people to help, but my brothers and I were always expected to be part of the cutting and winnowing.”

  Propping myself up on my side, I imagined her, red curls whipping about in the breeze and her long, sculpted arms heaving the heavy scythe back and forth. No wonder she was all strength of body and mind after such an arduous life. She had been right the day she argued with my sister and cousins—none of us had a true idea of what a life working the land would be like.

  “My favorite part was winnowing. After the harvest was collected, we beat the stalks to release the grains, then tossed them into the air with our forks to let the wind do the work of separating the chaff from the kernels. When I was a child, my father would let me lay across the heaps of gold, sweeping my arms and legs wide to make a winged silhouette on the threshing floor.” She smiled to herself and then dropped her chin to her folded arms. “When the winnowing was done, we swept the chaff into burn piles. I remember watching the ash swirl upward, carried on the wind, and then just vanish into nothing.”

  Weighted silence swallowed her words as she gazed at the tent wall, lost in whatever memories haunted her.

  I waited until she looked down at me before I spoke. “You miss your family.”

  She sucked in a pained breath. “I do. But . . . they knew what they were doing. They were fearless warriors—all four of them were covered with the scars of battle, many self-inflicted to celebrate how many enemies they’d slaughtered.”

  She turned her body toward me and slid her hand from my wrist up to my shoulder. My skin prickled with pleasure at her soft touch. “Why do you not bear such markings? I’ve seen very few tattoos on any Hebrew.”

  “It is a command given by Yahweh.”

  She wrinkled her forehead. “Are victories not to be celebrated?” Her hand slipped from my shoulder and her thumb absently caressed the four jagged lines that scarred the inside of her own forearm. “Or the dead memorialized?”

  “Victories are celebrated by giving thanks to Yahweh, sa
crifices of gratefulness to the God who leads us. The dead are mourned for a time, but not worshipped in the way that your people do. We do not carve the images of gods or the names of ancestors into our bodies. We do not cling to death.”

  Confusion mingled with pain on her beautiful face. I reached up to graze my thumb across her lips. “My brothers died too, did Nita tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I remember that day.” I restrained a shudder. “The way the earth shook and rolled. The long, jagged crack that split the ground wide open. I thought it would swallow all of us.”

  The torture of Tzipi’s screams as we both clung to our mother still reverberated in my mind. “My mother and father never recovered from the loss of my older siblings. I think large parts of both of them vanished into that pit. They never spoke of any of them again.”

  Alanah stared at the carvings on her wrist with an inscrutable expression. “My brothers were much older than me as well, sons of my father’s first wife, who died before he met my mother. Davash was the youngest, but still five years separated us. When I was very small, I followed them everywhere. They tolerated me, mostly because my father seemed to insist upon it. But as I grew older, I began to realize just how brutal they could be. Pekkel, the oldest, beat one of the field hands to death with a wooden shovel for daring to slip a few trampled heads of barley into his satchel.”

  She blinked rapidly, as if clearing her mind of the horrific image. “But even if they were ruthless, even if they cared little for me, they were all I had. When they all died and my cousin inherited everything, even my home was stripped from me. It seemed better to die avenging them than to sell my body to survive.”

  She had been forced to choose between death and debasement? By her own relative? Anger coursed like fire through me. Not trusting my mouth to say the right words, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her, hoping to calm my murderous thoughts with the distraction of her lips. I reveled in the passion of her response after only a momentary hesitation. Perhaps a year would not be long enough . . .

  “And what was that for?” she said, pressing her long fingers against my chest with a grin.

  I placed my forehead against hers. “Never again. You will not face such choices again, Ishti. We will conquer the Land. We will build a life together. A family. A home. And I will fight for you, until my final breath.”

  “Family.” She breathed the word.

  I lifted a brow. “Of course. My sons will be raised as fine warriors.”

  “Sons? What of daughters?”

  “I cannot teach a daughter to heft a sword.” I frowned in mock disappointment, quelling a smile as I imagined a miniature of the fierce woman I held in my arms.

  Mischief sparkled in her eyes. “I’ll have you know that my father put a bow in my hands as soon as I could walk.” The point of her glare pierced me through.

  I scoffed. “A bow, of course—anyone could use a bow. Not everyone can wield a sword with skill.”

  She sat back, arms folded and all softness gone from her features. “Is that so?”

  I pressed out my bottom lip along with a casual lift of my shoulder.

  “Care to wager on that? Husband?”

  Alanah

  “There is the target.” I pointed my chin to an empty goat-skin bag hanging over the back of a wagon next to a stand of trees, more than a few paces away from the campsite. “Now what will be my reward?”

  “Your reward?”

  I smiled. Tobiah had not seen my skill with a bow.

  He folded his arms and looked down his nose at me. “If you can hit that, and I doubt it, I will cook for a week.”

  “Accepted.” And I raised the bow.

  “What about me?” Tobiah asked.

  “You?”

  “Yes, what if I hit the bag?”

  I laughed. “All right, what would you like as a reward?”

  The heat in his eyes lit a burn in my cheeks, so I turned away to take my shot. The whoosh of the arrow whizzing through the air put a halt to his mirth. The bag swung back and forth with an obvious hole in the side.

  His mouth hung open.

  “It is a good thing you already know how to cook. But please, pay close attention, I do not like my manna burned.”

  He put out his hands. “My turn.”

  I reluctantly relinquished my bow, although he seemed to understand how dear it was and held it gingerly, as if it were an infant, not a weapon. The small bow looked almost humorous in his large hands. I handed him an arrow, scrounged from someone in a neighboring tent.

  “Now. My reward.” And he raked voracious eyes over me again. “You will come hunt with me.”

  I gathered my brows, incredulous. “Your skin-bag was not my only kill, you know.”

  He laughed. “I thought not. But I need someone to dress my game in the field.”

  I wrinkled my nose. Not my favorite thing to do, gut animals, although I had learned the skill from an early age. But I dipped my chin and smiled. “You won’t hit it.”

  The skin-bag hung straight as his arrow arced high above the wagon.

  “It seems you must dress your own game, husband. And cook me dinner when we return from hunting.”

  “I want to try!” A little voice called out from across the campsite.

  “Me too!”

  “And me!”

  Tzipi’s three small sons raced to be the first to try shooting the bow. Tobiah was forced to hold it high over his head. I thought for a moment the three of them would try to climb their uncle like a tree to get to the treasure, for they hung from his big arms like vines from branches.

  “No.” Tobiah laughed, a deep sound that seemed to raise the temperature of my blood. “This is your doda Alanah’s bow. It is special.”

  They begged and pleaded to be taught to shoot the bow until I could do nothing but acquiesce. Such jubilant shouting followed my quick resignation that many other family members and strangers gathered around to watch.

  Tzipi was among them. I caught her eye for a brief moment, sure she would say something to stop us after her violent reaction to my interaction with Liyam before, but following a quick stare-down with her brother, she shrugged an apathetic shoulder and turned away. Either she felt her sons needed a distraction from the still-fresh death of their father or she had ceded to Tobiah’s authority.

  Moriyah, too, was watching, with an expression of such envy that I determined to take her aside soon and show her how to shoot as well.

  Mahan and Yonel, twins of six years old, were keen to watch my every move and solemn as they braced for each shot, trying to outrun each other in their search for stray arrows. But Liyam, barely five, could not even pull the bowstring and threw down the arrow when it refused to comply with his attempt.

  “Liyam . . .” Tobiah warned.

  I put a hand on Tobiah’s wrist and gave a small shake of my head.

  “Liyam.” I crouched beside the disappointed boy. “Liyam, look at me.”

  Luminous silver-gray eyes, just like Moriyah’s, peeked at me from the corners, but he did not turn his face. It was enough; he was listening.

  “When my father first taught me to heft a bow, I was smaller than you. Only four. There was nothing I could do to pull that bowstring, no matter how hard I tried. But my father refused to let me give up. Instead, he gave me a flail and taught me to thresh grain. Let me tag along behind him and help with every chore on our farm. And do you know what? It took almost two years—older than you—but I did it.” I leaned closer to whisper. “And do you know what else? I could outshoot my brothers any day.”

  A broad smile lit his dirt-smudged face. “Doda?”

  My heart fluttered an odd cadence at his designation of me as his aunt. “Yes, Liyam?”

  “When I can shoot a bow like you, can I use yours?”

  I stood and tousled his hair, momentarily distracted by the feel of his thick, black curls between my fingers.

  “When you are ready, I will help you make your
own bow, better than this old one.”

  I knew he wanted to hug me, and I was almost desperate for it, but he eyed his brothers, who would surely tease his soft behavior toward me. I patted him on the shoulder and told him to go find something to carry for his ima, to strengthen his muscles.

  Tobiah stood behind me, his arms snaking around my waist. “They needed that today.”

  I nodded. The loss of a father was a wound buried deep in me, I could only imagine the ache these young boys felt and would continue to feel as they searched out their own manhood in the coming years. The reminder that I had been a part of the army that had snatched these boys’ father from them grated against my soul. Odd how much had changed in my perspective since Yahweh had healed me, as if someone had poured warm oil on my heart, making it pliable, shaping it into something new and unexpected. Still, at times sadness threatened to pull me under. It was only the presence of Tobiah that staved off its consuming flow.

  “You will be a good mother,” he whispered, interrupting my morbid thoughts.

  If only that were true.

  Playfully, he nipped at my ear. “And I look forward to building a very, very large family with you, Ishti.”

  24

  3 ELUL

  1407 BC

  CAMP AT ABIRAM

  The high ridge on which this forest stood overlooked the entire Jordan valley to the northwest. The farther Tobiah and I trekked, and the higher the sun rose, the more clearly the emerald jewel of my homeland stretched out as far as the eye could see. The delicious smell of green surrounded us. I inhaled the freshness deep into my lungs, willing it to cleanse my soul.

  The solitude of our hike this morning reminded me of long hours hunting by myself, the hours I had spent listening to the land, learning every blade of grass and every distinct birdsong, every whisper of the breeze and every clue to oncoming storms. But having my husband alongside me was so much better. Although I jested that his large feet would startle away all the prey, Tobiah’s light step still surprised me, even after over four months of daily hunts together. A man of his size who could steal through the forest was a rarity. Like spirits, we moved through the trees, alert for game.