Wings of the Wind

by Connilyn Cossette

  “Done,” she said without a twitch. “I’ll have one of my men bring you the silver right away.”

  I nearly gasped at the casual tone of her voice. She couldn’t be that eager to buy two ratty, smelly women with their hair cut like boys. We looked anything but seductive. What possible reason would she have to toss so much silver at Urdu?

  Mishabel led us around the back side of the temple complex, through a wooden gate, and to a large house. Gesturing to the guards, who situated themselves on either side of the doorway, she smiled with false sweetness on her red-painted lips. “Don’t bother running. They have no problem killing runaways. You won’t make it out this door. Although you certainly wouldn’t be the first to try.”

  She led us inside, leaving us bound together with Pavel’s rope, and pointed at a flat pallet in the corner of a room with only a tiny slit at the top of the wall for a window.

  “You have tonight, ladies, to sleep. Tomorrow we will clean you up and you will begin work.” The woman sneered as she ran her eyes over me. “You remind me of someone I once knew, and if you are anywhere near as talented as she, you will do well here.”

  I’ll die first.

  “This one, though.” She put her finger under Moriyah’s chin, forcing the girl to look straight into her eyes. “You, they will pay more for. Untouched, are you?” When Moriyah blushed, the priestess patted her cheek. “I thought so. Yes, I must find just the right worshipper to change that.”

  Moriyah’s face blanched, and the priestess chuckled loudly as she left the room; her short companion followed without a word, only a backward glance with kohl-rimmed eyes at Moriyah before she closed the door.

  Moriyah’s knees collapsed as soon as the lock clicked, pulling me down with her. She retched on the floor beside her, sobbing.

  Yahweh? Is this your plan? The destruction of this innocent girl? Why did you not just let us drown?

  I cleared the fury from my throat so as not to frighten Moriyah. “Come now, lay down on the pallet. There is nothing we can do now but sleep.”

  “But tomorrow—” Her voice warbled and cracked.

  “Don’t think about it.” I pressed closer to her and put my forehead against hers. “I will think of something. You will see your family again. I promise.”

  She nodded and with a bit of maneuvering we laid down on the pallet that wasn’t much more comfortable than the dirt floor. Twisting her fingers into mine, she closed her eyes, her body jerking every so often—from physical pain or from soul-agony, I could not tell. Eventually her breathing lengthened and she slept.

  I, however, continued my silent rebuke of Yahweh for not protecting Moriyah—and for lying to me about some mystical purpose. Silence met my ears. A flutter in my abdomen jerked my attention back to the fact that I was carrying a child. Tobiah’s child. What would these depraved people do to my baby? Would they give me herbs to rid my body of its presence? Or would they allow it to be born and then burn it on the altar? My blood raced and my breath came in short spurts. No. I would kill that woman if she came near my baby.

  My litany of inaudible grievances against Yahweh grew longer, and louder. I screamed at him in my mind until I could think of nothing else to say. Once my noiseless fury was spent, I tried to force sleep on myself as the last dregs of sunlight disappeared from the window-slit and darkness consumed us, but I could not keep my mind from cycling through different ways to escape this room and get past those armed guards.

  What seemed to be many sleepless hours later, the door swung open and a shadow loomed in the doorway, silhouetted by a dim light.

  “Alanah?” a woman’s voice whispered.

  I did not respond. I had not told my name to either of the priestesses—who would know what to call me in this house?

  “Alanah. Come here, hurry. Bring the girl.” The urgency in the woman’s low voice caused me to sit up on the pallet. Moriyah moaned in her sleep but did not wake.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “We must hurry. The guards are occupied for now but we cannot waste time.”

  A rescue? The dim light moved forward into the doorway, casting light on the face of the person holding the small lamp. Black kohl-smudged eyes met mine; it was the shorter priestess, the one who had said nothing as she had trailed behind Mishabel.

  A trick! I leaned over Moriyah, shielding her.

  Another woman took the lamp from the priestess and approached me, but her face was in shadow. “Please, Alanah, we are here to help. Dayatana led me here to help you.”

  “Who are you?” I yanked a veil over my fears to challenge her with a glare. “Why would you help us?”

  She held the lamp close to her face. It was the woman who had so boldly met my eye in the street earlier today. She reached up to push back the purple headscarf that covered her hair. The lamplight glinted off bright red curls now uncovered, and eyes the same color as Tobiah’s malachite stone stared into mine.

  “I am your mother.”

  33

  After cutting our bonds and giving Moriyah another tunic to slip over her gaping one, Dayatana led us through the dark household. I could not grasp fully the realization that my long-lost mother was behind me as we crept down the hallway. How had she known it was me in the market? She had not seen me since I was three years old, the day she left me.

  And this was where she had flown to? Jericho? My father had said she’d run back to serve Ashtoreth, but he had never told me where. Yet when I saw her on the street she was not dressed like Dayatana, but simply like any other Canaanite woman in a colorful, one-shouldered woolen tunic. Only her brazen stare and purple turban had stood out in the crowd.

  Dayatana opened the front door and poked her head out to peer into the black night. “You must run, quietly. I had a few of the girls distract the guards, but it won’t be long before they come back around this side. I unlocked the back gate.”

  My mother cupped Dayatana’s cheek. “Thank you, my sister-friend. Your debt to me is paid.”

  “If you get caught I will not protect you—I cannot.” Dayatana glared at me. “Mishabel is unforgiving, and I must pretend that someone stole you away without my knowledge.” She looked around the corner. “Go! I hear the guards!”

  Without hesitating, I grabbed Moriyah’s hand and we ran, following my mother through the dark.

  “Here it is. Come, girls,” my mother whispered, then took my other hand and dragged us through the gate. We stumbled into the street and sped through town. I wanted to ask where we were going, to ask how she knew me and where she had been for most of my life, but all I could do was think about the feel of my mother’s hand gripping mine and how familiar it seemed, over nineteen years later.

  Even this late at night, people packed the streets, doing business by torchlight—yet no business that should be carried out in the day. Again I wished I could cover Moriyah’s eyes and ears, protect her from the perversions of this cesspit, laid out for all to see in the alleyways and empty marketplaces.

  More respect for my father’s choice to isolate me budded in my mind, as did gratefulness that I’d been sheltered on the farm. Yes, the temple and its wares had been at the center of Arad, where we’d traveled a few times each year to trade our wheat, barley, and wine, but I shuddered at the openness, the audacity, of such behavior here in Jericho.

  Drunken fights plagued almost every corner, but my mother sidestepped them without flinching. She must be used to such horrors after living here for so long. A drunk bumbled into our path, and with a strong, steady voice my mother ordered him away. To my surprise he startled at her tone and tripped off into the night.

  The darkness in the town was suffocating. Torches everywhere cast yellow light on black deeds, but I felt as though a heavy shroud stretched wall to wall over Jericho, blocking out every good light. Even the stars hid their eyes.

  We passed through the bronze gates into the outer circle of the city. Holding my breath, I cringed at the filth I knew my feet were stepping in as
we descended toward the outer rim of the city. My mother stopped at the foot of a stone staircase nestled between two tall buildings. “Quickly, let us get out of the street. I don’t think anyone saw us, but Mishabel will not give up easily. She does not relinquish silver lightly.”

  As we climbed the stairs, I realized this house was built against the outer wall of the city, not too far from the main gates. On the other side of the thick barrier lay freedom, and beyond that, the Hebrews—and Tobiah.

  My mother knocked softly on a wooden door at the top of the stone steps. “Let us in. It’s your mother. Quickly.” The door swung open and we bustled inside. I blinked against the brightness of three tall floor lamps flickering in the large room.

  Another woman stood in front of me, my own shock reflected on her face. Her hair was red and curly, and her eyes, although dark brown and lined with kohl, were shaped just like mine. She was almost my mirror image, as well as my mother’s.

  “This is your sister, Alanah. This is Rahab.”

  “My . . . sister?” I gaped at my mother.

  “Yes, I was pregnant with her when I fled the valley. She is your full-blooded sister, and this is her home.” The revelation was delivered with curt frankness that nearly knocked me to my knees. A sister?

  Incredulous, Rahab stared at me. “I cannot believe you are here. When she said she saw you in the marketplace . . . I did not believe . . .” She stepped close and placed a hand on my grimy face. “We look so much alike. No wonder she knew it was you right away.” Sheer bewilderment kept me from jerking away from her touch. As if noticing my discomfort, she dropped her hand.

  “And who is this?” She turned to Moriyah, who I had almost forgotten was standing next to me. The girl was looking back and forth between the three of us, amazement painted on her dirty face.

  “This is Moriyah. She is the sister of my husband’s brother-in-law. Which makes her—I don’t know exactly?” I laughed, a nervous and pinched sound.

  “You are married?” My mother’s face brightened.

  “I was . . . to a Hebrew named Tobiah.” I could practically hear Moriyah frowning beside me.

  “A Hebrew? How could you be married to one of them and be here?” Rahab asked, jerking a thumb over her shoulder toward the eastern window.

  “We were kidnapped by Midianite traders and driven far to the north. We escaped through the river and walked here.”

  “Are they coming now?” Fear sparked in Rahab’s voice as she ignored my improbable explanation.

  “The Midianites?”

  “No, the Hebrews. They are coming, are they not?”

  I looked back and forth between the two fire-haired women. “We were told they are camped across the river on the plains of Moab.”

  “They’ve been there for a month now. No one knows what they are planning. We also heard there was a battle between the Hebrews and the forces of Bashan in the north.” My mother shook her head. “The wine merchant said the destruction was unheard of.”

  My blood sank into my feet. Had the old man been wrong? “The Hebrews were defeated?”

  “No. They bested Bashan, even though Og, the king, is known to be ruthless in battle and astoundingly tall. The warriors of Bashan don’t even bother offering sacrifices to the gods anymore before battle, they know they will win.”

  “But they didn’t win?” I sighed with relief. “The Hebrews defeated them?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t explain it.”

  “I can.” A smile tugged at my mouth. “For now, though, can we wash? I cannot stand the smell of myself.” I gestured to my feet, covered in filth from the streets.

  “Of course!” Rahab called out to someone named Ohel and a tall, broad man with skin the darkest brown I’d ever seen strode into the room.

  “Take these ladies to a room and make sure they have plenty of water to wash with, and clean clothing.” Rahab smiled at me, her kohl-lined eyes conveying humor at our unsightly garments. “We will talk in the morning.”

  Ohel nodded and led us to a room that boasted a luxurious bed swathed in fine linens. After a few moments, he returned with an enormous pot of water, thick cloth for drying our bodies, and two clean linen tunics. As soon as the door closed behind him, Moriyah and I stripped. Removing the tight band around my swollen belly was bliss; my entire body sighed at the freedom from the painful binding. Moriyah and I scrubbed our skin pink, turning the pot of water a murky brown. I hoped Rahab did not mind that the wood floor of her home was covered with slimy muck from our bath. After slipping the clean tunics over our heads and moaning at the softness of the linen against our bruised bodies, Moriyah and I lay down on the lush bed and stared at the ceiling. I groaned at the impossible softness and the contrast to sleeping on cave floors, dirt under trees, and Mishabel’s flat pallet.

  “I am never, never leaving this bed,” said Moriyah, patting the soft linens on either side of her body. “Ever.”

  “That makes two of us.” We laughed together freely, as if we had not been prisoners in a temple brothel only two hours before and dreading the horrors of tomorrow.

  “Alanah?” Moriyah turned onto her side, her silvery eyes shining in the flicker of the oil lamp next to the bed. “There are times when I know things. I just have a sense of the answers to questions deep in my bones, sometimes before the questions are even asked.”

  This I had guessed from the first time I’d sensed her uncanny eyes on me.

  “But today—” she continued, her voice sounding more like a little girl’s than I’d ever heard. “I just don’t understand. How are we here? How is it that your mother and your sister found us? Rescued us?”

  I blew out a regretful breath and placed my hand on the swell of my belly. “Yahweh,” I answered as I gave silent, chastened thanks to the One who I’d spent hours berating earlier tonight. “It can only be Yahweh.”

  34

  15 TISHRI

  1407 BC

  My eyes popped open as Rahab’s servant, Ohel, pulled the scarlet curtain away from the window and sunlight spilled across the floor. The huge man did not look at me but said, “A meal is waiting for you,” in a low tone and then left the room before I had a chance to react to the strangeness of his presence.

  I toed Moriyah’s leg. “Wake up, sleepy.” She moaned and threw an arm over her face.

  “Leave me be. I told you I am not leaving this bed.”

  I laughed. “All right, but I smell food.”

  She rasped a little growl but sat up. “Only food could make me get up. I have never slept on anything so comfortable in my life.”

  My mind went back to the pallet in Tobiah’s tent. True, it had not been the softest bed, but I had never been more comfortable, more surrendered, than while lying in his arms. I brushed away the bittersweet memory. No use dwelling on fleeting shadows.

  Two dresses had been left on a chair in the corner. I was hesitant to take off the linen tunic, but perhaps the thin garment was meant only for sleeping. Rahab’s husband must be quite wealthy to afford such decadence. As I slipped the soft green dress over my head, I wondered whether he would be angry about taking in two ragged women fleeing the temple.

  “It may be too long, but this is the most beautiful thing I have ever worn.” Moriyah smoothed the striped blue and white fabric of her dress against her narrow hips with excitement in her eyes. “Do you think your sister means for me to keep it? It would not be difficult to trim it shorter, would it?”

  “I don’t know. I have only made one garment in my life.” Shrugging off the memory of the tunic I had made for Tobiah, I tied a cord around her waist, pilfered from the scarlet curtain that hung at the window, and billowed the fabric out around the makeshift belt until she was able to walk without tripping.

  “Oh, my mother is a wonderful seamstress. She would love to—” Moriyah stopped, her eyes flooding.

  I put my arms around her and she pressed her forehead into my shoulder. “Don’t give up hope. You will see your mother a
gain.”

  She sniffed and nodded but kept her head down.

  I slipped a finger under her chin and forced her to look at me. “We are here. In the home of my sister. Is that not a miracle? Yahweh has brought us this far, has he not?”

  I have a plan, the Voice had said the night I’d been healed from the snakebite. Was this all part of his plan somehow?

  A knock sounded before the door opened and my mother stepped inside, her presence causing my stomach to contract with nerves. “I’m glad you girls are finally awake.”

  My mother smiled at Moriyah, seeming to avoid my gaze. “We have not been properly introduced, Moriyah. My name is Tashara.”

  “I am so grateful to you, Tashara, for saving us from that awful place.” Moriyah twisted the tassel of her red-cord belt. “If you hadn’t come . . .”

  My mother placed her hand on Moriyah’s shoulder. “I was not about to leave you both there. As soon as I recognized Alanah and realized what Mishabel planned, I knew what I had to do. Thankfully, Dayatana owed me a great debt.” She patted Moriyah’s face, revealing a dark tattoo on the back of her hand, one identical to the old priestess who had purchased us in the market—the mark of her identity as property of Ba’al and Ashtoreth. “You are a beautiful girl. How did you ever pass for a boy? Even with your hair chopped like that?”

  Grinning, Moriyah displayed her masculine stride for my mother. “Alanah taught me,” she said. “But I perfected it.”

  My mother laughed and the sound tugged at my memory with a mixture of longing and irritation. “Well, you won’t have to use your skills here. Rahab and Ohel have a wonderful meal prepared for you. May I have a few minutes alone with Alanah?”

  It took every bit of my strength to not leave as well, but I stayed rooted to the ground as my mother closed the door behind Moriyah. She stood with her back to me for a few moments before turning.