Buzzing conversation surrounded us as everyone righted belongings and comforted children. “Look!” someone cried out. “Look at the water!”
All heads turned northward, toward the place where the priests were standing with their feet in the water up to their shins. But upriver, a wave seemed to be approaching the men.
“What is that, Tobiah?” My sister’s voice was suddenly next to me, small and fearful. She slipped her hand into mine, a silent reminder of my vow to her as a small boy—to protect her always. “What is happening?”
I shook my head, as astounded as she was. I felt my own body stiffen in preparation for the wave that threatened to bowl over the priests and wash away the golden ark that contained the laws written by Yahweh himself.
But by the time the wave reached the priests, it had lost its initial power, and although the men bobbled back and forth in the current, they stood firm.
Suddenly, the river disappeared before our eyes, the flow ceasing completely. A shout of jubilation swelled among the multitude, even as I blinked to ensure that the sight of the rocky riverbed was not a mirage. All of our preparations to ford the river were unnecessary, for Yahweh had already provided the way. And why not? He’d split the sea for the generation before us.
It was our time to walk forward, to break the hold the wilderness had on us. It was time to claim Avraham’s promise.
Again, the shofarim sounded, this time a call to march.
40
27 NISSAN
1406 BC
CAMP AT GILGAL
Sweat-drenched hair clung to my bare neck and shoulders, making me wish I’d tied it back before sparring with Uriya in the heat of the afternoon. But anything was better than dwelling on the revelation those two spies, Shaul and Peniah, had dropped on my head.
Moriyah is alive.
Alanah is alive.
And not only alive, but together, living in a brothel with Alanah’s mother and sister. A million questions had careened around and around in my head since the men had left our campsite. Shaul assured me that Yehoshua himself had declared Alanah’s family would be spared when the city fell, out of gratefulness for their aid of the spies and the information they had provided on Jericho’s defenses and siege preparations.
After taking a long draught of fresh water from a skin-bag, I gestured to Uriya to attack again, already bracing myself for the collision of his thick-muscled body against mine. Between the frustration of waiting to move on Jericho until after the feast memorializing our escape from Egypt and the news that my wife was behind the city’s impregnable walls, I needed a release. Wrestling with Uriya, who never held back, was my best option—other than scaling Jericho’s ramparts alone to retrieve Alanah and Moriyah.
But instead of rushing forward, Uriya placed his hands on his hips, raised his brows, and nodded at someone behind me. I twisted to look over my shoulder. Tzipi stood a few paces away, a linen-wrapped bundle in her hands and a bleak expression on her face.
When Shaul had come into our camp today with the unbelievable story that Moriyah and Alanah had escaped Midianite traders and found their way to Jericho, I’d expected Tzipi to weep from relief that Shimon’s sister was alive. Instead, she’d become strangely quiet and without a word had slipped into her tent before the men left. Assuming she needed some time to absorb the shocking news, I’d come here to work out my own confusion by trying to wrestle Uriya to the ground.
My sister approached me, clutching the bundle to her chest, her half-wild expression making me wonder if she needed to pummel something, or someone. She released a groaning sigh that backed up my assessment. “Tobiah. May I speak with you?”
I flicked a glance back at Uriya, meaning to let him know we were finished, but a surprising expression crossed his face as he regarded my agitated sister—desire, wrapped in thick concern. The realization that my Egyptian friend was interested in my sister shook me for a moment, and I narrowed my eyes at him. With a shrug and a half-smile that confirmed my suspicions, Uriya walked away, slipping his tunic over his head as he did so.
“Tobiah, I have something to tell you.” Tzipi’s solemn tone halted any thought I had of teasing her about Uriya’s designs on her, and his status as a widower. The sheen of tears in her eyes erased the thought completely. She cleared her throat and then held out the parcel to me. “I should have given you this that day.”
I took the bundle from her and unwrapped the linen. Alanah’s bow lay in my hands. The bow I had thought she’d taken with her when she fled from me, fled from our marriage.
“I don’t understand.” The weight of Alanah’s most treasured possession in my hands split open the wound that had only just begun to scar over, making my chest ache with longing for her. “Tzipi, why do you have this?”
“She killed him.” Her expression became stone. “She found some arrow in your bag and realized that it was her own, that Shimon died on that battlefield with her arrow in his side.”
The words spun around and around inside my head without coming to roost on steady branches. I asked her to repeat them.
“Your wife killed my husband, Tobiah. It’s why she ran. When she admitted it to me, I told her that you would afford her no mercy—that she would be stoned.”
Fresh grief crashed into me, and I stumbled backward. It was Alanah’s arrow I had retrieved from Shimon’s body that awful day? How could this be true?
Torn between wanting to console Tzipi, who looked nearly as undone as I felt, and screaming at the sky for the injustice, I chose the latter. Why, Yahweh? Out of all the Hebrews for Alanah’s arrow to connect with, it had to be the man I regarded as a brother? Why had everyone I had sworn to protect ended up broken or destroyed? I had done everything in my power to live up to my promises, but it was never enough.
You are not a god.
The words appeared in my mind with uncanny clarity, as if drawn in the air before me. I had no control over anything—not my parents, not Tzipi, not Shimon, and surely not Alanah. Had I been trying to be my own god? Determining my own steps instead of ceding to Yahweh’s plan?
I lifted my eyes to the outline of Jericho’s walls to the southwest of our encampment, wishing I could see the crimson cord that hung from one of the windows, the mark of an oath made between Alanah’s sister and Shaul. Somehow Yahweh had brought Moriyah and Alanah to the very city we planned to attack. Although I had no idea what they had endured, they were alive. Where my strength and ability to protect them had ended, Yahweh himself had taken up the cause. And perhaps he had a greater reason for guiding them to that place, even if I did not understand it now.
I caressed the smooth wood of Alanah’s bow, the evidence that she had not left me because she did not love me, but out of guilt and fear, for she would never willingly leave behind such a thing. “Why, Tzipi? Why would you hide this from me?”
“Because I knew what I’d told her was a lie.” She dropped her gaze to her hands. “I knew that you would be merciful. I knew you would not hold it against her, that you would forgive. And I just—I want my husband. And she took him. She took him, Tobiah!” Tears spilled down her face, and her shoulders jerked as she walked forward into my arms, finally allowing me to comfort her as she mourned the man she had loved.
Alanah
28 NISSAN
1406 BC
Crowded around the open window, Rahab, Moriyah, and I watched the Hebrews march around the city in eerie silence. How could such a huge army walk without making a sound, other than that of their insistent feet trampling a wide circle around Jericho? The golden ark shimmered in the sunlight, and the white robes of the priests who carried it gleamed.
Tobiah was here! I could feel his nearness in my bones. Although they were too far away to distinguish faces, I could not help but watch for the man I loved—his long sun-streaked hair, large build, and confident stride—among the thousands that followed the ark at a distance.
The gates had been shut tight since the night the spies had slipped out Ra
hab’s window over a month ago. Another contingent of men had appeared at her door the next morning, insisting on searching the house again, and even Moriyah had played her part, flirting with one of the young soldiers with shocking brazenness. She’d laughed when I’d chided her later, reminding me of how skilled she was at being a boy. “This time I imagined I was Rahab,” she said. “Much easier than pretending to be Shimon.”
In the days since the spies escaped, people had been streaming in from the surrounding valley to take refuge from the coming onslaught. Although many were able to prove their Canaanite heritage and were allowed through the gates, unarmed, we’d seen quite a few calling out at the foot of the wall, screaming to be allowed entry, cursing the king of Jericho, who would leave his subjects to be slaughtered by the Hebrews. Once the Hebrews had crossed the river, Jericho’s army had been called inside the walls and the enormous bronze gates locked and fortified. Anyone outside would be left to their own devices.
Among those who had been fortunate enough to be admitted were my mother’s family, her husband Terran, twin sons Tannar and Danell, and three young daughters—five more siblings I had not been aware of—along with a few other family members that I could not keep straight. The boys, who were twelve, regarded me with wariness, but the three girls studied me with keen interest, and although none of the children had red hair, there was certainly resemblance between all of us.
Both levels of Rahab’s inn were full of people desperate to be saved when the Hebrews attacked. I marveled at the thought that if Rahab did not own this home, the spies might not have survived and Moriyah would have no chance to be rescued. Perhaps Yahweh had used the tragic circumstances in Rahab’s life for something good, for his own purposes. And somehow my own life had been a part of that.
The change in Rahab since the spies left had been drastic. Not one man outside the family had crossed the threshold downstairs, and neither had she been summoned away. Instead, we spent long hours lying on the bed together talking, learning to be sisters. She questioned me about every aspect of my time among the Hebrews, fascinated with Yahweh and the way of life that differed so greatly from Jericho.
And now they were here, a long, slow snake of men winding around the city. Would this be the day Moriyah was delivered back into the arms of her family? Would the man I loved set eyes on his beautiful daughter? I had the sudden compulsion to climb out the window, the same way the spies had, and search out Tobiah. I placed a hand on the rope that hung over the sill, dangling blood-red down the mud-brick wall, pleading silently with Yahweh that Shaul and Peniah would hold fast to their oath to save us.
With a shocking urgency, the shofarim screamed from the contingent of priests. The army followed suit, adding a multitude of insistent calls to the jarring noise. But instead of turning toward the city and rushing toward us, as I expected them to do, the priests at the head of the column turned northward and marched away, the rest of the long rope of soldiers following their lead.
Were they retreating? No! They couldn’t leave! Tobiah was walking away instead of coming closer! Jeers rang out from other windows close by, and from the soldiers stationed nearby at the gates. “Cowards! Go back to the desert! Take your little horns with you!”
My heart pounded out a call as I gripped the windowsill. Come back! Come back! Don’t leave!
An arm slipped around my waist. “They will return, Alanah,” said Moriyah with that odd far-off look that accompanied her most decisive statements. “Have faith. They are coming for us.”
41
3 IYAR
1406 BC
For six days, the Hebrews repeated their baffling circuit around the city each morning. Rahab finally chanced an excursion into the center of town late one afternoon and returned with one sack of barley and a small pot of dates.
“Three days ago,” she said as she came in the door, “when I ventured into the market, there was laughter, mocking of the Hebrews for blowing their horns and marching in circles. But not today. The streets are barren, except for grim-faced soldiers just standing around, anxiously awaiting orders.”
“What do they think will happen?” My mother relieved Rahab of her load since I was still nursing Natanyah.
Rahab blew out a breath. “I don’t know. One man said he thinks they may try and starve us out. We have deep cisterns fed by the underground springs, so we should have plenty of water.” She gestured to the barley. “And as you can see, people are hoarding what they have. There is not much to come by, and what is left is going for two and three times its worth.”
“Will the king send the army back out there? Defend the city?” Raising the shoulder of my dress, I lifted a satisfied Natanyah to my shoulder and gently patted her back. Strange how natural the movements seemed, as if I had always been a mother to this warm treasure cradled against me. Her wispy red hair tickled my neck as she curled into my embrace.
“Heshbaal is a proud man. When I was working at the temple, I witnessed how ruthless he is with his political enemies. I saw many a man taken out to be thrown from the top of the palace walls or slaughtered at the feet of the baalim in the temple. So many—” She sat on a stool, as if weary from the burden of memories she carried. “But I also saw Heshbaal waver. There is an underlying cowardice to the man, and never did I see him more fearful than when stories of the Hebrews came up the trade road.”
“He should fear,” I said. “Look what Yahweh did to Pharaoh.”
“I know. He was obsessed with the stories; the water turning to blood, the frogs, all the firstborns dying. Whenever someone claimed to have been there or related to someone who had, he insisted on hearing their tale firsthand.”
The stories had been told to me around the campfire, by those who had direct knowledge of the fall of Egypt. Shira—oh, how I missed Shira—she had been there, had seen the water bloom red and the frogs overtake the country. She had told me of how Yahweh had allowed them to experience the first three plagues and then placed a protective hand over them. Would that protective hand extend to us, in this house? Or would we be destroyed along with the rest of the city?
One of our small sisters tugged at Rahab’s sleeve. “Can we go outside now? I am tired of being indoors.”
Rahab frowned. “I am sorry, Pilar, but right now it’s just not safe.” She turned away from the little girl, but the frown remained.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I think, perhaps, and I could be wrong, but I think someone is watching the house.”
Instinct caused me to grip my daughter tighter against me. “Who?”
“I’m not sure. I saw the same two men the last time Mother and I went down to the market. They seemed to be following us, but I attributed it to recognition of my profession. However”—she pulled at her arm, as nervous as I had ever seen her—“today they were there again, watching me. And as I came up the stairs, I looked over my shoulder and they were just across the alley.”
A chill crawled up my back. “Do you know why they would be stalking you?”
“I know what I fear, but I am hoping it is not the case.”
“That Mishabel knows that it was our mother who rescued Moriyah and me? And that we are here with you?”
“That is exactly what I fear. One of the soldiers must have reported seeing the two of you after their search for the spies. Or perhaps Dayatana revealed what she knew.” Rahab’s eyes darted behind me, where her two girls tossed painted stones into a cracked pot in a corner with our young sisters.
“If she really wanted us so badly, I am sure she would have already sent her men to the door. With the Hebrews camped outside Jericho, I don’t think they will bother with us.” I laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I cannot imagine it will be much longer until they attack. They can’t loop around the city forever.”
“I hope you are right. And Ohel will let us know if anyone tries to approach. He is guarding the house.” Her body relaxed and then she smiled at me. “I always knew about you, you know. Ima ha
s told me stories of you as long as I can remember. It is so strange that you are no longer a dream or a tale, that you are here in the flesh, comforting my fears as an older sister should.”
Tears blinded me for a moment, until I blinked them away. “I never knew anything of you. I wish I had. I wish that Ima had not—”
A loud crash sounded against Rahab’s door before it burst open with an explosion of splintering wood. Four large men with swords drawn barreled through the entrance.
The children screamed, all pushing behind Moriyah, who had joined their tossing game across the room and was now standing with her arms out, like a young mother hen protecting her chicks. Terran rushed in from the bedroom, the boys behind him, but skidded to a stop when he saw the soldiers. Instead of confronting the men, he took two steps backward.
Rahab, however, boldly walked forward. Pride for my sister’s courage surged through me, but almost immediately a cold wave of fear washed it away.
“What do you want?” There was no tremble in her voice.
“The Hebrew,” said the leader, pointing his sword at Moriyah.
Moriyah? Why only her?
“No, you will not touch her,” said Rahab.
The leader pointed his sword at her chest. Blood tinged the edge of the blade and my stomach dropped as I realized that Ohel had been guarding the door. “I will touch whoever”—he raked her with greedy eyes—“and whatever I want to touch.”
Rahab lifted her chin, fury in her glare. She, too, must have realized her faithful bodyguard was dead. The bloody sword tip moved to her throat.
With Natanyah in my arms and the soldiers between Moriyah and me, I could do nothing but watch in horror as the girl rushed forward. “No! Leave her alone, I will go with you. Don’t hurt anyone else, please.”
One of the other men grabbed her, and as quickly as they had entered, and before any of us could react or plead for her life, they were gone. Moriyah was gone.
Wings of the Wind Page 25
