Reign (11 page)

“Why is death the only way?” she asked the ashipu.

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

“In any religion there is death. Death is the only way to prove yourself to the gods.” She sighed. “It’s the only way to make progress.”

He shook his head, not understanding. He was a healer, though, not a priest. She was the highest-ranking official of her religion in this land, being the daughter of Eth-baal. If her god was to be defended, she would have to do it.

“If you needed to kill someone, who would you hire?” she asked.

He thought for a moment, scratching his beard. “A soldier named Amun has been staying in the city. He has waited at the gates every morning for a week now, looking for work. Ahab will not hire him, though, because it is rumored he kills even young children. The Hebrews find him repugnant.”

He sounded perfect. “I have a job for a man who is not afraid of angering a god. Hire him for me.”

She whispered the details to the ashipu, relieved to know there was at least one man in Israel as bold as she.

Obadiah

Obadiah searched the scrolls all night to be sure of what he already knew, with only hours left before their departure for Jezreel. He couldn’t bring his library with him. Never in the history of Israel had the winter rains not come. The winter rains had to come, because life could not continue without them. Rain was life. Without rain, there would be no spring wheat, or barley, or fruits or seeds or wine. Without rain, there would be no Israel.

Obadiah was half-crazed with fear, though no one paid him any mind when he spoke of ancient writings and the story they told of God. All the servants of the court, even some from the families of elders who would travel with them, had come repeatedly to him throughout the evening, and throughout the night, interrupting his reading. Many needed help finding items, or unlocking the stored supplies, or verifying what must be brought both for the journey and the stay. Obadiah stayed in his scroll room, searching frantically through the words for a solution. None could be found.

Elijah had proclaimed a curse unheard of, a blight without remedy.

“Do not make me go to Jezreel.” A servant named Amitra stood in his doorway, her face tear-streaked.

He rose and went to her, taking her hand in his. She was wan, and her eyes seemed to have lost their life.

“What is it, Amitra?” The past year had been hard on her. Her parents sold her as a slave to Omri’s court but had neglected to tell anyone that she was pregnant. It was why they no longer wanted her as a daughter. She would not bring a good price as a wife, but she had value as a slave.

“I don’t want to serve Jezebel. I believe she lies,” the girl said, almost without feeling.

He frowned. “You must never speak of the princess that way. It is disrespectful, and even if I forgive you, the king might not.”

Amitra’s face suddenly developed some color, and anger knit in her brow. “But she does! She told me there was a way I could be free, but I am not free! I thought I might be able to go home if …”

Obadiah suddenly knew what the girl was about to say, and he closed his eyes, trying not to frighten her. He exhaled for strength and then opened his eyes.

She burst into tears, and he had to catch her when her knees seemed to buckle below her. “She said she knew how hard it was for me to do,” the girl stammered, “that my choice would not be easy, but I could be blessed in the future, if only I sacrificed the … child … my child. She said it would make things better for everyone. Asherah might bring rain, even. I obeyed her.” She was weeping quietly, shaking. “I couldn’t stand to look at the baby because it reminded me of everything I had lost.” The girl let out a quiet wail. “But now I can’t stand to look at myself.”

Obadiah put his arms around her, though she resisted at first, knocking against him with her shoulders, refusing all comfort, but he was patient and held her until she quieted down. He tasted the tears that ran down his own cheeks, too. It was what he had feared: Phoenician lies had appeal in Israel, too.

This girl didn’t care about honoring the goddess or worshipping the sacred feminine as a bold declaration of her womanly power. She had only thought there was an easier way.

Obadiah comforted the girl as best he could, then sent her back to her quarters. He would make arrangements, he promised, to keep her in Samaria for the winter. He needed much wisdom for the plans he had to make. Ahab and Omri were worried about war. They were soldiers, and that threat seemed most real. But Obadiah was a Hebrew, and he trusted Elijah as much as he feared him. If Elijah’s words were true, a drought was coming, and famine would follow. Obadiah searched his scrolls to find the words of Moses, the tale of a palace steward named Joseph who had led the Egyptians through a mighty famine. If Yahweh had mercy, it would not come to that. But if He did not relent, these words could still save many, if only Obadiah applied them faithfully.

Toward the final watch, he smelled smoke, a sweet thick smoke, like those of the cooking fires from the kitchens. But this came from somewhere else. He followed the scent until he came to a window. In the distance, a fire glowed from a makeshift altar of Asherah that Ahab’s men had set up.

Obadiah retched, holding his hands against his mouth to quiet the sound. He had to keep this secret until he was sure, until he held a burnt bone here, on Hebrew soil.

Everything that defined Israel was changing. A blessed nation was under a curse. The winter rains would not come. The first infant had died to honor a foreign goddess, a demon Obadiah did not know.

Obadiah wondered if there was any mercy now to save them.

7

Jezebel

Jezebel thought about all the little birds she had caught and fed to her snake back in Sidon. Had they felt this way? Swallowed, dissolved, taken up forever into some enemy’s territory. That’s what it was like to lie with a man every night and grow his child in her womb. All her life, her enemies had been visible, external, people she could run from. Now her own flesh had become the detestable thing. Ahab’s body had consumed hers, and this thing grew inside her, feeding off her, the lump in her belly just like the snake’s.

She hated Jezreel, too, where they had relocated two weeks ago.

Its location made sense, however. Two main trade routes crossed through Jezreel. One connected the upper and lower nations, one connected the eastern and western nations. Jezreel stood at the heart of it all and had to be defended. If a nation attacked Jezreel, it would send the entire region into uproar. They’d be swarming with everyone from the beautiful Egyptians to the rowdy Arameans brandishing swords and getting drunk under the trees.

The palace was a disappointment, even more than Obadiah had prepared her for. The builders had given no thought to its appearance, or construction, or even layout. It was a military palace, built by a military man for his men. Much smaller than the one in Samaria, it was surrounded by a thick wall that had towers on each of the four corners. Like Samaria, it was built on an elevation. Anyone sitting by a window had a view of a garden and vineyard below and of the valley. That would be pleasant enough, she thought, though Omri only wanted a clear view of approaching enemies. He had not meant to give anyone happiness.

The wall around the palace had a massive gate, which she was pleased to see was finished, and in front of the wall was a deep, dry moat. A man could die from the fall into such a moat, cut from rock as it was. No army could dig through the walls around the palace without getting past the moat.

She hesitated to even call Jezreel a city. It was a palace flanked by a few buildings and residences, and outside this wall were tents for the soldiers in the valley below.

Ahab had gone out to survey the trade routes and talk to the soldiers. She was disgusted by the catch in her heart when he left her. He was familiar, and this was an unfamiliar place. That’s all she felt, she told herself. She could not trust him, not if he lacked the strength to do what was right by his own gods. Her god had tested her, and she had proven herself worthy. Ahab was being tested by his god too. Any hope she had once had that he would banish her or kill her in obedience to his god was gone. This pain was hers forever.

The ashipu entered her chamber and began setting out his materials.

“Get out,” she said, and both Lilith and Mirra looked up from their dice game, startled. The ashipu kept working. None of them was sure who she was talking to, so she yelled. “All of you!”

Mirra and Lilith left at once, but the ashipu did nothing.

“You cannot put this off any longer,” he said.

She gave in, spitting in a clay pot, and her healer assessed the color and texture. She urinated in another pot, and he murmured over that as well. He added the blessed thistle and stirred, whispering incantations. Jezebel stared as the watery contents turned red. Next he passed a fresh liver from a recent sacrifice over Jezebel’s midsection. He laid it on the table next to a clay model of a liver, drilled with holes all over. As he surveyed the sacrifice, he noted the pattern of fat and nodules and placed a corresponding peg in each hole on the model until his diagnosis was complete.

“It is a girl,” the healer said. He cleared his throat.

Jezebel shook her head from side to side.

“You did it wrong,” she said. “The gods are testing your skill.”

The healer cleaned the table and placed the model back in his stained bag.

“I am never wrong.” He smiled. “Besides, the answer is from the gods. Perhaps they test you.”

Jezebel glared at him. His skirt wrapped tightly around a thin, sunken waist, and he was shaved clean, as all ashipu were, but the gray hairs grew back quickly, giving his head a dull glow when the light hit at an angle. She guessed him to be seventy, considered the most excellent age for healers, who worshipped numbers and their combinations.

She rose and went to a window and watched a stray brown dog scavenge beneath her window for bits of food the guards were tossing to it.

Jezebel turned back and faced the healer. “I’ll drink the copper and abort it. I haven’t told Ahab that I’m pregnant yet.”

The healer shook his head. “First, the copper can only seal the womb before life begins. Once life claims the womb, it is a fierce adversary. And second, Ahab is not a stupid man. He is waiting for you to tell him, perhaps, but he already knows.”

She chewed her lip, watching the ashipu. He had no solutions or perhaps refused to offer them.

“I don’t want a daughter!” It was the first time she had used that word,
daughter
, and the sound of it in the room made her weak. She sank to the floor, and he rushed to help her, grabbing her under her arms, trying to lift her up, but she collapsed into him and screamed.

“Not a girl! Please! Get rid of it.”

He stroked her hair and rocked her as she sucked in air between dry groans that shook her body. She didn’t know how to cry without tears. And she would not let tears come.

“My princess,” he said, “I will lift your name to the gods. I will order another sacrifice for you, would you like that? Perhaps the gods will have mercy.”

“You are so kind,” Jezebel said, hating him for it. Kindness was nothing but salt in her wounds.

She reached up and wrapped her hands around his neck, gently at first so he wouldn’t realize what she was doing until her grip was perfect. Then she squeezed with all the rage flooding her veins for that baby he would not kill and the rains that would not fall. Little blood vessels burst in the whites of his eyes as he writhed in horror. When he collapsed within seconds, her grip grew stronger. He was not putting up a good fight, and she wanted someone else to hurt like she did. She wanted him to fight, but no matter how hard she squeezed, he just sank at her feet until he lay on the floor, twitching, his eyes closed. She stood and kicked him. He did not move. She stomped on his belly, hoping it would swell and hurt him. But he was dead. She bent down and laid her face against his, moaning in agony. He was so fortunate.

The guard outside her door looked when she made those noises, shocked to see the ashipu lying on the floor.

Jezebel sat up, feigning shock and grief. She had seen enough mothers at the sacrifices in Phoenicia to know how to do it. “I tried to save him!”

“I’ll call for help,” he said.

It’s too late now
, she thought.

Ahab

Disturbing news from Samaria reached Ahab a month after they’d arrived in Jezreel. Samaria was more than six weeks past the supposed start of the winter rains, but not a drop had fallen. The mood in the city had changed, his messenger said. Workers did not sing as they worked. The sounds of labor were late in starting and ended well before sunset every day. Ahab had to authorize an increase in wages to get even half the labor done. Since the rain stopped, no one wanted to work on finishing Baal’s temple. He wrote to Jezebel’s father, asking for additional laborers to come. Their energy and artistry would revive the work.

He was returning to their palace after a ride with Obadiah. They had been talking to the troops, checking the roads that led in and out of Jezreel. There had been no sign of Ben-hadad’s scouts, but neither had there been rain.

Ahab and Obadiah rode on to the palace before dawn as Jezebel’s priests began to line the roads, burning thick pots of incense between them on the ground. The air was thick with smoke. Servants held clay rattles shaped in the figures of their god and goddess, shaking them as Ahab approached. Every other priest held a torch in his hand, so that the line of torches became a flickering spitting serpent winding up the hill to the palace of Jezreel.

Jezebel stood in the path, no jewels adorning her soft, long neck. She held her hands low across her belly, and he knew she was ready to tell him.

Obadiah stopped his horse short, his face changing as he saw her swollen belly. She faced Ahab, who dismounted, kissing her hands and pressing them to his face before kneeling to kiss her womb. She did not move when he touched her. It was like caressing a statue.