Reign Page 14

  Obadiah grabbed it again, harder. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He couldn’t believe most of what he had been forced to do.

  “We are not equals. I am older, and wiser, and I know right from wrong. You have a lot of catching up to do,” he said.

  She pulled her arm back to slap him, but he caught her hand. Her chest rose and fell as she stared at him, blinking rapidly in shock. Tears came to her eyes, and she moved to him, pressing her body into his, so that he felt her soft curves and the fast beating of her heart. She lifted her mouth to his, her body shaking, and the soft sweet lips moved across his own, stealing his breath. He had never kissed a girl, and the sweetness was disorienting. He lost his place for that quick moment, lost who he was and what he was. But his mind had always been stronger than his heart, and it jolted him back to what had to be done.

  He pushed her away. “You belong to another man.”

  “I belong to no one!”

  “But you will someday, Mirra. A better man than me, someone who will give you a good life.” The words tore through his heart. The truth was bitter and vile, especially when said out loud. He was ashamed of himself for loving her touch so much when she could never be his.

  She ran from him. He let out his breath and felt his body collapse in, like a wounded man in a fight.

  If he had done the right thing and spoken what was true, why did it hurt him so much? Why was the truth never anyone’s friend but its own?

  Jezebel

  The next morning, Jezebel rose before Ahab and made her way to the administration rooms. She had not slept, not even in the third or fourth watches of the night. The drought made everyone restless, without enough to eat or drink, and the servants had been noisy all night.

  She was pleased to find Obadiah’s records room empty and took a torch off a wall bracket from the hallway. As she lifted it, the flickering yellow light filled the room with gold. That was appropriate, for here were records of all the gold in Omri’s empire, plus the scrolls she sought. She would learn about her enemy, the Lord. Who had made him? What enemies in the heavens pursued him?

  On the long table against the wall, dozens of clay jars rested, each containing a scroll. Pulling a scroll from a clay jar, at random, she spread it out and read.

  Fifty jars of olive oil

  Three hundred loaves of bread

  Ten sheep

  Ten geese

  Twenty fowls

  Ten curds

  Fifty eggs

  Ten pots honey

  One hundred fish

  Fifteen crocks goat’s milk

  All were purchased with the agreement they were to be delivered to the palace.

  It was dated from the last month. Obadiah kept detailed records of his purchases at market, the money he spent from the royal treasury to keep the palace occupants fed. Dismayed, she pulled another scroll free and read it. It was much the same, just another list of foodstuffs bought at market. This one, however, was dated from three years ago, before she had come. Obadiah bought so much less, spent so much less, before her. Jezebel knew she had imported four hundred priests and dozens upon dozens of artisans and servants; but never had she seen the costs recorded in such clear detail. She placed a great burden on the people. She was only a little surprised to notice that she didn’t really care. These were necessary expenses.

  She freed another scroll and read, and repeated this over and over. She spent two hours reviewing records that were honest and accurate. But where Obadiah kept the history scrolls, the ones that told of all the Lord’s weaknesses, was a mystery. Groaning that she had lost sleep and gained nothing, she rolled a papyrus up and grabbed a jar, preparing to stuff it inside.

  But there was already a scroll in the jar. A small scroll, rolled neatly and left at the bottom. Her breath caught as she reached for it. Of course Obadiah would hide such information about his Lord from her. She began to read it, but it was nothing more than a record of food bought and delivered—but not to the palace. Her mind began to work as footsteps in the hall approached, and she heard the guard exchanging words with someone.

  She stuffed the scroll into her sash and left the room. Why would Obadiah be buying food that was not sent to the palace? Who else was he feeding?

  The prophets. The realization incensed her. He was using her money, Ahab’s treasury, to keep her enemies alive. Obadiah was not as loyal as she once thought. And then she laughed; he was a man, after all.

  Jezebel

  The horse did not slow as he approached, his mane carried by the September wind, whipping his rider, who bore the flag marked with the sign of the house of Eth-baal. The women at the well stopped and watched him, and children abandoned their games to see the rider flying toward them like a polished stone loosed from a sling.

  Jezebel watched from her window as he rode to the gate of the palace. She was removing her robe, letting the breeze cool her shoulders. With a sigh of aggravation, she pulled it back on and instructed Lilith to call Ahab.

  “He is walking in the stables with Athaliah,” Lilith replied.

  “Who?” Jezebel asked, then nodded. Of course. But it was foolish of Ahab to invest time into a girl. She would only be sent away. The thought occurred that Ahab might grow to love the child, and then he would suffer when she left. Or worse, he would not make a wise match because of his attachment. Jezebel groaned, thinking what trouble Ahab’s emotions had given her.

  Outside, she did not wait for Ahab but motioned for the rider to approach.

  Kneeling, the rider kissed her feet.

  She extended a hand, and he rose. He trembled whenever his eyes met hers by accident.

  “Shalmaneser has defeated the kings of the north and begins his invasion. He demands more than tribute; all kingdoms will cede their rule to him or be destroyed.”

  “My priests predicted that months ago,” she replied. “You must bring worthier news than this. The guards say you rode with astonishing speed.”

  The rider nodded and kept his face low.

  “Ben-hadad hosts a war council in his palace. He says his intention is to guard against the advances of Shalmaneser.”

  Jezebel exhaled, the name stirring her blood. “But?” she asked.

  “But it is your name on his lips when he thinks he is among friends. I fear he has no good intentions for Israel.”

  “Or me,” Jezebel said. Being carted off as war spoils would destroy all her work.

  “He often says that for you, though for no other queen, including his own, he will ride out against Shalmaneser. But he needs allies. Ben-hadad will come and ask for safe passage, that Ahab will recognize him as a friend as he crosses over your borders.”

  “Safe passage will be given,” she said, pacing. She dismissed the rider, giving instruction to her servants to see to his needs and those of his animal. She turned for the palace. She had given the command, but Ahab must give his seal. It was an unfortunate technicality.

  Ahab

  Ahab sat in bed, turning the sword of Moses back and forth in the light. It had not rained in almost two years. Every day he woke thinking that the drought could not be real and could not really be the hand of the Hebrew god. Every night he slept, listening for rain, and woke discouraged. What would Solomon have thought of him? How had Solomon governed all the tribes and kept hundreds of foreign wives and never had this trouble with a prophet or a god? What made Ahab and his bride so different, so repulsive to the Lord?

  He could hear the sounds of the workers outside his window, carving ivories for Jezebel’s residence, and the guards cursing as another stumbled during his efforts to practice swinging a sword of heavier iron. Yes, the marriage had brought greater access to material goods. It had brought new gods and more ways to worship. Yet all anyone wanted now was rain.

  “How else may I please the king?” the girl asked. She was the same ag
e as Jezebel but had lighter eyes and a soft set to her mouth. She was a simple, sweet thing, won in some battle he could not even remember. He had been glad for her back then, before he had even heard the name Jezebel. He thought she would help him remember those days. He gestured toward the foot of the bed.

  “Dance for me,” he commanded.

  She did. A smile was on her face that did not move or change character, a smile he had seen on blind men at the city gates who never were sure when a kind soul might drop a coin for them. He turned away, and she moved, her arms and legs light as the dust in the morning sun.

  “You do not watch,” she said.

  Ahab frowned and tossed her robe to her. “Your dance does nothing for me.”

  A guard stepped forward to escort her from the chamber as her chin trembled, the first true expression he had seen.

  Ahab rubbed his eyes and stood. “Give her an extra portion of food this week, and a token of the king’s affection.”

  Another guard stepped aside, and a messenger entered.

  “Jezebel seeks an audience.”

  “Does the princess now command me?” Ahab snapped.

  “No, no, my lord,” the messenger said. “A rider from the House of Eth-baal brought news that she says she must share with you.”

  “Tell her to make ready to leave for Jezreel.” Ahab needed no news from his wife. He was the prince. He wore the crown, not her.

  “But the message—” the messenger began.

  Ahab threw the sword, and it hissed through the air, sticking in the cedar beam that ran just over the messenger’s head.

  The messenger bowed and left.

  12

  Two Years Later, 879 B.C.

  Late November, at the Winter Palace in Jezreel

  Heavier than usual rains stalled both Shalmaneser and Ben-hadad. All the rain due to Israel had fallen upon their enemies instead. Jezebel watched the trade roads daily in Jezreel in vain. Little traffic ever appeared to give her hope. Israel suffered from depleted supplies, with foreign merchants prevented from getting there. Foreigners had been so blessed by rain, with plentiful crops and pockets of gold. She hated them, imagining them staying home and getting fat.

  Jezebel, like everyone else at court, was hungry. She ate no grapes, no melons. No figs or fruit of any kind. The court had exhausted the remaining supply of dried grain and meat. A few herbs survived, but these were cruel reminders of the food she once had. Seasonings only, no meat or bread or vegetables. The administration chambers were crammed with advisers. Ahab called every wise man he could find, but they all said he had to make peace with Yahweh, which meant destroying the other gods. Jezebel reminded him of the covenant’s terms. To take her as a wife was to take her gods. And, she reminded him, to refuse the people a choice was to take away their freedom. Ahab had chosen this road. He had to follow it to its completion.

  As did she. But as yet, if Yahweh had a weakness, she had not found it.

  They passed two more winters this way, every month bringing bad news. At night, restless, she walked. Ahab wanted little to do with her. She suspected that he blamed her. Everyone did, their thirst and hunger and creeping poverty nudging each to madness. She had always known that drought meant dry land; she had not known that drought meant depression and despair without relief.

  When they returned to Jezreel in the third year of the drought, Jezebel rode in a litter with the curtains drawn. No gifts were thrown to her, no shouts of praise and welcome. She rode alone, a prisoner behind walls of waving purple silk. She prayed that Asherah and Baal would open their ears to Sargon as he made sacrifices.

  Leaving the outer edge of the territory of Samaria, she saw that a brush fire had destroyed fields for miles in every direction. The landscape was black, like the world of nightmares. Clumps smoldered in the sun. As they rode silently past, she recognized the forms. They were people. Sometimes animals, too, although by now most people had eaten their animals. It was better than watching them die from starvation.

  She hoped Sargon would keep up the sacrifices. Jezebel urged him in letters to stay strong, to comfort mothers in their sorrow, to help them see that what was necessary was not always easy. They had chosen not to end a life but to prevent suffering. What god would refuse to honor such a choice?

  Above all, she had written, he must alleviate their growing suspicions of Baal and Asherah and their princess. She vowed to see every tribe survive. Those who survived could start over. Babies could always be made again.

  Ahab

  Ahab tossed his goblet into the corner, listening to it ring as it rolled in short revolutions to a resting place. There was not even enough wine to leave a trail on the floor. Obadiah had spent the early morning hours, he’d said, tending to the animals in the stable before sunrise. Another had died as it slept. One animal, a donkey, had gotten out and not returned. It had probably wandered off, looking for water, and been torn to death in a moment by the dogs who watched the stables at night. No one could stop the wild dogs from taking lives. The elderly were warned not to walk alone. The young had to stay inside. The nights became a recital of pained, hungry wails from animals and children alike.

  Obadiah returned now with a wet rag. It was a high offering, though not as welcome as a cool bath. Ahab rubbed the back of his neck and face. This was not Ahab’s fault. He could not control the heavens and make rain in a drought. He doubted that any god could, either. The people had prayed to each god, hoping to cause one to rise to action, as if such things could happen. Ahab felt with conviction that they did not. If prayers were really answered, he would not have seen so many young men die in agony, the name of their god on their lips. He forsook making offerings for the dead boys at night, willing a ghost to stir and eat him or whisk him, too, to the underworld. Any death was preferable to this, the slow death of his name. Every eye in Jezreel met his with a cold stare. The people might pray to gods, but they looked to him for the answer. Faith that led back to him was foolishness or madness, he knew, and so all faith seemed horrible.

  “We’ll go through the country,” he sighed, turning to Obadiah. “We’ll find every spring and every stream. Let’s see if we can find enough grass to keep our horses and mules from dying.”

  Obadiah did not hesitate, which surprised Ahab. He had expected resistance from Obadiah, who had no experience finding water in the hills. He didn’t even know if Obadiah had ever been to the hills, with those dark, forbidding caves. But the drought made even a man like Obadiah desperate.

  It took but a moment to divide the country between them and begin the search. Ahab was glad to be free of the palace his father had begun in better times and of the people he had inherited.

  Leading out from the stables, he nudged his horse and thought with satisfaction that if he never returned, the people would at last be confronted with the truth. It was religion that destroyed Israel, not Ahab.

  Obadiah

  Obadiah and Ahab parted, each hoping to find water. They would blow a shofar if they did and wait for a return signal. Then they could lead the other to the water, blowing the shofar at regular intervals to act as a guide. Obadiah suspected Ahab wanted to sulk in private. Ahab had been powerless too many times in his life to know how to deal with it. His father had ruined him for power.

  Obadiah saw a man walking toward him, his clothes fresh and clean, his face recently washed, as if such a thing were even possible. The man was whistling, his step light and easy, as if he was well fed and rested.

  Obadiah got off his horse and fell to his knees. “Is it really you—my master Elijah?”

  “Yes,” said Elijah. “Go and tell Ahab, ‘I’ve seen Elijah.’”

  Standing on the hot, blistered earth, dead vines tangling at his feet, Obadiah saw that Elijah looked well. He did not look like he had suffered in the drought or known a moment of want. And yet Obadiah had gone hungry and thirsty and had s
tolen from the palace treasuries to sustain those who belonged to the Lord. He had done bad things, for good reason, but the scrolls, the laws of Moses, did not address this. Obadiah assumed that the stain of guilt was thick upon him. He did not want to look at Elijah and did not want to bring word of his return to Ahab.

  “Hasn’t anyone told you what I have done, how Jezebel was out to kill the prophets of God, how I risked my life by hiding a hundred of them, fifty to a cave, and made sure they got food and water?” Obadiah said. “And you’re telling me to draw attention to myself by announcing to my master, ‘Elijah’s been found.’ Why, he’ll kill me for sure. I don’t want to risk my life again. Too many people depend on me.” Obadiah thought of Mirra, and then blushed, hoping Elijah could not read his thoughts. “The minute I leave you, won’t the Spirit of God whisk you away to who knows where? Then when I report to Ahab, you’ll have disappeared, and Ahab will kill me. And I’ve served God devoutly since I was a boy!” Obadiah stood, and his face felt red. He was yelling at Elijah.

  Elijah stood still, his smile twitching under his white beard. He reached out then and took Obadiah’s hand, patting it as he would a frightened child’s. Obadiah backed up. He did not want to do this. To put Elijah and Ahab together now was like setting fire to what little remained. “As surely as God-of-the-Angel-Armies lives,” Elijah said, “and before whom I take my stand, I’ll meet with your master face-to-face this very day.”

  Obadiah’s chest heaved as he felt the smooth, warm hand around his own. It was Elijah and not a mirage. Elijah had always had a strange gift of giving strength to the weak. Obadiah fell to his knees once more and kissed his feet. It was Elijah, who understood it all, even weakness.

  Obadiah blew the shofar.

  Ahab

  “So it’s you, old troublemaker,” Ahab said to Elijah and spit on the dusty road. Rocks framed the horizon, and Elijah seemed as one of them, native and unyielding. Ahab’s words felt like sand in his throat, scraping as they came out. Life had been a river flowing through his hands until Elijah had appeared long ago, and the kingdom slipped through his fingers. Now this disgrace stood in front of him.