Reign Read online

  She had no idea how beautiful he found her, with her long black hair, unbraided and loose tonight. Her mother was not here to force her to wear it up. She complained to the other girls when she thought no one listened, saying such long hair was heavy and the tight braids gave her headaches. He didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but a small traveling party meant he heard a good bit more than he ever had before. Women were full of complaints and completely blind to their own allure—Mirra especially, with her generous pink mouth that he always fantasized was bruised from his kisses. He dreamed of resting a finger against it, of knowing if it was as soft as he imagined.

  She turned to move deeper into the darkness. “I heard something.”

  The air whipping into the mouth of the cave turned cold. It lashed at his calves, picking up the edge of his robe. A great shadow must have passed across the sun at that moment, because the cave turned dark, darker than when they had entered. His flesh crawled for no reason he could explain.

  “We have to go back, Mirra. Right now.”

  She turned her head back to him, a sly grin on her face. “You know my name. Do you belong to my father?”

  Obadiah looked at the ground, embarrassed.

  Mirra shook her head and stepped away from him again, her foot landing on something that crunched and shifted under her weight. She bent to inspect the material, and Obadiah rushed forward, grabbing her arm. It was a strange instinct. She glared at him, at the insult of a servant’s touch.

  Obadiah dropped her arm and bent his head.

  The floor of the cave was covered in soft, chalky stones and twigs, thousands of little hollow pieces that snapped and disintegrated beneath their feet into fine dust. Obadiah tested his growing dread by taking a few more steps.

  Mirra bent down to pick one up and hold it to the light. Fear made his stomach tight and cold. He reached down too, to pick up a tiny flint no bigger than the tip of his finger. It split in two between his thumb and forefinger, a tiny bit of marrow smearing across his fingertip.

  “Birds?” she asked. She looked above her for signs of bats. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  His eyes grew wide as he picked up another one. It broke in half and fell. He scooped up a handful and held them to the light.

  “Oh, no,” he groaned.

  He held out one tiny speck about the size of a grain of rice. He had to be sure. Mirra squinted to see it.

  “Get out!” he commanded. His tone shocked him. He didn’t look at her to see what impact it had. Obadiah had read about this before, when disease had struck distant lands and the ground was too hard to dig a grave. That’s all this was, surely. He had even read how shrewd merchants scooped up the bones later, grinding them and using them to make the blackest ink. The best ink, and the irony was not lost on Obadiah, whose greatest treasures were his scrolls, written by those long dead. Writing was always tinged with death. He had read so much about death, but never held it.

  Obadiah pointed to the mouth of the cave. “Go! Join the others! Now!”

  With a huff of outrage, Mirra left. She had not seen the skulls near her feet.

  He waited until she was gone to let his knees crumple beneath him. He staggered, still holding the tiny prize. It was the bone of a newborn. Lightning exploded overhead, and in the sudden sharp illumination, Obadiah saw he was standing in a sea of infant bones, burnt and crumbling. A long brown serpent wound its way across the bones, its green eyes glittering.

  He could not run for the light, not until sufficient time had passed. He had to prevent the rumor that Mirra had been alone with a male servant. Instead, he stood still, his breath like thunder in his ears, suspicion destroying the weak hope he had held onto for this marriage. The scrolls he had read, the writings that Ahab had rejected in his haste for obedience to his father, had been right. Jezebel’s god ate children, hundreds at a time, newborn or youth, drained of blood or burned alive. Worshipping the goddess meant death. Entire generations died through goddess worship. The people called her Asherah, or queen of heaven. Elijah, the most revered holy man in all of Judah and Israel combined, had called her a serpent.

  Jezebel

  Jezebel ran the edge of the arrow along her arm. No blood sprang up, which was good. Archery was delicate work, requiring the right arrow and perfect aim. She had practiced for three summers to be able to shoot an arrow on her own. At fifteen, she was better than any man in her father’s guard. She was glad she would never need those men again.

  She walked along the top of the palace wall until she was at the corner, where she had a clear view of the ground below, and where no guards were posted. Her small, nimble feet moved slowly, and she eased each foot down so that she made no sound. Threading the arrow into its groove, she waited.

  The bird spotted her from the sky and cried out as it flew past.

  Jezebel let the arrow fly too, and the bird fell to the ground, hopping and chirping, one wing dragging through the dust.

  “Did you hit it?” her maid Lilith asked, hands over her face. Though required to attend to Jezebel, she would never be compelled to watch.

  Jezebel laughed and ran along the wall, down the stairs, and out to the bird, cradling it gently in her hands.

  “Sshh,” she whispered to it. She opened her thumbs just a bit to look at its head.

  Lilith followed, though she was slower and more careful. “It’s beautiful,” Lilith said.

  Jezebel shrugged and walked around the palace wall in the direction of the royal stables, to the first entrance far away from the other animals. This was a private room, where her father had his hunting trophies skinned and cleaned. A long, wide wooden box sat in the corner on the dusty floor. Jezebel unlocked a small square door on top and dropped the bird in.

  Lilith swallowed loudly, and Jezebel turned, giving her a withering look. A loud strike jerked the box, and Lilith screamed. Jezebel smirked at her maid’s weakness and lifted the lid a few inches to spy inside. She could see thick black coils and an orange head. The colored feathers splayed out from the edges of scaled lips. Death was fascinating.

  A conch shell’s mellow call broke the stillness in the room. The king’s scout signaled that the hunting party was assembling in the courtyard.

  Jezebel left the box, knowing she couldn’t do anything else until the next morning anyway. The courtyard in front of the palace was a wide circular area that allowed visitors to rest after climbing the steep hill. It wasn’t far from the stables, and the path she took was the best traveled in the whole palace complex. She could run here without shoes if she wanted. She had never really gotten used to wearing shoes and fine robes, but never again would she be without them. She had earned them all.

  Seconds later, Jezebel bowed before her father, Eth-baal, the king of Phoenicia, assembled with the elders and their useless sons. Her father’s appearance still surprised Jezebel. Maybe she still imagined him to be the father she once knew. Eth-baal’s long, coarse black hair had been cut off at the shoulders when he became king. He had gotten quite fat in the last three years too, and his black beard had white streaks in it. He wore a lot of jewelry now, and not just the amulet of Pazuza, that demon that rode the winds. Eth-baal also wore a gold collar from Egypt and wide ivory bracelets from the nations below there. He had a ruby ring, a gift from the Sumerians, and it rested like a heavy flower on his right hand.

  His voice hadn’t changed, though. He had once had to speak for the gods, and he was always too loud, demanding silence and attention. But his eyes had an emptiness, a fixed gaze as if he was watching for something, or someone, in the far distance. His thoughts were forever elsewhere. As was his heart. The elders liked that. They had what they wanted, Jezebel knew: a king they could manipulate. Yet today, when Eth-baal looked at her, he held her gaze, which he never did. He seemed to want to tell her something, but in front of the court, perhaps he couldn’t. Instead, he said that the hunt would be a g
ood way to pass the hours. Jezebel had wanted to ask more, but the elders were so restless today.

  Jezebel walked to the senior trade adviser, the elder Hetham, and he slipped her worn and fragrant leather vest over her shoulders. It had scratches from the struggles of dying animals and hung very loose, a fact that was not lost on Hetham’s son, who nudged a friend and smiled. They exchanged a coarse joke, she suspected, and Hetham’s son licked his lips.

  Though old enough to bleed with the moon, she was no taller at fifteen than she had been two years ago when she had first bled. She suspected years of neglect had robbed her of length of bone. She stretched her neck, trying to stand tall, and though she could not look the boys in the eyes, she hoped they saw her hand go to the knife tucked in her belt.

  Exhaling, she lifted her face to taste the wind and pointed the party to the southeast path into the forest. Lilith glanced at the safe palace above her and then back to them.

  Jezebel sighed and moved on without Lilith. Eth-baal followed first, and then the men. An elder’s son played a drum made of thick hide stretched across a hollow clay head. He played it softly in beats of three, short grunts that echoed into the woods ahead of them as daylight faded and they went into the world of beasts.

  As the hours passed, Jezebel led them deeper into the darkness, her skin tingling with the delight of a moon above and the treacherous, tangled path under her feet. Other sons kept close to their fathers. Jezebel was not so foolish. Men were useless. She loved proving that on these hunts.

  The wind carried a surprise, a hint of sweat and pack animals. A traveling party was nearby. Her father had not mentioned that visitors were due, but when she glanced back at the men, they did not seem to notice what she had. The travelers hidden in the forest could be scouts from an enemy in the east. If Jezebel found them, if she protected the kingdom, perhaps then her claim to the throne would be secure. She had earned it a hundred times over already, but maybe this would leave no doubt, even for the most stubborn among them.

  She heard a lion’s roar as she split from the party and went to investigate. If they were merely traders who brought goods, they would be in danger from the animal. They would be grateful for her protection. Many men did not even know when they were being hunted. When men slept under the moon, in her territories, they slept hard; the land was bewitching. And if she wanted, she could kill them, for any reason at all, and the earth would keep her secrets.

  The earth always kept her secrets, every last one.

  Ahab

  The hair on Ahab’s neck raised, and he held up a hand to the men following behind him, who all drew their horses to a quick stop. Birds called above them, and monkeys fled from lower branches to the higher perches. A few threw fruit at the men. Ahab heard a lion growl, but it was moving away from them. Something was hunting it.

  Ahab stood very still as leaves rustled in the wind, disguising the sounds of the predator that dared to hunt a lion.

  He saw a girl moving through the trees, her bow drawn tight against the gutstring, no more than thirty yards from him. She lifted her head to draw the scent from the wind before she let the arrow fly. With a glance in his direction, her eyes met his, and his heart stopped. It was more than her beauty; he had never seen a girl handle a bow and arrow like a man. He had to know if she’d won the lion. How would she drag it home? What would she do with it?

  He jumped from his horse and ran after her. The forest was nothing like his arid home, and he tripped and fell as vines caught his ankles and branches slapped his face. Panting, he leaned against a tree. It was no use, and he knew he had no business trying to follow a girl anyway. He staggered back to his men, torn and bleeding.

  That night he slept close to the fire, and the forest fog stole around the men as they made camp, blanketing them in the way of the wild, that bitter mother. Darkness was alive here. Eyes blinked from behind the trees. Throats opened and sang. Footsteps broke through vines and dead wood as the creatures drew closer to smell the people and horses. The horses snorted and circled.

  Ahab would miss the sounds of the night. Tomorrow night he would be locked away inside a palace to sleep, unable to hear any noises except those from servants. He would be saddled with a princess. She would be a girl accustomed to fine foods, gentle games, and fawning attendants. She would see life the way a prized house pet did, measuring the quality of her life by its ticklish pleasures. If she had ever been allowed to stand alone under the light of the stars, or run, or scratch her knee upon a rock, it would be a shock to him. He watched as shadows shifted at the edge of the camp. A cloud had passed over the moon. He shook his head, wondering if his reign was already spoiled.

  A thick brew was passed around, an elixir they called saddle cure because of its powerful magic, putting a trail-weary explorer to sleep in minutes and soothing sore muscles. The next morning they would feel worse for drinking it, but no man in the wild thought of tomorrow. The animals moving through the underbrush nearby reminded them there might be no need.

  So Ahab drew nearest to the fire and let the other men take the outer edges of camp to sleep. He felt a few sparks land too near and brushed them away. He would rather suffer a small singe than a bigger bite. So it was with this expedition. A princess would be given as a covenant between kingdoms. Trade routes would open, a strong defense made against the brutal Assyrians, so restless along the border of his country. The children the princess brought forth would be political collateral.

  Ahab spit into the fire, thinking of her, this bride of burden. He sighed and turned over, letting out an exhausted laugh at the thought that a lasting reign would depend on him procreating. After swinging a sword for so many years, this was how he would serve the nation? Israel had begun by brothers taking each other’s lives. How odd that it would all lead to a marriage. And odder still was the fact that the Hebrew prophet Elijah had warned that this marriage was evil. Why would Elijah have preferred brothers spilling blood to a marriage?

  Hadn’t Israel seen enough bloodshed already? Obadiah had told him all the stories. Long ago, King Solomon, the wisest king of Israel, the brightest star, beloved son of David, had died, leaving his son in power. Rehoboam had been that common, terrible brew of stupidity and violence Ahab had seen many times on the battlefield. It was a fatal alchemy. The northern tribes tore away, declaring themselves to be a sovereign nation, Israel. The southern tribes became Judah and clung to the comfort that they alone controlled the temple, the seat of the one they called Yahweh, the Lord, the god of all twelve tribes. If they did not have the allegiance of brothers, or a good king, they at least had that. They had their god.

  Now, to build Israel into a true, independent nation, Ahab, the son of a foreign mercenary with not a drop of Hebrew blood in his veins, had to marry a foreign princess. Together they would rule the Israelites. How strange it all was to him. Stranger still that Elijah did not care about his murderous bloodline, only about his heart. If the people’s faith had not been enough to keep the tribes together, why did it matter to Elijah that Ahab had no gods?

  It was deep into night, as he was dreaming of war and sorrows, when the sparks singed him along his arms. The first one was so slight that Ahab only acknowledged it in his mind and slipped back to sleep. The heat from the fire had kept the night bugs away but made him too warm to sleep in his clothes, so he bundled them up and used them as a pillow, laying his belt next to them. Inside was a bag with earrings and a bracelet for his intended bride. It had been nothing but an annoyance on the trip, reminding him that he would return with a much heavier weight to drag through his life.

  He slept naked, glad to have at least that little freedom, covering only his groin and thighs with the blanket. Sparks spitted and poked into his exposed skin along the thick part of his arms and chest. Finally he sat up in disgust, resigned to move away from the fire.

  The fire was only glowing embers. There were no sparks.

  He
heard a soft laugh catch in someone’s throat, and he reached for his sword. A hand shot from the darkness and caught his. The creature, on all fours, edged closer and smiled. Ahab froze. It was the girl from the forest, her eyes reflecting the embers. Her lips were dark and sharply edged, though full through the middle. The moonlight made her pale olive skin shine like polished marble, and her hair was hanging loose around her shoulders, brushing against his arm. It had the soft touch of silk. Releasing his hand, she dropped the arrow she had used to rouse him and crawled closer so that her knees were against his hip.

  Her long fingers moved across his face, and she closed her eyes when she touched his mouth. She breathed deeply, then looked at him. Taking a knife from her side she held it to his face. He did not flinch. No man in the camp made any sound beyond snoring and turning. Grinning at him, she used the knife to lift the bag of jewels from his belt lying beside him, then sliced it free. He let her take the bag because he wanted something too.

  Lifting himself at the waist, he took hold of her at the shoulders and pulled that mouth to his. He kissed her and didn’t let go, even when she resisted. Even as he felt her fingernails dig into his back.

  Ahab heard Obadiah begin to stir, not three paces from them. The woman sensed his brief inattention and slipped from his grasp. Standing over him, she spit on him and ran into the night with the bag.

  He remembered a dream he had once, when he had been a boy, of falling. In this dream, he fell from a very safe place into a deep, cold well where no one could hear him. He remembered how every revolution, every stone that passed by as he fell into the darkness marked the descent. When he awoke the next morning, he saw he had only fallen from the bed as he slept, but he cried anyway. He had wiped his tears with vigor so that his servants would have nothing to report to Omri at breakfast.