Reign Page 23

  Ahab stood.

  “Jehoshaphat and I have work to do,” he said. With that, the men left.

  Jezebel had the throne room to herself. She liked that. She stood, breathing deeply, whispering the name of the goddess. What a long road it had been, but at last the end was in sight.

  Jehoshaphat’s royal court entered the following night, and Ahab’s followed, including Amon and her two sons. Athaliah was not present. Had she gone to Judah already? There had been more Jezebel wanted to teach her. But the boys looked well and strong, though she could not get the older one to converse with her. Little Joram was pudgy and never smiled. She thought he would make a good king.

  They had been seated for an hour, waiting for the king to arrive, when Jezebel called for Obadiah.

  “Have the kings not returned from the city gates?” she asked.

  “They did,” he responded. “They went directly to the administration rooms to prepare for battle.”

  “Without dinner?” It was a breach in protocol, an indignity for those who had gathered. Israel was under no threat.

  Jezebel stood and lifted her goblet. “As you may know, the great kings Jehoshaphat and Ahab have assembled to discuss a plan that would benefit both empires. Though the tribes are no longer united by one king, or one god, they can be united through prosperity. Forgive my husband, your host, for not joining you tonight, as you celebrate the future.”

  At this, Jezebel left the banquet, leading the guards who trotted behind. Security was tighter when they had so many foreigners in the palace, but she did not wait for the guards to lead. She knew where she was going. She knew what she would find.

  Obadiah had said that Jehoshaphat and Ahab were in the administration rooms. Making plans to march out on the unsuspecting Ben-hadad.

  Jehoshaphat looked up, his eyebrows raised as he saw her, dread evident on his face. Ahab glanced up, and his scowl deepened.

  “Go over the numbers again,” he commanded. Jehoshaphat obeyed, being the lesser king with lesser treasuries.

  “May I speak to my husband alone?” she asked Jehoshaphat. He nodded so quickly, she knew he was grateful to leave. Perhaps he could think more clearly without Ahab.

  “I don’t want you here,” Ahab said. He looked at her, and she saw the familiar weak and hunted man.

  “You’re leaving soon?” she asked.

  “Within the week. Three days, if I can push Jehoshaphat.”

  She nodded and took a stool next to the table, glancing over the scrolls. Everything looked in order. He was counting men and supplies and projecting what would be waiting for him in Ramoth-Gilead.

  “There’s been no news,” she said. No news from Ben-hadad, no news from Ramoth-Gilead, no reason to push this war so fast. He had no plan except to attack. Something was driving him.

  He grabbed her by the arms, lifting her from the stool, bringing her to his face. Her stomach clenched; she thought he would kiss her, but he turned her toward the door and set her firmly on her feet, pushing her in that direction.

  “Get out!” he said.

  Jezebel dug her feet in their sandals for a firmer grip, turning, refusing to leave. A nightmare began to unfold in her mind. “Was it Elijah? Have you seen him?”

  “This is what I should have done years ago,” he said.

  Hairs rose along her arms as he grabbed the sword of Moses and pointed it at her heart. Hatred kindled in his eyes.

  “I should have never allowed the worship of Baal and Asherah. Your priests sacrificed children and practiced abominations. But my crime was the worst.”

  She took a step toward Ahab, her hands raised and fingers spread, as if she were going to leap like an animal. The tip of the sword rested against her heart. She willed him to dare it, but he did not. “You are a great deceiver, luring your people away from their god. I never strayed from my gods! I served them, and I served you, and I served the nation of Israel!”

  He swung the sword with a scream, driving the blade into the doorpost. The blade reverberated, its hollow beating filling the stunned silence.

  Ahab shook his head, madness making his eyes wide and dark, empty expanses of pain she could not name.

  “I loved you,” Ahab said, his voice flat. “God forgive me for that.”

  Obadiah

  Obadiah recorded all the preparations for this surprise attack, his tears mixing with the ink as he wrote. A new asu, another import from Tyre, offered him a sedative after hearing his sobs from the dining hall as Jezebel hosted her growing cadre of new priests and workers.

  His tears fell, and his shoulders shook as he worked, having refused the drink. Grief over the sins of others was his price to pay for having spoken truth. Maybe grief and power and truth always traveled together. In time, maybe, he would learn about this. Maybe that was why Ahab had failed as a king, because his heart had never grieved over anything but his own childhood losses.

  Maybe that was why Ahab did not listen when told the truth. The prophet that had been here spoke it, Obadiah was sure. Truth had a certain sound to it.

  Despite this, Ahab had marched out three days later for Ramoth-Gilead, as he had intended. He refused to let Obadiah join him, and Obadiah paced like a frantic dog as Ahab and Jehoshaphat led the men down the main street of Samaria, to the shouts of the troops waiting on the edges of the city.

  “Nothing good will come from this,” he cried, though no one heard him. “You heard what the prophet said!” No one listened, though it galled him. That, too, he knew, was the price of truth.

  Jezebel

  Two more weeks passed, and Jezebel sat, perched and tense, in the throne overlaid with ivory designs of bulls and lions, all fallen in battle, mouths open, tongues loose, with wide, vacant eyes. She had picked the design herself and should have been pleased to sit in a queen’s throne at last. Instead, she felt nothing, a vast emptiness that had eaten its way through her life.

  Obadiah was announced and approached, his eyes glancing back at the doors. His steps echoed across the empty hall; how lonely it seemed. Just weeks ago, this place had been the center of two empires, with soldiers staging fistfights in the streets for amusement, and songs sung late into the evening. The emptiness had taken Samaria, too.

  “Ahab was angry with me before he left,” she said.

  Obadiah exhaled, but his eyes did not glance away.

  She paused, considering that Obadiah was still a threat. He was such an enigma. All of Israel was.

  “Ahab left for war without conducting an official ceremony,” Jezebel said. “He did not ask a blessing of his god. He acted like a man running away in the cover of night, but he is a king going to war. Why is that? What happened to the man I once knew?”

  “How would I know what is in his heart?”

  Obadiah was hiding something. That was plain by the way his neck stiffened slightly before he replied. Yet he was not afraid, not of her, for he kept his gaze so steady. Could it be that he was afraid for her? This little man of words and papers, afraid he might hurt the queen mother?

  “Speak, Obadiah. Do not spare me,” she said flatly. She was too tired to take offense.

  Obadiah complied, but he lowered his voice, and the servants in the room were prevented from hearing. “The kings decided to go to war for Ramoth-Gilead, and then Jehoshaphat asked for the prophets of the Lord to be called. He wanted to inquire of the Lord whether this decision was of Him.”

  “Was Elijah there?” Jezebel asked. Who else could have stirred Ahab so violently? Who else would Ahab run from?

  “No. Your four new prophets spoke for your own gods. They were joined by a madman from the village, who wore horns on his head and danced for the king.”

  “Ahab called for my prophets?” Jezebel could not hide her surprise.

  “Yes. And they prophesied victory. But Jehoshaphat was not pleased with Ahab, that Aha
b had consulted those who speak for Asherah. Jehoshaphat wanted to hear from a prophet of Yahweh.”

  “And did he find one?” she asked. A cold impulse drove her to lean forward on her throne. “You know that I killed them. Your scrolls were a great help in knowing how many there were, and where.”

  His face remained like stone, unreadable, her words having no affect, like little sticks that fell after striking a bronze shield. She sat back and turned in her seat, watching him from the corner of her eye.

  “One prophet remains in Samaria, his name being Micaiah,” Obadiah said.

  “Micaiah had a vision of God sitting on his throne, with all the armies of the Lord attending. God asked his court, ‘Who will go to Ahab and convince him to attack Ramoth-Gilead, so that he will die?’ Many offered to incite Ahab to go to his death, but one spirit moved forward from among them to stand before the Lord.

  “‘I will persuade the man,’ the spirit said.

  “‘How will you do this?’ the Lord asked. All of the court fell silent, for the spirit was the oldest among them, and the cruelest, and his name was Legion.

  “‘I will deceive them all. I will lie to those seekers, the prophets, and they will lie to that man, the king. I possess no greater weapon than a lie that man desperately wants to hear.’

  “And so the spirit came to earth and deceived the prophets of Asherah, who deceived the king. Only Micaiah spoke the truth.”

  “And what was this truth that Micaiah spoke?” Jezebel asked.

  “Ahab will die in Ramoth-Gilead.”

  Jezebel rose from the throne. “Liar!” Guards ran from the corners of the room as she lunged from her perch and grabbed Obadiah by the front of his robes. “You don’t know what the truth is!”

  The guards dragged Obadiah from her presence as she trembled and fought for breath, frothing spit collecting at the corners of her mouth. She heard thunder, the low roar of that distant god Yahweh. He was here in Samaria, still. He was in the throne room with her; she could feel his presence as the air grew thick with the tang of lightning and smoke. She turned to face the throne, a hair’s width at a time, holding her breath, icy cold in her lungs. Though she saw nothing, he was there. He sat on the throne of Israel. A force she could not describe drove her to her knees and forced her face against the stone floor as she screamed profanities.

  After the second watch of the night, when she still had not moved, the guards called for Lilith. No one had dared enter the room. The Presence did not dissipate until the third watch of the night.

  Lilith ran across the floor, her feet softly, quickly padding. They sounded like camel’s feet, Jezebel thought, her mind distant, thinking of turquoise oceans that had no end, a land where she had dreamed of growing up and wearing the crown. She wished to throw her crown into the turquoise waters and watch it sink into eternal darkness. But the Lord had shown her she had indeed earned her crown and would wear it forever in a land where water burned and the dead chewed and crowns were crushing vises.

  23

  Ahab

  The first night they made camp, Ahab sat close to the fire, away from the company of Jehoshaphat. The sounds of men preparing for battle stayed the night with him; more troops would meet them in the morning as they rode; still more troops had arrived from Egypt. He missed Obadiah. What had he done to drive his friend away? Or was it that he had not done something? It all seemed so long ago.

  “Does my king care to walk away from camp and witness the night sky?” a servant asked as he stirred the chickpeas over the fire. He threw in a handful of salt, then removed the cooking bowl and set it aside. He stood and offered Ahab his hand. He was a boy of about twelve, a little thick in the belly, with brown hair and wide green eyes. He still had the cheeks of a child, soft and full, and he was calm. This was not his first battle, Ahab could tell.

  “Your father?” Ahab asked.

  “With your horses,” the boy replied.

  Ahab stood and the boy led the way, tapping ahead of them with his staff, scaring the venomous things back into their holes at the noise. A stag stood in their path and watched them with mild interest. He did not run as they grew closer, but walked deliberately into the brush.

  The boy smiled and continued picking his way to a spot elevated above them. He swept the spot bare of sharp stones and gestured for Ahab to sit. The night stars spread out before them.

  “All the Lord’s children,” the boy whispered, pointing to the thousands of lights.

  Ahab smiled. “You know of Abraham.”

  The boy shrugged. “I love the stories.”

  “Obadiah chose you to accompany me, didn’t he?” Ahab asked.

  The boy nodded and looked at the stars. “Obadiah loves the stories, but I think he loves you, too.”

  Ahab smiled and drew in the sand with the edge of a stick. What could he say to a child of twelve? Could he explain how a kingdom was lost?

  Ahab smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Tell Obadiah I wish I had loved the stories too.”

  Jezebel

  Ahab’s chariot, bearing his colors, returned on a morning a week later when white mist shrouded the fertile green fields, revealing the dusty road to be a scrape against bare pale flesh. The wheels churned and the mist swirled and the guards posted on the towers cried out in joy. Drummers, beating animal skins stretched across wooden casks, began sounding out a slow, soft heartbeat.

  “The king returns!” Trumpets were blown, and Samaria exploded into activity.

  Jezebel was dressed for the day, reviewing the scrolls with the palace’s accounts. Hearing the trumpets, her heart leaped. Ahab had returned! He was alive, and the prophet of Yahweh proved a liar. She didn’t bother rolling the scrolls, but ran from the room, eager to be first on the steps to greet the king. Lilith could not keep up.

  “Get my sons. Have them join me on the palace steps,” Jezebel called back to her.

  Jezebel was in place within moments as elders poured from their houses and travelers moved their animals off the street to make room for the procession. She stood tall, her face lifted to the bright sun. It had eaten up every cloud in sight.

  As the chariot passed through the city gates, a great cheer went up. Women lifted their hands and danced, and the elders shouted and nodded to one another, as if they had all been sure. As if they did not know what that prophet had said.

  A strange murmur followed the chariot. The crowds closed in around it, eager to touch Ahab and praise his victory, but as soon as they stepped toward it, they fell back, like ones struck by an arrow. Women grabbed their children and forcibly turned them away, hiding them in their robes, their faces crinkling in fear.

  Ahaziah and Joram joined Jezebel at that moment with their nursemaids, but she did not stop to greet them. Jezebel began pushing her way through the elders and servants and those assembled from the royal court. Ahaziah tried to follow.

  Jezebel pushed against men who were dumbfounded and still, and against women who grabbed her and begged her not to look. She fought her way through the herd of confused, troubled Samarians, her sons on her heels, until she got to the chariot. It had come to a stop beside a pool used in the city at the lower end, for washing and dirty chores.

  The driver looked away when he saw Jezebel approach.

  Her steps slowed, as did her mind. She saw her feet as they lifted from the dirt and arced through the air, landing again, a little puff of dirt repulsed by each step. Jezebel looked at the chariot, with its wooden slats tucked tightly side by side. Dark red was smeared across the side. A hand print, clear and strong, that descended into a smear down to the bottom. Someone had been bleeding when they reached for the king’s chariot. She stepped again until she was at the rear of the chariot, her eyes seeing it all at once. Her mind took in only small details: the way the boys screamed behind her, the green color of Ahab’s face, the way the dried blood on his rob
es had cracked and crusted and the insects crawled around the wounds. His eyes remained open but were flat in their sockets and covered by a film, as if his corpse were watching Israel from a distant place.

  He was dead.

  Jezebel sank to the ground. She was free of him, she knew, but this freedom hurt. There was no pleasure in it. She looked at him again and realized he had never been the source of her pain. How could that be, that men had caused her to suffer, yet when she was free of them, the suffering remained? What mystery was this?

  She stood and kissed him on the mouth, wondering if he could still feel it, if his spirit hovered near. As she raised back up, Ahaziah cried loudly. She tasted Ahab’s blood on her lips.

  Obadiah fell to his knees, weeping. He was on the other side of the chariot, closer to Ahab’s body. He was always closer, she thought. She heard his wail change into a chanted word. “No,” he wept over and again. “No.”

  “Your god was right,” Jezebel said to Obadiah. He stopped his moans and looked at her, like he was seeing a stranger for the first time.

  “Your god was right,” Jezebel said. “Be happy.”

  Obadiah gathered his strength and faced the body. He placed his hands under Ahab’s legs and torso and lifted the king from his chariot. Obadiah carried the fallen king through the streets of Samaria, refusing to let anyone touch him or help. Jezebel followed behind. Obadiah carried Ahab up the steps of the palace, the palace that Jezebel had brought to life. The ivory and gold winked at her as it swallowed Ahab inside.

  Behind her, a woman whispered, “Which is to be the king?”

  Jezebel realized she was speaking of Ahab’s sons.

  “Your king is Ahab!” Jezebel shouted, turning to the crowd, searching for the woman who dared say such a stupid thing. “Have you already forgotten that? Ahab is your king! And you never loved him! None of you!”

  Jezebel gritted her teeth until she could not breathe. She steadied herself before walking on, but as she did, something began to form in her mind, like a child struggling to create his letters. She waited as the words assembled.