Reign Page 6

  The problem was that she had no desire to be touched by him or anyone else. Though he clearly desired her—he nearly panted in her presence, and she remembered his desperate kiss in the woods, before she’d known that the anonymous traveler would soon become her husband—he only saw a painted exterior, her fine robes, and he smelled only her perfume. He had no idea what hid beneath. He did not see her as she was: a dismissed and nearly feral daughter, eating from the trash, sitting among broken clay children, a girl who had submitted to the gods and men and died in her heart each time. But real death, the kind that would end her suffering, did not want her, she sensed. Even death preferred her sister. Temereh had always been so blessed. Temereh would have known what to do with a confused prince. Temereh would have never been in this litter, though. Their father would have never given her away. Temereh would have inherited the throne.

  The animals in the caravan were the first to register the presence of strangers. The dogs following the caravan barked furiously, and Jezebel lifted the veil of her litter. Strange men stared from the crest of a hill as Jezebel’s caravan approached the city. They wore animal skins around their waists but no robes. They intrigued her, but she was not frightened, not with the army in front and in back drawing up tighter as they approached Samaria. The priests of the goddess Asherah were the next to see them, staring at them from behind the veils with fear and hatred.

  Jezebel could see Ahab struggling to keep his horse moving. He yelled to the captains with him to force everyone on.

  “It is just a band of prophets,” he called back. There were confused comments among the priests. In Phoenicia, only priests spoke to gods. The priests were under the king’s authority and lived by his grace in the royal complex. There was no role of prophet, and certainly not a prophet who wandered.

  The sun had moved behind the clouds as Jezebel’s caravan arrived in Samaria. Children ran alongside her litter, cheering her arrival, throwing dates and little charms tied with up string into her lap. Young men gathered in groups all along the way, eyeing her with appreciation and curiosity. She did not know how to respond. In Phoenicia, the sons of the elders were the only young men she had contact with, and they regarded her as an unworthy rival. They remembered who she had once been. But these men were glad to see her and approved of her. Lilith seemed as surprised as Jezebel and hid behind her. Mirra sat up eagerly, probably anxious for her peers to see her riding into the city with the princess. Jezebel knew Mirra was as much a fool as Ahab. Israel might be an entire nation of fools.

  Jezebel studied the women carefully whenever one approached. Dirty, in ragged robes of no distinct fashion, faces lined by hard years in the sun and with no hint of cosmetics. Everywhere she saw their hands lifted to beg her blessing, hands that were calloused and layered in dust. Her stomach flipped from the shock of seeing all of them so eager and adoring. She had done nothing to earn their love. They didn’t even know her. She wished someone would make them stop. Her hands began shaking then, and a punch of adrenaline struck her abdomen. She didn’t deserve this. She couldn’t even make a noise that expressed the grief their adoration gave her. She sat, frozen in pain, as they cheered and called her name.

  Ahab walked ahead of Jezebel into the city on foot, shaking hands and accepting congratulations, but it made her own progress slow. She cursed him. She wanted to get inside the palace, not loiter in these city streets as women held infants up for a royal blessing. Jezebel panicked. They were mocking her. She held out her hands to refuse to bless the infants, to motion the mothers back, yet the mothers just rushed closer still. Her face grew hot. She did not want to see all these newborns, their eyes wide with innocence, their tiny pink mouths making sweet sounds.

  Little black bugs swirled in her vision, but no one else seemed to see them. Jezebel tried to swat at them, looking helplessly at Lilith for help. Then Jezebel realized she was about to faint.

  A blast from the shofar made her jump, startling her back to consciousness. A man in fine robes approached, and the crowd parted. He bowed before Ahab and called for attention.

  “A song for the new princess!”

  The crowd roared. She was the first royalty ever brought into Samaria, and the first royal blood to extend the line of Omri. They had no idea of the bitterness in her blood, she thought. No idea how much blood was in her memories.

  The man cued a group of musicians that had assembled in the crowd: lyre, harp, and flute players. “To the tune of Lilies,” he called, and they began. He sang loud and clear, a fine deep voice that pleased Jezebel, though she hated the words.

  “The people of Israel are like a river

  Bursting its banks with joy

  We will celebrate with a poem to the prince.

  You, Ahab, are the most excellent of men.

  Your lips, anointed with grace.

  Gird your sword on your side, mighty prince,

  Clothe yourself with splendor and majesty!

  May your arrows pierce the hearts of the king’s enemies,

  May all nations fall beneath your feet.

  All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia

  Brought from that fine palace adorned in ivory

  And at your right hand is the royal bride in gold from Phoenicia.

  All glorious is she, her gowns woven from gold.

  Listen, my princess: forget your father and your father’s house.

  The prince is enthralled by your beauty

  Honor him, for he is now your lord.

  May your sons take the place of your fathers,

  May the nations praise you forever and ever!”

  The crowd applauded, and Jezebel knew it was finally over. She had distracted herself to keep from fainting by studying the city behind the singer. The first outrage was that the wall that should mark its boundaries and give it protection was still under construction. Workers in tattered robes and frayed head scarves had thrown down their shovels to approach Ahab, and she was able to see the dusty trench they had been working on. The wall might take another year or more to complete.

  Jezebel searched the horizon for Omri’s flag. His colors would fly above the palace, and by this she would know which building was her new home. She had never seen any palace except her own.

  A white-haired man grinned broadly at her. He had been drinking from an old brown bowl filled with frothy milk, the white mess dripping from his beard as he grinned without teeth. Cows and goats moved between the people, wandering into tents and being shooed back out. All the revulsions of her early years flooded back up. This was a nation of feral people. There were no homes, Jezebel realized. No one had boundaries or barriers. Yet there was no tension in the air, just laughter and children who burst into song for her attention.

  Just after they passed the trench being dug for the foundation of the wall, there were rows of shields and armor on display on either side of the street. Further down there were tents everywhere, and fire pits dug at random, some with animals roasting on spits, some filled with gray ash.

  As the litter crept forward, she saw what had to be homes, little squares made of stone and lumber, with two windows that faced the street, one on either side of an open doorway. These must belong to the elders. Samaria was a new city, Omri had told her that. A city still being built, a new center of power in this region. She had never realized all power was born dirty. The thought was a sudden comfort to her. Maybe that was why Asherah had never saved her. She was born for power, dirty.

  At the edge of these homes, the common people stopped following her. Boundaries did exist, she realized, even if invisible.

  Ahab extended his hand. She stepped down from the litter without accepting it and began moving through the remaining crowd, which consisted of older elders and their servants, those not able to make the trip north to fetch her. Searching again for Omri’s colors, she saw them at last and pressed her lips
together to keep from crying. The palace was plain stone, undecorated, not a bit of color, but just one square stone on top of another. She straightened her posture in resolve. It didn’t matter as long as she could curl up on a bed, alone.

  The foundation had been laid at the highest point on the hill that was Samaria. The dirty city stretched beneath it and behind it; Jezebel assumed the view was what Omri had called unusable land. The foundation itself was just a plain stone platform about twenty feet high, and cut into the face of the platform were two empty tombs. They looked like missing teeth against the expanse of white stones all around. One was marked for Omri and another for Ahab. That was odd. Her people only planned for their lives, not for their deaths.

  The walls of the palace were as dreary as its foundation, just plain stone, with empty, dark windows, and an open rectangle for the entrance. Several sheep lounged beneath the palace, enjoying the cool shadows cast by the wall. One looked at her and bleated.

  “It is not Phoenicia, is it?” Ahab slid his arm around her waist as he stood behind her, whispering. He was big; perhaps this gesture intimidated women. It only infuriated Jezebel. Her head was filled with thoughts that screamed for expression, but she shut them up and refused to speak. Every interaction with him was a fresh nightmare.

  “This is not your homeland, Jezebel,” Ahab said again. “Right now, that seems like a terrible fact. But if you dwell on it longer, you will begin to see it as a promise.” He pulled away, giving her a small formal nod, and left to go present himself to Omri.

  She was led to her quarters by a man of slight build, about the same age as Ahab. He was the only one who seemed frightened of her, suspicious.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  He bowed his head. “Obadiah. Palace administrator. Ahab asked me to see to it you had the best room for tonight.”

  With that, he left her. She entered a quiet chamber prepared for her with a bed, a low table, and a bowl of wine should she become thirsty.

  Jezebel removed her sandals and lay down on the bed and cried until she slept.

  Ahab

  The wind was relentless, whistling through the dusty city below. Ahab listened to its hiss and moan as he climbed the stairs to the royal sleeping quarters for the second night since they’d arrived home in Samaria. He had given Jezebel peace last night as a courtesy. She had needed to sleep after the journey, after being introduced to Israel. She was so young, physically, two years younger than himself. Yet her eyes had shadows he could not explain. A darkness hid in her spirit. Still, Obadiah was wrong, at least about her; whatever darkness was there, it had nothing to do with death. The horror that lived in the human heart was surely not in hers. Not at her age, and not after living in Phoenicia’s royal palace.

  Ahab had seen new lands only when his father had been hired to kill someone in one of them. He had grown up viewing the world through the eyes of a murderer. To Omri, glory and money were always one city away. One more kill, Omri promised him each time they set out, one more death groan, and it would be over. Yet his father was never satisfied, and Ahab thought he understood why. His father wanted to die too. Every time he swung that blade it was a prayer for an enemy that was stronger. But Ahab didn’t want to die, not until he had made his own name, in his own way. Omri didn’t understand there could be any other way besides the sword.

  He couldn’t give Jezebel one more night. She shouldn’t ask. She belonged to him from the moment their fathers poured melted fat on the leather scroll and embedded their seals in the shimmering warm pool. If he allowed her to resist him any longer, it would be like stealing from him. That was what he told himself as he climbed the last three stone steps and entered the hallway lit by flames. The arch of the doorway cast shadows on the faces of two guards, so that all he could plainly see by the torchlight was the shine from the swords at their sides. He saw the blades and the door and took a deep breath to shake off his nerves.

  As he entered, he saw her reclining on the bed. A single oil lamp burned on her bedside table, though the moon was bright enough to light the chamber without it. She was alone, a hollow expression on her face. Her long black hair was loosely coiled and held in place by a wide ivory comb that glinted in the soft lamplight. She was staring at the blank limestone wall.

  She turned to him, and he saw a look he had already come to know so well. She was in despair.

  “Tomorrow we will go out riding. I will show you the city,” he said, hoping to console her.

  She shrugged. “I can see it from the window.”

  “You have not seen it through my eyes,” he said.

  When she said nothing, he floundered. He was at a loss, being born and bred in the military.

  He cleared his throat and used his most commanding tone. “I gave you the first night here to yourself to recover from the journey. Tonight you will sleep in my chambers. In my bed.” She made no visible or audible response, so he added, “As my wife.”

  “We can do that now if you like,” she said, rising with a sigh.

  He took a step backward. He had not expected that. A willing woman was a ready woman, that’s what the soldiers always said, but she didn’t seem to know that saying. She wasn’t willing, even if she was ready.

  But if he did nothing, and she told anyone, even the girl who threw herbs into her toilet every morning, he would lose respect. Or worse. A man suspected of preferring men often died of mysterious causes in his sleep, the only mystery being that no one ever confessed to slitting his throat. Ahab had seen that twice in his years of battle.

  So he crossed the room and, with a deep breath, put his hand around her waist and pulled her to him. He kissed her on the mouth. She did not part her lips, nor did she close her eyes. He kissed her again, slowly this time, showing her that he was no threat, and still she remained frozen in his arms.

  He stopped and pushed her back, frowning, trying to read her blank face.

  “You do not want sex?” she asked. She tilted her head, as if perplexed by his odd behavior.

  “I want you,” he said, the honesty of his words surprising him. “There is a difference.” It was a truth he had never known, and yet speaking it made it real.

  A light flashed in her eyes. She was alive in there, indeed. “You don’t know me,” she said. “I understand what I owe you, and I will give it to you. You don’t have to lie to get what you want.”

  It was the most personal thing she had said to him yet. He held his tongue, shocked.

  “I didn’t want the marriage,” she added. “I was forced to accept it.”

  He laughed, startling her. “I didn’t want the marriage either. It was my father’s decision. If I had thought I could change his mind, I would have fought a hundred men to get out of it.”

  She looked away from him, color coming up in her cheeks. No tears ran down her face, so he did not think she was wounded by his admission.

  “And then I saw you,” he added. Reaching out, he pulled the ivory comb from her hair, and it fell in a black cascade around her shoulders. He saw his hand tremble as he did it. It didn’t bother him now. She needed to see him weak. She wouldn’t trust him until she did.

  He undressed himself and sat on her bed. She watched him but did not move toward him, and once again he could not read her expression.

  “I thought you wanted me to come to your chambers,” she said.

  “If I leave, even for a moment, you’ll go back to your thinking before I see you again. You’ll dwell on everything you’ve lost.”

  “And if you stay?” she asked, taking a step toward him, not out of desire, he thought, but out of curiosity.

  “We can form an alliance against our fathers, in our own way.”

  Jezebel

  The sun had been climbing in the sky for nearly five hours before Ahab left the next morning, sated and quiet. He did not seem to notice how Jezebel’s hands
shook as he kissed them before leaving. Her thoughts were like a thousand sharp needles scattered across her mind. Nowhere could she find comfort from what had happened.

  There had been no blood. She was so used to blood when men touched her. But Ahab hadn’t hurt her. He had seemed concerned with her, how she felt, how she received his tenderness. She felt like an ant caught in a jar. She had no escape from his attention. She had been too afraid to close her eyes. But he had closed his, in pleasure, and not just his own pleasure, but the pleasure of being with her. He took pleasure with her. Other men had taken pleasure from her.

  Anger rose up from her heart into her mouth. She spit his taste from her tongue onto the soiled linens. She needed to act like a princess, a real one, not one that had slept near open sewers and watched infants slaughtered so their mothers could go on giving themselves away.

  Last night had been horrible, an intimacy so terrible it pierced her soul. She stood now, ripping the linens from the bed, throwing them to the floor, disgusted and afraid of what they now represented.

  That had been easy, those nameless offerings. Women never named the infants they planned to give to the goddess. They weren’t meant to be known. Some things are not meant to be known, she thought. After the offerings, no one ever stayed. Mothers fled so they would not see the bodies burn. Men who worshipped through sex fled so they would not have to truly see the women they had lain with.

  Ahab had not run away. He’d stayed for hours, stroking her hair. There was no shame in his eyes of what he had done to her, touching her like she was of value, instead of the rejected, despised thing she was. Marriage was worse than she imagined. Intimacy was a cruel new world. It seemed to make all her wounds and her confusion brighter, like air to a flame.