Daughter of Jerusalem (4 page)

I almost laughed. I would have if he weren’t so upset. I pressed a little closer to him and took his hand.

“Daniel, I’m flattered that you think so highly of me, but be sensible. No father wants a girl who has only a pretty face to recommend her for his son. I have no great family connections, no notable housewifely skills, no money.” I held his hand to my cheek. “The only man who will ever want to marry me is you.”

He still looked worried. “But what if someone does ask for you? What will we do then?”

I smiled at him. “I’ll refuse him. No one can make me marry if I don’t want to.”

He sighed. Then, slowly, he grinned. “I don’t believe anyone has ever made you do anything you didn’t want to.”

“I have perseverance. You have nothing to worry about. I’ll simply stay here until you’re ready, and then we will marry.”

He looked around to make sure there were no observers, and then he pulled me against him and kissed me.

The december rains were dark and chilly as usual, but the week after Hanukkah we suddenly had an unusual burst of mild and sunny weather. Everyone reveled in it, and one evening it was even warm enough for us to go out into the courtyard, which was sheltered by the surrounding walls of the house. I sat on a low bench with a group
of children gathered around me. We were playing a word game, and occasionally I glanced away from the uplifted little faces to where Daniel was sitting beside his eldest brother, Samuel.

Samuel was the only member of the family besides Rachel who disliked me. He wasn’t unpleasant; he just acted as if I didn’t exist. When we met unexpectedly, he would avert his eyes as if I were unclean. I couldn’t imagine what I had done to offend him and did my best to stay out of his way.

It was unusual for Daniel and Samuel to be talking so comfortably. The age gap between them was many years, and Samuel always seemed more like Daniel’s uncle than his brother.

Samuel was unfortunate to have been the only son to inherit his father’s ears. True, they were not so tremendous as Lord Benjamin’s, but they were big enough to be remarkable. He also had inherited his father’s bulky body and wide, flat nose.

Poor Samuel
, I thought, as I compared him to the elegant young brother sitting beside him.

Suddenly there was activity at the far end of the courtyard, and I turned to see Abigail, Samuel’s wife, getting laboriously to her feet. Esther and Miriam, Joses’ wife, rushed to join her. Abigail was nine months gone with child, and I thought her time might have come. Esther turned and beckoned to Aunt Leah, and the three women supported Abigail as they all entered the house.

“Where are they going, Mary?” a small voice asked.

I smiled into the curious face of Dinah, one of Joses’ granddaughters. “Abigail is going to have a baby. Isn’t that nice? You will have a new little cousin to play with.”

Dinah looked around the courtyard and shook her head decisively. “I already have enough cousins.”

I smothered a laugh. “Well, this little cousin won’t be big enough to join our group for a long time.”

Dinah smiled. She loved having my full attention. “Good.”

Lord Benjamin leaned over to slap Samuel on the back. “This time you will have a son, eh?”

Poor Abigail had thus far only given Samuel three daughters. Everyone was praying for a son.

Samuel gave a strained smile. “I certainly hope so,” he replied.

I went to bed that night expecting to hear of a new child in the morning. I knew that childbirth was dangerous—my own mother had died having a baby. But Abigail had given birth three times with no trouble. After saying a prayer for her, I fell into my usual sound sleep.

Aunt Leah had not yet returned to her sleeping mat when I awoke. I pulled my wool cloak over my tunic, draped my veil over my hair, slipped my feet into sandals, and went out into the courtyard to the large baking oven.

I was always the first one up because my morning job was to grind the grain for the day’s bread. I used a hand mill to do this, and after that I mixed the meal with water, salt, and a bit of leavening. Then I kneaded it into dough to be baked later in the day.

I was kneading vigorously when Aunt Leah came out of the house. She looked tired.

“Mary,” she said in her softest voice.

I smiled into her weary face. “Is it a boy?”

My aunt shook her head. “No, another girl.”

“Too bad,” I said sympathetically.

She just stood there looking at me, and my hands grew still on the dough. “Is something wrong?”

“Abigail died,” she said.

I had been three years old when my mother died. I had no memory of her, but all my life I had longed for her. I still did. So those two words,
Abigail died
, hit me like a punch in the stomach. “What happened?”

My aunt took my hand. “We couldn’t stop the bleeding, my dear. Miriam is very skilled, but even she . . .”

“The baby?”

My little brother had died along with my mother. I remembered that too. Such a tiny little life, so quickly extinguished.

“She is alive.”

I swallowed. “That is good.” I swallowed again. “But she will never know her mother.”

“No,” my aunt agreed. “She will never know her mother.”

I started to cry. Leah put her arms around me and held me close. We both knew that I wasn’t crying for Abigail.

After the warm spell in December, winter set in for good. With the cold and rain cooping us up in the house, Daniel and I were forced to meet more briefly and with less intimacy than we had become used to, which frustrated both of us. Then, as January came to a close, I noticed something odd happening. Samuel was noticing me.

It was very strange. Where once he had never looked at me, now I caught him staring at me. He even smiled at me once or twice. I found the new Samuel unnerving, and I redoubled my efforts to avoid him.

When it wasn’t raining, I would take the children outdoors for at least part of the day, and one particularly nice afternoon two weeks before Purim, we were in the courtyard playing a game of hide-and-seek. The children loved to hide, which made me the seeker. Their giggling always gave them away, but I made a great show of looking in peculiar places for them or not quite seeing them, which they loved.

We had been at it for a while when I noticed Samuel watching us from one of the doorways. Ivah, Joses’ grandchild, had mischievously pulled my veil off, and as no one else was around, I hadn’t bothered
to replace it. The girls loved to play with my hair, which was long and straight. It was easy for them to braid, and I squealed and scolded when they pulled too hard. They loved that too.

As soon as I saw Samuel, I tried to hide my hair. “I’m sorry, Samuel, to be so disheveled,” I apologized as I gathered it into a messy knot. “One of the children pulled my veil off when we were playing.”

He advanced into the courtyard, paying no attention to his little daughter, who had run up to him. “Your hair is very beautiful, Mary. It shines blue in the sun, like the wing of a raven.”

I gave him an uncertain smile and then turned to one of the children. “Ivah, fetch me my veil, please.” Obediently, she ran to get it.

“There’s no need to be fearful,” Samuel said, regarding me with a look that made my stomach feel sick. He kept coming closer. “I am a member of your family, after all.”

He stopped beside me and reached out to take a strand of hair that had escaped the knot between my fingers. He rubbed it between his fingers, as if evaluating a piece of material. “It’s like silk,” he said.

His eyes glistened, and my heart began to pound. I hated his touch and wanted to push him away. But he was Lord Benjamin’s heir, a man of great importance in the family. I felt trapped and began to pray to God for deliverance.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

The words ripped across the courtyard, causing both Samuel and me to jump.

It was Daniel.

Samuel dropped my hair and swung around to face his younger brother. “I thought you were supposed to be studying.” He sounded furious.

Daniel was striding across the courtyard toward us. He retorted, “I
was studying, but when I looked into the courtyard, I saw you stalking Mary the way a wolf stalks a lamb.” He was pale, and his narrowed eyes shone like fire. He looked startlingly dangerous.

I grabbed my veil from Ivah and clapped it on my head. The two brothers glared at each other with open fury.

Little Zebah slipped her hand into mine. “Why are they angry, Mary?” She sounded as frightened as I was. I shook my head, speechless. “I want to go away from here,” the girl whimpered.

I didn’t know if it would be better to go or to stay and try to keep them from killing each other.

Daniel’s eyes swung away from Samuel and met mine. “Zebah’s right. Take the children somewhere else.”

I nodded, rounded up my charges, and herded them out of the courtyard and toward the house. As we walked away, I said brightly, “I’ll tell you a story. Which one do you want to hear?”

“The one about the man who was swallowed by a whale!” Amos yelled.

There was a commotion of agreement.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll go into the front room, and I’ll tell it to you.”

We were still in the front room, and I had moved on to the story of Noah and the flood, when Daniel found me. “I have to talk to you,” he said in a clipped voice.

I gestured to the children, indicating that I could not leave them.

“Get Leah or Ruth,” he commanded, and I ran out of the room.

I found Aunt Leah alone in the kitchen, and I asked her to watch the children for a short time so I could speak to Daniel.

“Why can’t Daniel speak in front of the children?” She was looking at me worriedly.

I told her about how strange Samuel had been and how he and Daniel had looked ready to come to blows.

She shut her eyes. “Mary, do you know how much trouble all this could cause?”

I swallowed hard. I was beginning to realize that I did. “But Samuel has never liked me, Aunt Leah!” I cried.

“I suppose you had better speak to Daniel.” Her voice was almost inaudible, and she went ahead of me into the front room. The look she shot at Daniel was somber, but then she turned to the children and engaged them in a song.