Harvest of Gold (34 page)

“Impressive,” Darius said. He meant it.

“Thank you! Just what I needed. Better give that to me in case I run out of stones, son.” Hanun took the masonry from Benjamin before he could hurt himself and winked at Darius.

“I’m going to be a soldier, like you.” Benjamin approached Darius, his manner confident. Before Darius could respond, a woman strolled over. She had the same dark eyes as Benjamin. Her pleasingly plump figure was encased in a simple woolen tunic cinched at the waist by a striped fabric sash he had noticed Judean women favored. Her scarf matched the wool of her dress. Neither one had been dyed. Dye cost money.

“Is my son making a pest of himself, my lord?”

“He’s fine. He was sharing his plans for the future.”

Hanun left the wall to join them. “Tirzah, my love.” He kissed his wife with open tenderness. “Have you come to help?”

“I have. My chores at the house are done. I can lend you a hand the rest of the day.”

Hanun addressed Darius. “This is my wife, Tirzah, my lord. Do you see my portion of the wall? These delicate, ivory hands have raised half of it.”

Tirzah cuffed her husband on the shoulder and held out her hands. They were callused and work roughened. Where mud and dirt didn’t cover the skin, it peeked through brown as wood from a walnut tree. “Neither delicate nor ivory, you foolish man. Now come and work, both of you, and leave the Persian lord to do his job.”

Something squeezed Darius’s heart as he saw the little family working side by side throughout the morning. They were openly affectionate with one another, often sharing laughter over inconsequential moments. Hanun helped his boy with a delicate wisdom that built his confidence without allowing him to do too much. The interplay between father and son moved Darius in ways he had not experienced before. He wondered if one day he would have the same tender relationship with the child that his wife carried. Would they laugh and play together with the same freedom? Would he know, with the ease and wisdom of Hanun, how to use everyday moments to plant lasting lessons in the heart of his child?

Hanun was no less loving with his Tirzah than he was with his son. Their open affection moved Darius with a power he found disconcerting. He felt a rush of longing that he could not squelch. Annoyed with himself, he tried to ignore the couple and the feelings they roused in him. Unbidden, he wondered if a day would come when he’d hold Sarah in the same high regard. Would they ever be able to draw that near to each other?

Up until then, he had blamed Sarah for the distance that had come between them. For the first time, he had the uncomfortable feeling that the gap in their relationship was as much of his making as hers. He found it easy to blame her for her failures. But watching Hanun with his wife, he had to confess that he had never allowed Sarah that level of access to his heart. He had never been as open as Hanun.

He was relieved when Pari, accompanied by Meres, brought him lunch. The interruption helped to stop his intruding thoughts.

“My lady sends you this, with her compliments. She packed it herself,” Pari said.

He had forbidden Sarah from coming near the construction site, worried that she might stumble and fall over the rubble. Somehow, she always managed to find his whereabouts and send someone with food and fresh water. He thanked Pari and opened the bundle she had brought. Sarah had sent enough food to satisfy five large men. There was no Shushan to prepare mouthwatering feasts for them. The fare was simple—vegetarian lentil stew, cheese, barley bread, and dates. But after a day in the hot sun, he could make do with anything.

He approached the little family who were busy at their task. Hanun had started work before sunrise and, except for a few short breaks, he and his family had worked straight through the day. It was now past the noonday hour.

“My wife has sent me enough food to feed the Egyptian army. I wondered if you would like to share my repast?”

Hanun sent him an uncomfortable glance and made a nervous sound in his throat. Darius said, “My wife is a Jew. She would not send food that does not meet with your regulations. Not in Jerusalem.”

Hanun relaxed. “We would be honored to join you, my lord.”

They could not take a long pause from their work. Meres took over the watch while Darius and the little family ate in haste.

“Tasty lentils!” Hanun said and dipped his bread into the bowl for another mouthful before he had swallowed the first.

“Slow down, husband, or Lord Darius is going to think we are an ill-mannered family who haven’t seen the sight of food in a week.” Tirzah put a small bite in her mouth and took her time chewing.

“Well, he would be right to think it. I don’t know the last time I ate such a hearty meal. We’re eating like kings, and I aim to enjoy it.”

Darius felt a slow flush rising up. He thought of how he had criticized the fare for being too simple. To Hanun, the same food constituted a royal feast. Without making it obvious, he slowed down eating to leave more for the family who were his guests.

Hanun put a hand on Tirzah’s cheek. “It may be delicious, but it’s nothing to your cooking, love.” Darius could not miss the melting adoration in the man’s gaze as he looked at his wife.

She laughed. “If our ancestor Jacob had been half as talented as you are at flattery, both his wives would have been happy.”

Darius chewed on a mouthful of barley bread, his mind in turmoil. When had he last praised Sarah? When had he told her he appreciated her company? When had he given her glances that were hot not merely with desire, but with plain affection? He swallowed, his throat dry.

Sarah could not find a comfortable position. Her baby had grown at an amazing pace over the past month, and with it, her girth. At this rate, three months from now when her time came, she would be as big as Jerusalem itself. Perhaps she should tell cousin Nehemiah to expand the perimeter of the walls to ensure she could fit inside them. Sighing, she set aside the roll of parchment she had been working on, which kept track of Nehemiah’s professional expenses. Running Judah was not cheap.

The door to her chamber opened and Darius walked in. He must have come straight from his watch. She rose and came to greet him. To her surprise, he wrapped his arm around her waist—or where her waist used to be—and drew her to him. He cradled her as if she were something fragile and precious. Sarah lifted up her face to try and read his expression; he raised his palm and cradled her cheek. Her breath caught. His hand, warm, and rough from years of archery, caressed her skin, making shivers run through her. Unable to resist, she turned her head and rested her lips against his palm.

He moved his hand from her cheek and trailed it down her shoulder. His kiss, when it came, was excruciating in its slow gentleness. He was kissing her as if his whole heart was in it. As if he wanted to swallow her up and take her inside himself. As if she were the best thing the whole world had to offer. She kissed him back with desperation, her arms wrapped about his neck.

Love for him welled up inside her. She thought she might burst if she did not put her feelings into words. The last time she had declared her love for him, he had told her he didn’t care. Whatever he felt for her now, his anger had not disappeared. It lingered, under the surface of his passion and this new tenderness. Would he reject her again if she expressed her love in this fragile moment? What could he do to her? Rebuke her? Would that hurt worse than this separation?

“I love you, Darius,” she whispered against his mouth. “You are the husband of my heart. The only man I’ll ever love.”

His whole body went still. He searched her face, the green of his eyes looking black and inscrutable in the lamplight. With slow deliberation, he bent his head to her again. Under the flat of her palm she could feel the hard beat of his heart. He leaned against the wall and pulled her with him. She was glad for his support; her legs felt like every single bone in them had melted. He never spoke. Never said what her words meant, or if they had pleased him. But Darius didn’t leave that chamber until it was time to take up his watch again.

Nehemiah knew he had more trouble on his hands when some of the men and their wives lined up outside his office with the rising of the sun, making certain they caught him before he left for his rounds.
Now what?
he wondered, as he invited them inside. But the substance of their complaint turned out to be a complete surprise. Astonished, he listened to them as they told him about the state of their lives.

Jedaiah spoke first. He was a farmer who helped with the rebuilding. “My lord governor, we need your aid. God has blessed us with large families. But we don’t have enough food for them. Working on the wall has prevented us from putting enough effort into our land. If things don’t change, we’ll have no harvest to sustain us through the coming months, and our children will starve.”

Nehemiah, who had known of the poverty rampant in Judah, fisted his hands in agitation. He had not realized that some of the men working on the wall were making a choice between their families’ survival and the survival of Jerusalem. He studied the faces of the people for confirmation. Men and women alike murmured their agreement.

Another man said, “We’ve had some lean years already, you see. We had to contend with famine and bad crops. Our storehouses grew empty. To survive, we mortgaged our fields and vineyards, even our homes. It was the only way to make it through those barren years.” He stopped and drew a shaking breath, not lifting his gaze from the ground. Nehemiah could see shame eating at the man. It wasn’t easy for him to admit that he had failed. He must be at the end of his tether to acknowledge his circumstances openly, Nehemiah thought.

“We are near to ruin,” the man continued. “How are we to repay these mortgages? What future is there for us? You can build a wall around this city, but what will that mean to a man who can’t provide for his family?” Some of the women wiped their wet cheeks with their scarves.

Before Nehemiah had a chance to respond, another man came forward. “It’s even worse for some of us, my lord. Every year, the officials have been demanding taxes from us. Everyone who owns land, rich or poor, has to pay them. We’ve had to borrow money from our wealthier countrymen in order to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.

“But when the loans came due, we had no way of repaying them. To discharge our debt, we had to give parcels of our land to the moneylenders. We mortgaged the rest of our fields. When that wasn’t enough, we had to allow our daughters to go to these Jewish noblemen as slaves. Soon, our sons will have to join them.

“Although we have the same heritage as these wealthy men, and our children are as good as theirs, they have to go into slavery in order that we might have enough to eat!”

Nehemiah sank into his chair. His stomach turned into a hard knot of tension. Anger burned in him. What he had just found out did not merely jeopardize the building of the wall, though that was dire enough. It threatened the very fabric of God’s society in Judah. Not only had the rich not cared for the poor, they were in fact exploiting them at the moment of their need, stripping them of their ancestral land, of their property, of their children, and of their dignity. Shocked, he said, “I will think about what you have said and decide what to do. Leave this matter to me.”

In his outrage, Nehemiah’s first impulse was to give the guilty parties a piece of his mind, pouring the full force of his fury on them. But venting his anger would merely cause a grievous rift. He needed resolution and healing, not the momentary relief of feelings, which would lead to further damage. The men involved in the situation came from some of the most powerful families in Judea. If they turned against him, he could forget about finishing the wall. He spent some hours thinking the matter through and praying about it.

It seemed the enemy wasn’t always an outsider. Sometimes the people you knew best posed the hardest threat. They inflicted the deepest wounds. There was no sense in delaying what must be done, however. That same day, Nehemiah arranged to meet with the nobles and officials who had loaned money to the farmers.