In the Field of Grace (25 page)

Ruth remembered Dinah comforting her as she coughed and
heaved. “Would you fetch her here, Mahalath?”

“Are you certain? She has a tongue on her, that girl. You don’t need her barbs as you recover.”

“She is changing. I haven’t heard a bitter word out of her mouth in days. She has been sweet company to me.”

Mahalath frowned. “I had not noticed. But now that you mention, she has been strangely polite to me this past week and more.”

Ruth nodded. “Please fetch her. She must be worried if she lingers here.”

Dinah arrived, head bent and silent. She knelt by Ruth’s bed and other than a faint greeting, kept her mouth shut.

“Did you injure your mouth?” Ruth asked finally, after several failed attempts to make Dinah speak. “It’s not like you to be so quiet.”

“I should have stayed with you.” Dinah clenched and unclenched her hands. “Instead, I ran away. I ran, not because I was eager to fetch help but because I was terrified. I shouldn’t have abandoned you.”

Ruth reached out and grabbed Dinah’s hand, stilling her convulsive movements. “Of course you were terrified. No shame in that. I was afraid myself. Running was the right thing to do. You fetched the help that saved the harvest. I could only hold the fire at bay for so long, and would have given up if the men hadn’t arrived when they did. You did the right thing, Dinah. You must stop tormenting yourself with guilt.”

To Ruth’s surprise, Dinah burst into noisy tears. Her nose ran and her eyes turned the color of radishes. Ruth bent forward and hauled Dinah into her arms, patting her back, taken aback by the girl’s intense reaction.

“You were the only one who showed me kindness,” she said, wiping her nose with a crumpled rag. “Even my parents have given up on me. I couldn’t stand to think of you perishing in that fire because I abandoned you.”

“Going to fetch help is not the same as abandoning me. I hold
no grievance against you, Dinah. In my eyes, you did right. All of Bethlehem respects you for what you did.”

“That’s the worst of it! I feel like a hypocrite. They keep congratulating me as if I were so brave, when all the while I know what a coward I was.”

“Come and sit next to me, here on the bed.” Ruth patted the fluffy mattress. “And stop scourging yourself.”

Dinah sat gingerly on the feather mattress, her back hunched low, her body rigid as the handle of a shovel.

“Not like that. Put your feet all the way up and rest back against the wall.” The girl obeyed and sighed as her back leaned into the cushions.

“Soft, isn’t it?” Ruth said.

Dinah ran a tentative hand over the covers. “Too soft. I wouldn’t dare pass gas on this mattress in case it tore a hole in the fabric.”

Ruth threw her head back and laughed. “You are a scandal, girl.”

“I’m glad I made you laugh. You looked so pale and miserable when I came in.” She was wearing a new cinnamon-colored tunic that matched her eyes. In the privacy of the guest chamber, she had removed her veil and her clean, tight curls fell down her back.

“That tunic suits you,” Ruth said. She touched the edge of the fabric, admiring its fine texture. “Linen?”

“Lord Boaz gave it to me. It belonged to his late wife, I think. I haven’t been home since they brought you here, and Mahalath said my begrimed clothes would leave smudges on the carpets. She forced me into a bath and gave me this tunic.”

Ruth felt an arrow of pain pierce through her. Boaz had given Dinah one of his wife’s tunics, but he had offered her none. Was it because she was a Moabite? A foreigner? A widow? Was she not good enough to wear his wife’s old clothes? She pulled the covers higher, feeling cold.

Trying to hide her distress from her friend, she asked, “Did you see Adin while you waited to visit me?”

Dinah nodded. “He didn’t say two words to me. Just sat there
and stared at me until I got up and left the room.”

“Of course he stared at you. You look so pretty.”

“You are kind to say so. But you are wrong. He wouldn’t avoid me if he cared for me. Everyone in town has stopped to ask how I fare. If I meant anything to him, he would at least ask after my health. Wish me shalom. Anything rather than this distance.”

Ruth thought of Boaz’s avoidance of her own company and could offer no comfort. She understood how Dinah felt, though she sensed that Adin was far from indifferent to the girl. For his own reasons, he chose to hide his feelings.

The door opened with a quiet burst of fresh air as Naomi came in, her arms full. There were dark smudges under her eyes and her skin had a sallow tint. She lit up as she spied the young women perched on the bed. “Behold, the two most famous women of Bethlehem resting sweetly on lord Boaz’s fine bedding. Or should I say
hiding
?”

Ruth and Dinah looked at each other and grinned. “You have caught us out, I fear,” Ruth said. “There are too many callers below. But I have a good excuse for hiding. You have stranded me in a stranger’s house without a stitch of clothing.”

Naomi dumped her handful of articles at the foot of the bed. “I have brought you a tunic and one of my own veils; both of yours were destroyed in the fire.”

Ruth thanked Naomi and wriggled into her clothes under the covers. “Can we go home now?”

“Boaz wishes you to stay until tomorrow. It would be rude to leave precipitously. Are you not comfortable? That bed looks very appealing from where I stand.”

“It’s a cloud,” Dinah said. “Not a bed. The problem with it—”

Ruth poked her in the ribs. “Don’t dare repeat what you said earlier.” She tapped the space to her other side. “Come and join us, Mother.”

Naomi nodded and sat next to Ruth’s other side, propping her feet up on the bedding. She heaved a sigh of contentment. With
the three of them on the feather mattress, it was a cozy fit. Ruth wriggled farther under the covers. “Do you think Boaz will let us take his bed home with us?”

“If he does, I’m coming to live with you,” Dinah said on the back of a yawn.

“I think we all need a good nap,” Naomi declared. She reached out a thin hand and patted both women on the belly as if they were little children. “Bless you, my dear girls. And shalom to you as you dream.”

When Ruth awoke, she found herself alone. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. Leaving the bed, she stretched and straightened her twisted tunic. It was old, threadbare in places, and sleeping in it had not helped. She made a face and pulled on the grey fabric in a futile attempt to diminish the creases. Naomi had brought her a comb, and she sat down to untangle the knots that had worked through the long strands after lying on them for so long. A soft smell of lilies clung to her clean hair, courtesy of the soap Mahalath’s mother had applied to her the day before.

With efficient hands, she braided her long hair and covered it with Naomi’s scarf. In the brightness of Boaz’s luxurious room, it too appeared faded and long past its best. The linen belt grandfather had bought her so many years ago sat amongst the small pile on the bed, and she wrapped it around her narrow waist twice, then allowed the long ends to dangle in the front. Now at least she looked respectable.

She decided she could no longer hide in her chamber, expecting others to fetch and carry for her comfort. It was time for her to carry her share of responsibilities. Although she preferred to remain in the privacy of Boaz’s guest room, she realized that she needed to go below stairs. It was her duty to face the company who had come for her sake.

Perhaps going below could even offer an advantage or two;
for one thing, she could sneak some solid food while Mahalath’s mother wasn’t watching. Most of the afternoon, she had smelled roast lamb and rosemary and frying garlic and wild onions. Sheba only allowed her to drink broth and almond milk. It was cruelty, she decided, to parade such smells right under her nose, but not allow her a single morsel.

A narrow, stone staircase led to the verdant courtyard at the center of the house. Ruth placed her foot on the top step when she realized that a man had begun to climb from below. She froze midstep. Boaz, glimpsing her, also came to a stop. They looked at each other, their eyes arrested, neither moving. Afternoon sun lit Boaz up from behind so that Ruth could not make out his features clearly. It was as if the length of the stairs disappeared between them, and they were face-to-face, close enough to touch. Ruth tried to swallow and could not. She ran a damp palm down the side of her dress and fidgeted with her scarf.

“My lord.” Her voice came out a croak.

“Ruth. Shouldn’t you be in bed, resting?”

“I feel well. Thank you. I thought I better come and greet the callers.”

Boaz climbed a few steps. Out of the direct path of sunlight, his features came into clear view. There were new lines around his eyes and a sheen of perspiration shone on his forehead. He looked like he had not slept well.
He is beautiful
. Ruth cringed as that extraordinary thought took hold of her. What was wrong with her?

Boaz smiled, the tense lines around his mouth relaxing. “Mahalath says you dread the visitors. No need to brave their company, yet. Everyone understands that you are recovering. Come down, and I will take you outside where you can enjoy the sunshine in peace. You probably long for some fresh air.”

Ruth let out a relieved breath. “Yes. Thank you, my lord.” She walked down the stairs, self-conscious of the way he gazed at her as she descended. He waited until she reached the step just above him. For a moment he hovered, their bodies separated by the merest
whisper of air. He backed down one step with slow, distracted movements, then turned and clattered down, with Ruth following sluggishly.

“I have a small paddock outside the house, and a barn for the horses. No one but my men go there. You should be safe from inquisitive visitors.”

“Is that where you keep your new horse?”

“The one you called ugly? Yes.”

Ruth bit her lip. “I beg your pardon. That was rude.”

“That was honest. He is ugly. But he is no less astounding because of it.”

“What makes him astounding?”

“He runs like the wind. Only when he feels like it, I admit. His last owner used the whip too much. It has scarred him inside and out. The outside scars, we have treated with poultices. The inside scars are harder to contend with. At least he has stopped biting. And yesterday, he beat Shakhor in a race. I’ve never known another horse capable of doing that.”

“What made you want him in the first place? Seeing how damaged he was, why did you not walk away? What made you wish to purchase him?”

Boaz waved a hand in the air. He had long, narrow fingers that moved with an odd eloquence. “A damaged horse can be restored. That’s part of the challenge. Part of the joy. You need eyes to see beyond the scars, beyond the bad behavior and the temper and the laziness into the real horse. You need to figure out how to draw him out, how to turn him from a terror into a champion.”

“How do you do that?”

He shrugged. “Different with every horse. This one needs freedom. When I first found Khaymah, he had been relegated to a cart horse. His old owner saw no value in him.” Boaz’s voice grew rough. “He had come near to ruining him and blamed the animal for his own ineptitude.”

“But how did you know his worth? How could you tell that he
wasn’t just an ordinary horse?”

Boaz grinned. “Every horse is unique. Valuable in his own way. But I knew this one as a champion when I looked into his eyes. He had wily, sharp eyes that grabbed my gaze and wouldn’t let go, as if challenging me to best him. I knew then he was worth the effort. Worth any cost.”

Something inside Ruth twisted and rose up with a roar of longing. If he could see the worth in a scarred horse, why could he not see the worth in her? Why could he not look past her poverty and her background to see that she
loved
him?
She loved him
.

R
uth stumbled and almost fell when those words echoed in her mind. Boaz grabbed her arm to steady her. “You are not well. I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t have brought you traipsing out here and exhausted you with talk of horses.”