Reign (7 page)

With that, he left her. He thought it was the right sentiment to leave her with, and besides, he saw her hand fumbling for something to throw at him.

4

Obadiah

Obadiah knew Ahab had gone to find Jezebel. They had been traveling now for two days, in that strange land halfway between the turquoise waters of Phoenicia and the dry brown earth of Israel. Obadiah dreaded the return as much as he had first dreaded leaving. He had gone to Phoenicia hoping that Elijah would be proved wrong and was returning to Israel knowing that Elijah had not warned them strongly enough. Elijah must have known that no one would believe him, although he had wandered far and wide and seen much. For who could believe that a prosperous people living in freedom and beauty could murder their infants, could whore their youngest women, could worship demons and drink blood? They claimed the infant deaths honored their women and allowed them to live without restraint, but Obadiah had seen no free women. He had seen numb women, their eyes glazed with animal nature. Their bodies had moved as they worshipped, but their spirits had not danced.

Phoenicia had proven herself to be a city of pleasure, but not joy.

Obadiah knew now why so many legends grew up around Phoenician waters. The sea had been a constantly changing mirage that caught the eye and sparkled. A man might imagine anything rising from its depths. Such beauty inspired the imagination. But what a terrible accusation it made against its own people. The sea of Phoenicia was no better than a mirror that reflected a painted image. What the people had brought forth from their imaginations had been horror varnished to look like worship. Thousands upon thousands of infants had died in the name of pleasure and freedom.

So lost was he in thought as he wandered through the makeshift camp to find water, that he was startled to feel a strong hand grab him by the arm and pull him behind a covered chariot.

Mirra glared at him. “You should have told me who you were! I did not appreciate an important servant knowing something I did not.”

Obadiah shrugged in reply. He was speechless, and his nerves melted his tongue and his knees at the same time. It was a wonder he could even stand when so close to her.

“You are Omri’s administrator.”

“I am.” He wetted his lips at once to keep them from sealing together. His mouth was drying out.

“Then get me out of my duties. I don’t want to serve the princess.”

“Your father made that arrangement himself.” He did not think it was wise for a young girl to question her father. Especially when her father had a temper and a fast hand.

“My father wants me to find a husband. He thinks that if I am at court, I’ll meet someone more suitable than a soldier. And soldiers are the only men in Samaria.”

That wounded Obadiah. He cleared his throat.

“Soldiers can make good husbands. Though they are not royalty, or elders, I have read many stories of valor …” he began. He sounded stupid even to his own ears. She cut him off with a look of disdain.

“Since you keep the records, write this down: I would rather die than ever have a soldier touch me. But neither do I want my father to decide my future. I want freedom, Obadiah. I don’t care how I get it, but I want freedom.”

She released him and stormed off. He stood still for several minutes as the blood returned to the spot where she had gripped on his arm. Lifting his sleeve as the sun set in bright orange and gold, he saw the shadows under his skin. He would have a bruise there by morning. Bruises lasted longer than kisses. He liked that thought and went back to his work.

The camp was busy with servants doing chores: waste pots being emptied far from the path, fires begun for dinner. He was glad to see the Phoenician servants already watering their animals. It meant they had found water. Their scouts were excellent at it, Obadiah knew, often scenting it in the air before ever seeing it. Obadiah relaxed a little. If all the animals were cared for, he had less to worry about, and the foreign servants needed no prompting to do what needed to be done. They might not add the burdens he feared. It was the priests who concerned him.

Obadiah knew his only moment to speak to Ahab would be as Ahab washed. After checking to be sure that Ahab’s personal cooks were at work to bring up a good fire and prepare his evening meal, Obadiah was free to look for Ahab, whom he found walking among the caravan, asking where the princess was, pausing to inspect the goods being carried into the capital city. Obadiah fell in beside him, knowing he would have to write every single item in the records. For Ahab, this inspection was a show. For Obadiah, it was a month’s work.

But he couldn’t think of himself or the work. He had to warn Ahab that Elijah had been right but had not told them everything. Obadiah hadn’t believed it, not really, not until it was real and in his hands. Ahab had to be woken up.

“She brings her gods,” Obadiah began. “She has a caravan of statues of the goddess. I’ve heard she intends to give them as gifts to the noble women of Israel.”

Ahab nodded, the comment dismissed.

Obadiah’s stomach twisted. “You remember Elijah’s warning. Those gods bring a curse. Perhaps she should destroy them.”

Ahab caught him by the arm. “The princess is just a girl of fifteen. What kind of god would curse a girl?”

“Her gods
are
the curse. They do not worship a goddess, but a demon. They worship death and think it is life.”

Ahab groaned and continued walking. “I knew you wouldn’t attend their worship rites. How did you spend your time? Reading?”

“No one understands,” Obadiah said as a weak defense. He was defeated. Obadiah was a quiet man. He wasn’t bold, and to tell a tale of thousands of burnt infant bones required a strength of character he didn’t think he had. If Ahab didn’t want to see the truth, how could Obadiah force him to it?

Ahab motioned for Obadiah to keep up. Ahab moved with a soldier’s purpose and command. Obadiah moved like a servant, ever expectant. It embarrassed him that Ahab was always three strides ahead, even if Ahab had no idea what he was walking into.

Obadiah saw the growing distance between them and frowned. He crushed an anthill with his sandal. An angry mob emerged from the sleeping mud to destroy him. He walked toward a cook and shook his sandal off into the fire.

Jezebel

Jezebel prepared for the final hour of their long journey to Israel. In one hour, she would be introduced to the capital city, Samaria, and to the people and nation she would rule for the rest of her days. Of course, that word
rule
was loosely applied, she knew. Position was not power, not for women. Real power had to be taken. It was never given. And even when a woman might try to take power, as Jezebel had tried time and time again in Phoenicia, men would always be there to snatch it away. The real irony now was that giving Ahab an heir was the only way to real power. The queen mother was a position unrivaled, and from that high perch she could decide whose power to take next. She had to sleep with the prince.

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.