Sunrise on the Mediterranean (44 page)

Waqi smiled and clapped for slaves.

“This is perfect,
isha,”
Yoav said, smiling in the darkness of the tent. “You have an excuse now, to stay.” He slapped my shoulder. “How long do you
think it will take to get us in?”

I’d conveniently forgotten to mention to him that the opening to the water well was basically nonexistent. Call it self-preservation.
Waqi had about two more months to go, two months for me to plan, to buy time, to wait for Cheftu’s return. “About three months?”

Yoav’s look was calculating. “The end of summer?”

I shrugged. Sure, why not. “How will we contact you?”

“Contact will blow my cover,” I said. “It will be a fragile thing, living with people all the time.”

“Isha,”
Yoav said, “we will stay in touch with you. You will not be out of our sight, ever.”

I looked into his glass green eyes. How many cities had he sacked? How many people had he killed? “Why do you want this job?”
I asked almost before I realized the words were coming out of my mouth.

Even he looked startled. Then ruminative. “Dadua is my uncle,” he said slowly, “though I have more years than he.” He smiled
at some remembrance. “Dadua was always a wiry, fiery-haired child, running wild, singing at the top of his lungs. He charmed
the women in the harem almost from birth, he ran mental circles around his father’s cronies, he insulted his brothers with
such cleverness that it was days before they realized it.” Yoav looked at me. “Dadua was the essence of life, the purest divine
energy, like the Shekina powers of Yahwe.”

“I thought Shekina was a goddess?”

“
Ach!
The women have said so, but Yahwe, he is everything. Male and female, dark and light, joy and tears.” Yoav shrugged. “The
women pull Yahwe’s powers over the night, over the body, and give these skills a name, Shekina. But the Shekina of Yahwe,
the energy, the
nishmat ha hayyim
, can never be separated from its source.”

“If you believe in
nishmat ha hayyim
, the divine breath, then how can you remove it from so many people? If life is sacred, how can you kill for a living?”

“Because Dadua, to protect that part of him that is the Shekina glory of Yahwe, cannot.”

“Dadua doesn’t kill?”

Yoav laughed, throwing back his head. The lamplight flickered over the muscles in his throat and chest, muted the scars on
his face. “Dadua has killed, no doubt. However, it pains him to do so. When he loses that pain, when killing is a job, then
the glow of the Shekina will fade.” Yoav shook his head. “Y’srael would suffer, we would all lose something pure, something
beautiful, if Dadua became as we are. Ordinary, touchable.”

“So you take that blood on your hands and head?”
“Ken,”
he said. “Dadua is a man and a king, but to Yahwe he is the most precious of children. We who are Dadua’s family must protect
that innocence. He doesn’t transgress as we do.”

“
Ach!
How can you say that? He’s an earthling!” The translations of some words were weird.

“He is. But he doesn’t know lust, hatred, murder, in his flesh. He is like bronze that never tarnishes. For this purity, I
will bathe in blood.” Yoav looked at me. “The land must be claimed, there is no doubt. Those of us who love him must do it,
and count the lost lives against our own souls, not his.”

I stared at him as silence gathered between us, looking into his clear green eyes. This was David’s henchman, and he had the
purest motive I could imagine for wholesale slaughter. Did that make it better? Forgivable? I didn’t know, but I felt suddenly
unworthy to judge. Had I ever loved someone that way? Even Cheftu? “I agree with Avgay’el,” I said quietly. “You do deserve
to be
Rosh Tsor.”

He got to his feet, holding out his hand to me. I took it and he pulled me up. “Your husband is still in the desert,” he said.
I suddenly realized how close we were standing, how his eyes had darkened, how warm the tent had become.

I suddenly realized that my hand was still in his. I removed it.
“Todah
, I appreciate your telling me.”

We stood in awkward silence. “Good. We’ll contact you, Klo-ee.”

“Laylah tov
, Yoav,” I said to his back.

He turned around. “
Lo
, tonight begins the Sabbath.
Shabat shalom.”

M
Y CHANCE WAS TONIGHT
. I’d kept careful count of the days since I’d met with Yoav. The day after the Sabbath was when the soldiers left the city
open for four hours. That was my window of opportunity.

The moon was full tonight, which would make for easy travel. I felt dishonest leaving Waqi, who really was a dear and deserved
better. But if I stayed, I’d have to betray her, and Shamuz at the well, and Yorq, who sold me bread. These were real people,
this wasn’t a game, it wasn’t a push-button war. I just didn’t have it in me to betray them.

So I was sneaking out of town. My hobo pack was tied as I watched the streets from my room. There was a lot of activity tonight,
lots of people with small lamps scurrying to and fro. Sadly I threw on my cloak and slipped down the stairs. The wind was
blowing; it was a wonderful feeling, buoyant, free, as though it could sweep you up and set you anywhere in the world.

I would have given most anything to have Cheftu’s hand in mine, to be enjoying this evening with him. After closing the door
behind me, I made my way into the street, blending with the shadows, I hoped. As I walked I noticed dozens of bobbing lights,
a steady river of them flowing down from the city’s dung gate. People were going into the valley? At night?

That was weird. Most ancients rose with the sun and retired with its setting. Days were long and hard; they needed their rest.
Not to mention there were usually a lot of fears about things going bump in the night. What was going on? We couldn’t all
be fleeing the city.

I exited the dung gate, stepping around the trash piles— since that was the reason it was called the dung gate—giddy. I was
free! The wind blew my cloak back from my face, whipped my skirts around me, as I walked down the steep hill. Looking back,
for I would never see Jerusalem again, I paused a moment: it seemed as though the city glowed with the points of a thousand
fireflies; lamps in windows, torches affixed to the walls; braziers burning at the gates. The air was heavy with honeysuckle,
roses, and herbs.

I picked my way through the growing darkness, being careful of the rocky terrain. The night was mostly silent, and the dozens
of lights I’d seen had apparently vanished. The deeper into the valley I got, the less the wind played with me, the more potent
the flowers smelled.

As I bypassed the path that headed straight down, in favor of the road that led to Yerico, I heard what sounded like a shriek.
I paused for a moment, then took the southerly trail. When I changed direction a stench hit me. It was a sickly, roasted type
of smell. It blocked out the citrus, the honeysuckle, even the faint smell of evergreens from the hills.

Fanning my face, I walked faster, rounding a corner. Then I saw the source of this odor.

A fire burned at the bottom of a narrow ravine about fifty feet below me. A cluster of lamps—those missing people?— were grouped
a few feet from it. What was up? A low hum, which sounded as if it were from
Carmina Burana
, rose up to me on the pathway.

Curious, I walked down a ways, getting closer. My eyes were adjusting, moving from the darkness to the brilliance of the flame.

As I watched, people clustered around the fire. A lone individual approached, then handed an object to someone else. I squinted.
The smoke, the stink that clogged my throat, the weird singing, were surreal.

As I watched, the second person, the one who accepted the handoff, threw something into the fire. Something tiny. The first
person was gone.

Were they burning trash? It stank badly enough. I covered my nose, breathing through my mouth, as I watched. I joined the
throng, trying to figure out why trash burning would draw such crowd. Beneath the singing I heard hysterical sobbing, begging,
though the words were indistinct. As I drew closer, I saw the fire wasn’t in a cave, but rather in the belly of a large, ugly
statue.

Another person approached, handed the thrower something small. Something crying. A tiny thing.

The hair on my arms stood on end.

“No,” I gasped in English. “No!” I clapped my hand over my mouth, whether to keep from vomiting or shutting myself up didn’t
matter. As I watched, another one went up into the flame. Two men held a woman back, a screaming woman. The wind shifted so
that I heard her words: “
Lo!
Not my baby! Not my precious lamb! Curse you!
Lo
, not my baby!”

They sacrifice their babies
, I heard Yoav say in my mind.
I don’t know how the women endure it
, Waqi’s words haunted me.
If only my father had known
— Omigod. This would happen to her?

Trying not to draw attention to myself, I continued down the pathway, horrified and stumbling, unable to fathom what I had
seen. Someone walked before me, thankfully empty-handed.

A shrouded figure approached, handed the thrower a baby, then backed up as the murderer raised the child over its head, screaming
to the heavens, then threw it in the fire!

The person before me crumpled to its knees, repeating
“lo”
like a mantra. I was shell-shocked. Surely not, surely I was not seeing this. The images didn’t even compute, though the
smell of immolation, which I had the sorrow to recognize, was choking me. Very real.

I almost tripped on the woman in front of me. She squawked, and I looked down. She was trying to get to her feet but was too
bulky to do so. “Waqi?” I whispered.

She looked up, horrified. “You are one of them?”

“Lo, lo,”
I said quickly.

More screaming, more pleading, behind me. I didn’t know what to do. Could I rush the priest? Waqi had to get out of here;
I was leaving town … Oh, dear God.

An infant’s scream rose to the heavens, submerged in the chanting of the people.

“For your protection we give you blood. “To save ourselves, we feed you our flesh—”
The song was horrible.

I went to Waqi, helping her up. “Why are you here?” I whispered.

“I had to see it, I had to know. I would rather take my own life than watch my baby die.” Her face crumpled, tear tracks gleaming
in the light. “His first three wives didn’t survive the grief.”

She was Abda’s fourth wife? “Let’s get you out of here,” I said. “You can leave him, tonight.”

She shook her head. “My pains began this afternoon. My baby is coming.”

There were not enough curse words in my vocabulary. All I could hear in my head was Prissy’s disclaimer from
Gone with the Wind.
“Is there a midwife? A wisewoman?” I asked her.

“If she comes, they will know… . The only protection is to pretend I lost the child.”

There were logistical nightmares with that, but it didn’t matter. “We’re going back to the city,” I said, pushing through
the crowd, pulling her with me.

“They’ll know, they’ll know,” she insisted.

I put my nose to hers. “If you try to have the baby alone, you will die. So will it. If you call a midwife, have some assistance,
maybe we can sneak you and the baby out of town, but at least there will be two of you.”

“Where were you going?”

“I was running away.”

“From me?”

“
Lo
, you have been nothing but goodness to me. I have—”

“You aren’t merely a well woman, are you?” She was leaning on me, her fingers interlaced with mine. As the pains came she
would grip my hand, but she gave no other sign of discomfort.

“Lo,”
I said. “I came to spy.”

Her hand tightened on mine as she slowed her steps for a moment. Her breath was a little ragged when she spoke again. “For
whom?”

“The highlanders. They want your city.”

She gasped, practically breaking my fingers. I felt her legs trembling next to mine as she fought to stay upright. I looked
at the city that I’d thought I’d never see again. It was about fourteen light-years away.

“Do the highlanders have children?” she asked, walking on.

“By the hundreds,” I said, adjusting my grip around her middle in case she fell.

“I wish they would invade,” she said. “I would give them our city.” Her grip tightened, but her pace didn’t break.

“Why do they have this practice?” The smell of charred flesh was in my nostrils; I could no longer smell the roses even though
we were approaching the city.

“Protection. Every child that is given to Molekh becomes another of the demonic guard the city has. That is why the city has
never been invaded.” She dropped to her knees, whimpering.

I looked around us; we were at the edge of the garbage dump—not the place to have a child. “Come along, Waqi, only a little
farther.” Was there a guard around? Someone to carry her? While she caught her breath I searched the walls, the dump, the
trees beside us. “Help us,” I called out. “Please, someone?”