Sunrise on the Mediterranean (45 page)

Waqi shrieked, silencing herself almost immediately. I was on my knees beside her. “What is it? Worse pain?”

“My water,” she said. “It broke.”

I stood up, looking around. Nothing moved, not a sound. Smoke from the valley was clouding the night sky. Switching to the
dialect that I’d heard Yoav use on occasion, I spoke loudly, my voice carrying. “You say you watch me. I need your help. For
the love of Yahwe, assist us!”

Was it only my imagination, the sense of eyes on me? No response. I knelt beside her. “Put your arm around me,” I said. “I’ll
carry you.”

Draping her left arm over my shoulder, I stood up. She was tiny, but she was also pregnant and half-unconscious from the pain.
We were halfway through the dump when he stepped out into the pathway: the soldier from Mamre, the one who had followed me
through the city streets before my first meeting with Yoav. I didn’t even know his name. Without a word, he picked her up.

“Waqi,” I said, still holding her hand. “What shall we say to the guards?” The Mamre soldier didn’t look Jebusi; maybe Pelesti?

“No guards tonight,” she whispered. “It is the night of Molekh’s moon. They, they—” She screamed again.

“Isha,”
he said to her. “Press your face into my cloak,
b’seder?”

Waqi turned into his chest. “Lead quickly,” he said. “She can no longer hold her legs together. The babe is almost here.”

We burst through the door of the Rehov Abda house. The Assyrian took one look at the situation and led us to Waqi’s chambers,
invoking Ishtar all the way. The soldier laid her on the pallet, looking at me. I stared back. “No midwife?” he said.

“The baby will be sacrificed,” I said. Waqi was soaking wet, so the Assyrian—whose name was Uru—and I stripped her and bathed
her skin, then covered her in blankets. Her thighs were smeared with blood. I felt ill—what could we do? The soldier had his
back to us while he worked something in his hands.

Waqi screamed as we put another cover on her. Uru rushed to her side, speaking to her in a tongue I didn’t know. “Where do
I go to find a midwife?” I asked them. “It’s the only chance.”

The soldier turned around, aiming his spectral blue gaze at her. “I’ve delivered sheep, cows, donkeys. I can deliver this
child, save it from this bloodthirsty god.”

I looked at Waqi, who was lying sweat soaked and quiet. “What is your name?” she asked.

“Zorak ben Dani’el.”

Waqi closed her eyes, balling the sheets in her hands. She should be breathing a certain way. I’d seen that on TV, but I didn’t
know how. The contraction passed, and she spoke to him. “Deliver me.”

Zorak turned into a commander. We were running with clean linens, hot water, wine, an iron knife, lamps, all orderly placed
in her room. He wrapped his side curls tightly around his ears and washed his hands in wine. Labor lasted forever, but she
was tough. She screamed only rarely; mostly she caressed her stomach and smiled in between the agony.

Periodically Zorak would pray, then look between her legs and tell her they had more time. The night was utterly black, the
moon behind a cloud, when he announced it was time.

Bricks were brought in, and Waqi was walked from the pallet to crouch on the bricks. I was assigned her left side, a slave
girl her right hand, and Uru stood behind her, rubbing her neck and down her spine with scented oils. Zorak sat in front of
her, massaging the insides of her thighs and her belly, speaking to her in a low, calming voice, staring up into her eyes.

Waqi never looked away from him. When the pains came, she kept her eyes open, locked in his gaze as we held her upright and
watched the mass of her belly undulate. Uru sang softly, strange words to a sweet melody.

Sweat ran down Waqi’s body like shower water. Strangely enough, my revulsion had faded as I watched this teenager talk to
her baby, staring into the eyes of a stranger who was going to make it all happen. It was humbling.

Then suddenly she screamed and screamed again, almost fighting against us. “Put her down,” Zorak said, so we lowered her into
a squat. The other slaves moved closer, giving as much light as they could. Zorak spoke to her, smoothing her stomach, Uru
spoke to her, even I did, telling her she was doing a great job, that it was going to be
b’seder
, just to keep breathing.

Her body trembled, we almost dropped her because she was so slippery with sweat, and then … this sphere of blood slid into
Zorak’s hands. It was gross; it was incredible!

It was a moment before the baby wailed. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I realized what had just happened. A child was born
before me.

We cleaned up everything. Zorak removed the afterbirth, wrapping it and handing it to a slave, who left the room. Then he
handed the iron blade to Waqi, who said a prayer as she cut the umbilical cord. Uru and Zorak rubbed the child down with salt,
while the slaves changed the linens everywhere. The other slave and I washed Waqi, then rubbed oils on her thighs and belly
and breasts. It should have felt strange, touching another woman, but instead it felt protective, unified. What her body had
done, mine could do, and that was a bond.

The child was a boy. Zorak handed him to her. “He is beautiful,” he said. “Just like his mother.” He kissed her forehead and
stepped away. Waqi was oblivious of us all. She touched the baby’s face, kissed every inch of him that wasn’t swaddled, then
set him against her nipple.

He was, of course, a fast learner, because he was also the most beautiful baby in the world and would be the smartest, I had
no doubt. Within minutes he was suckling away. Waqi leaned back, her expression utter bliss. I glanced over at Zorak, who
was still bloodstained, and saw that he was crying. Uru touched my arm. “
Isha
, let us give her some time.”

We all slipped out, leaving mother and child enraptured with each other.

THE DESERT

C
AREFULLY ARMED
, the hundred men walked through the Arava valley. Cheftu’s gaze was on the gravel plain when all of a sudden he saw a reflection
on the dirt, a moment’s flash. Only training kept him from stumbling, betraying what he’d seen—the glint of sunlight off metal.
He continued walking but now focused intently on his surroundings, listening to every sound. Behind him, carefully packed
beneath foodstuffs, clothing, and a dead goat, was the wealth of Hatshepsut’s Egypt.

It was a desert, but unlike Midian, there was no undulating sand, no herds of camels running wild. It was a brutal, rocky
environment where only acacia trees and wild grass lived. Caves honeycombed the hills on both sides. Periodically they saw
a goat or a wildcat. Hyenas cackled in the distance, and gazelle herds left their tracks, moving back and forth across the
salt flats.

Sweat broke out on his body at the same rate that it evaporated, since it was so dry. Given the urgency of their return, they
were walking throughout the day, an uncommon practice. An insane action this late in summer. Ahkenatan should try this, Cheftu
thought. More of his “Aten” than even Pharaoh could endure.

Walking in the sun, covered in cloth, monotonously placing one foot before the other, made his mind a blank. Which was why
he hadn’t noticed they were being tracked.

N’tan stumbled up beside him. “Do you sense it?” Cheftu asked in an undertone.

“We’re being watched.”

Cheftu casually scanned the hills, the acacia trees, the rocks, as he had been doing. “I cannot see them.”

“Nor can I.”

“Should we keep walking?”

“Do you think animals or men?” N’tan asked.

Cheftu resisted the urge to laugh. Animals would flee this great a caravan. Only the human animal would try to attack this
many people. “Definitely men.”

“Ach!”
N’tan said. “We are close to the edge of the Salt Sea.”

“How close?” Cheftu asked.

“By dawn, if we kept moving.”

Which would be better? To keep moving and hope to outrun, or outfinesse, whoever was following? Or to camp as they had been
doing, and prepare for a battle with the dawn? “The men have what weapons?”

“Bronze swords. A few have Pelesti blades.”

“We’ll divide up, into three divisions again. Split their attention.”

“What of … the treasure?” N’tan whispered.

“Tonight, under cover of darkness, we will bury some. The bulk of it.”

“Leave it?” N’tan said, shocked.

Cheftu resisted the urge to lick his dry lips; that would just dry them further. He fumbled in his side pouch for a small
rock, his sucking rock. He’d learned that a pebble beneath the tongue kept moisture in the mouth and throat. In moments he
had enough saliva to swallow, ease his speech. “We will send one division ahead, with some gold and the men with bronze blades.
They will take the path through Midian, then into Yerico around Jebus to Mamre.”

“The other two?”

“One will stay to fight, ostensibly those who are buried will account for the disrupted soil.”

“We will kill them? Then bury the gold with them?”

“
Lo.
Whoever is stalking us will kill them. We will bury the gold with them, cover it with stones in the fashion of desert burials,
then return for it later.”

“Do you think that will prevent the brigands from digging up the bodies and the gold?”

Cheftu’s gaze perused the far wall of caves; were they in there? How many? From which people? “If they are Egyptian, they
will not disturb the bodies.” I hope, he thought. “Our other choice is to hide the gold in those caves—somehow.”

“According to your suggestion, what of the third group?” N’tan asked.

“They will go straight to Mamre, bring reinforcements.”

“We do this under cover of night?”

“
Ken.
Tonight.”

N’tan squinted into the sky. “We shall be stopping in about another watch, then. I will tell the others,” he said, falling
out of step.

Cheftu walked on, his eye on the ridges. One gleam would tell him what he needed to know. If it were Pharaoh, there would
be armor. If it were other tribes, he would hear them calling to each other, using the sounds of the desert.

Another watch would betray them, whoever they were. Regardless, they would get the gold to Dadua. David would have his gold.
Cheftu would regain his freedom.

Cheftu walked on.

I
UNDERSTOOD HOW
the French Resistance must have felt. On the outside everything appeared to be the same, but I knew differently. The women
moving through the streets of Jebus were no longer strangers, they were my fellow spies; the men who smiled and behaved so
kindly were the same men who demanded their children burn to protect their hides. They had become the enemy. Yet to an observer,
nothing had changed.

Behaving as though this were any other day, I walked to the well. “Coming early today, are you? A new jar?” the first guard
commented.

I shrugged. “
G’vret
Waqi wishes a bath this morning.”

“
Ach
, the wealthy!” Chuckling, they passed me on. A few women passed me on the stairwell. Everything was going according to plan.

The same guard I’d seen every day was on duty. “That cough sounds worse,” he said as I doubled over with the force of what
was in my chest. Blearily I nodded. I wasn’t faking the cough; I had a cold, which I’d gotten somehow. Instead of being in
bed with
Marie Claire
, my remote control, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s—always good for what ailed me—I was going to lead the invasion and betrayal
of Jebus.

Adrenaline would have to carry me through.

Between my hacking and coughing, it was taking forever to fill my extra-large jug. I looked over at the guard. “Is there any
way to open this aperture bigger? I’ll”—I sneezed—“be here all day if I don’t.”

“Who told you?” he asked suspiciously.

I sneezed. “Waqi. She wants water, a lot of it.”

“Bathing? In the middle of the week?”

I shrugged. “The babe is due.”

He hopped off his throne and went to the wall. There, tied to a hook, were ropes. With a few tugs he had levered up the entire
wood platform, disclosing the natural opening, which was about twelve feet wide. My excitement welled up with another sneeze.