The Journey Begun (14 page)

Benjamin nodded.

Hadassah was unconvinced. “Are you sure? There’s so much territory and so little time.”

Elihu shrugged. “There’s only so far he can go, though.”

“But—” A quick look from her husband killed the discussion. She pursed her lips, but she respected the insight he would have into another man’s mind, whether she agreed with it or not.

“Early start tomorrow, then.” Benjamin pushed back from the table.

“Right.” Elihu rose and pecked his sister’s cheek. “Thanks for dinner.” He squeezed her arm gently. “And your concern. Don’t worry, eh? We’ll find Jonah.”

She nodded, but didn’t reply.

Fourteen

onah rolled onto his side and cracked his eyes open toward the night sky. Pinpoints of starlight danced through the haze, etching zigzagged patterns into the blackness of his mind. After a few moments, the gamboling subsided and the stars focused themselves into individual stabs of light.

Where am I, and how long have I been here?
He felt suspended in time, the world around him alive and in motion, but nothing touching him. He forced his back straight, and his head collided with something hard. Flashes of pain shot through his skull and down his spine.
What was that?
A wall. A stone wall sprang from the earth beside his head, rising somewhere into the darkness above. He twitched his nose as a musty odor of straw, dust, and his own sweat pricked his senses.
Oh, yes. Megiddo
.

Jonah pushed to his knees, steadying himself with an arm against the rough edifice. A grunt helped him onto a leg, where he wobbled, pressing his hand and forehead against the stone to forestall a headlong pitch back down into the dirt. His world spun and Jonah hugged the building as though it would escape.

As the pain subsided, he turned his back to the wall to catch his breath. His first coherent impression was that the wall was still warm from the day, so he must not have been unconscious for too long. An aura of torchlight shone across the opening between the stables where he had sought refuge from—from whom? He couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. From anyone.

Jonah straightened and tested his legs to the end of the building abutting the road. He peered around the corner. The gates were closed and secured. That’s right, he remembered that. The night guards were out of view. Torchlight from the marketplace where evening businesses bustled cast a halo over the governor’s palace beyond the chariot stables lining the far side of the street. Jonah focused on the low structures, hulking reminders of the strategic importance Solomon and his successors accorded Megiddo. Beyond the stables and across a complex of public buildings lay the low quarter where dingy hovels hosted activities the city preferred not to discuss. The savvy native avoided these crumbling alleyways, where he could be relieved of both treasure and virtue with little warning. The slum hosted a tavern, it was reputed, that honored no closing time. As long as a patron kept the strings of his purse loosened, he was tolerated, his business being of no interest to the owner. The likelihood of encountering anyone there who might recognize Jonah, or who would admit that he did, was remote. The realization that he’d not eaten for over a day squeezed his stomach, and he hoped the tavern could provide a morsel of bread, too.

Brushing the dust and straw from his cloak, Jonah stepped from his hiding place. He hugged the darkness of the stables for the first few paces before chancing onto the road. Willing his heart still, he forced
an
[B22]
 
unhurried pace to avoid drawing attention. He measured an angle across the road to intersect the chariot stables at their midpoint. There he would slip between the buildings to avoid casting a shadow against the smoky glow at the end of the street.

With one glance back, Jonah ducked into a shadowed recess and pressed his back against the wall. A sharp scrape through a doorway to his right launched his heart into his throat and he froze in mid-breath. A moment later, a horse snorted and pawed the floor. He shuddered an exhale to settle his chest.

When he could hear above the pounding of his heart, Jonah squinted into the darkness toward the back of the low building. King Solomon began construction on the stable complex, but the original array of buildings was destroyed during the Egyptian conquest. Both Kings Omri and Ahab rebuilt and fortified the stables, increasing their number until they became a predominant feature of the city. Those fortifications now turned from friend to foe, as Jonah searched for a way through to the adjoining business district across which the old quarter lay.

The ambient torchlight beyond the stables outlined a low wall separating them from the square of public buildings. He reckoned the wall surmountable if he could find something on which to boost himself. Jonah felt his way along, reaching the low wall without finding anything to help him scale it. The masonry where the stable converged with the rear façade was rough, and his fingers traced several niches where he thought he could get a toehold deep enough to support his weight.

As he lifted his leg, it cramped, flooding him with reminders of the physical demands of the past two days. After a moment’s rest he tried again. This time his quivering muscles protested, but they held his weight. Jonah groped to the top with only a slip or two. He found himself peering into a side street leading from the wall of the palace to the group of public buildings.

Pushing up, he flattened his stomach on the narrow ledge to catch his breath and figure out the best way to descend with some measure of dignity. The outer surface offered no irregularities for a foothold, so he would have to drop to the ground. He sighed.
So much for dignity.

He eased over the side, but his weight caught him by surprise. His shoulders jerked in their sockets and his legs swung down and hit the wall, the shock nearly tearing his grip loose. He held his breath, closed his eyes, and let go.

In Jonah’s ear, the echo of his impact with the ground reverberated throughout the city. He expected at any moment to hear the pounding of sandaled feet and see torches bearing down on him. The only pounding, though, was that of his own heart. He eased himself upright and stood quaking against the wall until he could trust his violated ankles not to fail him.

Jonah limped across the side street to the shadow of another building, working his way along the road to the far corner. Here the side street opened onto a thoroughfare leading through the commercial district. Glancing toward the guard posts at the city gate, he kept to the shadows as he skirted the fringes of the business district and the marketplace.

He passed several trade buildings and storage houses that bound an expansive courtyard where a massive grain storage pit yawned darkly in the subdued light. The trade district so familiar to him now loomed forbidding and hostile. The square in which he had conducted countless business transactions in the open seemed to regard him with suspicion as he hunched his shoulders beneath the dark windows and bolted doorways.

The road narrowed as it cleared the last of the public buildings, where it squeezed through a gap in a low crumbling wall. His resolve weakened as he peered through a portal just wide enough to accommodate a small pushcart. The ambience from the marketplace revealed smooth plaster and precision stonework giving way to ramshackle hovels thrown together and in various degrees of disrepair. Jonah hesitated outside the passageway to get his bearings, but he abandoned the effort. The dark alleyways before him offered nothing familiar with which to orient himself. The district’s reputation brought his thoughts around to the heavy belt draped under his cloak. His discomfort grew, as though every eye in the ghetto could penetrate his garment and into the makeshift belt.

Stooping in the shadows, Jonah removed the belt and untied one end. He emptied a few shekels of silver into his hand, just enough to keep the tavern keeper content while he loitered the night there. He retied the thongs and, rather than refitting the belt as a sash, he tightened it around his waist and secured it. He bounced on his toes and, satisfied his gait would not jostle it over his thinning hips, he forced a dry swallow and stepped from the shadows into the unknown.

Fifteen

iriam sat on the mat next to Deborah’s still body, her knees drawn up against her chest. She stared at her grandmother, mesmerized by the subtle, but precious, rising and falling that whispered,
“I still live.”
Against her will, her mind digressed for the hundredth time to the events of two days ago. The horrible scene of Jonah’s rampage replayed a bizarre drama, each time his face becoming more contorted, his actions more violent, until she could no longer clearly distinguish between what really happened and what her memory created. It couldn’t have been that terrible
.
But for the relapsed form of her grandmother lying at her side, she could almost convince herself it never happened, that it was nothing more than an awful nightmare.

“Are you all right?” Elias’ hand brushed her shoulder and guided a loose tress of black hair back behind her ear.

She raised her head and managed a weary smile. “Yes. I think so.”

“Any change?” He frowned at Deborah’s prone figure.

“No, not really.” Miriam returned her gaze to her grandmother’s still face and sighed. “It all seems so…unreal.”

“I know. I can’t get it out of my mind either. Have you ever seen Uncle Jonah in such a state?”

“Never.”

Elias eased himself down beside his wife. “He’s been a little odd ever since we returned from the last trip to Megiddo. At first I thought it was just the pressure of Grandmother’s illness weighing on him, but I remember now that he seemed very distracted even before we knew she’d fallen ill. Barely said a word. Did I tell you?”

Miriam shook her head.

“He woke me up before dawn. It was miserable outside, raining and cold, but he insisted on leaving right then, even before breakfast. He had his cloak on and his staff in his hand almost before I managed to roll out of bed.”

“Did you ask him what was wrong?”

“Not exactly, because I didn’t know anything was wrong. I did ask why we were leaving so early, but he didn’t explain. He seemed in such a hurry, but wouldn’t say why.”

His wife was thoughtful. “Maybe he sensed something?” She searched her husband’s eyes as though to prompt a memory.

Elias looked down and slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. He just wouldn’t talk.”

At the rustle of an apron they glanced back. Sarah appeared standing over them, wiping from her hands remnants of dried herbs she chopped for curing. “Elias, your father needs you at the tanning shed. Take his apron with you. It’s patched.”

“Yes, Mother.” Elias shared another quick look with his wife and rose.

Sarah knit her brow and studied Deborah’s breathing. “No change, I assume.”

“No, Mother.” Miriam’s eyes returned to her grandmother. “She looks so serene, but there’s no way to tell what’s happening inside. It must be dreadful for her.”

Sarah sniffed. “Just like her, eh? Doesn’t want to worry anyone. Hides it all inside, even when she’s dying.”

“Mother!” Miriam jerked her head around and stared at Sarah’s expressionless face. “Don’t say that!”

“Say what? Don’t think it’s true, eh?” Sarah frowned at her daughter-in-law.

Miriam dared to return Sarah’s frown. “I don’t care if it
is
true. I’m not giving up on her.”

“Telling the truth isn’t the same as giving up. Face life head on. Face death the same way.” The older woman nodded at the frail figure of her mother-in-law. “Could be a mercy, you know. You said yourself how dreadful it could be, what’s going on inside her.”

“I refuse to believe that. She’s going to be all right. She…” Miriam faltered, fighting a surge of tears welling up behind her eyes. Her voice steeled to a murmur. “She’s going to be all right.”

Sarah shrugged. “All right, then. Stay with her.”

“I intend to.”

Miriam did not look up as she heard the rustle of Sarah’s dress cross the room, or at the bump of the door as it closed behind her. She choked back a sob and wiped her moistened cheek with her sleeve.
I won’t cry! Not now.

A subtle change in Deborah’s breathing perked Miriam’s ears. She stared at her grandmother’s face where eyes that had been motionless for over a day quivered beneath their lids. Her pale lips parted and her head rolled to the side.

Miriam hunched next to her grandmother and dabbed her forehead with a moist cloth. “Grandmother?”

Deborah’s eyelids parted to slits and she shuddered as a shallow cough puffed her lips. Her eyes met Miriam’s, although the young woman wasn’t sure whether she recognized her or not.

“Grandmother?”

Deborah’s voice was hoarse and weak. “Zho…Zhonah?”

Her granddaughter’s eyes glistened. “He’s fine, Grandmother. He’s…fine.”

Lll

Jonah paused at the door of the rundown tavern to collect himself. It took much longer than he expected to locate the building, although the district was not large. Moving through unfamiliar shadows and ducking into dark clefts at every noise made progress slow. He actually passed the tavern once, not realizing it was there, since no signs on any of the buildings betrayed their purpose. That puzzled him until he realized that if you didn’t know where you were going in this neighborhood, you had no business being here.

He nearly gave up, relegating the inn’s existence to legend, when he caught a muffled roar of laughter coming from behind him. He slipped back to the alley and peered around the corner just as a door burst open and two figures stumbled out, one struggling to support the other. A strip of oily yellow lamplight spilled across the stone pavement and more laughter erupted. Jonah shrank against the wall, watching to see which way the men turned. The shorter of the two braced his comrade around the back and kicked the door closed behind him, throwing the alley back into darkness. Panic shot up Jonah’s spine as he lost sight of the two revelers. He pressed against the wall, his breath caught in his throat. A moment later his ears caught the shuffling and scraping of leather on stone as the men moved the opposite direction down the narrow lane. His breath returned.

Jonah edged around the corner and slipped across the alley to the door the men had just exited. The faint glow of oil lamps framed an ill-fitting lintel that creaked and threatened to break loose from the crumbling façade. He slipped the hood of his cloak over his head, grasped the door handle and pulled. With a groan, the heavy door swung toward him on its rusted iron pins, and Jonah stepped over the threshold.

He found himself in a long narrow room crammed with an assortment of wooden tables, some off-round, others rectangular, and none of them level. A scattering of short stools and beaten-up chairs littered the room. Many of the patrons ignored them in favor of propping up against a wall or leaning on a long table supported by stone blocks. Behind the table, a man—presumably the owner—poured flagons and cups of thick wine and other more exotic mixtures, of what Jonah could only guess. Four oil lamps sputtering on high shelves along the back wall cast the room in a flickering yellow glow and blackened the low ceiling with smoke stains. The stench of unwashed bodies, oil, smoke, and stale wine assailed his nose, and it took several attempts to manage a full breath.

“Shut the door!” was the only acknowledgment of Jonah’s arrival. Startled, he spun and yanked at the door, wedging it shut on the uneven threshold. He turned again to the center of the room and sidestepped hunched bodies to an empty table near the far corner. One battered stool leaned against the dingy wall and another chair, turned with the seat outward and the back jammed under the table’s surface, served as its second set of legs. Jonah lowered himself onto the teetering stool, nearly tipping over before gaining the right balance. It was more work to balance the stool than just to stand up, which probably explained why so many of the other men in the room were doing just that. He scooted the stool against the wall to brace it and leaned his back against the filthy masonry. Facing the crowd didn’t appeal to him, but he thought standing up would make him more noticeable.

Jonah chanced a look across the room and was startled to see the owner glaring at him from the serving table. The man jerked his head with impatience. Jonah pointed toward a vat balancing on two rickety beams by the wall. The owner drained a carafe of viscous dark liquid into a large cup and brought it to the table. He shoved the cup toward Jonah, then stood with his hands on his hips. Trembling, Jonah produced a shekel of silver and put it on the table. As the man reached for it, Jonah raised one finger and displayed two more pieces. He forced the hardest look to his face he could muster, and dropped the discs next to the first. The owner sized up the lone traveler, gave a curt nod and scraped all three discs into his hand. He went back to his other customers.

That should keep the wine coming and the owner off my back.
Jonah smiled in spite of himself at how well he handled the situation. His smile disappeared when he glimpsed the owner whispering something to a lanky man and nodding in Jonah’s direction. Or did he just imagine that? His confidence waned and he hunched over the table, again wondering what he was doing here.

The wine was terrible. Jonah grimaced when the first sour drops touched his lips.
What Eli wouldn’t have to say about this wine!
The thought of his friend constricted his throat. The severe look on Elihu’s face from yesterday evening’s confrontation rushed back into his mind, driving him lower. It took two more gulps of the rancid beverage to push the image into the background, leaving Jonah alone to stare at the dirty tabletop. The foul liquid pooled in his empty stomach, burning in his gut and driving him deeper into his despair.

The door groaned on its corroded pins, and Jonah looked up to see a stocky man in a loose cloak enter the room. He slammed the door and looked over the crowd before his eyes settled on a small group at the far end of the room. The newcomer made his way to the cluster of drinkers and dropped onto a small chair in the corner. Before Jonah looked away, he spotted the lanky man to whom the owner had whispered to earlier amble over toward the same corner. He lost the man in the crowd but didn’t press the issue. He thought it best not to be observed watching anyone too closely. That just may not be wise.

“You’re daft, old man!” An argument flared two tables away, where five burly men bent over a rickety table.

A raspy voice shot back, “Who ya callin’ daft, eh?”

Jonah froze. He couldn’t help but recognize that voice. His eyes shot over to the group, one of whom was on his feet and hovering over a scraggly old man in a tattered mantel who stared down his tormentor without flinching.

“Israel’s done. She’ll
never
be what she was! Never!”

Moshe rose to his feet, leaning on the rickety table for support with his good arm. “Ya idiot! Jeroboam’s been takin’ the land back fer five years now. Where ya been?”

“Hah! Jeroboam’s been playing general, that’s all. He’s got nothing to show, nothing!”

“Nothin’? Word is he’s on his way back from Damascus even now—with more spoils than Samaria’s seen come through her gates in years.” Moshe’s eyes narrowed. “Question is, why aren’t
you
with ‘em? Didn’t ya sign up at the last call ta arms? Didja desert, ya coward, didja?”