This Scarlet Cord (19 page)

A muscle jumped in Sala’s jaw and he said in a shaking voice, “I was in the wine shop when one of the palace guards came in and announced that Rahab was going to be the new . . . whatever that name is for the woman who has to prostitute herself with the king.”

Atene summoned up the calmest voice she could manage. “This is what happened. The king’s men came to our house this morning and told Rahab she must go with them to the palace, that the king had sent for her. She wanted me to go with her, and they allowed it. Neither of us had any idea what the king might want with her. I thought perhaps he had heard of her beauty and wanted to see her for himself. But then, when we got there, we were met by Lord Arazu.”

“Arazu!” Sala’s voice was filled with loathing.

“Yes. We had been to his house the previous day, you see. My father-in-law wanted to speak to him about selling his wine.” Atene bit her lip. “At least, that was what Mepu said was the reason. I think the real reason was to show Rahab to Arazu so he might be moved to find a husband for her.”

Sala said something in his own language that Atene did not understand, but she was quite sure it was not a compliment of Mepu’s judgment.

She did not ask for a translation but continued, “So that is how Arazu met Rahab. He must have gone to the king and told him about her.”

“But why would Makamaron make such a change at the last moment? This other woman was probably chosen a long time ago. Why would the king risk alienating her family for Rahab, whose family is of no importance?”

“Rumor says that Arsay’s family is of the prince’s party, and so Makamaron didn’t trust her. Rahab’s lack of influential family is probably one of the reasons he picked her. She has no ties to any of the factions in the city.”

The muscle in Sala’s jaw jumped again. “If she didn’t want to do it, then why didn’t she just refuse? It’s not like Rahab to agree to do something she doesn’t want to do.”

“You must understand, Sala. After her father had approved, there was nothing she
could
do. I haven’t been able to see her since they took her to the shrine, but I know she is heartbroken. She loves
you
, Sala. She does not want to be the hierodule, but she has no choice. If she refused to perform this role, the king would surely take his anger out upon her family. She can’t risk that.”

Sala stared down into Atene’s face. “What kind of religion do you people follow, that you could force a young girl to do such a thing? To prostitute herself! That is all this is, Atene. No matter how you try to pass it off as religion, this is nothing else than prostitution. Her pay for the use of her body will be patronage for her family. Am I right?”

“Perhaps,” Atene replied in a low voice. She gathered her courage and spoke aloud the thing that had been preying on her mind all day. “Sala . . . Rahab and I prayed to your God yesterday. She told me some of the things you had explained to her about your beliefs, and, well, we prayed to Elohim. Rahab prayed you would marry her and I prayed that he would send me a child. And then, this morning, Rahab was taken away.” She bit her lip. “Sala, I’m afraid Baal was angry with us for turning to another god. I think that might be why this is happening to Rahab.”

Sala was stunned. “Rahab prayed to Elohim?”

“Yes. She said you had told her it was all right just to pray from the heart, so that is what we did. But now that this awful thing has happened, I’m afraid we made a terrible mistake. And I encouraged her. We did it together . . .” Her voice broke and she looked away.

She felt Sala take her hand into his and she looked up. “You did not make a mistake, Atene. It was Mepu who made the mistake, by taking Rahab to see Arazu. If Rahab has put herself under the guidance of Elohim, then there is still hope for her. We must believe this. We must believe that when Elohim heard Rahab’s prayers, He listened and He set her feet upon this path for a purpose.”

The ring of belief in Sala’s words both surprised and comforted Atene. He truly did believe in this Elohim. “Do you really think so?” she asked.

“Yes, I do.” His brown eyes were deep and grave. “And we must continue to pray for her, Atene. Both of us. We must ask Elohim to give Rahab the courage to follow His wishes and give us the knowledge of how we may help her.”

“I . . . I will try,” Atene whispered.

“You did the right thing, Atene. There is only one God, and He is Elohim, the Creator of us all. Believe that. And pray for Rahab.”

Atene could almost feel physically the power of his faith. Perhaps he was right. Certainly her prayers to Baal and Asherah had never been answered.

“I will pray to your God, Sala. I will.”

“And so will I,” Sala replied. “If Elohim has called Rahab to be one of His own, He will save her.”

Eighteen

F
OR ALL OF HIS FINE WORDS TO
A
TENE,
S
ALA FELT
sick every time he thought of Rahab and what she was being forced to do. He had told Atene that if they prayed to Elohim, Rahab would be saved, but he could not ignore the trickle of doubt that crept into his mind as soon as he began to walk back to the inn. Rahab was not an Israelite and she was engaging in a pagan rite. Would Elohim care about her? Would He see in her some part of His plan? Or would He see in her only the false religion He hated? Elohim despised His people when they fell into the worship of pagan gods. But surely He must see that Rahab was different!

He began to pray:

She is a good woman, Elohim. She seeks to find the truth. She seeks to find You. I beg You to take pity on her and help her. She does not deserve to be defiled by this false religion that she is turning her back upon. Save her, Elohim. I beg You, save her!

That evening after supper he went out to the inn courtyard and looked up into the clear night sky. The brilliant stars seemed so close, but he knew they weren’t close; they were far, far away. They belonged to Elohim, not to men. Elohim had made the stars and the sky and the sun and the moon and the great water upon which his father’s ships sailed. How could people believe that such beauty and precision could have come into being through the quarreling of childish gods? Did they not understand the great gap that lay between men and the God who created them? When Elohim created the world, He had put into it the nature of plants to grow and the nature of animals and men to procreate. These ignorant Canaanites thought they had to imitate their gods in order to bring about what the One God had ordained to happen from the beginning of time.

Sala looked up at the beautiful, mysterious sky and prayed with everything in him that Rahab would be saved from this unclean act, saved for herself, and saved so she could know the One True God, Elohim, the God of Israel.

Alone in her room at Asherah’s Shrine, Rahab’s thoughts were on Elohim as well. The priestesses had explained to her what would happen at the festival and how she must conduct herself. As she listened, everything in her mind and heart and body had recoiled from the picture they were painting. She did not feel like an empowered goddess; she felt like a sacrifice. She wanted to fight. She wanted to scream at these white-clad priestesses that they were wrong, that there was no holiness in what they were doing, but the thought of her family and their vulnerability held her back. The priestesses believed in this ritual. That was the difference between them and her. They believed and she did not.

Rahab arose from the carved wooden bedstead she had been given for the night and walked over to the wooden statue of Asherah that was the room’s only decoration. As was usual with statues of Asherah, she was nude, with her hands tucked under her breasts. Instead of a torso and legs, her lower body consisted of a straight cylindrical column decorated with snakes, symbolic of the goddess’s power of renewal.

All of Rahab’s life she had revered and prayed to Asherah. The statue she was looking at now was the same as dozens of other statues of the goddess that Rahab had seen. She shut her eyes and felt with her mind for some connection to the goddess she had grown up with.

There was nothing.

“I am not going to become you tonight,” she said out loud. “I am going to be me, and whatever the king does with me is not going to cause the grain to grow or the beasts to bear.”

The empty eyes of the statue looked straight ahead, not seeing Rahab at all. The girl took one step back and then another. She had nothing in common with this blind wooden replica. It was not Asherah; it was just something that had been carved by men.

Rahab shivered in her thin white gown and wrapped her arms around herself to stop shaking. Once again she thought of Sala’s God, Elohim. There were no statues of Elohim because His greatness could not be captured in wood or stone. He did not even have a name. He was the Creator. Did that mean He had created her? If He had, if He had really created her, then wouldn’t that mean He cared about her?

She didn’t know. All she knew was that she was in the worst trouble of her life and she didn’t know where to go or what to do. Sala had said his God had done miracles for his people. He had sent plagues on the Egyptians so the Israelites would be freed from slavery. He had parted the waters of the sea so that they could escape from the pursuing Egyptian army. He had fed the Israelites in the desert. Surely, if this God could do all of these things, He could save her from the sacred marriage.

Rahab shut her eyes and whispered to Elohim that she would become His faithful follower and do whatever He asked of her, if only He would send a miracle to save her from the king.

Prince Tamur was furious when he learned about his father’s ploy to get rid of Arsay. He, his friend Farut, and Arsay’s brother Bari met in the prince’s apartment in the palace early that evening to discuss what they might do to rescue their plan.

“It’s too late. The news is all over Jericho,” Farut said grimly. “Makamaron had messengers go to every gathering spot in the city. No one is talking about anything else and everyone is agog to see this Rahab who has taken Arsay’s place.”

Bari said, “I have tried to speak to Arsay, but she is being kept somewhere here in the palace. I know she is not at Asherah’s Shrine; the new hierodule is there, being instructed on how to behave in my sister’s place.”

The prince cursed loudly and jumped to his feet. The two other men watched him as he prowled restlessly around the luxurious room like a giant cat, his stride long, his feet quiet on the carpet. Finally he swung around to look at them, his dark eyes flashing with barely contained fury.

“We had it planned perfectly. At the banquet the morning after the ritual, all Arsay had to do was stand up and announce that the king had been unable to consummate the marriage. It would have been the ideal moment for me to step in and demand that he come down from his throne so that I may take his place. An impotent king is not fit to rule. Everyone understands that.”

Farut said, “Makamaron has outmaneuvered us.”

“We can still protest that this sacred marriage is not lawful,” Bari argued. “No one has ever heard of this girl. She is not noble—someone told me she was the daughter of a shepherd! The spirit of Asherah will not enter into the body of such a low-born creature. We have every reason in the world to call this supposed sacred marriage a sham.”

Farut took a long drink of the wine in his cup before he turned to his friend. “Have you seen the girl, Bari?”

“No. I hear she is beautiful, but so is Arsay.” The young man slammed his hand down on a table in his rage. “Jericho is filled with beautiful women who are not the daughters of a shepherd! Why did this happen?”

“Her father is not a shepherd,” Farut said. “He owns large vineyards near the village of Ugaru. It’s true he is not noble, but he is a man of some substance.”

“He’s still just a
farmer
,” Bari protested. “My sister comes from one of the noblest families in Jericho. And I’m quite sure she is just as beautiful as this shep—farmer’s daughter the king has chosen.”

The prince said, “You are the one who saw her up close, Farut. How do you answer Bari?”

Farut smiled wryly. “Her beauty is not in question. The king chose her because he knew he could not trust Arsay. Is there any possibility of us getting to her so we can convince her to denounce the king at the banquet?”