Abigail's Story (12 page)

“The water is stale, and those figs will need another day in the sun,” she claimed. “You need not go to the camp today.”

Maybe she was lonely. “Do you wish me to stay with you?”

“I am fine.” She scowled. “But you should not walk down alone. What if you come upon a wolf or a bear?”

“I was more hoping to meet one of those lions you told me of.” I picked up the stout length of oak that I had taken to carrying with me wherever I walked.
“We could cure the pelt and have a nice rug to spread before the fire.”

Keseke made an annoyed gesture, waving me away. “Go on, then. You will not be happy until you are beset by a beast.”

“I shall fetch some fresh water first.” I grinned. “And if I am met by a lion at the spring, I shall tell it that I was a fool for not following your advice before it devours me.”

Of wolves and bears and lions, I saw nothing, but indeed I was beginning to feel much at home in the hills. Everything was so open, and green. Birds sang and chattered and chirped all day, and when the sun set, the crickets took up the chorus. At other times the only sound one could hear was a lovely whispering from the wind as it wove its way through the pines.

The spring lay near the edge of the trees behind the house. Small, and partially hidden by an outcropping of weather-scoured rock, it was a bountiful source of cool, clear water. I followed the narrow path, formed by years of bare feet treading back and forth.

I must ask Leha if she has a piece of leather I may have to make a soft splint,
I thought as I stepped through the gap in the stones.
Keseke will not be able to walk without something around that ankle.

The sun was already hot overhead, so I removed my head cloth and loosened the collar fold of my khiton. Keseke often predicted that I would be as dusky as a Nubian if I did not keep covered up, but
the sun's warmth felt good on my hair and neck. I smiled and shook out my hair before a splash made me stop in my tracks.

Someone was already at the water's edge, drawing up a brimming pail with a long wooden staff: a man, bare-chested and wearing only a leather ezor around his hips. A traveling pack of food lay spread on the stone beside him. He sat back, poured the water over his head, and shook like a dog before he began singing in a deep, melodic voice:

Adonai, Adonai,

How excellent is Your name in all the earth,

Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants

You have ordained strength,

Because of Your enemies,

That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,

The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,

And the son of man that You visit him?

For You have made him a little lower than the angels,

And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;

You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen—

Even the beasts of the field,

The birds of the air,

And the fish of the sea

That pass through the paths of the seas.

Adonai, Adonai,

How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

As he finished the lovely song, I stepped back, but my foot dislodged a stone and made a small sound. Before I could blink, the man had risen, turned, and held the staff as if he meant to strike me.

“What do you want?” he demanded, his beautiful voice now fierce and flat.

A marauder.
I froze. “Water.” I held out my empty pot to show him.

Slowly the staff lowered. “Only water?”

“Nothing more.” I averted my gaze from his bare chest, which was dripping with water, and spotted a wet cloth near his feet. Obviously he had been using the spring to wash and rest. “I did not mean to startle you, Rea.”

“Did you like my song?”

“It was wondrous,” I said. “I have never heard anything the like.”

He nodded. “If it pleases you, then I shall not change the words.”

“The song is your own? But how—” I remembered I was talking to a nearly naked, wet man and my face grew hot. “I do not mean to intrude. I shall wait beyond the stones until you are finished.”

“No.” His voice gentled. “I am done here.” He bent to pick up his simla and shrugged into it. “This water is almost as sweet as that I drank as a boy, from the cistern at my town's front gate.”

“Sweet water is a good thing. To find, and to drink.” Oh, why had the Adonai stricken my tongue with such clumsiness?

I pressed back against the stone, but I could not stop watching him. He was not very tall, only perhaps a head taller than me, but his shoulders were unusually wide and his arms brutally heavy with muscle. Years of back-breaking work could carve a man's body so, but he sang like one who had spent his entire life doing nothing else but idling by springs and praising the Adonai.

Who was he? One of the dal?

He moved with a peculiar sort of ease, though, one that reminded me of something that I could not quite recall. I was sure I had never seen him before, so why did he seem so familiar?

Like a starling's feathers, his wet hair was straight and shiny, and of black so deep that the light brought glints of blue from it. His brows and beard grew just as dark, although his beard was very short, as if just growing in again after being shaved. The shaving of it meant that he had recently known the death of a relative or friend. His skin seemed cast of smooth bronze. Even if he never sang a note, wherever he went, women's eyes would follow him.

I sensed something different about him, something that had nothing to do with his handsome face, nor his garments, which were as humble as any shepherd's. He wore no ornaments or belt, and his weapons were no different than those carried by a common shamar. Perhaps it was his long-lidded
black eyes, as exotic as obsidian beads, bright with intelligence and humor, and yet calm and deep as the cool water from a mountain well.

A shepherd, a warrior, a singer, and a poet. How could a man be all those things at the same time?

He glanced at me. “You are staring at me.”

I was. Being caught at it made me wish I could run to the spring, dive in and sink to the very bottom, and stay there until he had forgotten that I existed.

“I am sorry.” I moved to leave, but the breeze caught my hair and flung a handful of it into my face. I set down the water jug I carried and tried to brush it from my eyes.

“Wait.” He moved so quickly that the space between us was gone before I realized it. Large hands slid along cheeks and lifted the curtain of hair from my eyes. “Ah, there you are hiding.”

I could not move. The stone was at my back; he at my front. I felt as if caught between two immovable forces, and then nearly laughed at myself for my silly thoughts.
How can a man be as strong as stone?

He was not made of stone. He stood so close I could feel the heat of his skin through my khiton.

That reminded me of my place, which was not to be this close to him. “My thanks.” I tried to draw to the side, but he moved to stop me.

“Don't run away so quick, shy one.”

“I am not shy.” I would not duck my head again, or let my lashes flutter. I would
not
.

“Then why have your cheeks gone a pretty pink, little dove?” He smoothed my wayward hair back
from my brow, and took the head cloth from my numb fingers. Like a father would for a young daughter, he draped my hair and folded the ends of the head cloth around my neck. “It is good that you keep your tresses covered.”

Did he think my hair so ugly? I felt stricken by the thought.

“I shall. It was just that the sun felt so nice, and I . . .” I was beginning to babble. “I shall keep it. Covered, I mean.”

“It is only right. Such bright and lovely hair should be saved for your husband's enjoyment.” He did not remove his hands from my face, but tilted it up to examine it. “Your skin is too pale for you to be one of Yehud's women. What is your name, and where are your kin?”

Who was I, to be allowing this man to put his hands on me?

“Abigail.” I would have added, “wife of Nabal,” but that part did not wish to leave my tongue. Guilt piled atop my embarrassment, but I could not make the words come out. Indeed, my throat was so dry that breathing was a chore.

“Abigail, Father's Delight.” He nodded. “It is a name befitting one with such gentle eyes. Where is your bet ab?”

“The house of my father is in Carmel, beyond the hills.” I pointed vaguely in that direction. Or perhaps I pointed to Hebron. With my thoughts so muddled, I could not tell east from west, north from south.

His dark brows rose. “You are very far from home, little dove.”

“Are you?” I dared to ask.

“Unhappily, yes. My journey here was not of my choosing, but perhaps soon I shall be permitted to return.” His eyes went to the horizon, and he seemed to forget my presence. “This strangeness of his will pass, as it always does. It must.”

His words were so heavy with sadness that I wanted to embrace him. I gripped the sides of my khiton with my hands to resist the urge. “I shall keep you in my prayers.”

“Your kindness warms a cold heart.” He looked over my head. “Now I must go.”

I turned to see three of the dal from Yehud's camp waiting just beyond the stones. “Oh. Of course, I shall not keep you.”

The man reached to take a bundle of cloth from a flat-topped stone. It was a mantle spun of light blue wool, the same one I had seen on the mysterious man on the hill.

“I saw you face the lightning, the other day,” I blurted out. “You stood atop the hill. You danced in the rain.”

He smiled a little. “Do you do nothing but follow me about?”

I was mortified. “I did not mean to spy on you. I just . . . saw you. It was the first time.”

“But not the last. Someday I shall sing and dance for you again, little dove. But for now, I must work.”
He tucked one last, stray piece of hair under the edge of my head cloth. “We will meet again.”

We could not, for I was married. Yet before I could say as much, the man went to join the other dal.

I stared after them until they disappeared beyond the trees, and only then did I realize that I still did not know his name. Who was he? Why was Bethel afraid of him and the other dal? Why did the dal carry so many weapons, for that matter, and why did they guard the camp so closely? Was Yehud their rosh?

My heart did not care about any of that. My heart was making a knot of itself.
Will he truly sing and dance for me someday, as he promised?

The turmoil in my head was nothing compared to that in my heart. I felt dizzy and weak and excited, all at once. I wanted to drop everything and run after the man, and learn his name, and speak with him about his homeland and why he had come to Judah. I wanted to soothe the frown from his brow and spin stories to make him laugh. I wanted to hear him and talk to him and listen to more of his songs and be with him—

No, that was not all.

I wanted to put my hands on his shoulders, and stroke my palms down the length of his arms. I wanted to press my mouth to his. I wanted to feel his hands in my hair and his breath on my face. I wanted to hear him call me his little dove again, in the darkness as the two of us lay together in the
sweet grass, with the sky and the stars as our tent, and the night air as our only garments.

I wanted to be different for him, to be made different by him. I wanted him to shape me with his touch, paint me with his kisses, and fire me in the kiln of our hearts, beating together.

Hot tears scalded my cheeks. I wanted
him
. But I was not free to want any man except the one to whom I was wed.

I slid down the stone and rested my cheek against my knees. I felt hot and cold all over and trembled as if I had fever.

“Adonai, Adonai.” I lifted my watery gaze to the sky. “What have I done?”

CHAPTER
12

I
did not tell Bethel or Leha about the man I had met at the spring, or about my shameful behavior. I did not think of being wed to one man and wishing to touch and be naked with another. It was a sin simply to think of such things. Hebrew women of remote villages were still stoned to death for committing adultery. Even if an adulteress were only cast out and divorced by her husband, she could never return to her family.

That I would never allow to happen.

I did not understand why the shepherd had made me feel such desire. I had not felt such with my husband, but I had not done my duty by him. I brooded over it until Keseke made mention of my mood.

“What is wrong with your tongue?” she demanded as we were out gathering wild wheat stalks in a field by the camp one afternoon.

“Nothing.” I ignored the displeasure on her face and tugged a thick, yellow-green stalk from the
earth. Leha had showed me how to roast the wild wheat's seed heads over an open fire, which made them brown and crunchy. The children especially loved them as a treat.

“You do nothing but chatter all the time,” the serving woman said, coming to take the stalks from my hand and add them to her basket. “Now I hear not two words from you in an hour. You have not been puking, so I know you have no babe in your belly.”

My cheeks turned to fire. “No.” I reached for another stalk. “I am not with child.” I stopped and glanced at her. “You were married once, were you not?”

The corners of her mouth turned down. “I was.”

“Was your duty to your husband . . .” How did I ask why Nabal and my shepherd had treated me so differently? “Was it always pleasant? Did it make you happy?”

“Not always, but yes.” Keseke dropped the basket at my feet and planted her hands on her hips. “What did he do to you?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“The master. He took you to bed, and the next morning you had a bruise on your face. What happened between you?”

Reluctantly, and with great embarrassment, I told her. The duty had not been a pleasant thing. The feel of Nabal's plump, oily flesh on mine had made me shudder. “He did not kiss my mouth, but he did pinch and fondle me a great deal,” I said. None of that had been gentle. “Then there was that other business.”

“What other business?”

“My friend Cetura had told me that Nabal had to put himself inside me. I lay beneath him and let him where he needed to be”—I swallowed—“but something was wrong, and he could not. I think I am not made as other women.”

“I have seen you make your water,” Keseke said dryly. “You are just as any woman is. Why could he not come inside you? Were you too narrow?”

“No.” I tried to think of how to describe it. “His part was so small and soft I thought it would go in without difficulty.”

The serving woman stared at me for a long moment, and then she began to laugh. She laughed so hard that she fell to the ground and rolled on it.

“Very well.” Humiliated, I snatched up the basket and started to walk back to camp.

“Mistress, wait. Wait!” Keseke caught up with me and made me stop. “I was not laughing at you, girl. It was the master at fault, not you. His part must be long and stiff and hard to go into you.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “But what did he wish me to do about it? He kept saying for me to do something in words I did not know, and when I did not, he hit me and made me leave his chamber.”

Keseke put her arm through mine and looked around until she spotted a shade tree. “Come, sit with me. I shall explain it to you.”

I listened to everything she said and felt my unease fade as she told me of Nabal's difficulty and how
other men suffered such an affliction from time to time.

“Well, what did he expect me to do about it?” I demanded. “It was his part, not mine.”

The serving woman described some ways in which women could make that part of men long and stiff enough for the business of making a child. It involved much kissing and fondling of a kind that I did not think I might have done, even if Nabal had allowed such contact.

“Cetura told me only to be quiet and obedient,” I said firmly. “I did ask him for direction, you know, just before he knocked me away with a fist and blamed me for it. He said he had no desire for me and that I should send his bed slaves to him.”

“So what did you do?”

“What else was I to do?” I threw up my hands. “I told the steward to send the Edomites to Nabal and to show me to a separate chamber.”

Keseke laughed again, but not nearly so long or loud. “Mistress, you were not at fault. The master has always had difficulty even with his bed slaves. Such failures strike at a man's pride.” She smiled as if the thought of this pleased her.

No wonder he had been angry. “How am I to get children of him, then, if we cannot do this thing?”

The question made her go still for a moment before her sour expression returned. “It is getting late now. We should take these seed heads back to camp and roast them for the children.”

 

Shearing season was only a few weeks hence, and so I applied myself to the accounting and pot making. I would show Nabal that his faith in me was not misplaced, and give him no reason to cast me off. I pushed aside thoughts of the shepherd.

Nothing I did would shame my husband or my family.

Working among the herdsmen's women in the camp helped keep my thoughts from straying in unseemly directions. Perhaps that was why I began to see things I had not before.

The sheep and goats had used up most of the graze surrounding the camp, and the herdsmen were obliged to drive them farther away each day. Food stores that had seemed plentiful needed constant replenishing, and with the uncertain weather, daily gathering was not always possible. The shepherds from the south competed for local game, which grew scarce, and the grain sacks began to empty rapidly. The growing heat and lack of graze caused the goats' milk to dwindle, and the children would beg their mothers in vain for a cup of leban or a piece of cheese.

With all this bounty my husband possessed, Yehud's family were barely surviving, and they would not receive their pay for the year until shearing time.

Nabal's men returned at the new moon as they had promised, and after I shared the meager amount of food they had brought with the women of the camp, I decided to make the trip back to Maon.

Keseke predicted my efforts would result in nothing but failure. “The master will not care what you say. He will send nothing for these people, and he will beat you for nagging him on it. It is better you stay here.”

“Yehud and his sons cannot herd the sheep if they are too thin and weak from lack of good food.” I finished making up my pack of garments and food for the journey. “I have asked Leha if you may stay in the camp until I return. The women will take care of you.”

“I do not need their coddling.” She scowled at her swollen ankle. “I serve you.”

“They will take care of you,” I repeated, bending down and pressing a kiss against her thin cheek. “Behave yourself while I am gone.”

She seized my hand in hers. “Mistress, do not go back to Maon. Stay.” She gestured around us. “Does the house not please you? Are we not comfortable and happy here?”

“We are, and that makes it all the more important I go.” At her blank look, I added, “How can I live like this when Yehud and his people go hungry?”

“The master will do terrible things to you,” she muttered. “He will beat you.”

“Nabal is my husband, Keseke. He can beat me any time he wishes, but I think he knows not to make waste of a good wife.” Her expression filled with fear so swiftly that I became concerned. “What has he ever done to make you so frightened of him?”

“Nothing.” She would not look at me.

“Then you must trust me to—”

“Listen to me.” She seized my shoulder in a painful grip. “It is said that the master was not to inherit the nahalah of his family. He had an older brother, Pela, who was to have the land, the family holdings, and control of their wealth.”

Servants always gossiped about their masters, but I was surprised she knew so much. “What has this to do with my return to Maon?”

“Pela was murdered, as were the master's parents. On their mats, as they slept. The master was only a young boy, ten years old, and the only one who survived the night. He told the shofet that he saw brigands come into the house in the middle of the night.” Keseke swallowed. “Some think he killed his family, so that he would have everything to himself.”

“That is ridiculous.” I would have laughed, had the tale not been so gruesome. “A boy of ten cannot kill three adults.”

I hardly heard what she said next, her voice dwindled so low. “Perhaps he found someone else to do the killing for him.”

Whatever Nabal had done to her, it had twisted her mind. I was tempted to take her back to Maon with me, but given the wild tales she was spouting, Nabal might order her whipped or sold.

“Enough of this,” I told her. “I am going now. I wish you to stay in the camp while I am gone. Do you understand?”

She nodded and stared at her hands.

“I shall return soon.” I kissed the top of her head and walked out to the wagon.

The journey back from Paran seemed to take longer, now that I traveled alone in the back of the wagon. The driver and the guards had not been happy about taking me back with them and seemed disgruntled over my presence. When we stopped at the crossroads to have a meal and change the animals, the driver said one of the wagon's wheels was loose and that we would stay the night so that the men could repair it.

The old man seemed pleased to see me and had no trouble offering me a sleeping mat by his fire for the night. The men he sent to the barn, where there would be room for them to work and sleep.

“We thought you would not return, Mistress,” the old man said as he brought me a bowl of soup and some bread.

“It is earlier than I had planned, but I have need to see my husband and family.” I smiled at the old man's wife, who was as quiet as ever but wore Rivai's carved picks in the tidy roll of her hair. “Where is your dog?” I had expected to see him sitting and trying not to beg by the cook pot.

“He died one night,” the old man told me. “From the signs of it, he must have eaten something that disagreed with him.” He smiled sadly. “After first we met, I heard your servant speak of your illness, and worried you might not fare well with it in the mountains. That is why your return surprised me.”

I frowned. “But I am not ill, nor was I when last we came here.”

“That cannot be right. She told one of your men that she expected your family to hold kispu before the new moon.” He grimaced. “My ears are old. Doubtless I heard wrong.”

Kispu was a ritual only performed after someone died, and I had never been in better health. Why would Keseke predict such a horrid thing for me?

The old woman came over and looked at me. “That night after you left was when our dog died,” she said, her voice shy. “I think the Adonai must have sent your sickness into him, to spare you.”

 

We left before dawn the next morning and reached Maon by midday.

The house of Nabal looked exactly as it had the day I had left it, with the addition of a few more tick-ridden animals wandering around the slaves' quarters and deposited dung ere they roamed. My husband's steward ushered me in and offered to bring me food and wine, but I asked to be taken to Nabal first so I could make a proper greeting.

“The master cannot receive you now, Mistress,” the steward told me. His eyes darted in the direction of Nabal's bedchamber. “He is, ah, resting.”

Was he sleeping off another night of drinking and gambling, or was he exhausted from his incessant bathing? Was it all that he did? “Wake him, then, for I have need of him.”

The steward turned red. “He is not asleep, Mistress.”

I recalled the two Edomites. “Then please ask him to put aside his women and come to me.” Before the steward could protest again, I walked off to the kitchens.

Only the younger female servant was working, stirring a great pot of vegetable porridge in a desultory fashion. When she caught sight of me, her eyes bulged and the spoon fell from her fingers. With a frightened wail, she pulled her head cloth over her eyes.

“Cease that screeching.” I went to her and uncovered her face. “You know me, girl. I am the master's wife, Abigail.”

“You are a shade, a demon.” She cowered in fear. “Do not steal my soul, I beg you.”

“I am mistress of this house,” I told her firmly, “and I am hungry. Bring food and wine for my husband and me to the great room.”

I left her still staring at me and went to the room where my husband received his guests. There were no dogs or remnants of feasting this time, but stains and dirt encrusted the grimy floor. As I waited for Nabal, I thought over what I would say to him about the herdsmen, and how I wanted to help them.