Abigail's Story (18 page)

I knew the midday heat would feel good on my father's painful joints, and Amri would take care that he did not overexert himself. “I brought some figs from the hill country, and the honey cakes they
make.” I gave her the sack of fruit and cakes that I carried. “They are almost as good as yours, Mother, except they do not have nuts.”

My mother only murmured something vague, and the looks she gave me were quite puzzled. As Cetura and I were picking over some lentils for a stew, Chemda said, “You are very brown, and there are streaks in your hair. You do not look much like my daughter, Abigail.”

I was tanned from my weeks working in the sun—most often I had worn one of the sleeveless khitons favored by Leha and her sister—and my head cloth always slipped to my shoulders after a time.

I examined my arms ruefully. “It is still me, Mother. It is but a darker version.”

“I think you are much shapelier since last we saw you,” Cetura put in. “You have grown into a woman's body.”

My waist and thighs seemed smaller since I had gone into the hills, but my breasts had become fuller and larger. I felt slightly embarrassed by their scrutiny and tugged at my khiton. “We have been working hard to prepare the camp to move.”

“Where will the hill people go, once this shearing is finished?” the widow asked.

I explained that this would be the last year Yehud watched over Nabal's flocks. “The master of the shepherds in the southland has dismissed his men for drunkenness and stealing from the local farmers. He sent word that he sought to hire new men, and Yehud went to speak with him just before we left.
They struck a good bargain, and so the herdsmen will be tending to his flocks for the winter months.”

Cetura nodded her approval. “Your husband will have neither men nor wife to piss on now.”

Her slightly crude remark provoked my mother to slap her arm. “Cetura, for shame! You should not speak so in front of the children.”

The widow and I regarded the two puppies sleeping at my mother's feet. Harek had brought them as a gift for her just after she and my father moved in with the widow, to help calm her agitation. Cetura claimed Chemda was fascinated with the young dogs and that they seemed to have done much to keep her mind from wandering.

“She still insists they are your and Rivai's siblings now and then,” Centura admitted.

“I do not mind,” I told her. “If she must sleep with something, let it be a pup instead of a goat.”

I helped the widow prepare the evening meal while we waited for the men to return, but a feeling of unease set in as the hours passed and Keseke had not yet returned. I went to the window several times to look out into the street, but saw no sign of her.

“She did not say how long she would visit,” I told myself. “She promised not to fail me.”

Cetura joined me at the window. “Did she tell you the name of this friend she went to visit?”

“No, only that she lived two streets over from your house.”

The widow frowned. “Abigail, there are only tanners on that street, and their wives do not live there
for the smell. All their women dwell on the other side of the town.”

I picked up my samla and wrapped it around me. “I shall go and find her.”

Cetura forbade me to leave alone. “With things as they are between you and your husband, you cannot simply walk about without someone to watch over you. You must wait for your brother to come home.”

A short time later my father returned without Rivai, and greeted me sadly. “We were readying to leave Amri's when the shamar came for Rivai.”

Nabal. “Father, did they arrest him?”

“No, they needed him to come to attend to a woman they found outside the merchant's gate. She was left there to die after she had been attacked and beaten. She asked for your brother.”

“Keseke.” Before anyone could stop me, I ran out of the house and down the road, heading toward the market.

Not halfway there, I saw my brother and Amri walking toward me. In my brother's arms was a huddled form swaddled in blankets.

“Keseke?”

“It is she,” Rivai said. “We are taking her to Amri's house; it is closer. No, do not touch her, Abigail. Her bones are broken.”

I looked at the blood dripping from the blankets he had wrapped around her. “Which bones?”

Amri pulled me back and made me face him. His eyes were bleak. “All of them, Abigail. She was beaten until they broke all of them.”

CHAPTER
17

I
t seemed to take forever to walk the short distance to Amri's house. I could not think; I could only hover near Rivai and try to see Keseke's face. The blanket covered most of it, only showing her bloodied mouth and broken nose.

My brother carried her in, and Amri put several blankets over his largest worktable. “Place her here, Rivai. Abigail, light the lamps so I may examine her.”

My hands shook as I used a burning straw to light the wicks. Surely not all of her bones were broken. No one could break all of them.

Amri carefully unwrapped the blankets and revealed Keseke's khiton. It was soaked in blood. Her limbs were bent in too many places, some with the broken ends of bones sticking out through wounds.

“Rivai, go and summon the healer,” I said as I went to her side. I would have taken her hand in mine, but her fingers were shattered.

Amri said something to Rivai that I could not hear,
and they both went outside for a time. Only the spice merchant returned, with a vial of sweet-smelling liquid.

“This is made from parts of a flower, the juice of which can take away great pain,” he told me as he gently held the vial to Keseke's lips. “Only a few drops are needed for most pains. A whole vial will remove all her pain forever.” He looked at me but made no move to give her the liquid.

I understood what he was asking. I was no healer, but even I could see that there was no hope. Her body would never recover from such injuries. Still, I wanted to smash the vial out of his hand, and scream at him, and curse the Adonai for permitting this to happen to my friend.

I did none of those things. I did the thing that was right, and merciful. “Give her the full vial.”

He tipped the liquid into her mouth.

Keseke swallowed it and then opened one eye. “Red flower juice. My thanks.”

Amri murmured a blessing over her.

“I thought I would not see you again,” she said, looking up at me. Her voice was a raw, ruined sound. “I planned not to.”

I choked back a sob. “Your plans never do seem to work out well.”

“I did not ask for you,” she said. “I was afraid his men were watching the gate and would see you. That is why I asked for your brother.”

“Did Nabal do this to you?”

She nodded and coughed. “I almost got away with
it. Almost. Another inch and I would have slit his throat, but for that slut Edomite screaming.”

“You tried to kill Abigail's husband?” Amri asked.

“Someone has to,” she told him. Her voice was growing slurred. “I shall speak to Abigail alone now.”

Amri left us. I placed my hand on the top of Keseke's head, stroking her dry, brittle hair. “Why did you do this?”

“Someone has to,” she repeated. “You must listen to me now, Mistress. My life does not matter anymore. There are others in danger.”

My parents, Rivai. “Whom will my husband harm next?”

“The leader of the dal who guard Yehud's camp sent men to speak to the master this morning. The kitchen wench overheard it all and told it to me. These men greeted the master in Melekh David's name and wished peace on him and his household. They told how his shepherds were guarded by the dal, who did not hurt them or steal from them, and that Yehud and the herdsmen would attest to this. They asked that he find favor with them, as they had come on a feast day, and to give them enough food to last them a week, so they could make their journey out of Paran."

I wanted to scream. How could David do such a foolish thing?
By believing your tale of a generous husband,
my heart told me. “Nabal turned them away.”

“He was yet drunk from the night before when they came. He laughed at them and insulted them.
He called them liars and thieves, and Melekh David a runaway slave.” She paused to cough, and I saw more blood appear on her lips. “One of the Nabal's guards followed them back to the dal's encampment. They are but two hours away from here. They repeated the master's foolish insults to Melekh David, and he ordered them to strap on their swords and ready themselves for battle. He is coming tonight with all four hundred men to kill the master and every member of his household.”

I thought of the shearing sheds, so near the house of my husband. Yehud and his sons would still be there working. “No.”

Keseke clutched at my khiton with her broken fingers. “You must go there now, and warn everyone to flee, while there is still a chance.”

“Hush now.” I wiped some blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. “Why did he have you beaten like this?”

“I failed him, and I tried to kill him.” She gave me a strange smile, her one eye turning dark from the effects of the juice. “But I did not fail you, did I, Mistress?”

“No, my friend.” I bent to her and put my arms around her, careful not to jostle her broken limbs. “I knew you would not.”

“Then I can rest. Go, Abigail. Go before he comes and . . .” She released a choked breath, then another, and went limp in my arms.

I closed her eyes with my hand and tenderly eased her down upon the bloodstained blankets. I prayed
over her and anointed her brow with oil. “Adonai, bless her soul and forgive her sins. She did not fail me or You.”

 

Amri promised to watch over Keseke's body for me until a proper kispu could be arranged. Outside I spoke with my brother, who demanded to know who Keseke was and why she had been beaten so.

“She owed a debt to my husband, and he collected it this way,” I told him.

“I shall go to the shofet—”

“No, there is no time. I must go out into the valley of the crossroads.” I looked and saw Amri's empty wagon, and his mule cropping some grass near the opening to Amri's stockroom. “Bring Amri's mule here and hitch it for me. I shall take that.”

Rivai caught my shoulders. “Abigail, you cannot leave now.”

I looked up at him. “Rivai, for once, I beg you, do as I say.” When he did not release me, I shoved him aside and went to hitch up the mule myself.

“You are doing it wrong.” He came and took the harness straps from me. “Father will kill me if anything happens to you.”

I did not answer him. I thought only of going to David and confronting him. I would make him see that he could not kill innocent people in his anger. As I pulled my samla tightly around me, I cursed Nabal and David. They cared nothing for the lives of Yehud, his sons, or the dal. They were both arrogant fools.

In that moment, words I had heard before whispered inside my mind:
One king fool, one fool king.

The prophecy of the m'khashepah—but how could she have known that I would now be caught between such men?

Whose shall you be? Whose truth shall you speak?

Lightning flashed in the sky overhead, although there were no storm clouds or sign of rain. Rivai cringed and then looked up. “What was that?”

I was lost in the words of the m'khashepah, remembering everything she had predicted.
Seek mercy where none is deserved. Cry mercy when none is earned. Stand and you shall fall. Kneel and you shall rise. Search for it, bargain for it, crawl for it. . . .

I could not be sure of the meaning. What was happening now might have nothing to do with her words. There was one possibility, but it meant that I had to give both men not what they desired but what they deserved.

When you doubt, go back to the wheel. Turn the wheel.

“I need the clay first,” I said to myself.

“Abigail, what are you talking about? You do not need clay at a time like this.” Rivai looked frightened. “What is wrong? Why are your eyes so wild?”

I took his hand and held it so that I could climb up onto the wagon. “I may not return. Tell Mother and Father and Cetura that I love them dearly. As I do you, Brother.”

I could still hear Rivai shouting after me as I drove the wagon through the city gate and took the road leading to Maon.

 

I did not drive the wagon up to the front of Nabal's house. I was determined, but I would do no one any good dead. Instead, I drove it around to the back, where the shearing sheds stood.

I found Yehud and his sons eating a hastily prepared meal in the midst of the bundled fleeces they had shorn that day. The smell of wet wool and lye was thick in the air, and the men wore shearing clothes so covered with bits of wool and dirt that I hardly recognized them.

Yehud rose when he saw me. “Abigail? Have you gone mad?” He looked up toward the house and back at me. “You cannot be here. Your friend, the serving woman, was beaten and dragged from here. Your husband has vowed to do the same to you the moment he sees you.”

“Rosh, there are more important things amiss now. Please, can you tell me what was said between my husband and David's men?”

“David sent his messengers to greet our master, and we went to stand with them, as they have become our friends these past months,” one of Yehud's sons said, “but he reviled them. We told the master that the men were very good to us while we grazed his flocks in Paran, and that as long as we accompanied them when we were in the fields, not a single animal went missing.”

“I did not ask for them, but they were a wall to us day and night,” Yehud agreed. “This I told Master Nabal, and he only laughed and said it was free
service. There is nothing to be done, child. If David means to harm our master, it would be his due. He is such a fool and a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him.”

I had no time to deal yet with my husband. “I need you and your sons to help me load this wagon.”

“What do you put into it?”

“That which might persuade David not to attack.”

As I suspected, there was no one but the kitchen servant inside preparing food, and red blotches from weeping still covered her face. When I came in with the herdsmen, she squeaked with alarm.

“You must not be here,” she warned, trying to push me back through the door. “The master wishes you dead.”

“Do not cry out my name,” I told her. “Where is my husband's steward?”

“He has gone into town to gamble. He stays the night with a woman there.” She saw Yehud's sons carry sacks out of the storage room. “What are you doing?”

“We are taking what we need,” I said. “Say nothing to the master of this.”

“But you cannot take all of that,” she wailed. “He will find it missing and have me beaten as Keseke was.”

“I shall be back in the morning to give him what he is due,” I promised her. “For now, you should go and stay in the shearing sheds. Yehud's sons will protect you there.”

There was too much to fit into one wagon, so I
sent three of Yehud's sons to appropriate more mules from Nabal's stables. Yehud helped me to finish packing the wagon and the mules and then regarded me silently.

“He shall not kill me,” I promised him. “Not right away.”

“You understand how proud David is.” Yehud gestured to the wagon. “This may not be enough, Abigail.”

“It is not all that I mean to give.” I took one of the mules and climbed onto its back, settling myself between the heavy packs suspended from its saddle. “Send the others and the wagon after me. I must go now if I am to stop them in time.”

I slapped the reigns and started the mule toward Paran, and David.