Counted With the Stars (27 page)

The taste of manna exploded on my tongue. Three days without the sweet bread had heightened the sensation of its spiced-honey flavor. He handed me a skin-bag. After being hidden in the cave all day, the water ran cool over my lips. With nothing to drink but warm, stale beer for the last three days, my parched throat and mouth all but sang with pleasure as I satisfied my thirst.

Eben let out a shuddering sigh. “Are you unharmed?”

My heart stuttered at the gentleness of his voice. I nodded and then laughed quietly.
He can't see me.
“I am not injured.”

“Are you . . . all right, though?”

He didn't know how to ask what Sayaad had done to me.

“He did not harm me. I was tied in his tent for three days. He only threatened to . . .”

His breath released. “Thank Yahweh.”

I didn't know how to ask what I needed to know from him either. “Tell me what happened after I was taken.”

“Why don't you rest? We can talk in the morning.” His ragged voice jolted me.
What more do I not know?

“Eben. Please. Tell me.”

He exhaled slowly.

“Your—your mother . . .”

“Is dead.” Saying the words out loud hammered them deep into my heart. I felt their sharp edges as they took root.

“You knew?”

“I was there. She was gone . . . dead, before I found her in the stream. They took me from her side.” If only I could erase the picture of my mother, sightless and pale, from my memory. “And . . . Jumo?” I braced for the truth.

“Jumo is fine, aside from a nasty cut on his head and a broken heart. He is alive.”

“He is? Jumo is alive? Praise Yahweh!” I thought my heart would burst through my chest with joy. I grabbed for Eben and hugged him with all my strength.

What am I doing?
I pulled back before he could push me away.

Instead he pulled me closer and wrapped me in his arms. I let the wall crumble and sobbed into his chest. He rocked me back and forth until my heart emptied itself; the strength of his embrace and the warm scent of his body infused me with a deep sense of safety I had never felt before.

I sniffed back my tears. “And Shira?”

“Shira is sick with worry over you, as is my mother.”

“She is? Your mother is worried about me?”

“Of course. We all have come to love you and your family. My mother is devastated over the loss of your mother. She and Shira would have come looking for you themselves if I would have let them. And Jumo . . .” His voice trailed off.

“What?” I pulled back.
Curse this blackness hiding his face.

“Jumo is beside himself with grief and anger. Not being able to protect you or your mother . . .”

“But there was nothing he could have done. He did try.” The image of my brother hefting that sword, the fury and the grief contorting his expression—I would never forget it.

“Don't you see? A man who cannot protect his own family . . .
doesn't feel like a man at all.” Carefully tucked behind his words were the memories of a young boy carrying the burden of protecting his family after his father's murder.

My heart bled for Jumo—and Eben—and my response was for both men. “It was not his fault.”

“Still. He blames himself for Nailah's death and your kidnapping.”

I dropped my head into my hands. “My poor brother.”

“Make sure that you don't say anything to him, though, Kiya. Just grieve with him, all right?”

I nodded my head, forgetting again that he couldn't see me.

“All right?” His words were forceful but gentle.

“Yes.”

“Now, please come back.” His hands found mine and drew me back into the sanctuary of his embrace. “I've waited too long to have you in my arms. I'd rather not let go.”

E
ben held me close all night, leaning against the back wall of the small cave. I slept tucked under his chin and surrounded by his arms. When I awoke to the red sunrise blazing through the mouth of the cave, I did not move but lay against his chest, listening to the rhythm of his heart until the fiery sky paled to yellow. He stirred. I looked up at his face, but his eyes did not open.

“Are you uncomfortable?” I whispered.

He shook his head.

I attempted to sit up, but he would not release me. His eyes were still closed, but the corners of his mouth lifted.

“What are you doing?” I struggled against his arms.

“I told you: I'm not letting you go.” He opened his eyes and looked down at me. “I'm never letting you out of my sight again.”

My heart took flight, threatening to flutter right out of my chest and fly around the cave. “Do you promise?”

“I promise.” He kissed my forehead. The tip of my nose. And then, feather-soft, my lips.

I couldn't help myself. I laughed.

He furrowed his brow in confusion.

“I'm sorry. It . . . it tickles.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your beard. I've never kissed a man with a beard. Egyptian men would never wear such a barbarous thing.” I feigned annoyance and pursed my lips to hide my smile.

His eyes went wide for a second, but then a mischievous look stole into them and he tickled my face, my ears, and my neck furiously with his beard. I laughed until my sides ached and I begged him to stop. He did, but he watched me with eyes changed to gold by the pale sunlight. I returned his gaze, drinking in the intensity between us. How could it be that this man who had seemed to hate me with such ferocity now looked at me with equal admiration?

My chest hollowed as a wave of awareness crashed over me, along with a furious undercurrent of guilt. My mother was dead yet here I was, laughing with Eben. How could I be so callous?

He placed his warm hands on either side of my face and traced my cheekbones with his thumbs in a soothing gesture, as if he sensed the sudden shift in my mood. “Why do you not wear kohl anymore?”

I had forgotten to somewhere along the journey—it no longer seemed important. I shrugged, well aware that he was trying to distract me from thoughts of my mother.

He tilted his head to one side. “The first time I saw you I wanted to jump into those puddles of honey-gold and never come up for air.”

A shiver ran through me, and my mouth went dry. “The first time?”

“Mmm. I looked up, and there you were, so furious at poor Liat.” He dropped a playful frown, but then sobered. “And all I wanted to do was fly over that table and—”

His lips were on mine and his arms around me, pulling me
closer—but it wasn't close enough. He kissed me until I could not breathe, but I wanted more; his touch dulled the shattering grief. I snaked my arms behind his neck and tangled my fingers in his dark hair.

“Here is what I wanted to do since the first time I met you,” I said against his lips and twisted my fingers deeper. “But mostly to shake all of that sawdust out of your hair.”

He laughed and then kissed me again, softly, and then with a passion to equal my own. My heart thudded wildly, and the heat of his lips kindled a flame in my veins. Everything was Eben, all around me; I clung to him, lost in blissful disorientation.

Suddenly, he pulled back, a reluctant move. “We need to go.” He pressed my shoulders gently, his voice hoarse and trembling.

I nodded and dropped my eyes.

He lifted my chin with his finger. “What is it?”

I was not pure. I had given Akhum the part of me that should have belonged to Eben. If I told him, would that look of desire on his face change to disgust?

A thought struck me. “What do you mean, the
first
time you saw me? I thought you hated me, along with every other Egyptian.”

Now his eyes fell. “The strength of my attraction to you was—disconcerting, shall we say. What you saw in me was not anger at you but frustration with myself. You have to understand, Kiya, how much I loved my father. He was the greatest man I have ever known, will ever know . . . and I watched him die . . . did Shira tell you that?”

I shook my head.

“I was there in the square that day, when they tied him to that post and whipped him until he could not stand, until he could not breathe from the pain of it. I saw the light go out of his eyes.”

My heart throbbed at the agony of his words.

“All I wanted was vengeance. I spent every spare minute I had learning to throw that knife. Planning the day when I would slit an Egyptian throat with it, any Egyptian.”

I winced.

“But then you came along, with all your strength and fire and beauty, and I was undone. What you saw was my fight against myself to keep from loving you.” He stroked my hair, and I leaned into his hand. “Yahweh brought you to me, and instead of using my knife for vengeance, I used it to protect the woman I love.”

My heart leapt at the declaration.
He loves me.

But again, shame flared in my throat. How could I feel such satisfaction in the face of the overwhelming pain of my mother's loss? Could the two emotions live side by side?

“Three times.” I smirked.

“Yes. Three times. Two deadly snakes.”

“And thanks to Yahweh for that.” I released a deep breath.

“Have you finally decided to believe in our God?” He lifted a brow.

“How could I not? He was with me in that tent. He guarded me until you came. He revealed himself, just like Mosheh told me he would.”

Transient emotions crossed Eben's face—disbelief, curiosity, and then confusion.

“I will tell you about it later. But for now, you need to let go. I have to stand up.”

He reluctantly released me, and I crept out of the cave to stretch.

The dry wadi around me was breathtaking in the golden morning light. Colors lined the walls of the small canyon, different strata of rock carved and smoothed over time by the rush of early-spring floods, as if a painter had decorated the wadi
with stripes of reds, yellows, and oranges with many brushes. Jumo would love it.

Eben packed his bag and joined me out in the sunlight.

“Fascinating, isn't it?” He stretched out his arms.

“Yes, I wonder how it happened.”

“Yahweh
is
a master craftsman after all.” He gestured wide to the sky and the land all around us.

“Are you saying that Yahweh made this, painted it, like Jumo paints his pots?”

“Yes . . .” He lifted his brows, as though it were obvious. “Has Shira never told you the story of how the earth was made?”

I shook my head. She'd told me many stories of her people but never the beginning.

“I'll tell you as we walk. The camp is not so far from here.”

He took my hand, and as we walked back to the Hebrew encampment, he told me the story of how Yahweh made the world. How he spoke it into existence with just a word from his mouth. He also said that HaAdam, the first man, Yahweh had designed with his own hands from the dust of the earth and stirred him to life with his
Ruach
, his divine breath.

“I think”— Eben began—“and this is only an idea out of my own mind, it could be true or not. You may think I am crazy.”

His shy, uneven smile and the memory of his kiss warmed me head to toe.

“I love music, as you well know, and our language is a musical one, one that lends itself to poetry and prose, rhythm and rhyme. I believe that Yahweh did not just speak creation into existence. I believe he sang it into existence. Sometimes when I am alone, playing the lyre and singing, I feel as though he is singing with me. I am working together with the One who made the stars to create something new.”

“That is beautiful.” I squeezed his hand, which was rough and callused from hewing wood and carving instruments. I
thrilled at the touch of it; silken skin could not compare. His hands told the story of his gifts and his past, and I wanted to never let go. I lifted his palm, still bearing three small scars from the acacia bush during the flash flood, and kissed each of them. They spoke of his courage and his love for my brother.

“How did you find me? In all that confusion?”

“It was the strangest thing. The Amalekites were ferocious. They were more than prepared for war with us, almost shockingly so. Even though we have a lot of men to fight, none of us is very skilled.”

I raised my brows. Eben was more than skilled with a dagger.

“Well, most of us. Anyhow, only a few minutes into the battle and we were losing. They attacked at dawn, and we feared that before the sun even fully rose, we would be crushed. But then Mosheh came.”

“You saw Mosheh?” I had never told anyone of my brief encounter with our enigmatic leader, but I kept silent, saving my revelation for another day.

“He was hard to miss up there on the ridge above the battle. When his arms and his staff rose high above his head, all of a sudden the enemy seemed to weaken.”

“Why?”

“I'm not sure. But then, whenever his arms seemed to tire and droop, we began losing the battle again. Then a few minutes later, he would regain strength and then we would be stronger, push the Amalekites back even farther.”

I was so fascinated by his story that I stopped walking. “But the fighting went on for hours and hours.”

“At one point it looked as if Mosheh could not hold up his arms anymore. We were close to defeat. But then, two men—I have no idea who—came to stand beside him. Mosheh sat on a boulder and each of the men held up an arm. We pushed the Amalekites back, almost to their camp, and it was then that I
saw Sayaad. When he caught sight of me, he turned and ran, and that's when I knew he had you.” He gritted his teeth. “It was as if Yahweh guided me to him.”

Eben looked off toward the hills and said nothing for a while. I wondered what images were behind his eyes. It was the first time he had been in battle—who knew how many men he had been forced to kill in hand-to-hand combat yesterday? And then, Sayaad as well.

All of us had lost so much in the past few days. How would any of us ever heal from these wounds? I wrapped my arms around his waist and laid my head on his shoulder.

How could I return to that camp, when my mother was no longer there? Even with the comfort of Eben's arms around me, the pit of my stomach ached. My beautiful mother, buried beneath the sand, her golden eyes closed for all eternity. Panic seized me. All I had ever known about death was from the stories of my people. I knew little of Yahweh, but I suspected that my idea of the afterlife might be as warped as my understanding of the gods had been. I clutched Eben's tunic, my breath coming quickly.
It is my fault she is gone.

With concern on his brow, he wiped my silent tears. He kissed my lips and then leaned his forehead against mine. “I am here,” he said.

Our breath mingled, and his nearness gave me strength. I drank it in like elixir.

Water gushed from an enormous rock on the side of the hill, tumbling down in an inexplicable torrent and creating a gentle river that split the camp in half. Eben explained to me how Mosheh had struck the rock with his staff to provide water for us—a response to the near rebellion that swelled when this valley was found to be completely dry. I wondered if the Ama
lekite attack had something to do with this miraculous gush of water in the desert, for surely their people and flocks were as thirsty as ours.

Even more astounding was the vegetation that had already sprung to life along the path of the river. The parched ground had been awakened, long-dormant seeds joyfully pressing tentative shoots of green skyward.

Many wounded men lay on pallets throughout the camps, and I knew that there were many other men who had met their end on the battlefield nearby. A rush of gratitude that Eben was walking next to me, unscathed, flooded through me.

I did not fail to notice, however, some of the looks from the Hebrews we passed. Some tried to be covert about it, ducking heads down as we passed to whisper in each other's ears. Many seemed to have no problem at all voicing their opinion of a Hebrew man escorting an Egyptian woman through camp.

“
Zonah
 . . .” accused one woman as I passed.

Another flung the word
traitor
at Eben.

Eben turned to defend us.

“No.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let it go. Let's just get back to our family.” Shira, Zerah, the girls—they had become just as much my family as my own had been. I was as anxious to see their faces as I was to look into my own brother's eyes.

Shoshana was the first to spot us, perched as usual on the top of a wagon, her cry of happiness ringing out over the camp. “Eben! Kiya! They're back!”

A flurry of shouts, fierce hugs, and tears enveloped us. Zerah pushed everyone aside to wrap her arms around her son, her face stoic, but palpable relief flowing out of every pore. Then to my extreme surprise, she released him and turned to me, grasping me tightly and kissing my cheeks.