Delilah: A Novel (31 page)

Help me act well in Your name
. I had dreamed all my life of acting as
Goddess-on-Earth.
Aid me, Bright Lady, to do honor to You and to Your house in Ascalon
.

I had thought the exhilaration of acting for the first time as Grove Goddess would burn forever as one of my brightest memories. But while I cherish that brief time even now, a lamplight warm against dark dreams, its brilliance faded even before I returned to Ascalon. For on the third day, when I had finished the final blessing of the Grove, I walked down through the trees to the river. And there, beside the river Sorek, I met a woman walking along its bank towards the Grove. She paused when she saw me, then came forward, moving with calm, easy grace, until we stood facing one another at the river’s edge.

“It is good to see you again, heart-sister,” Aylah said.

After the first loving greetings, I stood back, holding her hands, and stared at Aylah. “Half a year has been forever,” I said, and then, “You’ve changed.”

She smiled. “Only my garments, Delilah. I am still just as I was when I lived in the House of Atargatis. But we make an odd pairing now, do we not?”

She was right; no longer did we form one brilliant image of Sun and Moon. We had been called each other’s mirrors when we danced together. But as I looked at what Aylah had become, I slowly began to see how different we truly were.

I stood there in all the glory of a priestess, a Full Moon of the Great House of Atargatis. Curled and knotted hair, painted face and gilded breasts, cinched bodice and seven-tiered skirt, scarlet girdle and anklets hung with silver bells—unless I moved, I could be taken for a statue, an icon rather than a living woman.

But no one would mistake Aylah for anything but a mortal woman now. Sun had gilded her skin, turned her face the hue of wild honey. Her bright hair hung in two long braids, the ends bound with leather. A skirt of undyed linen fell to her ankles; over that she wore a tunic
woven in blue and white stripes. The tunic’s sleeves covered all her arms from shoulder to wrist, hiding the serpent tattoos she had earned when she became a Rising Moon. She wore a veil, too, a simple length of sky-blue cloth. The veil lay draped about her shoulders; she had pushed it back off her hair when she saw me at the riverbank.

In only one thing were we alike now. Both of us stood barefoot on the sun-warmed ground. Yet even in so simple a thing as that, we differed. My henna-tinted feet glowed rose-red. Aylah’s were brown from sun and dust.

“Well, Delilah? Have you seen enough to scold me for yet?”

“Oh, Aylah, I would not scold you—” I began, and she laughed.

“Of course you would; you always did. And you always wanted me to look like the Queen of Heaven, and I—Well, I prefer to be comfortable. I always did.”

I looked at our clasped hands, felt the strength and hardness of hers. “Oh, Aylah, I am so glad to see you. How did you know I was here?”

“Because everyone for a dozen villages around knew the Great House was sending Delilah Moondancer to be Goddess-on-Earth here in the Sorek Grove before you even left Ascalon. Such news flies faster than a swallow. But you must have known I would come, Delilah. Timnath is but an hour’s walk. Our farm is just beyond the village.”

For a heartbeat I could say nothing; Aylah drew in her breath sharply, and before I could gather words, she said, “So you did not know? Or did you not wish to know? Did no one tell you that this is the Timnath Grove? Or that the farm that was my dowry from the Temple lies near Timnath?”

“I—I knew the Temple dowered you when—”

“When I married Samson. You need not slink around the words, Delilah. It is no shame to marry.”

“No, of course not. But for the Temple to give you—a priestess—to such a man . . .”
A man with strong hands and a sweet smile. A man bright as the sun itself
.

“Samson is a hard man to say no to,” Aylah said.

“Because he wanted you for his bride, not one person—not even the High Priestess—could say ‘No, Samson. You may not have her’?” I tried to keep my face smooth, a proper priestess’s mask. Once I had shared all my dreams with Aylah; now she must never learn I still desired a man I could never possess. Fear that I would betray myself made me speak sharply, my voice harsh, as if I hated both her and Samson. “Why didn’t they tell him no? Why set him tasks? Why give him such hope? Why risk you?”

Aylah looked at me with what I realized, with a shock, was amusement—and pity. “Oh, Delilah, you never change! To you the world is so simple—black or white, yes or no, false or true. They set Samson tasks because they thought he would be killed before he completed the first.”

“But he was not killed.” I still did not understand how he had succeeded. “Was his god truly stronger than Atargatis?”

Aylah shrugged. “Perhaps—or perhaps Samson is cleverer than his enemies. And perhaps Atargatis wished him to triumph. Did you never think of that, Delilah?”

I felt heat flood my face, and was thankful for the paint that covered my cheeks. The carmine hid the sign of my shame.
It is true; I never thought of that
. But Aylah, who had always seemed to doubt, had owned more faith in Bright Atargatis than I, Her avowed servant. If Atargatis chose to bestow Aylah upon Samson, who was I to question Her plan—I, who in my grief and folly had asked too much of Her?

“You are right, Aylah.”
Not what I desire, but what Our Lady desires
. “If Atargatis Herself wished to grant Samson’s prayer—”

“Then you would stand here now, not I. They did not tell you, did they, those who rule Our Lady’s Temple?”

“Tell me what?”

“It was not I Samson desired as his wife, Delilah. It was you.”

I gasped and pressed my hand to my mouth, just like any silly girl in a harper’s tale. “Me? He wanted to wed
me
? Then why did he take you instead? And why—”

“Why did the Temple offer up me, and not you?” Aylah laughed and regarded me with the patient tolerance of a mother for her child’s follies. “Oh, Delilah, how can you be so wise and so foolish at once? Do you think the Great Temple spends years training one such as you to be priestess, to dance before Our Lady, to draw gems and gold from men’s hands into the Temple’s treasure-store, only to waste her in a marriage to anyone? You always believed me more beautiful, more graceful, more favored than you—for you loved me, and your heart rules you. But you were always wrong, Delilah.”

As I stared, trying to summon words to answer, Aylah held up her hand. “No, let me finish. You must listen and believe. The Temple’s eunuch bought me only because the Prince of the City’s servant thought to buy me, and Derceto and Sandarin loathe each other. Who was I? A girl from beyond the North Wind, with no skills and no graces, and nothing save yellow hair as my dower. Had I not been your heart-sister, do you think I would have become a Rising Moon, or been chosen to dance? And your mother is wed to an Ascalon merchant of rank and wealth; the Temple would not choose to offend a generous benefactor.”

Me. He had wanted me, desired me for his own. Me
. For a heartbeat I felt again his hand on my hair as he freed me during the Sun Partridge Dance . . .

“But if Samson wanted me, why did he accept you in my stead?” I kept my voice soft, smooth. I would not reveal my thoughts, I would
not
. I tried to forget that Aylah had always seemed to know what I truly felt, no matter what I said, or how.

“Samson took me because the Temple tricked him, Delilah.”

“How tricked?” I heard myself ask, and Aylah said, “A bride goes veiled to her wedding.”

“And when he lifted your veil, I suppose he did not notice—” Anger clawed my bones, growled beneath my words. I do not know what cruelties I would have spoken, but Aylah silenced me by pressing her fingertips to my painted lips.

“He is simple and good—not simpleminded. Please, Delilah, listen to all I must tell you.”

Despite my long years of training, I found myself struggling to regain calm. “Aylah—”

“Wait. There is one thing more. If there is anything you wish to say to me about my husband, heart-sister, say it now and I will listen, and say not one word in return.” She looked at me, her eyes steady, as if she awaited attack.

Cold slid through me like a serpent. A hundred angry words battled to fling themselves at Aylah, to strike down her happiness.
Why should she be happy? Why should she have him, while I—
“No,” I said.
No, I will not say these things. I will not think them. I will banish them from my heart forever. I will let Aylah be happy with the life she has chosen
.

At last, when I had imprisoned those wild, sickening words of accusation and desire, bound them with silver chains and locked them away in an ivory casket, I said, “No, heart-sister. There is nothing I wish to say to you about Samson. And yes, I will be still, and I will listen well to what you must tell me.”

Aylah looked keenly at me, then said, “First, you must understand that Samson never lies, and he does not easily see deceit in others.”

I drew in a deep breath. “He does not lie, he trusts too much. I understand. Now tell me,” I said, and Aylah revealed all that had passed between the Sun Partridge Dance and the day Samson had carried his priestess-bride through the gate into her new home.

High Priestess Derceto herself had instructed Aylah in the deed she was to accomplish, and how she was to carry it out. That was when, Aylah said, she learned she was being given in marriage to a man who had triumphed in the three impossible tasks assigned him by the Temple, a man who had labored long and faithfully—and successfully—in the belief that he would be granted Delilah Moondancer as his bride.

“I was afraid, then,” Aylah told me, “for who knew what a man so greatly deceived would do? But I was more afraid of Derceto and what
she would do to me if I refused than I was of Samson. And indeed, I wished to do as she ordered me. Part of what she ordered, anyway.”

“What part?” I asked. Oddly, I felt nothing, neither grief nor joy nor even surprise, at Aylah’s revelations. Perhaps a corner of my mind had always known there was something amiss in the entire affair.

“The wedding.” Aylah slanted her eyes at me, gauging my reaction. “I wished to be married, Delilah. I love you dearly, sister of my heart, but I am no true priestess. I longed to escape the Temple walls. This deception gave me my chance.”

As I stood still as a painted idol, refusing to acknowledge the pain these words gave, Aylah spoke on in her soft, careful voice. “I was afraid Samson would know at once I was not the bride he had been promised, but Derceto had me adorned so heavily the gold and gems and embroidered silks hid my form.”

Yes, that would have been necessary to carry out the deception. While Aylah and I were of the same height, she was full-bodied, womanly, while I still remained slender as a desert hound, all my curves created by dancer’s muscles.

“Your hair?” Mine flowed like black water down my back; hers glowed like sunlit honey.

“Braided with black cord, tight-bound so that not a strand escaped. And then there was the bridal veil; I was covered by so long and so thick a cloth that he could not see my face, or the color of my hair. The High Priestess told me to keep the veil on until I entered Samson’s home as his wife—and if I could, to keep it on until he lay with me. Samson told me that the High Priestess told him it was an ancient custom, that a man not see his bride’s face until the marriage had been consummated.”

“And did you keep the veil on until the morning after?”

“No. I lifted my veil for Samson as soon as we were out of sight of Ascalon.”

“And when he saw you, when—” For the first time in my life, I found it hard to summon words.

“When he realized he’d been cheated by the Temple? He stared at me, and then he laughed and said that he should call me Leah.”

“Why?”

“There is an old tale his people tell, of their first fathers and mothers. One man, named Jacob, fell in love with one sister and worked many years to earn her bride-price. But on their wedding day, her father sent her older sister, hidden under a heavy veil, to wed Jacob. Jacob was less fortunate than Samson, for it was not until the next morning, after he lay with her, that he saw his wife’s face and learned that he had not married his beloved Rachel, but her sister Leah. He married Rachel, too, in the end, after working to earn another bride-price.”

“Samson laughed? He was not angry?”

“Bitter laughter, but yes, he laughed. And he is rarely angered. He was not best pleased, that I will grant—but I begged him not to send me back to Ascalon and the Temple. He listened, and then said that if the Temple valued me so little, I might as well remain his wife. He did ask why I had been given instead of you, and I told him what I told you. He still desires you, Delilah—he is too kind to speak of you, but I know he has not forgotten the woman he wished to wed. He knew it would be deadly folly to return to Ascalon, to try to claim you there. But you are here, close—only come with me now, and Samson would gladly take you to wife as well. We would be together again.”

For one treacherous heartbeat, I longed to tell her yes.
Yes, I will put my hand in yours and—and what? Walk away from Our Lady, from the Dance?
I held out my hands to Aylah. “We can be together once more. Come back with me. Come back to the House of Atargatis, where you belong.”

She shook her head. “I never belonged there. Now I am free of that place, and shall never look upon it again.”

A pang lanced my heart; Aylah no longer cared for me and for what we had shared. Aylah the Priestess, Aylah Sundancer, had vanished. Aylah my heart-sister had abandoned me.

“So you have forgotten me and all we shared? You do not even wear
the amulet I gave you.” Since the day we had exchanged talismans, our sister-tokens had been knotted into the ends of small braids behind our left ears. I still wore the one she had given me, the lion’s claw a ghost-weapon nearly hidden by my black hair. To remove the amulet, to lay it aside in my jewel box, would be to admit I had lost Aylah forever. But Aylah no longer wore the coral fish I had given her in exchange.