Delilah: A Novel (34 page)

The harper stared, wondering why he had not thought to ask that question. Never, never would the Foxes have dared attack Samson’s wife had Samson been there. “I don’t know.”

Samson rose to his feet. “Someone told them, and someday I will know who. Now I ask you to take my mother and my father back to Zorah. I am going out, to walk upon the hills. If you love me at all, do not come after me.”

Samson was gone all that day and the next night, and the day and the night after that. Then he returned to Zorah, bringing with him a lion-skin. Ari’s. Cautiously, Orev asked where he had been.

“Hunting.” That was all Samson said, and Orev did not dare ask anything more.

Samson was never quite the same after he returned. To some, he seemed even more the rash, reckless hero of so many lying tales. Samson tanned the lion-skin and wore it as a cloak; tribute and reminder. He still smiled, but his smiles no longer reached his eyes.

To Orev, it was clear that something of Samson’s sweetness had gone forever, burned from his heart. Perhaps that part of Samson had vanished to seek his wife and child, to tend their ghosts. Or perhaps their deaths had killed something in Samson, the trait that had let him look upon an unfair world and merely laugh and happily go his own way.

For all the trouble that amiable tolerance had caused, Orev discovered that he missed the old Samson, the one who never scowled or angered.

This new Samson—Orev was not sure the Samson who now lived could be trusted to chain anger, to act out of kindness and good faith.

Now I know it is not easy to create one of the Lady’s priestesses; to rear a girl to be both tender as new fleece and hard as new iron, clever as a fennec and docile as a dove.

Those who ruled the great House of Atargatis in Ascalon believed they had formed me into such a creature. Had they not trusted utterly in their power over me—their sublime confidence that no matter what transpired, my heart and my will belonged only to the Temple—never would I have been sent against Samson as a weapon.

As my heart-sister Aylah had been.

When High Priestess Derceto sent for me, a full moon’s turn after Aylah’s death, it was the last time I had no thought other than to prepare myself, to obey. I permitted the handmaidens who had been set to watch over me to comb and curl my hair, to lace my body into the stiff leather bodice, to drop the seven-tiered skirt over my head and tie its gilded cords about my cinched waist. At last, fittingly painted and garbed, I walked through the Temple gardens to the High Priestess’s courtyard.

The Gatekeeper let me pass at once, and I walked, proud and graceful as I had been so carefully taught, across smooth marble stones to
the alabaster bench where the High Priestess sat. The willow tree behind her cast shadows over her, shadows that slid across her body like pale serpents. Beside her stood a richly clad man: Sandarin, Prince of the City, Consort to Lady Ascalon.

I stopped before High Priestess Derceto, folded my hands over my breast, and knelt. My body knew how to move with grace, whether I cared to or did not. And I did not; I cared for nothing, now that Aylah was forever gone. I did not care if I made the proper obeisance. I did not care why the Prince of the City was there, or why the High Priestess had summoned me. I bent my head, and waited, silent.

Derceto set her crimson-tinted fingers beneath my chin, lifted my head until she could look into my face. Before she could speak, the Prince said, “
This
is the girl? You would risk the Moondancer, when you have lost the other already in your vain attempts to rid us of that man? Choose another, Lady Derceto.” He sounded impatient, angry.

“This is the girl,” Derceto said in a voice smooth as cream. “And it must be Delilah Moondancer, and no other. Our Lady’s Children have foretold it.”

A pause, then Sandarin said, “Then I suppose we must send her, as you and the Seven agree so well.” His agreement sounded grudging. “Let us trust Our Lady’s Children know what they ask. Have her stand.”

When I rose to my feet, Prince Sandarin walked around me, looking me up and down as if I were a slave in the open market rather than a highly valued priestess in the House of Atargatis. But High Priestess Derceto did not rebuke him. She smiled as he frowned.

“She looks nothing like the other priestess you gave him,” he said at last. “Are you certain she can beguile him?”

“Oh, yes, she will beguile him. She has been chosen by Our Lady for this task.”

“That’s what you said about the last one,” Sandarin told her, and suddenly my blood beat hard beneath my skin, creating a roaring like wild waves in my ears.

The last one . . . the last one—
The last one chosen had been Aylah, my heart-sister sent to slay my heart. I had hated both Aylah and Samson; twice hated Samson for seducing Aylah away from the Temple, away from me and to her death . . .

Derceto smiled. “This time it is true.”

Her words echoed through my pounding blood.
This time it is true. This time—

“What task?” I asked. The words came of themselves, and my voice sounded very far away.

Derceto turned to me, hesitated, then spoke slowly and solemnly, as if choosing her words with great care. “A heavy task, yet one that will ease your heart, Delilah. The man who caused your heart-sister’s death still lives, still plots against us, still roams free and happy. You will trap him for—”

“For the Five Cities,” Sandarin said, cutting across Derceto’s careful explanation.

Samson. They want me to bring them Samson. He wanted me, not Aylah, and now they think I will lure him back
. Back for what? Another attempt to kill him with an unfair test of Three Tasks? My blood seemed to slow, beat hard and cool beneath my skin. Aylah had been right, always. Derceto had lied; lied to Samson—and to me.
And to Our Lady? Atargatis, Lady of Love, summoned Samson, set me before his eyes. Derceto denied us that love
.

Now it was Sandarin’s turn to smile at me. “And this time we will have him, and there will be no mistakes. You must succeed. Not like—”

No mistakes. Not like—Aylah
.

Aylah, who had died in fire—because the High Priestess and the Prince of the City had sent her to Samson in my place.
Samson wanted me, not Aylah. If I had been sent with him, would I now dance upon the wind as dust and ash?

Suddenly I wondered who had told Derceto of Aylah’s death, why and how she had known exactly who had slain Aylah and her child. I remembered Derceto saying, “They piled brush high around the house.” How had she known that? What witness had told her?

And where was Samson, when men had come out of the shadows carrying fire and death?
Far from his home, for otherwise no man would dare harm Samson’s wife, his child
. Had Samson been there, either Aylah and her daughter would still live or Samson himself would be dead with them.

Men Samson had wronged had burned all that was his, Derceto had told me. But Aylah had told me of a man who valued justice above all, who used his strength to aid those weaker than he. So what men had he so wronged that they would murder a woman and her newborn babe when Samson eluded them?
Or was it Aylah’s death they sought, and not Samson’s?

“Delilah?” Derceto’s voice called me back; her eyes regarded me keenly. “I know this is hard for you to hear, but you must. I promise you the prize you seek. Only have patience now, and listen.”

Sandarin laughed, a sound abrupt and harsh as a jackal’s cry. “Is this the faithful, dutiful priestess you swore will be our true sword-blade against Samson?”

Derceto twisted, supple as a weasel; glared at Sandarin. “And I ask you, too, to be patient a little longer, Prince. Delilah will do what she must, never doubt that. She will bring us Samson.”

Both Prince and High Priestess seemed very far away, their voices echoing so that I barely understood their words. I listened to another voice, one only I could hear.
“Even if the Temple would take me back,”
Aylah had said, and now I understood. Aylah had failed, and Derceto did not accept failure as an offering.
Failed, and died for it. Died because she would not betray Samson to the Temple—

Anger burned hot through my bones; I longed to speak. But for once I did as Aylah herself would have bidden me. I kept my face smooth and my lips closed. I waited for the High Priestess and the Prince of the City to reveal their lies, their deceit; to condemn themselves out of their own mouths. I remembered Aylah’s fond, rueful tone as she had said that Samson never lied . . .

Derceto smiled, and patted me upon my cheek. “You are a good girl, Delilah,” she began, and if I had been a cat, my fur would have stood on
end. Something coiled, serpent-sleek, beneath the High Priestess’s smile, her caress, her soft warm words. All those were false, as false as the painted face she displayed when she acted the part of Goddess-on-Earth.

But I thought of Aylah, and of Samson, and bound my rage and fear, forced them to obey my will. I could not command a smile, so I lowered my gaze as if too honored to look upon the High Priestess of the Great Temple.

“I try to do as Our Lady wishes.” My voice whispered mouse-meek. Men forget that a mouse is cunning as well as timid. “You said a heavy task. What is commanded of me?”

“Come, sit beside me.” Derceto put her arm about my shoulders, guided me to the alabaster bench beneath the shimmering silver-green leaves of the willow tree. Prince Sandarin followed; I found myself sitting between them, as if they were guards and I a prisoner.

Be silent. Say nothing. Let them speak, let them hone the blade themselves
.

I knew that when they looked upon me, they did not see the Delilah who was a girl with too quick a temper, a girl graced with the gifts of dance and of faith, a girl who had lost her beloved sister. They saw no deeper than the paint upon my skin, and so did not see the woman whose heart desired a man she could never claim.
A man who loved me from the moment our eyes first met, who dared the Three Tasks that he might win me
.

Samson saw my heart, saw Delilah the woman.

The High Priestess and the Prince of the City saw the priestess Delilah, the Full Moon who existed only to serve. And not, as I now knew, to serve Our Lady Atargatis—
Her
bidding I would do gladly.

She
would not demand that Her loving servants play the parts of whore and murderess. Nor would She sell us into bondage.
You are love itself, Bright Lady. You would not deny me Samson
. Atargatis Herself had sent Samson to me, a gift of love from the Lady of Love. But deeds the goddess would not stoop to beg, Her highest acolytes did not hesitate to demand.

“Delilah, there are things I must tell you that it will pain you to hear,” Derceto began, “but you must hear them. For what your heart-sister
began, you must complete.” She paused, clearly awaiting some answer from me.

I nodded, and she smiled at me and called me good and obedient and brave. I merely waited, watching as the Prince of the City jumped up to pace back and forth behind us like a bored leopard.

Then Derceto said, “There is much you do not yet know, Delilah—”

“And she never will unless you tell her.” Prince Sandarin owned far less patience than I. I saw High Priestess Derceto glare at him; if eyes were blades, he would have been stabbed to the bone.

“Some things take subtlety, Prince. The girl already mourns her heart-sister; she must be gently handled.” Derceto turned back to me, laid her hand upon my cheek. Then she began to explain, subtly and gently, that Aylah had been chosen by Atargatis to rid the land of Samson, enemy of Our Lady and of the Five Cities. That it was Atargatis Herself who had imbued Samson’s heart with desire for Aylah—so great a desire that the Three Tasks did not discourage him.

Samson is no enemy of Our Lady’s
. I remembered every word Aylah had spoken to me, that day we met in the Grove. And Aylah had spoken of a man almost too sweet-natured, too honey-hearted, to wish harm to anyone. A man who had honored an unwanted bride as greatly as if she had been the true choice of his heart—

“Now I will confide something to you that may sound evil, but sometimes it is necessary to do evil to gain a greater good.” Derceto paused, and I nodded again. “It seemed to us that no man could survive the Three Tasks, and that Our Lady, in Her wisdom, had chosen this way of ridding us of Samson’s evil.”

Only with time did I truly savor Derceto’s cleverness; to mix true with false, creating a new truth she wished me to believe. I enjoyed turning her own trick against her, later.

“But Samson completed the Three Tasks.” Words I would never before have uttered leapt from my lips, as if Aylah spoke through me. “Did Atargatis change Her mind?”

Derceto eyed me sharply, but I simply stared at her wide-eyed, as if
awaiting enlightenment. “Even Atargatis Herself cannot control all things.” Derceto’s voice was too carefully pious. “Samson’s trickery and his god’s ill will prevailed in the Three Tasks, and it is not for us to question Her.”