He Who Lifts the Skies (17 page)

Annah hummed, contented. This past month, Keren’s would-be husband, Yithran, had visited to introduce himself. And he promised that he would bring Keren to stay with them this winter after their marriage following the harvest. Yithran was a bold and forward young man—not at all the sort of husband Annah had envisioned for Keren. But he seemed to love Keren deeply. He spoke of her tenderly and had been delighted by even the smallest story of her childhood. Perhaps the fact that Yithran was the brother of Sharah’s husband, Bezeq, would bring Sharah closer to Keren over time. Sharah needed Keren’s softening influence.
Or should I fear that Sharah’s boundless self-love and greed might harden Keren over time?

Pondering this, Annah set down the bowl, then stretched and glanced up at the sun. Near midday. She needed to go inside and help Naomi with the meal. A
sudden burst of noise made Annah look toward the western fields. A covey of quail—small, plump brown birds—had taken flight.
Shem and Noakh can’t have frightened the birds
, Annah told herself.
They’re in the south fields this morning. Perhaps a wild animal is approaching
.

She grabbed a rush-and-resin taper, lighting it at the smoldering outdoor hearth.
Where are you?
she wondered to the unknown cause of disturbance.
Leave us alone, as you know you should, by the will of the Most High
.

Since the Great Destruction, wild animals usually avoided humans. But once in a while, a renegade creature would stalk humans and terrorize settlements. Certainly mankind’s growing fear of miscreant wild animals had played a part in the rise of that would-be-king, Nimr-Rada. No man alive could match Nimr-Rada for killing or taming wild animals. His power over the creatures of this new earth had seemed almost spiritual, which Annah shuddered to consider. She tensed, waiting.

But no animals appeared. Instead, two men emerged from the trees fringing the western field. One was Yithran. The other Annah quickly recognized as Bezeq. Annah studied them. They weren’t walking quickly, as two vigorous young men should. And their dark heads were lowered, as if they dreaded seeing the Ancient Ones.

O Most High
, Annah thought, her stomach suddenly churning,
what has happened? Did Keren—or Sharah, or her little Gibbawr—suffer some terrible accident?
Neither Bezeq or Yithran had raised a hand to greet her, though they had undoubtedly seen her. Annah extinguished the burning torch in a pile of dirt, tamping it carefully. Then she watched as the two young men climbed the slope to the lodge.

“Ma’adannah.” Bezeq greeted her quietly, unable to meet her gaze.

The big, usually confident young man looked broken to Annah, haggard, unkempt, and emotionally wounded. His large brown hands clutched his long spear, as if it could save him from further pain. Yithran looked less unkempt, but just as shaken. When Bezeq remained silent, Yithran spoke, his voice almost breaking.

“Ma’adannah … Nimr-Rada has taken Sharah and Keren … for his own.”

“What?” Annah stared at them, certain she hadn’t heard Yithran aright.

“Keren was taken,” Bezeq corrected his brother roughly. “But my
wife
went willingly.” Tears came to his dark eyes, and he choked out his story in a voice just above a whisper. “She was so infatuated with him! With his power and his gold—and the promise of living in his Great City on the plains. She’s been begging me all winter to take her there, and I refused. So she left. With him.”

Confounded, Annah shook her head. “But Sharah couldn’t … How could she leave you? And what of Gibbawr, her own son?”

Tears spilled down Bezeq’s coarse-bearded cheeks, but his eyes glittered with a growing rage. “She left him! She left my son—
my son!
—with as much ease as she left me. I had to give Gibbawr to Merowm and his Khuldah to be raised with Merowm’s daughter—so my son could live, Ma’adannah! So he wouldn’t starve!”

Uttering a growling, maddened cry, Bezeq slammed his long spear to the ground, then passed his big hands over his face and clawed at his straggling hair. Annah wanted to comfort him, but he was too hurt and angry to allow anyone to approach him. She turned to Yithran,
touching his arm. He refused to look at her.

At last, wiping his cheeks with the back of one hand, Bezeq said, “The day they left, Sharah insisted that Keren should walk alone with her. None of my tribe saw them again. When we searched, we found hoofprints and horse dung in one of the surrounding fields. They must have chased Keren; we found her shawl and a digging stick and tubers all abandoned, her footprints heading into the trees. There, the ground was trodden. She must have been hiding in a tree. There were bushes chopped away …”

His eyes red, but filled with a desperate hope, Yithran said, “Keren’s father is going to the Great City to demand that Keren be returned. I’m going with him.”

“No!” Bezeq cried, leaning toward his brother, adamant, as if continuing an earlier quarrel. “You can’t go! Our father forbids it. That Nimr-Rada would kill you instantly. Our father left me in no doubt of your fate. Even Keren’s own father will be risking his life by demanding her return. And our father
forbids
you to marry her.”

Listening, Annah realized that they were speaking as if Keren was the only one Meshek could attempt to rescue. “What of Sharah?” she demanded as Yithran stalked away in anger. “You’re giving your wife to that Nimr-Rada?”

“She gave me up for him,” Bezeq answered curtly. “Why should I want her? If I see her again, I might kill her. But, Ma’adannah, pray for Keren’s father. I fear he will die when he goes to the Great City. Nimr-Rada will cut him to pieces.”

Horrified, Annah shut her eyes, breathing a wordless prayer for Meshek.

Ten

“HOW COULD ANYONE long to live there?” Keren asked, gaping at the Great City, which was endlessly outlined against the ruddy, dusky sky. The buildings looked heaped together, all squared, many enclosed by walls. She was oppressed just looking at them.
O Most High, save me from this place
.

She unconsciously tugged her horse to a standstill, overwhelmed. Lawkham rode up and rapped her horse’s rump with the butt of his spear, goading it onward. She grimaced at Lawkham, but he laughed. Sighing, she looked at the Great City again. “It can’t be real.”

“Indeed, it’s very real, Lady,” Revakhaw answered, leaning around Keren to see the Great City for herself. Revakhaw had been sharing rides on Keren’s horse for days; her companionship during this long journey had been like a balm to Keren. Playful as always, Revakhaw
said, “Just tell yourself that it’s one huge lodge. Aren’t we all family? Though I thank the heavens that
some
people will reside beneath other roofs!”

“You refer to me, O talkative one?” Lawkham asked, not bothering to hide the fact that he had been listening to every word. He and Revakhaw had been trading gibes ever since they had departed from Revakhaw’s home settlement.

“Why should you think that?” she asked, sounding almost demure. “But, of course, O great Lawkham, you think that all women talk of none but yourself.”

“As they should.”

“As they laugh!”

“Stop,” Zehker commanded them quietly, looking forward. “He waits for us.”

He. Nimr-Rada. Keren followed Zehker’s gaze and saw that Nimr-Rada had reined his horse to a standstill. He was frowning at Revakhaw and Lawkham.

As they approached, Nimr-Rada said, “You will conduct yourselves with dignity when we ride through the streets of the Great City. If you do not, I will put you to work in the mud and slime with the other wretches who dare to disobey me.”

Nimr-Rada cast a baleful look at Keren, as if blaming her for some misdeed. Keren lowered her eyes so he wouldn’t see her indignation.
Don’t worry, Mighty One
, she thought.
I won’t enjoy riding through the streets of your Great City
.

As commanded, they rode into the city in stately silence. Keren’s depression grew. The buildings in the Great City were all uniformly squared and so precisely coated with the same shade of pale mud wash that they were devoid of warmth and character. By now, the citizens of the Great City were pouring out of their homes to
stand in the hard-tamped clay streets and cheer their Great King.

Nimr-Rada rode proudly, nodding and occasionally lifting his elaborate flail, saluting those who praised his unequalled might. With some difficulty Keren looked away, reminding herself not to become like Nimr-Rada’s citizens, captivated by his physical and emotional attractions. By chance, she looked a citizen-matron directly in the eyes. The matron recoiled, jerking back her dark-braided head in shock.

“Look!” Keren heard the woman cry to someone. “Her eyes are the color of a mist rising from the river!”

“Impossible,” a man snorted.

Hearing this snatch of conversation, Keren focused on the tawny flickering ears and black mane of her horse. She would always be strange and frightful, never a normal woman.

In the street ahead, others were gasping aloud, evidently amazed by Sharah’s lack of color. Aware of the impact her unworthy sister was making, and embarrassed by her own looks, Keren lowered her head. This ride through Nimr-Rada’s city was a nightmarish torture.

“Keren!” a man’s voice cried to her right, his tone shocked.

Neshar
, she thought, almost before she saw his face. For a fleeting instant she was delighted, eager to see one of her own brothers. Until she saw that his black hair was disgracefully cropped, his leather tunic worn out, and his arms and legs all scraped bloody and spattered with mud. He was no longer one of the handsomely attired, much-honored horsemen of Nimr-Rada. Instead he looked scraggly, hungry, and filthy. The lowest of the low.

Four other men were with him, all similarly shorn,
scraped, and humbled. In a dawning horror, Keren recognized Mattan and Bachan. And the two men with them had to be her own brothers Kana and Miyka. Their resemblance to her father was so strong that Keren was jolted as if she had received a blow to the chest. Catching her breath, she cried, “Neshar!”

But Neshar shook his head and swiftly led his four attending brothers in a desperate scramble to get away. Keren almost fell off her horse as she twisted around to look back at them.

Revakhaw whispered at her frantically, “Lady, who are they? How do you know such men?”

“They’re my own brothers,” Keren said, miserable.

“Your horsemen-brothers? Oh, but … how terrible …” Her words trailed away as she apparently realized that Keren’s brothers were despised men who wanted nothing to do with her.

Swallowing, Keren lowered her head until her hair fell about her face, hiding her from the curious stares of others. She wanted to scream. She sobbed instead.

“No, Lady, please,” Revakhaw begged distressfully, patting her back. “Don’t cry yet. We’ll be away from all these people soon, I’m sure. Then you can cry. I’m sorry about your brothers—so sorry! Whatever I can do to help you, I will do. By the heavens, I give you my word.…”

Keren forced herself to listen to Revakhaw’s sympathetic promises. Otherwise, she would begin to rage at Nimr-Rada. She saw no one else in this Great City with such scrapes, or so filthy and disgracefully shorn. Who could bring her brothers so low and inspire such fear in them? Only that Nimr-Rada. He was destroying their lives. How could she fight him?

She cried quietly until they came to a less crowded
area of the city. Sensing a change in her surroundings, she lifted her head. There were fewer people on the streets here. And without exception, all the houses had high, pale walls enclosing trees within, promising calm seclusion. Ahead of her, Nimr-Rada waved his flail toward a broad reed gate, which opened as if swept by an invisible wind.

Looking back at her, Nimr-Rada said, “Lady, this is your dwelling place.” Then, noticing her tear-streaked face, he growled, “Go wash yourself! You disgrace me with such a show of misery. You will be in my courts in the morning. You and your attendants.”

“As you say, O King.” Keren suppressed a moist sniffle. If she behaved rudely toward Nimr-Rada, he might inflict some heavier punishment on her brothers.

Maintaining her respectful facade, Keren watched Nimr-Rada depart with the impatient Sharah. Since her “wedding” to the Great King, Sharah had visited Keren only during evening meals, which Keren regarded as a blessing. Sharah was now disgustingly haughty toward everyone except Nimr-Rada, whom she flattered, caressed, and teased audaciously. She didn’t even look back at Keren now to offer a parting nod. Instead, she urged her horse ahead, clearly anticipating the glories of her new home.

Farewell
, Keren thought, silently offering the reluctant courtesy her sister had neglected.
At least I’ll have my evening to myself
. She was grateful for the respite. She had to find her brothers and learn the cause of their disgrace and their fear. Who could help her? She could think of only one person: their brother Ra-Anan.

As she slid off her horse, in the center of the private, brick-and-tree-lined courtyard, she beckoned to Lawkham,
who was turning to leave. “I must see Ra-Anan tonight.”

“I can guess why, Lady,” said Lawkham without mockery. “Zehker saw Neshar and the others.”

Glancing at Zehker, Keren realized that he and Lawkham were angered by Neshar’s obvious humiliation and wanted to help him. Keren shut her eyes briefly, thanking the Most High for giving her allies in this strange place. Already, Revakhaw was saying, “I’ll go with you, Lady.”

“Tsinnah and I will go too, Lady,” Gebuwrah told her, hovering behind Keren. “Na’ah and Alatah can also go, or they can stay here to arrange things for your comfort.”

“Whatever pleases you. Truly. Whoever wishes to stay here and rest, I will understand.” Keren pushed her wildly rumpled hair off her face. “But for those who are going with me, let’s be sure we are presentable. I need to find some water.”