He Who Lifts the Skies (27 page)

As if weighing her decision, Sharah glanced from Nimr-Rada to the forbidding Kuwsh. “Perhaps I should return with my sister. I’ve not visited her for many weeks.”

Keren groaned inwardly. But obviously Sharah gave the answer Nimr-Rada desired, for he smiled at her pleasantly, a rarity. “As you wish. I will see you at our evening meal. And you, my sister,” he nodded to Keren. “You will take your evening meal with us. Don’t be late.”

Was he mocking her, reminding her of the grievous meeting with her father yesterday? Keren’s throat tightened as she nodded agreement. Nimr-Rada gave her a subtly taunting smile. Keren bit her lip hard. He
did
want to wound her; he was delighting in her unhappiness. She wanted to scream like Sharah in a fit.

“Come,” Sharah ordered, as Nimr-Rada waved them off. “We have much to discuss—and I want to meet that Lawkham’s mother. I want her to show me how to darken my eyes and paint my lips.”

Keren spoke stiffly, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I detest the paints myself, but if that’s what you wish, I’ll take you to see her. Perhaps your Great King will be pleased to see you adorned this way. I don’t understand why he wants me to look so ridiculous—except that it makes me miserable. He must have been pleased yesterday, seeing me cry over Father’s departure.”

“Oh, he was.” Sharah stared at Keren now, her gray eyes hardening as they turned their horses into the streets of the Great City. “You create most of your own grief, you know—as you did just now when you met the father of
my husband. Why did you provoke Kuwsh? Naming his sons and reminding him of the Ancient Ones … that was frankly stupid of you.”

“I wasn’t provoking him,” Keren protested. “And why should it be stupid of me? I have no reason to hide the fact that I spent my childhood with the Ancient Ones, but Nimr-Rada apparently
did
hide that fact from his own father.”

“Then you’re more the fool for revealing it.”

Scowling, Keren said, “I’m glad you love me so much, my sister. Your concern makes my grief easier to bear. Weren’t you upset by our father’s departure?”

“I was relieved; he’s as rude as ever.” Impatiently Sharah called out, “You, Lawkham, show me where your mother lives.”

On horseback, Lawkham bowed to Sharah, so exaggeratedly courteous, so overly respectful that she glared at him. “He should be beaten and tossed in the slime pits,” she snapped.

Still fuming at Sharah’s disrespect for their father, Keren said, “Lawkham serves my household, not yours, my sister. You have no say over his circumstances.”

“Oh. Are you fond of him?”

“He’s a prankster and a flirt—not the sort of man I’d admire for myself,” Keren said. She noticed Sharah’s lovely, pale, scheming face and became alarmed. “Leave Lawkham alone, please; don’t make trouble for him with your Great King. You’ll like his mother,” she added, hoping to distract her.

“We’ll see,” Sharah murmured, looking unconvinced.

Before Keren could persist, a wide-faced, leather-clad woman with a long black hair plait called out, “Lady! Wait, I beg you.” She lifted a tiny baby toward Keren, saying,
“You wished to hold a child earlier, but he was not one you could touch. Here, hold my daughter if you wish.”

With a cautious glance at the unmoving Zehker, Keren halted Dobe, then slowly reached for the child, asking, “A girl? She’s lovely.” The infant girl was truly pretty, with soft ringlets, dimpled cheeks, and tiny hands that curled tight like flower buds. Feeling like a starveling suddenly granted a feast, Keren breathed the warm infant scent of the girl-child and rocked her, kissing her tenderly wrinkled forehead, then reluctantly handed her back to her eager mother.

As she thanked the woman, Keren noticed her avid expression and realized what she wanted, apart from the honor of having her child noticed by the “sister” of He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies. Squelching a laugh, Keren gave the woman the thinnest of her remaining gold rings. Perhaps she would end up giving all her gold away—definitely an idea worth considering.

“You’re a fool,” Sharah sniffed, “giving her one of your own rings just for holding her baby.”

“It was worth it,” Keren told her, enjoying Sharah’s indignation. Another hopeful mother scurried up with her daughter, who was older than the infant Keren had just held, but a baby nonetheless. Keren accepted the girl, smiling. The baby’s eyes were huge, and she glanced at her mother for reassurance, whimpering pathetically.

“Poor thing. I’m too frightful for her,” Keren said, handing the now-wailing child to her mother. “I don’t blame her for crying. Here.” She gave the woman a ring, then waved Lawkham onward and gave Dobe a prodding little kick.

“I forbid you to give away any more rings,” Sharah told her severely—all thoughts of Lawkham apparently
forgotten.

“I challenge you to give away some of your rings, and to at least act as if you enjoy holding babies,” Keren answered. “You’re the most exalted woman in this Great City. You should try to please its citizens.”

Sharah’s mouth went down in a hard, sullen curve. “You sound like Ra-Anan. ‘Smile.’ ‘Be gracious.’ ‘Act as if you care.’ ‘Have a child.’”

Keren almost dropped Dobe’s reins. “Are you going to have a child?”

“No. But Ra-Anan thinks it would please my husband.” “He’s not pleased with you?” Sharah gave her a savage look.

Keren sighed. “I’m sorry you’re so unhappy, my sister; I wondered if this would happen. But now you truly have nowhere else to go. What will you do?”

“Perhaps I must pretend to be you,” Sharah said coldly, eyeing the growing throng of women and children ahead. “Look at them, just waiting for you! Everyone loves you. And as much as you anger him, my husband is also fascinated by your spirit.”

“I don’t want him to be fascinated by my spirit.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Keren stared at her sister, appalled. Sharah’s face was the face of an enemy: vicious, unforgiving. If Sharah had ever felt any sense of sisterhood between them, those feelings were obviously gone. Keren winced. “You hate me.”

“Yes. Completely.”

“Send her back to those Ancient Ones,” Kuwsh commanded, willing Nimr-Rada to obey. “She’s just like them
—I heard the very cadence of that old fool Noakh in her voice. Send her back.”

“Why are you so worried?” Nimr-Rada asked. “It is precisely because she is just like them that I want her here. If I can subdue her, convince her of our ways without utterly crushing her, then I can subdue every creature on earth. And you have to admit that she is as amazing in looks as my wife.”

“Yes, but your wife wants to please you. This Keren does not. Why do you allow her to defy you?”

“You mean, why do I not force her to bow to me?” Pondering this, Nimr-Rada studied the field before them, obviously not seeing it at all. “She must become like my leopard Tselem. An amazing creature that will choose to obey me, despite herself. Confess, my father, wouldn’t it give you joy to have this small revenge—taking something that is precious to the Ancient Ones and turning it against them?”

“I doubt that will happen. She follows their Most High. I can feel it.”

“She will be controlled,” Nimr-Rada said.

“Or she will control you.”

“Never.”

“Never?” Kuwsh shook his head, wishing he could be persuaded that Nimr-Rada would win this particular battle. But the young woman, Keren, had been too close to those Ancient Ones for too long. She would be as stubborn as that idiotic old Noakh.

Kuwsh remembered Noakh, his grandfather, with bitterness. The old storytelling fool. Other memories crowded in now: His own father, Noakh’s youngest son, Khawm, had usually been joyous and carefree but grew increasingly frustrated with Noakh’s endless faultfinding.
Kuwsh’s mother, Tirzah, had been angry with Khawm for continually complaining against Noakh. And the uncles, Yepheth and Shem, and their wives, Ghinnah and Ma’adannah, as well as their revered I’ma-Naomi—all were upset by the growing unrest in their family. And that family had finally separated after Khawm’s most flagrant display of contempt toward Noakh.

It sobered you, didn’t it, old man
, Kuwsh thought to Noakh.
You were always so filled with your own goodness. Seeming so benevolent and kind, knowing what was best for us all. But no, let your youngest son laugh at you when you stupidly pass out drunk and naked in your tent … then where is your goodness? Instead you curse a son of Khawm—my own brother Kena’an. Then you declare that Kena’an—and by association, all of his brothers and their children—will be less than everyone else on earth. But you’re wrong. We’ll rule you instead. Perhaps Nimr-Rada is right. We should turn this situation to our advantage
.…

Kuwsh was briefly heartened. But then he remembered Keren’s strange, captivating eyes and her obvious spirit.

“No,” he said aloud. “She’s deluded, as they are; her presence will ruin all our plans. You must get rid of her.”
And if you don’t, I will
.

Sixteen

SWEAT SLITHERED down Keren’s back as she fit the nock of an arrow into the dye-marked center of her bowstring. Shutting her right eye against the bright midmorning light, she focused her left eye on a portion of her target—a series of reed posts topped with a row of gourds that Lawkham had erected at the opposite end of the small field before her.

Standing to her right, Lawkham lifted his hands in an overwrought pleading gesture. “Lady! Is this how I taught you? No-no-no! Relax and stand easily.”

Lowering the bow, Keren gave him the most severe look she could manage—which was not terribly impressive, she was sure. “You relax and stand easily. You’re not the one who must strike those gourds.”

“Even so, Lady, you cannot—”

“Stop,” Zehker commanded Lawkham.

“Augh!” Lawkham tore at his plaited hair—so great was his frenzy. “Do you mean to tell me that I should say nothing, never mind that our He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies will arrive soon and declare that we’ve taught her badly?”

“Exactly.”

“But she’s standing wrong, she’s nervous, and she’s
leaning;
by the heavens, look at her! You’re leaning,” he told Keren, extending his hands again.

Zehker gave Lawkham an attention-getting shove. “Sit.”

“I may as well sit,” Lawkham groaned, plopping onto the stubbled, recently grazed grass. “I’m going to be knocked flat anyway when
he
sees her missing one shot after another.”

I
haven’t missed one shot after another
, Keren argued silently. But she excused Lawkham’s despair. They were all tense; their perfect He-Who-Lifts-the-Skies had announced that he would judge Keren’s progress this morning. If she did well, they could celebrate. If she did badly, then Lawkham—and possibly Zehker—would be removed from her household and replaced by other guardsmen who might be more adept at teaching weaponry. The thought made Keren sweat.

Shifting her stance, she rechecked her leather wrist guards, her protective leather chest guard, and her finely carved bone thumb-guard ring, which was new and irritating. She plucked it off and called to Tsinnah, who was waiting with Gebuwrah and the others. “Do you still have my old leather thumb guard?”

Tsinnah beamed at her. “O Lady, of course I saved the old one; I knew you’d want it today.”

“You can keep the new ring,” Keren said, trading her thankfully. As Tsinnah tested her new ring on finger after
finger, Keren lifted her bow again. Zehker was now standing to her right, and she eyed him, pretending defiance. “Do you want to tell me everything I’m doing wrong?”

He shook his head, his dark gaze fixed on the gourds. “No, Lady. Shoot one.”

Relaxing, concentrating, she obeyed. As the arrow cracked against one of the gourds, smashing its top to the ground, Lawkham jumped up, yelling and capering like a child. “There! There! That’s how I’ve taught you! Again! Shoot another!”

She missed. Lawkham slumped to the ground once more, his head in his hands, moaning, certain he would be disgraced. As he was lamenting his fate—his future in trampling clay to be used in the tower he had sworn he loved—Keren heard Dobe whicker softly. Turning, she saw guardsmen riding out from the city. Nimr-Rada was coming with his entire household. Including Kuwsh and the paint-adorned Sharah.

Keren grimaced. No doubt Sharah, her declared enemy, was hoping to see her fail. Kuwsh, too, would take pleasure in her humiliation. Despite his courteous words, Kuwsh had said nothing to her after their first conversation at the site of the would-be tower. And Keren had seen him several times during the past three weeks while she was visiting Nimr-Rada and Ra-Anan.

Why do you refuse to speak to me, O Kuwsh?
Keren wondered.
Is it so terrible that I love the Ancient Ones?
Uneasy, she glanced from Kuwsh to Lawkham, who scrambled to his feet and folded his hands respectfully, bowing to Nimr-Rada.

Everyone was bowing to Nimr-Rada now, except Keren. He rode over to Keren and looked down at her,
his eyes flinty in his broad, high-boned, dark brown face. His air of command, matched with all his gold and the leopard-skin wrap, strongly reminded Keren of the first time she had seen him, in the Lodge of Bezeq. What if she had agreed to marry him when he had first expressed an interest in taking her as his wife? She shivered at the thought but inclined her head toward him politely.