Angels at the Gate (2 page)

My tasks are easier without worrying about the pup squirming under my robe or crying out in hunger. I see to the goat, but she is not ready after all, and her kid will come another day or most likely in the middle of a night. Once the animals are settled, I turn the spit for the roasting meat, changing positions to avoid the shifting smoke. The moon is a pale shadow in the darkening sky. I unwind my headscarf and pull it around my shoulders.

My father emerges from the tents to put a hand on my shoulder. From the firmness of his grip, I know I am in trouble. “Our tent after the meal.”

I nod. “Yes, Father.” I can tell by his parting squeeze my attempt at respectful acquiescence has not relieved him of whatever parental burden he carries. I
am
in trouble.

This is not a new condition.

“Adir, you are burning the meat!” Chiram's shout from where he stands outside his tent snatches my attention back to what I am doing—or supposed to be doing. I turn the spit, then my mind wanders again, this time to the puzzle of the tall strangers. Who are they? Where are their lands?

As if I have conjured him, a cloud of smoke parts, revealing the clean-shaven
stranger, the one with the gold hair, now more bronze in the firelight. The smoke fills my nostrils. I cough but do not speak, remembering the rumor that El has sent the tall men. What does a god's messenger want with me?

“You are Adir, Zakiti's son?” he asks.

It was the first time he had ventured from the company of the other two. I nod, unable to pull my gaze from the broad forehead and jaw and the hair that gleams in the firelight. How does he know my name? Then I realize he has just heard Chiram shout it, and relief floods me. It is not necessarily a good thing to come to a god's attention. I think of Abram, praying day and night and making sacrifices on his high place. Not a very interesting life, in my opinion.

My glance drifts to the skein of fire. I want to have an interesting life—to see the world and its mysteries, to relish its surprises.

Boldly, I look back up at the northman, all the way up. “What are you called?”

A smile makes his face radiant, and a pulse throbs in my throat.

“I am Raph.”

“Raph,” I repeat to make sure I have the accent right. “And your companion?”

“Mika.”

“Where are your lands?” I ask.

His smile turns wistful. “A simple question, but easy answer no.” It is clear his mother tongue is not our language.

He gestures toward the fire, a graceful movement that makes me aware of my awkwardness, despite my father's assurances it is only a matter of my age and height. “Should you … circle?” he asks.

Grateful for the warning, I twist the pole that impales the carcass, just in time to save the skin from blackening and avoid another curse from Chiram. Raph moves to the opposite side of the fire to assist. With both of us on either end, the pole turns easily.

“Thank you.”

“Nothing to speak.” He changes from kneeling to a more comfortable squat. The smoke starts to follow him but switches directions abruptly. I keep my eye on it, watching to see if it provides evidence of El's favor on this man, or if he gets smoke in his face like any other.

“Where are your people from?” I ask.

“Ah, this wiser question, Adir,” he says, and I am reminded of the lesson of the salt negotiation and my father's teaching: Understanding comes when the right question has been asked.

Struggling for the words, Raph says, “Now live they many places, but most in north mountains.”

His phrasing stirs my curiosity. “You imply they come from elsewhere?”

Again, his smile stirs more than my curiosity, and I wonder at my body's acute reaction on so little information.

“Yes,” he says. “They do.”

At that moment, Chiram strides over to check the meat, and at his aggressive approach, Raph rises in one swift move to his feet.
Warrior
, I realize. That grace belongs to men whose muscles are tuned to obey in the most efficient manner, like the gallop of a horse or the quick turn of a herding dog. I still see no sign of weapons, but I have no doubt he could use them.

Chiram is a large man; a layer of fat covers his muscles, but I have seen him lift with ease a downed ibex onto his shoulders. Still, even the meaty cook comes only to Raph's chest. Chiram's hand tightens on the knife he holds. What has riled him? Raph moves only slightly, but his body now edges to Chiram's. Whether Chiram notices this, I cannot tell, but he seems to lose a bit of his bluster and turns to carve off a slice of meat. “Ready,” he proclaims, and my mouth immediately begins to salivate. I am hungry. I am always hungry.

Raph takes his share and a portion I assume is for his companions, and disappears into the night. I eat slowly, not relishing my father's summons.

Then the men [angels] got up from their meal and looked out toward Sodom.

—Book of Genesis 18:10-16

W
HEN I CAN AVOID IT
no longer, I go to our tent, a knot in my chest. My father will be right to punish me, as I have disobeyed him, but more than his punishment, I dread facing his disappointment.

I pull aside the hanging and duck through the opening. Our tent is not lavish, but it is home. My section is small, only my blankets and bag of clothing, everything always rolled and ready to pack in the morning. We rarely stay in a camp more than a night.

My father waits beside the small fire that warms the interior, the remains of his own meal beside him in a clay bowl. Trying not to be awkward, I kneel before him on the hard ground, my bottom resting on my heels. I wish to be still, but my fingers, which have their own will, twist the braid of the rug. It is finely made with reds and blues in patterns my trader's eye identifies as a piece from the east Father has acquired.

“Adira,” he says, and I catch my breath. My true name! This is indeed serious.

“Father, I am sorry,” I whisper.

He frowns. “For what?”

Confused, I meet his eyes and then look away. Why does he make me say it? Is he angry at something else I have done? My mind races through the past few days, and I can bring nothing else to mind, at least nothing he could possibly know of. He can't know about the aloe juice I added to Chiram's wine. Chiram thinks I do not listen when he talks about his herbs, but I do. I bite my lip to keep from grinning at the thought of him, straining to keep his thick bowed legs together, running at regular intervals to the camp's edge for two days. It served him well for speaking of cooking puppies. I decide I will start confession at the lesser infraction. “I am sorry for my disobedience in taking the pup.”

“Ah yes, that,” Father says, as though distracted from another chain of thought. “You must return the dog to Chiram.”

“But Father,” I say, though I do not still have the pup in my possession, “he is going to
cook
him!”

He snorts. “Adir, the bitch is his and thus her litter is his. To steal from another in the caravan is a stoning offense.”

“But—”

His right hand slices the air, which means he will hear no more on the matter. No amount of begging on my part will change his mind once he has made that gesture. I have seen him use it many times in negotiations when he has made his last offer.

“We are a tribe of laws,” he says, oblivious to the terrible cramping of my chest.

I stare into the fire and try not to see those tiny, warm balls of fur nuzzling into their mother's belly.

“There is else I wish to speak of,” he says.

“What?” I ask, trying to dam the tears that have welled in my eyes.

He shifts and holds his closed fist toward me, palm up. Despite myself, I am curious. “What is it?”

He opens his fingers. On his palm lies a small cylinder seal made of a black silvery gemstone. I pluck it from his hand, admiring the small carving of a woman in long, tiered robes.

“Lama,” he says. “A goddess of protection and intercession. I gave it to your mother long ago in Ur. Now it is yours, your personal seal.”

A slender piece of rawhide threads through the hollow center. I hold it in my hand for a moment, trying to feel some connection to my mother, and then tie it around my neck.

“When your mother died, I did not want to give you up. You were my only connection to her. But you have not stayed a child, and I fear I have kept you for myself too long.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying it is time you claimed your birthright as a woman.”

“But you always said you did not want the caravan to know I was a girl. I have never told anyone. Why would they suspect now?”

He gives me a sharp glance. “They will suspect soon. How are you to hide your woman's bleeding?”

I flinch. I have tried to keep that from him, apparently without success. “It only just began last moon.”

He sighs. “I should have left you with Sarai long ago. She asked for you, but I could not bear to give you up. Each time I thought, one more journey, so I can become used to the idea.”

Give me to Sarai?
“Why can I not stay with the caravan? There are women here.”

“There is not a man here worthy of you, and you need a chance to have your own family.”

I rise to my feet, breathing hard, betrayed. We travel to Abram and Sarai so he can dispose of me. “I have a family. You are my family. The caravan is my family!”

Once again, the hand slices the air, but I am not silent, not obedient. “No, I will not go. No matter where you send me, I will not stay. I will follow you.”

He does not answer. I expect his rage, but the look on his face is not anger, only a great sadness, and that fills me with more despair than I can hold.

I turn and flee into the night, grateful for the bite of cold air. The need to run, to feel the wind's push on my face, pulses through my flesh. Since I was young, I have been drawn to rocky inclines and hills. No feeling can match standing in a high place and receiving the wind's embrace. My father truly named me daughter of the wind.

Oblivious to stones and without my guidance, my feet take me across the camp. No one pays attention or tries to stop me. Boys often run about, dodging fires and chasing each other. I chase no one, but my future pursues me.

When I approach the herds, I slow to a walk. To run here would start
a stampede, and that is not my purpose. Only now do I even know my purpose. I have fled without thought, but now I take a camel-hair bridle from the cart and slip through the donkeys, moving slowly out of habit, though the ache to run still pounds in me.

Above, clouds veil the half moon, but I know each creature by the shape and the lighter markings that distinguish them. A soft neigh ahead changes my course, and my hands find the familiar silky skin of the gelding I have named Dune. His breath is sweet on my face, and he lowers his head for the bridle. He is not young, but he still loves to run.

Glad for my height, I swing onto his back and guide him away from the herd. The desire for speed is still strong, but I am no fool to run a horse in rocky terrain at night. A fall and a broken leg would mean Dune in Chiram's pot. Instead, I drop the reins and lay my head on his mane, wrapping my arms around his neck and letting him take me up and down the hills where he will.

Before my tears finish soaking his mane, Dune snorts, lifts his head, and halts. Sitting upright, I search for campfires, but none are in sight. I check the sky, knowing I headed west originally, but clouds now blanket the stars, and I have no idea how much of the night has passed while I wrapped myself in misery.

A shadow moves in a nearby clump of brush, and Dune's muscles tense beneath me. Before I can react, he rears and jumps sideways. I am slipping off. I make a desperate grab for mane, but most of my weight is off to his side. With a frightened snort, Dune leaps again, and I hit the ground.

I cannot draw breath or move for long moments. Dune is not in my line of vision, but I imagine by the sound of pounding hooves, he has fled back to the caravan. He is gone, and I am alone. There is not enough light to follow his tracks. If I stumble around in the dark, I risk becoming more lost. It is best to wait here until morning breaks and Zakiti realizes what has happened and comes for me.

It is the best plan I can think of … until I hear something move in the brush and catch the faint, greenish gleam of watching eyes.

At that time a severe famine struck the land of Canaan, forcing Abram to go down to Egypt, where he lived as a foreigner. As he was approaching the border of Egypt, Abram said to his wife, Sarai, “Look, you are a very beautiful woman. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife. Let's kill him; then we can have her!' So please tell them you are my sister. Then they will spare my life and treat me well because of their interest in you.”

—Book of Genesis 12:10-13

I
WIPE THE DIRT FROM MY
mouth, my gaze locked on the last place I saw the gleam of the wolf's eyes. Every breath jabs sharply into my side. I have fled from a future I do not want and found a present with fangs.

What a fool I am.

With one hand pressed tightly to my side, I roll to my knees and try to stand. Pain stabs me so fiercely, my vision blurs and nausea churns my belly. I let out a cry. Perhaps it will frighten the wolves, or perhaps someone is coming to look for me and will hear.

But that is not possible. Dune has not had time to return to the camp. What are the chances someone will notice he is bridled? That I have disappeared? I should have ridden Philot. My faithful donkey would not have left me. I should have paid attention to where I was going. I should have—

A cloud moves from the moon's face and I see my death less than a stone's throw away. I scrabble about with my hand looking for a stick, a stone, anything for a weapon. Even uninjured, I could not outrun a wolf.