Sunrise on the Mediterranean (36 page)

“The well, drinking water.”

“What if I get caught?”

Yoav shrugged. “You are no tribesman, so they will not suspect us. If anything, they will cast a fretful eye toward the Pelesti.
It is no matter.” He unsheathed his knife, pausing to let the lamplight flicker over its bronze blade and stone-encrusted
handle. “If you don’t get me the way into the city, the Jebusi will kill you as a Pelesti spy. If, however, you don’t get
me the way into the city, I will kill you myself.”

“So: You will kill me if I try and fail, and if I try and get caught, I’m dead. But if I don’t try, then you will leave me
alone?”

He exchanged a glance with Avgay’el. “Once I assure myself that you won’t betray me,
ken.
”

My skin turned goose bumpy beneath my dress. “What assurance could I give you?”

Yoav slid his blade into its sheath. “I cut out your tongue.”

I started trembling all over, uncontrollably. “You … jest? Surely?”

He spread his hands, palms up. “I must protect myself. I have
yeladim.
”

It was hard to believe he was a father, yet could cut my tongue out with no compunction. I spoke slowly, for my tongue suddenly
felt thick and swollen. “If I get in, then I get set free?”

“If you get in and let us in,
nachon.
You are free.”

“You don’t give me much choice,” I said wryly. This was unbelievable.

He sheathed his knife. “Of course I do! Yoav ben Zerui’a is no uncircumcised pagan. You can continue slaving with the expectant
mothers, the nursing mothers, the women in their cycle, for every day for the rest of your seven years in slavery.”

“Tongueless,” I said.

He shrugged.

“Why me?” I demanded. “Why not another woman?” Yoav glanced at Avgay’el, then back at me. “You are not a woman of our tribes,
it is apparent in every move you make. Also, you are not a …” His hands moved through the air as though he were pawing for
the word. “You lack a femininity. You are as a widow, capable of handling her husband’s affairs, not needing a man’s help.”
He looked troubled. “
B’Y’srael …
”

In Israel
, the lexicon scribbled on the chalkboard. “… our women leaders have had this sense, this ability. All have been as widows,
from the great D’vora, the judge, to Ya’el, who went against her husband’s wishes. Even Yefthah’s daughter seemed a woman
alone when she went into the desert.”

I had no idea who these people were, and I certainly wasn’t a widow. And just because I could scale a wall and hit a target
didn’t mean I wasn’t feminine. I glowered at him while I tried to recall that he was an ancient man, fairly progressive for
his day and age, but he still had a long way to go. However, was he an idiot? Did he really think I could get into a city
that four armies had been incapable of invading? “Let me understand.”

“
B’vakasha
,” he said, giving me the floor.

I fought to keep my tone respectful. “You want me, a Pelesti slave, to open the city of Jebus, so that you, the same highlanders
who sacked my sister cities, can sack another? You think that I, because I lack femininity and carry a jar of water, can persuade
these Jebusi to let me into their well, their sole source of drinking water, then somehow find my way through the city, and
return that same way with an army at my heels?”

His gaze moved over me slowly, appreciatively. His dialect changed again; another one I understood, but that Avgay’el did
not. “There is nothing lacking in you,
isha.
It is that you know how to manage yourself. You can think. You can hide when someone is following you. You know to be wary
of strangers.”

His eyes met mine again. “But it is not because you are anything less than comely. In fact, you will need a disguise.” He
said the last in Hebrew, or Akkadian, or whatever this common
patois
was. “That is another task for Avgay’el.”

“
Ata meshugah!
” I shouted at him. Crazy as a bedbug, that was what he was!

“Is that a refusal?” he asked, his hand going to his blade. I was trembling, trying to figure an angle but too scared for
clarity. “Why do you do this?” I asked, turning on Avgay’el.

“I want my own palace,” she said. “I want to stop hearing about the wonders of this city and how Dadua’s
nefesh
longs for it. I want the constant beseeching prayers to stop. I want him to have his dream so we can get on with our lives.”

“
HaMelekh
is nagging you to death, so you’ll pay any cost?” I choked out.

“Nachon!”

“Never mind that it might take my life and the lives of these soldiers?”

“You have choices,” she said. “Dying or being mute!”

Her gaze dropped.

Use another tactic, Chloe.
“Why support Yoav? Why not one of the other many
gibori
?” I asked. They were all jockeying for this position of
Rosh Tsor haHagana.

Avgay’el glanced at Yoav. “No one has ever been more faithful to the heart of my husband’s desires,” she said in her melodious
storyteller’s voice. “Yoav knows what Dadua wants, even when Dadua claims he doesn’t want it.” She looked back at me. “Yoav
has earned this position already. He has won it through blood.”

This was way too bloody a place for my comfort. “It was not”—she seemed to search for the words—“the most honorable action
for
haMelekh
to make this a, a competition among his men.”

“
Lo.
They should be comrades at arms, not at each other’s throats,” I said, trying to be reasonable in the midst of this insanity.

“You’ve served as a soldier,” Yoav said flatly. “With the Ashqeloni?”

My look toward him was not respectful. “What is the plan?” I asked. Did I stand a chance? Certain muteness or optional death?
“Do you even have a plan?”

“You will go with two of my trusted men to observe the city. You need to find where this waterway comes out.”

Reconnaissance,
b’seder.
“You don’t know where this passageway is?”

“
Lo
, that is part of your job as a spy.”

My father would be so proud. “What if I can’t find—” I didn’t even finish the statement; I didn’t need to because he immediately
reached for his knife. Apparently not finding a way in fit into one of the categories. Choice: mute or dead. “What if there
isn’t one?”

“You are a clever woman.”

That was beginning to feel more like an excuse than a compliment. I licked my lips, taking another deep breath so I didn’t
scream again. “
B’seder
, then what?”

“Then you will go into the city as an itinerant well drawer.”

“This is a common thing?” I asked.

Avgay’el shrugged. “Common enough. Perhaps you should say you are a widow.”

Fair enough. “You will be Pelesti, fleeing from the cities because we destroyed them,” Yoav suggested.

It was always good to keep one’s lies close to the truth. “
B’seder.
What reference is the blind and lame?” I asked.

“The curse that Abdiheba, the present king, lays on those who try to invade him.”

I waited. Was there more? “Do these things upset you?” he asked. “That I must betray a people in order to have my freedom?
Or that he lays a curse against me—I, who am already cursed by slavery and separation from my husband?”

Yoav exchanged a glance with Avgay’el. “I did not know you pagans revered marriage so much. So: Have you sacrificed your children?”

I blinked, stunned. “What?”

“The Jebusi worship Molekh,” Yoav said, then spat. “They sacrifice their children at the full of the moon. Are the Pelesti
the same way?”

“Uh, Dagon never wanted anything other than crab-meat,” I said. That and the odd tightrope-walking virgin.

“Then why don’t you have children?” Avgay’el asked. “We …” I looked down, thinking furiously. Lie or tell the truth? Or embroider
on part of the truth? Or fix part of a lie? “We have not been married long,” I said hesitantly. “At the first, we lost a …
baby.”

“Poor
isha.
May Shekina bless your womb for this victory you give the tribes,” Avgay’el said with genuine sympathy. I nodded, while hoping
that God wouldn’t make me infertile for that mockery I made of women who had suffered the loss of a child. Yes, I had miscarried
once … but …

It hadn’t been exactly the way I’d portrayed it.
Ach!
Avgay’el stood up abruptly. “I must return. Dadua will wonder where his dinner is.”

Yoav looked at me. “Have you decided?”

I recapped the situation as it had been explained to me. My role would be a Pelesti widow, working her way across the country
by drawing water for hire. “Will I be safe?” I asked. “Do the Jebusi honor the same laws that your tribes do?”

“
Lo.
You will have to defend yourself,” he said. “That is one of the reasons I selected you.” His green gaze raked me. “Avgay’el
will disguise you so it will be less of a stumbling block.”

“So I figure out the rest on my own?” I asked. There didn’t seem to be much of a plan.

“Go do the reconnaissance. I will meet you there in a few days and we can discuss options and actions.”

I rose. “I’ll accompany you,
g’vret
, if I may?”

Yoav was squinting at me, as though he could see inside me. He spoke to Avgay’el. “She will leave at dawn, day after tomorrow.”

“Yoav, that is
Shabat
morning! She cannot walk that far! It is a stoning should she do so!”

“She is my slave. She will do as I command.” He looked at me. “However, to keep you from
avayra goreret avayra
I will have you leave after dusk on
Shabat.
You can walk through the night.”

Avgay’el
tch
’d, then hid her face, hair, and the enormous trademark stone on her wrist beneath a cloak. I slipped mine on, covering my
ears and hair. Just two swaddled women to wander back to the palace. We walked in darkness and silence.

“Before you leave, we will make you a protection,” she said.

“
Todah, g’vret.
” But how will I protect myself once I’m there? Could I get away from Mamre tonight? Tomorrow? Where could I go?

Dead or mute; these were considered options?

The trek would take us most of the evening. Since Yoav had the city of Jebus under observation 24/7, as part of a presiege
stakeout, we would see soldiers on their way home after their weeklong shift. Some training in my mind noted that these posts
were therefore empty for at least four hours once a week. Did the Jebusi know that?

There was no talking, just walking. At about two A.M. in the middle of our trek, we met up with the others. Total silence
was maintained, just gestures of greeting as each tribesman passed. I kept my covered head down, my eyes averted. Yoav didn’t
want anyone to ascertain his plan for getting into the city because they might steal it.

My mind was completely blank by the time the sun rose. The colors passed through the spectrum so rapidly, I hardly had time
to appreciate them. The sky turned red, then pink, with tendrils of gold etching the clouds, then the sun was fully up, pouring
light onto the white stone city of Jebus.

Zion, Jerusalem the Golden, City of Peace.

Whoa.

It was built of reflective stone, so it picked up the colors of the sunrise. High on the hill, it seemed showered in golden
light. Below us we saw the circumscription lines on the hills.

History was in the making.

Seeing how it was surrounded on three sides by steep valleys, with a mesa rising behind it, I realized for the first time
how secure this city was. I had not been here before, and Father never discussed Jerusalem as a destination, only as the plum
of negotiations.

All of the many tiny kingdoms around here had tried to oust the Jebusi. Despite the city’s many gates, no one had ever conquered
Jebus. For one, it was impossible to approach unseen; for another, the Jebusi seemed to have an endless supply of water, food
… and patience.

Our handpicked team of twenty of Yoav’s men fanned out, two of us per lookout. My partner, Dov—of the sheep-jesting fame—and
I had a post observing the back of the city and the mountain, since Yoav thought we might be able to do better work out of
sight.

People were already standing in line to get through the city gates. Some were there to sell, others to buy, still others to
see King Abdiheba. Most of them were there seeking permission to cross Abdiheba’s land into upper Canaan. It was the on-ramp
to the King’s Highway, which led from the Salt Sea straight up to Mitanni, then into Assyria—twentieth-century Arab enclaves.

According to Yoav, Dadua said the pagan tribes—the Amoni, the Amori, the Keleti, the Edomi, Moabi, Alameda, not to mention
the united tribes who were Dadua’s cousins— were watching how the tribesmen handled the attempt at Jebus.

A victory over the Jebusi would establish Dadua’s supremacy over the remainder of the countryside. No battles would be necessary,
for the other tribes, impressed by Dadua’s primacy, would be open to negotiating.