Abigail's Story (13 page)

“So, you came back.”

I looked up and smiled. “I did.”

My husband had washed and dressed, and his linen khiton sported an elaborate hem with much hand embroidery. Gold encircled his neck and wrists,
and on his head he wore the flat, round head covering of an important landowner.

“I sent you to stay in the hills until shearing time,” he said as he came to sit in his chair. “You were not told to return.”

“I thought I might surprise you."

“You do.” He surveyed me. “You look well.”

“I am well.” I frowned.

Nabal glanced at the floor. “Damned lazy slaves.” He shouted for his steward, who came into the room, and pointed at the mess. “When I am finished in here, I want this room scrubbed down. See to it they use boiling water and lye soap.”

The steward promised to carry out my husband's wishes and departed. The kitchen servant then came in with food and wine, and I dined with my husband. Nabal did not attempt to make conversation, and I thought he might be in better temper if I let him eat in peace. Worried as I was about Yehud and his family, I could only pick at my meal.

After the servant removed our bowls and cups, I decided it was as good a time as any to tell him my reason for returning. “Husband, I came back to your house because there is trouble in the hill country, trouble that needs your attention.”

He leaned forward. “Has something happened to the flocks?”

“The animals are fine and very healthy,” I said. “Yehud and his sons take good care of them.”

He sat back. “If the animals are well, then what trouble could there be?”

“The herdsmen need food, and they are too busy with the animals to gather what they can from the pasturelands. I need to take back grain, fruit, and cheese for them so they and their families will not go hungry.”

His eyebrows rose. “From where do you intend to get this food? It will not come from my stores.”

“I thought I might take what extra we have—”

“We?” He laughed. “You own nothing here, wife. You are one of my possessions, that is all.”

“I brought a kor of fine wheat and much more to this marriage,” I reminded him, exasperated.

“Where it became mine, the day we were wed.” He smirked. “You cannot have it back, and you will not give it or any of my stores to the hill people.”

“You would have them starve before they can drive the animals to Maon for shearing?” I asked, keeping my tone polite.

“Let them starve.” He yawned. “It will save me the year's pay, and I can hire others to take their place.” Before I could respond, he rose to his feet. “I have business in town. I suppose you wish to visit your family in Carmel?”

“If I may have the wagon and a driver, yes.”

“You need not take the wagon when you can walk.” His small eyes glittered with something unpleasant. “Only take care to return before dark. I shall have use for you then.”

After my husband left, I sat feeling bewildered and miserably ashamed of my husband. Yehud and his people expected nothing of me, but I could not go
back to the hill country empty-handed. In the kitchen storage pits alone there was enough grain and dried fruit to feed the herdsmen, their families, and the dal. But Nabal would not share his stores, nor allow me to take the food from my zebed.

How could he be so selfish?

I supposed Nabal meant to punish me by making me go on foot to Carmel, but after two days of traveling by wagon, I welcomed the chance to walk. I also needed to think of what to do, although by the time I had crossed the distance between the two towns, I was no closer to finding an answer to my dilemma.

The market had closed for the day, and all the stalls were empty, but I stopped by the old booth where I had sold pots. It had only been a moon since I had been spending my mornings here, and yet it seemed a thousand years ago.

“Abigail?”

I turned to see Rivai hurrying toward me from the town's merchant gate. I grinned and ran into his open arms, embracing him with delight.

“What are you doing here? Where is Nabal?” Rivai held me at arms' length and then pulled me back against his chest. “Adonai, I thought you would not surely return until summer.”

“I had to speak with my husband, and see you and our parents.” I touched his cheek and admired the sleek, oiled curls of his beard and hair. His eyes were clear and his skin tanned, and he had gained some weight on his lean frame. “You look very well.”

“Very well fed, thanks to your friend Cetura. She stuffs us all like fowl to be roasted.” He put his arm around me. “Come, I know it will delight our father and mother to see you.”

It was strange not walking back to our parents' home, but taking the narrow road to Cetura's house, a big two-level brick house tucked into a cool corner of the town's walls. My feet yearned to change direction and return to the place where I had grown up, so I could again sit among the herbs in the garden and watch the stars come out. Only now I would not long for a husband, for the Adonai had granted me that wish.

Now I would wish that my husband were someone else. Someone with black eyes and gentle hands.

“You must tell us what has happened with you since you left,” my brother warned me.

Not everything.
“I shall.”

Cetura greeted me at the door with a shriek of happiness and a close embrace before she led me inside, where my mother and father were eating their midday meal. My mother recognized me and cried as she said my name and covered my cheeks with soft kisses. My father took me into his shaky embrace and stroked his gnarled hand over my hair.

“My daughter, my daughter,” he said, over and over, as if he could not believe his eyes.

“It is me, Father.” I rested my cheek against his heart for a moment before I drew back. “Come, sit. I have so much to tell you.”

Cetura's sons, Harek and Tul, were also at the
house, in town to deliver their wheat harvest for their mother to sell. They greeted me like a treasured sister while their mother brought tea and little honey cakes. There was some confusion at first as I tried to answer everyone's questions and spoke of my time in the hills.

“It is so beautiful there, Father,” I said. “I thought I would miss life in town, but in truth the only things I have missed are you and my friends.”

“We hear so many rumors about the people of Paran,” Cetura said, “and we have been worried. They say there are bandits in the country who roam about and prey like wolves on the helpless.”

I thought of the shepherd and his men. “I have seen no bandits, nor wolves, but there are plenty of sheep and goats.” I described Yehud's camp and the women of his family whom I had befriended before adding, “They do not live as we do, but they are a kind and generous people. I think you would like them, Father.”

“My grandfather was a shepherd from Paran,” he reminded me. “We likely share some distant kinship with them.”

We laughed and talked for hours. Rivai told me of his apprenticeship with Amri, and how well his carvings were selling at market now that they were being used as containers for Amri's spice. “No one fears them as pesel as long as they serve a purpose,” he said.

Cetura told me about the other merchants of Carmel, and how the coppersmith's son Tzalmon had
scandalized everyone by running off to Hebron with Devash. Happily the families reconciled themselves to the match and had worked out an agreeable exchange of mohar and zebed, so the young couple were expected to return and celebrate their marriage in Carmel.

“It is good that her father is so forgiving,” Harek, Cetura's older son, said. “I would have chased down the rogue and given him the thrashing of his life.”

His younger brother laughed. “Then you would have bandaged his wounds and carried him to the wedding feast.”

As the sun sank to the west, my mother grew weary, so my father took her to their room to rest. It was then that Rivai went to tend to the goats, leaving me with Cetura and her sons. The widow sent the men to deliver some barley to the beer maker, and then we were alone.

“More brought you here than a desire to see us,” Cetura said as she sat down beside me. “Now that we are alone, tell me what you would not say before your family.”

“You
are
my family,” I told her, but she only waited with a knowing look in her eyes. I sighed. “I need food for the people in the hills. I fear they do not have enough to last them until shearing time.” I explained how desperate the situation was growing for Yehud and his family.

“Life in Paran is always a struggle,” Cetura said sadly. “What can be done?”

“Nothing. I asked Nabal, but he refused. He forbid me touch his stores or my zebed, and said Yehud and his family could starve.” I pushed aside my anger over that. “I cannot return to Paran with nothing for them, Cetura. They are in great need, and I especially fear for the children.”

“What of the pay your husband owes them?”

“It will be another moon before they drive the flocks to Maon. He says they must wait until then to receive their payment. Then it will take some days for them to sell the animals they receive from Nabal.”

“That is a terrible thing,” the widow agreed, “but it is not all that disturbs you.”

I thought of Keseke's warnings and what the old man at the crossroads had said. It had hovered in the back of my mind all day, but I had refused to face it. “Strange things have happened. Keseke, Nabal's serving woman, gave me food on my journey out to the hill country. I did not like the taste of it, and when she was not looking I fed it to an innkeeper's dog. Yesterday I learned that the dog died in the night after I fed him.”

Cetura paled. “Abigail, there can be no mistake?”

“It might have been old cheese, but . . .” No, I could not make that excuse. Old cheese might have made the dog sick, if he had eaten a great quantity of it, but so little? “I think she meant to poison me, even kill me.”

“Did she do anything else to you? Did any of her food make you ill?”

I shook my head. “The only other oddity was when I woke the first night in the hill house. I saw Keseke standing over me with a heavy branch. The branch came from the roof, part of which had fallen in.”

“Clever, this witch is,” Cetura said, anger making her face tight. “She might have beaten you to death in your sleep and then made it look as if the roof had come down on you.”

I frowned. “I cannot make sense of it. If she wished me dead, why not try again? Since that first night she has done nothing to harm me.” I covered my eyes with my hands. “Perhaps I imagine it all.”

“Who sent this woman with you? Nabal?” At my nod, Cetura thumped her hands down on the table. “Then he means you ill.”

“Why?” I was confused. “There was no ire between us. He was happy to see me go in his place.”

“Think on it, Abigail,” the widow urged. “You brought zebed, to his house and were sent away the next day. If you had died in the hill country, he could be rid of you, keep the zebed, and perhaps even find a way to reinstate the debt Rivai owed to him.”

I did not think my husband could be capable of such evil intentions, but then Keseke's words came back to me.
Some think he killed his family, so that he would have everything to himself.
“What can I do, Cetura? He expects me to return by sunset.”

“You will not go back to Maon tonight,” she declared. “It is not safe for you there.”

“I cannot hide here. By law he can come and take
me away, and I fear what he might do to my parents and Rivai if I drive him to anger.”

The widow slapped her palms together. “That is it. You will go back to the hill country and stay there until shearing time. When you return with the herdsmen and the flocks, you will petition for divorce.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Yehud and his family cannot bear another mouth to feed. I cannot even go back to the hill country unless his men take me.”

“You must take sanctuary with those people. If only you could . . .” A gleam came into her eyes. “Nabal told you that you could not take food from his stores or your zebed for the herdsmen, were those his words?”

I nodded. “He was very specific about it.”

“Not specific enough, child.” Cetura looked up as her sons returned from their delivery. “Harek, Tul, load your sturdiest wagon with six kor of wheat and three of barley. Send for the fruit seller and the cheese maker; we will need them to deliver our order tonight.”

“You have a craving for raisins and goat cheese, Mother?” Harek teased.

“No. We are sending this all to the hill people.”

I nearly fell off the bench. “Cetura, what do you say? I cannot pay for so much. I cannot even buy a single sack of barley for them.”

“You do not have to pay for them,” the widow said, her smile turning grim. “Master Nabal does. He is responsible for you, and in your absence, he must pay your debts. It is the law.”

“He will refuse, and then you and the other merchants will have no payment. I cannot risk it.”

“You were a merchant but a moon ago, child, and you have forgotten the law? If Nabal does not pay, then his property will be seized and sold to satisfy the debt.” Cetura rested her hands on my cheeks. “Cannot you see the balance of it, child? Nabal did precisely this to your brother. If he is to take refuge in the law, then he must abide by it as well.”

It sounded wonderful, and my heart pounded wildly. My excitement faded, however, when I remembered how it felt to have a debt I had never asked for dropped on my shoulders. “Cetura, doing this because Nabal did the same thing to Rivai does not make it right.”

“In the eyes of far older law, it does,” Harek said. “ ‘For all things inflicted, so shall you inflict.” '

“ ‘A life for a life,” ' his brother chimed in. “ ‘A debt for a debt.” '