I felt myself begin to shake. “Why didn’t he use the desert people’s turmeric or henna?”
“He told us the frankincense would work more quickly and better. I’ve never owned it because it’s much too costly. It’s rare for any tribal person to possess the spice, much less use it for healing. Frankincense is only for temples and wealthy families or the Egyptians, who must embalm their citizens.” She lifted her arm in a gesture of awe. “To give it away like that, for a poor desert boy like Benjamin? Unheard of.”
There was a peculiar roaring in my ears although the night was still, ten thousand stars a carpet of glittering lights above us. The fire crackled and snapped, dying down to coals for sleeping. “You said you were in the canyon lands, but there are many canyons all over Mesopotamia. Were you that far south? Were you near the frankincense lands?”
“Oh, no,” the woman said, shaking her head with a brief laugh. “I’ve never been that far south. Nowhere close. They say it’s like traveling to the ends of the earth, past the Empty Sands, even. And nobody survives that desolation.”
I nodded, and then shook my head. I was so tired and sick, and I’d been close to starving in these hills that my mind was now playing tricks on me. For a moment I’d hoped that perhaps this family might have met some of Kadesh’s family, but of course not. That was completely ridiculous. The southern frankincense lands were mysterious and foreign and too far to get to on my own. Besides, even if I could manage to make the borders, I might not be let through. They were kept secret for a reason.
The woman stirred the fire as I wrapped my arms around my knees, the precious nuggets bumping against my legs. She added, “We were just north of the red canyons when this happened. Benjamin got into trouble on the rocks and cliffs—we could hardly keep him contained.” She laughed softly, and I envied her family and good husband and children.
“What part of the world do you mean? I’ve only ever been through red canyons in the land of the Edomites.”
She lifted her head. “That’s where we were. In the canyons of the Edomites. They have a good well there—for a price. Fortunately, we had sold some of our herd and had enough coins to pay their water tax.”
Inwardly, I’d begun to shake with my memories of Kadesh in those same rock canyons. The first time he’d touched me, held my palm to his lips, spoken my name in his extraordinary voice.
“It’s a beautiful place,” I said softly. “The city will be remarkable when it’s finished.”
She nodded. “We were so lucky to arrive at the same time this man was there with his healing frankincense. I understand that he doesn’t usually make his home there. He was a stranger, too. Our path crossed at just the right moment. One of God’s tender mercies.”
A slow pounding started in my head. My breath caught in my throat. “A blessing indeed. But he knew these Edomite people?”
“He had a friend that had taken him in.”
I tried to stop my voice from shaking. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know any details, but it seems he had been badly hurt. Near death even when he was brought there, and the Edomites were nursing him back to health.”
I could hardly ask my next question. “What—what was this man called?”
She shook her head. “We never knew his name, but when he heard about our son’s accident he offered to help, even though he was still recovering himself. I’ll never forget his kindness and generosity.”
I couldn’t breathe. It was as though she described Kadesh. Surely the frankincense was only a coincidence. The man who had doctored Benjamin’s arm was someone else entirely. Kadesh was dead and I had to accept that. A lump of anger filled my throat. I didn’t want to hear any more. It was only the mention of the frankincense that brought Kadesh’s face to me, saturating my mind and heart.
Waves of grief and memories crashed over me. I rose, holding up my hand, wanting her to stop talking, to stop torturing me, but she was staring into the fire, completely unaware that I was standing there, frozen to my spot. I feared that in a moment, I might fall straight into the hot coals.
“I told my husband that he seemed different from the other Edomites. The men of Esau were unfriendly and demanded high payment for their water. This healing man was very kind and generous. Oh, and he owned the most beautifully decorated sword. Benjamin was quite in awe.”
My legs turned to liquid and I sank to the sand, gasping for air.
“Are you ill, dear girl? Please, come sit by the fire and I’ll get you some tea.”
My mind screamed. I tried to figure out how much time had passed, how long it had been since Horeb killed Kadesh that terrible night in Mari. If a caravan from the South had passed through and taken his body, there would have been time to leave him with the Edomites before heading to Salem or Egypt with their load, but I pushed down the hope. Nalla had said Kadesh was dead. They all had.
Still, I kept asking questions, almost as if to torment myself. “You say he kept his face covered. Did he have a cloak?”
“No, he only wore a headcloth wrapped around his face.”
An image of Kadesh crouched on the bluff watching me at my mother’s grave flashed through my mind. His face scarf had been the color of camel’s cream. I fought back a flood of burning tears. “Do you know why he wouldn’t show his face to you?”
“I actually suspected he was deformed or diseased, but his hands were clean from leprosy. I didn’t know what to make of him. Such an unusual person. Tall and holding himself quite regally.”
I could barely get the words out. “When did you say you were there and Benjamin was hurt?”
“It was during the new moon. From there we came straight through to Mari, pushing ourselves with winter coming so quickly this year.”
The new moon. Long after Horeb had given me Kadesh’s bloodstained cloak the night of the ambush.
Overcome with grief—and hope—I took leave to lie down. But I didn’t sleep at all that night. I simply lay in my beautiful cloak and stared at the sky. Listened to the rustle of the wind in the brush. Could it be possible Kadesh had survived? So many details about the kind man with the frankincense matched Kadesh; it was uncanny. I tossed and turned, the idea of him surviving keeping me restless and foolishly daring to hope.
The next morning, the husband and wife offered me a place with their family—to ride with them south along the Euphrates to Babylon.
I was probably foolish, but I turned down their generous offer, the story of the healing man playing over and over again in my mind. If there was a possibility Kadesh was alive, I had to try to find him.
I was given a supply of dried meat and bread, and the husband filled my leather water bag, giving me a second one from their own stock.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for everything.”
I headed down the rocky mountain path. My thoughts raced, tumbling over one another as I began to make plans. I’d need to travel now before the winter grew even colder and the ground froze at night. I also needed to travel lightly, without a tent or cook pots so I could move as quickly as possible.
I’d be traveling by myself into the Edomite nation, with its potential raiders and thieves. But Kadesh was well acquainted with a particular Edomite man in the red-rock canyons. Someone who might help me. I remembered Kadesh mentioning a name that day we were ambushed by the men on their horses, and our camels taken for water. Maybe by the time I reached the canyon lands more than four hundred miles southeast of Mari, I’d remember who it was.
I gazed up into the sky, enclosed in Kadesh’s cloak. I finally had the answers I’d been searching for. Meeting the family after weeks of seeing no one, hearing their story of the frankincense man hiding in the hills, and the last precious nuggets I’d been saving. All the pieces fell, strangely, into place.
The camel market on the outskirts of Mari was bustling, the place wild with clamoring noises. Summer raids and new camel calves had netted new and plentiful herds, and every tribesman wanted to tra
de and sell before leaving for the winter migrations. It was getting late in the season and no time to lose.
Men shouted and gestured, arguing their camels’ traits and qualities. The beasts brayed and spit and stomped the earth, sending up so much dust the air was a haze of brown.
I was careful not to get my toes smashed as I worked my way through the crowd. The buyers and sellers paid me no attention, assuming I was there with my father or a husband.
I only had enough frankincense for one camel, so I had to purchase the best I could get. If illness or death struck my animal, I’d be stranded in the middle of the desert. Certain death.
“Off with you, girl!” a man cried as I strained to lift the hoof of one of his camels. “You’ll get yourself hurt.” He eyed me, chewing on a green blade of grass, the tail of his salty beard quivering as he spoke. “Women don’t know camels.”
“Then you don’t know women very well, do you? At least not desert women.”
“I wash my hands if you get kicked in the gut.”
I pried open the camel’s mouth and checked its molars and tongue, then ran my hand through the mare’s hair for signs of malnutrition. I’d always wanted one of the beautiful white camels from the West, and this one was the perfect size for me.
“Where is her young?” I asked, knowing she’d dropped a calf sometime over the past year.
“We ate him on the desert,” was the unsentimental response.
“Why are you selling her?”
The man folded his arms across his chest. “You’re a nosy girl.”
I smoothed my hand along the camel’s flanks, trying to remain nonchalant, even as my eyes darted about the market, hoping Horeb or his men weren’t here watching for me. It was the riskiest thing I’d done, coming down, but I had to buy a camel to travel, or die in those hills above the city.
My legs would get sore since I didn’t have enough nuggets for a saddle, but so be it. The canyon lands were almost three weeks’ journey from Mari. Perhaps less if I rode hard every day.
“Has this mare ever traveled through the red canyon lands?”
“A year ago she came up from the Gulf of Akabah.”
Perfect. I was convinced this was the camel for me. “How much are you asking?”
“Ten pieces of silver.”
I held out a closed fist. “Would you settle for frankincense nuggets?”
His eyebrow arched upward again. “You bluff, girl. Besides, she’s a white camel and worth a great deal.”
I opened my palm to show him six pale-yellow chunks.
The man eagerly picked up one of the pieces of spice and smelled it. “It’s real.”
“Of course it’s real,” I said soberly. “And I want this camel.”
“You have yourself a deal.”
I emptied the contents of the pouch into his hands. Six pieces of frankincense: just what I’d hoped to pay, and no more. I shook the bag so that he could see it was empty and there was nothing left to ask for—or rob me of later.
The last nugget was bound to my chest, saved for the other supplies I would need.
I untied the rope that kept the animal cobbled to the ground, and she groaned as she rose to her feet, spraying a mouthful of saliva into my face. Exulting in my purchase, I led the camel through the crowd, keeping a hand on her neck.
At the edge of the marketplace, I made an abrupt stop. The camel’s chest bumped into the back of my head and my palms began to sweat. In the middle of the haggling throng, I spotted a couple of Nephish men.
My sweaty fist clenched the halter and the cord took a bite out of my hand. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t bring any attention to myself. Laying my face against my camel’s haunches, I swung away from where the men stood, holding on to the bit in her mouth so she wouldn’t bolt.
Making sure Kadesh’s hood covered my face, I softly clucked to my new camel and moved past, fear thudding inside my chest. Keeping my head low, I gripped the rope and kept going, but not before spying someone with a familiar gait, and a tunic and cloak I knew well, made from my mother’s own hands. My father was here at the camel market, standing almost directly in my path.
My throat turned thick, aching as tears bit at my eyes.
A lifetime of memories swept through me. The many days we’d spent raising our camels, making the hearth fire, telling stories and singing. His beard tickling my face as he taught me to make knots, or milk or saddle the camels.
My heart crumbled as he turned away, not seeing me. I wanted to speak with him so badly, I was shaking. He must be here searching for me and Leila.
“I love you, Father,” I whispered as I tugged at my camel’s halter. When I glanced backward, my father had already disappeared into the throng.
It was nearly dark when I made it through the range of low-lying dunes and knolls, dropping close to the desert on the other side. I stopped for the night, praying I wouldn’t see Horeb and his men on my tail, but I couldn’t ride at night and I didn’t trust my camel not to get us lost.
I made a small fire to warm my hands and feet before I crawled into my bedding for the night, chewing on a few dates and a day-old loaf of bread. Then I stamped out the flames until they were coals. The moon rose, glowing a bright, silver hue.
I went through a checklist in my mind. Food, water—everything was in place.
I had plenty to reach the cold, clear water of the Edomite well, as long as I didn’t spill any or spring a leak in my waterskins.
I’d made an irreversible choice. I was destitute again, except for my camel. But she was so beautiful and perfect, I felt rich. As she chewed her cud, I finally gave her a name. “I will call you Shay, and you will be my surrogate mother.”
At the memory of my beautiful mother, my throat closed up, but I flung my hood over my head and pushed down the fear that spiraled up my chest. Water, food, safety, family. I’d left comforts and security behind when I didn’t speak to my father. Loneliness, cold, and terror possibly awaited me.
Even if I survived this trip, there was a chance I could end up back at the Temple of Ashtoreth with Leila as I mourned Kadesh’s death all over again.
Or I’d be forced into becoming Horeb’s bride.
But I would make this journey, even though unanswered questions dangled before me. I possessed Kadesh’s bloodstained cloak, and the witness from Horeb’s men that he’d died, but I wondered if I was embarking on a foolish quest.
“Am I merely hoping against hope?” I whispered into the cold night air. Many people watched him die. They’d taken his body away and left him for the vultures. What made me think he could have survived a blade run through his heart? Horeb would have made sure he was dead.
Wrapping my arms around my knees, I stared out over the dark valley. There was a long, lonely road out there with little water, dangerous hazards, and wild animals. Maybe I was headed into a peril too great to survive. But Kadesh had once told me to find his Edomite brother if I needed help.
And something fierce inside me told me that I had to have hope. I had to believe, just like Kadesh had told me to.
I pulled his warm cloak tighter around me. My longing for him rushed up through my belly until it reached my heart and sank into my soul. I would never settle for the temple or being Horeb’s queen, no matter how dangerous the next few weeks were to reach the Edomite lands. If I gave up the sliver of hope I had, I’d lose myself forever.
My mother was gone, but I still had the knowledge of what she’d taught me. If she were here she would want me to choose my life, my soul, and the boy I loved, even if it meant facing death to be together.
I wept tears of loss as my mother’s presence suddenly came to me. I sensed her spirit close, the touch of her fingers brushing my cheek as she whispered love into my ears.
My mother’s ghost warmed me, as though she held me in her arms. A moment later, I found myself rising to my feet. I would dance with her one more time, as she and I had danced in our tent since I was a young girl, and as I had danc
ed for her at her grave to say good-bye.
Digging my feet into the earth, my body swayed in the wintry evening twilight, my hips circling the familiar, comforting movements. My arms reached for the stars, pulled down the moon, and then I whirled my toes on the cold dirt as I enfolded Kadesh’s cloak around me, homesick for him all over again.
My mother had always empowered me, and the dance now filled me with a surge of strength and wisdom.
War was coming. War with Horeb. A battle between good and evil. Integrity and deceit. Life and death.
I danced for Kadesh and his mighty sword, and for his victory.
I danced for Horeb’s defeat.
Last of all, I danced for Leila and Sahmril. I would find my sisters and save us from Horeb’s long arm of vengeance. I danced everything in my heart and soul until I dropped, exhausted, to the sands.
My mother caught my hands in hers as the music of the desert ended. The world stopped spinning when she kissed my cheeks and pressed her lips into my palms. Then my beautiful mother breathed her spirit deep into mine to keep her with me always.
“There are times, Jayden, when a woman’s emotions run higher and fuller than the waves on the Akabah Sea, threatening to drag her to the bottom and drown her.”
My mother’s words had been true nearly a year ago, and they were still true, but I wouldn’t drown. I would rise above the waves of danger and death and fear.
“You have become one of a long line of goddess women at last, Jayden,” I heard her whisper as the wind swept over the hills and across the Assyrian plains. “Just like the ancient goddess who gave us life and power and womanhood so long ago. Nobody can ever take that away from you.”
Danger and uncertainty twisted deep in my belly as the universe around me shifted. Images of my ancestors danced before my eyes; unseen spirits of the ancients pushed against my back, and I felt as though I were being flung across a new threshold. But it was a doorway I wanted to enter, a life I wanted to live. I was creating my own time now, apart from the women’s circle of my tribe and my mother, separate from my father and my grandmother and Leila and all that I’d known.