They carried him off, but his moans were already haunting me. “Kadesh,” I whispered, staggering when I turned to him. “The full moon is tonight.”
Kadesh glanced up at the sky, his face grim. “That raider is lying just to frighten us. Oh, Jayden,” he began. The anguish in his face was almost more than I could bear. But I had to bear it for him. It was time to truly become his wife in all things, despite the fact that the marriage contract hadn’t been signed yet. What timing of the mercenary soldiers. They’d stopped the wedding at just the right moment.
I kissed Kadesh’s cheek. Smoothed my hands down the royal robes he’d worn for our wedding ceremony. “Where’s my father? And Uncle Ephrem? Did they escape with their servants back to the palace?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them since Chemish was shot.”
We stared at each other, and then raced back to the dais.
“Go to your father,” Kadesh told Asher. “He needs you now. Send one of the physician’s servants to us when you have word of his condition.”
The young man shook his head. “He’s unconscious. For now, I’ll stay with you, my prince. I want to protect you and Jayden if there are more enemies lurking about.”
Kadesh put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. A thousand unspoken sentiments passed between them.
The dais was dark, the candles snuffed out. Hope flared that both Pharez and Ephrem were safely in the palace.
But then a muffled cry came from behind the black dais curtains.
Quickly, we skirted to the rear and found my father kneeling on the ground over the form of a body. The body of the king. King Ephrem’s bodyguards stood at attention, their faces bleak as though trying not to weep.
Kadesh fell to the earth beside him, lifting the king into his arms. “Uncle!” he cried.
I knelt on the other side of him and stole a glance at my father who slowly shook his head.
It was easy to see that the King of Sariba was dead. His face was gray, his jaw slack, his body eerily still.
Kadesh’s face wrenched in grief, and then tightened grimly. “If that marauding horseman did this to my uncle, I will personally have him hung and quartered.”
My father pressed Kadesh’s shoulder. “No, Son, there’s no arrow or sword wound. It appears King Ephrem collapsed during the assault. I think his heart failed. The attack was too much of a shock.”
34
At midnight on the evening of my wedding day, we said good-bye to King Ephrem.
His bodyguards and personal servants gathered long, gnarled pieces of frankincense wood to create a funeral pyre on the soft, white sands of the beach. Gentle waves lapped the shore in a voiceless melody.
The King of Sariba was now voiceless, too. A long era of peace and prosperity gone with him. News of the king’s death spread like wildfire. The country had been plunged into mourning. I watched the preparations, numb from the last few hours. I was supposed to be married right now. Lying in the arms of Kadesh within the marriage tent. I wondered where the marriage contract papers were. Lost in the chaos somewhere. I hadn’t even thought to search for them. Were they drifting in a fountain, or torn into pieces and trampled underfoot?
Or had Aliyah taken them? The sudden thought turned me cold. Was that what she was doing at the dais? I should have chased the girl down and ripped her hair out in the process.
Who would sign the marriage covenant now? I was adrift, lost. Defeat stared me in the face. Our fate had turned, our future uncertain once again.
King Ephrem’s body was already stiff on a gilded deathbed, crafted from his beloved frankincense trees. I kissed his cheek and whispered my good-bye. Kadesh held the man in his arms. The man he’d called father over the past two years. The sound of his grief burned a hole in my heart.
Uncle Josiah stood stoic and silent, the old general suppressing his grief. Naomi wept bitter tears, rivulets of drying salt on her face.
A crowd of Sariba’s citizens was gathering on the shoreline along with the palace servants, heralds, maids, and gardeners. King Ephrem’s longtime body servant, assistants, and scribes stood in small groupings with somber faces, trying to hide their tears, but not succeeding.
The Edomites formed a solemn contingent behind the palace soldiers and captains. Ironically, everyone still wore their party finery.
A light breeze whipped the hem of my wedding dress against my legs while trumpets played a mournful version of the Sariba anthem and the king’s soldiers marched in solitary lines, halting at the funeral pyre.
Four men at each corner of the deathbed lifted the king’s body and placed it on the bed of logs. A hundred pounds of the finest golden frankincense tears was wedged among the logs and sticks. A sweet, musky scent filled the salt air.
An hour earlier, Kadesh had dressed his uncle’s body in the royal regalia and purple robes he’d been given when crowned King of Sariba. The king of Sariba was grand even in death, his face peaceful. Aged with love for his people and his country. At the signal of the king’s vizier, the captains of the two guard details lit the pyre of wood with torches. Flames snapped at the dry frankincense wood, and then shot into the sky. Soon an inferno roared, backlighting the ocean’s waves washing along the foaming sand.
King Ephrem’s profile was outlined in the blaze, and I flinched in sorrow. Despair washed over me while the tide brushed the beach like a painter’s canvas.
I couldn’t seem to absorb all that had happened tonight. My mind flashed with images. The exquisitely decorated wedding pavilion. The beautiful rooms of the marriage tent waiting for Kadesh to carry me through the doorway. Chemish falling forward with a horrible thud at the dais. Confusion and horror and flashing swords. Asher’s boyish tears making my throat ache. My own paralyzing terror when I’d scooped up Naria.
Aliyah slipping away into the night.
Uncle Ephrem pronounced dead by my father.
I gulped down the emotions that threatened to swallow me while I watched fire eat up the body of the beloved King of Sariba.
After long moments of tears and wails coming from the mourners, Kadesh trudged through the sand to where I stood in silence next to Uncle Josiah and Aunt Naomi.
Josiah turned to him. “We have to talk, Kadesh. Immediately. About your kingship.”
The light of the pyre flickered across Kadesh’s face, the dark patch held against his eye appearing as a black, empty hole. “Please, uncle. I’m watching the man I loved rise to the sky in ashes. I can’t think of the next step, not yet.”
“You must,” Josiah said in a low voice. “Asher told me what that invader said. You need to be crowned before the king of the Nephish arrives.”
“We have a few days to discuss all these details,” Kadesh said, his voice as somber as the sky.
“You don’t know that,” Josiah said. “What if they’re closer than we think?”
“And what about their wedding?” Naomi spoke up. “Jayden as queen?”
The muscles in Kadesh’s jaw clenched. The demands on him were already beginning. He turned to me and placed my palms to his lips. “Your wedding was destroyed by mercenary soldiers hired by Horeb. You deserve so much better. You deserve everything but I need to gather my generals immediately. My people are now fully aware war is coming. The entire land is filled with terror. This has become so much bigger than we ever imagined. I need to rally my people. Assure them they’ll be safe.”
I couldn’t seem to breathe. Even if we married in the morning there would be no time for each other. Grief was eating our emotions, and the coming war consuming our minds.
“Jayden, I need to be crowned before I can sign the marriage covenant for myself. At least we have the papers crafted before Uncle Ephrem died. But to marry you in one of the anterooms of the palace, sword and daggers stuck in my belt on my way to battle. Unable to take you to the marriage tent. In good conscience, I can’t make you a widow on your wedding day.”
“Kadesh,” I whispered. “The marriage covenant papers . . . I
don’t know what happened to them. They’re missing.” I was sure I was dying. My heart ripped piece by piece from my ribs. Once more Horeb had come between us. Death to destroy our happiness.
Naomi was now weeping. “This is no way to begin your life together. Marred by tragedy and war. It will forever be a blight on your union and the country. Many citizens are already murmuring that the High Priest of Ba’al and the High Priestess of the temple should be king and queen of Sariba.”
Inwardly, I groaned. Every piece of me was as cold as the bottom of the ocean. Aliyah had been preparing the people a long time for just this occasion. She’d seen ahead into the future when Kadesh didn’t return home for a year. She’d laid her own plans to thwart us.
“We can’t let that happen, Kadesh. You’ve fought too hard just to watch your country taken over by traitors. I’ll do whatever you ask of me. Fight by your side. Or disappear into the desert to save your kingdom.”
“Oh, Jayden.” Fiercely, Kadesh dropped to his knees and kissed my palms, gazing up at me. “You are too good. Too brave.”
I tried not to laugh in my despair. “No, I’m terrified. But instead of cowering in the palace waiting to hear of your death, I will fight by your side with the rest of your army. Together, we will defeat Horeb.”
Our eyes locked, remembering King Ephrem’s charge to me to kill Horeb.
Josiah stepped forward, his eyes golden from the flames devouring the funeral pyre. “By dawn’s light I’ll have the kingdom’s council assembled and we’ll crown you King Kadesh of Sariba,” he said.
Asher moved into our circle of grief, placing a hand on Kadesh’s shoulder. His own eyes were red from tears and smoke.
“How is your father?” I asked him.
“Feverish, in a coma. But the physicians have cleaned and stitched up the wound. We have hope he will live. If,” he added solemnly, “the frankincense works and God is willing to spare his life so I can take him back home to my mother.”
I thought of Isra in the red canyon lands, so many miles away, not knowing her husband was gravely wounded by an arrow meant for Kadesh.
Sudden shouts sounded from the cliffs above the beach. We stared up at a band of Sariba soldiers gathered there. One of them signaled down to us. A signal of urgency, of distress.
“Our horses, Asher!” Kadesh shouted. “Quickly!”
Raw nerves gripped my belly. “What’s happening?”
Two Arabian steeds as well as Asher’s horse reached us in seconds, ridden by palace stable boys who spoke so excitedly it was almost gibberish. “We saw them! People on the desert, my lord!”
The boys handed up the reins and Kadesh and I leaped onto the horses’ backs, galloping across the soft sand. Asher was swift on our heels as we urged the horses up the trail to the cliff overlook.
Behind us, Naomi cried out, but her words were lost to the wind.
I tucked my wedding gown up under my legs and my hair was battered by our speed, wind and salt air ruining the carefully crafted curls. Sending gold dust streaming into the ocean’s breakers.
From the top of the half-moon cliffs, the black endless ocean spread below us, and the city twinkled with lights before us. Deceptively harmless, as though no tragedy had happened that night. As though Sariba had not lost its beloved, old king.
On the hills to the north, the Sariba Temple glistened under the moonlight, a thousand lamps bringing its courtyards closer than they appeared. The temple seemed to mock me, to laugh at my tragedies.
We rode a mile west to the edge of the desert. I clenched the horse’s reins in my fist, my thighs tight against its flanks, dread creeping cold fingers along my neck.
Dismounting at the edge of the city, we stared into the distant desert. Pinpricks of light out on the empty sands betrayed our eyes like the fragment of a dream.
“Are those lights from the Kingdom of the Queen of Sheba?” I asked, praying my eyes were playing tricks on me.
Kadesh shook his head. “Sa’ba is more than three weeks’ journey from here. Those lights are only one day’s journey from where we’re standing.”
A hot summer breeze rose up from the desert floor, whispering a lament through the hollows of the Qara Mountains.
Asher’s tone was bitter. “Those lights up ahead are the army of Horeb.”
Fear tasted vile in my mouth, as if the smoke from Ephrem’s death pyre had scoured my throat.
A soft cry strangled me, and Kadesh reached out to enclose me in his cloak. His touch was warm and reassuring, but I knew the worst of our nightmares had finally arrived.
We stood still, breathing each other in. I was aware of Asher’s eyes on us. Aware of his resignation over the strength of the bond Kadesh and I had. But I was also deeply aware of the young man’s profound devotion and love for us.
Damp sand puckered my wedding dress, the odor of ashes and death rising from the silk. Hot blood pumped through my veins, giving me a headache, but I shivered.
An eerie resolve laced Kadesh’s voice. “Within a fortnight we’ll stake every one of their heads on the city pylons. Horeb will sorely lament the day he left his homeland and came to the Lands of Sariba.”
We turned to face the shimmering lights coming toward us on the desert.
Horeb had found us.
Author’s Note
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY . . .
The Forbidden trilogy takes place during the Bronze Age. Bronze is a soft metal, but can be crafted into swords and weapons, although they often needed to be re-tempered after hard use because there was the risk of bending or breaking. Damascus (located in Syria) has long been famous for its sword-making, and the type of metal and forging process created beautiful wavy patterns in the weapon.
During the Bronze Age cuneiform writing was invented and grand cities dotted the shores of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, the country of Egypt, as well as along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Many of these ancient cities boasted sophisticated indoor plumbing, dams, and reservoirs, although running water was usually only enjoyed by royalty and nobility.
The city of Mari on the banks of the Euphrates River had a high standard of living. The city was so coveted and strategic that King Hammurabi, who was king of Babylon, laid siege to the city in 1759 BCE, which quickly fell. King Hammurabi created a code of laws for his kingdom and enforced them by creating judges and courts. Stone stele engraved with King Hammurabi’s code of laws have been found during archeological excavations and one of the original stones can be seen in the Louvre Museum in Paris with copies of Hammurabi’s Code in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Despite the grand cities of Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus, Babylon, Nineveh, and others, hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even millions, lived a nomadic lifestyle herding camels, sheep, and goats. They lived in goat-hair tents that were rolled up and moved by camel to follow the rains to places where flowers and shrubs sprang up overnight for their animals to eat. Every few days or weeks they’d pick up their stakes and move on, relying on travelers and scouts to give them information about the weather—or how to avoid their enemies. Dozens of tribes lived in these vast deserts, but the nomadic, or Bedu tribes, also enjoyed oases during the hot summers, and marketplaces in the various cities to purchase food and other supplies.
Jayden’s family belongs to the tribe of Nephish (or Naphish), who was a prince of Ishmael, the son of the prophet Abraham in the Old Testament. Abraham’s grandson Jacob had twelve sons, who came to be known as the leaders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, but many people don’t realize that Ishmael also had twelve sons, who were called the Twelve Princes of Ishmael. These sons spread throughout the Middle Eastern lands and became the Arab and nomadic tribes we know today.
Because Jayden’s family are close descendants of Abraham, they were most likely followers of the true and living God of Abraham, whose monotheistic beliefs were followed for centuries after the prophet’s life. In this same part of the world, other religions sprang up including worsh
ip of the gods of Ba’al, Moloch, Ashtoreth, the gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt, and others where people of the cities built temples for them. So there were polytheistic people living side by side with the descendants of Abraham.
Over the last hundred years, the countries of Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and others have encouraged their nomadic tribes to live in the cities, where they can take advantage of education and have access to medical care, which means the number of bedouin people have been dwindling for the last several decades. But still today, there are tens of thousands who live a nomadic lifestyle in the Middle East with their tents and herds.
Two years ago I traveled throughout Jordan and visited Petra and Wadi Rumm, home to many nomadic people. My husband and I had the great experience of meeting several families who live in tents and caves in these stunning and breathtaking landscapes. They were welcoming, generous, and even extended an invitation to an upcoming wedding.
We also drove a 150-mile portion of the King’s Highway, which used to be the ancient Frankincense Trail—the same trail Jayden would have traveled with Kadesh’s caravan while escaping the army of Horeb. From Damascus to the lands of Sariba, or the frankincense lands, is about 2,400 miles. The details in Banished about nomadic wells, the terrain, the Red Sea, and the land of the Queen of Sheba are based on my personal research as well as the writings of archaeologists and explorers whose work I’ve read over the past fifteen years. (Please read the Author’s Note in Forbidden for more details about the trilogy and the land of Sa’ba.)
Frankincense trees only grow naturally in one place—on the coast of the Arabian Sea—near where the modern port of Salalah, Oman is today. A few miles from the coastline, groves of frankincense trees grow in the foothills of the Qara Mountains. Because the Empty Quarter lies between this lush and bountiful land and the nearest cities, Sariba was extremely isolated and kept secret. It was a dangerous journey. Even during the Roman Empire armies lost their way and tens of thousands of Roman soldiers died in the desolate land between Sa’ba and Sariba.