Crown in the Stars (18 page)

Shoshannah rode northeast, intending to find and follow the eastern river—her most trustworthy guide back to the Tribe of Metiyl. She wished she hadn’t been forced to travel south from the Great City to avoid people during her escape; the maneuver had cost her precious time. And she half wished she had chosen another horse. This one made her uneasy. He was resisting her commands, testing her, and slowing her down, she realized, according to his own clever nature. If only she knew exactly how he had been trained; then he might behave.

But I don’t have time to learn your ways
, she thought to the horse. Determined, she urged him onward, praying the creature wouldn’t have a tantrum because she wasn’t commanding him as he expected. When they reached a long muddied canal, the horse balked at the water’s edge.

Twice it swerved from the canal. Twice Shoshannah turned its head toward the water, prodding it forward with her heels and chirruping resolutely. The creature stopped altogether, obstinate, making noises of protest. Soon it would try to throw her off, or bolt away.

What’s wrong?
she asked him silently.
I’m sure you must cross these canals all the time
. However, the large canal near the tower had a bridge…

“You want a bridge,” she realized aloud, disheartened. A bridge wasn’t possible. And the longer she stayed here, trying to urge this creature across the canal, the more certain she was to be caught. Trying to conceal her desperation from the intuitive horse, she sat quietly and looked around. Where was the end of this canal? Perhaps she could ride along it to the eastern river and follow the river north to the mountains. She could find tribes of cousins
to help her along the way. But she would encounter other canals and streams, too, along the way… This horse had to learn to obey her quickly.

Don’t let a horse rule you
. She could almost hear her father saying those words.

“It’s only water,” she murmured, sliding off the horse, stepping into the mud, determined to win the creature over. Holding the reins, she removed several dates from her battered leather pack, glided one past the animal’s nose, and cautiously stepped into the silted water. Clearly tempted, the horse stepped after her.

While she was coaxing it into the canal, a piercing note from a carved whistle echoed distantly through the air, making the animal perk up its sand-pale ears, listening. The note was repeated, followed by the sounds of hoofbeats. The horse huffed and backed away nervously. Alarmed, Shoshannah hurried out of the water to remount the beast, but it bolted toward the call of the whistle and the other horses—like the trained herd creature he was—with her weapons and her gear.

Shoshannah threw down the fruit, longing to scream. Particularly when she realized that Perek was riding toward her like a wild man, well ahead of the other horsemen. In addition to the horse whistle corded around his neck, the guard had a spear. Horrified, praying that the canal would at least slow down his horse, she fled into the water, hindered by the thick silt.

A thunderous splash roiled the water behind her. An instant later, Perek flung himself off his horse, clamped an arm around Shoshannah, dragged her thrashing out of the water, and shoved her face into the embankment. Panicking, breathing sodden earth, Shoshannah tried to see through her disheveled hair. Perek twisted her wrist
high into her back until she cried in protest. Then he beat her with his spear, raining brutal, cutting blows on her back, her rump, and her legs, making her scream with pain as she tried to squirm away.

Something heavy crashed over her, knocking her in the ribs. Perek roared as another weight followed the first. Shoshannah gasped as she was dragged by the wrist through the mud. She fought and kicked, unable to wriggle free. Someone was beside her now, clawing at her wrist, hammering at Perek’s arm, bellowing, “Let go! Perek, let
go!
Get him away before he kills her!”

Mercifully, Shoshannah felt Perek’s grip on her wrist vanish. She was hauled to her feet and saw—through her muddied hair—three guardsmen brawling in the silt, enthusiastically subduing the raging Perek. A man’s hand pushed Shoshannah’s hair out of her face and forced her to look up.

Adoniyram scowled down at her. “Why would you even think of traveling alone? Are you so eager to die?”

Fighting tears, resentful that she’d been caught, she said, “I’m more likely to survive in the wilderness with true animals.”

“Not when Perek is after you. And not when you’ve stolen our Master Ra-Anan’s favorite horse.”

“Ra-Anan’s
horse?” Shoshannah’s knees wobbled.

“He will probably beat you himself,” Adoniyram said, looking around, as if judging their situation. “I think we should return through the least populated area. After thrashing around in the mud, we look like laborers.”

I’d rather be a laborer now
. Sick with dread, and moving painfully, Shoshannah let him help her onto a horse, while the three guardsmen finished their muddy brawl with Perek.

Ra-Anan was waiting in his courtyard. The instant he saw Shoshannah, he pointed to the paving, commanding her to kneel on the bricks before him. Gritting her teeth against the torments from her wounds, she knelt slowly, cautiously, afraid he would kill her right there.

Ra-Anan raged, “Look at you—you’ve disgraced us! And
look
at these men.” He gestured emphatically.

Shoshannah looked.

Perek and the three guardsmen were crusted with drying mud, wherever their swollen eyes, split lips, and battered noses weren’t bloodied. Perek had twisted a supportive band of leather around his right wrist—which was apparently injured—and he glared at Shoshannah through his unscathed left eye; the right one was purpled and swelling shut. Shoshannah winced. He was obviously wishing he had killed her.

Ra-Anan continued to rant at her, his narrow, smooth brown face contorted. “If these men don’t heal properly, I won’t spare you—do you hear me? You will be severely punished.”

Shoshannah looked down, feeling as if she’d been punished already. Her own wrist was sprained, her ribs hurt where she had been kicked, and every place Perek had beaten her burned and pulsed with pain. Her linen garments were also sticking torturously to the bloodied cuts on her back.

“Did you injure my horse?” Ra-Anan demanded.

“No.” She barely squeaked out that one word.

“Pray that you’re right,
child,”
Ra-Anan snapped. “If my horse is harmed, I’ll beat you for that too. You are as impulsive and foolish as your mother. What excuse can you
possibly give for such stupidity—thinking you could escape? Answer me!”

Stiffening at the insult to her mother, Shoshannah took courage. “I only did what you would have done in my place, Uncle—as my mother did—though I failed.”

He lowered his chin at her, staring coldly. Then he called out, “Bring her weapons and belongings here.”

A guardsman obeyed swiftly, placing Shoshannah’s bow, her quiver of arrows, and her battered leather pack beside Ra-Anan. Scornful, he untied the pack and dumped Shoshannah’s gear onto the bricks. All her belongings spilled out: her cloak, tunic, leggings, undergarments, pins, combs, lacings, tiny wooden ointment pots, pilfered food, and her treasured knife, which she had thought would be safer in her pack. Her uncle snatched the knife. “Where did you get this? Did your father make it for you?”

Shoshannah stared at him, mute. Her father had indeed made the knife. Kaleb had carved her combs and ointment pots, her I’ma had taught her to make all the garments, and, of course, her cloak and pins had been created by I’ma-Annah, I’ma-Chaciydah, and I’ma-Naomi. Everything heaped before her was very ordinary, and precious.

“You stole food from my house.”

As you would have done, I’m sure
, she answered silently.

“You stole my best horse. You’ve treated my protection of you with contempt. Such contempt should be repaid.”

Distraught, she watched her uncle send for a brazier and torches. As she feared, he set her belongings ablaze—but not before Adoniyram stepped forward and
claimed her knife, bow, and quiver of arrows, saying, “These are mine; I returned her to you.”

Ra-Anan grudgingly allowed Adoniyram to claim the weapons. As the remainder of her possessions smoldered, smoked, and finally caught fire, Ra-Anan asked loudly, scornfully, “Why didn’t your Most High save you?”

Watching her cherished possessions burn, Shoshannah swallowed hard, wiping away tears, asking Him the same question.
Why?

After a merciless scrubbing beneath Zeva’ah’s unforgiving hands, Shoshannah limped, under escort, to Demamah’s room. When the door was closed and barred—and undoubtedly guarded—Demamah looked up at Shoshannah from a corner where she was huddled like a terrified child.

Her lovely dark eyes red from weeping, Demamah whispered, “You’re alive… but why didn’t you tell me what you were planning?”

“Because you would have had to tell your father.”

“Yes, but I would have also begged you to stay; it wasn’t worth the risk.”

Thinking of her burned possessions—and Ra-Anan’s derision—Shoshannah nodded, humiliated. Struggling for composure, she said, “You’re being punished because I escaped. I’m sorry.”

Demamah trembled. “I hoped I was too old for a beating… but I suppose I wasn’t.” Her voice shook as she continued, “They chopped down my tr-tree.”

Shoshannah closed her eyes, picturing the beautiful tree in Demamah’s courtyard, hacked to bits merely
because she had climbed it this morning. It had been Demamah’s favorite place to rest on hot days—destroyed now.
Because of me
. She sank to her knees beside her cousin, feeling wretched inside and out, trying to endure the pain. “I’ve been nothing but trouble to you.” “You can’t help it.”

Demamah was serious. Shoshannah stared at her, longing to laugh. Instead, she cried. Demamah touched her arm and whispered tearfully, “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

“You should have let her die!” Sharah snapped, glaring at Adoniyram in the privacy of her ornate bedchamber. “She’s a threat to you—did you think of that? No!”

Adoniyram stared at his painted, gold-ornamented, linen-robed mother, barely able to contain his disgust. “She’s no threat to me. And she’s your own niece; how can you wish death on her so easily?”