Crown in the Stars (53 page)

“We are. Ask Tiyrac. Ask your parents.” Kaleb set Shoshannah on her feet.

Speechless, Shoshannah looked over at her parents. Zekaryah nodded, and Keren smiled in weary affirmation. Shoshannah eyed Tiyrac indignantly. “You knew this and didn’t tell me!”

“It wasn’t my place to say so,” Tiyrac objected, looking flustered despite his gruffness. “You’re Kal’s problem.”

“I’m sure I’ll manage,” Kal said, earning a mock-stern look from Shoshannah.

They’ve known each other for years
, Demamah realized. She felt like a fool. How could she have been so blind? As she sat there on her horse, limp, stupefied, Tiyrac came to assist her, as he’d done for months.

“Don’t touch her!” Zekaryah warned. Apparently satisfied that I’ma-Keren was comfortable, Zekaryah approached Demamah. She remembered being frightened of him as a child, when he was I’ma-Keren’s guardsman.
But he nodded to her now, his brown eyes keen and not unkind. “Child, come get some food and water.” He helped Demamah from her horse protectively, as if she were one of his own daughters. And he frowned at Tiyrac as if he considered the young man to be overly bold.

Demamah looked away, flushing, but grateful for Zekaryah’s fatherly protectiveness. She didn’t want to think of Tiyrac or of anything else; Zekaryah was welcome to take charge of the situation for now. Aching and unsteady, she went to sit with I’ma-Keren, who soothed her with a loving, tired hug.

“Demamah-child… how I’ve missed you…”

Though she returned Keren’s hug thankfully, Demamah thought,
Why couldn’t my mother have been like you?
It was a grief to her, a terrible wound.

Zekaryah’s firm voice snapped her to reality. “Let’s set up the tents.”

Shoshannah offered her mother some warm broth made from simmered herbs, salt, and dried meat. “I’ma, you look more than just tired. What’s wrong?”

Her eyes shining despite her fatigue, Keren looked from Demamah to Shoshannah. “Nothing’s wrong. I am with child.”

“Finally!” Exultant, Shoshannah hugged her mother and laughed. “Our Rinnah will be glad not to be the baby anymore. I can’t wait to see her and the others!”

“Neither can I,” Keren sighed, as Demamah gave her a sweet-sad kiss. “But right now, I’m just glad to be alive. This has been such a terrible day for us all.”

Sobering, Shoshannah knelt worriedly. “I’ma… can
you endure some dreadful news… about your sister?” “Sharah? What about her?”

Though she was still upset by what she’d seen, Shoshannah told her mother, I’ma-Annah, and Demamah of the violent confrontation between Rab-Mawg and Sharah in the temple this morning. Could it really have been just this morning? Too much had happened today. Scared again, Shoshannah finished softly, “I’m sure he killed her; she wasn’t moving when Adoniyram took me away. And there was so much blood.”

“How could he?” Demamah asked in a thin little voice.

“His own mother.” I’ma-Annah was horrified.

Keren shook her head in disbelief and whispered, “Sharah always did as she pleased; nothing ever made her happy. I shouldn’t be shocked… but I am.”

They sat together, all of them grieving and miserable, staring into the popping, hissing fire they had built from dry twigs, grass, and small branches off the trees lining the river. The men finished tending the horses and came to sit with them.

Kal boldly pulled Shoshannah into his arms and held her, kissing her hair, then whispering in her ear, tickling her delightfully. “I’ll be so sad when you can’t wear your hair loose anymore.”

“That won’t be for months yet, beloved.” Married or not, it didn’t matter how she wore her hair; they had only two tents for this journey, one for the men and one for the women. Besides, she wouldn’t feel truly married until their Ancient One, Noakh, could bless their union. Until then Kaleb, and hair braids, had to wait.

“You’re so cruel.” Kal didn’t sound terribly hurt. Grinning, he whispered, “Look at Tiyrac watching Demamah. Do you think they’ll marry?”

“That’s for them to decide.” Shoshannah hugged her husband, tired and grateful, kissing his warm, whiskered neck, loving him. “Thank you for coming to find me. I’ve been so afraid for you. The risk you took…”

He nuzzled her, scraping her cheek, whispering fervently, “The sight of you in those scandalous clothes was worth any risk!”

Chafing under the burden of an old, barely salvaged traveling pack, Ra-Anan trudged eastward across the plains. Zeva’ah walked beside him in resentful silence. Behind them, their fellow travelers were grumbling, quarreling, whining. Ra-Anan cast a dark look at them, embittered.

Of all the people who could have understood him and joined with him to create a new realm, he’d inherited too many malcontents. One was Awkawn, the former priest, and his sarcastic family who had coerced Awkawn to marry a tall, austere reed of a woman named Romaw. Another was the irritable Tabbakhaw, not to mention her short, thickset, always-pessimistic husband, Chuwriy, who was a linen worker.

Equally troublesome was the guardsman Erek, who was desperately courting Tabbakhaw’s reluctant mirror-image daughter, Salkah, because the only other unwed girl who understood him now was the maidservant Ormah—and
she
wanted nothing to do with him. However, Ormah also wanted nothing to do with the sullen guardsman Perek, though he was the only other unmarried man in their new tribe.

The best of the lot, for now, was Nekhosheth, a metalworker—who was so closemouthed that Zeva’ah
remarked he had no language to change.
At least he and his family don’t complain
, Ra-Anan thought, eyeing Nekhosheth’s timid wife, Shavsha, and their five sons and three young daughters, who were taking turns riding a pair of small dirt-brown horses.

“When will we get to where we are going?” Ormah demanded in a very unmaidservantly tone. She was walking at Ra-Anan’s heels. “I’m sick of these people!”

“These people are all you have, until we find others who understand us,” Ra-Anan snapped. He devoutly hoped they could live with his eldest son’s tribe, just beyond the eastern river. “Until then, keep ten paces behind me; if you step on my sandals and break them, I’ll beat you and leave you where you drop.”

Zeva’ah walked beside Ra-Anan, carrying the few garments and ornaments she’d been able to keep from the looters. She began to lag now, looking exhausted, making a complaining sound in her throat. Ra-Anan narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t you
dare
begin to sound like these others!”

They trudged on in angry silence.

“Eriy!” Ra-Anan strode through the midday heat toward his eldest son’s home in a modestly prosperous settlement of tidy, round, clay-bricked houses, edged with canals, orchards, and fields. Here and there, people looked out of doorways and small windows, frowning, chattering softly, shaking their dark heads at each other. A growing dread ate at Ra-Anan’s hopes. “Eriy!”

“Why is he not answering?” Zeva’ah demanded in a furious whisper. “That boy!”

“Eriy!” Ra-Anan pounded on the hewn-wood door, his unease mounting.

The door creaked open, and Eriy stepped outside, his hard-angled face and fine black eyes mistrustful. He stared at his father. And he spoke politely, in an unintelligible jargon.

The people of Eriy’s settlement were gathering now, chattering at Eriy, shaking their heads, motioning to all of Ra-Anan’s companions. Zeva’ah put a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. Ra-Anan wearily rubbed one hand over his face, not wanting to comprehend the obvious: They could not stay here among Eriy’s tribe. Three and a half days of miserable walking with these malcontents, listening to their gripes, and giving Zeva’ah’s ornaments to boatmen to take them across the eastern river… for nothing.

No
, Ra-Anan told himself.
Not for nothing
. Sternly, he motioned to his worried eldest son, as if eating and drinking. He would at least get some food. As much food as Eriy’s people could spare. They would also rest for a day or so.

Then they would move on. They had no choice.

Slowly, reluctantly, Kuwsh rapped on the gate of his eldest son’s wall-enclosed home. “Sebaw? Sebaw!”

A thin, coppery-dark boy wearing a simple fleece wrap opened the gate, blinked at Kuwsh, then darted toward the house without a word.

Discomfited at the boy’s reaction, Kuwsh stepped inside, followed by his wife and their four sons and daughters-in-law, who were dragging wearily.
What will we do if Sebaw doesn’t understand us?
Kuwsh wondered. The thought was too appalling to consider.

Sebaw appeared now, tall and dark with a wide-boned face eerily similar to Nimr-Rada’s, but without Nimr-Rada’s fire or charisma. He gave his father a formal embrace of greeting, then kissed Achlai affectionately. “I’ma, it’s good to see you again.” He nodded to Kuwsh and his brothers and sisters-in-law quietly. “Father, come sit in the shade and rest; my wife is preparing food.”

Kuwsh followed Sebaw, amazed that he could understand him. Sebaw offered his father the place of honor, then said, “Forgive me, Father, but after all these years of silence, why have you come to visit me?”

Unable to even think where to begin, or how to explain, Kuwsh stared at his son. After an uncomfortable pause, Achlai leaned forward and said gently, “We’ve come to ask your help, my son. To begin again. By your love for the Most High, we ask you to help us begin again.”