A.D. 33 Read online

  The Thamud were surely amused, because all Bedu men respected such daring.

  Saba only ignored the boy.

  But Arim’s fearlessness in the face of such an overwhelming enemy immediately reminded me that I was loved by a Father who saw no storm in this circumstance.

  “Thank you for joining us, Arim,” I said.

  He stared at me, then at the Thamud. Then at the elders.

  “We have no problem here. You may throw your sword on the sand.”

  He turned to me again, eyes wide, breathing hard.

  “I heard there was to be trouble—”

  “And yet there is none. Do as I say.”

  Sitting tall and with a stern face, he took one last look at Saman, then tossed his sword into the sand.

  Saman chuckled. “Some Thamud blood at last. Give me a hundred like this one and I will rule the world.”

  “We do not lack heart, mighty sheikh,” I said. “We have more courage than all who stand before us with swords at their sides. Ours we leave behind.”

  This gave him a moment’s pause. His eyes shifted to the horizon behind me and he sighed.

  “I too grow tired of war.” Eyes back on me. “So then…” He shoved his chin in Maliku’s direction. “Make peace with her.”

  Maliku prodded his camel forward three strides, then stopped, eyes on me. Clearly, he’d come to play this role.

  He bowed his head and when he looked up at me again, I could see only fear in his eyes. I’d rendered him powerless once before, in Petra. He had no appetite to engage me again.

  “It is true that you come in peace without any desire to retake Dumah?” he said in a soft voice.

  “Where is Judah?” I asked.

  “Judah is alive and well. But you must speak to me now. Speak from your heart so all can know the truth. You have no desire for Dumah?”

  “When did they kill our father?”

  He hesitated. “Surely you know that there can be only one ruler. Think of his death as proof that the sheikh too desires peace.”

  In the Bedu way, it made sense.

  “We have no desire for Dumah,” I said, calming my anger. “The desert is rich enough for all true Bedu.”

  “Then demonstrate your sincerity by leaving this place, never to return, and you will be protected by Saman so long as no one raises a sword against him.”

  “We require compensation!” Fahak croaked.

  Saba grunted a warning.

  I let Fahak’s statement stand.

  “This is impossible,” Maliku said. “But peace, you can have. This very day. I beg you, accept this offer from them for the sake of your children.”

  Them? He spoke as one who did not want to be associated with the Thamud.

  Seeing my reluctance, my brother motioned to the rear.

  The warriors parted and a single camel plodded through their ranks. A body dressed in a muddy tunic was tied facedown on the camel’s hindquarters. His head was bound by swaths of cloth.

  My father’s body?

  “You cannot expect repayment,” Maliku said, “but Saman will offer you life.”

  The warrior dismounted, untethered the body, and let it fall heavily to the ground.

  Only then, as the tunic pulled free of his arm, did I recognize him. My heart seized in my chest.

  “Judah!” Saba was already on the sand, rushing forward.

  “Back!”

  I don’t know who barked the order, for my eyes were on Judah’s body, which lay unmoving on the ground. I could not speak. I could not move. I could scarcely form a thought.

  Saba pulled up at the command, breathing hard.

  “Keep your distance,” Maliku said. “He is senseless but otherwise unharmed.”

  “Judah?”

  The voice was my own. I felt myself slipping from Zahwah’s back. Landing on the sand. Hurrying forward.

  The warrior who’d brought him stepped into my path, and without a thought I grabbed his arm, shoved my knee behind his left leg, and slammed him to the ground with enough force to knock the wind from his lungs. And already I was at Judah’s side.

  Saba seized my elbow and pulled me back. “Not now, my queen.”

  I was trembling. But Saba’s voice, which had guided and comforted me through the desert, brought me to reality.

  “Leave her,” Maliku snapped, motioning the stunned warrior back to his camel. “Or would you die today?”

  The man scowled, then drew his camel away.

  Kahil folded his hands. “So you see, Maviah…My word is also true. Judah is alive and well, and he is yours if you agree to Saman’s terms. For the sake of all those you lead, take your lover and go back into the sands. I beg you.”

  “You would send us away without food?” Fahak cried, unimpressed by Judah’s deliverance. “You have taken all we have! We cannot enter the sands without food and camels!”

  Maliku faced Saman, who considered the request and offered a curt nod.

  “I will return with—”

  “A thousand camels!” Fahak said.

  “Don’t be absurd.” Kahil sneered. “Food for scavengers is all you require.”

  “A thousand camels or we butcher the lot of you where you stand!”

  They said more, but my mind was on Judah, because I knew already that I was to be reunited with the man I loved.

  “A hundred camels and two hundred goats,” Saman said, cutting the discourse short. “No more.”

  “And wheat!” Arim said.

  “Silence,” Fahak snapped.

  But Arim went on. “And tea. And spices. And ten coins for each family so that we might trade for food on the long journey far away from you.”

  Saman grunted, then conceded with a sigh. “Food and five hundred coins—no more. And let my mercy be known.”

  Fahak spat once more, earning the respect due him, sheikh to sheikh.

  Maliku spoke again, watching me closely.

  “Maviah. Take what is offered and live in peace. As your brother, I offer my word. It’s all I have left.”

  I turned my head and stared at Kahil. His eyes were dark, and deep lines of bitterness and treachery were etched upon his face. I knew I would see him again, and the next time he would not be held back by a father weary of bloodshed.

  “I would see Judah’s eyes,” I said, facing Saman.

  Saman nodded at Maliku. My brother stooped, stripped off the cloth bound about Judah’s head, and pulled free a scarf that muzzled him. Lowering himself to one knee, he gently slapped Judah’s face.

  But Judah’s eyes remained closed. So Maliku quickly retrieved a skin and splashed water on his face.

  Slowly, like a rising sun, Judah’s eyelids opened. And then, lying there on his side with his cheek pressed against the sand, my lion’s bright eyes gazed up at me.

  I turned to Saman. “We agree to your terms. Return in two days’ time with all you have offered. Now take your army from our Garden of Peace.”

  Chapter Six

  THE THAMUD hadn’t broken Judah’s spirit, but they had chased it into the shadows.

  So I took him with me to the desert, where he could regain his strength free of prying eyes. I left the camp and Talya in Saba’s hands and went to the red cliff called the tower, two hours west.

  Using one of the waterskins, I gently washed Judah’s stained body and bathed a wound on his head, then trimmed his beard, allowing him the silence he required. I held his head in my lap and let him weep while I hummed and stroked his hair. I knew that his spirit would return, but not as it was.

  Only when I made a fire late in the afternoon and served Judah some hot tea did the sparkle begin to return to his eyes, but then only for brief periods.

  He made a feeble attempt to help me prepare food, but I hushed him and served him as he’d served me during our journey across the desert two years earlier.

  We ate goat meat cooked on the fire, and flatbread that I baked with coals in the sand—these served with dates and butter, for
it was all we had. Then I drew milk from Zahwah and we drank it warm, still frothy.

  I told him about Talya, my son. I told him how Yeshua had saved me from the storm and healed me of my blindness in Petra. I told him about Stephen, who’d jumped out of the boat to go to Yeshua, and about Sarah, who’d been healed of an issue of blood. I told him of all the wonders, and the more I told him, the more he wanted to know.

  He was Jewish to the bone, and I could see that his longing for his Messiah and for Israel tugged at his heart.

  As it did mine. We would find Yeshua together, I said. We would rush to him and fall at his feet. He, not I, had brought salvation to the desert. He, not any queen or sheikh, was master.

  As dusk gave way to night I left Judah by the fire and went to retrieve Zahwah, who’d wandered off in search of desert grass. By the time I found my she-camel and returned, it was dark. The fire smoldered, unattended.

  I dropped Zahwah’s lead rope. “Judah?”

  Zahwah folded herself to the ground near the hot coals as I scanned the sands.

  “Judah!”

  We were at the base of the red cliffs. Surely he hadn’t found it in himself to climb them. To the south, two dunes rose high, black against the sky.

  I spun around, wicked images of Kahil suddenly large in my mind. We had two blades, for there are many prowling beasts so close to an oasis. Both weapons still leaned against the rock where I’d left them.

  “Judah!” I cried.

  And then I saw him, outlined against the night sky on the dune behind our camp. Relief cascaded over me as I snatched up a sword and hurried up the slope.

  But when I reached him, his hands were up and his head tilted back, and I knew that Judah had found his stars.

  He was of the Kokobanu tribe—the stargazers who’d first been led to Yeshua when he was a child. The nights of our desert crossing flooded my mind. How many hours had he spent teaching me the constellations? How many songs had he sung about the lights in the sky?

  Indeed, these were the very stars that had led me into Judah’s arms, for I was the brightest star in his sky.

  “Look, Maviah,” he said, smiling wide. “Look at them all!”

  I stepped up beside him and let the sword slip from my fingers. “Yes. Look.”

  “I haven’t seen them for two years.”

  My heart broke for him—keeping Judah from the sun and stars was like keeping any other man from food and water both.

  “They are the lights of truth, which cannot lie,” he said. “It was these that drew us to Yeshua.”

  “And me to you,” I said.

  His arms were wide and high and he shook them at the sky, as if soaking in a powerful force. “Look at them, Maviah! Just look at them!” He laughed and turned slowly around, beaming like the moon. “Look at them!”

  I was smiling, delighted by his enthusiasm, and then laughing with him.

  He swept behind me and grabbed my arm, lifting my hand in his to point skyward.

  “There, remember? The hare. And there, the snake. When two point to a sign, forecast with hope; when three, forecast with confidence,” he said, reciting the rule of the stars’ foretelling. “Do you remember?”

  “I remember.”

  I could smell the scent of the spice he’d chewed to cleanse his mouth, borne on his hot breath against my neck.

  He placed an arm around my waist from behind and turned me to the northern sky. “There, the brightest. Do you remember?”

  “The north star,” I said.

  He said more, but my mind was consumed with his passion, returning to him like water rushing into a parched wadi after a sudden storm.

  I turned in his arms as he spoke, and I placed my hand behind his head and gently drew it down, as if he was one of those very stars, now for me to worship.

  FOR TWO DAYS Judah and I remained, caught up in the heavens, dancing among the stars rather than under them.

  With each passing hour, more of Judah’s strength returned. Not once did he talk about his time in the dungeons, and I did not press him. Only occasionally did the darkness rise in his face or words. But then it quickly vanished.

  “You will see, Maviah,” he would say, hurrying for more wood from our small pile. “All that is wrong in the world will be made right.”

  And I would laugh, for no reason other than to be full of joy by his side.

  “You will see, Maviah,” he said, pouring tea at noon. “We will one day own a thousand camels and give two thousand away.”

  And I would smile, for there was no heart greater than Judah’s.

  “You will see, Maviah,” he said softly, poking at the fire. “I will kill Kahil and return to bring Rome to ruin.”

  To this I had no reply.

  On the morning of the second full day, Saba and Talya came for us, riding a camel.

  “Mother!”

  I spun to the sound of Talya’s voice just as his head came into sight on the high dune. Saba swayed with the camel’s plodding gait and steadied Talya as he stretched for the sky.

  I was filled with joy but not yet ready for my time with Judah to be broken. Once back in the camp, the demands on me would be high and we would have little time to ourselves.

  Talya jumped into my arms and I kissed his cheeks. “You’re growing like a reed.”

  My son stared at Judah. “You are the mighty warrior.”

  Judah glanced at Saba and grinned. “Is that what they say?”

  “That’s what Saba says.”

  “And Maviah has told me that you too are a lion,” Judah said. “But you must not believe everything Saba tells you. He’s the far greater defender in these sands. Has he told you about the time we were set upon by the Tayy in the Nafud canyon lands?”

  Saba dropped to the ground, eyes bright. “That is the past, my old friend. We wash these memories from our minds.” He clasped Judah’s arms. “The desert treats you well.”

  “And you, Saba. Tell me that Maviah taught you to sing while I was visiting the enemy.”

  “I sing all day,” Saba said. He tapped his head. “Here, where the angels join me.”

  Judah smiled. “It’s a good start, Saba. Soon you will be singing with me around the fire while all the young maidens watch. But now…” He hurried toward the fire. “We must drink tea and exchange the news.”

  Saba dipped his head toward me. “My queen. Maliku has come as promised. He awaits your audience.”

  “Let Maliku wait,” Judah said, turning back.

  “He is most insistent. He claims—”

  “And I insist he wait,” Judah snapped. The bitterness in his voice could not be mistaken. “Did I not wait for him these two years?”

  Saba gave him a nod. “Then tea.”

  We took the steaming cups, saluted Judah, and sipped in the customary fashion while Talya climbed atop Zahwah.

  “Now tell me, my old friend,” Judah said, looking up at Saba. “What is their weakness?”

  “Whose?”

  “Kahil and his butchers, who else?”

  Saba glanced at me. “The same weakness of all men.”

  “Which is?”

  “Pride.”

  It wasn’t what Judah was looking for, but he accepted the answer with a raised cup.

  “Then we will stuff this pride down their throats.” He drank. “Before they know what has hit them.”

  The air suddenly felt heavy. But could I blame Judah? No.

  “We cannot raise our swords against the Thamud,” Saba said.

  “No? Then what? Lances? Daggers?”

  “We offer them only peace.”

  Judah stared at him, then at me, taken aback.

  “Peace comes when Kahil is dead. I will offer them my sword alone if I have to.”

  Talya spoke innocently from his perch upon Zahwah.

  “Yeshua teaches that whoever lives by the sword, dies by the sword.”

  Judah looked at him, speechless, for what could he say to such a young boy?

/>   He faced me and spoke in a low voice. “If Kahil took your own child to his dungeon, would you not raise your sword to behead such a vile creature?”

  My heart was stung. His bitterness smothered me.

  “My mother’s heart says yes,” I said. “Yeshua says no.”

  “Yeshua? And what can you know of his full teaching? You have seen him only twice. Even now your mother’s heart would rage. You would ravage the Thamud and rescue your son!”

  A chill washed over me.

  Talya slid off Zahwah’s back and hurried up the slope. I let him go. The sun was high and I had no desire for him to hear these words. He would not go far.

  “Am I not the child of God?” Judah said. “As are all the children of Israel. This is why Yeshua came, to save us from oppression.”

  I held my tongue.

  But Saba was perhaps more practiced in the Way than I.

  “To set the captives free, yes,” he said. “But not by the sword.”

  “Did he not say himself, ‘I’ve come to divide by the sword’?” Judah said, setting his cup down, eyes on Saba.

  “And yet that sword will be wielded by those who oppose him, not by those who follow him. Does he or those who follow him use the sword? Yeshua has surely come to divide so that those who follow him will be known for their love, not the sword.”

  “No! You will see that he and all of his disciples will use the sword.” Judah spat into the sand. “I cannot accept this twisting of his words!”

  Saba hesitated, then spoke in a soft tone.

  “I cannot condemn the use of the sword, only point out what Yeshua makes plain. To live by the sword is to be subject to it, and so die by it. So you see, the sword is also madness. It is by the sword that so many have fallen, seeking an eye for an eye as is the way of the desert. Who, then, will break the cycle?”

  Judah stood, enraged now. “The enemy slaughters and crucifies and you would twist the words of the Messiah who has come to set us free, both in Judea and in Arabia.”

  “Do you think by using the sword we will end the slaughter, so that in a thousand years there will be less death? Yeshua’s Way is to love the enemy, even those who persecute you.”