A.D. 30 Page 7

  “The Bedu are most noble,” I said.

  “Then… shall we cast lots?”

  I blinked, unnerved. “This is for men alone.”

  “And you are Rami’s hand. Is he not a man?”

  “I am not my father,” I protested.

  He saw my discomfort and shrugged.

  “Then we eat equal shares.”

  We rolled dates into the baked bread, dipped our rolls into hot goat butter, and ravenously devoured them. Then we washed the tasty food down with a bowl of the frothing camel milk Saba had drawn.

  I noted the way Judah looked at me with more than simple interest. He was either taking his charge eagerly or was as attentive to all women. Likely the former, unless Jews generally treated women with more regard than the Bedu did.

  “Tea,” Judah proclaimed, retrieving the metal pot.

  I wasn’t as attached to tea as Bedu who’d lived in the desert, so I told them I was satisfied.

  Judah would have none of it. “No, Maviah! You must drink tea with us. It will make you strong and take away all of your sadness.”

  Saba grunted, clearly skeptical. I could only assume he found Judah’s attentiveness to me unnecessary.

  “Pay no attention to him,” Judah said. “In my charge you will drink tea. It will keep you healthy.”

  So I waited as Judah prepared and then served the tea. It was very hot. And rather bland. But it seemed to bring great comfort to both of them, and I could not deny that it soothed my stomach.

  We slept under the blankets at the rocks’ base that night.

  When I woke, the sun was hot and Judah had already prepared tea and milk with bread. The camels were near, for there were no shrubs or grass on which to graze. We were alone in the camp.

  “Where is Saba?”

  “He studies the way behind,” Judah said. “Drink.” He handed me the milk. “Do not worry, Maviah. They will not find our tracks soon, and when they do, they will know they are too late. Our only enemy now is the Nafud. But have no fear. Saba can read the sands by day as well as I can read the stars by night. God will lead us. Now drink.”

  The milk was still warm and frothy and it calmed me.

  Only after Saba had returned and we were mounted and had climbed the first dune did my heart fall. For there, in all its endless, treacherous glory, the vast wasteland that swallowed even the strongest men seemed to stretch to the end of the world. And above, the sun that turned those same men to dust dared us to try crossing.

  I had thought our journey the night before marked my initiation to the Nafud. How naïve was I.

  CHAPTER SIX

  OUR CAMELS PLODDED those searing sands for hours before we found shade beneath boulders during the hottest time of the day. If not for the wide, flat stretches between the dunes we would have had to rest much sooner. In that shade we rested several hours before mounting again and pressing on.

  We drank no water, only milk, which was already beginning to sour from the morning’s draw. To this end Judah placed a stone at the bottom of a bowl and poured milk to the top of the stone. This much he served to each of us in turn, for no Bedu man will take more than any other, and they gave me the same portion.

  Judah and Saba favored the sour milk more than I, but with such a parched throat, I relished each drop. And was this not true also of my parched soul? The thought of how far we still had to travel tormented me.

  “When will we reach a well, Saba?” I asked as the sun began to set.

  “We pass no wells where we go,” he said. “Only when we reach the other side.”

  I was alarmed. “And how far?”

  “Ten stages with good fortune.”

  “We have enough water?”

  “With good fortune. The water is for the camels. We drink only milk.”

  I had counted the sagging skins of water—there were twelve, each quite large, two of which were seeping moisture. It is said that Bedu can live for a month on camel’s milk alone, for it is food as well. I knew that camels could endure five days without water, but struggling over such steep sands, Shunu looked haggard already. Yet if Saba said it was enough water, I would believe that it was enough.

  “And with bad fortune?” I asked.

  “There will be no such fortune,” Judah said. “You are safe with us, Maviah.”

  But I didn’t want his optimism then. I wanted to put my fear to rest with reason, which Saba provided.

  “We have enough for eight days,” he said. “Then we will be out of water and the milk will no longer flow. We can then travel for another two days. With bad fortune it will take longer.”

  “Yet we have the male to slaughter,” Judah said. “This will give us more time. You will see, Maviah.”

  My mind then began imagining all manner of bad fortune.

  “I’ve heard that many get lost in the Nafud,” I said. “By night you have the stars, but by day only the sun. The desert looks the same to me—only sand and more mounds of sand. How can you know we travel true?”

  “The sand speaks,” Saba said. He indicated the small dune ahead and to our left. “The wind at this time comes from the southeast, making the horns of this dune point northwest. Our path is now west.”

  “How do you know the wind comes from the southeast?”

  “Because I know,” he said. “And when the largest dunes fail to bend with the wind, or we find reason to detour, then three sides is the quickest way around.”

  I glanced at Judah, who looked at me as if this should make perfect sense. It didn’t. But I wasn’t leading the way.

  I had other concerns and found no reason not to express them in turn.

  “What if we meet other Thamud ahead?”

  “Then we will avoid them,” Judah said.

  “What if they see us first?”

  “Then we will kill them.”

  “What if one of the camels breaks a leg?”

  “Then we will eat it.”

  “What if a sandstorm comes?”

  To this neither gave a reply.

  “You have many questions for a woman,” Saba finally said.

  Judah ignored him. “If the sands blow, then we will pray.”

  Unlike most Bedu of the north, Saba rode shirtless in the heat, baring his well-muscled chest, arms, and back to the sun. It is known that a cloak keeps sweat from drying too quickly and so preserves one’s water and cools the body, but this wasn’t the way of his people, who were Bedu from the far north, he said. I knew that he’d come to my father when his tribe had been slaughtered by the Thamud while he was tending to a caravan far away. Under Rami, he lived only to seek vengeance.

  Judah wore a white undershirt and an earthen-colored aba. His headcloth was white as well, held in place by a black woolen agal. And yet even he periodically stripped off his aba and his cloak to bare his skin for a short while.

  My own cloak was the color of the sand. I wore my long black hair bound up beneath a dark blue mantle, which kept the sun from my head and face.

  That second night we made camp early in a parched wadi, and after eating my meal of bread with dates and butter, I wanted only to sleep. But try as I might, I could not. Judah’s camel, Raza, lay close and he reclined against her leg, ignoring her grunts and complaints. The other camels wanted also to be near, so we were surrounded by three of the beasts. I wasn’t accustomed to such smells and so much noise so close.

  In addition to this, Judah set Saba to talking, and neither showed any interest in sleep. I didn’t want to leave the camp, so I turned away from them, closed my eyes, and silently offered prayers to Isis, who might be watching and listening, however unlikely it was.

  “Tell me why a man makes himself the slave of a god he cannot hear or see,” Saba said.

  “God is heard through the prophets and seen in the stars,” Judah said.

  “And how will you know that what you hear from these prophets is spoken by your god?”

  “It is also written on stone and parchment,” Judah said
.

  “And how do you know that what is written are the words of this god, not mere man?”

  “Because what is written will come to pass.”

  “Then you believe blindly in the future as foretold by men who only say they have heard from the heavens. And for this, you will die?”

  “I am not righteous enough to know and observe the Law as some do, because I’m a warrior from the desert who only knows a little,” Judah said. “And yet I know that my God sends the Anointed One to free the Jew from the Roman. I will find this Messiah and I will wage war in his army to scatter the Roman and restore holiness to our sacred land. You will see. It is written.”

  “And if he does not?”

  “But he will.”

  “Neither Jew nor Bedu understands that he has made the gods in his own likeness,” Saba said. “Gods who become angry and kill and inflict great suffering when offended by man.”

  “You are Bedu, Saba,” Judah scolded. “All Bedu serve the gods. And yet you have turned your back? Why is this?”

  Saba seemed reluctant to answer, and when he did his voice was low.

  “Before coming to the Kalb, my people in the north traveled the trade paths to the distant east, far beyond Babylon to the lands called China. I took my gods with me as a boy and learned that they did not hear me in that distant place. Only much later did I also learn that they are deaf in the desert as well.”

  “How can you gaze at a child’s face and not see his maker?” Judah pressed. “Or into a woman’s eyes and not see a greater truth?”

  “No god saved my family when they were slaughtered,” Saba said. There was such sadness in his voice.

  “But you have a woman, yes?” Judah asked. “A wife in the north?”

  “I have no wife,” Saba said. “Nor do I long for one.”

  “Then I pity you, Saba. I loved a woman once. She was killed by the Thamud in a raid, as were my mother and father. As you know, it’s the reason I first came to the Kalb three years ago, knowing Rami stood against the Thamud.”

  All the world was filled with death.

  “I long for this love once again,” Judah said. “Perhaps the love of a woman surpasses even the love of God.”

  Saba grunted. “Perhaps.”

  One of them poked the fire with a stick.

  “I think we are in the presence of a queen,” Judah said softly. “And one so beautiful I have never seen.”

  “The Bedu know no queen.”

  “She is a star in the night sky, I can see it in her eyes. A woman who shed the blood of the Thamud and escaped their clutches.” Judah gave a soft chuckle.

  “You would do well to remember that it is Rami you serve. She’s only a woman. A woman who knows how to draw blood will bring much bloodshed.”

  “May the Thamud and Roman both drown in it,” Judah replied. “Through Maviah, salvation comes to the Kalb.”

  And this was the last either spoke.

  I fell asleep with Judah’s tender words whispering through my head. Perhaps the love of a woman surpasses even the love of God. I dreamed of Johnin’s breath on my cheek in Egypt. Such love felt distant here in the desert. And yet Judah’s words brought it one stage closer.

  FOR SIX days we traveled through that inferno called the Nafud without any terrible trouble. Each day seemed hotter than the one before. My throat returned to its cotton state within minutes of my taking milk, and from head to toe my skin was surely made of sand. My cloak was dusty and my hair in need of washing. Many Bedu of the deep desert cleanse their hair in camel urine, which kills any flea or mite, but this was not my way. As a slave in Egypt I’d learned to bathe frequently using perfumed soap.

  The camels dragged along, one plodding foot after the other. Their humps seemed to shrink, and their bones seemed more pronounced. Perhaps I was only imagining. In many flats I thought I could see water far ahead, but the shimmering waves of heat rising from the sand assured me that this was only a trick of the desert, a mirage promising hope where none waited.

  When I complained one day about the oppressive conditions, Saba regarded me graciously. “A fish in the sea cannot help but get wet. As much, a man in the deep sands cannot help but suffer.”

  Then Judah added, “It seems a woman as well. But this will pass, Maviah. We are almost across.”

  And yet we were not almost across. I had to smile. Saba the man of the head; Judah the man of the heart.

  The scorching sands and the hardship of survival each day put some distance between us and the tragedy at Dumah. I mourned my son’s death with each breath but was coming to accept that he was no longer in my life. Nothing would be the same as it had been before. I had to embrace my fate.

  Saba guided us by day, keeping mostly to himself except when he engaged Judah, more for sport than for true argument, I thought. He frequently rode to a higher point and studied the sands, searching for the way ahead and for any sign of life on the horizon.

  Twice he detected traveling Bedu, and these we avoided in detour. Cutting across the tracks of the second group, Saba and Judah confirmed that they were Thamud—a small group of seven, all men. The camels were from the west, three male and seven she-camels. All had taken water two days earlier. They were headed north, perhaps toward Petra.

  Ordinarily such sightings would be welcome, for in the deepest sands even an enemy may offer food and news. Such is the Bedu way. But the Thamud and Kalb were now in open conflict, and even these distant Thamud might know of it. Our food and water, though quickly dwindling, were adequate, and the success of our mission could not be risked.

  Judah did not seem to know any form of discouragement, and for this I was grateful. His soft song kept me and the camels and even Saba company during the longest days. Never once did I hear so much as a grunt of complaint or condescension from him.

  He had called me a queen and, although he may have been given to overstatement, I believe a part of him truly thought of me as such. He often went out of his way to give me his attention, however small the measure. I was always the first he served. He constantly inquired as to my comfort both in camp and on the camel, offering his own blanket to give my seat more padding and my body more warmth at night.

  I was familiar with the courting habits of men. Many in Egypt had shown me small kindnesses in hope of what I might offer them. And I believed Judah found me beautiful, even in my haggard condition. His eyes made his attraction plain.

  But his kindness toward me seemed to be rooted in something far deeper than lust. Perhaps he thought helping my mission to succeed would earn him favors from Rami. Perhaps he saw me as his means to reach Palestine and the Romans, whom his new king would crush. Or perhaps he was truly taken with me, as one who could love him in a way that his god could not. Hadn’t he said as much?

  As the days passed I found myself drawn to the warmth of his hopefulness and the smile that expressed it. When he left camp to scout, I noticed his absence more than I noticed Saba’s.

  On the sixth day, as the sun set in the west, Saba decided that we should cross a shallow canyon rather than take the time to find another way. We traversed the steep, rocky slope, leading the camels on foot, then remounted and resumed our ride. Without warning Raza, Judah’s camel, snorted in pain and stumbled to her knees.

  With a cry Judah was off and tugging at his mount’s leg, which had been caught in a hole between two boulders.

  “Raza!” he cried. “Stupid, stupid Raza!”

  Unable to free the leg, he slid around and tugged at one boulder. The stone rolled away but the camel only protested with greater pain, jerking away as her leg flopped beneath her. With a mighty crash, she collapsed.

  We could all see the damage, for her leg had been snapped below the knee. The sight made me ill.

  “She’s broken her leg!” Judah threw his legs under Raza’s neck and cradled his camel’s head in his lap, stroking her fur. “No, no, Raza. No! Forgive me! I beg you, forgive me!”

  I watched as he clung to Ra
za as he might a child, rocking, distraught. It was the first time I’d seen Judah troubled. We all knew what this meant.

  Saba watched, face flat, as Judah poured out his heart.

  “Forgive me, Raza… you are the ornament of the sands. There is no camel as magnificent as you. The stars tell your story to the whole world. Forgive your careless master. Forgive me, Raza…”

  I thought he might cry, but he gathered himself and hushed his mount until Raza’s panicked breathing calmed. Then, whispering a prayer to his god, Judah quickly withdrew his curved dagger and slit the camel’s throat.

  Raza did not struggle as her blood spilled onto the rocky path. She rested her head on the ground and closed her eyes, as though welcoming the one fate that surely freed her from a harsh existence.

  I watched in silence, remembering my son’s fate, wondering if my own would be similar. Could I die so gracefully? Perhaps Raza and my son shared the most fortunate fate among us.

  Judah was quiet that night. He and Saba harvested Raza’s liver and heart, welcome treats after a week of only bread and dates and milk. We did not have time to dry any meat, so we ate only what was most nourishing and left the rest for any buzzards that might venture so deep into the Nafud. Without Raza’s milk our daily portions would be cut, but this would not cause a problem, Judah said.

  The other camels were by now attached to Raza, and they wandered about the camp, moaning and staring at her corpse near the rocks.

  We rose early and left the camp while it was dark. Never had I been so grateful to be out in the open sands once again. Within the hour Judah, now mounted on the male camel, began to sing again. He would not allow himself to dwell on Raza’s passing, for camels live and die at the whim of fate, and man is master over beast. This too is the Bedu way.

  But the smile he offered me as a red sun rose over the dunes behind us wasn’t as bright as it had been the day before, and I knew that he mourned Raza still.

  “We are almost across the sands, Maviah. Soon you will be in Galilee and in Herod’s courts.”