A.D. 30 Read online

  “Soon,” I said, returning his smile. Indeed, we were more than halfway.

  But then thoughts of what I would do if I did gain entrance to Herod’s courts overtook me.

  “How are women seen in Palestine?”

  “They will accept you, Maviah. You have the dagger of Varus.”

  “Yes, the dagger, but I am a woman. How do the Jews count a woman?”

  “I am a Jew,” he said. “And I count the woman who rides beside me now as a star in my sky.”

  I blushed. Saba had heard and turned our way. Why I should feel bashful, I didn’t know. Perhaps because I was afraid to acknowledge my own longing even though I could not deny that I was drawn to Judah.

  “They say Herod’s lust for beautiful women knows no end,” Saba said. “Rami is no fool to send his daughter.”

  Judah glared at the dark warrior. “You dare speak this way in front of her? What is this madness?”

  Saba’s right brow arched. He glanced at me, then faced the sands ahead. “I mean no offense, Judah. Maviah is well equipped to know the truth.”

  “This is the truth: I will sever the arm of any man who dares lift a finger against you, Maviah.”

  “Rami does not ask for Herod’s arm,” Saba said. “Only his favor. At whatever cost.”

  “Pay Saba no mind. I will not allow Herod to touch even one hair on your head!”

  And yet even as the sun rose high, I did pay Saba’s statement some mind. Truly, I was even more concerned about this king who had such lust for power and pleasure.

  But all my thoughts were swept away that afternoon when the winds rose at our backs. The sandstorm came so quickly that even Judah and Saba were caught off guard.

  We were spread wide on rolling white dunes, plodding under a glaring sun. Judah was slumped in the wooden saddle, haggard, I thought. Saba rode far ahead and to my right, cresting the next low dune.

  It was then that I looked up and saw Saba waving his hands. His shout was distant but urgent. Judah’s cry of alarm joined it. He’d turned his mount and was headed toward me.

  “Down! Take Shunu to the ground!”

  I twisted in the saddle and saw the storm then, only a hundred paces behind us, a churning wall of sand approaching with such speed that for a moment I thought it was sliding down a large dune.

  The hot wind hit my face and I gasped. Even in that gasp, before the chaos was fully upon us, I sucked in the leading sand.

  Shunu roared and jumped into a run, nearly toppling me from her back.

  “No, Shunu. Slow, slow!” She slowed, and I dropped to the ground, lead rope firmly in hand. But the moment I landed, we were smothered by darkness. The sand swallowed us, and Shunu bolted again, tearing that lead from my grasp.

  I screamed at her. “Shunu!” I stumbled in the direction she’d gone, instinctively hiding my face in the folds of my sleeve. “Shunu!”

  My second call didn’t reach my own ears, for the roar of the wind tore it away from me. I could not see, nor could I breathe. The sand was too thick, swirling around me so that I lost all sense of direction.

  And yet the thought of losing Shunu was more terrifying to me than the sand. She was the companion upon whom I depended for survival. It was her milk that I drank, her back that I rode, her nose that pushed against my neck when I was lonely.

  So I lunged wildly, praying with each step that I would run into her.

  “Shunu! Shunu!”

  I had been in storms before, but never without shelter. It is known that the darker sands in the southern Nafud are heavy and do not blow so freely. But we were in the white, and the ferocity of that wind flung the sand at me with biting fury.

  It had just become clear to me that I must stop and protect my eyes and face from the sand when the ground beneath me gave way and I tumbled down a long slope.

  When I came to a stop, I was sure that a mountain was crashing down on top of me. I pulled my mantle over my face, bowed to the ground, and waited as the wind roared over me.

  Where Judah was, I couldn’t know. He was surely as blind as I. I understood now that he’d wanted me to pull Shunu to the ground, perhaps even hobble her forelegs to keep her from rising. Any attempt on his part to find me now would be futile. He could not abandon his own mount.

  It was dark and difficult to draw clean air, even beneath the covering of my cloak. The finest sand pierced straight through, coating my face and hair with dust. Only by slowing my breath could I manage not to choke, and then only by drawing at the air through clenched, sand-filled teeth. I kept my eyes closed.

  There are two kinds of sandstorms. The first and the kindest is called a haboob, which often arrives before a thunderstorm and is short-lived. But in the deepest desert, even a haboob may come without cloud or rain.

  The second, called the simoom, brings no rain and may last for days. I prayed we had been visited by a haboob, because I knew that I could not withstand those conditions for long.

  The howling wind seemed not to care about the plight of anyone in its path. Many said the sandstorm was the fury of the gods visited on those who had not properly sought their mercy. If so, I knew not how I had angered Isis or Dushares. Or was this Judah’s deity, angry at him for showing kindness to a woman who was not a Jew?

  But I refused to believe any of these thoughts, and instead I prayed for the mercy of all deities.

  For a very long time I remained huddled on the ground, and still the sand blew until, to my horror, I realized that it was building up around me. Indeed, I was already half-buried. So I crawled forward to be free of that grave.

  Once again my breathing quickened in panic.

  Once again I had to calm myself so as not to suffocate.

  I was utterly alone in that storm. My prayers could not reach past the sand. I imagined Judah’s voice calling out to me, his arm snatching me from the ground. My heart ached for rescue.

  None came.

  Once again the world mocked me. In one moment my father and all his great power had been crushed. In one moment my son’s life had been snatched away. So in one moment this storm had come from a clear sky to smother us, uncaring of the waste it would leave behind.

  What security, then, was there for me?

  I crawled out of the sand six times before the wind began to calm. And then, nearly as quickly as the wind had risen, it departed. And soon after, the dust.

  I pushed myself to my feet and looked at my cloak, somewhat surprised to be alive. It was covered in dust, as were my head and hands. Sand was my new skin. Gazing about I saw a desert that I did not recognize—whether the sands had been reformed or I’d wandered farther than I’d thought, I didn’t know.

  Above, the sky was blue again. There was no sign of life.

  “Judah?”

  I scrambled to the top of a dune and studied the horizon. To the west I saw receding dust clouds. In every other direction, only white sand.

  “Judah!” This time I screamed his name.

  I heard a very faint reply.

  I stumbled forward, calling out as I plunged down one smaller dune and ran up another, my sandals slipping over the sand.

  I saw Judah on his camel when I crested the dune. He rode in a fast trot toward me with Saba hard on his heels. The sight of him striking toward me filled my heart with gratitude.

  He slid from his mount and rushed up to me. Not concerned with propriety, he threw his arms around me and pulled me close.

  “Thank God, thank God.” He drew back and quickly began to brush the sand from my head and shoulders. “I feared you were lost.”

  He looked like an old man with white hair, white eyebrows—even the hairs of his arms were coated in a film of dust. I laughed, not because he looked strange but because I was flooded with relief. But I blamed it on his appearance.

  “Just look at you,” I laughed.

  “And you! Is it a woman or an ash tree?”

  Saba slowed his trotting camel as he approached. “Where is Shunu?”

 
Silence engulfed us as we looked at the sands for any sign of my camel.

  “Two of the skins broke when I went down,” he said. I saw the wrinkled waterskins hanging behind his saddle and knew immediately that we were in more trouble than even I had imagined. Shunu had been carrying the rest of the water, except for a single nearly depleted skin on the male Judah rode.

  If we could not find Shunu, we would be left with only one she-camel, and without more water, she would not yield much milk.

  “She last drank three days ago,” Saba said. “We must find Shunu.”

  “Yes, we must,” I said.

  But even I knew that finding her would be a significant challenge. The blowing sand had erased all tracks. Shunu might have wandered in circles, disoriented, looking for a way out. To my knowledge she’d never been caught in a dust storm save in the oasis, where shelter was near.

  Judah and Saba searched in widening circles for an hour before returning empty-handed.

  “I’m sorry, Maviah,” Judah said, somber. “We cannot find her sign. She is surely out of the storm and searching for us. We will pray that God leads her to safety.”

  He was showing me kindness, because I knew as well as they did that Shunu could just as easily be buried at the bottom of a valley. Although the loss of her pained me deeply, I chose not to burden the men with my sorrow.

  “If she is meant to find us, she will,” I said.

  “If God wills it, she will find us,” Judah said, dismounting and pulling his camel to the sand. He motioned for me to mount. “You will ride Massu now.”

  “We can both ride him.”

  “Yes. But for now I walk.”

  And so I traveled upon Massu, led by Judah, who walked, and Saba, who rode ahead to scout the way, keeping an eye out for Shunu.

  The sun now seemed hotter and each step heavier, weighed down by our knowledge that only the best fortune would deliver us to water before we dried up. This was how the Nafud swallowed its victims and spit them back out as bleached bones upon its dunes.

  When Judah began to lose strength, he climbed up behind me and seated himself with one leg folded under him and the other resting on the camel’s rump. How he didn’t fall off, I could not fathom.

  His closeness relieved my anxiety, and when we had the energy, we talked quietly. There, on Massu’s back, I listened to his gentle voice as he spoke of adventures that had taken him into more raids and battles than I could imagine, for he was often chosen by my father to champion and avenge clans who’d suffered loss to raiding tribes.

  Rami chose him because he wasn’t Kalb. Indeed, if Judah had been of Kalb blood, a clan might have been insulted at the suggestion that they needed the help of a single champion. But because he was a bond servant in the service of their sheikh, all clans welcomed his sword and bow.

  I learned also of his own tribe and of the woman he’d loved before coming to the Kalb. And Judah learned more about my time in Egypt, of my education and of Johnin, whom I had loved. Truly, I had never spoken so freely with anyone since leaving Egypt, and I found myself wanting to tell him everything. But I didn’t want to be tedious, for I knew that he would patiently listen to hours of talk, even if bored by it.

  Judah had called me a queen, and yet I felt he was the more honorable.

  We had hoped that Shunu might find her way to us while we camped, but when we rose in the predawn hour and detected no sign of her, we knew that she was lost to us. If she was still alive, other Bedu might find her and treasure her, for she was a beautiful animal, friend to all men.

  For two more days we plodded on. The stretches of silence between us lengthened, as talking itself robbed us of energy. We would make it, Saba and Judah both said. It is known that a man can live thirty days without food, and only two without water or milk, and yet the Nafud might cut these spans in half. Still, we had just enough for the three days required to reach Aela.

  But then, on the following afternoon, our ninth since leaving Dumah, fate dealt us another blow. Saba’s she-camel, Wabitu, went searching for a morsel during a short rest and returned with her waterskin torn by a sharp rock or thorn.

  The last of our water had leaked out.

  Saba invoked the names of many gods in cursing the she-camel, who only looked at him past her long lashes, too dumb to know that she might have just sealed her own death.

  Judah looked from the camel to Saba, then to me, then at the horizon. I had come to expect the most positive outlook from Judah, and his silence unnerved me.

  “It’s too far,” he finally said, turning to Saba.

  Saba did not dispute the claim.

  “We must head south and try for the well at Sidin. There was a rain in that region eight months ago. The well may still have water clean enough to drink.”

  “South?” I asked. “We are meant to go north, to Palestine.”

  “We cannot cross the sands without water,” Saba said. He regarded Judah. “I have only heard of this well. You know the way?”

  Judah looked to the heavens, then thoughtfully at the horizon. “With stars I will know where we are and where we must go.”

  “If there is no water?” I asked.

  Judah said nothing, which meant everything. There were no other wells near the Sidin. If the well was dry, the journey would be our last.

  “There is no better option,” Saba said. “We rest and wait for the stars.”

  What struck me even more squarely than the dire nature of our predicament was Judah and Saba’s acceptance of it. All surely dread death, but they, who lived so close to it at all times, showed no fear. Facing death was a way of life for them, but I knew that one could walk into the face of death only so many times before being consumed.

  We found shade at the base of a jagged cliff, surely the same rock where Saba’s she-camel had consigned us all to ruin. She looked sad and wore the same perpetual pout all camels wear, though I was sure she sensed Saba’s displeasure with her. Camels are far more sensitive beasts than horses, far more inquisitive and affectionate, always seeking the attention of their friends and their masters. Wabitu had suffered the loss not only of Shunu and Raza, but of Saba’s approval as well.

  I approached her and rubbed her neck, whispering words of comfort. She sniffed at my hair and smacked her lips near my ear to show her appreciation.

  I could only look at her with compassion now, for she did not know the consequence of her mistake. Were we not the same, awaiting the turns of fate at the mercy of ambitious gods?

  We rested until dark. There was little to speak of, and even less energy to speak at all. Even so, I wanted to shake off my concerns.

  “Are you worried, Saba?” I asked.

  “It will be as it will be.”

  His words offered no peace, so I looked hopefully at Judah, who’d reclined against the rock after offering me the saddle and the blankets on which to rest my head.

  “And you, Judah?”

  He smiled, but I knew it was for my sake alone. And in his eyes I finally saw fear’s shadow.

  “No, Maviah. God will see you through.”

  I briefly thought to ask why his god, if he could see, had led us to this desolate place, but I held my tongue. I was too preoccupied by my fears.

  If Judah was afraid, then I should be terrified.

  And suddenly I was.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN DARKNESS finally came, Judah climbed the dune and studied the stars for a long time. During the nights he’d shown me how he read the stars, naming many as if they were his brothers and sisters shining for the benefit of all who knew them as he did. And indeed, I was impressed by how he could line up the exact location of each star and then point to a place on the horizon, saying, “There, three leagues distant, is the oasis at Tayma.” Or “There, in a twenty-three-hour run on Raza, is the rock of Meidal.” But he could be so accurate only at night. The day was Saba’s charge.

  “We go,” he said, briskly returning to us. “We push the camels to reach the we
ll at Sidin before the sun rises.”

  “It’s too far for one night,” Saba said. “If we run the camels, they will die.”

  “We are closer than I first thought.”

  “No, we are two days.”

  “No. We can make it in one night if we travel fast.”

  “It’s too far—”

  “Do you read the stars so well?” Judah demanded. “Are your dunes more precise than the heavens?”

  Saba studied Judah’s set jaw and finally dipped his head.

  “As you say.”

  Saba was a wise man, built like a pillar, but Judah when pressed was perhaps the stronger man. If not in body, then in purpose and conviction.

  The poor camels groaned as they hauled us step after step over the sands, taking us south, away from Palestine. Once again Judah rode behind me, and his energy returned with the cool air. His stars gave him reason to sing, however softly. And surely in some way he also drew comfort from me, so close to him, warming his sprit, for there was no hiding that Judah was pleased with my company. In the desert a marriage between a man and woman has little to do with sentiment but is meant for the purposes of provision, protection, and the raising of children. And yet I thought I provided Judah with the same warmth of spirit he offered to me.

  We did not stop to rest. We did not allow the camels to slow despite their complaints. We did not adjust our course, for Judah had his eyes on the sky all the while.

  Judah’s elevated spirit lifted my own, and yet I knew that even if we reached the well of Sidin, we would not find life unless we also found water below the surface.

  I had been thirsty many times, but I had never felt such a craving for water. My tongue felt too thick for my mouth and my throat was as dry as the sand. I found it unpleasant to speak through a passage so parched.

  The eastern sky began to gray and still we had not reached the well. Except for the small thread of water left in Wabitu’s torn skin, none of us had taken water or milk since the morning before.

  “Just there,” Judah said. “Very close now. Just over those dunes.”

  “Don’t say it’s just there, when it’s never just there,” I said.