A.D. 33 Read online

  Now I entered Dumah as a slave once again.

  Saba and I guided our camels down the narrow way, staring at the palace Marid high upon the hill. No orders were given; no word was spoken. The only noises were the gentle padding of our mounts and the distant sounds of a city stirring to life: a dog, a spoon in a pot, a child crying, the pounding of wheat into flour. The city was well ordered and swept clean, but few emerged from their homes to watch our procession.

  At the end of the main street, the way to the palace was blocked. Here a lone warrior on horseback stepped out before us and led us toward the center of the oasis. Toward the gardens, where my father had planted many flowering trees and pruned the palms for beauty.

  Why? Talya was in the palace, surely. My pulse surged and my breathing became shallow. I wished only to reach Talya and offer myself for him.

  Today the garden was a dazzling array of white and red and yellow—fruits that would make any Bedu salivate and blossoms that would attract the wonder of any traveler from afar.

  This was Saman’s own Garden of Eden, I thought. Watered with the blood of the fallen.

  We broke through a stand of palms leading down to the main spring, and both Saba and I stopped and stared at the scene before us.

  A hundred warriors stood in formation around the pool, facing a platform that had been erected on the near side of the oasis. Upon this platform stood Kahil in regal attire, watching us.

  Thick branches from a large tree reached over the platform, and from the thickest branch extended a frayed rope. At the end of the rope hung a limp body.

  For a long moment that refused to release me, I could not breathe. I could not mistake Judah’s swollen face.

  I could not move. My eyes would not leave the vision of death. Saman had executed Judah in the most demeaning fashion. Even as my heart had beat with Judah’s, so they ceased together.

  And Talya?

  I quickly scanned the scene and found no sign of him.

  “Be strong, Maviah,” Saba said. But I could hear the revulsion in his soft voice.

  The warrior who’d been leading us turned back, saw that we’d both stopped, and spoke for the first time.

  “Come.”

  Judah…My dear Judah! What have I done?

  I followed Saba, numb. I had done this. I had allowed Judah to embrace his rage. I had joined it! How many times had Saba repeated Yeshua’s teaching that those who lived by the sword would die by the sword? How many times had he said that all would reap from others what they sowed into them?

  Talya…

  All I had now was my son.

  We stopped ten paces from the platform and I kept my eyes on Kahil now. To look at Judah again would be to lose any strength I still had.

  He returned my gaze, wearing a twisted grin. Then he turned to two warriors and motioned to the body. They crossed to the rope, lowered Judah, and freed his neck from the noose. As if he were only a sack of grain, they hauled him to the back edge and dumped his body to the ground, out of view.

  Then they fixed the rope in place so that the noose hung from the limb, empty.

  “They say that to hang a queen is to invite demons into your bed,” Kahil said, pacing along the platform’s edge, hands behind his back. “But my priests tell me that hanging you now will chase them away.” Kahil faced me, resolute. “You are the queen who betrayed us. What would you advise?”

  I swallowed the pain in my throat and spoke, but hardly more than a whisper came out.

  “Are you a queen?” he cried. “Speak like one!”

  I took a deep breath and gathered strength.

  “Where is my son?” I bit off.

  “Ah…Yes, of course. The child. You will have your child if you wish.”

  My heart leaped.

  “But first…tell me, was this insanity your own notion, or Judah’s?”

  “You took my son!” I screamed, unable to restrain myself.

  “Because Judah sought to kill my father’s son!”

  He was speaking of himself.

  Kahil stroked his beard. “Maliku played you perfectly, did he not? He knew that Judah would raise the battle cry if he took the children. And that the Bedu would lose their minds. History will show our actions fully justified. Not once did we attack first. You, not I, have brought all of this upon your people.”

  His reasoning was twisted but acceptable in the Bedu way.

  “You attacked a king,” Kahil said. “I have no choice but to hang you from your neck until you are dead.”

  In a flash I saw the utter insanity of the ancient way, which sought an eye for an eye. There was always one more retaliation to be had, one more grievance to be righted, one more life to be defended.

  Only Yeshua’s Way of forgiveness could stop the endless cycle of punishment and retribution. Without it, the way of the desert would trade in violence for thousands of years to come.

  This is what Yeshua had taught.

  And then I thought of Talya and Judah, and I forgot that teaching.

  “Then take my life if you must,” I said. “Only give my son to Saba and let them live free. I beg you.”

  Kahil lifted his hand, fingers heavily ringed in silver and gold. “But you are no longer as valuable to me dead, dear Maviah, queen of the outcasts. You still have so much work to do.”

  Warning whispered through my mind.

  “Today, I have satisfied my need for blood by taking the life of your lover. But I still have an empty noose. Bring him!”

  Two warriors led a hooded child out from behind the ranks, and I immediately recognized Talya’s small form. A chill washed over the crown of my head and spread down my back.

  “No!” I cried. Without thinking, I dropped from my camel and tore toward him, even as Saba started to dismount.

  “Stay!” Kahil said, shoving his finger at Saba.

  Three warriors stepped out and blocked my path, grabbing my arms and hauling me back.

  “He is a child!” Saba roared.

  “If you dismount, then neither this child nor his mother will have a warrior at their side!”

  “I’ll kill you!” My voice was frayed and I saw only the darkest night. “Don’t touch my son!”

  The warriors pushed me and I landed on my back. Flailing, unable to catch my wind, I scrambled for purchase and regained my feet, gasping. Talya stood near the noose with his hands tied behind his back, black hood over his head, breathing steadily.

  But he wasn’t panicking that I could see, and this gave me a sliver of hope.

  “Do not disgrace yourself in my garden, Maviah,” Kahil said, clearly satisfied. “Be a queen before this king.”

  I called out to my son. “Talya?”

  “He is gagged. Unharmed, I assure you. And so you know, I have no intention of hanging him today. Nor the other thirty-nine that we have taken.”

  Thirty-nine?

  “I could have taken more while your band of despots was seeking to kill us, but I thought forty was the proper number. One for each tribe that has followed you. Forty, including your son who, I might add, is a very brave little boy.”

  He reached over and pulled the bag from Talya’s head. My son’s mouth was bound by a brown swath of linen. But his tender eyes were bright, nearly green in the light. He was staring directly at me, unblinking.

  There was no fear in him.

  There was only Eden in him, I thought. And that thought deepened my anguish, for his innocence would be crushed in Kahil’s thick hands.

  “Do you see what mercy I show?” Kahil said. “For the third time in the same week we extend a branch of peace to you.”

  “What do you want?” I demanded, struggling to show my son bravery.

  “You will return to your forty tribes, and you will persuade each of them to swear their allegiance to Saman in the Light of Blood. Every sheikh, every warrior, every Bedu who would rise against me must kneel.”

  What he demanded was impossible. I had gathered twenty thousand, some from
each tribe, but to gather them all…Bedu blood was too thick and their pride too ancient for such subservience. Asking any Bedu sheikh to bow to Saman would be no different than asking them to fall on their own swords. Most would prefer death!

  “For this, I will give you sixty days. Two full months. And then, if you fail, I will raise my sword once again and water my garden with the blood of your sons and daughters.”

  I was watching Talya’s eyes as Kahil spoke, trying to offer him assurance and courage. But it was I who needed it, not my son. He looked at me, making no sound nor offering any resistance.

  I glared at Kahil, awash in outrage. “You are a viper,” I snarled.

  “And your son, the viper’s prey,” he said. “Return him to the cell.”

  They pulled the bag back over Talya’s head.

  “Talya! Do not be afraid, my son!”

  I felt deathly ill. They dragged him away, and still he made not a sound.

  “Wait!”

  But they did not wait. Panic battered my mind. What might I say to offer my precious boy love and courage?

  “Make sure that you eat all of your food!”

  They were the only words I could form in such a state of anguish.

  Saba offered more.

  “Do not forget the Way, Talya. See his realm! Only his realm.”

  Kahil nodded at me. “Sixty days, Queen. Not a single one more.”

  Chapter Twelve

  UPON LEAVING Dumah, I wept rivers of tears known only by a mother who has lost her son and a woman who has lost the man she loves. Was my Father in heaven weeping for me? If he was, I could no longer enter his love.

  Saba tried to comfort me with soothing words, uttering not a single suggestion that I should change my outlook or be stronger. Only once did he speak of Yeshua’s teachings.

  “When we are blind,” he said that night as we were seated by the fire, “there is no sight of the light. And so we are in darkness. But this doesn’t mean that the realm of Yeshua’s eternal light has ceased to exist. Only that we cannot see it. We have been blinded by our own grievance.”

  I knew his words were true.

  “Why, Saba?” I asked, staring into the flames through my tears. “Why do we go blind, having once seen? True sight now seems like an illusion.”

  “Perhaps we have lived too long attached to this world.” He gathered me into his gaze from across the fire and spoke softly. “But Talya is uncorrupted, Maviah. He has seen and sees still. Our little lamb has surely found Yeshua and laughs with him even now.”

  They were the kindest words he could have spoken to me.

  “Yeshua will restore the joy of our salvation,” he said. “He knows no sorrow. We must go to him now.”

  Yes…But I was a queen called to her people and a mother desperate for her son.

  “Perhaps, but first we will go to Petra.”

  “Petra?”

  “I’ve shown myself worthy to King Aretas and his wife. Shaquilath is a mother as well as a queen, like me. She might speak to Saman on behalf of the children.”

  He thought a moment, then nodded. “Then Petra.”

  That night I slept with my head on Saba’s chest, calmed by the rising and falling of his strong breast. I fell into a deep sleep, crying for Judah.

  More than a thousand of our warriors had perished in the raid, and the Shangal valley was still filled with the terrifying sounds of wailing when Saba and I joined the survivors there the next day.

  I wept with them all, embracing as many as I could.

  I gathered the council and told them of Kahil’s demand that the forty tribes bow to him. They tore at their beards and cried bitter words of rage. But I calmed them and begged them not to take up the sword. Instead, they should retreat into the desert and rebuild their lives until I returned from Petra with the power of Yeshua, for Kahil was temporarily appeased.

  After two hours of argument, no more was heard. They agreed with me.

  But I asked for more. I insisted they not breathe a word of Kahil’s demands to a single soul, for this would only enrage hearts and flood the sands with the blood of our people.

  After yet more impassioned deliberation, they swore their compliance, Fahak last.

  “I would beg you reconsider this ill-advised journey,” Fahak said through a frown. “When have any Nabataeans come to the aid of the outcast?”

  But there was no other way. Arim insisted that he be allowed to accompany Saba and me, for he was blood brother to Judah. And so it was decided.

  Later, with an anguished heart and darkened soul, I stood upon a dune above the valley and tried to offer courage to thousands who looked to me for guidance. But my words carried no courage, only remorse.

  “I will go to Petra in the name of Yeshua and secure an alliance,” I said for all to hear. And then louder as my mind cleared: “Yeshua, the lover of all children. Yeshua, who heals the sick and calms the storm. Yeshua, who empowered me to prevail in Petra once before.”

  They stared at me in silence, for they had put their faith in me, not in a distant god or a foreign prophet.

  “Kahil has offered me two moons to submit. I swear to you, I will return before the second moon with all the powers of heaven and earth to save us all.”

  Someone took up the cry, Maviah, and then more until thousands thundered my name. Maviah, Maviah, Maviah.

  I, who had already failed, was their last hope.

  And King Aretas was now mine.

  I felt ill in heart and mind.

  TALYA SAT in the corner of the large cell, shivering in fear, watching the other children. Most of them huddled in small groups on the stone floor. Two large lamps burned, one on each wall, sending black smoke toward the dirty ceiling. There were three tables in the room, each with two benches. And there was straw on the ground, but not enough.

  For three days, the room had been filled with the sound of terrible weeping. No one knew why they had been taken and placed in the darkness underground. All of them cried for their mothers, even the orphans who didn’t have mothers. They’d cried until the Thamud Kahil had come and cut Salim’s chest with a blade because their wailing could be heard all through Dumah, he said. If they didn’t stop, he would cut their throats.

  Since then they’d cried softly, into their arms or the straw.

  Talya was strong at first, because he was sure that Saba would come for him. So would his mother, who was queen and commanded the sands. Nothing could stop them. Both were of the realm that flowed with light. Both would bring a hundred thousand warriors to save him.

  He clung to that vision. The others were afraid, but he knew they would be saved at any moment.

  Then the serpent, Kahil, had taken him to the pool and pulled the bag off his head.

  His mother and Saba had come for him! But of course they had!

  Even when his mother was crying, telling him to be strong, he was sure he would be saved. Even when they led him from the platform.

  It wasn’t until the long walk back to the palace that doubt and fear came to him. Not until he was led back into the dungeon that his tears began. And once they started he couldn’t stop them for a long time.

  Two days had passed. Now he wasn’t crying. Now he was only shivering. Shivering and trying to remember his vision of Eden and the forgotten Way into the sovereign realm.

  But fear darkened his mind.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE LAST TIME I traveled to the west, Judah had led us through the formidable Nafud sands by night. The wasteland had nearly taken our lives on more than one occasion. This time we traveled along the Wadi Sirhan, the same route well traveled by caravans laden with treasures. Saba led me by day and his footing was as sure as his camel’s.

  But I could not shake the darkness that hovered over me nor the despondency that seeped from deep within me. I could not release the fear I felt for Talya, nor forgive Kahil for taking him. And so I suffered.

  I mourned Judah nearly as much as I feared for my s
on. What cruel fate had delivered him to me for three days only to take him away forever? The sands would never again hear his song; the stars would never treasure his gaze. His laughter had been forever silenced.

  Arim spoke incessantly, eager to pull me out of my misery.

  “Do not fear, Maviah! Kahil is nothing, you will see! I myself will lead the army of Aretas and dispatch the Thamud as easily as I dispatch a worn cloak.”

  In many ways he reminded me of a thinner, younger Judah.

  “Just like a cloak?” I said. “That easily?”

  “Just throw it off, you see?” Arim stood upon his camel, balancing easily, and stripped off his tunic. He threw it on the saddle and sat back down, using it as a cushion.

  “The sun is no enemy to me,” he said. “Nothing can hurt Arim. And with this same power that delivered you in Petra, I will slay the beast in Dumah!”

  Even Saba could not resist a grin.

  “And just so, you can throw off the dark cloud that follows you, Maviah.”

  Saba looked ahead, rolling with his mount’s gait.

  But I could not find the power to make it just so.

  On the fifth night, when Arim had gone looking for his camel, which had wandered from the camp, I sat close to Saba as he tended to a dying fire.

  For the first time since leaving the tribes, I spoke of Dumah and of Judah and of Talya. Tears seeped from my eyes as I quietly poured out my heart to him.

  And Saba listened.

  Where had I gone wrong? How I mourned Judah. Had not Yeshua sent me back into the desert to set the captives free? How many mothers were now without sons? Was not the blood of all those slain on my hands?

  “No, Maviah. You only did what any mother would do.”

  “And look what suffering it has brought us all.”

  “More suffering than the desert knew before?” he asked.

  No.

  He poked at the fire with a long stick. “For as long as I can remember, there has been suffering on this earth. And for as long as I can remember, that suffering has been judged and opposed by force, which has only brought more suffering. Using the sword must have its place, but now we see that to live by it is to die by it, just as to live by wealth is to pay the price of that wealth. Both are cycles without end.”