Jezebel. Eleanor Jong De

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СКАЧАТЬ sighed and after a moment Jezebel heard the creak of the lid as he opened his small medicine chest, and with these strangely comforting noises she sat up on the bed and faced him. She lifted her eyes to look at his and saw not judgement, only a sad understanding.

      ‘I’m so ashamed,’ she whispered. He nodded, silently drawing together powders and dried leaves and mixing them with wine. Then he came to the bed and offered her the bowl.

      ‘This will purge the child. It will make you sick and you will bleed. You should ride in the carriage and not on the horse today while you take this treatment. But perhaps that is for the best.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘For you cannot ride into Samaria as though you are going to conquer it.’

      Jezebel took the drink from him. ‘I don’t know how to thank you—’

      Daniel cut her off with a wave of his hand. ‘No one need ever know.’ He closed his chest, picked it up off the floor and left.

      Jezebel watched him go, then she glanced wretchedly at Beset. ‘He’s angry with me.’

      ‘He’s afraid,’ said Beset.

      Jezebel looked down at the bowl, the sweet red liquid cloudy and bitter with the poison that would tear Jehu’s baby from her. She thought of the sky beyond the roof of the tent from which last night Kesil the archer had looked down on her. Soon the stars would be the only reminder she had left of the nights she had shared with Jehu. Slowly she lifted the bowl to her lips but the smell made her wince and she retched, the bowl shaking in her hand.

      ‘Probably best just to drink it in one go,’ said Beset. ‘That’s what my mother always told us to do with medicine when we were little, do you remember?’

      Jezebel nodded. ‘Then could you bring me more wine? This smells so awful that I’ll need something to wash it down.’

      ‘I’ll come straight back.’ Beset disappeared through the tent flaps, and Jezebel let the bowl sink into her lap. Her hand felt beneath the covers for her stomach. There was nothing there yet, no bump, no sign of the baby’s presence except in the sickness in her throat. But she knew in that moment that for all the good intentions of Daniel and Beset, for all the dreadful fear of what would happen if Ahab found out, she could no more end the life of the child than she could put a stop to her longing for Jehu.

      She snatched up the bowl and poured the liquid away in the corner of the tent out of sight. Then she curled up on the couch and cried.

      Chapter Nine

      ‘This city was built to keep strangers out,’ murmured Jezebel under her breath.

      The carriage lurched and she clung on to Beset, not daring to look out at how the slopes fell steeply away. They had been travelling for much of the day across the undulating foothills but the city of Samaria now towered above them on a great flattened mountain as if all the Gods had chosen this as their table round which to sit and feast. The city was barely visible from down here, though as the long Phoenician entourage twisted and turned its way up the steep sides of the mountain, Jezebel glimpsed the dull yellow corners of buildings and shallow reeded roofs. The sun was already low in the sky and the air grew colder with every step of the horses’ hooves.

      Finally the carriage slowed and Jezebel peered out at the looming city walls, a last defence against any determined invader who had made it this far. She could hear Amos and Philosir up ahead presenting their credentials to the gatekeepers, and a moment later a soldier appeared at the carriage window, his face creased from months of defending this harsh landscape, his hair long and greasy.

      ‘So you’re the Phoenician bride?’

      Are you expecting any others? she wondered. She chose to ignore the word he’d used for ‘bride’. Rather than kingly consort, its meaning hinted at a brood-mare paired with a stallion. ‘I’m Jezebel, Princess of Tyre,’ she answered.

      He stared at her as one might a strange sea creature beached on the shore. They’d paused before the ascent for her to assume her best purple travelling cape and the modest cap of the betrothed bride.

      A shout went up at the head of the procession and with a great creak the gates were opened and a bugler played a single solemn note that sounded more like a peal of bad tidings than a welcome. The carriage lumbered forward once more and the procession dragged into the city. But there was none of the warmth and joy of the departure from Tyre, none of the cheering or the wash of the sea. Instead the city was flat with the clop of hooves on stone as they travelled among the walls within walls, deep into the heart of the city. Jezebel caught a glimpse of what was surely the King’s Palace, a huge stone edifice that rose up in the middle of the city, its sheer walls pockmarked with windows and wooden shutters. The Israelites who passed the carriage met them with cold curiosity, drifting begrudgingly apart to let them pass.

      It wasn’t quite the warm welcome Jezebel had expected. She felt Beset’s hand link with her own beneath the cape.

      The carriage jolted to a halt and the doors were snatched open. A pair of soldiers clad in leather armour stood on each side. Neither offered a hand.

      Jezebel climbed out of the carriage as elegantly as she could, shaking out the heavy travelling cape over her dress. The procession had stopped at another closed gateway and Jezebel realised they were outside the Palace, for the great walls soared above her, pale against the dusk sky. In one of the high windows she thought she saw a woman looking out across the city, but when she looked again the figure was gone. Her gaze fell to the stony street beneath her feet and she shivered. Philosir appeared at her side, Amos behind him, the priest’s normally tranquil demeanour tainted with worry.

      ‘I apologise, Your Highness,’ said Philosir rather more loudly than was his usual custom. ‘I do not know why we are being kept here outside the Palace gates like tradesmen.’

      Because it is a trade, thought Jezebel. And someone wants me to remember that.

      After a short wait the gates yawned open and through them emerged Obadiah, the Israelite envoy who had arrived in Tyre the day after the Judeans. He wore a black robe over his tunic, embroidered at the edges in pale thread, but his head was bare and he looked rather scruffy next to Philosir. He had also dispensed with the permanently obsequious smile he had worn in Tyre and he looked humourlessly down his long narrow nose at Jezebel. She wondered fleetingly if her father had been deceived by the courtship of negotiation, like a maid duped at market by a flirtatious farmer. Nonetheless she took a deep breath and bowed while Philosir offered his hands to the other official in the traditional Phoenician greeting.

      But Obadiah ignored them both, instead asking his soldiers, ‘Why have you brought them here? Escort them to the rear gate.’

      Philosir asked sharply, ‘Is there to be no formal welcome?’

      Obadiah raised his brows. ‘Before the wedding?’

      ‘This is a meeting of kingdoms, not just a marriage of convenience.’

      Obadiah gave a dry laugh. ‘There will be a dinner this evening.’

      ‘Before or after the wedding?’ asked Beset. ‘Should Her Highness wear the wedding gown or—’

      Obadiah waved a hand. ‘I will have someone see the girl to her chambers. The rest of you should follow the walls around to the far side.’ And then he strode off into the Palace compound without a backward glance.

      Jezebel СКАЧАТЬ