Jezebel. Eleanor Jong De

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      She gazed up at the sky, looking for Kesil once more, but her attention was caught by a quiet sobbing somewhere below. She peered down into the small courtyard and identified the shadowy outline of Esther in a corner.

      Jezebel walked swiftly along until she found a staircase, then she padded down it, her cape dragging behind her. Esther sniffed and glanced up, her eyes shining with tears. ‘You shouldn’t stay here. Mother will be furious.’

      ‘I’ve no wish to get you into more trouble. But you shouldn’t be out here in the dark. And besides, if we’re all going to be living here together, we can’t really avoid each other.’

      ‘Obadiah has seen to it that we should. Mother and I have been relocated to this wing.’ She nodded towards the small courtyard. ‘I apologise for the way my mother spoke to you. She hates being in Israel and she has always hated the Phoenicians too. She says you sacrifice people and not animals.’

      ‘No wonder I’ve had such a hostile reception,’ laughed Jezebel nervously. ‘It’s not true, I promise you.’

      ‘And she says your Gods are so malicious they will sink foreign ships if they sail in your waters.’

      ‘Without charts and plans of the coast, the sea can be dangerous. But that could happen to even the most experienced sailor, whatever kingdom they come from.’

      ‘She despises you.’

      ‘Look, Esther, I’m only here because my father and your father agreed that it was in the interests of both our peoples. It is what young women like us must do.’

      ‘I hope it never happens to me.’

      Jezebel chewed her lip. It felt so strange to be making friends with this girl, almost the same age, when in just a few hours she would be lying down in a bed with her father. Perhaps Esther sensed that too, for she stood up.

      ‘If Mother goes back to Jerusalem, as she keeps threatening to do, your life here might be a bit easier. It’s a shame though, because you seem so nice.’ Esther smiled shyly then she glanced up at the balcony. ‘I must go before Mother misses me.’

      ‘Of course. But maybe we could take a walk together tomorrow? You could show me round the Palace?’

      ‘Perhaps,’ said Esther uncertainly. ‘Your wing is that way.’ She pointed through an archway lit with torches. Then she set off quickly across the courtyard, her fingers sketching a wave.

      Jezebel walked back towards her room, listening to the strange sounds of the Palace around her as it slowly came alive in the dark, to the distant barking of the dogs and the calls of the servants behind hidden doorways. She smelled the roasting of meat and the stewing of fruit for the wedding banquet in her honour, and heard a lonely bugle call drift into the night sky. But it was of the sea she thought, that faraway kingdom of her own that she carried in her heart. And of the child that grew in her before its time.

      Chapter Eleven

      In the light from flickering lanterns, the young woman stared back at Jezebel, haughty and refined, almost arrogant in the way her eyebrows arched and her eyes stared, rimmed with the blackest kohl. Her skin was fashionably paled with the most expensive of the ground powders but it looked like a mask, taut and still, concealing every thought within. Only the mouth curled faintly, reddened with dyed wax. But if her face was mesmerising, it was merely an opal in the most elaborate of settings, from the headdress of sculpted gold through which her hair was delicately woven, down through the rich swathes of silken gown edged with hundreds of tiny shimmering pearls, to the jewelled sandals and sparkling ankle bracelets which tinkled musically as she walked. She was the richest of offerings in every sense.

      ‘I hardly recognise myself,’ said Jezebel.

      Beset lowered the bronze hand mirror, its panel etched with a scene from the abduction of Princess Europa by the lovesick bull. ‘You look like a queen.’

      Behind the facade and the armour of a bride, Jezebel’s heart thudded with fear and her hands sweated, and she prayed that the paint on her face would not smudge and smear. It was well after dark, and she’d heard the dining party gathering for some time.

      ‘I hope the King has made such an effort,’ murmured Beset as she straightened the train of Jezebel’s gown one last time. And then the maid stepped back to admire her work and sniffed, quickly wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘Your father would be so proud.’

      Jezebel lifted her chin to swallow down her own emotions and the wide gold neckband rubbed against her throat. There was something to be grateful for in these ceremonial outfits for they made you stand tall and proud even when you wanted to run away to curl up and hide. And perhaps Philosir understood that, for he didn’t make her walk any slower than she could bear to on the way to the banquet, giving the Israelites that clustered in the Palace corridors enough time to notice her but not to weigh her further with their disdainful fascination.

      She passed beneath the grand archway to the dining hall. Over the silence that followed the pronouncement of her name, she heard dozens of indistinct whispers. There was not another woman to be seen among the diners, and their garb was so drab she felt their disrespect in all their dullness. Even Ahab, sitting imperiously on a raised platform at the head of the table, looked plain in a long grey robe that sparkled with silver thread. He rose slowly to greet her, perhaps as overwhelmed as she was by the trophy Obadiah had won for him in the negotiations.

      ‘Please, sit with me, Jezebel.’

      At the moment she sat down on the smaller throne beside his, three Israelite priests stood from their couches and left the room. Ahab reddened.

      On the opposite side of the table Amos, who was standing in dutiful expectation of his princess, turned towards Obadiah, who sat on Ahab’s other side. ‘You were never shown such contempt in Tyre,’ he said.

      ‘Priests here don’t bow to the King,’ said Obadiah, ‘and certainly not to a wife.’

      ‘Especially one so gaudy,’ said the other remaining Israelite priest. ‘They must grow gold in Tyre, from the look of her. If that is any indication, perhaps the Phoenician lands will be more fertile to farm than Judah’s,’ he added.

      So her suspicions and Raisa’s aborted warnings were confirmed. Jezebel sensed Ahab tense beside her. He was staring at her, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and his eyes bright with rage, their chestnut brown so vivid against his hair and gown. She felt sorry for him, and guilty for being so elaborately dressed, as though the effusion of all her riches had somehow made everything so much worse. But why hadn’t he challenged his priests? In spite of all her own awkwardness she held his gaze in hers and smiled at him. As he studied her, probing deep beneath the mask of betrothal, she thought she saw a half-smile pass his lips in response, though when he spoke his voice was brittle with suppressed fury.

      ‘Would you like wine?’ asked Ahab.

      Philosir had told her that women did not normally drink wine with the men in Israel and indeed there was a slight pause in the chatter around the table when Jezebel nodded and took the drinking bowl. And then she realised that this was in itself a small act of defiance by Ahab, and she sipped from it.

      ‘This vintage comes from my vineyard at Jezreel, a city north-east of here,’ said a nobleman sitting between the priests and Obadiah. He was a round fellow with a cheerful face, rather less lean than the other СКАЧАТЬ