Jezebel. Eleanor Jong De

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СКАЧАТЬ as she tried to control her fury and fear. ‘I’ve nothing but respect for your God, so you can find the same for mine.’

      ‘You deserve no such thing,’ said another, spitting at her feet. ‘And you,’ they turned as one on Esther, ‘you should save yourself while you still can.’

      ‘Help us!’ Esther called out.

      Jezebel tried to see through the crowd of the priests’ turbans but she could only see the top of Esther’s head.

      ‘You bring shame on your mother and on all the people of Yahweh by consorting with the infidel!’

      And then Jezebel heard the clop of approaching feet and the clank of horse tack. The priests scattered like flies and in their absence she saw a pair of soldiers riding slowly from the opposite direction. She moved to Esther’s side. ‘Did they hurt you?’

      ‘They should not have spoken to you like that,’ whispered Esther, pale with shock.

      The soldiers glanced incuriously after the departing priests.

      ‘Are you all right, Your Majesty?’ asked one.

      ‘I think so,’ Jezebel replied. ‘We should be getting back to the Palace.’

      Jezebel slid her hand around Esther’s shaking elbow and guided her home. But once she had seen her safely through the main gate, she walked around the garden walls towards her Temple. Astarte would bring her much-needed peace and guidance to see her through this dreadful experience, she told herself, breathing deeply to calm herself.

      Even before she reached the Temple she sensed that something was wrong. There were no guards at the entrance gate. As she turned into the lane she saw the two pristine white columns were smeared filthy brown with horse dung. She looked around, her chest contracting with panic, but the lane was completely empty. She swallowed down a few nervous breaths and entered the Temple.

      She strangled a sob of anguish. The desecration of the inside was far worse than the filthy pillars. Each of Astarte’s beautiful statues had been smashed to pieces, and the walls were daubed with more dung. Worst of all, on the altar lay a dead dove, its throat cut.

      Jezebel pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. She listened as hard as she could for the peace of Astarte’s wisdom, begging it to fall like rain through the Temple roof and cleanse the dirt from the place and the anger from her heart. But all she could feel was the ground surely shaking with Baal’s purest rage, and she turned and ran for Ahab.

      If Jezebel wished for solace in Ahab’s arms, she didn’t find it. He pushed past her to see the devastation for himself, and emerged fuelled by the war Goddess Anat’s burning desire for vengeance. He summoned the head of his personal guard and issued in the coldest terms the order to round up every priest who had openly taken issue with Jezebel’s arrival, starting with the three who had left the wedding banquet.

      ‘If you would just let me talk to them,’ begged Jezebel as she stood before him in his private office, ‘I could show them that I mean them no disrespect.’

      ‘They won’t listen to you.’

      ‘Then I ask that you do. Exacting revenge on them will not solve this.’

      ‘I won’t tolerate their contempt for you, for it’s nothing less than contempt for me!’ he barked. ‘I’ve put up with their petty disregard for the Judeans throughout my marriage to Leah, but now they turn that into some perverted loyalty to our southern neighbours, just so that they may turn their malice on you. Priests of Yahweh occupy a privileged position within this kingdom – I tolerate their outspokenness, but outright rebellion must be quashed without mercy.’ He strode to the wall and grabbed down a long sword which hung in its ceremonial sheath, yanking out the blade so quickly that it sliced the air.

      Jezebel stepped back, shocked by how easily the gentle lover had been swallowed up by the ruthless ruler. ‘What will you do to them?’

      ‘Exactly what they would do to anyone who defiled their temples.’ He raised the sword and pointed it over Jezebel’s shoulder just as Obadiah strode into the office.

      ‘Your Highness—’ He stopped at the sight of Jezebel and gave an obsequious bow. ‘Madam.’

      ‘Well?’ snapped Ahab.

      ‘The girl is too young to be party to affairs of state.’

      Ahab started to reply, but Jezebel saved them both the trouble by leaving the room without another word.

      Up in her chamber she lay on the couch in front of the window, Beset beside her holding her hand, and they listened together for the inevitable resonances of Ahab’s punishment, first the awful screams of the executed, then the dreadful thump of the bodies being thrown over the city walls. Twelve men in all met their deaths. Only as the sun began to cast its golden evening light into her room did they rise to look, still clinging on to each other, and saw the cluster of vultures swirling thick and black over the foothills to the east.

      Jezebel sat for a long time in the window that night, staring out towards Tyre, to where her own Gods surely sat in judgement on her husband. While Samaria lay stunned in silence below her, not even a whisper or the bark of a dog disturbing the dark, news would soon break over the Phoenician border like a storm-swollen wave of the travesties inflicted on their distant princess. But Jezebel was politic enough to know that stories changed and shifted like sand-dunes. By the time her father heard of what had happened, the complexion of the events would no doubt be quite different.

      Chapter Fifteen

      The hot and barren summer did little more than stifle the tensions of Jezebel’s arrival in Samaria, and she spent much of the season shut away inside the Palace, at first under Ahab’s orders for her own safety, and then under Daniel’s as her belly swelled with the child. She felt enormous, and was sure that Raisa would notice that she was bigger than she should have been. But as the eighth month came and went, she and Ahab only delighted in the prospect of the birth, so auspiciously soon after marriage, and Jezebel was left to pray with Beset that the child didn’t resemble its true father.

      Ahab had also been distracted by reports from the banks of the River Jordan, to the north-east, where the forces of Ben-Hadad of Damascus were gathering to threaten the fertile Israelite plains of Gilead. Ahab spent endless nights in his rooms consulting with his soldiers, and Jezebel, growing ever bigger, felt a fondness grow for him that she had never imagined possible. Despite the affairs of state, he made sure that they met every day to eat together, and she would listen as he talked with his officials about Asa, the King of Judah’s continuing reluctance to join the Israelites for war. Obadiah was ever present, like a dark shadow cast by the high summer sun, eyeing her in his way that made her feel dirty.

      Eventually Ahab agreed with his advisers that Ben-Hadad couldn’t be allowed to threaten the plains any longer and, at first light one late summer morning, with a storm brewing in the humid grey skies, the King rode out with his army to war, confident that his rival would be defeated before his longed-for son came into the world. Yet Jezebel realised the anxiety she felt was not only about the baby, but also about the possibility that Ahab would not return from the war. She had traced the scars on his body many times now, and she remembered well his words that first night they shared together, but still she offered up a prayer as he passed beneath her window, his eyes lingering on hers. He’s been so kind to me, she thought, please bring him home safe and soon.

      With СКАЧАТЬ