Crown in the Stars (51 page)

“Shoshannah!” Demamah’s voice echoed from the corner of the wall nearest the street. Shoshannah turned, surprised. Demamah halted, staring at her, at Keren, at all of them, her gentle face crumpling in despair like a lost child silently begging for help.

Shifting her bow and arrow in her hands, Shoshannah dismounted hastily, barely hearing her parents’ cries of warning.
I have to
… The words lingered unfinished, the realization that she had to leave Demamah was too painful to crush into a simple thought. She ran to her cousin and hugged her.

Demamah clutched her and sobbed, “You’re going? You can’t!”

“If only…” Shoshannah faltered as Ra-Anan dashed around the corner of the wall, with Zeva’ah, Father Elam, Father Aram, and their two wives following him tentatively. They all stopped, gaping at Shoshannah, Keren, Father Shem, I’ma-Annah, and the others.

While Ra-Anan smoldered, Zeva’ah cried out hissing, rustling words that were unmistakably accusations. But Father Elam, Father Aram, and their dignified black-haired wives all retreated, watching Father Shem and I’ma-Annah dismount.

“Why do I find you in this evil city?” Shem asked his sons and their wives, sounding deeply wounded, stung almost to rage.

“My firstborn… and my youngest,” I’ma-Annah murmured achingly, her big dark eyes betrayed, pleading. “Tell me you haven’t forgotten our Most High.”

Father Elam protested in a mangled babble. And Father Aram gave his parents an imploring look—his eyes wide and dark as I’ma-Annah’s, while liquid, indecipherable noises poured from his lips.

“I don’t understand my mother or our guests,” Demamah whispered to Shoshannah. “Do you understand them?”

“Not at all. I think we’ve lost our minds.”

Father Shem and I’ma-Annah were equally upset. They were trying, again, to talk to their sons, who couldn’t communicate with them or with each other.

Shem turned to Annah, despairing. “Beloved, we are being separated from our children… scattered as my father has said.”

“Separated?” Demamah asked, her voice rising shakily. “What do you mean? I’ll never understand my father and mother again?”

As she began to sob, Ra-Anan spoke dry, whispery syllables, raging at Keren.

“You’ve won, haven’t you, my sister!” Ra-Anan cried, clenching his hands into fists to keep from lunging at Keren and yanking her off her horse. He was unarmed, while she, her husband, Shoshannah, and that false guardsman, Kaleb, were all holding their bows and arrows ready. “You and your Ancient Ones and the Most High! You’ve brought this disaster upon us—you’ve stolen everything from me!”

While Ra-Anan was speaking, he saw Shoshannah adjust her own bow, then whisper to Demamah, who nodded tearfully, evidently understanding what Shoshannah had said. Focusing on his daughter now, Ra-Anan asked, “Do you understand me at all, Demamah? Have I lost you too?”

“What do you mean?” Zeva’ah demanded, the color ebbing from her face. “She’s our daughter!”

Ra-Anan looked down at his wife. He had to compose
himself, to give his bitter realization words. “I think she’s lost to us. By the will of their Most High.”

“No.” Zeva’ah shook her head vehemently. “You’re wrong!”

“Speak to your daughter, beloved,” Ra-Anan said, knowing it was hopeless. “If she understands you, then she is still yours. If she understands them… she is theirs.”

“You’re wrong,” Zeva’ah insisted. Turning, she called out, “Demamah, come here! Leave that girl and her family; you don’t belong with them.
Demamah!
”

Keren fought down her nausea, unable to believe what was happening. And while the others were trying once again to speak to each other, the horses were stirring, agitated by the delay and by Zeva’ah’s rising hysteria.

Zeva’ah was grabbing Demamah now, pulling her away from Shoshannah, denying what was happening.

Reluctantly, Keren called out, “Demamah-child!”

When Demamah looked over at her with those somber, long-lashed eyes Keren remembered and loved so well, Keren said, “Don’t be afraid, little one. Kiss your mother and give her a hug; she will understand you then. Kiss your father too, child—this is not your fault. They must know it’s true.”

Demamah nodded miserably. “Thank you, I’ma-Keren.”

The young woman’s gentle verbal agreement with Keren caused Zeva’ah to waver, then to shriek in anguish.

Following Shem, Annah hugged and kissed her firstborn son and her youngest, grieving, uncertain if she would ever see them again. Elam and Aram looked ashamed and mournful, though Annah wondered if they were truly repentant—or if they fully understood what was happening. But she would not allow them to remember her as angry or unforgiving.

Their wives, daughters of Yepheth and Ghinnah, and Khawm and Tirtsah, wouldn’t look Annah in the eyes. Determined, she put her hands on their proud, lovely faces and made them look at her. “Be wise. Be careful,” she told each one, realizing that they couldn’t understand. With difficulty, she restrained her tears. “I love you.”

Turn again to the Most High …

Seated on Ma’khole now, Shoshannah watched as Ra-Anan helped Demamah onto her horse and sternly coerced the weeping Zeva’ah to give their daughter a farewell kiss. But then Ra-Anan glared at Keren once more, seeming to blame her for his predicament. Behind him, his residence was billowing with smoke, flaring and crackling with flames. Shoshannah felt almost sorry for him, and for Zeva’ah, yet she was ready and eager to leave.

By now Tiyrac had retrieved his gear and was astride his horse, Nashak, who was hungrily nosing through the pile of abandoned hay.

Kaleb, meanwhile, was soothing the nervous Khiysh, while trying to communicate with two guardsmen who had approached him. After failing to understand each other despite repeated shrugs and hand motions, the two guardsmen nodded at Kal and hurried into the stables.

“Ghid’ohn and Ye’uwsh. They’re good men,” Kal told Shoshannah, regretful. “They brought me here.”

“I’m grateful to them,” Shoshannah murmured tenderly. She looked ahead at her father.

Zekaryah was watching Father Shem and I’ma-Annah, who were settling onto their own horses again. They motioned their last, sad farewells to Elam and Aram, then nodded at Zekaryah, who swiftly urged his horse onward.

As Zekaryah led them around the back of Ra-Anan’s walled residence, then south—apparently to avoid the chaotic main streets—Shoshannah prayed this escape would succeed where her own had failed. How ironic that they were taking the same route. But this time, she didn’t want to cross paths with Perek or Adoniyram.

Particularly not with Adoniyram.

I’ma
, she thought, distressed, watching her mother ride ahead, her weapons ready,
how will I tell you that your only sister is dead, and that Adoniyram allowed her to die?

A glob of mud spattered over Kuwsh’s shoulder as he walked away from his smoking, ransacked home. Kuwsh seethed but didn’t dare to look back at the offender. He would never find the guilty one among the crowd who had forced him and his family onto the streets with almost nothing but the clothes they wore. Everything he had owned was now stolen or burned, including his gold and his favorite leopard-skin mantle.

Defiantly Kuwsh shook out the linen mantle he had snatched this morning and swathed it over his head. He had been certain this would be one of the best, most triumphant
days of his life. Now, before midday, he was utterly vanquished.

Beside him, Achlai walked in silence, accepting this disaster as quietly as she accepted everything else in her life, both good and evil. He resented her composure. “See what your Most High has brought upon us?”

“Because of our rebellion,” she agreed gently, as they turned south and west, toward Sebaw’s tribe.

Kuwsh repressed a superstitious chill and glared at the trampled dirt road. Puffs of dust lifted into the air, roused by the footsteps of those traveling ahead of them. His four youngest sons and their wives followed him, bewildered, occasionally speaking aloud in their garbled fashion, as if hoping this chaos would pass like a bad dream.

As they joined others who were fleeing the pandemonium within the Great City, Kuwsh glanced at eight riders passing them. He envied the riders their horses and their possessions, until he recognized them: the traitor-guardsman, Zehker; the Lady Keren, Shoshannah; Demamah; those two stinking horseman-brothers, Kaleb and Tiyrac; and I’ma-Annah. And, worst of all, Nimr-Rada’s executioner, Shem.