Read Harvest of Rubies Online

Authors: Tessa Afshar

Tags: #Romance, #Historical, #Religion

Harvest of Rubies

 

HARVEST of RUBIES

 

TESSA AFSHAR

 

M
OODY
P
UBLISHERS
CHICAGO

 

© 2012 by
T
ESSA
A
FSHAR

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

 

Scripture references are from Psalm 46:1–2; Job 3:25; Psalm 18:1–3; selections from Psalm 25; Psalm 25:7; Psalm 31:8–9; Hosea 2:14–15a.
Achor
in the Hosea citation in chapter 26 means “trouble.”

 

Some Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible, New International Version
®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.

Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
www.zondervan.com

 

Some Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible, New Living Translation
, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189, U.S.A. All rights reserved.

 

Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370,
www.booksandsuch.biz
.

 

Moody Publishers editor: Pam Pugh
Interior Design: Ragont Design
Cover Design: Brand Navigation, LLC
Cover Images: iStock, Dreamstime, and Shutterstock

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Afshar, Tessa.
     Harvest of rubies / Tessa Afshar.
        p. cm.
     ISBN 978-0-8024-0558-6
     1. Scribes—Fiction. I. Title.
  PS3601.F47H37 2012
  813’.6—dc23

 

                                                                  2011045869

 

We hope you enjoy this book from River North Fiction by Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to
www.moodypublishers.com
or write to:

 

River North Fiction
Imprint of Moody Publishers
820 N. LaSalle Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60610

 

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

 

Printed in the United States of America

 

For my mother and father:
Thank you for teaching me to laugh and to love
.

 
Table of Contents
 

Chapter One: The Eighth Year of King Artaxerxes’ Reign* Persia

 

Chapter Two: The Sixteenth Year of King Artaxerxes’ Reign* Persepolis

 

Chapter Three: The Nineteenth Year of King Artaxerxes’ Reign* Persepolis

 

Chapter Four

 

Chapter Five

 

Chapter Six

 

Chapter Seven

 

Chapter Eight

 

Chapter Nine

 

Chapter Ten

 

Chapter Eleven

 

Chapter Twelve

 

Chapter Thirteen

 

Chapter Fourteen

 

Chapter Fifteen

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

Chapter Nineteen

 

Chapter Twenty

 

Chapter Twenty-One

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

 

Chapter Twenty-Five

 

Chapter Twenty-Six

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

Author’s Notes

 

Acknowledgments

 
 
587–586 BC
Judah is captured by Babylon, and the Temple is destroyed.
559–530 BC
Cyrus the Great establishes the largest empire the world has ever known and founds the Achaemenid dynasty. In 538 Cyrus sets Israel free from its Babylonian captivity as foretold by Isaiah(44:24–45:5). He donates money from his own treasury toward the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.
530–522 BC
Cambyses, Cyrus’s eldest son, conquers Egypt. His reign is briefly followed by his younger brother, Bardia, who dies shortly thereafter under strange circumstances.
521–486 BC
Darius the Great expands the Persian Empire so that at its height it encompasses approximately eight million miles of territory. Next to Cyrus, he is the most admired Achaemenid king. He is probably not the king referred to in the book of Daniel 6:1–28, since Daniel would be quite old at this time.
486–465 BC
Xerxes takes over his father’s great dynasty. He is best known for his notorious attack on Greece and for choosing a simple Jewish girl named Esther as his queen. The date of this event is not known. For details, see the book of Esther.
465–424 BC
Artaxerxes is known as a benevolent king who replaces several harsh laws with more humane rulings. He sends his cupbearer, Nehemiah, back to Jerusalem in 445 in order to rebuild its ruined walls.
334 BC
Alexander the Great conquers Persia.
Approx. 33 AD
Jesus of Nazareth is crucified.

CHARACTERS
in order of appearance or mention

 

Sarah—
senior scribe to the queen

 

Simeon—
Sarah’s father

 

Leah—
Sarah’s aunt

 

Nehemiah
—relative of Sarah and Simeon; cupbearer to the king

 

Artaxerxes—
king of Persia

 

Damaspia—
queen of Persia, wife of Artaxerxes

 

Amestris—
the queen mother

 

Frada—
steward to Damaspia

 

Nebo—
scribe to Amestris

 

Parisatis (Pari)
—handmaiden to Sarah

 

Gaspar—
scribe under Frada

 

Alogune—
concubine to Artaxerxes and mother of his son Sogdianus

 

Lord Darius—
Sarah’s husband

 

Lord Vivan
—Darius’s father

 

Teispes—
steward of Darius’s household

 

Shushan—
cook in Darius’s household

 

Teispes—
steward of Darius’s estate

 

Bardia—
the gardener

 

Mandana—
an
arassara

 

Gobry/Gobryas—
Bardia’s grandson

 

Aspasia—
a courtesan

 

Arash
—Damaspia’s nephew

 

Vidarna—
Darius’s new steward

 
Chapter One
                  
 
The Eighth Year of King Artaxerxes’ Reign
*
Persia
 

O
n my twelfth birthday, my father discovered that I could read.

 

He came home long before the supper hour that night, an occurrence so rare that in my shock I forgot to greet him. Instead, I sat stupefied, clutching a forbidden clay tablet.

 

“What are you doing?” he asked, his gaze arrested by the sight of the tablet clasped to my chest.

 

My father, a royal scribe in the Persian court, treated his writing tools as if they were the holy objects from the Ark of the Covenant. Before I had learned to walk or speak, I had learned never to go near his scrolls and tablets for fear I might damage them.

 

“You know better than to touch this,” he said, when I didn’t respond right away.

 

I swallowed the ball of gathering dread in my throat, knowing myself caught. Truth seemed my only option. “I was reading,” I said, as I replaced the tablet on the floor with extravagant care.

 

He studied me from beneath lowered brows. “Even if you could read—which you cannot—you should not be anywhere near my scribal supplies. It is very wrong of you to lie, Sarah.”

 

“I am not lying, Father.”

 

He heaved a sigh. Spreading his hand in mock invitation toward the tablet, he said, “Demonstrate.”

 

The tablet was in Persian, one of the most complicated languages of the world. I could have chosen to teach myself Aramaic, a simpler language for a beginner and more appropriate for a Jew. But most Aramaic documents were recorded on parchment, and I had decided that there would be fewer chances of accidentally damaging clay or stone tablets than fragile parchment scrolls.

 

Licking my lips, I concentrated on the complex alphabet before me. The symbols looked like a series of delicate nails standing upright or lying sideways, an occasional incomplete triangle thrown in for confusion. With halting accuracy I began to read the first line from left to right. Then the second and the third.

 

My father sank to the carpet next to me, his movements slow. He was silent for a long moment. Then he asked, “Who taught you to read Persian?”

 

“Nobody. I learned by myself. I’ve been studying for five months.”

 

He seemed speechless. Then, with jerky movements, he fetched three small clay cylinders and placed them before me.

 

“What’s this word? And this? Can you make out this sentence?”

 

We must have sat there for hours as he tested my knowledge, corrected my pronunciation, and demonstrated grammatical rules. He forgot about my months-long transgression of secretly handling his scribal supplies. He forgot to remonstrate with me for having taught myself to read without his permission.

 

But then he also forgot to ask me
why
I had wanted to learn. Although I was surprised by his lack of anger at my behavior, his lack of interest was all too familiar. In the years since my mother’s death when I was seven, my father had rarely spoken to me of anything save mundane household matters, and even that was rare. My desires, my motives, my hopes, held no appeal to him.

 

Late that night, after so many hours of his company, when I crawled onto my thin cotton-filled mattress, my mouth spread in a wide smile. I had finally found a way to hold my father’s attention. He had spent more time with me on this one night than he was wont to do in a fortnight. Months of hard work had won me the desire of my heart; he had found something in me worth his while.

 
 

After we lost my mother, Aunt Leah, my mother’s only sister, began coming once a week to our home to help us with the housework. She tried to show me how to sew and clean and cook. Our conversations around these topics tended toward frustration—for her—and pain for me.

 

“Weren’t you paying attention when I showed you how to pluck the chicken?”

 

“No, Aunt Leah. I beg your pardon.”

 

“You can’t use a broom like that, Sarah. You only move the
dust from one spot to another. That’s not called cleaning. That’s a migration of dirt.”

 

“Yes, Aunt Leah. I beg your pardon.”

 

“This pot won’t clean itself just by you staring at it and sighing.”

 

Silence seemed the best response at times like this. I could not offend my only aunt by telling her the truth: that I would rather hit my head with the pot and make myself lose consciousness than have to face the frustrating boredom of scrubbing its black bottom.

Other books

Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Novel 19 by The Ruins of Isis (v2.1)
Fae by Jennifer Bene
Love at First Sight by Sandra Lee
Borrowed Ember by Samantha Young
Into the Forbidden Zone by William T. Vollmann
ScandalandSin by Lynn LaFleur
Dresden by Victor Gregg
Angel With a Bullet by M. C. Grant


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024