Sunrise on the Mediterranean (66 page)

“So Yoav did not know of your military experience?”

“Computer skills wouldn’t have helped him much,” she said wryly. “He knew that I’d had some training, though. I guess it was
obvious.” English again.

“Then he chose you for that?”

“So if I wasn’t here, then maybe, what, Jerusalem wouldn’t have been invaded?” She laughed bitterly. “That can’t be true.”

“Maybe there was another plan. Maybe a thousand other plans, incorporating a thousand other souls,” he countered. “If you
chose not to, there would be another. But you didn’t.”

“I’ve never said this to you before, but Cheftu, you are mad.”

“Because you are one woman?”

“I couldn’t be this important. I am a mere cog in the machine. I am a modern woman. This is an ancient time. I couldn’t be
that vital!”

“You are probably right,” he agreed. It was madness. “So if not you, then someone else. You probably are right.”

“What if I’m wrong?” she asked, edgy.

He shifted, his hand on her neck, slowly rubbing the knots away. “God plucked you from your family to send you back to my
time, Hatshepsut’s time,
haii?”

Again she nodded. “From there he took you to Aztlan?”

“Ken.”

“Now, you are here. Already you have moved from being a grain-grinding slave to being a contemporary of Dadua’s wives. You
have survived remeeting RaEm!”

“So have you,” she said with a laugh.

“We’ll get to me later,” Cheftu commented. “Think on this, beloved. Is not God big enough to keep you from error, should it
be that all-encompassing?”

She was silent, her head bowed. “I believe in free will,” she finally said.

“You have free choice, daily,” Cheftu said. “But
by
your fear of error, by your desire to do what was right, you have chosen to be a tool of God.”

“So are we done, then? Do we just retire in David’s Jerusalem? Where rape is an acceptable way of getting engaged?” Her voice
rose at the last, and he heard the disgust, the fear. “What if we have a little girl?”

His hand stilled on her shoulder. “Is that a possibility?” She shrugged. “Not this month.”

He tipped her face to his. “There is next month, and the month after that. I do not tire of loving you,
chérie.
”

Chloe took his hands in hers, scooting so they sat knee to knee, cross-legged like scribes. “When you look at me I know that
the time gaps in our lives don’t matter, that our different centuries of origin don’t matter. If anyone has ever healed me
or has known me, it is you.”

Cheftu was reading over the newest missive from Egypt delivered by the Egyptian messenger who didn’t want to stay with the
Egyptians. Quite odd. According to this document, Pharaoh Tutankhaten now ruled. There was no mention of Akhenaten or the
Aten at all. Did RaEm, as Smenkhare, know she had been usurped?

Wasn’t Tutankhaten the small boy in the Egyptian camp? More important, wasn’t he under RaEm’s wing? Cheftu was puzzling over
this when he heard a discreet cough. He turned. “N’tan!”

“Chavsha,” the
tzadik
said. He closed the door behind him, shutting out the sounds of the Tsori building and the ever-present limestone dust.

The physician in Cheftu noted that the man didn’t look healthy. Though he had bravely borne the death of his wife, there was
a sadness in his gaze that Cheftu feared would never go away. According to Chloe, women were lining up to see who would be
his next bride, but N’tan didn’t even glance their way.

There were dark circles under the man’s eyes, and his hands were trembling. “Seat yourself, my friend,” Cheftu said. “Shall
I call for wine? For an herbal?” He walked around his table, and seated himself opposite. “Tell me, what is the matter?”

N’tan plucked at his beard nervously. His gaze was reluctant to meet Cheftu’s. “I have erred greatly, I fear.”

“How is that?”

“The Temple, the House of God.”

Cheftu felt his breath catch. “Previously, I told Dadua that if it seemed right to him to build a temple, a house for Shaday,
then he should. But I dream at night.” N’tan shuddered. “Such awful dreams. I do not remember them upon waking, but the message
is clear.”

Cheftu nodded mutely. “Dadua is covered in blood. His purpose was to build a people, carve them from the very flesh of our
neighbors.” Again N’tan shivered. “One of his sons will build the Temple, a man of peace, just as Dadua is a man of war.”

Again Cheftu nodded. “It is an uncertain thing to have the
tzadik
change his mind. Which is why I journey to you.”

“Me?”

“You carry with you magical stones.” N’tan looked away. “It is written by my forefathers, passed down through the Imhoteps.
They tell you the right thing to do. Will you see if I should tell Dadua that he cannot build? Will you be certain for me?”

Cheftu slipped them from his waist, since there was no longer a need to keep them in other, more difficult to reach places.
They warmed his hands, twitching when he brought them close together. “What do you ask?”

“Are my dreams real—
lo,lo,”
N’tan said, falling into silence. “Ask if my interpretation of the dreams is accurate.”

Cheftu asked, then threw the stones. It was a simple response, quick.

“K-e-n.”

“Is there more you would know?”

N’tan smiled weakly. “How angry Dadua will be?” he asked facetiously. Straightening his shoulders, he said, “I do not want
to know that, not really. It makes no matter his response. My avocation is
tzadik.
This is the burden of it.
Todah rabah
, my friend.”

“
Shalom
, N’tan,” Cheftu said as the prophet closed the door.

Cheftu dropped to his knees, the words in his mind as clearly as if the Holy Writ were before him:

“Go and tell my servant David this is what the Lord says: You are not the one to build me a house to dwell in. I have not
dwelt in a house from the day I brought Israel up out of Egypt to this day. I have moved from one tent site to another, from
one dwelling place to another. Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their leaders whom
I commanded to shepherd my people, ‘Why have you not built me a house?’

“Now then, tell my servant David, this is what the Lord Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the
flock, to be ruler over my people Israel. I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies
from before you.

“Now I will make your name like the names of the greatest men of the earth. And I will provide a place for my people Israel
and I will plant them so that they can have a

home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning and
have done ever since the time I appointed leaders over my people Israel. I will also subdue all your enemies.

“I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you: When your days are over and you go to be with your fathers, I
will raise up your own son, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish
his throne forever.”

Cheftu didn’t know why, or how, but those were the words of God that would pass down through the ages. David’s throne was
to be established forever. He was God’s favorite, the incorporation of the divine
nishmat ha hayyim
, filled with the zeal of Shaday. For these things he was honored.

And through him, all earthlings were blessed. Cheftu’s forehead touched the floor as he whispered,
“Sela.”
Thunder rumbled outside. It was beginning to rain, again.

T
HE MUSHROOM
, B
ATHSHEBA
, hadn’t spoken. We were gathered around her, family as it were, of the bride. She stared listlessly into space. Shana and
Hag’it had curled her hair, then made up her face with fragile pinks and smoky grays.

Avgay’el had loaned her a dress of red, for rejoicing. It was embroidered with silver and gold, with tiny seed pearls studded
around the neck. A dowry headband with silver coins matched a necklace of silver coins.

She sat.

The atmosphere was forced, but what more could be done? It seemed barbaric to me, but this would be better for her than being
a slave, right? After all, Bathsheba had to marry Uri’a, then, well, marry Dadua, because if not, then where would Solomon
come from?

If there was no Solomon … I didn’t know.

Or was it as Cheftu suggested: there were really a thousand ways, a thousand other souls, and if it didn’t happen this way,
then another avenue would be chosen? I couldn’t wrap my mind around the concept of alternative realities; it was too sci-fi.

By making one choice, did we step into another universe of choices? Were they all connected by filaments like a giant web?
If I hadn’t been there in Jerusalem, would another woman have done it, and I been killed in the battle of Ashqelon instead?

Better I should stick to my assignment of hennaeing ’Sheva’s hands and feet. The women were dancing and drinking while I sat
with the mushroom. She held her palms up to me.

“HaMelekh
will see me,” she whispered. “Make me beautiful?”

The irony of that statement was almost beyond belief, but I picked up the brushes. She had never struck me as a woman of flowers;
most of the henna designs I had seen used flowers.

Raindrops!

Her hands were long and thin; strange that I never noticed that before. They were perfect hands for a dancer, expressive and
eloquent. After dipping the end of the henna stick, which was effectively my brush, I drew little raindrops, like tiny paisleys,
in streams down her fingers. Then I surrounded them with dots. Now her palm.

“What do you like?” I asked her, my voice soft beneath the sound of women laughing.

“I like the raindrops,” she said.

“I did those.”

“I like leaves.”

Leaves would look too much like raindrops, I thought. “What else?”

“Stars.”

I looked at the palm of her hand. The lines in her hands seemed to split into two directions, one going toward her mound of
Venus, the other toward the outer part of her hand. I followed the creases, then connected them. It was a triangle, in a rather
Islamic, curved kind of way.

“Stars,” she repeated.

With the same angle and swoop, I put another triangle over the first. Then, just to fill it out, I drew raindrops flowing
away from it. Her other hand was a repeat of the pattern. They looked like Jewish stars, but she was a good Jewish girl, so
why not? When I finished we all toasted her once more, then stood as her guard to meet with Uri’a in one of the recently finished
cedar chambers, since it was raining outside and cold. ’Sheva wasn’t trembling; in fact, she walked gracefully, proudly, her
flowing platinum hair in stark contrast with her red gown.

The Klingon awaited her beneath the wedding canopy. Since he had already taken his ease with her, there was not much celebration.
His family, if they were here, didn’t attend. Only N’tan, Dadua, and the harem women were present.

It was over quickly, then the feast. We all ate little, drank a lot, then Uri’a picked up his bride to carry her to his home.
“Wait!” Dadua cried. “My right as king,
gibori
, is to kiss the bride!”

We laughed. Under normal circumstances this would be jolly. It seemed forced today. Yet I was grateful he had done this, because
the mushroom wanted nothing else in her entire life except to have a kiss from the king and dance in the rain. Would history
change? Had it? Uri’a set her down, and Dadua took her hands in his, looking into her face.

Was anyone else breathing fast? I couldn’t believe I was seeing this!

“Uri’a is a good man. Faithful to me. Be faithful to him.” ’Sheva gazed at him as though he hung the stars, the stars that
she liked, just for her. “May Shaday bless you with many children,” Dadua said. “May those children rise to do good things
for the tribes.” She tilted up her head, the better to be kissed. Instead Dadua kissed her one palm, then the other.