In All Places (Stripling Warrior) (20 page)

“Not usually,” he said. “Their trade comes in on the South Road
, but I have been to their market on occasion. Why?”

I shrugged the question away, but he had to know. I still had not heard from Zeke.
He was so obviously avoiding me and the family obligations he would have when he returned home. Kalem gave me an encouraging smile, but it faded when he saw my eyes turn to Muloki.

I
joined Muloki at the cart. He was making tally marks on a scroll, but he set it down and tossed me an apple with a grin.

“Thanks,” I said
as I caught it. “Listen.” I stepped closer. “Kenai watched you at the gate of Antiparah for days. Weeks. He was the one who asked me to go in. He may recognize you.”

“Kenai was your commander that day?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I cannot wait to meet the man who would do this
to his sister.”

Muloki felt the same way a
bout it as Gideon and Micah had—he didn’t like it.

I touched his scarred arm.
“I agreed. I obeyed his command and received miracles in return. I met you. You have come here and found a new family, new friends, the Gospel. You have fallen in love.”

He glanced at
Melia, busily gathering things to take to the village, though I could see he tried to stop himself from doing it by looking down.

“Do not think harshly of Kenai.
You will see that he loves me. I considered it a high honor that he esteemed me capable of that mission.” Then I added more softly, “You have not hurt me. I wish you all the happiness with your Melia that an old warrior can find.”

He flashed me his grin, the one that still melted my knees and
, if I was being honest with myself, probably always would.

I cleared my throat.
“Kenai might not remember you. If he doesn’t, I don’t think we should bring it up.” Everyone else knew about Antiparah, but somehow I didn’t think Kenai would see Muloki as everyone else did.

Muloki nodded
, and I turned to leave.

“Keturah,” he said, his accent
still heavy. “I will never do ill to the man who made it possible for me to find the Gospel.” His eyes went again to Melia.
And love.
He didn’t say that. He didn’t need to.

“See you in a
while,” I said. I waved to the others and left.

My three brothers
sat together in the courtyard while Mother and Cana bustled about.

I could see Dinah and her girls bustling about their own yard.
It saddened me a little that Cana’s first priority was to her husband’s family. This was a joyous day for her own family too, after all. No one would have begrudged her helping her own mother, but Cana was very proper in all things. That was one of the things I envied most about her.

But her eagerness to serve in this way and the ease and practice with which she did it took the pressure off of me to do it.
I felt both relief and shame for this.

When Kalem, Melia and Muloki came through the gate, I sensed Kenai
’s tension almost immediately, though I couldn’t say if it was from recognition or from something else entirely.

I couldn’t describe what was different in Kenai’s personality, but it was something.
Whatever Jarom had been alluding to—that thing, or things, they had both seen that I had not—it had changed them both. They wore their disillusionment as prominently as they wore their weapons. Their eyes had a bleakness in them I wasn’t sure the absence of fighting and the love of their families could easily wash away.

I thought of my sprained ankle
dangling in the headwaters of the Sidon River and how it had taken so long for the pain to ease. Surely God could heal their hearts in time.

But for now, Kenai wore an expression I was sure they both would have been wearing if Jarom had been beside him.
The Lamanites had been the enemy on the battlefield for more than five long years, and here the enemy stood before us in our own courtyard.

Kenai slowly stood and regarded Muloki.

Muloki regarded him back.

Mother, oblivious to the u
ndercurrents of entrenched suspicion, performed all the introductions.

Instead of reaching out to politely clasp arms,
Kenai stepped forward and threw a punch at Muloki’s face.

“Control yourself, soldier!” Kalem barked out before Kenai made contact.
And he surely would have because Muloki made no move to dodge or counter the punch.

Kenai instantly
pulled his arm back, but stood shaking with rage in the midst of us all.

I
had seen this before, and of course Kalem had too—men who could not stop fighting when the fighting was done. I had seen men who curled into small balls, whispered for their mothers, and refused to fight even before the fighting had begun. And I had seen various degrees of both of these extremes.

Every stripling was stalwart, brave, faithful,
and firm in his belief that God would deliver him. But just as none of them had escaped physical wounds, none of them had escaped the mental effects of battle.

Darius
still slept on his sword, and I felt uncomfortable without a companion in the woods. I was only at peace with a weapon in my hand, but had nightmares every night of slitting defenseless throats on the Cumeni crossroad.

Kenai threw punches at Lamanites.

It was the same thing.

“Come on, son,” Kalem said.
“Your mother has prepared a wonderful meal for you.” He tenderly took Kenai by the shoulders and led him to a stool at the far end of the yard where Kenai sat and put his head in his hands without looking at anybody.

Mother and Kalem were married on a misty day in between bursts of rain showers. Some of the village women thought this was a bad omen. They whispered it behind their hands, as they had once whispered about me, while we waited for the men of the wedding party to come for us.

But
the rain, the smell of it and the gray clouds, reminded me of the drizzly evening I had spent in the Judean guard tower with Gideon. On rainy days, I felt wistful longing, and I felt it heavily on that one as I watched my mother be wed.

When the
high priest addressed Mother by her full name and title, Leah of Middoni, Daughter of Helam, Wife of Rabbanah, she glanced guiltily at her four children who stood in various degrees of confusion around the canopy.

Glancing at my brothers, I could see that Micah knew, or had at least suspected.

Those gates he remembered Father leaving through had not been small garden gates like we had in the village, and I thought his memories were probably making more sense to him.

But I could see n
either Kenai nor Darius knew who Father was or what that made us.

After the ceremony
, Micah gave Cana a kiss before she went to serve the food to the guests, and the four of us drew aside together.

“Did I hear that right?” Kenai asked Micah as he visibly tried
to ignore the kiss. “Rabbanah? The powerful and great king?”

“You did,” I said.
“I heard Kalem talking about it once.”

“Eavesdropping?” Darius asked.

I shrugged.

“But why did she never tell us this?” asked Micah.
“Why didn’t you?”

I
t wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted to. I hadn’t known how to. I shrugged again. “How was I to bring it up? I didn’t even know if it was true. But I have thought on it, and I think it was a part of Mother’s life that no longer existed, a life she had forsaken completely. I think it pained her a great deal to speak of Father.”

“But, if this is to be believed, Micah is the heir to the throne of the Lamanites, and he lives in a hut in a
tiny village,” Kenai protested.

“Would it have changed anything?
” I countered. “Would we have acted differently if we had known?”

“Yes!” Kenai insisted.
“I’d have acted…better.”

“How long have you known?”
Micah asked.

“How long have you?
I could see on your face that it wasn’t a surprise.”

“
I didn’t know.” But then he grimaced. “I have many unexplained memories, that’s all. Memories I have never put words to.”

Micah had been six when Father died, Kenai
barely five. Kenai was frowning now in an effort to recall something of the past, but Darius was like me, with no way of remembering the Land of Middoni, royal courts, or Father.

“That explains my steel jaguar shield,” said Darius.

“And my full body armor,” Micah added with an unexpected note of humor.

I
looked to Mother and Kalem where they were receiving well-wishers. She caught my eye and grimaced in a kind of apology, but I gave her an encouraging smile and a little wave. I had long since made my peace with her silence on this matter. She had a reason, just as we all had reasons for the choices we made, and we would hear it later.

I turned back to my brothers.
“Kalem’s army went to battle specifically to remove the king from power. They did not like that Father had joined the Church of God.”

“You should have told us,” said Kenai, hands on his hips, staring at me.

I looked down. “I should have, and I’m sorry.”

“Let us
give Mother her joyous day without pressing her,” Micah decided for us. “Let her tell us about our heritage when she feels the time is right, in her own time and her own way.”

My brothers and I looked toward Mother, and we all agreed.

Over the next days, I took Kenai with me to the falls several times, thinking he might find a measure of peace there like I did, but he seemed to be more at ease working in the corn fields, and so after the morning meal at home, we would part company for the whole of the day.

On m
y first day alone again, instead of going to the falls, I went to the place of obsidian. It was abundant and I knelt among the broken shards and gathered what I needed quickly.

But I didn’t leave.

I stayed on my knees, and I silently told God what I had decided to do. I had prayed so many times about this, but where I had felt confusion before, a whorl of turmoil and indecision, there remained nothing but stillness in my heart.

The only thing left to do was act on it.

I found Micah in the hills with his sheep. He was sitting on a small outcropping of rock and writing, probably poetry, on a tablet of thick flax paper.

I climbed the outcropping and sat b
eside him.

I looked out over the land.
Lush and green, it was covered with trees and beautiful plants of all kinds. Perhaps some would see only a beautiful landscape. Perhaps Micah saw food for his sheep. I always saw medicines, the potential to heal and ease pain.

But
that day I saw only a long ago battle. I saw Zeke standing firm between Muloki and me—his dark blood streaming onto the ground, in excruciating pain, perilously faint, ready to fight to the death for me, prepared to die before he let anything hurt me. I relived it over and over.

I stared forward
, seeing only that moment in my mind. “I don’t want to marry Zeke,” I said hoarsely without looking at my brother.

He didn’t say anything, but I felt him watching me, watching the tears silently trail down my face.
They flooded from my eyes. I didn’t blink them back. I didn’t wipe them away. I owed Zeke my tears at least.

“But I will respect your wishes.
I will marry him if you desire it, and I will be a happy bride and spend the rest of my life striving to be a good wife to him.”

I got up to go, but I turned back after a few paces and looked
Micah in the eye for the first time, though my chin trembled.

“I never lied to you,” I said, and my voice broke.
“I love him—” I choked on a breath but made myself say the whole truth. “So dearly.”

I walked to the old training ground.
The beans and squash were almost ready to harvest again. I walked through the field and noticed that the old farmer kept it up well. No weeds threatened to choke out the plants. No debris clogged the furrows, and water would move freely through the field.

I
t
was
humble there.

I took the
nearly invisible path to the meadow, and when I got there I dropped my satchel and all my gear into the long grasses and waded into the pool at the base of the falls. I stepped under the cascade of water and let it drench me, let it wash away my tears.

Later I sat on the bank, letting the rays of the sun keep my wet skin warm.

Telling Zeke would be easy compared to telling Micah had been. If Zeke had been anyone else, I would have refused to marry him. I loved Gideon. But Zeke had meant too much to me, and I to him.

I don’t want to marry Zeke.

Had I actually said the words? They were bitter and hurtful and truer than any I had ever said.

The only thing that stopped me
from leaving immediately for Judea was Micah. I had told him I would marry Zeke if he asked it of me, and I had meant it. I would make good on my words. He was my elder brother, and I would yield to his wishes.

When at last I returned to the village, damp and vulnerable,
I saw Micah talking to Hemni. Making official arrangements or dissolving the expectation of them?

He spoke
to Mother and Kalem too. Because they were married, he could rightly allow Kalem to take responsibility for me and my well-being and my marriage, but I knew he wouldn’t. I could see he worried over my welfare a great deal, and I had been cruel and petty to accuse him of wishing his responsibilities away.

The only person he didn’t talk to was me.
In fact, I thought he was avoiding me. I didn’t see him for days afterward, and when I finally did see him, he didn’t mention Zeke or my marriage or my failings. Several weeks went by and no one mentioned Zeke.

On
a market day that dawned with clear skies, I went with Mother to the main square of Melek. I left Mother at Kalem’s tables and walked through the market with Melia.

Shopping in the market with Melia was a different experience
than shopping with Cana or even Mother. It bemused me to see her fawn over all the beautiful things. Melia had been born into the upper class and her mother and grandparents had spoiled her, always given her anything she wanted. Even now, though Kalem was not rich, he was not poor either, and he indulged many of her desires in the market.

Muloki, too, enjoyed purchasing gifts
, and Melia was the recipient of many of his whims.

When we stopped at
Pontus’s tables, he grinned broadly and directed Melia’s attention to his new stock of bracelets. He liked showing blades to me, but he loved selling jewelry to Melia. I had to smile. Neither one of them had any idea their tastes were extravagant.

“Did you get any more
of those arrowheads, the obsidian ones?” I asked him when Melia was busily admiring the jade and silver jewelry.

Pontus
shook his head. “But I do have some made from steel.”

Steel arrowheads?
“Let me see.”

He directed me to the opposite
end of the table, and stood with me for a moment until Melia called to him.

I waved him away and picked up one of the arrowheads to examine it.

It certainly was sharp. The straight edges angled toward a small point at the tip. I set it down and picked up another that had a serrated edge and then another that had a hooked barb on the side.

I glanced up when Kenai appeared at my side.

“That barb prevents the arrow from being easily pulled from its victim,” he said
after he had inspected it in my hand for a few moments.

I knew that.

“Clever,” he went on. “But not very original. That’s the very essence of war. You can’t get it out of you, and if you do, it leaves you damaged.”

“I know,” I said.
“I miss it, even though it was so terrible.”

“I don’t miss it,” he said.
“But I’ll never forget it.”

“I won’t either.”
Although, for me, unlike for Kenai, it had been the most magnificent time of my life, and I sometimes felt there was nothing left for me to look forward to.

But m
y mind often went to the moonflowers I had found floating in the river. I had only seen them that once.

I
reminded myself how Gideon had not intervened when my unit teased and persecuted me. He had stood back and let me fight my own battles. To make me strong. To make me sure of myself. And I thought with tentative hope that maybe there could be something left for me. Maybe I could win this battle in my heart.

Kenai and I
both noticed when Muloki came up beside Melia and rested a hand at her waist. She looked up at him with sparkling eyes. She had been so disillusioned when we had met, and it was good to see her happy now. I was glad that she had found her father at long last, and from the looks of her and Muloki lately, she had found her husband as well.

“Does
n’t that make you mad?” Kenai asked quietly, his eyes already back on the weapons before us.

“No,” I said, surprised that h
is thoughts had gone in a completely different direction than mine had.

“He came here to find you because he thought he was in love with you
, and now he’s in love with her.”

I shook my head.
“He came here because he felt the Spirit when he met me, and it compelled him to find the gospel and a new life here.”

K
enai grunted.

“You don’t like him.”

He snorted. “Am I so transparent?”

“I like him a great deal.
So does everyone else.”

“Yeah, well no one else, including you, watched him for weeks in Antiparah.
Ket, why do you think I sent you in on a day he was at the gate? He liked the pretty girls, and I knew he’d overlook your foreign dress and speech because of it.”

“You know that what a soldier does in
war does not indicate how he would act in real life.”

“No, but it marks his character.”

I thought of how Muloki had lost his five brothers in the war, and of what effect that might have on a man. When we were subjected to great trials, we either humbled ourselves or became hard-hearted. Muloki had been humbled enough to feel the Spirit I carried with me as I walked past him. Of Muloki and Kenai, it surprised me which one had hardened his heart.