Sunrise on the Mediterranean (19 page)

“Where is she?” Takala’s voice boomed from outside. We sprang apart, throwing on clothes. I had just gotten a comb through
my hair when Tamera announced Takala was here.

“There you are!” she said, wheezing up to me in the corridor. “What kind of goddess are you? We need you on the battlefield
immediately!”

I looked at her face. Her makeup had been applied with a heavy hand, but her eyes were rheumy, shadowed. As bossy as she could
be, she was also a loving mother and good queen. For a moment I felt guilty, since my plan was to bug out ASAP. She stared
at me, her eyes piercing through me. She shifted her gaze for a moment to Cheftu, and I knew she realized what he was to me.
With a gesture she dismissed everyone.

“Who are they against?” I finally asked. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to leave. I had my husband, I had my own body, surely
there was somewhere we could go and live happily ever after? Wasn’t the third time the charm?

Takala sighed deeply, the chains and fetishes around her neck shimmering and jingling with the movement. “The highlanders.
They are planning to take the city of Jebus.”

“Jebus?” The name was vaguely familiar; where had I heard it? “What do the Jebusi have to do with you. Us?”

“Abdiheba, the king of this city on a hill, married my daughter. He killed her immediately afterward—”

I looked at her in shock. “She cuckolded him with a sheep. It was deserved,” Takala explained.

Maybe I should rethink my concept of “loving mother”? I nodded numbly.

“However, we have a suzerain covenant with them. Should anyone attack, we are sworn to defend.”

“Have the, uh, highlanders attacked?”

“Not yet. They circle the city, keeping to the hills like a pack of wild dogs looking for the weak lamb.”

“Where is the Refa’im valley?” I asked. I’d been following her, and suddenly I found myself halfway to the palace.

“East of the city. We will ride to Lakshish tonight, await news, then join the battle tomorrow.”

“Wait,” I said. This was not part of my plan. “I cannot leave as yet.”

Takala turned on me. “The
serenim
of Ashqelon have housed you, fed you, given you gold, jewelry, and position. You have lived better than I! Your intercession
with Dagon changed the sea back into clear water. However, we have asked nothing else of you than this. Come to battle. Be
our totem.”

I looked around me. Soldiers on every side. Walled city. Guards. Slaves. Calculated escape routes? None.

She swallowed, humbling herself more than I’d ever seen. “You are a goddess, I cannot force you. But I ask you, you know my
sons. You’ve dined with us, you’ve served with us. They are good boys, they love this land, they honor the gods. If you do
not come, the Pelesti will be no more.”

Pelesti, a word I’d rarely heard. Philistines, vanquished by the Jews; that much I recalled. I had no business being here,
I wasn’t part of Bible history.

Yes, I’d seen the Exodus, but I hadn’t been a part of it. Moses and I hadn’t had a tête-á-tête. I needed to get out of here
before I screwed something up. After all, these Philistines were against the Jews. They didn’t survive, only the name Palestine
did.

I knew from my father’s work that renaming this stretch of land “Palestine” was a Roman attempt to remove the Jews from the
history books, from the maps, from, ultimately, the world. It was the only word that remained of the Philistines. But the
people who had donated the name didn’t last.

I really didn’t want to see that, or know any of this. What a horrible thing to be thus doomed. However, in the here and now,
her pain was as real as Cheftu’s whip marks. Would it hurt to just go stand there for a while? I wouldn’t be on the field,
and I wouldn’t have to do anything. It might help the morale of the people.

Not to mention that it would get me away from all these guards and walls. It would be easier to escape. I licked my lips.
“I will need my slave,” I said.

“It is done. He will join us at the battlefield.”

I smiled inwardly. This woman would have made a helluva colonel. I tried to think of anything else I could get, without causing
too much fuss. “Also, my jewelry, my clothes.”

She watched me with black eyes. “It is done.”

“Provisions.”

“Done.”

What else could I ask for? The clothes would keep us warm, the jewels would buy our way, provisions would keep us fed—what
more was there? “Then let us go,” I said resignedly.

The chariots she summoned, the speed with which they were ready, let me know that she’d planned on my going whether I’d agreed
or not. I mentally bumped her rank to general.

Unlike the carts I had seen around Ashqelon, these chariots were light, fleet. They had spokes in their wheels instead of
solid wood rounds. Fortunately Takala had her own, since I wasn’t sure the horses would bear our combined weight. No sooner
had I stepped into the back of the vehicle than we were off.

I held on for dear life, watching the world fly by. We were on the coastal plain, which was covered in flowers: pink, yellow,
and white. Stalks with red-and-purple blossoms grew on both sides of this glorified goat path, but we were moving fast, so
I couldn’t see them closely. The wind blew my hair, and I understood immediately why we all wore headbands: so we could see.

After a few miles the tension in my body lessened. I’d gotten used to the swaying, jouncing motion and was no longer so afraid
of falling out the back. The chariot had a great suspension system. My grip loosened as I began to relax, make plans. Giddiness
bubbled inside me; Cheftu had arrived!

Just hours ago we had held each other. And we would again tonight. And every night from now on. But where could we go? How
could we get there? Thank you for bringing him to me, I said to God. You’ve been great, thanks.

By late afternoon Lakshish came into view. It was a city nestled beneath a higher slope, the surrounding hills terraced and
planted with slumbering grapevines. The walls surrounding it were formidable. To the east I saw the tents of the encamped
soldiers. Watchtowers stretched to the north, three visible to the naked eye.

We slowed down. Our horses were tired from the trip. My bones seemed to ache, and I could still feel the rhythm of the journey
in my skin. We waited for Takala. At the moment I looked away, she swooped out of nowhere. Unlike me, she was doing the driving.
Her horses were lathered. She flew past us, heading down the hill to the army camp. The soldier driving me did not wait for
instruction, but followed her.

We arrived at the camp at dusk.

There is something instantly recognizable about being on military alert, whether as a whatever-century Philistine or a twentieth-century
American: that jazzed, edgy feeling is the same. The Pelesti soldiers looked like professionals. Everywhere I looked there
were men in pointed and piped kilts, with bare faces and feathered helmets. Quite a few wore an upper-body armor that resembled
leather and metal ribs. They carried long spears tipped with dark blades in addition to swords and round shields.

As I watched them sparring, I rephrased my statement: They
were
professionals. Our horses were unbridled and led away, the chariots taken into line with the others. I watched with amazement
as our light vehicle became an armored one, simply by soldiers fitting it with bronze greave-style scales.

Yamir-dagon was easy to find. His feathered headdress was red and blue, his cloak red. Amid the brown, green, and gold kilts,
he stuck out like a poppy in a cornfield. Takala pushed forward. I was astounded to see that she had donned both feathered
headdress and a battle dress like the soldiers. As we passed through the camp the men bowed to her. Yamir embraced his mother,
inclined his head to me, then gestured for us to follow him into his tent.

I’d never seen action as an officer in the air force, but I’d been in plenty of meetings. This was obviously a council of
war. I recognized the
serenim
and a few of the soldiers. Wadia, in a headdress and cloak just like his brother’s, winked at me. I sat down beside Takala.

The general in charge outlined the plan.

The highlanders were stalking around the city of Jebus. Therefore the Pelesti would sneak up behind them, trap them against
the wooded foothills below the city, and slaughter them there. It was well-known that Dadua was too clever to send all his
men to any one location, so the battle would not be definitive. However, the lesson would be taught and face would be regained
after the burning of the
teraphim.

“Why do we not just steal their
teraphim?”
I asked. Any talk of going against Dadua sounded like suicide. After all, I’d heard the Bible stories. The knowledge made
me feel sick. I wanted to get out of here, desperately.

The council was appalled. Wadia told me that he would share that story later but that even their totem was deceitful. Never
again would the Pelesti trust the honor of the highlanders, not after the way they had humiliated the champion Gol’i’at with
magic. Not after the destruction their
teraphim
had wrought.

My head was spinning. I’d always thought the Israelites, the highlanders, were the underdog. Wasn’t that how the Bible portrayed
it?

Yet to hear the Pelesti point of view, the highlanders were unprincipled ruffians. There was no standing army, just a group
of Apiru wanderers who had been hired by Dadua, who fought with scythes and rakes if necessary. They ignored the accepted
etiquette, they showed no mercy, and worst of all, they did not respect other gods.

The things the First Methodist Church of Reglim, Texas, had never told me… .

Since the totems of Dagon and Ba’al had been stolen and destroyed, I was, as the local goddess, attending the battle in the
totem’s place. My job would be to stand on the hill and watch the engagement, asking for the intervention of Dagon—since they
had chosen to fight near a stream for his powers—and Ba’al, the thrower of thunderbolts, should it be necessary. As a safeguard
against the wily highlanders, the Pelesti would not go past a certain point in the valley because the chariots and horses
could not maneuver in the hills with rocky ground and trees.

Takala and I lodged in the same tent, which wasn’t much more than a goatskin awning over a few branches. It didn’t matter;
between reuniting the night away with Cheftu and riding for hours in the chariot, I could have slept in the back-seat of a
race car during the Indy 500. However, I was nervous that Cheftu wouldn’t show up. She placated me as I collapsed into sleep.

I woke in the deepest blackness of night, the hair on my arms standing on end. I heard nothing else in the tent, not even
Takala’s breathing.

Then the words floated in, confusing me momentarily.

I rose up, slipping out from under my blanket, going to the edge of camp, then beyond. Slightly above us, about forty feet
away, the highlanders reveled. From my perspective the plateau served as a proscenium stage with natural acoustics.

The music began, a wild thumping that set my blood racing. A huge bonfire burned behind them, the black figures dancing around
it lit by orange and red and gold flame. It looked like All Hallows’ Eve.

“We ask for so little,” Takala said from behind me, her voice soft for once. “Our land for our own. Dagon gave us
ha Hamishah
, why doesn’t he help us protect it?”

When she said “Hamishah” the slide show zoomed back to show me the five cities the Pelesti considered their own: Gaza, Ashdod,
Ashqelon, Ekron, and Qisilee.

I said nothing, just looked up between the trees. Now standing before the bonfire, in silhouette, was a solitary figure, his
hands raised over his head. His voice carried as though he had a Bose stereo system, the curve of the cliff acting as an amphitheater.

“We meet our old allies”—the group of highlanders chuckled—“and our present enemies in battle tomorrow.” The sole figure paced
the edge of the fire, his head bowed, every action casting shadows across the trees and plateau. Shadows of a giant man in
prayer or deep thought. As he turned, the man within the shadow, a glitter of gold glinted on his brow.

His soldiers were motionless humps of black in the gold-tinted light. “What do we say on this eve of battle?” he asked in
the same language the Pelesti spoke. “What questions stream through our blood? What hidden grief will keep us from sleep tonight?”

This scene was designed to send fear pulsing through the veins of the Pelesti. Even though I knew it, it worked. The men’s
voices rose in one titanic response, as if the very valley were crying its answers. As though the heavens were on his side,
we heard all around us, “May Shaday answer you in your distress! May
el sh’Yacov
protect you! May he send you help from the outposts and grant you support from Qiryat Yerim! May he remember the blood you
have offered in sacrifice and accept your burnt offerings!”

El
was “god”; this I knew, from my mother the archaeologist and because I understood the language. Yacov was Jacob … as in Jacob
and Esau. I didn’t recall the details of the story, but I knew Jacob was a big deal. The “sh” sound was the scariest. It meant
that Shaday was the god of Jacob. This same god of Jacob was into blood sacrifices and burnt offerings.

The one who demanded
hal
from
herim.

“Is that Dadua?” I asked Takala.
“Ken.
That One is Dadua.
Ach
, for the days That One was ours. How many seasons did he protect and feed us? How many seasons did we treat him as son, only
to have him turn on us like a mongoose?”

The highlanders continued with rote responses, seemingly offering assurances to the man now limned by fire. “May he give you
the desire of your heart and make your strategies fruitful. We shout for joy at victory and lift our standards to honor Shady.
May
El
grant your requests!”

Then a lone voice, a different voice, shouted through the valley for all to hear. “The Immutable One saves his anointed; He
answers he who was selected, from the high heavens, with the strength of his right hand.”