Wings of Refuge (22 page)

“A slate?”

“Yes, like a slate, to practice their letters.”

“Do you think it could be the same Leah?” she asked Hannah after she’d arrived to examine it.

“Well, the name was common enough, but the ability to write it certainly wasn’t.”

“But why would she leave her personal things in two very different houses?”

“That’s a good question,” Hannah said. “Any ideas, Ari?”

He looked thoughtful as he combed his fingers through his woolly beard. “Well . . . if it is the same Leah, the only reason I can imagine is if the first house was her home but she worked here as a servant. Children were sometimes sold as servants if their fathers were unable to pay their debts.”

“Sold!” Abby said. “That’s terrible!”

“It was a fact of life back then,” Ari said with a shrug. “We know from history that there was a famine here in the first century, around
A.D
. 46 or 47.”

“Yes, good point,” Hannah said. “Abby, you may recall the apostle Paul mentioning it in some of his letters. He collected funds among the Gentile Christians to help the Jewish brethren in Israel.”

“The Jews were an enslaved people,” Ari said. “Besides paying Roman taxes, every man also paid a yearly temple tax
and
a tithe of ten percent of all his crops to the priests. That left most farmers very poor.”

“And a famine like the one in
A.D
. 47 would have ruined them,” Hannah finished.

“How awful!” Abby said, shuddering. “To have to sell your own children!”

She thought about Leah that night as she lay in bed, wondering how she had coped after her life was thrown into turmoil. As turbulent as Abby’s own life was at the moment, at least she wasn’t facing overwhelming debt and servitude. Had Leah ever known happiness, or only poverty and disappointment?

THE VILLAGE OF DEGANIA—
A.D
. 48

Y
ou have no idea why Abba wants to see me?” Gideon asked as he and Leah hurried home through Degania’s parched, dusty streets.

“No,” she replied. “I already told you. Reb Nahum and Rabbi Eliezer came to the house with Reuben ben Johanan, that pig of a tax collector. Abba sent me inside while they talked, then Mama came inside and told me to run up to the fields and get you.”

“Poor Abba,” Gideon said, groaning. “If only it would rain. Nothing is growing in the fields. Saul’s sheep can’t find pasture . . . our grapes have all shriveled up. Reuben ben Johanan can’t expect to collect taxes in the middle of a famine, can he?”

“I told you I don’t know what he wants.”

When they arrived home, Reuben and the other two men stood in the tiny courtyard with Abba, waiting. The tax collector wore a pale blue linen robe with a richly embroidered border of scarlet and gold threads. Leah knew she wasn’t supposed to stare but she couldn’t stop herself. It was the most beautiful garment she had ever seen. The coat that Jacob gave his favored son Joseph couldn’t possibly have been more spectacular.

“This is my son Gideon . . . my daughter, Leah,” Abba said.

His voice was so soft Leah wondered how Reb Reuben could even hear him. She felt the tax collector’s gaze sweep over both of them. Then he gave Abba a curt nod and left with the other two men. The fragrant scent of perfumed oil trailed in his wake.

“Abba, what’s going on?” Gideon asked. Their father didn’t answer. Instead, he turned abruptly and ducked into the house. Gideon and Leah followed. “Why were they here, Abba? What did they want? And why did you send for me?” Fear made Gideon’s voice shrill.

Abba paced in the cramped room, pulling at his beard as if he intended to pluck his face clean. “I can’t . . . I . . . I need Saul. He can do a . . . a man’s share of the work. Together we can grow enough to . . . and Matthew is too young . . . he . . .” Abba’s voice sounded breathless, as if he had been the one to run all the way up to the pasture and back, not Leah.

“If this drought ever ends . . . if we can just grow enough next year, I’ll buy you back, Gideon, I’ll redeem you—”

“You
sold
me?” Gideon cried. He shook his head in disbelief, as if trying to awaken from a dream. “Who . . . who did you sell me to?”

The lump on Abba’s throat moved up and down as he swallowed. “Reuben ben Johanan. He agreed to take you . . . and Leah . . .”

“Me?”
Leah cried. “You sold
me
, too?” She leaned against the stone wall, feeling dizzy. Her heart beat wildly, like the wings of a snared bird—for that was what she was. The district tax collector would be her master. If she burned the bread or spilled the soup, he wouldn’t be patient and indulgent with her as Mama was. Leah would be beaten for her mistakes. What little freedom she had known was gone. Her life was over at age fourteen.

“You can’t let him take us!” Gideon shouted. “It’s bad enough that you sold me to that . . . that
sinner
, but not Leah! He probably uses his women as concubines!”

“That’s enough!” Abba cried, halting his blind pacing.

Leah’s terror rose up inside her like a flock of frightened sparrows at Gideon’s words. She had dreaded the thought of marrying a village boy and sharing his bed, but to become the concubine of a man as hated and feared as Reuben ben Johanan was unimaginable!

“I had no choice,” Abba said, his face stern. “I owed taxes to Rome. It was either this or . . . or my land . . . and how would we live if I sold my land?”

“How could you do this to us?” Gideon moaned. “Please, Abba . . . there must be some other way.”

All of a sudden Abba’s face seemed to crumble as the stern expression he always wore fell like a mask. He covered his face. “I’m sorry . . . I had no choice . . . Oh, God, forgive me!”

Abba had always held his children at a distance with his gruffness, but Leah suddenly saw what she had always suspected—that his outward manner really hid a deep, unfaltering love for his children. She wondered if God was the same—if the Pharisees’ rigid code of laws and rules hid a loving Father from view? She went to Abba and tenderly rested her hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t mind, Abba,” she said softly. “I’m not afraid to work for him. The famine isn’t your fault.” For the first time Leah could ever remember, her father took her in his arms and held her tightly. But when she looked up, Gideon was gone.

Leah and Gideon left home at dawn the next day and slowly walked across town to the tax collector’s villa. Leah carried her meager possessions bundled inside her shawl, but Gideon had taken nothing except the clothes on his back. Leah knew that word of their servitude had already spread throughout the village when their fellow townspeople quickly turned aside as they approached. No one would meet her eye. She now belonged to the most hated man in town.

“At least we’ll eat,” Leah said, trying to be courageous. “Even if the drought continues we won’t starve to death. He has to feed us.”

“You don’t know that.” Gideon kicked a stone in his path and sent it flying. “Reuben’s servants never mix with the other villagers. We don’t know what goes on in his house.”

Leah had stayed awake all night, unable to sleep at the thought of what she faced. By dawn she was certain she had run out of tears, but they still rolled down her cheeks in spite of her efforts to stop them. “Do you think we’ll ever go free again?” she asked, wiping her eyes. Gideon shrugged.

“The rabbi told me that according to the Torah, even if Abba can’t redeem us, a manservant has to be set free after seven years.”

“A man-servant . . . but what about a woman-servant?”

Leah could see from Gideon’s face how upset he was, how reluctant he was to answer her. “He said that Reuben has a right to . . . to
take
you. But afterward, if he isn’t pleased, he must let you be redeemed.”

Leah drew a shuddering breath as she tried to compose herself. “Maybe Abba will redeem both of us before then. And who knows, I’m not much to look at, maybe Reb Reuben won’t . . .” Fear choked off her words before she could finish them.

Gideon stopped walking. “See this?” He showed Leah a small knife in a leather pouch that he had hidden in the folds of his tunic. “I’ll protect you, Leah. If that pig tries to come near you, I’ll—”

“Don’t, Gideon,” she said, laying her hand on his arm. “It’s wrong to kill. Besides, Abba would have married me off to someone in a year or two, anyway—probably someone as poor as we are. This way, at least I’ll always be well-provided for.”

Gideon exhaled as he hid the knife again. “The rabbi also said that when it comes time to set us free, Reuben can’t send us away empty-handed.”

“Do you really think Reuben ben Johanan will obey the Torah?” Leah asked. “Everyone knows what a notorious sinner he is. I’ve heard that he even eats with Gentiles.”

“We could run away,” Gideon said.

But Leah had considered that option during the night and decided it would be hopeless to run. “Where? Where could we go? He would probably send Roman soldiers after us. Either that or he would just take Matthew and Saul instead of us.” She nudged Gideon to start him walking again.

A few minutes later the villa’s red-tiled roof appeared in the distance above the trees. Leah’s stomach lurched. It was a huge, rambling structure, nearly the size of the village synagogue, but very plain on the outside. They knew better than to go to the pillared main entrance, or the customs house door, which opened from the side of the villa onto one of De-gania’s commercial streets. Instead, they walked all the way around to the servants’ entrance in back. A gate led into a walled-in courtyard with a huge outdoor oven and the villa’s stables and sheds. The pungent aroma of livestock greeted them. An older woman who was shaking out a crumb-filled cloth for the chickens saw them enter the gate and beckoned to them.

“Ehud, they’re here,” she called into one of the sheds.

Leah dried all her tears and took a deep breath for courage. The woman smiled, though it must have been obvious to her that Leah had been crying. She appeared to be Mama’s age or maybe a few years older, with gray-threaded brown hair that was neatly coiled into a knot on top of her head. Her full, round face was red-cheeked and pleasant, her body short and square.

“You must be Leah and Gideon,” she said. “Welcome. Master Reuben told us you would be coming today. My name is Miriam, and this is my husband, Ehud.” A brawny, barrel-chested man emerged from the shed and nodded to them in greeting. His sun-weathered face was rugged and forbidding.

“The first thing I should do,” Miriam said, “is show you to your quarters—even though you won’t be staying in them just yet, Gideon. You’re needed right away to help tend the master’s flocks. Ehud will take you there this morning. Have you eaten?”

Leah was about to answer that they had, meager though it had been, but Gideon spoke up first. “No, ma’am. There isn’t much to eat at our house these days.”

“Mmm,” she purred. “Come inside, then, and eat something before you leave. It’s a very long walk. Ehud says the shepherds must range farther and farther into the hills to find pasture because of the drought.”

Leah worried that Gideon would go to Sheol for lying, but as Miriam led them into a small side room and began laying out bread, dried fruit, and even a precious lump of cheese for them to eat, Leah was very grateful that he had. She and Gideon dove into the food as if they hadn’t eaten in a year. When they finished, Leah’s stomach felt full for the first time since Passover.

“You were hungry, poor things,” Miriam murmured. Leah felt her face flush. “I’ve cleared a place for you to sleep in here with the other serving girls, Leah. Gideon, you may put your things—”

“I don’t have any things.”

“I see. Well, you’ll need to take a spare bedroll up into the hills, then. It gets cold at night.”

As Miriam bustled around, putting together a warm cloak and other supplies for Gideon, Leah stole a peek at her new surroundings. The work areas were spacious and clean, and the two other servant girls, who were kneading dough and filling a tray with food, smiled pleasantly at her. When the girl with the tray slipped through the door with it, Leah caught a glimpse of a tiled courtyard in the center of the villa surrounded by rows of pillars before the door swung closed again.

“Is the boy ready?” Ehud stood in the outside doorway with a staff in his hand.

“Yes,” Miriam answered. “Here, I packed you both some provisions for the journey.”

Tears brimmed in Leah’s eyes. Her brother couldn’t be leaving her so soon. She wanted to beg Ehud and Miriam to let Gideon stay here with her, but she didn’t dare. Their lives were no longer their own. “Shalom, Gideon,” she whispered.

“Shalom.” His voice was gruff with emotion. Leah wanted to run to him, cling to him one last time, but she couldn’t move. A moment later, he was gone. For the first time in her life, Leah felt horribly alone.

Miriam and the other servants continued with their work while Leah stood in the middle of the room, struggling to come to grips with her sorrow. Her family and her home had been lost to her overnight . . . but she had never imagined that Gideon would be ripped away from her so suddenly, too.

“Leah, dear, would you please hand me that platter?” Miriam asked. She pointed to a low shelf where a pile of beautifully decorated bowls and plates were stacked.

Leah reached for the serving platter, her vision blurred by tears, and misjudged its weight. It was so light it flew right out of her hand and smashed into pieces on the cobblestone floor.

“Oh no! I’m sorry!” Leah sank to her knees, scooping up the broken pieces, desperately trying to fit the largest ones together with shaking hands. She cowered in fear of what her punishment would be. Miriam knelt beside her and gently caught Leah’s wrists, stopping her.

“It’s all right, honey. It’s just an old plate. Master has plenty more.” Leah began to sob.

“My goodness, you’re shaking all over,” Miriam said. “What are you so afraid of, Leah? You don’t need to fear our master or anyone else in this house. If you do what you’re told and don’t steal from him or try to run away, no one is ever going to mistreat you. This was an accident. You have nothing to be afraid of, hmm?”