Lilah Page 2

  He caressed her gently, as if reinventing her body with his fingers, imprinting every curve, every inch of skin, on his palm.

  ‘When I fought, you were with me. Arrows and swords could not touch me. The mere thought of your beauty protected me.’

  Lilah gave a throaty laugh, leaned forward and embraced him, ready to kiss him again. She pressed her hard nipples against Antinoes’ chest as if she wanted to be absorbed by him.

  ‘I was never afraid when I fought,’ he murmured, ‘but every day, I was afraid you would forget me. Every day I dreamed you might forget Antinoes. The men of Susa, I told myself, would be mad not to see your beauty.’

  ‘So, we both felt the same terror.’ She bit the back of his neck, and he shivered.

  ‘Don’t laugh!’ he cried. ‘Now we’re together for ever.’

  For a brief moment Lilah froze at his words. But Antinoes’ kisses wiped out the cold. Her belly was soon on fire again, as Antinoes’ member swelled against her thigh. She gripped his shoulders and pushed him down onto the cushions, her love’s warrior and her lover’s enchantress.

  The moon was rising above the Zagros mountains when she whispered that it was time for her to return home.

  ‘Stay the night!’ Antinoes protested.

  She smiled, and shook her head. ‘No, not tonight. We’re not yet man and wife, and I don’t want my aunt Sarah to find my bedchamber empty in the morning.’

  ‘Oh, come on! Your aunt Sarah knows perfectly well that you’re here, and she’s delighted.’

  Lilah gave a little laugh and stroked her lover’s eyelids, tracing his eyebrows with the tip of her index finger. ‘Then I’m the one who wants to get back to my bedchamber by dawn, thinking about you, smelling your scent on my skin.’

  ‘You’ll smell it all the better if you remain here. Lilah, why must you go? We’ve only just been reunited.’

  ‘Because I’m your lover,’ Lilah whispered, kissing his brow. ‘Your lover, but not your wife.’

  She started to move away, but Antinoes sat up and gripped her wrist. ‘When? When will you be my wife?’

  She found it hard to meet his eyes. The darkness and the warm, flickering light of the torch made the shadows on his face seem harsher. She thought of how his face must look in battle.

  ‘I’ll go to see your uncle first thing tomorrow,’ Antinoes insisted. ‘We’ll name the day. As far as I’m concerned, everything is ready. I’ve made offerings to Ahura Mazda and left a tablet with your name on it for the royal eunuchs. That’s the law for high-ranking officers. As you know, the King and Queen may oppose a marriage … between a Persian officer and someone who is not of our race.’ He broke off with a grimace and shook his head. ‘Lilah, what is it? Don’t you want to be my wife?’

  ‘I want nothing else,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Then why delay?’

  Lilah gathered her hair to cover her breasts, and searched for her tunic among the cushions. Antinoes waited for a reply, but when none came he stood up abruptly and walked to the parapet, barely illumined by the light of the torch. ‘I came back to be your husband,’ he said quietly. ‘I shan’t leave Susa again until that house down there is your home.’ He pointed up at the diadem of the Citadel, shining unperturbed in the night. ‘There, in a few days, I shall wear a helmet with red and white plumes and a leather breastplate with the insignia of the heroes of Artaxerxes. But without you, without your love, even a Greek child could vanquish me.’

  He spoke without looking at her. Lilah put on her tunic. As she was about to hook the sides together, Antinoes came to her and seized her arms. ‘It’s Ezra, isn’t it? It’s Ezra who’s holding you back.’

  ‘I have to talk to him.’

  ‘Hasn’t he changed? Does he still hate me?’

  Lilah did not reply. She freed herself from his grip and fastened her tunic.

  ‘Does he know I’ve come back?’ Antinoes asked.

  ‘No. I’m going tomorrow.’

  ‘To the lower town?’

  Lilah nodded.

  Antinoes grunted, and moved away from her. ‘What a fool!’

  ‘No, Antinoes, he’s no fool. He does what he thinks is right. He studies and learns, and that’s important.’

  An ironic look on his face, Antinoes was about to reply, but Lilah raised her hand. ‘Don’t mock, that would be unfair. Soon after you left, an old man came to see him in the lower town. His name is Baruch ben Neriah. He used to live in Babylon. That’s where he found out that our family possesses the scroll of the laws given by Yahweh to Moses. He’s a gentle old man, and very learned. All his life he’s studied from copied and incomplete papyri. He invited Ezra to join him in his studies. Since then, both of them have been immersed in the texts. Ezra is becoming a sage, Antinoes, a sage of our people, like those who led the children of Israel before the exile.’

  ‘That’s fine. Let him study! Let him become a sage! What do I care, provided he leaves you free to marry me?’

  ‘Antinoes! You used to love Ezra as much as I did.’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Not too long ago to remember. You know as well as I do that Ezra is not cut out for everyday life. One day he will be a great man—’

  ‘No. To be a great man, he’d have to stop being jealous. Jealousy lessens him, just as hatred weakens a warrior before a battle.’

  Lilah fell silent, and tried to smile. She went up to him, stroked his naked torso, put her head on his shoulder, and held him tenderly. ‘My one desire, my one joy, is to be the wife of Antinoes. Be patient a little longer.’

  Antinoes buried his face in Lilah’s hair. ‘No! I’ve been patient long enough. I want you with me for the rest of our lives. I came back so that we could be together. And we will be. If Ezra can’t accept that, we’ll become man and wife in spite of him. All we need is your uncle Mordechai’s approval.’

  Lilah took away her arms. ‘Antinoes …’

  But Antinoes was not listening. He clasped her again to his naked body, indifferent to the growing coolness of the night. ‘And if we can’t be man and wife,’ he went on, ‘we’ll be lovers for ever. If we have to leave Susa, we’ll leave Susa, and I’ll relinquish my chariot captain’s breastplate and baldric. We’ll go to Lydia, to Sardis. The sea is wonderful there, and I’ll become a Greek hero …’

  Lilah took his face in her hands and kissed his mouth to silence him. Passion inflamed them once more. ‘I shall have no other husband but you, my beloved,’ she said. ‘Give me time to convince Ezra. I don’t want our joy to be his sorrow.’

  Bad News

  THE YOUNG SLAVE pulled on the reins, the mules champed at their bits, snorting, and the chariot halted in the shade of a medlar tree.

  Lilah stepped down, and signalled to Axatria to help her.

  The handmaid took the huge basket from between the benches, and arranged the leather straps so that her mistress could hoist it onto her shoulder. ‘It’s too heavy.’ She frowned. ‘It’s not for you to carry such a load.’

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ Lilah replied, resting the basket on her back. ‘No need to worry.’

  ‘Of course I worry! I’m ashamed, too. Your tunic will be rags by the time you get to Ezra’s house. God in heaven, what do you look like?’

  Axatria tried to smooth the fabric, creased already by the straps, and adjusted the half-moon brooch that held Lilah’s transparent shawl on her hair.

  ‘Your hair will be out of place by the time you get to your brother’s house – and he loves to see you looking beautiful. And what would your aunt say if she could see you laden like a mule while your handmaid sits comfortably in the chariot?’

  Lilah smiled. ‘Ezra will be happy to see his sister even if she’s a bit rumpled, and I won’t tell Aunt Sarah, I promise.’

  Axatria seemed neither amused nor appeased by this answer.

  Giving a little shake to make sure that the straps rested against her hands, Lilah walked away from the chariot, along the street that cut
through the last gardens in the upper town. She had not gone far when she tripped on the raised edge of a paving stone and stumbled. She had hardly had time to regain her balance than Axatria was gripping the basket. ‘You see? It’s too heavy. It’ll be easier if the two of us carry it.’

  ‘Let go.’

  But Axatria would not yield, and tried to take the straps from her hands. Lilah was angry now and pushed her so forcefully that Axatria stumbled and almost knocked both of them over.

  ‘Axatria! Leave me be!’

  ‘Why should I let you do something so stupid?’

  Axatria’s naturally dark complexion had turned almost purple. She was not pretty, with a squat figure, heavy breasts and wide hips, even though she had never given birth. She had the flat face typical of the women of the Zagros mountains: a short nose, high cheekbones and thick, curly hair. But her dancing eyes, full lips, as frank as they were sensual, and her eager, mocking expression were not without charm. Now, though, her eyes blazed with anger and her mouth was like that of a mother with an unruly child.

  ‘Axatria,’ Lilah said, trying to sound calm, ‘we’ve agreed I’m to go alone. There’s no point in arguing.’

  ‘You agreed it with yourself,’ Axatria replied sharply. ‘It’s just a whim.’

  ‘It isn’t a whim, and you know it.’

  They were silent, glaring at each other. Lilah was the first to look away. The young slave had been following their quarrel as he stroked the cheek of one of the mules.

  ‘Am I in your way?’ Axatria asked, plaintively. ‘Why stop me seeing him, Lilah? You know perfectly well … perfectly well …’ Rage and distress prevented Axatria from finishing her sentence. But there was no need. She was right. Lilah ‘knew perfectly well’.

  Lilah was embarrassed by the tears that glistened in her handmaid’s eyes. ‘It’s stupid, quarrelling like this,’ she said, more harshly than she had intended. ‘Wait for me here. I shan’t be long.’

  Axatria straightened, eyes flashing. ‘Very well, Mistress. Since you’ve made up your mind, and I’m nothing but a servant to you!’ She turned away stiffly, lifted her tunic and climbed into the chariot. Wisely, the young slave lowered his eyes.

  Lilah hesitated. What was the point of protesting? There was only one thing she could say to mollify Axatria, and she refused to say it.

  She walked away with a heavy heart. It was a bad start to an already delicate mission. Behind her, she heard Axatria lecturing the slave: ‘Instead of eavesdropping, boy, turn this chariot in the right direction.’

  Lilah had only to walk some sixty cubits before the paved road became an uneven dirt path that led to the labyrinth of the lower town. Prickly pear and acacia bushes, a few empty fields and ponds overrun by frogs were all that separated wealth from poverty.

  Lilah’s eyes were on the ground, her shoulder hurting from the pressure of the straps, as Axatria’s words echoed in her mind. She had never seen her like that before.

  Strong, intelligent and conscientious, Axatria had entered Lilah’s service on the day she and Ezra had gone to Uncle Mordechai after their parents’ death. Axatria had been twenty at the time, not much older than her young masters, a woman of insatiable energy. Within a few days she had fallen in love with Ezra.

  At the time, he had possessed all the incandescent beauty of adolescence, which struck Axatria like a lightning bolt. Lilah was not surprised: she thought Ezra handsome – as handsome as Antinoes, who was much admired by the young Persian girls – but Ezra was wiser already.

  Lilah had been amused by Axatria’s feelings for him, but proud too, neither afraid nor jealous. Wasn’t the tie that bound brother and sister an eternal one?

  Axatria had been sensible enough never to display her feelings in words or gestures. However great her passion, she expressed herself entirely through the excellence of her service, the washing she did for Ezra, the meals she prepared for him. She was so discreet that he had not become aware of her love until the day Aunt Sarah had teased Axatria about it.

  Axatria had been content with Ezra’s gratitude, his occasional kindness towards her, gifts that were sufficient in themselves.

  It was their love for Ezra, though, boundless but chaste, that had brought Lilah and Axatria together.

  Then the terrible day had come when Ezra had left Uncle Mordechai’s house and moved to the lower town. His uncle and aunt had tried and failed to stop him. Then Axatria had stood in his way, her face streaked with tears. ‘Why? Why leave this house?’

  Ezra had tried to push her away, but she had quite shamelessly collapsed at his feet and stopped him, clinging to him like a human millstone. Ezra had been forced to answer her. ‘I am going to a place where the children of Israel have not forgotten the pain of exile. I am going to study what should never have been forgotten – all that my father Serayah, his father Azaryah, his father Hilqiyyah and all their fathers for twelve generations learned from their father Aaron, the brother of Moses.’

  What was Axatria, a Persian from the Zagros mountains, to make of such words?

  She was stunned into silence. Appearing to yield, she let go of Ezra. But as he stepped away, she clutched at his tunic. ‘Take me with you, Ezra!’ she begged, forgetting her dignity for the first and only time. ‘I’m your handmaid, wherever you go.’

  ‘Where I’m going, I have no need of handmaids.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s impossible to study with a handmaid around.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying! Who’ll cook your food, wash your clothes, keep your bedchamber clean?’

  Ezra thrust her away from him. ‘Be quiet! I’m leaving this house to be closer to the will of God, not to the will of a handmaid.’

  For days, eaten away by shame and sorrow, Axatria had been unable to stop weeping.

  She was not the only one. The house of Mordechai and Sarah echoed with tears and lamentations. For the first time, Lilah had seen her uncle brought low, incapable of work or even of feeding himself. Her aunt Sarah had closed her workshop for six days, as if in mourning. Axatria’s tears had been swallowed up in the general sense of woe. She went about her daily tasks like a soul that had already passed into the other world. ‘Why? Why?’ she would mutter from dawn to dusk, in a stunned whisper.

  Then one day Lilah had said, ‘I know where Ezra has found refuge. Get ready, and we’ll go and take him food and clothing.’

  That had been the first time. Less than a moon later, they had again filled a basket and borrowed one of Uncle Mordechai’s chariots, to which Mordechai had turned a blind eye.

  Since then seasons had passed, rain, snow, stifling heat, but neither exhaustion nor sickness had persuaded Lilah and Axatria to cease their visits to the lower city.

  Hardly had the sun risen than Axatria would fill the basket set aside now for this purpose with pitchers of milk, loaves of bread, cheese, bags of almonds, barley and dates. The basket had become so bulky over time that it weighed more than a dead ass, forcing Lilah to tense her muscles beneath it.

  Today she wanted to be alone with Ezra.

  What she had to tell him would be difficult enough without Axatria’s bustling presence.

  Cries jolted Lilah out of her thoughts when she was half a stadion from the lower town. As if they had emerged from the earth, a group of about twenty boys, aged from four to eleven or twelve, wearing nothing but loincloths, appeared between the first tumbledown houses and came running barefoot on the hard pebble-strewn ground, yelling their heads off.

  Two old men carrying tubs of tar on a hoist towards the upper town moved aside quickly to let them pass.

  Raising as much dust as a herd of young goats, the children reached Lilah and came to a sudden standstill, their screams ceasing just as abruptly as their run. Smiling sweetly, they lined up in two perfect rows, the little ones gripping the rags of their elders.

  ‘May the mighty Ahura Mazda and the God of Heaven be with you, Lilah!’ they cried in unison.

  ‘M
ay the Everlasting bless you,’ Lilah replied, earnestly.

  Surprised that Axatria was absent, the children looked from the basket to the chariot, which they could glimpse on the road to the upper town. Lilah smiled. ‘Today, Axatria is waiting for you in the chariot. She has brought you honey bread.’

  No sooner had she spoken than the children leaped into the air like a flock of sparrows.

  Lilah adjusted the basket on her shoulder. The two old men bowed respectfully, then set off again with their burden. She responded to their greeting, and hurried on.

  ‘Lilah!’

  She heard the shout at the same time as the sound of running feet. ‘Sogdiam!’

  ‘Let me carry your basket.’

  He was a well-built boy of thirteen or fourteen, but looked two or three years more. When he was not yet a year old, a fall from a brick wall on a stormy day had left him crippled. The bones of his legs had set haphazardly, but he had learned to use the misshapen limbs through an effort of will. Today, although his gait was grotesque and lopsided, he could run and walk for long distances without pain.

  His fine features made people forget his misfortune, and his eyes burned with intelligence. Soon after Ezra had settled in the lower town, he had spotted Sogdiam among the orphaned children who ran around the streets. Before long, he had become Ezra’s capable and devoted servant.

  Lilah pointed to the piece of honey bread that Sogdiam was carrying. ‘Eat that first.’

  ‘No need,’ Sogdiam said, as proud as a warrior. ‘I can do both at the same time.’

  Glad to relieve the pressure on her shoulder, Lilah passed him the basket. The boy strained his young muscles and slid the straps over his own shoulder. ‘Axatria has filled it even more generously than usual today,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ Sogdiam groaned, gallantly.

  Lilah smiled at him tenderly. He set off, arching his back proudly, to conceal the strain on his neck. They were being watched from the houses at the other end of the path, and Sogdiam would not have missed for anything in the world the opportunity of showing everyone that he was privileged to help Lilah, the only lady from the upper town who dared to enter the lower town.