helmet out of respect for Rahab, and through a slit Deker was able to look down and see the long mane of black hair falling over the Reahn general’s broad shoulders. Hamas looked just over six feet tall, with a powerful trunk and legs that moved under the bronze plates and leather joints of his body armor.
A gruff voice in ancient Aramaic said, “You serviced two strangers tonight.”
“The king’s cut is in the bowl,” Rahab replied.
She was dressed again in her wrap and seated on her divan, and Deker now saw that the surrounding tiles of the terrace formed a great mosaic of a six-pointed star that mirrored the heavens. And in the center of that blazing star was Rahab’s bed.
“That’s not why I’m here,” Hamas said as he nonetheless walked over to the red-and-black ceramic bowl of coins just below the pergola. It sat next to a small, bronze jewelry box. Deker watched Hamas remove a small money pouch from his belt and fill it with coins from the bowl. “Your girls serviced two Israelite spies tonight. Show me their rooms and I’ll make it quick.”
“I can tell a Hebrew from a Reahn? You’ll have to round up everybody in the house. Then everybody will know you let two spies into the city.”
Hamas paused in a way that suggested he knew what Rahab was up to and didn’t like it. “The Jordan is at flood stage. Even if Bin-Nun could get his armies across, it would take three days. The king has no fear of imminent attack nor of these spies.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“It’s the traitors inside these walls that concern us more than the Israelites outside.”
Hamas poured himself a drink from a pitcher at the table. He lifted the bronze cup to his lips and downed it in one long gulp. He poured himself another.
“Our people who fear the cult of Yahweh are fools. Plagues on Egypt. Parted seas. All lies. My family lived in Egypt at the time. I was five when it happened, Rahab. The waves, the hail, the pestilence and even the gases that killed our firstborn sons who slept on the floor, as was our custom—all were natural consequences of the volcanic eruption of Thera in the Great Sea.
“Bin-Nun knows this. He knows he can’t repeat these wonders. He can’t even feed his people without raids on farmlands and disrupting trade routes. He can’t occupy a city, so he has to slaughter every breathing thing in it and call it a miracle. This cult of death is Bin-Nun’s only weapon, and he employs it now to weaken the will of our people.
“He knows if he breaks our will—our true wall—our stones will crumble too. And then where would you be, Rahab? Slaughtered like every other man, woman and child in Reah.”
Hamas downed the second drink, slammed the cup down and wiped his long sleeve across his mouth.
“You can never trust a Jew. But you can always trust me to do what I say I’ll do. And you know what I do to the families of traitors. You saw what I had to do to your grandparents.”
Well, there was the leverage, Deker thought. Not a scratch on Rahab. But death to those close to her. Her soul and his were more similar than he realized, as she had clearly carried the guilt for the loss of her sisters and felt responsible for the safety of the rest of her family.
“Then you’re no better than Bin-Nun.”
“Oh, I’m a lot better for
Deker could see that Hamas was gesturing to her bed in the center of the blazing star painted on the terrace tiles.
“Bin-Nun would cut you down like he did those Moabite women who fornicated with his precious Hebrew soldiers,” Hamas went on, going in for the kill. “A blade through that soft tummy of yours, after he cut off your breasts. The Jews can barely keep a dozen of their divine 613 laws. You think they’d let you—a whore who has broken them all—into their company and pull them down?”
The psychology was brilliant, and Deker could see Rahab cast a glance up at him, her eyes doubtful.
“I, on the other hand, appreciate your many hidden talents,” Hamas said, and began to loosen his belt. “Your comely womanhood blesses our crops in tandem with your cycles of fertility. And your dexterous tongue loosens those of visiting dignitaries, providing us with invaluable information and even state secrets. All this while you pass along to them the false information we give you. Now, unless I hear something interesting from your mouth, I have a better use for it.”
Hamas turned his back to the pergola, dropped to his knees and straddled Rahab with his blackened and bulging quadriceps, hamstrings and calves. Then he ripped off her wrap to behold her breasts like the ripest fruit in Reah.
Deker couldn’t stomach the sight of her about to be ravaged, even if she meant to distract Hamas. Slowly he slid the tip of his sword through a slit in the flax stalks, ready to use both hands to drive the blade down on top of Hamas’ head.
“If you want to perform your religious duties, Hamas, you’ll have to wait another week, because I’m fertile,” she told him, pushing him away. “You’ve seen how fertile my family is, how many of my brothers serve in your ranks, and how many of my sisters have been killed. Unless you are prepared to bear a child with me.”
Deker watched her eyes drift up to him in the pergola for
a moment.
“Tell me, Hamas. Would you feed your own son to Molech?”
“My son? No. My daughter? Without a second thought.”
“Well, you know how it works.” Rahab was all business. “I’m the sacred prostitute priestess who brings forth the crops, the crops bring the money and the money keeps everything going. I’m no good to anybody if I’m with child, and even that is but one burnt offering to Molech.”
Hamas put his rough hand to her lovely throat and said, “The harvest is already here, and so are Bin-Nun’s spies. Tell me what you did for them, or I’ll snap your neck like the stem of a desert flower.”
Deker’s grip tightened around his sword, his eyes locked onto hers. She showed no fear, but her eyes widened as she looked over Hamas’ shoulders and saw him move quietly on the pergola roof. Striking Hamas would mean the end of him and his mission to Jericho. But his feelings for Rahab were an irresistible force of nature he could not control. He simply had to protect her—in the way he failed to protect Rachel. He was emotionally and spiritually committed, and there was no turning back, regardless of the consequences.
But her eyes signaled to him that she was still in control and to back off. He paused, aware of a drop of perspiration rolling down his arm to his hands and the grip of the sword. It trickled down the blade to the point. Any second it would drop on them and reveal his presence above.
“Yes, the men came to me, but I didn’t know where they came from,” she said. “They left before you arrived, at dusk, when the city gate closed.”
Hamas removed his hand from her neck, but seemed in no hurry to get off her. “What did they say?”
“They claimed to be jewelry traders. Asked about the city population. How many pieces of jewelry they could sell. Thought if I bought some and the girls wore them that maybe our customers would buy some for their wives.”
“What did you say?”
“I didn’t think wives would want to wear the same jewelry as their husband’s whores.”
Hamas gave a low, deep-throated laugh. “And then?”
“Then they said we could tell the husbands to tell their wives that their jewelry was magic and could make them fertile, or even to make them only conceive boys.”
Hamas shook his head and finally stood up, apparently satisfied. “Hebrew magic,” he complained. “They never stop stealing from us Egyptians. That’s why we’ll slaughter them. I think like Bin-Nun. I know what he wants.”
“What is that?” Rahab asked as she adjusted her wrap and looked up at Hamas. Deker could tell she was trying not to look at him on the pergola.
“Bin-Nun wants to know if his magic act of fear has seized the imagination of our population,” Hamas told her, and turned to help himself to some grapes on the table below Deker. “And, thanks to you and these spies of his, he now does. They’ll report this and he’ll decide to try to cross the Jordan even at flood stage and surprise us.
