Jezebel
At last, after so many years of pain, Ahab had decided to act like a king. He was going to make himself worthy of the crown he had been given. She had hated him for that more and more as the years had passed, that he had been given what she had fought for and lost, then earned on her back. She understood Omri’s disdain for his son.
Tears ran down her cheeks and landed on her lap. The stain spread, its darkness growing, and she saw it widen its path, moving fast, shooting to her knees as it grew and covered her robes, the darkness reaching up over her belly, spreading up toward her neck. She watched it, transfixed. She had not seen her own tears for years.
The two kings were announced, and Jezebel stood, her knees shaking from the discovery of tears. She pressed her hand to her face, to feel them before they disappeared. They would never return. With a true king for a husband, she would never cry again.
Jehoshaphat and Ahab walked into the throne room and sat with Jezebel at the table that had been set for the first meal of the day. Each was dressed in his kingly robes, a long multicolored tunic and a shorter tunic of white linen over it, with embroidered sashes that caught the morning light. Jehoshaphat wore a purple outer robe and a sash with red workings. Ahab had his red outer robe on, and a gold sash with gold beads.
“You approve of my beloved daughter? You are pleased with the match?” Jezebel asked Jehoshaphat, handing him a bowl of grapes.
He took them from her but passed them on. “She is beautiful, like her mother.”
Jezebel attempted a smile as she reached for the bowl of dates stuffed with almonds and fried in honey.
“Athaliah will be an exceptional queen someday,” Jezebel said. “A strong queen in Judah, a strong queen in Israel.”
Jehoshaphat choked on the milk he drank and cleared his throat, holding up one hand to keep the servants from attending him. He glanced at Ahab, and then at her, as tears from the mishap welled in his eyes. “My apologies,” he said.
“Having a daughter first has always been seen as a slight from the gods, but that is wrong,” she said, hearing her high, sharp voice as if someone spoke for her. “Although our work is different, we aren’t afraid of a little blood. We are born rulers.”
Ahab stood.
“Jehoshaphat and I have work to do,” he said. With that, the men left.
Jezebel had the throne room to herself. She liked that. She stood, breathing deeply, whispering the name of the goddess. What a long road it had been, but at last the end was in sight.
Jehoshaphat’s royal court entered the following night, and Ahab’s followed, including Amon and her two sons. Athaliah was not present. Had she gone to Judah already? There had been more Jezebel wanted to teach her. But the boys looked well and strong, though she could not get the older one to converse with her. Little Joram was pudgy and never smiled. She thought he would make a good king.
They had been seated for an hour, waiting for the king to arrive, when Jezebel called for Obadiah.
“Have the kings not returned from the city gates?” she asked.
“They did,” he responded. “They went directly to the administration rooms to prepare for battle.”
“Without dinner?” It was a breach in protocol, an indignity for those who had gathered. Israel was under no threat.
Jezebel stood and lifted her goblet. “As you may know, the great kings Jehoshaphat and Ahab have assembled to discuss a plan that would benefit both empires. Though the tribes are no longer united by one king, or one god, they can be united through prosperity. Forgive my husband, your host, for not joining you tonight, as you celebrate the future.”
At this, Jezebel left the banquet, leading the guards who trotted behind. Security was tighter when they had so many foreigners in the palace, but she did not wait for the guards to lead. She knew where she was going. She knew what she would find.
Obadiah had said that Jehoshaphat and Ahab were in the administration rooms. Making plans to march out on the unsuspecting Ben-hadad.
Jehoshaphat looked up, his eyebrows raised as he saw her, dread evident on his face. Ahab glanced up, and his scowl deepened.
“Go over the numbers again,” he commanded. Jehoshaphat obeyed, being the lesser king with lesser treasuries.
“May I speak to my husband alone?” she asked Jehoshaphat. He nodded so quickly, she knew he was grateful to leave. Perhaps he could think more clearly without Ahab.
“I don’t want you here,” Ahab said. He looked at her, and she saw the familiar weak and hunted man.
“You’re leaving soon?” she asked.
“Within the week. Three days, if I can push Jehoshaphat.”
She nodded and took a stool next to the table, glancing over the scrolls. Everything looked in order. He was counting men and supplies and projecting what would be waiting for him in Ramoth-Gilead.
“There’s been no news,” she said. No news from Ben-hadad, no news from Ramoth-Gilead, no reason to push this war so fast. He had no plan except to attack. Something was driving him.
He grabbed her by the arms, lifting her from the stool, bringing her to his face. Her stomach clenched; she thought he would kiss her, but he turned her toward the door and set her firmly on her feet, pushing her in that direction.
“Get out!” he said.
Jezebel dug her feet in their sandals for a firmer grip, turning, refusing to leave. A nightmare began to unfold in her mind. “Was it Elijah? Have you seen him?”
“This is what I should have done years ago,” he said.
Hairs rose along her arms as he grabbed the sword of Moses and pointed it at her heart. Hatred kindled in his eyes.
“I should have never allowed the worship of Baal and Asherah. Your priests sacrificed children and practiced abominations. But my crime was the worst.”
She took a step toward Ahab, her hands raised and fingers spread, as if she were going to leap like an animal. The tip of the sword rested against her heart. She willed him to dare it, but he did not. “You are a great deceiver, luring your people away from their god. I never strayed from my gods! I served them, and I served you, and I served the nation of Israel!”
He swung the sword with a scream, driving the blade into the doorpost. The blade reverberated, its hollow beating filling the stunned silence.
Ahab shook his head, madness making his eyes wide and dark, empty expanses of pain she could not name.
“I loved you,” Ahab said, his voice flat. “God forgive me for that.”
Obadiah
Obadiah recorded all the preparations for this surprise attack, his tears mixing with the ink as he wrote. A new asu, another import from Tyre, offered him a sedative after hearing his sobs from the dining hall as Jezebel hosted her growing cadre of new priests and workers.
His tears fell, and his shoulders shook as he worked, having refused the drink. Grief over the sins of others was his price to pay for having spoken truth. Maybe grief and power and truth always traveled together. In time, maybe, he would learn about this. Maybe that was why Ahab had failed as a king, because his heart had never grieved over anything but his own childhood losses.
Maybe that was why Ahab did not listen when told the truth. The prophet that had been here spoke it, Obadiah was sure. Truth had a certain sound to it.
Despite this, Ahab had marched out three days later for Ramoth-Gilead, as he had intended. He refused to let Obadiah join him, and Obadiah paced like a frantic dog as Ahab and Jehoshaphat led the men down the main street of Samaria, to the shouts of the troops waiting on the edges of the city.
“Nothing good will come from this,” he cried, though no one heard him. “You heard what the prophet said!” No one listened, though it galled him. That, too, he knew, was the price of truth.
Jezebel
Two more weeks passed, and Jezebel sat, perched and tense, in the throne overlaid with ivory designs of bulls and lions, all fallen in battle, mouths open, tongues loose, with wide, vacant eyes. She had picked the design herself and should have been pleased to sit in a queen’s throne at last. Instead, she felt nothing, a vast emptiness that had eaten its way through her life.
Obadiah was announced and approached, his eyes glancing back at the doors. His steps echoed across the empty hall; how lonely it seemed. Just weeks ago, this place had been the center of two empires, with soldiers staging fistfights in the streets for amusement, and songs sung late into the evening. The emptiness had taken Samaria, too.
“Ahab was angry with me before he left,” she said.
Obadiah exhaled, but his eyes did not glance away.
She paused, considering that Obadiah was still a threat. He was such an enigma. All of Israel was.
“Ahab left for war without conducting an official ceremony,” Jezebel said. “He did not ask a blessing of his god. He acted like a man running away in the cover of night, but he is a king going to war. Why is that? What happened to the man I once knew?”
“How would I know what is in his heart?”
Obadiah was hiding something. That was plain by the way his neck stiffened slightly before he replied. Yet he was not afraid, not of her, for he kept his gaze so steady. Could it be that he was afraid for her? This little man of words and papers, afraid he might hurt the queen mother?
“Speak, Obadiah. Do not spare me,” she said flatly. She was too tired to take offense.
Obadiah complied, but he lowered his voice, and the servants in the room were prevented from hearing. “The kings decided to go to war for Ramoth-Gilead, and then Jehoshaphat asked for the prophets of the Lord to be called. He wanted to inquire of the Lord whether this decision was of Him.”
“Was Elijah there?” Jezebel asked. Who else could have stirred Ahab so violently? Who else would Ahab run from?
“No. Your four new prophets spoke for your own gods. They were joined by a madman from the village, who wore horns on his head and danced for the king.”
“Ahab called for my prophets?” Jezebel could not hide her surprise.
“Yes. And they prophesied victory. But Jehoshaphat was not pleased with Ahab, that Ahab had consulted those who speak for Asherah. Jehoshaphat wanted to hear from a prophet of Yahweh.”
“And did he find one?” she asked. A cold impulse drove her to lean forward on her throne. “You know that I killed them. Your scrolls were a great help in knowing how many there were, and where.”
His face remained like stone, unreadable, her words having no affect, like little sticks that fell after striking a bronze shield. She sat back and turned in her seat, watching him from the corner of her eye.
“One prophet remains in Samaria, his name being Micaiah,” Obadiah said.
“Micaiah had a vision of God sitting on his throne, with all the armies of the Lord attending. God asked his court, ‘Who will go to Ahab and convince him to attack Ramoth-Gilead, so that he will die?’ Many offered to incite Ahab to go to his death, but one spirit moved forward from among them to stand before the Lord.
“‘I will persuade the man,’ the spirit said.
“‘How will you do this?’ the Lord asked. All of the court fell silent, for the spirit was the oldest among them, and the cruelest, and his name was Legion.
“‘I will deceive them all. I will lie to those seekers, the prophets, and they will lie to that man, the king. I possess no greater weapon than a lie that man desperately wants to hear.’
“And so the spirit came to earth and deceived the prophets of Asherah, who deceived the king. Only Micaiah spoke the truth.”
“And what was this truth that Micaiah spoke?” Jezebel asked.
“Ahab will die in Ramoth-Gilead.”
Jezebel rose from the throne. “Liar!” Guards ran from the corners of the room as she lunged from her perch and grabbed Obadiah by the front of his robes. “You don’t know what the truth is!”
The guards dragged Obadiah from her presence as she trembled and fought for breath, frothing spit collecting at the corners of her mouth. She heard thunder, the low roar of that distant god Yahweh. He was here in Samaria, still. He was in the throne room with her; she could feel his presence as the air grew thick with the tang of lightning and smoke. She turned to face the throne, a hair’s width at a time, holding her breath, icy cold in her lungs. Though she saw nothing, he was there. He sat on the throne of Israel. A force she could not describe drove her to her knees and forced her face against the stone floor as she screamed profanities.
After the second watch of the night, when she still had not moved, the guards called for Lilith. No one had dared enter the room. The Presence did not dissipate until the third watch of the night.
Lilith ran across the floor, her feet softly, quickly padding. They sounded like camel’s feet, Jezebel thought, her mind distant, thinking of turquoise oceans that had no end, a land where she had dreamed of growing up and wearing the crown. She wished to throw her crown into the turquoise waters and watch it sink into eternal darkness. But the Lord had shown her she had indeed earned her crown and would wear it forever in a land where water burned and the dead chewed and crowns were crushing vises.