4

One blow. The metal tent peg sank deep into the earth, the hold firm. Jael sat back, pleased with her work, satisfied that the ropes would hold the tent taut and strong against the elements. The metal pegs her husband had fashioned in place of the older wooden ones pierced the ground with greater ease. She had often thanked Heber for making her life so much simpler in this way.

But her gratitude seemed a small thing compared to the blow she had dealt his pride on the day she had begged him to flee the Negev and his brother Alim’s wrath. How fleeting the feeling of rightness now seemed in this foreign place. The oaks of Zaanannim near Kedesh were so far from Judah, so far from all they held dear.

One blow to her husband’s pride, to his brother’s authority, and everything had changed.

“Your son and daughter can find their spouses elsewhere,” Alim had said the day they left. “I will give no more of my sons or daughters to a man who would save an unworthy Canaanite. What do you think Sisera will do to us when he discovers your true loyalties?”

If only Heber hadn’t come between Alim and the Canaanite slave he was bent on beating to near death to exact information. The man had little to tell in the end anyway. So the beating was useless, and for what? All it did was cause a rift so deep between two headstrong men that Jael’s persuasive words could not change them. So she had convinced Heber to leave.

She blew out a frustrated breath and moved into the dark interior of the tent. It was useless to fret over what was past, and yet she could not stop the ache, the deep longing for family, for aunts and uncles, for cousins to pair with her youngest son and only daughter in marriage. If they were both wed, they would be happily settled in their own tents with their spouses and babes on the way. Instead, they pined for what was lost.

As did she.

The thought pricked her already irritated spirit as she quickly unrolled the rugs and set her mat in one corner. Heber knew his family sided with the Hebrews over the Canaanites—as far back as the days when their leader Moses led them out of Egypt. He knew all Canaanites were looked on with suspicion. Still, Alim had gone too far in his treatment. The God of the Hebrews would not have wanted slaves treated as Alim insisted on doing. What choice did Heber have?

“Ima?” Her daughter, Daniyah, poked her head into the tent, her arms filled with baskets and colorful yarns for weaving. “Where do you want these?”

Jael motioned to a far corner where she intended to set up her loom. When the sides of the tent were rolled up, the light would illumine that corner better than the one on the north side. “How much is left to unpack? Where is your father?”

Daniyah set her burden on the ground and came to help Jael finish straightening a rug. “The donkeys are brushed and fed, and I just have my mat to bring along with the pottery. Ghalib said he would bring the rest.”

“That is good.” Jael wiped the sweat from her brow, looking in the direction of the donkeys for some sign of her son, the son whose gentle spirit had changed with the move and the rift between his father and uncle.

“Abba is with Mahir. They are looking for the best spot to build the kiln to smelt the ore.” Daniyah smiled, and Jael could not help but return it. If only Ghalib shared his sister’s joyous innocence.

“They will be hungry.” Jael walked with Daniyah to the area where the men had unloaded the pack animals and carts. She retrieved her three-pronged skillet and sent Daniyah to find large stones to circle a fire. “Don’t wander,” she warned. “We don’t know this place yet. The trees can hide us, but they can as easily hide men who seek our harm.”

“I won’t go far, Ima.” She skipped off like a child, but not out of Jael’s sight.

Jael drew in a deep breath. The girl should marry soon, but what man would they find in this hidden forest? There was not another Kenite clan anywhere near them. Were they destined to intermarry their two remaining children to foreigners of Israel or Canaan?

Her jaw clenched, a habit that had become too frequent of late, causing a headache to form along her temple. She simply must stop fretting over the future and discuss the matter with Heber, make him see that they had no choice but to send a request to his brothers, with or without Alim’s approval.

She gathered her cooking utensils and then dug a pit for a fire in front of her tent.

“Here is your loom, Ima.” Ghalib carried the wooden structure into her tent and glanced back over his shoulder. “Put it in the south corner?”

“Yes.” She paused in her digging to watch him. He should have married Parisa before they ever fled the Negev. A sigh escaped as she noted the tight lines along his brow. It did not take such concentration simply to carry a loom. He was not happy with the move either, if she knew him at all—and she was most certain she did. Surely she knew her own son.

Daniyah approached and set some large stones around the hole Jael had nearly finished digging, drawing her thoughts back to the present. As Daniyah ran off to find the dried dung to start the fire, Nadia and Raja, Jael’s two daughters-in-law, came from setting up their own tents. One carried a large pot, the other a sieve and a sack of lentils.

Nadia sat crossed-legged beside Jael and sifted the lentils through the sieve, careful to remove the stones. Raja poured water into the stew pot while Daniyah returned and started a fire.

“Are you all right, Ima Jael?” Nadia’s sweet voice broke through Jael’s distant thoughts. Nadia was Alim’s oldest daughter, wed three years to her oldest son Mahir. Surely a grandson would soon come of their union. But Nadia still waited, patiently waited. She was the exact opposite of her father. And Mahir had been kind enough to wait with her when he could have taken another wife by now. Or at least a concubine.

“I am fine, Nadia.” She straightened her stiff back. “I will be glad to rest. I’m sure you all feel the same.”

“It was a long journey. I thought it might never end,” Nadia agreed. “I long to lay on my mat this night.” She shook the sieve again and plucked a few more stones from the lentils. Now and then some of them made it into the stew regardless, but at least they sank to the bottom. No one had yet broken a tooth on one.

“I am just glad to be off the back of that donkey,” Raja said, laughing. “Though at least I wasn’t stuck on top of the camel as Fareed was. He didn’t seem to mind the ride, but I was afraid if I had tried it, I would tumble off it to the ground.”

Jael regarded her second son’s wife with a smile, then a strange sound caught her ear, a slow churning rumble in the distance. She glanced at her girls, saw the curiosity and hint of fear in their gazes. “Go at once to your tents,” she ordered, and each woman did as she was told. Daniyah hurried into the tent she shared with Jael. She would not have a tent of her own until she wed and lived in the village of her husband.

Jael stood and brushed the dirt from her hands. The rumbling grew, and a great roar like thunder shook the earth beneath her feet. The main road to Hazor was just beyond the tallest tree, the oak of Zaanannim. Their camp was secluded beyond the road, but not as well hidden as she would have liked. Her heart thudded, its slow rhythm making her sluggish, as though she were trying to awaken from a dream.

Running feet snapped her attention. A rush of air escaped her lungs as Heber and her sons ran toward her. “What is it?” Her words came out hoarse, a mere whisper.

Heber brandished a sword in his right hand. “I don’t know. Sisera’s chariots, I think.” He moved past her without another word, her sons following close at his heels, each clutching one of the swords they had forged in their workshop back in the Negev.

They crept to the underbrush and crouched low. Jael moved behind them, snatched up her wooden hammer, and followed. She would not stand by and allow her daughter to be ravaged. She had heard tales on their journey northward. Sisera’s iron chariots wrought terror in the hearts of all who heard them.

She winced and nearly choked on the dust at the sudden pounding of many horses’ hooves and rush of wheels close by. She blinked against the blur, unable to count them. But she counted the breaths it took for them to become a memory, out of sight and hearing.

Heber stood at last, and they walked in silence back to the cooking area. The men sat on the ground in the familiar circle. Jael sank to the earth, her hands shaking. Nadia and Raja crept closer and joined them, and Daniyah came to sit at Heber’s feet.

“What will we do about the Canaanites, Abba?” Fear laced Daniyah’s tone, and Jael caught a glimpse of moisture in her bright eyes. This was not the first time they had encountered this threat.

“Why did we come here at all?” Nadia, normally quiet and cheerful, could not hide the tremor in her voice. “Were we not safer in Judah? Could not my father’s wrath have been appeased?” Her boldness brought Mahir to kneel at her side.

He placed a hand on his wife’s knee, but his gaze rested on Heber. “What will we do, Father? You have put off a decision these many weeks, and now we are camped in the very heart of the land Israel has claimed from Canaan. These trees will not save us from any man’s cruelty if he is bent on harming us.”

“Mahir is right,” Fareed said, taking Raja’s hand in his. “It is not too late to turn back. Even if we do not camp near Uncle Alim, we should not live so close to the Canaanite threat.”

Jael searched her husband’s stricken face. His pride rested in his sons’ respect, yet here they were questioning his decisions. A decision she had begged him to make.

“Your father made the right choice,” she said. She twisted the belt of her robe and had to remind herself to unclench her hands, to relax. Her children were not the enemy, they simply did not understand.

“We cannot go back. Not now.” Heber’s voice was strained.

“Then what will we do?” Ghalib’s scowl troubled her, his eyes ablaze with barely contained fury. She sighed, wishing not for the first time that they could return to the days when her children were small and safely under her protective wing.

“We will make ourselves valuable to our enemy,” Heber said, eyeing each son. His back stiffened, and he lifted his chin as if daring them to continue the argument. “The Canaanite we rescued from Alim assured me that this area was not troubled by Jabin’s forces. And we have goods Jabin would find beneficial to his cause, should he or his men come calling.”

“You would make peace with Israel’s enemies?” She stared at him, her heart sinking with the realization that he would leave an ancient alliance to forge a new one with untamed men. “What are you saying, my husband?”

“I’m saying, dear wife,” Heber said, taking in the entire group, “that to preserve our lives, we will do exactly that.”

“Exactly how do you plan to make peace with Jabin and Sisera?” Jael asked the following evening as she rested beside Heber in his tent. He was nearly asleep, and she would leave him soon, but not until she received an answer to her question.

He rolled over and snorted. “I will offer my services. He needs weapons. I make them. A simple agreement should suffice.”

Stunned, Jael stared at the man. “If you supply weapons to Sisera, you will surely guarantee Israel’s demise.”

“Sisera is not my enemy. And there is no reason I cannot also supply Israel with swords, if they but ask.” He closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead. “But I am tired, Jael. We can speak of this another time.”

“Israel cannot afford to pay for weapons. The women at the well are poor. They’ve been plundered and pillaged, the land raped of its resources. What good are weapons when they need wheat?” Anger flared, and she knew she was pushing him past his breaking point.

He sighed, an insufferable sound. She should never have agreed to share his tent this night. But she knew if she did not give in to his needs, he would take a concubine who would. He could afford another wife, he had just never bothered to burden their household with one. But if she pushed him too far . . .

“Please, Heber, think about what I am saying. Do not sell us to an enemy that could destroy us in the end.” She touched his arm, then leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He was a good man when he wasn’t in the process of exasperating her so. She sat back on her heels. “Promise me?”

He grunted and shooed her away. “Be gone with you, woman. I will promise nothing.”

She held her tongue as she stood and walked slowly to the door.

“But I will think on it.” His words just caught her ear as she slipped into the dark camp and returned to her tent.