Abigail's Story Read Free Page B

sluggishly. “You are a generous and merciful one.” Those burning eyes dimmed alittle as they met mine, but she focused, and then she bared strong white teeth in a ferocious, slightly mad smile. “Yes, mercy, that is it. Seek mercy where none is deserved. Cry mercy when none is earned. Stand and you shall fall. Kneel and you shall rise. Search for it, bargain for it, crawl for it. . . .” The last word ended in a furious shriek as she began fighting the guardsman again.
    My hands trembled as I watched the shamar drag her from the marketplace. My palm felt wet, and I looked down to see bright red blood on my palm. I stared at it, horrified even more when I realized it must have come from the other woman’s head.
    We do not put criminals to death here, I had assured her. Would Shofet Choab make a liar of me?
    â€œHere.” Amri’s shaking hand thrust a bit of rag cloth into mine. He was making protective signs over himself with the other hand and staring in the direction the guardsmen had dragged the m’khashepah.
    â€œGo and wash, Abigail,” Cetura urged me in a tight, horrified voice. “Scrub every trace of that evil one from your hands.”
    The blood washed away easily enough, but the memory of it would not. Nor would the m’khashepah’s words leave my thoughts, though I could make no sense of them.
    Stand and you shall fall. Kneel and you shall rise.
    Â 
    The early uproar at the market created a demand for pots, for many more than my own had been smashed. I took some trade in return, but from thosemerchants whose wares had been ruined, I accepted a promise of payment.
    â€œBut I do not know when I can pay,” Geddel the clothes mender said after he asked for my largest scrub basin to replace the one the shamar had smashed. The mended garments at his stall had been trampled in the dirt, and all of them needed washing before they were returned to their owners.
    I knew Geddel had an extended family to feed, and his kin lived far to the north. He worked very long hours, both at home and at the market, and I suspected that he and his lived, as my family did, from hand to mouth.
    â€œI meant to visit your wife and see the new baby,” I told him impulsively. “Let this be my birth-gift for him.”
    Geddel lifted his eyebrows. “Our new baby walks on his own now, Abigail.”
    I gave his shoulder a friendly pat. “Then you must tell your wife that I am sorry the gift is late.”
    When all the pots I had brought but one were gone, I left the market, stopping at the communal well to use my last pot to draw water before continuing home.
    â€œNo strings of leftovers today, Abigail?” Ketina, the youngest daughter of Huram the coppersmith, asked as she took her turn at the well to fill her water jars.
    Like other young girls, Ketina came to draw water several times daily. She had a lively disposition that suited her merry little face. The latter had beensun-spattered with freckles from going outside without a head cloth, much to the despair of her mother.
    â€œI sold everything, praise the Adonai.” The words sounded lifeless even to my own ears, and I forced a smile. “How does your family fare?”
    â€œAll is shouting and wailing this day.” The girl’s big brown eyes rolled before she leaned close and lowered her voice. “My brother Tzalmon wishes to pledge his troth to Devash, the shepherd Noisan’s girl, but her father doesn’t approve of the match.”
    Tzalmon was a handsome young man and a good friend of my brother’s. He could be somewhat brash while in Rivai’s company, but Huram’s influence showed in Tzalmon’s genial manners, and his mother’s influence in the respect he always showed older women.
    I thought Devash could do much worse than Ketina’s brother. “Why does Devash’s father disapprove?”
    â€œWe’re not sure—no one will say