placed on Zadok’s shoulders. It should have been her hand that silenced the infant, not only her hand that buried it. It must be her hand that attended to the dead.
God had given her visions of things to come. That meant the burden was hers. It was right that it should be. She had never borne a child, but she was a woman of the People and she understood how to bear burdens, she understood how to shoulder those hard necessities required to preserve life. She had once carried a corpse in her arms like a beloved child a mile through dank reeds because it was unthinkable that another should have to.
Devora moved to the goatskin bundle and unwrapped it. Took up the scarlet cord first and held it in her hand a moment. Then she gently drew aside the goatskin, revealing the item it had concealed: a blade longer than her arm, polished to a sheen, slender and feminine in its delicacy. A hilt of white bone. She gazed at it grimly. Both the blade and the cord she held were heathen in origin, yet they were items that had proven useful to the People and had been consecrated for their uses, even as the fields and hills that had once been possessed only by the Canaanites were now places set apart and chosen out of all lands for the Hebrews, places holy in their own way.
“We must have a truce, you and I.” Devora spoke to the sword and to the memories it recalled for her. “I will lift you and carry you with me, because the dead are in the land again and there will be butchery to do before the land is clean. But you mustn’t expect me to use you. Only when I must. You were once unclean with the blood of a woman who was the best woman in Israel, the wisest. I will not like you or the necessity of carrying you. I unbind you and will need you ready to my hand, but don’t think that I carry you as a man would, with any joy in your beauty.”
The blade lay there mute yet eloquent in the shimmer of dawn light on its cold metal. Iron, the only iron blade she’d ever seen. Sea People had smithied it, in their walled towns on the coast to the west. The blade had come to Devora as a gift in the darkest of circumstances. After she’d done what she must, she’d wrapped it tightly in that goat hide and bound it and bound with it the pain of that day. Released now, that pain leapt at her and clawed at her heart as she gazed on the sharp metal.
“I will name you Mishpat,” she whispered to the blade, “the Judgment. That will help us both remember what you are and what you are not.”
A judgment on the dead. A judgment on her. The swift cut of decision, severing what limbs must be severed from the body of the People so that the rest of the body might thrive and not decay.
She considered the blade a few moments, as if watching for some sign of its consent to the name. Idly she wrapped the scarlet cord about her hand, feeling its coarse, aged fiber against her skin. Then bound it about her waist like a girdle. A dark mood fell over her, and she pressed her hand to her belly with a gentleness that would have surprised any who saw her.
She listened for a long moment, but heard nothing there. An ache opened within her, deep as the ravines of the Tumbling Water. There was no life stirring within her after the lovemaking of the past two nights. As
navi
, she would have known if there were; she felt certain of it. Tears stung her eyes; she blinked them away.
She knew her barrenness to be a judgment on her for the choices she’d had to make as a younger woman. As with any shattering of Covenant, barrenness had been visited on her, even as barrenness and blight now threatened the People and the land itself.
“Devora?”
She turned, saw Lappidoth at the door of the tent, peering in. She drew in her breath. She could be vulnerable, here in his tent. Once she stepped outside, she could not be. Out there, where she was going, weakness would be lethal—for her, and for her People.
Lappidoth came to her, sat beside her, and put his arms about
God had given her visions of things to come. That meant the burden was hers. It was right that it should be. She had never borne a child, but she was a woman of the People and she understood how to bear burdens, she understood how to shoulder those hard necessities required to preserve life. She had once carried a corpse in her arms like a beloved child a mile through dank reeds because it was unthinkable that another should have to.
Devora moved to the goatskin bundle and unwrapped it. Took up the scarlet cord first and held it in her hand a moment. Then she gently drew aside the goatskin, revealing the item it had concealed: a blade longer than her arm, polished to a sheen, slender and feminine in its delicacy. A hilt of white bone. She gazed at it grimly. Both the blade and the cord she held were heathen in origin, yet they were items that had proven useful to the People and had been consecrated for their uses, even as the fields and hills that had once been possessed only by the Canaanites were now places set apart and chosen out of all lands for the Hebrews, places holy in their own way.
“We must have a truce, you and I.” Devora spoke to the sword and to the memories it recalled for her. “I will lift you and carry you with me, because the dead are in the land again and there will be butchery to do before the land is clean. But you mustn’t expect me to use you. Only when I must. You were once unclean with the blood of a woman who was the best woman in Israel, the wisest. I will not like you or the necessity of carrying you. I unbind you and will need you ready to my hand, but don’t think that I carry you as a man would, with any joy in your beauty.”
The blade lay there mute yet eloquent in the shimmer of dawn light on its cold metal. Iron, the only iron blade she’d ever seen. Sea People had smithied it, in their walled towns on the coast to the west. The blade had come to Devora as a gift in the darkest of circumstances. After she’d done what she must, she’d wrapped it tightly in that goat hide and bound it and bound with it the pain of that day. Released now, that pain leapt at her and clawed at her heart as she gazed on the sharp metal.
“I will name you Mishpat,” she whispered to the blade, “the Judgment. That will help us both remember what you are and what you are not.”
A judgment on the dead. A judgment on her. The swift cut of decision, severing what limbs must be severed from the body of the People so that the rest of the body might thrive and not decay.
She considered the blade a few moments, as if watching for some sign of its consent to the name. Idly she wrapped the scarlet cord about her hand, feeling its coarse, aged fiber against her skin. Then bound it about her waist like a girdle. A dark mood fell over her, and she pressed her hand to her belly with a gentleness that would have surprised any who saw her.
She listened for a long moment, but heard nothing there. An ache opened within her, deep as the ravines of the Tumbling Water. There was no life stirring within her after the lovemaking of the past two nights. As
navi
, she would have known if there were; she felt certain of it. Tears stung her eyes; she blinked them away.
She knew her barrenness to be a judgment on her for the choices she’d had to make as a younger woman. As with any shattering of Covenant, barrenness had been visited on her, even as barrenness and blight now threatened the People and the land itself.
“Devora?”
She turned, saw Lappidoth at the door of the tent, peering in. She drew in her breath. She could be vulnerable, here in his tent. Once she stepped outside, she could not be. Out there, where she was going, weakness would be lethal—for her, and for her People.
Lappidoth came to her, sat beside her, and put his arms about
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