Jezebel. Eleanor Jong De

a dull ache in her heart.

      Chapter Seventeen

      From the roof of the Palace, Jezebel could see the dust kicked up by the advance rider, and behind that the steady brown cloud of men and horses that moved across the plain. Before long the rider was driving hard up the steep mountain road and she heard his triumphant shout even before the gates were opened.

      ‘Victory,’ he yelled. ‘Victory to King Ahab of Israel and his army!’

      The bugle call went up as news surged through the city and soon the streets rang with cheering and shouting. Citizens jostled to get the best view of the army’s ascent. But Jezebel stood for a long time alone on the roof in the cool autumn sun, watching the army approach, eager to see Ahab but terrified of what he would see in her child.

      ‘I thought I might find you here,’ said Beset behind her. Jezebel glanced at her maid, who was holding out a cloak of ochre wool. ‘Don’t get cold.’

      ‘How is the baby?’

      ‘He has suffered an endless stream of visitors, mostly the Palace priests, since the rider was first sighted. He received the first few in good humour, but when Enosh arrived he started screaming and even Daniel couldn’t calm him. Raisa chased them away in the end. But they all had to see for themselves that the baby was still fit and well to meet his father.’

      Jezebel nodded and turned back towards the sight of the approaching army. They’d be here soon and she could already make out Ahab in the lead from his distinctive black horse beneath him.

      ‘I keep telling myself that if he doesn’t notice it the first time he looks at the child, he won’t see it at all,’ she said.

      ‘No,’ said Beset, arranging the cape around Jezebel’s shoulders.

      ‘But if the resemblance is as strong as I’ve come to think it is then—’

      ‘Do you love him?’

      ‘Ahab?’

      Beset smiled. ‘Yes, Ahab.’

      ‘I missed him much more than I thought I would, and his letters brought me great comfort. I know he didn’t tell me much of significance, but it mattered to me that he was thinking about me, even when he was far away with a war to fight. He is the only one who welcomed me from the start.’

      And does he love me? Could any man with more than one wife truly love any of them? She turned away from the parapet. Certainly, they seemed to have found a fondness for each other. He had her loyalty too. There were times in this dark and complicated city when she thought that mattered more even than the son she’d given him.

      Beset stopped at the head of the stairs. ‘It’s been less than two months, but you have grown so much older since he went to war.’

      ‘Is it the baby that made me grow up?’

      Beset shrugged. ‘You will make a good mother, I’m sure of that.’

      Jezebel squeezed her maid’s hand in gratitude. ‘If I’m wiser too, then perhaps the baby will be the last mistake I make.’

      Her stomach churned as she processed with the Palace priests down to the city gates to wait for Ahab’s arrival. She was wearing the Queen’s gown and headdress, formally given by Raisa after the baby was born, and the baby lay in her arms wrapped in a cloth edged with gold beads. Perhaps he sensed the significance of the occasion for he had not stopped wailing since the priests’ visit.