Ahab’s pleasure went on and on. . . .
Rael stared into the thick wine in his leather cup.
Across the winewet tabletop, Jehu was cuddling a serving woman. Jehu would enjoy himself with her. And that was all that mattered to Jehu.
He wished fiercely that he could be more like his friend, but there was a sensitivity in him that made him yearn for something better than a sweatstained tavern wench. Something better? Ah, why lie to himself?
The woman—priestess, rather, he guessed—who had posed so shamelessly before the image of Baal-Melkart was the one he wanted. Ah, there was a woman to set fire to a man’s blood! He saw her in the air before his eyes as she had been then and his heart beat more swiftly. His long fingers tensed, closing.
To get his hands on her. Just one! It would make his years of study, the sacrifice of time when he had passed up the antics of his friends to become a physician, all worthwhile. He lifted the leather jack and drank.
When he put down the cup he saw that Jehu and the redheaded woman were moving toward a curtained doorway that offered entrance into the little cubicles that held a bed, a table and a basin of water. Sourly he watched them, faintly envious.
Jehu could be satisfied with substitutes.
He could not.
After a while he forgot the woman in the wine.
Jehu sat on the edge of the cot and watched the serving woman lifting off her worn woolen tunic. Instead of the loose breasts and overwide hips, his staring eyes were seeing the woman on the pantechnicon. The breath scratched his throat. His hands itched to stroke and fondle.
“Hurry, hurry,” he rasped.
She smiled down at him, tossing aside her tunic, throwing back her long red hair. Oh, she was fortunate, this night. The Habiru from Israel was young, thewed like a working ox. She did not wonder what made him so eager for her flesh; she accepted his lust for what it was, and knew contentment.
The woman would have posed for him but he was too impatient for niceties. His hand stabbed out, caught her wrist, yanked her down on top of him. Astarte! He was eager. Wild. Kind of crazy, almost. She giggled and let him do what he wanted, knowing he would not be through with her until the dawn.
Jehu groaned out his frustrations.
Always he had stood in the shadow of his prince. As long as he could remember, Ahab had always taken first choice. He was prince in Israel; Jehu was only an officer, the youngest son of a grain merchant. He had seen no future in industry with two older brothers already taking over the management of the grist mills, and because he was naturally strong and quick, had turned instead to the war chariots for his career.
He did not regret his choice, no. But he was cast into close association with Ahab who was a soldier and a good one, and soon the two were fast friends. He might hope to be commander of the armies were it not for Ahab, who took the poled banner of leader as a matter of his rank.
Ahab also took the choicest loot when there was a war, and the loveliest of the women who had been made prisoners. Just once, just once Jehu would have liked to make the first selection. Like tonight. The woman on the god-wagon had chosen Ahab. Not because of his good looks, nor because of his princely bearing. Only because Rael had howled out his rank to her in the stark fright that gripped him.
“Damn her,” he growled.
“Who, honey?” panted the woman.
“The bitch on the dais of Baal-Melkart.”
She trailed laughter into the night. “Oh, her. A wild one, that Jezebel. You’d think she’d be satisfied with being a rich man’s daughter, wouldn’t you? But not her. She has to play at being a priestess, too.”
“Jezebel? You know her?”
“The whole city knows her. Oh, you’re a stranger. I forgot. Her father is Ithobaal—honey, you all right?”
“I’m all right. Ithobaal? Isn’t he the one leading the revolt?”
“And if it succeeds, he’ll be king in Phoenicia. Some people have all the luck, don’t they?”
Jehu began to laugh. The woman rolled her hips at him, felt his laughter turn to harsh sobs. Her arms drew his head down so she could whisper in his ear.
“People like us, honey, have to take what we can get. There’s a kind of destiny about women like Jezebel.”
“And about men—like Ahab.”
Destiny. Maybe that was it. Destiny waited on Ahab and placed his feet where he would walk so as to fulfill it. He, Jehu, was doomed to walk forever in the shadow of such a man. It would do him no good to rail against his fate.
He must accept the leavings, like any other servant of royalty. Like this woman panting and surging back and forth beneath him. She was no Jezebel but she was a woman and she could bring him forgetfulness of a sort.
He gathered her in his arms and brought her in closer to him, feeling her respond with soft, erotic cries. A moment later her teeth were biting into his shoulder. Jehu wondered if Ahab would have toothmarks in his flesh by morning.
Two: A Bride Comes Into Israel
1.
Omri stared from the high window out across the plain of Jezreel. He was a man of medium size, balding now with age, but there was still an intense vitality in him. Twelve years had he reigned in Israel, ever since overthrowing the former general of the armies, Zimri, who had in turn achieved kingship by murdering young Elah, son of Baasha.
They had been good years. He had done much for his people, his kingdom. As far away as great Nineveh in Assyria, he had made trade treaties with its king, mighty Assur-nasir-pal. In Assyria they knew Israel as the House of Omri, and his wisdom was known and respected. It annoyed him, therefore, that his own flesh and blood should not also honor that wisdom by bowing before it.
“A pagan woman,” he growled. “A priestess of Baal.”
“And the princess of Phoenicia,” added Ahab, from a bench before the cedar table that held a score of scrolls. He had spread out one of them—it contained a listing of war chariots stabled at Megiddo—but his eyes were on his father.
When Omri snorted, Ahab smiled. He said casually, “An alliance with a powerful neighbor like Phoenicia is not to be shrugged away so easily, father. Such a dowry is better than any other I can think of.”
Omri turned from the window to face his son. Pride beat strong in him at sight of Ahab. His son was tall and strong, a good soldier, a wise man. He would extend the boundaries of the lands he would inherit when Omri died. By conquest or by statesmanship, it made no difference; Israel would be a power in its world, and Ahab, son of Omri, would sit its throne.
But a pagan woman!
Omri shook his head. They thought their own thoughts, this younger generation. In his youth, when Baasha had been king in Israel, the young men were subservient to their elders. Oh, there were times when he had been rebellious, though he had not carried it quite so far as Absalom against King David, nor Adonijah, who could not wait for his father to die before attempting to seize power.
He supposed he might make concessions. It was true that Ahab would rule Israel in his place when the grave-bands were tied about his wrists and ankles; Omri did not like to think of death but a king must make preparations for such eventualities; it was the duty of a king to think of his people even after he was in his grave. If by doing so he might guard them against disaster, Omri was all for it.
Aloud he said, “If it will make you happy, Ahab—take this woman to wife.”
Ahab gave a shout and raised high his arms. “Father, I thank you. Jezebel is the fairest of all women.