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The Scarlet Cord

By Carlene Havel

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Chapter One
Jericho. Approximately thirty-one years after the slaves escaped from Egypt.
“Bilda, take care to be inside the city walls before sunset,” Karmot warned. “Children, stay close to your mother. There is to be no straying or straggling. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Father,” the youngsters answered in chorus.
“No slacking, either. Work hard. Steal what you can so long as you do not get caught. Yassib, you are responsible for your mother and sisters. Guard them from thieves and takers.”
“I will do as you say, Father.”
“Go, then.” With an upward thrust of his chin, Karmot dismissed his family and crumpled across his sleeping mat.
“One of the girls could stay behind,” Yassib suggested, “to look after the baby.”
Swatting the air was Karmot’s only response.
Ignoring toddler Masula’s whimpering, Bilda gestured toward the one-room dwelling’s doorway. Yassib, tall for fourteen, ducked his head to pass through the low opening to the street. Kemil followed, his steps not as quick as those of his brother. Rondar, the oldest girl, dragged little Sanda along. Finally, the seven-year-old twins Rahab and Rohat emerged into the first promise of dawn.
“I am hungry,” Sanda said.
“We will eat when the sun is high,” Rondar replied.
Bilda silently herded her brood past dwellings similar to their own—one or two-room windowless hovels with walls formed from small stones, entrances covered by sturdy, weather-beaten wooden doors. The children walked with Yassib in front and Bilda behind, doing their best to keep some distance from other groups moving toward the city gate.
“I am cold,” Sanda complained.
“The sun will warm you soon enough,” Rondar said.
“Why is Father not coming with us?” the four-year-old asked.
“Be quiet and keep up,” Rondar hissed, “or I will give you to the takers.”
“Father is weak again,” Rahab said.
“Hush!” Kemil warned.
At the city gate, sleepy knots of workers waited to go to the fields. Peddlers also stood ready to depart, their donkey carts loaded with merchandise. Here and there a prosperous businessman and his armed guards held themselves apart from the crowd.
Jericho’s legendary walls had only one main opening. Huge oak trees smoothed of their bark, fireproofed with pitch, and fastened together formed the enormous gates. The outer barrier was flush with the outside of the thick city wall, with an equally massive gate within. Any army foolish enough to attack Jericho and persistent enough to breach the outer gate would find themselves trapped inside a pocket of death, or so the old men said. In reality, no enemy threatened the city’s security. The imposing fortifications served to direct the attention of warlords and marauders toward cities with weaker defenses.
Along with everyone else, Bilda’s family stood back while teams of soldiers slowly pushed the pair of outer gates open. Merchants sprang forward to claim prime commercial locations, where anyone entering or leaving the city would pass near their stalls. Three finely-dressed men rode away, each with his own entourage of bearers and bodyguards following. Next the donkey carts, then the mass of farm workers surged forward, through the gates and down the dusty main road leading away from Jericho. In every other direction, fields stretched as far as the eye could see.
After a long walk, Bilda used her hand to signal a stop. Working in the gardens and orchards near the city walls was safer, but paid less than toiling in outlying flax fields. The children clustered around their mother and waited in the road while Yassib approached a man seated under a shady tree. Pushing her fists into the small of her back, Bilda stretched her neck left and right.
“When will the new baby come?” Rondar asked.
Bilda sighed. “Perhaps one more change of the moon.”
After speaking with the foreman, Yassib beckoned to the family. One by one each of them filed by to pick up a large roughly-woven bag for collecting weeds while the overseer sipped from a jar. “Only one bag each,” he said, though no one had taken more. Bilda was the last member of the family to pass by the man’s watchful eye. “How much for a girl?” he asked her.
“They are not for sale,” Bilda replied.
“Why not? You obviously have more than you need.”
“Maybe next year.” Yassib smiled at the man. “They are still young.”
“The younger the better, as I see it,” the man muttered before drinking from his jar again. “They are pretty,” he said. “Especially the twins. You will get a good price for them someday.”
When Rahab turned to scowl at the man, Kemil pushed her toward the field. “Behave, sister,” he admonished. “Boldness will cause nothing but trouble in your life.”
Settling into an unoccupied section of the field, the family set to work. Rahab moved as far from her mother and brothers as she dared, followed by her twin Rohat. “These plants still have growing to do,” Rohat said while pulling weeds. “Perhaps we will have steady work here until the harvest.”
Removing unwanted plants carefully to avoid disturbing the tender flax, Rahab spoke without looking up. “I do not wish to come back to this place. I dislike the overseer.”
“Soon Father will be in the fields with us. Then we will have nothing to fear from anyone.” Rohat pushed soil over the exposed root of a young stalk. “It is not easy to tell the wild flowers from the flax.”
Rahab brushed stray curls of raven hair from her forehead. “Father’s strength will not return soon. And before then, birthing will keep Mother inside our home.”
“We are here to work, not talk,” Kemil said.
“Why must you sneak up on us?” Rahab demanded.
“Yassib and I have to make sure you earn your wages,” Kemil replied.
“We will do well today.” Rohat deftly used each hand independently to fill her bag. “Weeds have not been pulled from this field in some time.”
When the sun was directly overhead, workers filed by the overseer. He poured the contents of each worker’s weed bag into the bed of a large, wooden-wheeled cart to be taken away and burned. “You destroyed my flax,” he would occasionally announce, holding aloft a stalk or two pulled from among the tangle of weeds. “Only half the morning wages for you.”
Yassib distributed a barley cake to his mother and each of his sisters. He gave Kemil two cakes, keeping the remaining two for himself. The family took turns gulping from the single jar of sour wine provided by the overseer.
Late in the afternoon, Yassib collected everyone’s wages for the day and the family set out for home. “He cheated us,” Kemil complained when the group was a short way down the road to the city.
“What do you expect?” Yassib asked. Reaching inside his tunic, he pulled out a weed bag. “I took this to help balance the accounts, along with enough flax seed for our evening meal.”
“You would have done better to take that gold earring the overseer wore,” Kemil said.
“What did you get, brother?” Yassib asked.
Kemil walked ahead without answering.

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