Читать книгу Jezebel - Eleanor Jong De - Страница 22

Jezebel recovered quickly from the birth and within two days was able to walk around the Palace, if a little tenderly. She spent most of her time in the rooms adjacent to her own, where a wet-nurse had been provided to look after the baby. But when the nurse went for her meals or to take a bath, Jezebel would lift the boy out of his crib and hold him to her breast and the child would suckle fiercely. The child had survived the crucial early days of what everyone but Beset and Daniel believed to be a premature birth, and with that apparent good fortune the priests had come to regard Jezebel with a certain cool acceptance, although she was under no illusion that the joyfulness across the city at the arrival of the longed-for son was still tempered by hatred of her religion. Amos had allowed the Palace priests to undertake all the Israelite birthing ceremonies, then he had secretly blessed the child in the Phoenician custom in Jezebel’s room. And when the boy had made to scream, as though with the voices of all the Gods who fought over his protection, Daniel had simply held him and in a moment the baby had forgotten his discontent, gurgling at the physician and allowing the sacred water to be poured over his head, hands and feet.

Even Obadiah had accepted that Jezebel wandered freely round the Palace now, and that each afternoon she would go to Ahab’s office in the hope that he had sent her another letter tucked in among the military dispatches from the battlefield. Two weeks had passed since she had written to inform him of the birth of her son, and she was growing both impatient and anxious at his silence. One afternoon she was so eager to discover if a letter had arrived that she did not realise the office was already occupied until she had thrown back the curtain to enter.

Obadiah was seated in Ahab’s chair at his desk, flanked by a number of senior priests. But in front of them stood a tall man in military uniform, whose dark curls and suntanned skin, so recognisable yet so strange in this place, made Jezebel put her hand on the doorframe to steady herself.

She gulped down her gasp of surprise with an apology. ‘I beg your pardon for the interruption,’ she said.

Jehu turned at the sound of her voice, and his lips parted a fraction.

Jezebel, acutely aware of her appearance, felt her cheeks blaze with all the raw pleasure of seeing him again, and the embarrassment that their reunion had come in front of Obadiah. What was he doing here?

Jehu nodded minutely at last, but said nothing and strode to the window. He stared out, his jaw hard, his eyes averted from her.

‘I was not informed that we had received a Judean delegation,’ she said to Obadiah, then felt immediately frustrated with her imperious tone.

‘Your Highness has been occupied with your child,’ replied Obadiah. ‘I did not anticipate you would be interested in matters that concern the Kingdom of Israel.’

‘Your solicitude is generous,’ said Jezebel. ‘But now I’m here, I’d be grateful to know what brings our visitor to Samaria.’ She glanced at Jehu but still he ignored her.

‘Jehu comes with news,’ said one of the priests, a relatively young man named Enosh who had risen quickly in the Palace since the reprisals in the spring. ‘King Asa of Judah has died. Jehoshaphat is now King.’

Jezebel crossed the office towards Jehu, memories of her lover displaced by sympathy. ‘I’m sorry to hear of your grandfather’s death.’ She recalled the way his sparkling eyes had followed her throughout the visit. ‘I remember him as being very spirited when he came to Tyre.’

Still Jehu didn’t reply, nor did he turn to face her. After a moment’s awkward silence, Jezebel bowed and left without looking at the priests. Clearly he would make no sign of their intimacy in front of the Israelite priests, but still his indifference upset her. Surely now he’d had time to reflect upon their parting, he understood that she had never meant to hurt him? Perhaps it was wounded pride, or shame at their shared passion. He’d probably found another lover by now – perhaps even a wife – just as she had married Ahab.

As she climbed the staircase to return to her rooms, her sandals slapped angrily and her fingers had balled into fists. Whatever his reasons for such dismissiveness, he hadn’t even accorded her the respect her position here—

‘You forgot your letter.’

At the sound of his voice Jezebel’s breath caught in her throat. Jehu stood at the bottom of the stairs, the folded vellum in his outstretched hand.

‘I suppose someone else has already read it,’ she said.

Those should not have been my first words to him after all this time, not after our child’s birth.

‘You always were astute for your age.’

‘It is no more than is necessary for the Queen of Israel. We are honoured by your visit, though it is unexpected.’

Jehu shrugged. ‘My father thinks my skills of diplomacy in need of development.’

In that moment, seeing him so lost, so put upon, she had to fight to stop herself descending the stairs and taking him in her arms. Instead, she found herself uttering banalities.

‘So now you are son to a king.’

Jehu stiffened. ‘I hear a son has been born to Ahab also. Yahweh has seen fit to bless this marriage after all.’

Jezebel fought to keep composure in her expression. His words sounded bitter and yet he looked at her with that familiar intensity that burned right through her. Anyone who saw them together would surely know what they had shared, and there were bound to be officials near at hand, no doubt with the explicit instructions of Obadiah to eavesdrop on their conversation.

‘I would say that all the Gods have been kind to us.’

Jehu moved to the balcony and looked out across the gardens towards the south-west. ‘Even though only Yahweh is acknowledged here.’

Jezebel followed his gaze which was fixed on the roof of her Temple.

‘Your Gods have a reputation for being malicious and fickle,’ he continued. ‘I hear that even on the day of Ahab’s departure for Gilead the skies opened and drowned twenty of his troops. Was that not also the day you gave birth?’

‘If it is Yahweh who has blessed me with a child then presumably He could have protected the men of His own nation from a force of nature,’ said Jezebel.

Jehu glanced at her, and for the very briefest of moments Jezebel could see just how much he still yearned for her. Somewhere in a room behind them their child cried out. For a moment, Jezebel’s hopeful spirit imagined leading Jehu by the hand to greet his son.

‘You shouldn’t have accepted Ahab’s gift of a temple,’ said Jehu.

The spirit of the past vanished in a haze of disillusionment. ‘Considering little love is lost between Israel and Judah at the present time,’ she said, ‘you are well informed as to events in Samaria. Of course, if you knew Ahab as I do, you’d know that he retains a more open mind than many.’

‘Such an open mind that he himself executed some of the priests whose only crime was to uphold their own faith in the face of an unbeliever. Your influence is remarkably corrupt.’

Jezebel was so shocked at his accusation, she was about to ask Jehu whether he thought himself corrupted by her too, when Obadiah appeared in the courtyard below, looking up at the balcony.

Behind her, the baby’s cry had turned to a constant wail.

‘I won’t keep you,’ she said in a hollow voice.

Jehu peered in the direction of the sound. ‘My time here is brief,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to escort Leah back to Judah.’

‘I see. Is Esther going with her?’

‘No. She’s chosen to stay with her father. And her new friend,’ he said, drawing his attention back to Jezebel.

‘Does Ahab know of Leah’s departure?’

‘I believe not.’

Jehu seemed to be about to add something, but instead he turned away and loped down the staircase to join Obadiah. Jezebel could not watch him leave, but went into the nursery and took her son from his crib. Had Ahaziah sensed his father’s brooding presence? And what would Jehu have said if she had led him into this room and told him the truth? For while her cheeks flamed with raw anger and loss, her head rattled with everything she could have said but didn’t. Such a course of action could only create discord and chaos. By the time the child had stopped crying, all that remained was a dull ache in her heart.