has chosen us to fight it.’
They were lucky. That was all they could say about it. The lower half of four rows were lost to the blaze, but they had reached the flames before they could do serious damage to the roots of the plants. Shouts and screams of panic had given way to a determined, silent routine: a chain of women and men, boys and girls, Delilah among them, had quickly formed lines from the two wells to the burning vines. They had managed to put out the fire by the time the sun’s rim touched the horizon. The smoke from the blaze was now a dark stain drifting west on a light breeze, masking the stars.
When it was all over, and Achish was sadly pruning back the blackened wood by lamplight, Delilah slipped away from the crowd and went back to the house. Her hair was thick with the sickly smoke. Her beautiful orange dress was filthy, the hem heavy with wet earth, the bodice smudged with soot and water. It would perhaps wash out. She couldn’t wait to clean herself up. There was a small well round the back of the house, near the stable block, and she could rinse her hair there and wash her face before she went into the house.
She pulled up a bucket of fresh cold water, then plunged her head down into it, swirling her hair around in the water with her hands. Then she twisted it against itself into a thick coil and raised her head, blinking the water away and drawing the wet tresses over her shoulder. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and opened them to find Joshua right in front of her, leaning against the well.
‘I think you’re the bravest person I know, Delilah.’
‘We had to be,’ she said, deflecting the compliment. ‘The vineyard means everything to all of us.’
As he nodded silently she looked him over. The lamplight from the stable walls fell across the yard, glinting on Joshua’s damp skin, outlining his muscular arms against his grubby tunic.
‘I’m a mess,’ she said quietly.
‘So am I. We should clean up.’
Delilah held his gaze for a moment, then took a step towards him. She could smell the smoke and sweat on his skin, hear his breathing. ‘Then do you want to help me get out of these wet things?’
Joshua pulled her against him, and as her breasts pressed against his taut chest, she was sure she could feel his heart thudding. His cheek brushed hers, then his tongue began to lick drops of water from her neck, his breath drying her skin.
She heard her own soft moans, but she couldn’t quite relax. Her eyes searched the dark corners near the house, expecting someone – another slave, perhaps, or even Ariadnh, to step out. She eased Joshua’s lips away.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘If Achish finds you …’
‘I’ll be banished to the salt mines,’ he smiled.
Taking her hand, he led her to a patch of ground behind the house, overlooked by no window. ‘Is this all right?’ he asked.
Her throat felt dry, and she nodded. As Joshua wrapped his arms around her once more, Delilah closed her eyes and tried to give herself to the moment. To her surprise, it was Samson’s face she saw, and his hands she imagined moving down her back. Why did he have to appear again now? She let her own hands touch Joshua’s shoulders, and saw the gooseflesh rise across them. At his waist, she felt his hardness press against her. Suddenly, the laughter with Beulah, speaking and laughing of Qadeshtu, seemed childish and hollow.
He kissed her softly on the lips, unclipping the shoulder clips of her dress. The material dropped over her skin, revealing the soft swelling of her breasts and stomach. Joshua backed away a little, his eyes travelling down her body. Her hands automatically went to cover her chest, but Joshua took her wrists gently and placed them on his own chest. In the light of the half moon she suddenly felt shy – she realised she’d been thinking about this moment quite often over the last two weeks, but now that it was here she wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to do.
‘There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ Joshua whispered.
He unbuckled his belt and drew his tunic off over his head, then laid it down on the floor. Shadows and light played over his smooth body, taut with muscle, and the only marking was a streak of fine hairs leading from his belly to the nest of hair from which his manhood stood proud but vulnerable against the patch of almost white flesh.
‘I’ve never seen …’ she said, letting her fingers trail across his chest and down. He groaned, and now kissed her deeply, giving way to his lust. She pulled him down beside her, and they lay side by side, his hand stroking softly at her buttocks, then gripping her flesh harder. The heat between their bodies spread across her skin. She arched her back as his lips moved to her throat once more and then to her breasts. She ran her fingers through his hair as his teeth plucked lightly at her nipple. Sensation fizzed across her skin, as if every tiny hair on her body were lifting as one.
Then his hands look the place of his mouth, and he moved lower still. His hot breath tingled on her hip-bone and she let her legs part for him. She gasped in surprise as his tongue found her sex. No one had told her of this. Their bodies seemed intertwined. The day had been one of endless thinking and shouting, and she was grateful to give way to touch and sensation.
‘Come to me,’ she said.
Joshua’s hair stood up where she had ruffled it, and he grinned, looking suddenly very young. He leaned to kiss her again, and instinctively, Delilah let her legs part for him. He moved his hips forward and she reached down to take his hardness in her hand. Their lips didn’t part as she guided him inside her. For a moment, there was a dull pain, growing sharper, but the next there was only softness, and their bodies came together and parted like the tide rolling up and down the beach. She pulled his body tightly against her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hooking her legs over his pale buttocks. His breath, on her neck, was a series of thin, quivering exhalations, and she abandoned herself to his rhythm. Would it be like this with Samson, she wondered, then felt guilty for letting her mind drift from the moment.
All at once, Joshua’s breathing became laboured, and his hips shuddered. She waited for the spasms of his pleasure to finish, stroking his cheek. His damp hair was stuck to his forehead, and suddenly the night seemed too warm.
For a while he lay inside her, and she felt her body sink from the height of their shared passion. The moon had moved over the house by the time they parted. Still dizzy from the new sensations Joshua had left in her, she said a simple goodnight. Joshua went back to the servant quarters first, checking to make sure the path was clear. Adjusting her clothes, Delilah walked lazily towards the darkened house, so engrossed in the novelty of what they had discovered together, that she failed to notice a small light hanging in the courtyard until she was close enough to see someone framed in the doorway. Ekron sat alone beneath the light, staring out. He hadn’t yet washed, and behind the streaked dirt, his eyes looked very white.
Delilah drew her dress more tightly to her body and walked slowly into the shadowy house. It was some time before she fell asleep, troubled as she was by the sadness and confusion she’d seen on Ekron’s face.
Chapter Seven
Three years later
The man’s hollow, watery eyes settled on Delilah for a moment, then fell again to the track. The load of rolled blankets piled precariously on his back looked ready to crush him. Behind him was his wife, her long, bedraggled gown tugged by a sandy squall. Over her shoulder, Delilah saw the face of a sleeping baby boy. He, at least, looked content.
‘That’s the seventh family we have passed since the bend in the road,’ she said when the cart had moved out of earshot.
Her stepfather nodded slowly and glanced back over his shoulder. ‘And here comes another one.’
Delilah rearranged the shawl that shaded her head from the midday sun, hoping that anyone who took the time to look up from the dusty road into the cart would see that her features were as Israelite as the driver’s. To be travelling in such comfort stirred a vague guilt.