low-lying clouds that lingered but…
Jezebel
The Darling Strumpet
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Credits
Chapter One
‘Lilah! Where are you?’
Delilah tucked her feet more tightly beneath her and closed her eyes. She knew she couldn’t be seen – that was the magic of her tiny nest between the vines, especially now, with the leaves so broad and green and the clusters of grapes beginning to swell on their stems – but it made sense to keep still and wait for Ekron to pass. Up the slope behind her, the sounds of the wedding party were like the rush of a distant river.
‘Delilah? I know you’re—’ She heard him break off and clear his throat, growling to himself, trying to keep his voice deep, to give the impression of being the man she knew he longed to be. He sounded so close; he must be in the next row over beside the well.
‘I know you’re out here, Delilah. You can’t keep secrets from me!’
Ekron’s last word came out in one painfully high squeak above the rest of the sentence, and Delilah gulped down the giggles that rose inside her. She could hear him wailing to himself as he trudged away along the path. His face would be burning red like the evening sun by now.
The scuffs of her stepbrother’s sandals against the dusty earth became quieter as he continued his search further down the slopes. She couldn’t understand his hurry to grow up. She’d be happy if she was eight forever, but he had begun marking off the time until his twelfth birthday even though it was at least four moons away.
When he was out of earshot, Delilah untucked herself and sat cross-legged against the trunk of the vine. She ran her fingers along a pair of branches that rose over her shoulder, feeling the bark as it twisted around itself, already brown in the late summer heat. One branch was fatter than the other. Her father had once told her that it was branches like these that should be tied to the supports, for they would provide the frame of a plant year after year. The other branch, weaker and thinner, had coiled along the stronger one, strangling it. Delilah knew that if her father had been here, he would have cut the tendril away, even though it already held the promise of fat fruits.
Thinking about her father made her sad, and she pulled the leaves gently apart to peer up the valley towards the house. There was a strange little hump on this part of the slope that raised these few vines slightly above their neighbours. She’d found the hiding place by accident over a year ago, tripping among the neat rows of vines on her stepfather Achish’s estate as she ran headlong from her mother’s howls and the ritual laments of the gathered mourners. Tearing her dress had been just another horrible part of that wretched day.
Ekron had come after her then too, like he always did when she was upset, but she’d dodged him and weaved among the vines, faster than him, more desperate to escape than he was to catch her. From the secret nook she’d watched the groundsmen with their spades, repairing the ground that had been broken up to accept her father’s body. His burial had been quick, hurried along by the Israelite traditions of which he had been so proud. Later that night, as her mother stitched her dress and Delilah cleaned the dust and tears from her face, she’d all but forgotten Achish’s words of comfort by the graveside – not to worry, that he’d take care of her. Until that moment, he’d been just her father’s employer, and a man with whom she rarely came into contact. She’d been too young to realise that one day he’d be something more.
Now, fourteen months later, the earth above her father’s grave looked as brown and smooth as the earth around it, the only mark of its presence a young olive tree that cast a thin shadow across it. Achish had kept to his promise, and today marked the day that he took Delilah’s mother as a wife. They had a new family, a new home, and each night she added the great Philistine god El to her prayers, thanking him for his kindness. Her mother had learned to smile again and Achish had made that happen. Ekron seemed happy enough too, to have Delilah as a stepsister as well as a friend. But Hemin – well, Hemin couldn’t smile if you pasted one on that thin face with clay. And Delilah knew Hemin would sooner make herself sick than call Delilah her sister.
‘—of course, it will be very difficult for Achish, raising that Israelite child in his own Philistine family—’
Delilah let the leaves fall together again and tilted her head to listen. Over by the well she could see the feet of two women, old wrinkly feet in fussy sandals, their painted leather now dusted with dry earth.
‘She is a handful, I’m sorry to say.’ That was the voice of Achish’s first wife, Ariadnh. She sounded a bit more formal than usual, as though she was trying to impress the woman she was speaking to. ‘She has no sense of her place, no sense of how lucky she is.’
‘Lucky indeed. I mean to say, her mother Beulah seems a pleasant woman—’
‘Pleasant enough for an Israelite—’
‘But she has married out of her culture and well above her station. Surely Achish knows how people will see it: the effects of such an association on himself, on his children, on you—’
‘It’s not merely a question of station, of course. Clearly I couldn’t possibly say this to Achish myself—’
‘It’s not a wife’s place to speak frankly to her husband—’
‘Although Beulah does speak quite bluntly to Achish, I’ve heard it—’
Delilah bristled. How dare Ariadnh talk that way about her mother? From a young age, she recognised that there were differences between the two peoples who occupied the land, but it was only now, as the two worlds came together, that she realised the Israelites were a station beneath. One rarely saw Philistines in the fields when the sun was at its hottest, and even in the city there were areas that Philistines wouldn’t go to without a chaperone. Among the other workers on Achish’s estate, Israelite and Philistine couples didn’t mix.
She crawled out of her hiding place. The two women were still chattering on and had turned to walk slowly back up the hill again. Delilah crept along, listening carefully.
‘But that’s the Israelite way,’ the other woman was saying. ‘As the senior wife, you will need to take care that little Hemin and Ekron are raised properly, and that Beulah’s more casual manners don’t infect them. You only have to look at Delilah to know that she lacks breeding and self-control; she has none of the poise of Hemin, no sense of her new father’s status in the community—’
‘Lilah!’
Delilah looked up to find Ekron standing at the head of the row, waving to her.
‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been? Come back to the party. My father is asking for you specially. He has a honey cake he wants you to try.’
Though she was barely tall enough to see over the vines, Delilah lifted her chin at the now silent women who were peering over the rows at the eavesdropper. She gave a haughty grin to Ariadnh and skipped away up the slope towards Ekron, aware that her hair was springing wildly about her head. This morning, especially for the marriage ceremony, her mother had tied her curls into the neat twist favoured by older girls, and entwined flowers to match her own headdress into her daughter’s hair. They’d long since fallen out or been snared on the branches of the hideaway. Delilah didn’t care. If Ariadnh and her friend expected her to look like little more than a farm girl, she might as well stop worrying about keeping clean and tidy, and enjoy the day.
Ekron beamed at her, and they set off together, back towards the big house. The guests were starting to thin out now, and several were walking away in groups down the long path to the city road. She couldn’t see her mother or Achish among the remaining crowd, and no one paid any attention to the two children approaching the thatched awning that covered one edge of the