Eleanor Jong - Jezebel

‘His Highness the King is here to see you. Shall I ask him to wait?’

‘Of course not.’ Jezebel came away from the window. ‘Father? Come in.’

Beset drew back the curtains fully and gave a low bow as Ithbaal entered. He looked around him at the cosy space, soft with couches and cushions and the yellow tones of the oil lamps, and for a moment, Jezebel was sure he would notice Jehu’s distinctive almond scent in the room. But he merely gave a nod of satisfaction and sat down on a couch beneath the window. Jezebel smiled to herself. At least if Jehu scaled the tree, eager to give her the news of their engagement, he would see that her father had got there first!

‘You have made these chambers very comfortable for yourself. You have your mother’s eye for beauty.’

‘Thank you, Father.’ Jezebel sat down beside him.

‘At least you can take all these fancy pieces with you when you move, and recreate this room exactly as it is elsewhere. It won’t be the same, of course.’ He paused, and Jezebel looked eagerly at him. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I will miss you when you are gone, but the time has come for me to let you go. The negotiations have been completed and you are to be married.’

Jezebel gasped, her hands flying to her cheeks to smother the flare of delight. ‘Just as you wish, Father.’

‘In three days you will travel to Samaria to marry King Ahab of Israel.’

Jezebel sagged on the couch, all her giddy joy suddenly dispelled. Her hands turned clammy in her lap as she stared at her father, panic rising fast in her chest. ‘What? I don’t understand. King Ahab?’

‘It has been a far more difficult negotiation than with the Judeans, if that could be possible, and I don’t believe that Obadiah came here prepared to give up anything at all in exchange for you. But it is the right outcome for Tyre.’

‘But the Judeans have been here longer.’

‘What sort of reason is that?’

Jezebel scrambled to order her thoughts. ‘Then settling with Israel is the less ambitious choice, they are our immediate neighbour, they open no new land routes for trade, and Jehu was right, the King’s Highway and the Sea Road together would secure—’

‘Jehu’s arguments are persuasive only because of the passion with which he delivers them. Just because a man shouts loudly does not mean that what he says is right. He is thinking only of Judah whereas I’m thinking of Tyre and all the Phoenician kingdoms.’

‘But Jehu is a better match—’

‘For whom?’ demanded Ithbaal, standing up. ‘For you or for Tyre? You have enjoyed a life utterly without responsibility, Jezebel, and though you are more than intelligent enough to understand the issues, you know nothing of what sacrifices must be made for the good of the kingdom. It is time to put aside your personal wishes and become a true princess of Tyre. You are to marry Ahab and there will be no further discussion about it.’

He strode across the room towards the doorway and Jezebel sucked hard on her cheeks, trying to control her tears until her father had left.

But at the doorway he suddenly stopped, steadying himself on the doorframe as he turned.

‘Perhaps I haven’t presented this to you very well. Perhaps if you had seen Obadiah for yourself, if you had witnessed both sets of negotiations, you might have understood better what I’ve had to consider myself. And perhaps if I had seen matters through your eyes, I might have understood that the presence of a handsome young man, however misguided, is always going to be more attractive than the proposition of an absent stranger. But Ahab is a sound ruler.’

‘And what is the point of owning two great ports,’ sniffed Jezebel, ‘if you cannot safely navigate the sea between them? We must protect all of the King’s Highway, not just the top and the bottom.’

Jehu didn’t see the arrangement that way at all.

The dish of nuts left his hand and smashed against the wall and Jezebel flinched. ‘Your father had no intention of ever sealing a deal with us!’ he yelled.

She went quickly to him, smothering his body in her arms. He remained rigid, trembling with rage. ‘Don’t be angry, please. If there was any other way …’

‘He kept us hanging on here for days while he waited for Obadiah to make up his mind,’ Jehu muttered.

‘It’s not like that—’

Jehu pushed her away. ‘Isn’t it? I’ve been a fool.’

‘We love each other! What’s foolish about that?’

‘Love? Is that what you call this? Sweetening me night after night so that I might go back to my father every morning with fresh reasons for us to stay and negotiate.’

‘Don’t say that!’ cried Jezebel, stepping back. ‘Don’t say things so hurtful when I know you don’t mean them. I must go to Israel and marry a man I’ve never met instead of the man I love.’

‘So you say!’ His voice cracked on the words, and she could see his face holding back his tears. The boy who had seemed so grown up now looked very young.

‘I’d never given myself to a man before you came to Tyre.’

‘You want me to believe you learned those charms in my arms? Surely a people as travelled as yours have learned a thing or two along the way.’

‘Oh!’ Jezebel fell back on the couch, unable to hold back her tears. Had this monster, who even now was kicking over stools and hurling cushions across the room, lurked always beneath that tender exterior? As he grabbed the ceremonial bowl from Astarte’s shrine, she threw herself at him, trapping it between them.

‘Don’t dishonour us both,’ she whispered urgently, ‘don’t call down the rage of the Gods on us for what has happened.’

She clasped his face, now wet with tears of anger and disappointment, and wiped them away, then she kissed her fingers so that she might taste his misery and know it as well as her own. ‘Don’t blame Astarte but pray with me that our love might last for all eternity.’

Jehu’s head fell against her shoulder, and Jezebel felt his body shudder against her in a great heave of despair. ‘No God will protect that.’

‘Then at least believe in me. Stay with me tonight, one last night, so that we can seal our love—’

But Jehu pulled away from her, drawing out of reach. He turned his back on her and laid Astarte’s bowl back at the foot of her shrine. ‘I won’t lie down with the wife of the Israelite king. The God I share with him would forbid it.’

‘Jehu!’

He shook his head and strode from the room. Jezebel watched the curtains sway in his wake, felt the last sweet draught of almond-scented air brush her face, then she sank sobbing to her knees.

‘Hail, Hail!’ cried the crowd at the head of the causeway. ‘All Hail to Jezebel!’

Jezebel glanced at Beset, who stood beside her in the Palace courtyard. But the young maid was staring at the huge gathering of Tyrians who lined the path linking the promontory to the mainland, her eyes wide with her own nervousness and anticipation of her future responsibilities at Jezebel’s side. Beyond Beset stood Daniel with his horse, the beast saddled up with his medicinal chests and rolls of clothes and blankets. Her friend smiled at her and puffed out his cheeks – there weren’t really words for occasions like this.

Barely a month had passed since Jehu and the Judeans departed the city, but it seemed like longer. Everything had changed, and Jezebel felt as though she’d been snatched up on a whirlwind of preparations which would carry her away from Tyre to a new and strange life.

Before the retinue stood an enclave of priests, all dressed in the same long linen robes, led by Daniel’s uncle, Amos. He held aloft a great wreath of sacred branches which he would shortly break apart and spread on the first few steps of the journey. The offering to the Great God El was to ensure safe passage south to Samaria.