Free Delilah: A Novel by India Edghill

Lady does not ask for such tribute.” Other gods might, but not the Lady we served. I stroked Aylah’s shoulder. “That seer was wrong—or read the future badly. You are safe here.”
    As if she had not heard me, she said, “I wish I knew when. That is all.” Her voice was flat, revealing neither fear nor grief.
    I flung back the blanket that covered us, rose to my feet, and walked over to the window. For half a dozen heartbeats, I looked out upon the moonlit garden, at the branches troubled by the night breeze. Then I reached for the shutter and pulled it over the window.
    “There,” I said into the sudden darkness. “Now there are no more shadows.”
    I tied the shutter closed and padded back to bed, feeling my way cautiously. When I lay once more beside Aylah, I said, “No one will harm you, sister of my heart. We will find another seer who will summon a better future than the last.”
    She sighed, and pressed her cheek against mine. “No good comes of trying to cheat the gods, Delilah.”
    “I would never try to cheat Atargatis.” I spoke the words solemnly, as a vow. “And you are Her daughter. She will protect you.” I was always less wise and more trusting than Aylah.
    “Atargatis may love me as Her daughter, but the Temple does not.”
    I hugged Aylah hard. “Everyone in the Temple loves you, Aylah. They do.”
    For a moment she said nothing, then she kissed my cheek. “You are a true sister to me, Delilah. Now promise you will tell no one what I have told you. Leave my fate in the hands of the goddess.”
    Glad to hear that Aylah trusted in Atargatis, I promised to keep her secret. That vow I kept, although I forgot the first.

 
Derceto
     
     
     
    “Now the children of Israel had done evil in the eyes of their god Yahweh, had forsaken the old ways that had brought them safe through all peril.”
Safe enough words for listeners; not even Hebrews could object to Orev singing what the great prophet Samuel himself had railed against.
“The children of Israel forsook the old laws, until every man did what was right in his own eyes. And so in those days, the Philistines ruled over all the land, and no man could stand against them.”
     
    Another raid upon the outlying farms—and what am I to do about it? Will Sandarin send armed men at my bidding? No, if I ask for City soldiers to protect Temple lands, he will smile and say that so rich a Great House must surely be able to provide for itself. As if Our Lady deals in swords and spears!
    Sometimes Derceto longed for the days when she had been only one of the Temple’s most favored Full Moons. On truly bad days, she wished she were a little New Moon again, a child to whom nothing mattered beyond Our Lady’s Gate. But she was High Priestess, and must confront the world beyond the Temple—an uncertain, changing world that even Temple walls could not deny forever.
    The Five Cities had ruled the Sea-Lands of Canaan time out of mind. But the Five Cities no longer reigned unchallenged. A dozen lifetimes ago, a new people had fled bondage in Egypt and sought sanctuaryin the sweet land of Canaan. At first the new tribes had dwelt peacefully enough at the borders of Canaan, in the hills and far valleys. But two peoples cannot share a land both covet. The Hebrews began to raid the lands of the Five Cities, claiming they belonged to them, a gift from their god. People already dwelling in Canaan meant nothing to these fierce men, who scorned all gods other than their own.
    But in truth, it did not matter that the Hebrews scorned all gods other than their own. Perhaps the gods and goddesses had quarreled with the Hebrews’ god; if so, prudence dictated that mere mortal men and women remain aloof from heaven’s battles. As proof, historians offered up the examples of the Swan Court and the Horse Court.
    Their kings and queens meddled in the affairs of the gods—and what remains now of gold-proud Mykenae and of windswept Troy? Naught but ruins
. So the Temple