The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [85]
"You should have been afraid. I would have torn his tongue out! I will yet, when I find him."
Her face went gray. "No! Oh no!" Suddenly she flung herself at his feet. "Don't harm him! Tell me you won't harm him! Oh—if you hurt him I will die!"
He looked down at her, loathing her. But he knew that she had told him the truth. The Roman had not come into his house.
"Stop groveling and listen to me," he said cruelly. "If I do not kill him, you must never speak to him again."
"No. Never!"
"You must give me your solemn word."
"I do. I promise anything you say."
"You will not show yourself where he can see you."
"No. I will never go out into the garden again."
"You have brought shame on my house, and on Simon's house and on our father's name. On the name of Israel, even."
She began to sob again.
"Weep!" he railed at her. "Weep your silly tears! See if you can cry your shame away."
He turned blindly toward the door, wanting only to be out of sight of her. She lay with her head against the earth floor, her face hidden. For an instant he wavered. Then he remembered something. When was it—on a summer day—she had said, "He is homesick." Even then! All this time she had deceived him. He plunged through the door and out into the street.
For hours he walked, rushing through the village streets, trampling the pastures on the slopes, striding along the road, drenched by intermittent rain. At first he had some wild thought of finding the Roman. For most of the night he did not really know where he went. As the first pink streaks of light streamed up in the sky he turned back toward the village. He was exhausted and empty, and his shoulder throbbed with pain. He had walked out the fierce anger that had driven him. Now, in its place, shame flowed in.
It was a good thing he had not met a legionary in the night. He might have brought down a reprisal on the whole village. Now that his head was clearer he saw that in spite of his bitter loathing, no one else would recognize his claim to vengeance. The Roman legion had its own laws, as strict as those of the Jews. But it was unlikely there was any law, either Roman or Jewish, that said a Roman legionary could not speak to a Jewish woman over a garden wall.
What did Rome mean to Leah? She had seen a boy, scarcely older than herself, with yellow hair like her own. But why hadn't she been afraid?
"I shouldn't have shouted at her," he thought with shame. "I will try to make it up to her. I will show her that she does not need to be afraid of me."
But let that Roman never set foot in his shop again!
The house was very quiet. On the floor of the room the spilled fruit lay in the dust. Leah sat in a corner, a wilted blossom still clinging to her hair. When Daniel came in, she did not raise her head.
23
IN A FEW MOMENTS he had undone the work of months. Overnight Leah had become again the wan ghost who had cowered beside her dying grandmother. She did not comb her golden hair, or sweep the floor, or speak. She did not seem to recognize her loom. All day she sat with her head bowed and her hands idle. It was as though everything that had happened since the day of Daniel's homecoming had never been, except that one thing had changed. Now, above all else, she feared him.
In a torment of remorse, Daniel did all the work about the house, the sweeping and washing and baking. He steeled himself against her constant trembling, and the cringing whenever he came through the door. When she refused to notice her food so long as he was in the room, he left the bowl on the mat beside her. Sometimes when he returned it was half empty; more often it was untouched. He pleaded with her very gently. He