Uriel finally broke our silence. “It is time.”
I crept out of the bushes, then circled around and sat beneath a tree on the roadside, resting my back against its trunk. A group of men passed, and when the last of them disappeared, leaving the road in front of me empty, I ran one hand over the strings of my kinnor.
Uriel and Shimon appeared beside me. Small groups of walkers flowed by as we ate our midday meal, appearing like three travelers stopping for a rest. When a large group of men appeared down the road, Uriel said, “We will let them pass, then join in from behind.”
The sun beat down as we fell into stride with the group. My hair stuck to my forehead and sweat pooled beneath the rolled-up sheepskin slung over my back. Images of the cool spring near my uncle’s house danced in my head, but Levonah was behind us—ahead lay Shomron.
We mingled in at the back of the crowd, moving past the very rear where we might stand out. My eyes flickered to the hilltops above the road, occasionally picking out a soldier stationed on a peak, but my breath remained steady. These were no longer the soldiers we feared—from above they would see nothing strange in this throng returning from Beit El.
The masses moving north on the road thinned throughout the day as men turned off toward home. In the late afternoon, we rounded a bend, and the road dropped into a long decline. We were close to Shomron now, the destination of most of those still walking. We approached a cluster of men stopped ahead, just before the shade of a large carob tree.
“What’s going on up there?” Shimon asked.
Uriel stood to his full height. “Soldiers.”
“Israelite or foreigners?”
“Foreigners.”
I glanced at Shimon, and my heart thumped in my chest. This was the encounter I was dreading. Would he seek conflict with the Queen’s soldiers? I was relieved to see no hunger for battle on his face. His expression was calm, almost serene. Learning of Uriel’s curse rebounding upon himself seemed to have changed Shimon—as if for ten years he’d hungered to hold the prophet’s power to curse, and only now realized its cost. He said, “A roadblock. Should we turn off?”
Uriel nodded toward the sides of the road. “They have soldiers stationed along the hillsides. They will be watching for anyone trying to avoid them. We are better off walking through.”
I followed my master’s gesture. At first I didn’t spot them—they were not like the lookouts sitting mounted on the hilltops. These watchers were further down, in the shadows, where they could see without being seen.
Shimon’s body tensed as he studied the soldiers bordering the roadside, and his eyes lost their quiet. His hand slipped under his cloak to the hilt of his sword.
I inched closer to him and whispered, “Remember, Master Uriel must reach Dotan.”
Shimon regarded his hand, appearing surprised to find it grasping the sword, as if his battle-hungry instincts had acted of their own accord. He released the hilt and placed his hand on my shoulder instead. “I know the plan.”
We drew closer to the roadblock. Uriel said, “There’s a priest as well.”
“What?” Shimon asked.
“A priest of the Baal. Under the tree.”
I craned my neck to see. Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of violet robes in the shade of the carob tree. One soldier stood on each side of the road, while a third blocked the path in front of the waiting men, forcing them to pass through the shade one at a time. A man in a gray cloak was waved through. He stepped under the tree, approached the priest, then dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the ground.
“Clever,” Uriel said.
“What’s clever, Master?”
“Izevel is most powerful in Shomron, but many are opposed to her, even there. So, she waited until all the men of the city left for the festival, then placed a Baal on their path home. Now she can see who will bow and who will resist.”
I peered under the tree, trying to glimpse the statue. “We must get through, Master.”
“I will not bow before the Baal.”
“Even to save your life?” The words rung hollow, Uriel placed too little value on his life. I changed tactics, appealing to his sense of mercy instead. “Even to save my life?” This too failed.
“Some things are more precious than life, Lev. We are commanded to choose death rather than bow to strange gods. Even you must be willing to die rather than bow.”
Shimon’s hand sought the hilt of his sword, not absentmindedly as before, but with the same blazing intensity in his eyes as when he first leapt out of the trees to save us the week before. “You see, Lev, I was right to prepare for battle.”
“There are three soldiers ahead and at least five more on the hillsides—you can’t fight them all!”
“Samson killed a thousand in a single battle. You heard Master Uriel, Lev. The spirit I received was the same as Samson’s.”
“You don’t know if you’ll merit that power again.”
“No, I don’t. But even if I don’t, I won’t be fighting alone.”
“There’s not much Uriel or I could do against all these soldiers.”
“It’s not just the three of us. It’s easy to scare the people one at a time, but in their arrogance, they’ve become reckless. The crowd is moving through too slowly. There are fifty men waiting and more coming up behind us. If we resist, we will draw much support—especially if it’s known that we are led by a prophet.”
I wanted to believe him, but recalled the fear on the faces of farmers just like these at the wedding. “But these men aren’t armed. They’ll run at the first sight of blood.”
Uriel shook his head. “It matters not if they are armed. Izevel is seeking to strengthen her support, not to spark a rebellion. Her soldiers will not fight so many, even if they could.”
My mind raced. The Queen ordered her soldiers to hunt down every prophet in the land. Perhaps Uriel could lead the crowd through the roadblock without bloodshed, but the soldiers were sure to notice that no ordinary man was at their head. They were sure to follow him and call others to their aid. Any violence would mean abandoning the plan, and I’d sworn to deliver my master safely to Dotan.
We were close enough now to see the statue, a larger version of the one now resting in my uncle’s house. Cast in bronze, its long helmet ascending toward the sky, a jagged sword raised, ready to strike, it stood perched on a wooden pedestal beneath the tree. Another farmer stepped forward, and he too bowed before the Baal. A thought occurred to me. “Master, if Izevel is afraid of a rebellion, then her soldiers cannot be killing all those who refuse to bow, can they?”
Uriel shook his head. “No, Lev, you must be correct. There are still too many in Israel, even in Shomron, that would refuse.”
“So what happens to them? Are they allowed to pass?”
