Excerpt
I remember two things about the night Jericho fell. I remember that I was sixteen years old, and that I was in love. Thoughts of war were the furthest from my young mind as I tossed and turned in my bed, hearing the sounds of the city beyond my balcony--Jericho on the Jordan River never slept--because I could not put Benjamin's handsome face from my mind. I heard distant thunder that night. A spring storm rolling in from the Great Sea, I thought. Black clouds tumbling over the coastal towns, over Jerusalem, soon to quench Jericho's thirst. Thank the Highest One, I silently prayed. My father's date groves needed the rain. He was at that moment in the Temple, offering a fat spring lamb and asking the Most High for relief from the drought. His brother, my uncle, and a physician in high standing, was in the poor quarter where the drought-fever had struck the hardest. He was a familiar sight among the poor, who called him "beloved healer." But my thoughts, on that fateful spring night, could not remain on the charitable deeds of pious men. Benjamin came into my vision as I closed my eyes and treated myself to his smile, his laugh, his broad shoulders, the way he walked. I was a girl dreaming of marriage. Benjamin was the son of a wealthy family who monopolized Jericho's rich textile trade. His father was close friends with the King. We were betrothed. That evening, Papa had kissed me good night, promising to speak to Benjamin's father on the matter of the wedding date. It was to be a summer wedding, for there is no luckier time to wed. My life was perfect. My father was one of Jericho's wealthiest citizens, and my mother the descendant of a king of Syria in the North. We lived in a palatial house with marble pillars within the high walls of a fortified town. Jericho was the safest city in the world, and our house--which was elegant and second only to the King's palace--stood in the protective shadow of Jericho's formidable southwest tower from which soldiers had defended the city through the centuries. We had servants and fine furniture, my sisters and I dressed in gowns of the softest wool. We wore gold. We ate off silver plates. And so I saw before me, like a feast laid out on a table, a life of abundance and joy and possibilities. No girl in the world was happier than I. The thunder drew nearer, that night, rolling over the western hills. And when I heard shouts and screams in the streets beyond my balcony, I wondered why someone would be afraid of a spring rain. And then I heard a cry downstairs. A crash. Feet stamping across the polished limestone floor. I flew from my bed to the inner balcony that ran around the inside of the second story of our house. I looked down at the main hall below, where we received guests and held fabulous banquets. My eyes widened in shock as I saw soldiers rudely striding in. They were not wearing the green tunics of Canaanite troops but white kilts, leather breastplates, and close-fitting helmets. From their speech, as they shouted orders at the panicked servants, I realized they were Egyptian. I realized, too, that the thunder I had heard was not the sound of rain coming to Jericho but the rumble of war chariots racing across the plains surrounding the city.