Jezebel

by Denise Robins

Genres: Erotic & Steamy Romance

Synopsis

Jezebel's reception into Samaria was hailed as one of the wonders of the world. Drenched in the exotic colours of the East, the spectacle of Ahab's bride and her triumphant progress to the Ivory Palace was never to be forgotten. Yet even then, amid the cheering voices, there were those who seemed to sense a dreadful power in Jezebel's stately bearing. Her beauty brought her praise and admiration from all who served her. But as Thamar, her half-sister had foreseen, the seeds of Jezebel's glory were later to bear a terrible fruit. For her evil and tyranny would one day earn her the title of the wickedest woman in the world.

Release date: June 12, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 256

Sample

I remember clearly the first time I saw Jezebel.

In the days in which I live there is nothing unusual about nudity, although the children of Jehovah are bidden to gird their loins. So I was not shocked to see that Jezebel’s fabulous body was naked except for a single ruby glittering in her naval. I grew to know that she wore it always, for to her this rose red jewel was one of the symbols of power. It was the first stone in the breast-plate of the High Priests, and very precious.

I had reached puberty and seen fourteen summers. I was feminine by nature yet sometimes had a boy’s mind. I was more studious than domesticated. I was brought up in the village of Thyatira with my grandfather who was old and no longer worked, but was well known in his district as an astrologer — deeply engrossed in all things astronomical. My widowed mother, Baara, was a sweet silent woman who attended to the household tasks. I was strictly brought up and totally unprepared for what I saw that day in Tyre in the Palace of Ethbaal, King of the Sidonians, and his renowned daughter Jezebel.

I was hustled through the courtyard into the doors of the palace by two serving women and a lieutenant of the palace-guard, who pulled me off my mule. I barely had time to take in the magnificence of either the green walled gardens, huge bronze doors or the vastness of the entrance hall. I only knew I was being taken to the Princess Jezebel, daughter of the King. My palms were wet with fear. My heart was plunging. After the long miles ridden under escort, so newly parted from my weeping family, I had scant spirit left. But I was far from being timid or foolish. I was as eager for life as any young girl, but I wanted to study too — to learn to read and write. My grandfather instructed me and so I grew up with a degree of culture above my station. My spirit was strong. I was no weakling. But on this cool spring morning when the almond trees were in flower and the waters of the Mediterranean looked blue as bottleglass, I was a terrified child — lost — wondering dizzily why I, Thamar, a Phoenician maiden of no account, should have been summoned to Tyre by Jezebel. Her reputation alone was enough to scare anybody as unsophisticated as myself. It was said that at fourteen she was the most corrupt and villainous young woman in Sidonia and, indeed, all Syria.

When my mother had kissed me goodbye, she had looked at me with sorrow and despair and embraced me repeatedly, murmuring:

‘Fare thee well, my beloved child, for we may never meet again. Do not, I beseech you, forget your faith in Jehovah which has been taught to you by that good man, your grandfather. There is abomination in the worship of Baal, and Jezebel is a wicked woman, but I am forced to send you to her.’

She did not mention the King (which later was made clear to me) and I was puzzled.

‘Why must I go?’ I had protested, drenching her with my tears.

She would not answer but lowered her lids, sobbing. I was mystified and remained so up till the time when I was more or less pushed into the private chamber where the Princess Jezebel awaited me.

She awaited no one for long. I was to learn that. It was but a figure of speech. The world in which she moved waited for her, and trembled as men trembled before their gods and goddesses.

I was sick after the hours of uncomfortable travel. My throat was so parched with dust and my mind so confused, I certainly trembled in that hour. I was petrified, too, that I was about to vomit. If I did such a thing in this glorious room before the dread sight of the girl who was little older than myself and yet reputed to have such knowledge of evil, I could only expect to be whipped or murdered.

I saw little at that moment of Jezebel’s gorgeous gilded room with its latticed windows opening on to a wide terrace below which the sea sparkled, mirroring the morning sky. Little of the fabulous furnishings, except perhaps the vast canopied bed with its gauze curtains gathered up into a golden crown which bore the insignia of the royal house of Ethbaal. The room seemed to me so immense that the whole of my own dear home could have been lost in it, twenty times.

Before a smooth shield of burnished silver stood the splendid figure of Princess Jezebel, a black and yellow python coiled obediently around her ankles.

She turned and looked at me. It was my second shock. I stared, gasping. This beautiful, fabulous, infamous Princess could not have been more differently bred from myself — a humble village girl. Yet we might have been twins — or at least closely related — for we were exactly alike except for the colour of our hair. Mine, flowing down to my shoulders, was the pale gold of the corn that rippled across the Syrian Plains. Hers held the purple blackness of a grape. Her long, slanting eyes were a darker shade of brown than mine. The lashes were long and curled. Her face was painted, and her lips reddened. Thinner lips than mine glistening, like her hennaed nails. I thought her teeth looked whiter and strangely pointed. Yet the resemblance between us was strong and I, Thamar, might have been looking at myself, glorified, wearing a black wig. We had the exact same physique, short proud nose, pointed chin, high cheekbones and exceptionally long neck.

It was obvious that the Princess Jezebel also noticed the likeness for at first she gaped and frowned, then she laughed. And that was a sound I was never to forget and frequently to hear; more often with dread than pleasure. It had a flute-like, fascinating quality, yet was knife-edged. It ended in a deep chuckle in the depths of that long slim throat.

‘By all the gods, this is a shadow of myself,’ she exclaimed, ‘a colourless pitiable shadow. Yet it is I. Astarte, Goddess of the Moon must have sent you for some jesting reason I have yet to discover.’

I wanted to answer but was struck dumb. Despite the fact that this huge room was cool and protected from the sun, I was in a fever, and the nausea was threatening me again. My eyes closed and I felt myself swaying. I heard the Princess Jezebel’s voice again:

‘Of all the abominations, she has come with a sickness —’

‘No — no —’ I could only gasp the denial after which the room blacked out.

When I recovered, I found myself on the softest couch I had ever lain upon. My travelling mantle and striped cotton robe had been removed from me, and replaced with a silken shawl. My dazed eyes only vaguely took in the sight of the small room — large, of course, to me, but not compared with the huge bedroom into which I had first been ushered. I learned that it was an ante-room leading to the Princess’s quarters. It had high latticed windows and I was grateful for its coolness. A girl younger than myself, a slave, in a white garment and with the bangles of her bondage about her ankles and her curls tied back, knelt beside me. She was bathing my face with an aromatic lotion which I found soothing and at the same time revived me. As my vision cleared, I noted that this young slave was a sweet-faced child with gentleness in her eyes as well as in her hands. She looked at me anxiously.

‘I am Kepha,’ she said, ‘and commanded by the Lady Jezebel to attend you.’

I lay quietly considering this. Never in my fourteen years had I been waited upon, nor expected ever to possess a slave. But I thanked Kepha, sat up and drew the silky cover about me.

‘I would like to get up now. Where are my clothes?’

‘Burned by Her Highness’s command.’

‘Burned!’ I repeated, dismayed. ‘But they were my best things.’

‘You were taken ill and the Lady Jezebel commanded that everything should be put in the flames.’

I was about to express my indignation when I realised who had given that command, and remained silent. Then a dread thought struck me — the same thought that had troubled me when I first entered the Royal Presence.

I looked with anguish at Kepha.

‘I beg you, tell me, I was not —’

I broke off and Kepha nodded and answered timidly:

‘Yes, my Lady, alas, you were very sick.’

I turned my shamed face to the pillow. The little slave hastily comforted me, telling me that I was fortunate because Her Royal Highness had seemed to find the whole thing amusing. She had clapped her hands and Kepha, who was one of her lesser slaves, had come with Jezebel’s personal attendant, Bela, to take me away, bathe me and put me to rest. I was lucky, Kepha again observed, because such a shocking thing to have happened with Jezebel present should have ended in a whipping — or worse.

That did not bring me much comfort but I got up and asked for a garment. I was then handed a fine linen shift of palest lemon hue fastened over one shoulder with a silver clasp. The shift reached only to my knees. I had to sit patiently while Kepha plaited my long hair, binding it around my head with crisping pins. She covered the coiffure with a hood of silver gauze. After this, she painted some colour into my pale cheeks and reddened my lips. She then handed me a silver mirror, smiling, and when I looked into it I was astonished. This, indeed, was a change from Thamar of Thyatira. I do not think I much liked it either, for I had been brought up to believe that a chaste maiden must wear full covering. However, Kepha led me, just as I was, through a marble corridor to the apartments of Jezebel. This time it was not her bedroom I entered but a canopied terrace, shaded by tall, graceful date-palms. There were couches and tables of gold and carved ivory; a malachite side-table laden with bowls of luscious fruit, sweetmeats and carafes of spiced cooled wines. On either side stood a pair of Nubian guards, turbanned and wearing the scarlet and gold colours of Jezebel, with the initial ‘J’ carved into the great burnished shields they carried. Each man rested on his spear, standing as motionless as a black statue, looking as though blind, straight before him.

On a gilded day-bed, piled with scarlet and gold cushions, Jezebel reclined, leaning upon one elbow. The python was not present this time, for which I was thankful, but a magnificent snow-leopard chained to a post was lying at the foot of her couch. As it saw me, it raised its head, flattened back its ears and growled softly.

‘Quiet, Smite,’ Jezebel spoke to the animal, and the sound low in her throat seemed as menacing as the growl of the leopard.

I could not take my gaze from her. She was staggeringly beautiful. Her blue-black hair streamed down her back. She wore a jewelled tiara. In the centre of this was the raised insignia of a King’s head in profile, framed by golden wings. This, I was soon to recognise, was the signet of the Royal House of Ethbaal. Whosoever wore it was sacrosanct.

There were many bracelets around Jezebel’s arms, all of considerable value. The toes and soles of her narrow, naked feet were painted scarlet. Behind her stood a tall, young woman, presumably the personal slave who, Kepha had already informed me, was named Bela. She was as fair as myself, only her eyes were not dark but the ice-cold blue of a frozen lake. She was handsome and obviously an accepted favourite, for she seemed relaxed as she stooped now and then to wave a feathered fan over her Lady, brushing away any winged insect that had escaped those slaves whose job it was to keep endlessly moving the huge fans, made of palmyra leaves stretched between bamboo frames. If they stopped, and more than an occasional flying creature passed the barrier and annoyed Jezebel, the slaves were beaten. So the miserable men, sweating in the sun, never dared relax their watch, or destroy the sacred flies.

I was used to flies. In my own country they settled in their thousands upon man, woman and child. In this heathen land, I soon learned they were hallowed. Mothers did not dare wipe them away when they stuck to the lashes of their unfortunate infants; often the cause of blindness in later years. But in Ethbaal’s palace they were just tolerated — even the priests had to toe the line to Jezebel.

I could hear the swish of gentle waves lapping the shore below the terrace. This was a delight and a wonder to me, for I had never until this day set eyes upon the glimmering sea. I must have slept long following my sickness, because now I saw that the sun was setting like a red ball, and the sea had changed from blue to violet and red; the sky was a miracle of multi-colours. The first evening bells tinkled from distant temples, mingling, with the high shrill voices of the priests who prayed from their minarets.

Temples to whom? Prayers, not to Jehovah, no — it was common knowledge that King Ethbaal and his people were worshippers of the abominable gods of Baal.

I remember my grandfather, when I was still a child, taking me on his knee and telling me never to hear the name Baal without closing my eyes and praying to the true God whom the Israelites called Jehovah — for His protection.

He had not polluted my ears with the full story of the horrors black-shadowing the terrible priests of Baal. But later, gossiping with the other young people around the well in my village home, I learned something of their revolting customs.

One of the many reasons why I had dreaded leaving my own people and coming to this unholy land was because I knew I would not be allowed henceforth to follow my mother’s religion. For here in Tyre the worship of Jehovah was forbidden.

I heard the languorous voice of the woman who was the all-powerful influence here and now my captor.

‘Do not stand so dumbly staring at me with those big eyes which are like to my own. You intrigue me. I would speak with you alone. Come here, that is provided you are not going to be sick again.’

As I hung my head in confusion and shame, I heard, for the second time, that knife-edged laugh of hers.

‘By all the gods, you are as timid as a fawn. I trust not as brainless.’

With fast beating heart, I lifted my face to hers and tried to speak. Courage I had never lacked. In fact, at home they used to chide me for being too fearless and outspoken. Women, in the opinion of men, should not have minds of their own. Only my own dear grandfather had encouraged me to study and form my own opinions.

‘I am deeply sorry for what happened, O Highness —’ I began. Jezebel interrupted.

‘Come — sit on the stool at my feet.’

In her imperious fashion she motioned Bela away with a gesture of a slim hand, gleaming with rings. Bela gave me what I thought was a resentful look, bowed and departed. I do not know where she went. I only knew that I now sat crouching on a gilded stool, my whole body wet — a perspiration that sprang from sheer nerves.

‘I want you to tell all that you know about yourself,’ said Jezebel who had by now got rid even of the small black boy who had taken Bela’s place and was patiently waving a fan made of a peacock’s tail, above her head. ‘Everything, do you understand?’

I told her all that I knew.

‘Describe your mother to me,’ she commanded as I finished.

I stammered:

‘A year or two ago, Highness, she was still beautiful and very fair. But now that she has grown old, for she is approaching her thirtieth summer, she is lined, and her hair is grey.’

I saw Jezebel frown. She muttered:

‘Astarte grant that in another sixteen years I am neither old nor grey — nor dead.’

I stayed humbly silent. Jezebel looked at me again with her relentless gaze, and I mean the word relentless. Her lovely, long-fringed eyes embraced every detail. Nothing escaped them. Just as I soon learned that nothing, neither man nor beast that came beneath her notice and angered her, escaped her ire — which all too often meant death for the victim. There was no second chance with Jezebel, daughter of Ethbaal.

‘So,’ she said slowly, ‘this golden hair of yours can be accounted for, because your mother was so! But you have your father’s strong square shoulders and aquiline features.’

I stared.

‘You — k-knew my f-father?’ I questioned, stuttering.

Her evil yet fascinating laugh fell upon the air like fragments of ice breaking in a bowl.

‘I know him. You are here beneath his roof, my dear. Our father, whom we share, by some whim of fate, is none less than the King, Ethbaal himself.’

I was so bewildered and staggered by this announcement that I could only go on staring at Jezebel. I even stopped trembling and became like a figure of stone; petrified.

‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘this accounts for our strange resemblance. We are half-sisters, Thamar of Israel, you and I.’

I came to life. I felt myself flooding with mingled surprise, terror, excitement.

‘Highness —’ I began breathlessly.

‘Oh, put an end to all that rubbish,’ she broke in rather rudely, ‘it is fatiguing for me to hear this title so constantly. I am Jezebel. In any case, I am about to be married and then I shall be Queen Jezebel, wife to King Ahab.’

I was far too shaken up to listen to what she was saying about King Ahab, although, of course, I had knowledge of current affairs for my mother was not without education and she, as well as Grandfather, had told me that Ahab was in running for the hand of Jezebel. He was a great monarch, and no mean soldier, either. He reigned over Israel. Then something in my brain clicked. I put a hand to my lips.

Ahab was King of Israel — my own dear land! By Jehovah, this was staggering news indeed — almost as unbelievable as the revelation just made by Jezebel about my true birth and breeding. I was not allowed to speak for some minutes, but with frantic concentration I tried to listen while Jezebel, lucidly and with a patience I would not have attributed to her, untangled the mystery for me. I was still more surprised when she spoke with kindness of my mother.

Baara, she said, had at one time been one of Ethbaal’s concubines. Because of her exquisitely white skin and long golden hair, she had attracted the notice of this sensuous and self-indulgent monarch to whom she eventually bore a daughter — ME.

Infants born at this time to slaves are usually of no account and often flung into the sea to drown. I might have shared that fate. But at precisely the same hour, Ethbaal’s wife and crowned Queen also bore a daughter — Jezebel. And she was of infinite importance because Ethbaal had no male issue, and Jezebel was his eldest daughter. She was utterly ruined by his adoration of her beauty and almost masculine mentality. I, too, of course, possessed that mind — but not in any way her character. And I was a great deal more modest.

I thrived, so I was told, being strong and healthy, but Jezebel was a sickly babe, and her mother’s milk dried up. So my mother, whose milk was plentiful and good, suckled the hungry infant. It appeared that my mother bargained with the Queen (who died not long afterwards). She refused to give her milk to Jezebel unless her own child was permitted to live.

There were others who might have replaced her but the King had always favoured the gentle, fair-haired Baara. For once, contrary to his evil nature, he showed mercy towards a human being. He gave Baara what she wanted. He was more especially inclined to be tolerant because Jezebel screamed when any effort was made to part her from her foster-mother. So Baara stayed in the royal harem, and I with her. But she was absent for many hours both night and day, in the King’s apartment, being cherished by Ethbaal, as her life was of such importance to his daughter — the royal babe.

As I listened, I wondered, flabbergasted, how it was possible that Jezebel who had drawn milk from the bosom of one of the most saintly of women, could have become the evil-doer the world reputed her to be.

Jezebel continued with her story.

Baara remained in the palace until Jezebel was one year old and weaned from the breast. Because there was trouble among the other concubines who bitterly resented the favouritism shown to the beautiful golden-haired girl, she was finally granted her freedom and sent with her babe back to Israel, whence she had come. There, she lived with my grandfather and kept house for him while he pursued his ardent and serious profession as an astrologer.

Jezebel ended:

‘It would seem, my dear, that your grandfather was of great learning, although at one time he was a slave.’

Now I spoke up boldly.

‘My grandfather was captured in battle by the King of Phoenicia but he was no common man. He was related to Nimshi, grandfather of Jehu, the Benjamite. He was given his freedom before my mother was born. Then he began to study the stars despite the fact that this is more often a pastime enjoyed by the priests. It was a great grief to my grandsire that my mother was ever taken into the harem of King Ethbaal and forced to abandon the path of learning and virtue that he had intended for her. But he had to let her go — just as he had to send me here this day.’

Jezebel spoke harshly to me then.

‘Do not underrate the honour that has been done to your family. Remember that the great and most powerful King Ethbaal fathered you!’

I inclined my head.

‘I am aware of this, Madam.’

‘I am your half-sister. Call me by my name, Jezebel,’ she snapped.

I felt my cheeks grow crimson. I blurted at her:

‘I cannot believe that I have the right to do so.’

She shrugged and began to fan herself with the great multi-coloured peacock’s tail. I thought how lovely she looked, showing her dazzling white teeth, and how her great slanting eyes gleamed, like sun-ripened chestnuts under the blackened lashes.

‘You came here, my dear, to suit a whim of mine. One day my father told me of your existence and although I remembered little of my wet-nurse, I was entertained to hear who had suckled me and felt a certain gratitude. That is an emotion rarely associated with Jezebel, I assure you,’ she added with irony. ‘Those who perform tasks for me receive little thanks. It is right and proper that I should be served. This you may or may not understand. But I did feel some remote gentleness towards the girl who must at the time have been the same age as I am now and who gave me so generously of her milk. She was not to know it, but she was giving life to the greatest woman in the world.’

Jezebel spoke these words with superb vanity, and her laugh rang out again, this time with a touch of devilish humour.

I was given no time to comment, for she continued speaking. Her royal father had never forgotten his fair-haired favourite but did not wish to see her again—afraid that the passing of the years would have wasted her charms. But he suddenly desired to see the child who had taken the breast in turn with Jezebel.

He was growing old. Life had not given him new sons to replace the ten who, from time to time, had died in battle, or through pestilence. He had taken several wives and dismissed them because they gave him only daughters for whom he had no use. Jezebel was enough. But Baara’s babe he was curious to receive, in Tyre.

It was going to take me a long time, I thought, to accustom myself to the thought that I was Jezebel’s kinswoman — and the King’s natural daughter.

At first, Jezebel told me, she had felt but faint interest in me. Then curiosity overcame her, too. She, on Ethbaal’s command, sent for me.

Once she saw our amazing resemblance to each other, she became more than interested.

‘Egyptians make excellent wigs,’ she said dreamily, ‘I have dozens of them in my cupboards. One of raven-black, pulled over your golden locks, would turn you into me — except for details, and, of course, you lack my breeding, for I am royal on two sides.’

‘Of course,’ I agreed humbly.

‘I will have some amusement trying the wigs upon you and, of course, I must cut your long fair hair and let it curl about your head like a boy’s. It could mean that this likeness will be of enormous use to me, my dear, and I shall find an excuse for keeping you veiled.’

‘Yes,’ I said, not then understanding, but my heart sank, for an Israelite maiden greatly treasures her long tresses. They are her heritage and her glory. I did not fancy them being severed. But already I had come beneath the imperial power of this fantastic young woman’s will. I would not have dreamt of arguing with her or disobeying her commands. Such was her reputation that I feared that even though we were related it might not stop her from slaying me in one of her terrible rages.

In fact, I thought with an evergrowing dismay and amazement, it was difficult to believe that Jezebel and I were related at all. But I had some knowledge of curious births and heredities. At one time I had been friends with a good woman in our village who attended the sick. She used to talk to me of identical twins, then of twins who bore no resemblance to each other at all, either in looks or in nature, although conceived in the same womb. So why should I not physically resemble the great Jezebel whose father was also mine, even though we proved two utterly different characters?

Curiously enough, I was neither exalted nor proud because I was of Ethbaal’s seed and royal blood ran in my veins. It was too overwhelming a thought — I would in that hour have given much to find this all a fantasy, and back in the rough vine-covered walls of my old humble home.

Suddenly I became aware that two tall men with clean-shaven faces, wearing armour and carrying bronze shields, were marching onto the terrace. Two more followed. Between the four walked a short ruddy-cheeked man with long curling iron-grey hair and beard. A man with a gold diadem on his head and a long heavily ornamented coat over his handsome flowing robe. Precious stones glittered in his ears. He held an ivory ball which his thick fingers played with ceaselessly as though the constant twisting and turning of the smooth globe soothed him.

I realised at once that I was in the presence of King Ethbaal — King of Tyre and Sidon. Despite what I now knew of my relationship to him I had been brought up to believe him a fearsome figure, almost as powerful and inaccessible to ordinary mortals as Jehovah Himself.

I flung myself down on my knees before him.

A deep booming voice said:

‘So this is Baara’s offspring grown to womanhood. What do they call you, . . .