Read Online The Crimson Cord: Rahab's Story by Jill Eileen Smith - Free Book Online Page A

side and touched her arm. “Little one, do not fret so. I can take care of myself.”
    “You are a woman! No woman is safe alone.” Adara straightened, revealing the beginning curves of one grown. What would the crown do to her sister if Rahab did not stop them? They must not even know of her existence.
    “I am a woman of age, dear Adara. When you marry, you will understand.” She touched her sister’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You must keep quiet about Gamal. Do not tell anyone that you even know him.”
    “But they already know.” Her wide eyes showed increasing fear.
    “They will forget.” She bent to kiss Adara’s forehead. “Promise me.”
    Adara nodded, but she did not look convinced.
    “Rahab is right,” their father said. “She knows how to handle difficult men.” His gaze met Rahab’s in an understanding look of acceptance. “I am simply sorry she has had to learn to do so.”
    She knelt at his side and again touched his knee. “So you will let me go to Dabir?”
    “I have no doubt he will find you whether you go to him or not.”
    Rahab nodded. “Which is why I will go home now and wait for them to come. If they come here, none of you will be safe.” She stood, straightened her cloak, then bent to kiss her father’s cheek. As she turned, she felt herself swept into her mother’s clinging embrace. A soft whimper escaped her mother’s lips, but a moment later she released her with a worried sigh.
    Cala came to her next, then Adara, then her sisters-in-law, each quietly weeping, forcing Rahab to blink away the emotion that threatened them all. Even her brothers, Hazim,Azad, and Jaul, and her brother-in-law Tzadok touched her shoulder in a parting gesture.
    She stayed in the shadows as she made her way by the moon’s light to her home. No lamp greeted her as she entered her court, and dusk cast eerie shadows over the stones. The door creaked on its leather hinges, and a sense of dread swept through her as she entered the dark interior alone. She had rarely stayed away from home so late, and if she did, Gamal had always accompanied her. Memories of their early years filled her, of days when Gamal had carried her laughing over the threshold, kissing her face, her neck, both of them slightly drunk with too much wine. Tears sprang to her eyes as she stumbled over the rug Gamal had probably kicked when they arrested him.
    She clutched the wall and moved slowly until she found one of the cushions in their sitting room and sank onto it. How long until they came for her? She tilted her head to listen, bristling at every footstep that moved past her house.
    Darkness fell over the room, and no more than a sliver of moon rose to offer light through the narrow windows. She forced her weighted limbs to rise and walked to the cooking room. Rummaging for a piece of dry bread left over from the morning’s repast, she realized she was not hungry and could not eat it even if she wanted to. If only she could run away.
    The thought brought the slightest ray of hope as she considered and discarded a number of ways she could disguise herself and sneak out of the city. She could use the coins still tucked into her belt to bribe the guards to let her through. But the memory of her father’s worried frown stopped her short. If they could not find her, her family would suffer. She would not allow that.
    Exhaustion overwhelmed her. She dragged herself to the bed she had shared with Gamal and flung herself among the covers, longing to weep, but longing more to sleep, to forget.

    Hours later—for she must have fallen into a fitful sleep—sharp stomping carried to her through the shuttered window, and her heart skipped a beat at the staccato rap of a fist against her front door. She sat up, her head spinning from grogginess and hunger.
    She pressed a hand to her middle and forced her shaky legs to stand. Her cloak still wrapped about her, she cinched it tighter, then drew in a calming breath and opened the