The end of the flint desert came suddenly, edging a vast sand that reached toward distant, towering dunes silhouetted by moonlight. There we stopped, gazing ahead in awe.
“The Nafud,” Judah said, as if speaking the name of a god.
The Nafud? But we were meant to go northwest toward Petra and Palestine, not south. I had assumed we were taking only a short detour to avoid detection.
Judah offered an explanation even as the concern entered my mind.
“They will expect us to have escaped north, along the Wadi Sirhan. At first light the Thamud will search far and wide for any sign of us, and their best trackers will find it, here, into the Nafud, which will give them great pause.” He seemed delighted with this. “Few can pass through this desert without proper preparations. They will assume we are dead.”
I nearly said that the assumption would be warranted. The shifting sands of the Nafud were well known to reduce human and beast to white bones. They formed a wall that had long protected all of southern Arabia from the northern kingdoms of Persia and Greece and Mesopotamia, which had long sought her treasures. The few wells were far apart and often dry, the fiery sun treacherous, the blowing sands a storm of wrath that could blind the eyes and strip the flesh. I understood the desire to avoid the enemy behind us, but was the Nafud any less a foe?
As I looked at the distant, immense dunes, a chill cut through my bones.
“I have been across,” Saba said quietly. “It is difficult but passable. The stars will lead Judah by night; the sands will lead me by day. Though we both read sand and stars, we have our strengths.”
“They will not pursue us here, Maviah,” Judah said, smiling. Did this confidence come from his noble spirit or simple stupidity?
And then I remembered what my father had said about Judah. He and Saba both—the best men he knew. Still, I thought they should be very clear about how strongly I’d motivated the Thamud.
I stared ahead and spoke softly. “I slashed Saman’s leg and cut his horse’s throat,” I said. “While he was yet mounted.”
I could feel their eyes on me. Their silence stretched.
“He was upset,” I said.
“Saman bin Shariqat?” Judah asked, as if still trying to believe.
“I was angry,” I said.
“You did this?”
“Only because he pulled his own throat away from my blade. The same blade he took from my father after cutting out his tongue with it.”
A light sparkled in his eyes. “Then he is now a rabid dog.” He faced forward and whistled softly. “God has given us an avenging angel in Rami’s daughter.”
No, I thought. It wasn’t any god’s doing.
“Such an insult wasn’t wise,” Saba said.
“An insult?” Judah scoffed. “And did Bin Shariqat not insult the daughter of Rami?”
Saba looked none too pleased but held his tongue.
Judah did not. “My only envy is that it wasn’t my hand at his throat. He would be dead already.”
His unwavering self-assurance calmed me.
“Also,” I said, “Maliku is allied with the Thamud.”
Saba turned his head and stared at me.
“You know this?”
“Saman spoke of it. My father as well.”
He grunted. “The fool doesn’t yet know the depths of Thamud treachery. What is born of blood will only grow in that same blood. This is Maliku’s fate.”
“And ours is now a promised land,” Judah said. “There we will find the makings of a new fate at God’s hand.”
And yet neither of them seemed anxious to head into the Nafud to find Judah’s promised land.
My mind returned to the dagger I was to show Herod.
“My father told me you would tell me about the dagger, Saba. Our lives depend on it. I would know.”
He nodded, then spoke in a low tone, eyes fixed on the dunes.
“Many years ago, long before you were born, before Rami was sheikh, he was well known for his command of men in raiding. The Nabataean king, Aretas, had heard of him and called upon him to prove his might in the land of the Jews.”
“Palestine? Rami?”
Judah spoke. “The Jews have always resented the Romans, who rule them with Jewish kings who have Roman hearts. Herod Antipas is king in Galilee now, but his father ruled as a butcher, and when he died, the people rose up in rebellion led by a Zealot named Judas bin Hezekiah. A great man in the eyes of many. It was Judas the Zealot that Rami went to crush.” He paused. “And for this I forgive him still.”
I knew then that Judah’s heart was divided.
“Why would the Nabataean king call the Bedu to Palestine?” I asked. “This is Roman business, not Nabataean.”