Keziah's Song by Potter DARYL

Author:Potter, DARYL [Potter, DARYL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Paper Stone Press
Published: 2021-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

26

112 BCE

I n the workshop, Keziah watched Joseph carve one last tightly controlled stroke. A curl of olive wood arced into sunlight. The thin and wide slice of the tree’s heart became translucent before them in alternating dark and golden hues. He was working on refinements to an ornate case that had been recently commissioned by Saul.

Sweat beaded his arms. The blade was steady, but his movement revealed a stiffness. There was a scar at one shoulder that skipped across his upper arm and then dragged a thick ridge down his forearm. The wound was only two months old. Galilee had seen victory on the day that Joseph’s arm was opened. The Seleucids had fled south to Scythopolis, that traitorous city along Samaria’s border. Time was left for the Galileans to tend wounds properly, and so Keziah’s husband lived. Moshe had looked after the dressing for two weeks. Eventually, father and son had returned with the rest of the men of Galilee.

Moshe. He was married now. The wedding had happened mere days after the men’s return. It had been an irregular wedding, the final details handled in a rush. Avigail had married just before the war. Esther was engaged to be married next year. Soon they would only have Little Sarah with them.

When Joseph looked at her, for a moment it seemed that he did not see her, but then his eyes adjusted, and he smiled. They came together in a place in the shop with a raised wooden floor. Keziah spread out the mat while he watched, and then he reclined on it as she unpacked the meal.

“How is Sarah?” he asked.

“She was sleeping when I left,” Keziah said. “She helped me with the bread first.”

Silence took over the space. Dust motes hung in shafts of sunlight as they always had. It was a golden space where light and shadow conspired to produce alternating bands across Joseph’s work. There was a kinship between the heart of the olive tree and the late afternoon sunlight in these shops. Keziah had come to this place many times when the men were fighting in Upper Galilee. While Joseph, his brothers, and Moshe had been gone, the same fine grains had stayed suspended in emptiness awaiting their return.

“It’s nice to be working again on something that isn’t designed to kill,” he said. He spoke to Keziah, but his eyes were on a yoke, half-carved, propped up on the opposite side of the shop.

“I had an uncle who tripped over a chest about the same size,” Keziah said. “He cracked his skull and died.”

“Well,” Joseph said with a wry smile, “it’s not designed for that purpose.”

Keziah followed his gaze to the half-completed yoke, then looked over at the case for Saul. “The box is beautiful so far,” she said.

“I’ve got to get to work on more crates for Uri’s quince as well,” Joseph said. “Another batch will be ready for bottling soon, and Rehavam has already started on the bottles.”

Two doves flew into the workshop and then back out.

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