Lilah Read Online Free

Uncle Mordechai after their parents’death. Axatria had been twenty at the time, not much older than her young masters, a woman of insatiable energy. Within a few days she had fallen in love with Ezra.
    At the time, he had possessed all the incandescent beauty of adolescence, which struck Axatria like a lightning bolt. Lilah was not surprised: she thought Ezra handsome – as handsome as Antinoes, who was much admired by the young Persian girls – but Ezra was wiser already.
    Lilah had been amused by Axatria’s feelings for him, but proud too, neither afraid nor jealous. Wasn’t the tie that bound brother and sister an eternal one?
    Axatria had been sensible enough never to display her feelings in words or gestures. However great her passion, she expressed herself entirely through the excellence of her service, the washing she did for Ezra, the meals she prepared for him. She was so discreet that he had not become aware of her love until the day Aunt Sarah had teased Axatria about it.
    Axatria had been content with Ezra’s gratitude, his occasional kindness towards her, gifts that were sufficient in themselves.
    It was their love for Ezra, though, boundless but chaste, that had brought Lilah and Axatria together.
    Then the terrible day had come when Ezra had left Uncle Mordechai’s house and moved to thelower town. His uncle and aunt had tried and failed to stop him. Then Axatria had stood in his way, her face streaked with tears. ‘Why? Why leave this house?’
    Ezra had tried to push her away, but she had quite shamelessly collapsed at his feet and stopped him, clinging to him like a human millstone. Ezra had been forced to answer her. ‘I am going to a place where the children of Israel have not forgotten the pain of exile. I am going to study what should never have been forgotten – all that my father Serayah, his father Azaryah, his father Hilqiyyah and all their fathers for twelve generations learned from their father Aaron, the brother of Moses.’
    What was Axatria, a Persian from the Zagros mountains, to make of such words?
    She was stunned into silence. Appearing to yield, she let go of Ezra. But as he stepped away, she clutched at his tunic. ‘Take me with you, Ezra!’ she begged, forgetting her dignity for the first and only time. ‘I’m your handmaid, wherever you go.’
    â€˜Where I’m going, I have no need of handmaids.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Because it’s impossible to study with a handmaid around.’
    â€˜You don’t know what you’re saying! Who’ll cook your food, wash your clothes, keep your bedchamber clean?’
    Ezra thrust her away from him. ‘Be quiet! I’m leaving this house to be closer to the will of God, not to the will of a handmaid.’
    For days, eaten away by shame and sorrow, Axatria had been unable to stop weeping.
    She was not the only one. The house of Mordechai and Sarah echoed with tears and lamentations. For the first time, Lilah had seen her uncle brought low, incapable of work or even of feeding himself. Her aunt Sarah had closed her workshop for six days, as if in mourning. Axatria’s tears had been swallowed up in the general sense of woe. She went about her daily tasks like a soul that had already passed into the other world. ‘Why? Why?’ she would mutter from dawn to dusk, in a stunned whisper.
    Then one day Lilah had said, ‘I know where Ezra has found refuge. Get ready, and we’ll go and take him food and clothing.’
    That had been the first time. Less than a moon later, they had again filled a basket and borrowed one of Uncle Mordechai’s chariots, to which Mordechai had turned a blind eye.
    Since then seasons had passed, rain, snow, stifling heat, but neither exhaustion nor sickness had persuaded Lilah and Axatria to cease their visits to the lower city.
    Hardly had the sun risen than Axatria would fill the basket set aside now for this