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eBook Category: Romance/Spiritual/Religion
eBook Description: Elisheva lost everything when her father was condemned as a heretic and her brother joined the rebels against Rome--and was caught. Sold as a slave, she faced life as a prostitute, until a man sacrificed everything to redeem her. She thought she knew what love was, until Jesus came to Jerusalem...

eBook Publisher: By Grace Publishing/Special Release--Historical Inspirational Romance
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2007

4 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [685 KB], eReader (PDB) [228 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [222 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [195 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [211 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [231 KB], hiebook (KML) [504 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [311 KB], iSilo (PDB) [182 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [228 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [283 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [298 KB]
Words: 69500
Reading time: 198-278 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

In later years, Elisheva decided that this day was the last day of her childhood.

It began like any other, a chilly, refreshing spring day in Bethany. Miriam brought a pitcher of water and basin to Elisheva's room, and opened the shutters before going to the bed to wake her. But Elisheva was already awake, lying in bed, tingling with a sense that something wonderful might happen.

Perhaps Joseph and his father would come today, to formally arrange their betrothal? After all, Joseph and the other boys who had been students in her father's home were all grown men now, making their mark on the world. Even if Joseph hadn't actually promised to marry her, he had certainly made his admiration for her and his intentions abundantly clear, just as her father, Rabbi Eliakim ben Levi, had made it clear he approved of the match.

Or perhaps her father would have another meeting in their home, going late into the night, to persuade his scholar friends that his view of the Messiah as a suffering servant was correct? If he had the meeting, perhaps he would allow Elisheva to sit behind a screen and listen to the scholars discuss prophecy and the Torah and the rumors of a new wandering rabbi who had become the talk of Judea.

Elisheva pondered all the possibilities that could come true today, as Miriam brushed and braided her hair, and as she washed and dressed and went down to the family's common room to break her fast. Her father had already eaten and gone out for his morning inspection of the vineyards, and to give instructions to the servants. Her brother, Simeon, stumbled in, tugging his tunic straight and rubbing his freshly washed face, while Elisheva read the scroll their father had left sitting out for her.

"How are you ever going to find a husband if you waste your time reading?" he muttered, not up to his usual teasing comments. Simeon bypassed a chance to tug on her hair and slumped onto the padded stool on the other side of the low table.

Elisheva bit her lip against a smile and continued reading. Silently, she retorted, I don't have to find a husband. There are five men who want me, and they all admire my ability to read and write just as much as they admire my singing and sewing.

It would do no good to remind Simeon of their father's students, who had all found good positions with rich, respected scholars and members of the Sanhedrin. Simeon had no inclination for studies or scholarship or following their father in becoming a renowned rabbi and teacher. He had spent the last seven years making Joseph, Benjamin and the other students who lived at the house with them miserable whenever Rabbi Eliakim ben Levi hadn't been looking.

As if thinking of them was a silent call, the five boys who now studied with Elisheva's father appeared in the doorway, hair dripping from their required morning baths, wide-eyed and somewhat intimidated at the sight of a woman reading and eating at the same time. Elisheva smiled, bade them all good-morning, daintily wiped her fingers clean, and picked up the scroll to go to the rooftop garden to finish reading in private. Behind her, the new kitchen woman hurried to pick up Elisheva's dishes and bring food for the boys.

Elisheva was still reading on the roof when her father returned to the house. She nearly called down to him, but the sight of his bowed shoulders and shuffling steps halted her. Lately, her father looked so weary and concerned. Sometimes, his skin was nearly as gray as his hair, as if the same frightening illness that killed her mother when Elisheva was a little girl had come to claim him now. Elisheva waited until her father went into the house, then rolled up her scroll, slid it back into the protective sleeve, and crept down the stairs. She was halfway down the hallway to her father's study room to put the scroll away, when Caleb appeared from the front of the house, leading Benjamin.

His black beard looked thicker, and the flat cap perched on the back of his head had gold embroidery along the seams. His prayer shawl had long tassels that hung past his sleeves and embroidery to match his cap. Benjamin looked like a well-to-do young scholar, just as Rabbi Nicodemus' assistant was expected to look. So why, she wondered, did he insist on wearing that wretched purple striped outer robe that he had worn for the last three years he studied here? He was no longer the impoverished student who earned his tuition by performing chores on her family's farm and in the vineyard, so why did he still wear that faded robe with the sleeves too short for his long, muscular arms?

"Elisheva." Benjamin's handsome face lit up at the sight of her, and he bowed.

Her heart sank with that odd guilt she always felt toward him. Why did he insist on loving her so openly, when she had made it clear that she could not give him her heart?

The sad thing was, Elisheva knew if Benjamin had been rich, she could have felt free to return his affections. She liked him, she admired him, and something thrilled inside her when he smiled at her in a way that made her feel she was the only person he saw at that moment. But she knew better than to give even a tiny piece of her heart to a man who had no chance to make her his wife. Benjamin came from a poor family and had barely been able to pay for his lessons with her father. No matter how bright his future in the Sanhedrin and as a scholar, Rabbi Eliakim ben Levi would never give his only daughter to anyone but a man from a rich, well-established family. A man like Joseph. Elisheva knew that cold, hard truth, and had tried to discourage Benjamin without being cruel. She wondered now, looking at him, if she should have been cruel. How could a man so intelligent and perceptive continue to hope?

"Good morning, Benjamin. My father is about to start this morning's lessons, but I believe he would take the time to speak with you." She gestured toward the ajar door of the teaching room, where the five boys could be seen settling into their places on the reed matting and arranging their scrolls and slates.

"I came to see you, Elisheva." Benjamin glanced at Caleb, who offered a sad smile and shook his head. Benjamin had been well-liked by all her family's servants. Elisheva sometimes suspected that if they had any say about it, she would marry Benjamin and no one else.

"You know that is not proper. You are a grown man, no longer a student or a member of our household." She took a step backwards. "Please, I don't want to be rude, but do not make me order you to leave and not come back."

"You could never be so cruel." He bowed again, a soft, secret smile making his face so handsome it sent a pang through her chest. When he stood straight again, he held out a box of olive wood, carved in the shape of a rose. "I promised you a box for your treasures, do you remember?"

For a long moment, the tightness in her throat was so strong, she couldn't breathe, let along speak. Elisheva blinked away a ridiculous urge for tears, and took a step backwards. Another pang hit her heart when the light left Benjamin's eyes.

"It is not proper for you to give me gifts. You have no hope of winning my father's permission to marry me. No, you must listen." She stopped his protest with a raised hand. "I know how the five of you competed to become my favorite when you were students. It was a silly game when I was just a little girl. It is indecent, now that I am sixteen and a woman grown."

"It was never a game to me." The rich tones of his voice became a groan of pain that only sharpened the guilt she felt, and raised a sharp knot of frustration in her belly and her voice.

"Benjamin ben Micah, you have no hope of making me your wife. My father will never give me to you. Be a man and show the wisdom that made my father so proud of you, and leave before someone accuses you of adultery."

"What adultery?" His voice nearly cracked.

"It is wrong to covet another man's wife. I will never be your wife. I have no wish to become your wife." She turned sharply and hurried down the hall. Part of her cringed in fear that he would chase her to the inner courtyard of the house, even as a tiny part of her prayed he would.

Elisheva's foot crossed the threshold to the courtyard when she heard her father's weary voice speak Benjamin's name. She caught her breath and sat down and pressed her hands over her ears, fighting the temptation to listen. No tears came. She only felt relief in knowing that her father would finally prohibit Benjamin from ever coming to their house again.