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believed him to be a merchant like he told me. He saw me at the gate and gave me a week’s wages to give him a tour of the city.”
    Her eyes widened. “Why didn’t they attack us back then? Why wait forty years before starting their campaign?”
    “I don’t know. This Moses must be getting on in years. He was their leader back then too.”
    “Maybe he’ll die before they come against Jericho.”
    “I have a feeling even that wouldn’t stop them. The man I told you about, he said their real leader is their god. It was this god who sent Moses into Egypt to free them from slavery. He told Moses He had seen the affliction and misery of His people and was concerned about their suffering. He wanted them released from Pharaoh’s yoke.”
    Rahab frowned, her mind racing. Words like
concern
were not in the gods’ vocabulary. Yet if Debir was correct, here was a god who had compassion on human suffering. The thought of a god of compassion did something to her heart. A longing came upon her that almost brought her to tears. A longing for someone to look upon her suffering and care enough to rescue her.
    With ruthless precision, she squelched the traitorous desire. “Well, he wasn’t very compassionate to the Egyptians if he drowned the lot of them. Is it only the Hebrews he cares about? Didn’t he consider the weeping wives and mothers back in Egypt?”
    Debir lifted a fat curl lying on her shoulder and pulled it softly. “I wouldn’t have shown the Egyptians any compassion if they had treated
my
people as they did the Hebrews. Incredibly, the Hebrew god gave the Egyptians plenty of opportunities to release his people without bloodshed. He gave them warning upon warning. But their pride was too great. They wouldn’t bend to his will. If they hadn’t chased after the Hebrews, they wouldn’t have drowned.”
    Rahab pulled her hair free from his hold. “What else did this man tell you about their god?”
    Debir shrugged. “He sounds very odd. He allows no statues to be built of him so you can’t see or touch him. He claims to be the One True God, at once everywhere and over everything. It would be laughable if it weren’t for the power he seems to display.”
    “A god you can’t see? What would be the point? How are you supposed to believe in what your senses tell you isn’t even there?”
    “I don’t know, but the Hebrew spy told me he did not find this an impediment. He claimed there were other ways to experience god apart from images.”
    Rahab leaned on her elbows and pinned Debir with a steady gaze. “Such as?”
    “I didn’t become a follower, Rahab. I’m no expert at this. I can tell you he is ridiculously strict. For example—and you’ll find this interesting—he forbids prostitution even as part of worship. One of the places I took the Hebrew was a temple. He covered his eyes when he saw the prostitutes mating with the worshipers and told me that according to Hebrew Law, they would have been stoned.”
    “Stoned?”
    “You would make a very bad Hebrew, eh, Rahab? Or a very dead one.”
    She swallowed. There was a flagon of wine sitting next to her and she poured some into an ornate silver cup for herself, forgetting to offer any to Debir. It tasted like dust.

Chapter
Three

     
    N obody knew better than Rahab the destructiveness of her profession. Nobody knew better what it did to your soul when you gave away your body without emotional attachment, without commitment, without hope of a future. No pleasure could fill the gulf of loneliness that widened with each day. There were days when she wanted to strangle the men who pawed at her without a thought for her heart. And there were days when she thought her own death might not be a bad fate. She felt part dead already. It seemed that the Hebrew god agreed with her. So he was a god of compassion. But for Rahab, he had only stones. “Go on,” she said to Debir, filled with dread and fascination at the same time.
    Debir leaned over and took the