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and then, relieved, she emerged into the bright day. Taking a deep breath she began to walk, her feet moving of their own accord.
    A short way from her inn she turned down a narrow lane and came upon a group of playing children. Their noise drew her from her thoughts, and she gazed at them with a smile. Her smile faded as she realized the nature of their game. They had surrounded a beggar and were pelting him with stones and obscenities. The old man crouched in a corner, his trembling hands covering his face.
    As a sharp rock cut the man’s forehead, blood welled up on the wrinkled skin and began dripping into his eye.
    A girl pointed a finger at the beggar and shouted, “Look how his white beard is shaking—he’s starting to cry! Hit him again!”
    “Cry nothing,” laughed a boy. “I think he might wet his pants!”
    “Ee-uw!” Several spectators gasped, and cheered with laughter. “Leave him alone!” Rahab shouted.
    The boy, about to hurl another rock, stopped short and looked at Rahab in her fine clothes. “My lady, he’s just a beggar, can’t you see?”
    “Leave him alone, I said.”
    They were all staring at her now. “What do you mean? He’s just a beggar. He stinks!”
    Rahab grew very still. It was true that her people treated vagrants worse than stray dogs. She herself would have walked right by him without a glance on most days. She might not have tormented him, but she certainly wouldn’t have thought about his plight, either.
    She examined the young faces before her. They displayed no remorse. No conviction. No regret. These were mere children, yet already they had learned to step on the weak and hate the helpless.
    “Get out of here,” she rasped. They obeyed her, partly because she was an adult, but also because her clothes were finer than theirs. The people of Jericho did know how to respect money.
    She knelt by the old man. “Are you hurt badly?”
    He shrank back and said nothing. She saw that his cut was superficial, another injury to add to the scores he had received in the course of his life. Reaching inside her linen pouch, she found a few silver coins, probably more than the old man had ever seen in one place. Placing the coins in his palm she said, “Go and find a safe place to wash and sleep. And put some warm food in your belly.” His jaw dropped open, and she saw that his teeth had rotted away. The pathetic sight of that mouth, toothless, filled with decay, stinking of putrefaction, made her heart melt with pity instead of disgust.
    He wrapped shaking fingers around the coins. Raising that wobbly fist he cried, “A curse on them! A thousand curses on those children!”
    “Shhh,” Rahab whispered. Without understanding her ownactions, she reached out and held the man as a mother might hold a precious child. Surprisingly, he began to weep, broken sobs that seemed to have no end.
    With painful insight she realized they were not much different. She too had putrefying wounds, though they were deep within. She too was forsaken. She too was rejected. Her life too had been wasted. No, she felt no disgust for him. Only sorrow and pity.
    When he had quieted, she rose up. “Lady,” he rasped. “No one has held me like that since I was a boy.”
    Rahab smiled and nodded. Drained by the encounter, she began to walk away, then broke into a heedless run toward home.

     
    She recounted the story to Debir when next he came to visit her. He shrugged, dismissing it with ease. “He’s a beggar, Rahab. I don’t know why you bothered.”
    Rahab studied him silently. Debir was closer to a friend than anyone she had known since childhood. She liked his forthrightness, his intelligence. She basked in his unusual acceptance of her. And yet she had to admit he was hard. Impenetrable. “Do you think the god of the Hebrews would care about beggars?” she asked, trying to goad him into some feeling.
    “How should I know? Am I a Hebrew? He cares for babies and slaves. Maybe he cares about