Night lay heavy over the fields, turning the rich gold of barley and wheat into inky black. It was blessedly cool, the heat of the day having dissipated with the sun in the sudden way of the desert. Ruth pulled her cloak tighter, hurrying through the maze left by the men’s scythes to the threshing floor. There was nothing to hear but the rustling of the grain, the men having long since retired to their tents, exhausted from a day’s hard work, full of the lamb and bread and beer brought by the women at sundown. The bawdy songs they had sung around the fires had faded, the fires themselves only embers glistening red in the darkness. Ruth’s own feet made barely a sound as she wove around the sheafs of grain, her footsteps muffled by the soft stalks that had been crushed into the ground. With a sigh she reached the circle of stone where the threshed grain was piled for the night. Even now the breeze tugged at the chaff, spinning it in the air in the way of light motes in a beam of sun. Ruth stepped into the circle and wondered, not for the first time, how she had gotten here.