Faith of My Fathers (30 page)

After many hours, many unanswered questions, Joshua’s eyes grew heavy. He closed them for a moment and fell into a restless sleep.

King Manasseh stepped from his sedan chair when the royal procession reached the Temple Mount and accepted the goblet of wine Zerah thrust into his hand. The Temple courtyards already pulsed with activity. Manasseh smelled the aroma of roasting meat and heard the sound of lively music and clapping nearby. He raised the cup and drank deeply, hoping it would lighten his mood.

Zerah studied him as he drank. “What’s wrong, Your Majesty?”

“I had another argument with my brother. He refused to join me
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tonight.”

“You were wise not to compel him. Amariah’s unbelief would have disrupted the spiritual forces.”

“First thing tomorrow I’m transferring him to an outpost in the Judean desert,” Manasseh said. He drained his cup and handed it to his servant.

“Be patient with him, Your Majesty. Prince Amariah is young and of very weak character. Guilt still controls him.”

“I don’t care! I don’t want him as my secretary anymore!”

“Listen to me.” Zerah’s voice was low, his dark eyes piercing, hypnotic. “Until you have a son to replace you, Amariah is the only heir to your throne. You need to keep him here where we can watch him. And where your enemies can never reach him.”

Manasseh knew Zerah was right. He also knew he had to put aside his anger for tonight. He accepted the refilled goblet and began walking toward the music.

The night was cool and clear, the Temple Mount dimly illuminated by a few scattered torches so that the stars were clearly visible. Manasseh scanned the skies as he walked, but his guiding star in the constellation of the lion hadn’t risen yet. Night was a much better time to worship, he decided, a powerful time. The sun felt too hot, too bright and searing, at Yahweh’s sacrifices, making Manasseh feel naked and exposed beneath God’s angry gaze.

The crowd parted to make way for him, giving him a front-row view of the musicians and the young women dancing provocatively before them. At first the sight shocked Manasseh. Men and women danced separately at Yahweh’s festivals. But he forced himself to watch and found the spectacle both disturbing and arousing. When the song ended, Zerah steered him away.

“Come. This is the night to savor all of the sensory delights given to us by our Maker. But first, I have something for you.”

Manasseh surveyed the priests’ faces as he followed Zerah. None of them were from Yahweh’s Temple. The musicians hadn’t been Levites, either. “Did you banish Yahweh’s priests and Levites from tonight’s celebration?” he asked.

“Of course not. They were invited, but only a few of the younger ones chose to come.” He led Manasseh into one of the side chambers used by the priests to change from their everyday clothes into sacred garments. Inside, a plain wooden box lay on the table. “Open it, Your Majesty.”

Manasseh unlatched the fastenings and removed the lid. The high priest’s breastpiece lay on a lining of purple cloth. It wasn’t large, but even in the dim lamplight the twelve stones sparkled with rainbows of color. The embroidery work of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet seemed to breathe like a living thing.

“Magnificent, isn’t it, Your Majesty?”

Manasseh had never seen it this close before, only from a distance when the high priest wore it over his ephod on holy days and festivals. He was afraid to touch it. The breastpiece’s pocket contained the mysterious Urim and Thummim, used by his ancestors for divination. “Why are you showing this to me?” he asked.

“Because you must wear it tonight.”

“But only the high priest may wear this.”

Zerah’s face darkened with anger. Manasseh recognized its source as passion, not malice. “The king should be the high priest to his own nation! This breastpiece is rightfully yours! The Torah says that King David danced in an ephod when he moved the ark to Jerusalem and he wore this breastpiece, as well. He wore it every time he sought guidance, but of course the Levites deleted those facts from the record. David is your ancestor. You have a right to wear it, too.”

Zerah lifted it from the case and slipped the golden chains over Manasseh’s head. He felt the weight of it settle against his chest. After a moment, he fingered the twelve precious stones. “Magnificent,” he murmured.

“Can you feel their power, Your Majesty?”

Manasseh watched the breastpiece pulse as it rested above his pounding heart. “Yes,” he whispered.

“It is radiating energy into your body. The Levites know the mysterious power of each of these stones and crystals—ruby, topaz, amethyst, and all the rest. Their power belongs to you.”

Manasseh’s mouth felt dry. He took the goblet of wine from his servant and swallowed its contents in three gulps.

“Come, Your Majesty. A night of revelry awaits you, a night of new experiences and delights.”

Outside, the fire in the bronze altar mesmerized Manasseh as he stared into its dancing flames. It was time for the priests to slay his offerings of year-old bulls and rams. The animals had been conceived during the fertility rites a year before; now he would offer back to Mother Earth the firstfruits of what she had given him.

While the offerings roasted, the priests began a frenzied dance around the altar to the pounding beat of drums and chants. They whirled faster and faster, moaning, screaming, their eyes rolling back in their heads, until they reached a near-lunatic state. Then Manasseh watched in horror as they drew knives and cut themselves, spilling their blood on the ground around the altar, splattering droplets of it on his own clothes and face as they whirled past him. He backed away.

“The blood of man is sacred,” he mumbled. “Life is in the blood.”

Zerah gripped his arm to hold him in place. “Remember Cain and Abel, Your Majesty?”

“Of course I do!”

“Then surely you recall God’s words to Cain after He rejected Cain’s offering: ‘If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?’ What happened next, Your Majesty?”

Manasseh pried Zerah’s fingers from his arm, angry with him for this childish grilling. It reminded him of his Torah teacher. “Cain took his brother out to the field and killed him!”

“Yes, Cain shed Abel’s blood on the ground as a sacrifice, just as these priests are doing.”

“Then why did God curse him?”

“Because he shed Abel’s blood instead of his own.”

“Well, I’ve seen enough of this. Get me something to wipe off all this blood.”

“No, leave it, Your Majesty. It is holy. You must wear the mark of it as you talk to the spirits.” He led Manasseh across the courtyard to the altar of divination. Dozens of white-robed priests followed, gathering in a circle around them. A woman stood beside the altar, wearing priestly robes and making circular motions with her hands as she wafted the burning fragrance of incense to her nostrils. The thick, cloying smell, along with all the wine he’d drunk, made Manasseh’s stomach roll.

“A woman priest?” he asked.

“She’s not a priest in the usual sense. She wears the robes because tonight, like the other priests, she will act as a mediator between man and God.”

“You mean she’s a medium?”

“That’s right.”

Manasseh looked around for his cupbearer and drank a few more gulps of wine to silence the alarms of his conscience. Zerah would have a logical answer to his concerns, he told himself. He always did. Hadn’t King Saul consulted a medium, conjuring up Samuel from the dead?

This woman didn’t look particularly threatening. She was smallboned, as Manasseh’s own mother had been, and only about ten years older than himself. She wore no covering on her head, and her black, wavy hair, with one startling swath of gray, reached nearly to her waist. Her eyes were closed, and she chanted in a soft voice as she swayed to an unsung rhythm.

Suddenly her body went limp and she fell backward as if she had fainted. Manasseh moved to catch her, but Zerah stopped him. “Just watch.”

She appeared to be asleep, except that, as Manasseh watched, the expression on her face slowly changed to one of deep concentration. Then her features began to twitch as if unseen insects crawled across her face. The movement increased, faster and faster, until her face transformed before his eyes into a different face. It was no longer soft and feminine but angular and hard—a man’s face. She sprang to her feet, and even her stance was a man’s: defiant, proud, her body controlled by a masculine spirit.

Manasseh stared, fascinated and terrified at the same time. He wanted to run but found he couldn’t move, as if an invisible hand held him in place. When she spoke, the unearthly voice chilled Manasseh, like the sound of grinding stone when a tomb is opened.

“You seek to know what transpires in the heavenly council, King Manasseh?”

He tried to answer but nothing came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes . . . yes, I do.”

“Your devotion and good works have not escaped the heavenly council’s notice. The changes you have made during your reign have earned divine favor and, with it, divine power to succeed in all that you do. The spirit of your firstborn son, which you released from its earthly prison, stands present with the gods to intercede on your behalf. Your son’s message to you is this: Beware—more than one enemy wishes to destroy you. If you make full use of your spiritual powers, you will prevail. But first you must break free from the chains of fear, forged in your past. They still bind you.”

Her face twisted again as her body went rigid. Then she collapsed to the ground, convulsing wildly. Manasseh shrank back, his eyes riveted on the repulsive sight, certain that she writhed in her death throes. At last she went still.

“Is she dead?” he whispered.

“No. The spirit guide has left her, that’s all.”

Manasseh stared at her crumpled body for a few more moments before turning to Zerah. When he did, the intensity of Zerah’s gaze as he stared into the king’s eyes, the unchecked passion of his emotions, made Manasseh’s heart pound. The familiar knife of fear twisted through him. “What’s wrong?”

Zerah lunged at him, and before Manasseh could respond, he gripped both of the king’s wrists in his hands. “Shackled!” he cried.

“What are you doing to me?” The warmth of Zerah’s hands seemed to burn Manasseh’s flesh. Zerah’s eyes, beneath his startling brows, danced like the flames of the altar fire.

“The taboos of your past still shackle you, my lord. But tonight, on this holiest of nights, power is available if you wish to break free.” Zerah’s hands slid from Manasseh’s wrists to his hands, but his gaze never wavered as he entwined the king’s fingers in his own. “Are you ready to move to a higher level of spirituality?”

Manasseh knew what Zerah wanted. He could only nod.

“Then come with me.”

Joshua cried out in his sleep as the nightmare jolted him awake. Evil engulfed him like deep water, pulling him under, choking off his life. He sat up, gasping for air, his heart pounding against his ribs. He searched the darkness for the evil presence he sensed, but it slithered out of sight, eluding him.
Just a dream,
he told himself.
A dream
. But he couldn’t stop shaking. His fire had burned out, and his cloak was insufficient against the desert’s bitter cold. But the moon had already set and the night was too dark, the terrain too treacherous for Joshua to stumble around searching for more sticks. He curled into a tight ball and wrapped his cloak over his head, shivering as he tried to warm his body. There was little he could do for the rest of the night but pray, keeping fear and the elusive shadow of evil at bay.

When the sun finally began to rise and it was light enough to gather wood, Joshua felt no closer to God than he had the night before. He built a fire, then unrolled Isaiah’s scroll and began to read.

“In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king
of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army
from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem . . . Eliakim son of Hilkiah
the palace administrator . . . went out to him. . . . Then Eliakim,
son of Hilkiah . . . went to Hezekiah with clothes torn . . . Hezekiah
sent Eliakim . . . to the prophet Isaiah.”