The Ironsmith (35 page)

“Yes, I am.”

“Then you must be an enthusiast. I hope you will not be disappointed.”

“Not in my choice, certainly.”

“But in other things?”

“That is for you to tell me, Lord.”

The Lord Eleazar picked up his cup, studied it for a moment, and then set it back down on the silver tray. One had the sense that there were things he knew had to be discussed but that he was reluctant to begin.

“Your report was very useful,” he said finally. “I showed parts of it to the Tetrarch—he did not inquire as to the sources of my information—and he agreed that the purge of the Baptist's followers must end. The Tetrarch has issued an amnesty. Those of John's followers who were imprisoned, and still alive, have been released and allowed to return to their homes.”

He paused for an instant and his eyes fell on Noah's face, as if he sought some reaction. But the ironsmith was impenetrable, so he continued.

“I prepared a list of those who are not subject to arrest without the Tetrarch's express warrant, and the Tetrarch agreed that such a warrant would require my approval. This protection extends to their families as well. Your name and that of your cousin are both on the list.”

“Thank you, Lord. That was generous of you.”

The First Minister nodded slightly in acknowledgment. He had grown accustomed to Noah's way of enclosing an impertinence in an apparent submission. He had even developed a taste for it.

“Your gratitude is perhaps premature,” he answered, with a faint shrug. “Caleb is bright enough to know that your name on that list means that I took the trouble to find you out, and that I consider you some sort of asset. Before, you were his, and now you are mine. He will regard this as a betrayal. That is the way his mind works.

“I had hoped to use your report as evidence that he had blundered, creating a danger to the Tetrarchy where none existed before. In short, that he should be removed. But the Tetrarch would not allow it. The Tetrarch likes Caleb. He finds him amusing.”

“Why are you telling me this, Lord?”

The First Minister regarded the ironsmith with unsympathetic eyes. He seemed almost annoyed, as if he thought Noah should have spared him the task of explaining something so distasteful.

“Because you must understand that as long as Caleb lives you have an enemy. He has been curbed, and for the time being he will be careful. But eventually he will find a way to come back at us both. He will bring me down because he needs to, because I stand in his way and because he knows that if he does not I will eventually find a way to destroy him. He will kill you simply because you have affronted his vanity.”

The Lord Eleazar held out his hands, palm upwards, as if to ask, “
Is it not apparent? Do I not make myself clear?
”

“And yet, my lord, you still have not told me what purpose of yours is served by my knowing this.”

At first it was as if Noah had reached out and struck him in the face. Then he smiled and allowed himself an instant of laughter.

“You are right, of course. I want you to do something for me.”

Noah did not respond. He merely waited.

“A prisoner was released here in Sepphoris—a secret prisoner, given special treatment.” The Lord Eleazar smiled thinly. “You see, I also have my informants. I want you to make inquiries.”

“A prisoner? What is his name?”

“I do not know his name. No one seems to know his name.”

“As you yourself have said, my lord, there has been an amnesty. Many prisoners have been released.”

“This one was released before the amnesty. I want to know why. Caleb scoops a man up and holds him anonymously for some months, and then the man is released. I think it would be worthwhile to know what is happening.”

“There is nothing else you can tell me about him?”

“No.”

“It seems a hopeless task.”

“As I have already said, Noah, I think you have a talent for this sort of thing.”

*   *   *

As soon as her brother had left, Sarah excused herself and went up to her room. When she came back down, she had changed her clothes and her hair was combed. She sat at the kitchen table, talking with Deborah, but she seemed distracted.

The reason became clear half an hour later, when Abijah came calling. He too was very carefully dressed, his beard freshly trimmed.

“Since Noah has other business, I thought your new sister-in-law might enjoy a morning's tour of the city,” he said, addressing Sarah.

The two women exchanged a glance, and Sarah's eyes were almost pleading.

“That is very kind of you,” Deborah answered. “I have a great curiosity about this place which is to be my home.”

A few minutes later they all were out the door.

“What would you like to see?” Sarah asked, peeking around her lover like a child hiding behind a curtain.

“The place is so vast, I hardly know. Things I would not see in Capernaum.”

“What is Capernaum like?”

“Like Nazareth, except a trifle bigger.”

“Then you must see the palace district,” Abijah announced. “Besides, from there the views of the countryside are quite spectacular.”

“Certainly there are no palaces in Capernaum,” Deborah answered, and they all laughed. They hardly needed an excuse to laugh, for it was a fine day, not too hot, and they were off on an expedition of pleasure.

The streets of the lower city were crowded, noisy, and narrow, but as they proceeded up the hill, away from the districts inhabited by workers and tradesmen, the streets widened and the crowds thinned. It became possible for two people to walk abreast, and naturally those two were Sarah and Abijah, holding hands, Sarah frequently glancing back at her sister to be and smiling with happy embarrassment.

Deborah was not sorry to be taking up the rear, for it was pleasant to watch the lovers together and it gave her a chance to be alone with her thoughts.

She wished Noah were along, but if he could not be with her, at least she could think of him. There was pleasure in that as well.

There was, among others, the pleasure of a great gamble made and won. The idea of offering herself to Noah had occurred to her early yesterday, when Sarah was showing her through the house. She had seen the sleeping mat on the roof, rolled up and apparently forgotten. That had been enough. She did not know that he might not reject her, perhaps angrily. Perhaps angrily enough to refuse her altogether. He was a pious man who feared God and honored His commandments.

But he was still a man, and he had not rejected her. He had loved her and had treated her body with a kind of reverence. She could still feel the touch of his hands on her, still feel the warmth of his mouth.

And she had learned, in the covering darkness of night, that her life with him was not to be a desert. She had learned that the coming together of man and woman could be love and passion and joy.

Twice he had entered her. The first time had been urgent, quick, and very pleasant. It had been enough to convince her that she could be happy. The second time was beyond describing.

By the time the three reached the palace district, there were about two hours lacking until noon. The sun slanted down on the marble buildings, making the roofs and columns gleam. They were huge. Deborah had never seen anything like them.

“Those are the baths,” Abijah said, pointing to a structure so white it hurt one's eyes to look at it. “Behind it, there, is the theater. The Greeks like to sweat without effort, so they lie about in little rooms and pour water on hot stones. They spend hours every day, naked as babies, the sweat pouring—they think it's good for them.

“So we have public baths because the Greeks have them. And we have a theater where all the performances are in Greek. All this because, when the Romans put down the rebellion after Great Herod's death, they burned the old city, and the worst destruction was up here, at the crest of the hill. So when Antipas took power he leveled the whole area and rebuilt it. And that is why it looks like a Greek city.”

Sarah and Deborah exchanged a glance. Sarah looked apprehensive, as if she wished her lover would talk about something else, but Deborah ignored her. The fact was, she was curious.

“You don't sound as if you approve,” she said.

“I don't.” Abijah turned to face her, his expression almost challenging. “Jews are not Greeks. Foreigners have been trying to turn us into Greeks for three hundred years—first the Seleucids and now the Romans—but we remain what God made us. Sometimes we have had to fight to keep the old ways. Perhaps someday we will have to fight again. But in the meantime our Tetrarch, who is hardly a Jew at all, builds theaters where the plays are about foreign gods.”

“Joshua says that God is coming to redeem His people.”

“Who is Joshua?”

“My cousin,” Sarah answered, in little more than a whisper. “He is a preacher, and Deborah was one of his followers. That is how she met Noah.”

“Oh,
that
Joshua.” Abijah smiled. “I have heard of him. He was a follower of the Baptist?”

“Yes,” Deborah answered almost defiantly. “He carries on John's work.”

“Well, the Baptist was a servant of God.”

That seemed to conclude the discussion to everyone's satisfaction, and Abijah went back to describing the architecture.

As they walked about, Deborah almost stopped listening. The scale of everything filled her eyes. She could hardly believe that men had built such things.

Eventually they wandered away from the great public buildings and into the surrounding district, where the homes of the wealthy and powerful huddled around the palace complex like blind puppies searching for the teat. These too were mainly Greek in style, with columned entrances and generous use of marble.

“You ought to see Caesarea,” Abijah said pleasantly as they walked along. “It's much worse. By comparison, Sepphoris is the only Jewish city left in Galilee.”

He had hardly finished speaking when Deborah stopped in her tracks.

“Could we pause here a moment?” she said. “I'm tired.”

The other two huddled around her, which was what she wanted. She wasn't at all tired, but she had seen something. In a doorway, on the other side of the street and perhaps fifty paces away, two men were standing. One was speaking to the other, but the distance was too great and the street too crowded for even the sound of his voice to reach them. The man who was speaking was emphatic in his gestures, like one issuing commands, and the other was like a beggar, his posture a little stooped as, now and then, he nodded his head in submission. Everything about him suggested that he was completely humbled. They could have been master and slave, but they were not. A slave would not have been so afraid.

Deborah had never seen the speaking man before, but the other man was Judah.

The conversation in the doorway lasted hardly a minute. Then the door opened and the speaking man disappeared inside. Judah walked hastily away down the street. He looked like a thief escaping into the darkness.

“I'm fine now,” Deborah said, trying to smile. “I just needed a moment to catch my breath.”

“Perhaps we should go home,” Sarah suggested.

She really did look concerned, and Deborah felt guilty for deceiving her. But it was better that she and Abijah not become involved in this.

“Yes, perhaps. Perhaps Noah will be back by now.”

 

29

Noah had indeed returned, and Sarah explained that Deborah had become tired and needed to lie down for a while.

“Don't worry about me,” Deborah whispered to him, just before she went upstairs. “I'll explain later.”

Sarah accompanied her, and the two men were left together. Abijah almost immediately took a small papyrus scroll from his pocket and handed it to Noah, who knew at once what it was. He opened it and read it carefully.

“Five hundred silver shekels is a considerable sum,” he said finally. “My grandfather won't know what to make of it—no bride from Nazareth has ever commanded a tenth of such a figure.”

“I want Sarah to know that I value her.”

Noah could only shake his head and laugh. “She knows that already, and she is a practical girl who will think you have taken leave of your senses to part with such a sum. But never fear. Grandfather will doubtless request me to invest it, and it will come to Sarah at his death.”

Abijah, for whom it was not a question of money but of respect, merely shrugged. In any case, Noah would make it up to him in Sarah's dowry. It would all come out right.

“How was your walk?” he asked, to change the subject. “Was Deborah taken ill?”

“She complained of fatigue, but I didn't believe her.” Abijah smiled, as if sharing a secret. “I think she just wanted to come back, probably to be with you.”

Certainly she seemed well enough half an hour later, when she and Sarah came back downstairs. She smiled at Noah and touched his hand.

“Do you feel well enough to walk back to Nazareth?” he asked.

“Oh yes. There was nothing wrong with me. I'll tell you about it later.”

And so the two couples started out together, but it was not long before Abijah and Sarah, who paid no attention to anyone except each other, were a good twenty paces ahead.

This was agreeable to Noah and Deborah, since it gave them a chance for private conversation.

“You see how well suited they are to one another,” Noah observed, gesturing toward his sister and her lover. The sight of them seemed to amuse him. “Abijah is such a great, tall fellow and Sarah always had long legs. You and I will never be able to keep up with them.”

“Sarah is a sweet girl. I think they will be happy.”

“Let us hope so. They both deserve to be happy.”

“So do we.”

She smiled and he took her hand.

“I am already happy,” he said, and then instantly wished it unsaid. Deborah would imagine he was alluding to last night and he did not wish to distress her.