The Thief (2 page)

A thick hand closed hard around his wrist.

“Little thief!” The words rang out in the marketplace and
echoed off the palace walls. The shopkeeper snagged Mouse’s other arm in an iron grip.

Mouse wrenched forward, pain shooting through his shoulder. “Dismas!”

But Dismas had disappeared like the last rays of the sun. Mouse struggled, the third rule goading him into panic: If there’s trouble, every man for himself.

A ring of angry faces closed in around Mouse. Hooves clattered on stone, and the angry men turned toward the sound. Two Romans on horseback—both centurions—parted the gathering crowd. One of them jumped from his horse. His polished breastplate glinted over a blood-red tunic. A crimson-plumed helmet sat low on his forehead, and curved cheek flaps covered most of his face. “What’s going on here?”

Fear weakened Mouse’s legs. Dismas had been wrong. No gods smiled on him today.

The crowd loosened. Some of the men faded away; others started explaining.

The Roman pushed the remaining men aside. “It takes two Jews to hold this little thief?” His Aramaic was heavily accented, but good by Roman standards. He pulled off his helmet to reveal a shock of hair the color of fire. Blue eyes narrowed at Mouse. He grabbed Mouse by one arm, like he was holding nothing more than a sparrow, and motioned to the crowd with the other. “Clear out.”

Mouse’s heart hammered.
I can’t let them take me.
He twisted in the centurion’s grip. In an instant, both his arms were wrenched behind his back. Pain brought tears to his eyes. He kicked out at the Roman’s shins but hit only the hard metal greaves that protected them.

“By Pollux, you’re a fighter.” The centurion smacked him across the head—a light slap for a soldier, but it made Mouse’s ears ring and his eyes water. He blinked hard.

The Pharisee drew himself up. “That worthless boy has my purse.”

With one hand, the centurion gripped both Mouse’s hands behind his back. He patted the other over Mouse’s chest and midsection.

Mouse gasped. Heat surged up his neck and into his face.

The centurion found the deep pocket in Mouse’s cloak, and out came the purse. He threw it at the Pharisee. “Take more care with your money, Rabbi.” Then he shoved his hand back into the pocket and drew out a gold bangle, a brooch of jade and ivory, a Greek drachma, and two denarii.

He showed them to the other centurion, still seated on his horse. “See that, Cornelius? It was a lucky day for this boy . . . until now.” He pocketed the stolen pieces and pulled Mouse sharply toward him. “Now he’ll see how Romans deal with thieves.”

Mouse’s mouth went as dry as dust. Thieves were scourged, that he knew. But he was more than a thief. If he didn’t get away—now—they would find out everything. The Romans wouldn’t have to scourge him because he’d be stoned by his own people.

Despair and fear rose in his throat, choking him.

As the centurion dragged Mouse toward his horse and his companion, a shadow shifted in a doorway across the street. A heartbeat later, the Roman’s horse whinnied and reared. A stone pinged off armor.

“Mouse! Go!” Dismas shouted.

The redheaded soldier reached one hand toward his shying horse, and Mouse saw his only chance. He wrenched, twisted, and ripped his arms from his cloak. He ran, leaving the soldier with nothing but a billowing cloak and a skittish horse.

Mouse sprinted away from the market. He glanced behind. The second soldier whirled his horse toward the shadow with a shout. Dismas ran toward the palace, the mounted Roman pounding after him. The redheaded centurion was gaining ground on Mouse.

Mouse veered into a side street. The centurion’s hobnailed
sandals skidded on the smooth paving stones of the square. A shout and a Latin curse echoed down the narrow passageway.

The centurion was fast, but Mouse was faster. He wove through the back alleys. He darted down a side street, then dove into another that looked like a dead end—to someone who didn’t know better. A muffled shout sounded behind him. His pursuer was losing ground. After a quick corner, he ducked through the narrow back door of a wineshop, pushed his way through the crowd of drunks, and sprinted out the front door.

Mouse kept running, his heart pounding faster than his bare feet.
Dismas broke the third rule.

Mouse circled the upper city and slunk back on the north side of the market. Long shadows darkened the streets. The Jaffa Gate and the meeting spot weren’t far, but was it safe to go there?

He stopped, holding his breath to hear something other than his own labored gasps. No hobnailed Roman sandals on the street. No pounding horse’s hooves or shouts of pursuit. He approached the gate, staying close to the walls.

What if Dismas had been caught? Dismas knew almost nothing about Mouse, other than that he was an excellent thief. He didn’t know Mouse’s secret—or even his real name—so he couldn’t send soldiers after him. Mouse was safe, but Dismas would be scourged. He might die.

A shiver of dread crawled up Mouse’s back. He checked the street behind him. Empty. He crept into the cleft between the walls. Empty. He leaned his hot cheek against smooth stone and closed his eyes. Dismas had been caught.
He shouldn’t have come back for me.

At a whisper of wind and a breath of peppermint, Mouse’s eyes flew open, and relief poured through his limbs. Dismas had entered the meeting spot like a wisp of smoke.

Mouse released his held breath. “I thought they’d caught you.”

Dismas clapped his big hand on Mouse’s shoulder, grinning like he’d just won a game of dice, not run through the city for his life. “They’ll never catch me. Did you see that Roman dog’s
face?” Dismas shook with laughter but kept his voice low. “And you! You were fast, Mouse. I’ll give you that. You were made to be a thief.”

Mouse slumped against the wall. They’d done it. They’d gotten away. Dismas was right; he was good at this. Good enough to escape a Roman centurion.

Dismas reached into his pockets and pulled out an amber necklace, two silver drachmas, a shekel, and a handful of figs.

“Not bad,” he said, popping a fig into his mouth. “How’d you do?”

“The centurion took it all.” Mouse’s shoulders drooped. How would he pay the landlord? Buy food?

Dismas chewed and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Too bad. That means I don’t get my cut.”

Mouse studied his dirty feet. That had been the deal they’d made almost a year ago when Dismas had found him picking pockets in the lower city, rarely pinching enough to buy a handful of food. Dismas had offered to teach him to steal more than copper coins. With Dismas’s help, Mouse pocketed silver, jewels—plenty, even after Dismas took his cut. But tonight, Mouse hadn’t held up his end of the bargain. And Dismas had almost paid the price.

Dismas straightened and popped another fig in his mouth. “Don’t worry about it, Mouse. We’re partners.”

He slapped the rest of the figs into Mouse’s right hand, the silver shekel in the other. “Take this. I know your people don’t trade in graven images.” The shekel was stamped with a sheaf of wheat, the drachma with the face of Athena.

“But—”

“Shut up and take it, Mouse. I won’t offer again.” Dismas shoved him in the shoulder, but a smile lurked around his mouth.

Mouse closed his fingers around the coin. He chewed on the inside of his lip. “You broke your rule.”

Dismas folded his arms over his chest, his smile gone. “Next time, I’ll leave you.”

Mouse shoved the coin into his pocket and a fig into his mouth.

Dismas elbowed Mouse aside and peered out into the street. He glanced back over his shoulder, his dark eyes serious.
“You aren’t worth dying for, Mouse. Nobody is.” He faded into the shadows of the city.

Next time?
Mouse chewed his lip until he tasted blood. Tonight had been close—too close. If he was caught . . . if they found out who he was, what he was . . . he’d have more to fear than a Roman centurion.

No. He was done stealing. Dismas was safe, and Mouse had enough silver to keep the landlord quiet for a month. He would find a job—anything that would bring in the money they needed.

This time, Mouse vowed, he would stop stealing for good.

Chapter 2

N
ISSA SLIPPED THROUGH
the darkest, narrowest street of the lower city. She passed a tumble of buildings that looked like they’d fall down at the first breath of the winter wind. A cart filled with refuse rattled toward the Dung Gate, leaving an eye-watering stench in its wake.

She turned into a winding passageway, checked behind her, and pushed aside rubble of broken pots and shards of stone to expose a low doorway. She ducked inside. The tiny room, hardly more than a hole in the ground, was filthy. The floor was damp with runoff from the street, rainwater or perhaps something worse. Whatever it had been used for—pigeons, by the smell—it had been forgotten long ago.

Moving with speed born of practice, she removed the length of wool covering her head, untied the tight leather thong at the nape of her neck, and shook out her long hair. The rough tunic dropped to the floor and puddled at her feet. She unwound the length of linen wrapped tight around her breasts and breathed a sigh of relief. Her face burned at the thought of the centurion’s searching hands, her arms prickling with remembered fear.

If he had discovered her secret, she’d have been dragged before the Sanhedrin and sentenced to death. Stealing was a sin, but a Jewish woman dressing like a man was an abomination to the Lord.

She donned a smaller, but not finer, tunic, tied her belt
around her waist, and laid her own mantle over her hair. She smoothed her hands down her narrow—but definitely female—body.

She was forgetting something.

Her hand went to her face and came away smudged with dirt. If only she could stop at the Pool of Siloam to wash the dirt and the clinging smell of dung from her skin. But it was already late. Cedron would be worried, and they still needed to buy food before the shopkeepers left the lower market. She spit on her hand and wiped away as much dirt and ash as she could. That would have to do. Her brother wouldn’t notice anyway.

She rolled her disguise into a ball and buried it under the damp straw. She wouldn’t need it again. No more stealing. And this time, she meant it.

Good-bye, Mouse.

Nissa crawled out of the abandoned roost and into the streets of the lower city. She hurried around a corner, down another street, and struggled to push open the gate leading into a scrubby courtyard. Letting out a deep breath, she closed the gate on the noisy street. Safe again, and with money in her belt.

The square courtyard—bordered on three sides by high walls and on the fourth by a wattle-and-daub house—was empty. The fire was out, and only a few sticks of wood lay scattered in the corner. She checked the water jar. Only half full. A distressed bray sounded from the rickety lean-to on the side of the house.

“I know, I know. You’re hungry, too.” She rounded the corner to find Amit tied to his empty manger, his dry-as-dust water bucket kicked into the corner. The hungry donkey strained against the rope to nuzzle his soft nose into her hand.

She pulled the silver shekel out of her belt. “See, Amit,” she whispered, “this will make Gilad happy to see me.” Her stomach fluttered at the thought of the handsome young landlord.

Amit put his lips on the coin and snuffed.

“You know why I had to do this, don’t you?” She laid her face
against his soft, whiskery cheek.
To feed you and Cedron. To keep us safe.

Amit nibbled on her shoulder.

She pushed him away. “Let’s get you something to eat other than my tunic.”

The barley jar held just a handful of grain. She let Amit lick the last kernels from her hand, kissed him between his liquid brown eyes, and ducked into the dark doorway of the crumbling one-room house.

Once, her parents’ house had been like other Jewish homes. The courtyard had bloomed with flowers and herbs and smelled of freshly baked bread. Her father had kept the mud-and-reed roof in good repair and the doorposts adorned with the mezuzah. Brass lamps, cushions, and striped blankets had brightened the room where they slept and prayed. But now, one cracked lamp and a jumble of sleeping mats filled a shadowed corner. And the only prayers uttered inside were those of her brother, Cedron.

As Nissa’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw Cedron on his mat in the center of the room, his prostrate body facing north toward the temple. He sang from the Tehillim, the book of praises that she knew so well. “
I trust in your faithfulness. Grant my heart joy in your help, that I may sing of the Lord, ‘How good our God has been to me.’  
”

Nissa chewed on her bottom lip and looked around the sparsely furnished room.
There hasn’t been any goodness here for a long time.

Cedron murmured a few more words in Hebrew, the language of prayer, and shifted toward her. “Nissa?”

“Yes.” She crouched in front of him. He was older than her by ten years. A man who should have a wife and children but never would. Not that he wasn’t handsome. Her brother had been blessed with a high brow and a straight, broad nose. His brown hair and soft beard contrasted against skin the shade of clover honey. But his eyes were sunken, his drooping lids shielding eyes as sightless now as the day he’d been born.