“The cunning of men,” said Caiaphas wonderingly, “all the craft and skill given to them by God, to elude the bandits and to keep their cargo safe.”
Annas shook his head.
“A thousand dangers threaten. And to make the incense, we need not only the saffron threads but also those other ten fragrant ingredients: frankincense and myrrh, spikenard and fennel resin, cinnamon and ginger, cassia and balsam, distillation of rock roses and wine from Cyprus. And we need salt from Sodom, amber from Jordan, lye from Carshina. Think of the many wagons bringing them from around the world. And consider that all these go to make just the incense, and not any of the other sacred matters of the Temple. And you are correct that cunning and skill are needed to make them and bring them to us.
“But most important of all, none of this can happen if at any point along the way a war is being waged. If an army is laying siege to a city, the saffron wagon will be requisitioned. If angry defeated soldiers are wasting enemy land, the saffron will be burned. If the men who tap the trees and pluck the stems and brew the wine and mine the salt have been taken for an army, their work will go undone. To bring us all these things, that which is most needful is peace.”
Annas drew himself to his full height. He was an exceptionally tall man, over six feet. “That is the role of the Cohen Gadol. To maintain the Temple services. To maintain the peace. Nothing is more important.”
Two people come to him with a disputation. Natan the Levite shrugs apologetically as he brings them in and whispers, “I’ve tried to sort this one out myself, but the two stubborn goats insist on seeing the High Priest. If you order them both flogged I won’t blame you.”
He has a mock-rueful smile on his face as he bows his head low and leaves the room, muttering, “The Cohen Gadol, if his judgment is sufficient for you and you do not require a voice from heaven.”
They are traders in the outer courtyard of the Temple. They both sell the pure white doves that are used for the thanksgiving sacrifice brought by a woman after she has given birth and recovered safely from those many dangers.
It is holy work to sell the birds. There are three or four families who have done so for generations. They breed the birds in dovecotes just outside the city, catch them by hand—for no bone can be broken before they are sacrificed—keep them docile with a special mixture of seeds which each family guards closely.
And now this. A tall gaunt man of about fifty with a close-cropped beard and a loose skullcap stands before him. Next to him, a short woman in her sixties with sun-cured skin and a heavy gait. Caiaphas would ask each of them what the matter is, but neither of them will let him speak.
“I am but an old woman,” she says. “I have no strength left in my bones. The place nearest the entrance is fitting for me, for I cannot carry my wares across the great courtyard.”
“Pah,” he says, “pah. I suppose you have not four strong sons whom I have seen carrying your wares and your stall for you! I suppose those four strong sons did not threaten my Jossya with cudgels unless she moved her stall to the far end of the courtyard.”
“My sons would never threaten,” the woman snaps, “unless they were provoked. Isn’t it true that your daughter Jossya crept behind their stall and released the birds intended”—and here the woman sheds an impressive tear—“for the Lord’s holy table, so bringing shame on the whole house of Israel?”
“If she did it is because she knew that your family have stooped so low as to catch the birds with nets! I have seen birds dragging a broken wing on your stall, sold at a low price to farmers who know no better. I have seen them try to make their sacrifice and be turned away by the priests and come in shame to buy a good bird from me or my daughter. It is you who should be ashamed.”
“You spread these lies about my family so that people will pay your inflated prices! Everyone knows you have grown rich off the piety of the poor!”
“You have grown rich yourself, bringing shame on the holy house of the Lord!” he says.
“You have tried to steal from an old woman in her last years on the earth!” The woman has brought herself to the point of real half-hysterical tears now.
“You are a liar and a thief!” The man is so angry his face has turned pale, his nostrils flaring, the skin of his neck beginning to redden.
“Do you see how he speaks to me? In the chambers of your holy presence!”
Caiaphas continues to be silent. He watches. He waits. They are in a chamber of his house next to the Temple. Through the small half-shuttered window which looks on to the inner courtyard, he can see the sacrifices being performed. A meal cake and oil are utterly consumed. The Lord forgives the sin which prompted the sacrifice. The man and woman burn themselves out after a few more angry expostulations and before they come to physical blows.
He smiles his diplomatic smile, the guileless face he puts on to deal with common men and with the Prefect. He is all sympathy, all respect. He is sometimes amazed by the way his mouth carries on speaking and his face composes itself into such a usefully sympathetic arrangement while inside his mind he is thinking only of, for example, his wife leaning in to take the ripe date from the sticky fingers of Darfon, son of Yoav.
They reach an agreement after a time: the woman will have her stall near to the front all days of the week but Friday—a day when many people come to buy offerings—and they will both submit to stock checks by one of the Levite treasurers under Natan’s command. Outside, the sacrifices continue.
Annas comes to see him at the end of the day, as he is relaxing in his city home. He has two homes: the official residence at the Temple, which he uses during the day for his business, and this, his own house in the city, the place he had built for himself and which would still be his if he were no longer High Priest. Here he is a private man, insofar as he can be.
His daughters have put out fresh goat’s milk and bread with soft white cheese mingled with thyme leaves and good black olives from the north. They have poured the cold clear well water into an earthenware jug and flavored it with citron. The courtyard of his house is cool and still when Annas comes to visit.
Annas arrives unannounced, as he so often does, but he is welcome. He is a powerful man still, both physically and politically. He is wide in the shoulder and his arms are well muscled—when he was High Priest, it is said he could bring a fretful ox to its knees by the force of his grip. And his personality, Caiaphas thinks sometimes. Annas is a clever man with a strong will.
He became High Priest just when the old King Herod died, when his various heirs, mostly also named Herod, were squabbling and pleading with the Emperor for pieces of the kingdom. Many said that Annas bought his way into the office with bribes to the Prefect and the captains of the army, but he stayed there because he was able to broker deals between the Temple and the Prefect, between the King and the people, between heaven, it sometimes seemed, and earth. He had spies—“Not spies,” he would say, “friends”—in the courts of the Governors of Syria and Egypt, and even some said as far as Rome itself. He is no longer High Priest now—an earlier governor took that position away from him when he tried to execute a man for murder, because Rome does not allow its occupied states the privilege of executing their own criminals—but he still has as much influence as ever. He gives good counsel, and Caiaphas embraces him as a welcome guest when he arrives.
“I hear the sellers of doves have come to blows,” says Annas, chewing on an olive and spitting the pit into the bushes of the courtyard.
Caiaphas shrugs. “They have been ready to kill over the bird of peace for the past five years.”
“I also hear that you dealt with them extremely well. Both families seem to feel they have come out best from the bargain.”
Caiaphas smiles in spite of himself.
“It was no judgment of Solomon.”
“Even Solomon is remembered for only one case. Your day may yet come. Besides, it is a good training ground for you. I will not live forever and someone will have to do my
work when I’m gone.”
Caiaphas is well aware that Annas says this frequently, to various men, including several of his sons. Caiaphas is some way down the list of successors. And yet it is true: it is hard to imagine who will stop the various factions in Judea from shattering apart and breaking themselves on the wheel of Rome after Annas is gone.
“You have many good years left,” says Caiaphas.
“Mmm,” says Annas. Then, staring up through the vine-laden trellis above them to the cool night sky, “Have you heard that there will be war between King Herod Antipas and the Nabateans? There’s no way to prevent it. King Aretas of Nabatea is still fuming on his throne in Petra that Herod dared to divorce his daughter. He’ll use these border scuffles as an excuse to invade the south.”
“A war? Over a dishonored daughter?”
“Men love their daughters, Caiaphas.” Annas grins, showing his teeth, and bites off a piece of bread.
Caiaphas’s wife serves them boiled whole Galilee-fish wrapped in herbs and freshly cooked flatbread, with two sauces, one of yoghurt and one spicy with cumin and hot pepper. There are aubergines stewed in olive oil and doused in hyssop and dried parsley, and roasted onions seared from the fire.
She bends this way and that as she lays out the food and gives them their plates. She is beautiful and he cannot help but watch her still, the way her robe outlines her buttocks when she stoops and the sky-blue square covering her hair slips a little as she moves. She is past forty and has given him two sons and three daughters and still he desires her. And he wishes his suspicion were not true. And he hopes that it is not. But he thinks of her eyes darting to Darfon and a fire burns in his veins.
When she has finished with the food, she comes and wraps her arms around Annas’s shoulders, leaning in close, and he kisses her on the cheek.
“Is he treating you well, my darling?” Annas says, laughing.
“Oh, father,” she says, “he’s terribly cruel and beats me every night.” She winks and smiles and they all laugh, because it is so very far from anything that could ever be true.
Caiaphas would not be High Priest if it weren’t for his wife. He knows it, the whole city of Jerusalem knows it. There is no shame in it, not really. This is how a man becomes powerful: by becoming precious to men who are already powerful, by impressing an older and wiser man with his skill and his cunning, and by marrying his daughter.
Annas was High Priest for ten years before the Prefect demanded he resign the office. But Annas’s power has not waned. He has been succeeded as High Priest by his sons, one after another, none of them for quite long enough to secure a power base for themselves. And now it is the turn of Caiaphas, his son-in-law, who has been gently shepherded through the twists and turns of office, spoken of highly to the Prefect and the other priests and to Herod Antipas, the king in the north. And by dint of diplomacy, and through Annas’s support, he has somehow clung on longer than all the others. Annas has given him special favor. Men love their daughters.
The next day, after he has finished with the morning sacrifices, there are various pieces of business to attend to. Natan the Levite arrives carrying a jar of wine from Tyre under his arm.
“From that Asher family in the north,” he says, “the people who had the trouble with bandits. They’ve offered fifteen casks in place of their tribute.”
“Is wine less likely to be stolen than grain?”
Natan shrugs, scratches his grizzled beard.
“Fewer wagons for the same value. They can protect it with a smaller number of men.”
“And keep more men to work their farm, and send fewer of their sons to make the offering at the Temple?”
Natan pours the wine into Caiaphas’s two earthenware cups, rough red pottery on the outside, smooth blue glaze inside the bowl. The wine smells good as it gushes into the cups.
They taste together. The wine is exceptional, scented with walnut, figs, and spring grass. Caiaphas rolls the good red richness around his mouth. It is the hills of the north and the deep peace of childhood.
He meets Natan’s eyes.
“Yes, then,” says Natan.
“Ask them for this in the future instead of the grain they owe.”
Natan nods. Pauses.
“And then there is the other matter.”
He looks at Natan, a little confused. Natan shifts uneasily in his chair.
“You’ll have to remind me, my friend.”
“Livan’s daughter gets married next week.”
“Ah,” says Caiaphas. “Yes.”
There is a pause. Caiaphas contemplates Livan’s daughter in his mind as he last saw her. A dark-skinned girl of fourteen, sweet small breasts under her shift, her hair caught back with a garland of flowers. She kept her eyes modestly lowered when she met him. And he thought: yes, as well this one as another, if God wills it.
“How old is she now?”
“Seventeen.”
“Yes, then she has waited for me long enough. Very well. Good. Do you have a new girl for me to meet?”
“I have her waiting in the outer room.”
“You should have told me she was there. We could have dealt with her first.”
Natan chuckles.
“It is good for her to become accustomed to waiting.”
Caiaphas laughs.
“I believe you kept her outside just for your joke.”
Natan shrugs.
“Whose daughter is she?” asks Caiaphas.
“Hodia.”
Caiaphas nods slowly, impressed. Hodia is a wealthy man, whose generous gifts to the Temple have already secured him a certain amount of political power.
“He has three sons, Hodia, yes?”
Natan smiles. “And he is a Cohen.” Hodia is a member of the priestly class. His sons would be candidates for high priestly office, perhaps even High Priest. “I’m sure he would be delighted to be so close to you.”
“Well, bring the girl in.”
This girl is different to the last. Hodia’s daughter is round-cheeked, with skin burnished like bronze, black hair and bright black, searching eyes. She does not keep her gaze modestly cast down. Her body is already that of a woman, with broad hips and full breasts. She is sixteen.
Typically these girls remain silent unless he speaks to them, but she speaks before he has a chance to address her.
“Sir,” she says, a small smile at the corners of her mouth, “is your wife in good health?”
He laughs, without intending to.
“Very good health. Should I apologize?”
“Are you that much of a prize?”
And he and Natan are both laughing.
“I see you’ve had the thing fully explained to you.”
“Perfectly.”
It is not a complex matter. The High Priest—the Cohen Gadol—must be married. It is not optional. He alone goes into the holy sanctuary on Yom Kippur, the most sacred day of the year. The entire people wait for his sign that they have been forgiven by God. And to atone for the sins of the whole house of Israel, he must be a whole man: he must not be crippled, he must not be unusually ugly, he must not be deaf or blind, he must not be unmarried. To expect an unmarried man to carry that burden of sin would be as foolish as expecting it of a child, or a woman.
This raises a problem, of course. For what if the wife of the Cohen Gadol should chance to die on the eve of Yom Kippur? Then there would be no High Priest able to intercede with God on behalf of the people. So there must be another girl waiting, just in case. She may never be needed. But it is as well to have chosen her in advance. There is, of course, another Cohen waiting to take his place if he himself dies. The needs of the people go on, though men die and other men rise to take their place.
This girl is attractive, with her sauce and her talk. He thinks it would be good to lie with her, to make her gasp and teach her how to please and be pleased. The wife of a Cohen Gadol must, of course, be a virgin. It is not that his own wife is displeasing to him physic
ally or that he longs for another woman, but one must consider the thing properly. If it happened, there would be no time for doubts, and it would seem ill for him to divorce her very quickly.
“You understand that you must be beyond suspicion? For this next year?”
She wriggles her shoulders in a way which reminds him how very young she is—as young as his wife was when he married her. Her shoulders say that she is uncomfortable with the question, but her smile is bold. Her mother or grandmother must have told her all she needs to know.
“I understand,” she says, and her pink tongue licks her dark upper lip. “I shall remain precisely as I am now, and consort only with old women, and discuss only housework with them. For this next year.”
And there is something about the way she speaks that makes him wonder. It is interesting. They would not have brought her to him if there were a shred of doubt about her chastity—to do so would risk the whole of the house of Israel. And yet.
Natan leads her out of the room, closing the door behind her and waiting for her steps to recede before he grins and says, “Well? Don’t tell me I haven’t found a good one for you.”
The Liars' Gospel: A Novel Page 15
