The Ironsmith

by Nicholas Guild

  You want him to marry again, his expression said. As you want me to marry again, so that then you can marry Abijah.

  Instantly she felt ashamed. It was not Noah’s fault. He had told her, many times, “I will not perish because you are not here to cook my meals. I can hire a servant. Abijah is a good man. You should marry him and be happy. The very last thing I want is to deny you this.”

  And she did love Abijah. He was so handsome. And he loved her—skinny, awkward creature that she was. Every girl in the district was half mad in love with him, yet he wanted only her.

  But her brother—her good, kind, pious, learned brother, the best of men—how could she leave him? She remembered how crushed with sorrow he had been when Ruth died, how his heart had bled with mourning. Sarah had come to stay with him after that, to keep him company and see that he remembered to eat his meals, and she had never left.

  She could never leave her brother alone. Never. Abijah, she could only hope, would be patient.

  Secretly she blamed Ruth. Sarah could not have brought herself to say such a thing, or perhaps even to think it, yet she felt it. Ruth had been a good enough sort of woman, but nothing beyond the ordinary. Why did her memory hold Noah in such bondage?

  And there were certainly plenty of women who would have been prepared to take her place. One was Sarah’s friend Huldah, who showed a lively enough interest that Sarah persuaded her brother to invite Huldah and her father to dinner.

  Noah had spent most of the evening in conversation with the father about some question concerning the calendar. He was perfectly gracious to his sister’s friend, but that was all.

  For three days Sarah heard nothing from Huldah, and then they met at the house of a mutual friend. With some hesitation, Sarah brought up the subject of the dinner party.

  “Your brother looks at me with no more interest than if I were a cooking pot,” Huldah said. She was right, of course, and that ended Sarah’s efforts as a matchmaker.

  “This stew is very good,” Noah said, smiling. He meant to distract her, she knew. She had the feeling sometimes that he could peer straight into her mind. “The broth is delicious.”

  * * *

  About two hours after sunset, Joshua woke up. Noah had been sitting in the dark, waiting.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Yes. And very thirsty.”

  Sarah had kept the stew warm. There was also fresh bread, and Noah watered the wine eight parts to three. It was a meal for an invalid.

  Nevertheless, Joshua seemed to enjoy it.

  “John cared nothing about food,” he said. “Sometimes it would be days before he would remember to eat. If Simon hadn’t brought his fishing net, the rest of us might have starved.”

  “Is he your friend in Capernaum? You said it was a fishing village.”

  “Yes. That’s him. Simon went home to visit his wife about a week before John was arrested, but he left his net.”

  “What was John like?”

  “You never heard him preach?”

  “No.”

  Joshua shrugged, as if he had decided to forgive the oversight, and then he said, “John was the purest soul I ever knew.”

  “In what way?”

  “In every way. He cared nothing about pleasure or comfort. For John, there was only God. He was God’s prophet.”

  “So naturally the Tetrarch arrested him.”

  “Of course. John expected it.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes.” Joshua smiled tightly, giving the impression that its very obviousness was painful to him. “I remember how he walked over to meet the Tetrarch’s soldiers. It was as if he welcomed them as friends.”

  “Did he wish to die, then?”

  “I don’t think it made any difference to him. ‘Let me meet the destiny God has prepared for me,’ he said. What mattered was the will of God.”

  “What matters to you?”

  “To carry on John’s teaching. To make myself worthy to be called his disciple.” Joshua smiled, as if he had just said something amusing. “Did you ever think that I, of all people, would end as a messenger of God?”

  “Perhaps not, but somehow it fails to surprise me.”

  * * *

  On the evening following the Sabbath, after Noah had returned from Nazareth, Joshua was waiting for him.

  “Did you see my family?” he asked.

  Noah shook his head. “Only at the prayer house.”

  Joshua seemed disappointed, and let the subject drop.

  “I think it is time I was on my way,” he said, finally. “I have my strength back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I would like to offer a suggestion. Take the road to Tiberias, which is well traveled and safe. Then journey to Capernaum by boat.”

  “And if they are looking for me?”

  Noah crossed his arms over his chest and smiled, visibly pleased with himself.

  “Who will they be looking for?” he asked. “A follower of John. A beggar. An ascetic with a long, ragged beard.” He reached out and playfully pulled on Joshua’s chin whiskers. “While they are searching for this man, they will not see you.”

  “How will you manage it?”

  “Leave it to me.”

  The next morning, early, Noah sent his sister off to the marketplace. Sarah knew what was required and would make a better selection than he could himself.

  She came back two hours later with an embroidered tunic of Egyptian cotton and a wool cloak dyed blue. She had also brought back new sandals and a small vial of scented oil.

  “You did very well,” her brother told her. “Now, can you manage something about his hair and beard?”

  “All I need are scissors and a comb.”

  An hour later, a different person stood before them. Joshua’s hair, glistening with oil, was swept back from his forehead and ended just at the collar of his robe, and his beard was cut short and to a fashionable point. Sarah, with a woman’s attention to detail, had even trimmed his fingernails.

  Joshua, who seemed amused by his transformation, raised his arms and turned slowly in a full circle for their inspection.

  “There is still something missing.”

  Noah shook his head and then disappeared upstairs. When he came back he showed them a silver ring with a small red stone.

  “Put it on,” he said to Joshua. “I think a bit of jewelry is necessary to complete the impression.”

  Joshua held up his hand, turning it this way and that so the ring caught the light.

  “Where did you get this?” he asked, making the question sound like an accusation.

  “It was in a trunk in the cellar when I moved back into this house. I can only assume it must have been my father’s.”

  “Then someday you will want it returned.” Joshua smiled, with just a hint of mischief. “I promise I won’t give it away.”

  * * *

  Joshua had to be dissuaded from leaving immediately, but Noah pointed out that it was an eight-hour walk to Tiberias and thus he could not hope to reach there before sunset. But if he left at first light, he would be in Tiberias by the early afternoon and might still catch a boat to Capernaum.

  “Besides, you want to be on the road with the crowds. It will be safer and less conspicuous.”

  “I will feel conspicuous enough dressed like this,” Joshua said, with a laugh. “I hardly know myself.”

  “Neither will anyone else.”

  The next morning, Noah accompanied him as far as the eastern gate and, at the last moment, pressed a small purse of silver coins into his hand.

  “It completes the disguise, and you will need money on the journey.”

  “I hardly know what to do with money anymore.”

  “Believe me, there isn’t enough to allow you much practice.”

  They embraced, and Joshua disappeared into the mob of travelers.

  Where would this journey take him? Noah could not conceal from hi
mself a sense of foreboding. “May God be merciful to His servant Joshua,” he whispered, and turned back reluctantly to his accustomed life.

  2

  The Baptist was taken to Machaerus, a hilltop fortress in the middle of the Perean desert, just east of the Dead Sea. From the valley all one could see were its stone outer walls, gray and forbidding.

  Such a stronghold, miles from the nearest city, was a monument to fear. It was intended as a refuge for Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, a place where he might wait to be rescued by his Roman masters, should his own people rise against him.

  Caleb bar Jacob, the Tetrarch’s watchful servant, was mindful of that fear as he too traveled to Machaerus. Fear was the condition upon which power was granted and held.

  The Baptist preached that men should repent of their sins, for God was about to redeem his creation. Redeem it from what, if not from Antipas? Was it at all surprising that the Tetrarch feared him? He had good reason. John was loved, while Antipas was an object of hatred. Antipas built cities of marble while there was famine in the villages. Only the patronage of Rome kept him from being torn apart.

  So what more apt place than Machaerus to serve as the Baptist’s prison? To be sent to Machaerus was almost to be removed from the earth.

  Dawn was just breaking as Caleb set out from Beth Haram on the last leg of his journey. It was nearly thirty miles and no one traveled fast in the desert. His party was small, comprising an escort of only ten mounted soldiers. Caleb rode in the lead, to stay out of the dust as much as possible. There was also a single wagon, kept tightly covered, for its occupant hated and feared the daylight.

  It had been quite cold when they left Beth Haram, but by midmorning the sun was ferocious.

  The desert had a kind of pitiless beauty. The wind had worn its rocky hills into strange shapes, exposing bands of color—dull red, black, and iron gray, with here and there a streak of sulfurous yellow. In the middle of the day there was no sound, for not a breath of air moved and no living thing stirred. Yet the sun danced. You could see it shimmer on the flat, stony landscape.

  For the last two hours, Caleb had been within sight of Machaerus atop its hill. Doubtless he was being watched from the fortress ramparts, and probably the soldiers had guessed that this visit had something to do with their celebrated prisoner.

  For John was famous—famous and revered by many as God’s prophet. To arrest him and, certainly, when it came to that, to execute him, involved risks.

  But it also presented opportunities. John was a man like other men. Like all men he must fear pain and, most of all, death. Like all men he could be broken, and a broken, repentant John, begging the Tetrarch’s forgiveness, could have his uses. First, it would discourage John’s followers. Second, and perhaps more important, it would appeal to the Tetrarch’s vanity. Either way, Caleb advanced in his master’s confidence.

  And John had smoothed the way for him by besmirching the Tetrarch’s marriage. He had said that for Antipas to marry his half brother’s wife, who was also his niece, was in the sight of God an unclean thing.

  The Lord Eleazar, the First Minister of Galilee, had advised Antipas to put the matter from his mind. Perhaps he was even right, for the Lord Eleazar was a clever man who knew when to strike and when to stay his hand. He it was who had brought Caleb into the Tetrarch’s service.

  Some events are like a flash of light in the darkness. Caleb had not been present during the discussion, but he heard the details from his wife. Michal was the confidante of the Lady Herodias, the Tetrarch’s wife, who had little enough reason to love either the Baptist or the Lord Eleazar.

  And Antipas, it seemed, had not found the First Minister’s advice congenial. He had complained that the dignity of his name seemed to count for nothing. He hinted darkly that the Lord Eleazar had grown timid, that he was more interested in protecting his own vast wealth than in upholding the honor of his master.

  So was the First Minister falling from favor? Or was the Tetrarch merely giving vent to his frustration over advice he did not quite have the courage to ignore?

  It was a question that required the nicest judgment. Caleb owed his position to the Lord Eleazar. He was his disciple, his chosen instrument, almost his second self. But if the lord was heading to his ruin—a course that would most likely end with his head on the executioner’s block—Caleb might be lucky to escape alive himself. In any case, his career in the Tetrarch’s service would be finished.

  Unless, of course, he had by then distanced himself from the First Minister. Unless he had positioned himself as the logical successor.

  On the other hand, such a move could be a terrible mistake. If the Tetrarch’s anger was no more than a mood, and the Lord Eleazar remained in power, Caleb’s betrayal would never be forgiven.

  In the end the Tetrarch himself settled the matter. He invited Caleb and his wife to a banquet and seated them on couches very near his own. The entertainment was a performance of a comedy by Menander, and after it and a dinner that went on for half the night, Antipas wanted to gamble. He liked to win, so of course the dice were crooked, and Caleb cheerfully lost over a thousand silver shekels.

  Then at last they rose from the table, and Antipas threw his arm across Caleb’s shoulders and took him out onto the terrace to admire the sunrise. The Tetrarch was in rare good spirits, laughing and quoting lines from the play, which he seemed to know almost by heart, and then suddenly his mood darkened.

  “Tell me, my boy, what do you think of this business with the Baptist,” he asked, absolutely without preamble. “Do you agree with the First Minister that we should leave him alone?”

  “The Lord Eleazar is a wise and careful man.”

  Caleb was afraid to say more.

  “Then you do agree.”

  Antipas lifted his arm from Caleb’s shoulder and seemed to withdraw into himself. He stared at the light streaming over the eastern hills, as if facing the last great disappointment of his life.

  “I did not say that I agree, Lord,” Caleb answered, searching his mind for everything in the reports about John that could be made to seem incriminating. “But perhaps it is not my place to agree or disagree.”

  “Your loyalty to the Lord Eleazar is commendable, but I would have you speak your mind. Do you think such an insult to the Lady Herodias is to be borne?”

  “I am sure any such discourtesy was far from John’s mind, sire. I truly believe he intended to insult only you.”

  This made the Tetrarch laugh, and he put his hand back on Caleb’s shoulder.

  Today he loves me, Caleb thought, feeling the weight of that hand. Today I am a great favorite. And tomorrow?

  It is like keeping company with a wild boar. He watches you through fierce, greedy eyes, and the next instant he may run you down and tear you to pieces, spilling your guts on the ground with his tusks.

  But for now he laughs.

  “However, his attitude toward the Lady Herodias is not the main point,” Caleb went on, when the laughter had subsided. “If it were merely that, I would have agreed with the lord that the wisest course was simply to ignore him. He would be beneath Your Highness’s notice.”

  The Tetrarch seemed to consider this, perhaps trying to decide if his servant was being disrespectful. Apparently he decided not.

  “Then what is the main point? His influence with the mob?”

  “The mob, yes,” Caleb answered. He felt himself sweating and hoped it didn’t show. “The mob is always dangerous. The question is, what has John been telling the mob? He preaches that God will soon come to restore the world, presumably to its Edenic purity. Were there any kings in Eden?”

  He did not wait for the Tetrarch to answer.

  “We live in a fallen world, sire. This Scripture tells us, that through our own sinful nature we have lost Paradise. And without kings to rule us, we would tear each other apart. That is why Your Highness rules in Galilee, because it is the will of God. It is the mercy of God. The Baptist in his vast
arrogance would set that aside. He conspires—”

  “Conspires?”

  There were certain words, Caleb had learned, that sent a thrill of horror though the Tetrarch’s heart.

  “Yes, sire. John has disciples.”

  * * *

  The officer in charge was a man named Zev, and he would probably never leave this place alive. He was over fifty and had been posted to Machaerus about ten years before, doubtless for some obscure offense. He did not give the impression he would last another ten years in the desert. Machaerus was not easy duty.

  But the officer managed to assemble a passable guard of honor when he opened the gates. Caleb followed him to the garrison office, where he was offered some indifferent wine.

  Zev smiled as he poured it, and Caleb experienced a twinge of injured pride. Was this rude soldier, who was old enough to be his father, patronizing him?

  Some men, even in youth, were blessed with commanding presences, but Caleb knew that he was not one of them. He was of no more than average height, and slender enough to give the appearance of weakness. Worse yet, even at thirty his face was unmarked by time and suggested a boyish inexperience. His beard had never grown in beyond a few ugly little tufts, which he kept trimmed so short that he almost looked clean shaven, after the Greek fashion. Sometimes, as in his dealing with the Tetrarch, who seemed to look upon him as a son, his apparent youthfulness was an advantage, but on occasions such as this it felt like a curse.

  Thus, before even tasting the wine, before even sitting down, Caleb took from his pocket the scroll that contained the Tetrarch’s warrant and opened it on the table for the commander’s inspection. Let him know that “the prisoner John, called ‘the Baptist’” was now under the authority of “my servant, Caleb bar Jacob, who is in possession of my perfect confidence.” For the convenience of his master, Caleb had written it all out in Greek, the only language the Tetrarch understood with any fluency, but the words did not matter. All that mattered was the seal and the signature.

  Zev’s examination of the document was no more than a glance. It was likely his literacy did not go beyond a stumbling acquaintance with the Hebrew characters, but again it didn’t matter. He knew who was in command.