The Ironsmith

by Nicholas Guild

  “His kinsman? Yet you selected him.”

  Caleb shifted his weight a little. He seemed uncomfortable.

  “It is almost customary for members of the same family to denounce one another,” he said finally.

  “But not, apparently, in this case.”

  Eleazar examined the papyrus again, as if the object itself, apart from the meaning of its words, might offer some clue. “Why does he write in Greek? And why does he accompany his report with a tool for drawing teeth?”

  Neither of these questions held much interest for Caleb. He had assumed the pliers were merely a gift—a bribe of sorts. A fruit peddler might have sent a basket of oranges, but Noah was an ironsmith.

  “Why shouldn’t he write in Greek? As for the pliers, he makes them. I saw a pair like this in his shop.”

  “Is he a learned man, this maker of pliers?”

  “I believe he has that reputation, yes.”

  Eleazar smiled faintly, as if at some idea he felt no temptation to share.

  “His report is worthless,” Caleb repeated, without quite knowing why.

  “It is only worthless if it is untrue. To know that a man is not your enemy is also valuable information.”

  At last he raised his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “You may go, Caleb. Continue to gather evidence, if it amuses you, but I am inclined to leave this cloud dweller in peace.”

  “As you wish, Lord.”

  When he was alone, Eleazar reread the report from this kinsman of Joshua bar Joseph, enjoying the ingenuity with which it managed to say everything and nothing. He almost envied Caleb the acquaintance of such a person, except that Caleb was too blunt to appreciate him.

  Eleazar picked up the pliers again with his left hand, still holding the report in his right. Upon reflection, he decided they were much alike. The two halves of the pliers were joined, apparently, by a barrel piece, no further across than the width of the smallest finger on a man’s hand, which projected from one half and fit into a circular hole of corresponding size in the other half. The riddle was, what held them together? Was there some fastening concealed within the joint? Did the barrel piece widen? In either case, how would a man construct such a thing? It was a mystery, concealed from view.

  The letter was much the same. This Joshua preached a message which was identical to that proclaimed by the Baptist yet which, restated by Caleb’s informant, sounded harmless enough. It was not sedition to teach that God would redeem his creation, less still that men should purify their hearts. Yet the Baptist had gone well beyond both. The Baptist had dared to rebuke the Tetrarch himself.

  And then there was the argument from obscurity. The Baptist had been regarded by the common people as a prophet, and his arrest had been unpopular. His follower Joshua was heeded by almost no one, if his kinsman could be believed, so that to arrest him, and thus bring him to the attention of the mob, would be to create a danger where none currently existed.

  The Tetrarch could not afford to elevate another religious zealot to martyrdom, at least not so soon. A ruler, if he is to continue to rule, can be hated only in moderation.

  “It is difficult to imagine in what light Your Excellency could regard such a person as of any danger to the state.” But not impossible, the informant seemed to be implying. If you are sufficiently set upon shedding innocent blood, you will find a pretext.

  Why was the report in Greek? Why not in Hebrew or, at least, Aramaic? Why? There was no reason, except perhaps to suggest that Caleb had made himself a foreigner in the midst of his own people. Still, this was no more than the truth.

  And then there were the pliers. What could the man possibly have meant by sending Caleb an instrument for drawing teeth?

  None of the answers were flattering.

  Caleb was angry because his spy did not tell him what he wished to hear. Caleb was becoming blinded by his own ambition. He should have been angry because the man rebuked him.

  Eleazar felt himself included in that rebuke, although the author of the letter and the maker of the pliers probably had no idea that he was involved in the business. However, he took no offense. It seemed to him that the rebuke was deserved.

  Eleazar had been born into the priesthood, but what did that mean? A few times a year he traveled up to Jerusalem to take his turn offering sacrifice in the Temple, and for the rest he wore a priest’s vestments and lived like any other man. Perhaps the servants of God had no business serving any other master, yet what choice did he have?

  Eleazar knew that Caleb had only brought him this report because he thought it valueless. He was playing at being the First Minister’s humble servant so that their rivalry would not become too open. One could only imagine the things he was keeping secret.

  His humble servant. The words themselves sounded like a particularly tasteless jest. I do evil—or, at least, countenance it—and tell myself that I do it to serve some greater good, he thought to himself. He wondered if the kinsman of Joshua bar Joseph would be impressed by his justification.

  And then it occurred to him that this maker of pliers might have his uses, if not for Caleb, then for himself.

  Eleazar decided he must learn the identity of Caleb’s informant. Normally he did not wish to know such things, but now he needed allies, and this man seemed both clever and prepared to risk Caleb’s hostility. Eleazar would make an exception.

  * * *

  Caleb knew he was in no fit state to speak to anyone. Rarely in his life had he been so irritated. He was beginning to find the Lord Eleazar intolerable.

  So he went outside the palace walls and stood staring at the Galilean countryside for a full half an hour, and gradually, watching the green fields undulate in the wind, his mood became more tranquil.

  He owned several farms in Galilee. There was one, with a large stone house, where he thought he might like to retire one day. He imagined himself sitting in the shade of a grape arbor, holding his wife’s hand, enjoying her smiles.

  It was a fantasy of course. Michal would never consent to such a life. Michal spending her days feeding the chickens and picking wildflowers—what a picture.

  He had pleaded with her to return with him to Sepphoris, but even this she had refused.

  “Sepphoris? What is there in Sepphoris?” She had actually laughed at the idea. “Sepphoris is a dog hole. Besides, the Lady Herodias requires my presence.”

  “I require your presence. I love you. Life without you is a torment.”

  But she had merely turned on her heel and left the room. When he departed from Tiberias, she would not even come to bid him farewell.

  Michal living with him in a stone farmhouse, holding his hand beneath a grape arbor. Yet it was pleasant to think of, even if he knew it could never happen.

  When he was convinced that he had returned to a state of perfect calm, tinged perhaps with a hint of melancholy, he returned to the palace.

  He went down a stone stairway to the guardroom. The captain at first merely looked up inquisitively from his wine cup, and then rose to his feet.

  “Where is Matthias?”

  “Not on duty, my lord,” the captain answered, his gaze apparently fixed on a point just a span to the left of Caleb’s head.

  The reply was, of course, precise and to the point. It meant that Matthias was in the city, unquestionably drunk, and probably in the arms of some slut.

  “Well, find him. And when he is sober enough to keep his feet under him, send him to me. I shall be at home.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  * * *

  As always, Matthias awoke with a start. His sleep was dreamless, like death, and there was no interval between that and the terrible panic that always seized him in the first instant, sometimes before he even opened his eyes.

  There were men in the room. One, his face very close, meant to kill him. No, it was only Lamech from the barracks, shaking him awake.

  Relief, followed by shame, flooded his heart. He was such a coward.

  “Com
e along, wake up,” Lamech murmured, as if soothing a child. “Time to get on your feet. Little Ahab wants you.”

  Little Ahab—the guards’ name for the Lord Caleb.

  Matthias was lying on a pallet on the floor of a room he did not know and could not remember entering. Someone was lying beside him. He turned to see who, but that was a mistake, because a spasm of pain pierced his head like a nail.

  Anyway, it was only some woman, asleep or maybe dead—no, she was breathing. She was on her belly with her face toward him, uncovered down to the rise of her buttocks, a little old for a whore but not bad. He couldn’t remember her at all.

  “I need a drink.”

  There was a wine jar beside the pallet. He could remember that. He reached out blindly and knocked it over, spilling some on the floor. He grabbed it by the neck and rolled himself in that direction until he was resting on his elbow. The whole process was agony. His head felt as heavy as an anvil, and just as battered.

  There were about three fingers of wine left in the jar. He took a swallow, then another, and then he felt a little better.

  “You need to wash your face and get on your feet,” Lamech told him. “He wants you to go to his house.”

  The whore rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, opened her eyes, and sat up, without bothering to cover her breasts. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see three armed soldiers in her room, all staring at her hungrily. She smiled.

  Matthias reached for his tunic and extracted a small leather pouch from the pocket. Inside were two silver coins, the last of this quarter’s pay.

  Why should he care? The Lord Caleb needed him again, so there would be more silver to buy wine and pleasure. The Lord Caleb, whatever else, was not ungenerous.

  He gave the pouch to the whore.

  “Here. You were wonderful.”

  He always told them that.

  Outside, Lamech dismissed the other two guards. “Have you had anything to eat?”

  “No, and I don’t want food. I want some wine.”

  “You know, the way you drink, you’ll be dead in five years,” Lamech said, after they had found a tavern and Matthias had quickly downed two cups of something that smelled worse than a corpse. “You don’t even water it.”

  Matthias glanced up and briefly considered becoming angry. He decided against it. Lamech wasn’t his friend—Matthias didn’t have any friends—but they had trained together. That was close enough.

  “Five years? Do you think it will take as long as that?”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “Because when I’ve drunk enough, something happens in my head. I don’t care about anything then. My whole life, past and future, is like something that belongs to a stranger.”

  “It sounds horrible.”

  “It’s bliss.”

  Matthias smiled, not very pleasantly. Lamech had a woman, and when he wasn’t on duty he lived with her, in a room above a potter’s shop. He was a decent sort who had never darkened his soul with deeds that cried out for vengeance. Probably even his dreams were innocent. Of course he wouldn’t understand.

  Matthias’s dreams were terrible.

  “That’s enough wine,” he said. “Two cups and I’m sober again. Now I’m hungry.”

  Lamech’s orders were to find him, clean him up, and escort him to the door of the Lord Caleb’s house, and it was there the two parted. Lamech disappeared around the corner of a building, while Matthias tried to summon the courage to knock.

  The porter answered. All porters were either very young or very old, and this one was old. He knew Matthias by sight.

  “The master is up on the roof,” he said. “Do you remember your way?”

  Without answering, Matthias went to the rear stairway the servants used. By the time he reached the roof his head had begun to ache again.

  “You look dreadful,” the Lord Caleb announced, glancing up from his chair for a short, scornful inspection. “Are you fit for work?”

  “I will be, Lord, when the work requires me.”

  Matthias was always careful to fix his gaze a little to one side of the Lord Caleb’s head, not simply because the mighty regard being looked at full in the face as a presumption, but because he hated and feared the man. The Lord Caleb had ordered done many terrible things, and yet he seemed untroubled by them.

  To do evil and not to care—that required a devil.

  The Lord Caleb had turned his attention back to the view. From his rooftop one could see for miles, and the sight seemed to please him.

  “Of course you remember the Baptist,” he said, without turning his head.

  “I have heard of him, Lord.”

  Matthias closed his eyes, grateful that he had had no hand in that business. No one had rejoiced when John was arrested.

  “He had followers—disciples, men who participated in his plans to overthrow the Tetrarch. Here is a list. A partial list.”

  Without looking at it, the Lord Caleb gestured to a table beside his chair. On the table was a bowl of fruit and, held down at one corner by the bottom of the bowl, a folded scrap of papyrus.

  Matthias picked it up and opened it. He could read just enough to sound out the names. There were five, and against each name a place, usually a village no one had ever heard of.

  “Find them,” the Lord Caleb continued. “None is a person of consequence, so if they resist, you can kill a few and no one will object. Otherwise, bring them to me. Take as many men as you will need.

  “And there is one other matter.”

  The Lord Caleb looked up at his obedient servant and smiled. “A certain Noah bar Barachel, who is an ironsmith here in Sepphoris, has offended me. I wish him punished.”

  “Shall I kill him, Lord?”

  “No, do not kill him, since he may still be of use. Merely chastise him. Give him a good beating, but don’t break anything. He goes to Nazareth every week to spend the Sabbath with his grandfather. I imagine he comes home after sundown, so you can catch him alone on the road. This is a warning best delivered in private.”

  “Should he know the warning comes from you, Lord?”

  “I think he will know without being told.”

  11

  Noah was almost the last through the city gates on the evening he returned home from Capernaum. It was already dark when he opened the door to his house, so he called out his sister’s name, that she might know it was he and not be frightened.

  “Have you eaten?” Sarah asked, as soon as she had kissed him.

  “No, and I find that I am extremely hungry.”

  He smiled as he sat watching her prepare his dinner, because he knew he was going to make her happy.

  He waited until he had drunk a cup of wine, and it had taken hold, before he spoke.

  “I have met someone,” he said. “A widow. She is young and beautiful. Her husband was a fish merchant and seems to have left her well provided for. Yet, in spite of all this, she is willing to receive me as a suitor.”

  At first, Sarah appeared stunned, and then, when her mind had adjusted to this new idea, she clapped her hands together in sheer joy.

  “Beautiful? Oh, wonderful! And young? Young enough to bear children? And is she sweet tempered? Oh, Noah! I am so happy for you.”

  “She is sweet tempered. You will like her very much. She is also intelligent and pious. She is a follower of Joshua, which is the only flaw I can find in her.”

  He laughed, but Sarah seemed not to have heard.

  “And she loves you?”

  “As to love…” Noah cocked his head a little to one side and shrugged. “She wishes to know more of me—that is the most I can say. I will go back in a few weeks, and we shall see how it develops. At least she did not refuse me outright, which is what I expected.”

  “And do you love her?”

  He seemed to consider the question for a moment, and then nodded.

  “Yes, I think so. Or, more truthfully, I think if I see her again I will come to love her quickl
y enough. She strikes me as the kind of woman a man cannot stop himself from loving.”

  “What is her name?”

  “Deborah.”

  “Well, she has conquered you.”

  * * *

  As was his custom, Noah spent the Sabbath in Nazareth with his grandfather. They took the evening meal with Joseph and his family, who wished to hear news of Joshua.

  “If he stays where he is, I think he is safe enough,” Noah told them. “In Capernaum there are people who will protect him.”

  “Do you think my brother is mad?” Jacob asked. The tone of the question reflected his anxiety.

  “No.” Noah shook his head. “He believes he does God’s work, but that does not make him mad. He may truly be a prophet—I don’t know.”

  “How can he be a prophet?” Joseph asked, in a tone that suggested he already knew the answer. “The prophets of old performed miracles. They raised the dead and brought down plagues upon the enemies of Israel. He is not a prophet.”

  Noah shrugged, as if to say the mystery was too great for him. “Was the Baptist a prophet?”

  No one seemed willing to answer.

  When the meal was over and it was time to leave, Joseph embraced him. Noah could not remember another time he had done that.

  “I thank you,” Joseph said, and there were tears in his eyes. “You stand up for him. I know you love him.”

  “I think Joseph won’t last the winter,” Grandfather said as he and Noah returned to his house. “His lungs are failing. Joshua should come to him while he lives.”

  “I’ll tell him. I’ll be seeing him again soon.” Noah found that he did not want to talk any more about Joshua. “I have something I wish to discuss with you.”

  Grandfather said nothing more, but once they were inside he took down a pair of cups and poured them both some wine. Then Noah told him about Deborah.

  “It seems as if you have made a good choice.”

  “If she will have me. At least she is willing to listen.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  “She is a follower of Joshua’s.”

  The old man glanced at the ceiling, as if to say, I knew there would be something.