The Ironsmith

by Nicholas Guild

  “Why didn’t you simply ask Caleb?”

  “About certain matters it is not wise to appear curious.”

  The Lord Eleazar leaned forward, picked up the jug, and filled the two stone cups with water. He held one out to Noah.

  “But you have not told me about your injuries. I am curious about that as well.”

  “I was set upon.” Noah took a tentative sip of the water and found it astonishingly cold. “On my way home from spending the Sabbath with my grandfather, I was attacked by a man who, it seems, had also gone to some trouble to discover my name.”

  “Then perhaps you are lucky to be alive.”

  “I don’t think luck had anything to do with it. My assailant was very skillful and had no intention of killing me. It was a warning. He meant to cause me pain and to frighten me. He succeeded.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes. But there are worse things than pain and fear, just as there are worse things than death.”

  “And what is worse than death, Noah?”

  “Breaking the commandments.”

  For a long moment the two men remained silent as each seemed to assess the other. Then the priest set down his cup of water.

  “Do you know who I am, Noah?” he asked.

  “You are a man to whom Caleb would give the letter I wrote about my cousin Joshua. Is there anything else I need to know about you?”

  Eleazar shrugged slightly, refusing to be insulted.

  “I know who you are,” Noah added flatly, as if contradicting an obvious falsehood.

  “Then know that I did not order the attack on you. I knew nothing of it. Caleb did what he did for his own reasons.”

  “That is, of course, very reassuring.”

  The First Minister laughed. One had the sense that he did not laugh often.

  “You have fulfilled the promise of your letter, Noah. I must grant you that. You are not impressed by the grandeur of my office, any more than you are frightened of Caleb.”

  “I am very frightened of Caleb.”

  “Yes, but not enough to suit him. Why did you write your letter in Greek?”

  “I thought I would make it easier for him.”

  The Lord Eleazar smiled. Then, in the next instant, he became very serious.

  “I think there are a few things you need to understand, Noah. I believe it possible that we could be of use to one another.”

  * * *

  Their conversation lasted for more than an hour. For most of it the Lord Eleazar spoke, with Noah interjecting the occasional question or expression of surprise—and nothing surprised him more than the priest’s candor. If any third person had been listening at the door, it might have meant both their lives.

  But the Lord Eleazar, who seemed to have a refined understanding of all such matters, had taken his precautions.

  “You are perhaps wondering why we have met here,” he said, gesturing with his hand to take in all the space around them, “rather than at the palace or my own home. But Caleb has his spies, some of whom, no doubt, are among my servants. At least, that is my assumption. A few of his servants also provide me with information. Such are the conditions of life, no less than the sun and the rain, and we both accept them. I own this house. The man who lives here is my tenant and indebted to me. We are safe here.”

  “But why do you submit to being spied on by your own servant?”

  “Because that is what he does.” The Lord Eleazar leaned forward and refilled Noah’s cup. “Caleb has an inborn talent for treachery, which is why I raised him to his present position. Further, the Tetrarch, who is deeply afraid of his subjects, likes him. He believes Caleb’s persecutions protect him from his enemies. He is encouraged in this by his wife, the Lady Herodias, and she numbers Caleb’s wife among her intimate friends. You see, the situation is complicated.”

  “You make me deeply grateful to God that I am only a humble ironsmith.”

  Although Noah had been sincere, the Lord Eleazar chose to interpret it as a jest and laughed accordingly.

  “But you see that your relative obscurity has, at last, offered you no protection,” he replied, still smiling. “Caleb reached down and found you. Now you are in as much danger as I am myself. If Caleb’s ambitions are realized, and there is no longer any restraining hand on him, he will surely destroy you. You, and probably your whole family, since Caleb is a man who believes in thoroughness.”

  His words made Noah afraid, but not so afraid that he stopped listening. He had heard the words he had been meant to hear: “In as much danger as I am myself.”

  “How does he threaten you, my lord? You stand at the Tetrarch’s right hand. How can this man possibly threaten you?”

  “He threatens me because he wants to replace me. He wishes to stand at the Tetrarch’s right hand, and this he may achieve. He needs only to convince Antipas that he is necessary to the Tetrarch’s survival.

  “Actually, Caleb himself has become the greatest threat to the Tetrarchy. The execution of the Baptist caused much resentment. If there is enough resentment, there will be a revolt, and if there is a revolt the Romans will suppress it. Then they will probably decide that Antipas, like his brother Archelaus before him, is a bad ruler—which, from their point of view, means that he cannot keep the peace and thus guarantee the flow of tribute to Rome—and they will remove him.

  “Do you wish to see Roman troops garrisoned in Sepphoris, Noah? But of course you won’t see it because you will already be dead. So will I.”

  “But surely the Tetrarch wouldn’t…”

  “Wouldn’t he?” The Lord Eleazar could only shake his head at such innocence. “Of course he would. My father was warden of the city, before me. Our family has acquired extensive properties, which by now, no doubt, the Tetrarch has come to regard with covetous eyes. If he decides that I am no longer useful to him, he will also decide that I am a traitor. All that I own will be forfeit to him.

  “Do you see, Noah? I am fighting for my life. And if I perish, so will you. And so, eventually, will countless others. And the Romans will seize yet another piece of our homeland. They are bad masters, my friend. Eventually it will all end in war and slaughter.”

  Noah believed him. Indeed, it was impossible not to believe him. Yes, it was all true.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked. It was the one thing he did not understand.

  “Because I think you can be of use to me. You can help me, and by helping me you can save yourself.”

  “How? I am as good as a dead man.”

  Noah looked down at the water in his cup. Suddenly it seemed important to drink it, as he might never have another chance.

  “Last night I was beaten,” he continued. “It was a warning, but Caleb might just as easily have decided to have me killed. When I received your message this morning I thought it was from him, and that I would be arrested. What he wants from me I cannot give him, and when he discovers that, he will send his man back to me, but with different orders.”

  Suddenly he reached down and took the cup, drinking it off at once. The Lord Eleazar watched him with undisguised interest.

  “You are probably right,” he said, nodding his head in agreement. “I think it may be necessary for you to go into hiding.”

  13

  Noah returned to his house and confirmed that it was empty. Good. That meant Sarah was safely on her way to Nazareth. It would be better if he himself stayed away from there. Sarah would explain everything to Grandfather.

  The Lord Eleazar was right. The wisest thing would be to disappear.

  And he had a pretext. He went to the workshop and told his apprentice that he had decided to go on his trading expedition sooner than planned. He would leave at once. He did not know how long he would be gone. Hiram looked shocked when he saw the condition of Noah’s face, but he asked no questions. He helped load the donkey with two boxes that contained the smaller, more precise tools that would fetch a better price, and promised he would look after thing
s. Hiram was a good fellow.

  The trip was not simply an excuse to get away, since Noah had planned something of the sort for over a year. He did business with the gentile cities in Philip’s realm, and even up as far as Damascus, but it was on a small scale. He was sure, however, that he could find a larger market there and, if he started receiving regular orders, he could expand, take on a few more apprentices, perhaps even purchase another workshop, and grow wealthy.

  But now that aim was secondary to preserving his own life and perhaps helping, in some small way, to rid the world of Caleb.

  “I wish you to make inquiries,” the Lord Eleazar had told him. “I am informed that you have extensive trading contacts outside of Galilee. I want you to find out for me how events here are perceived in the larger world—the world of practical men, men like yourself.”

  “What can I discover that you do not already know?” Noah had asked him. “The Tetrarch is widely hated. This is not a secret.”

  The Lord Eleazar had smiled thinly, acknowledging the uncomfortable truth. They were two men who could speak bluntly to one another, he seemed to suggest.

  “No, this is not a secret. It is also beside the point. You will recall that his father was also hated, and yet he held sway over a far greater territory than Galilee. Even on his deathbed his power went unchallenged. The criterion of success for such men is not popularity but stability.”

  “So what sort of information do you seek?”

  “How shall I put it?”

  The Lord Eleazar seemed to look at nothing as he considered his own question. Then he raised his hands slightly, as if the obvious answer had only just occurred to him.

  “Think of the Tetrarch not as a ruler but as a man of business—the manager of an estate, if you will. Or, perhaps more accurately, the landlord of the estate, for at bottom he is no more than that. Other men do business with him. They may not love him, but nonetheless they do business with him. And their approach to that business is based on an assessment of how well or ill they think the estate is being managed.”

  He paused for a moment, apparently depressed by the image he had conjured up.

  “I want that assessment, Noah,” he went on, when the moment passed. “I do not ask for any names because I know you wouldn’t provide them. I don’t expect you to betray anyone’s confidence. But I want to know what men think. They would not tell me, or anyone they knew I had sent, but they will tell you. Over a cup of wine perhaps, at the end of the day.”

  So that was one more object of his journey. First Deborah had given the plan urgency, and now he was running for his life while gathering up the gossip of the marketplace.

  Deborah. There was another question that needed an answer. What was he to do about Deborah? Everything had changed.

  But perhaps she would save him the trouble of deciding. By now she may have come to regret her moment of acquiescence.

  Since the last time he had seen her, there had been intervals when it seemed that the obstacles in his way were insurmountable. She was young, beautiful, and independent, and he was, after all, what he was: a thirty-year-old widower whom no woman, probably not even his dead wife, had ever considered handsome. By the standards of the village in which he had been raised, he was a prosperous man, but it never crossed his mind that Deborah would be tempted to marry him for his riches.

  She was free—that was the point. Her late husband probably had been chosen for her, but the choice would lie with her now.

  Noah’s own marriage had been arranged. He had found no fault with his wife. Love had followed marriage. The union had been happy, and he had sincerely mourned her when she died.

  Yet would she have chosen him if she had been in Deborah’s position? Until now it had never occurred to him to wonder. What if she had been required to heed no voice but that in her own heart?

  Such thoughts had tormented him ever since his departure from Capernaum, and now he was returning. To what?

  And now he was a fugitive. What business did he have dragging her into this trouble? Best, perhaps, to leave her alone.

  He slept that night in a village even smaller than Nazareth. A single silver coin bought him dinner, forage for his animal, and a mat by the kitchen fire in some farmer’s hut. He hardly slept.

  It was not until he came within sight of Capernaum that he decided he would see Deborah after all, if only to explain. He could not bring himself to part from her without a word.

  It was about noon when Noah found himself knocking on the door of Ezra’s wineshop.

  “Oh, it is you! By the devil, what happened to your face?”

  “I had an accident a few days ago. It looks worse than it is.”

  “Well, you are always welcome. Come back to visit your kinsman again? You will be disappointed. He has gone away, praise God.”

  “I know. I am here on business. Can you accommodate my donkey as well as me?”

  Ezra ran his fingers through his beard as if considering a difficult passage of Scripture, but at last he smiled.

  “I know someone in the next street who has an empty stall. Leave it to me.” He gestured toward the donkey. “What have you got in the boxes?”

  “Tools.”

  Ezra immediately lost interest.

  Provided with a basin of water, Noah washed with more than usual care, changed out of his travel-stained clothes, and combed his beard. Then he went to Simon’s house. He would inquire after Joshua. It was just a way of putting off the moment of decision, but he told himself that if his movements were noted it would call less attention to his visit to Deborah.

  Simon was out fishing, his wife said. He would return at sunset.

  So be it.

  * * *

  “Mistress, that man is here again. You remember him? He was a friend of the Master’s. He looks like he’s been in a fight.”

  Deborah experienced the news as a shock. Of course, “that man” could not be anyone but Noah. She hardly heard anything beyond the first sentence.

  She was sitting on her balcony, and for an instant she was sure her heart had stopped beating. These sensations lasted only a moment, and then she forced herself to smile, with an expression of perfect unconcern, and directed Hannah to show their guest into the garden. It did not strike her as quite respectable to receive him in her house, and, in any case, at this hour of the morning, the garden was cooler, and more private.

  The water jar she kept in her bedroom was almost empty, but there was enough to allow her to wash her hands and face. Should she change her dress? No—her dress was clean and it was the morning, so to appear in fine clothes would make an odd impression. She settled for combing her hair again, since she must do something.

  There was a bench in the garden—only one, so they would of necessity be sitting beside one another. It was in the shade of a grape arbor, which screened it from the house. She had never considered its advantages for this kind of meeting, and as she descended the stairs from her bedroom she smiled to herself. This was the first time it had ever occurred to her that she might possess that kind of feminine cunning.

  Noah rose to his feet the instant he saw her, a courtesy that would never have occurred to her husband. The first thing she noticed were his bruises.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, experiencing a kind of tender panic.

  “It’s not important. I’ll tell you about it.”

  Which of course meant not now.

  He smiled, and there was an uncertainty in his eyes that touched her. She reached out her hands to him, a completely unpremeditated gesture that surprised even herself, and as he took them his expression changed to something that was less like confidence than gratitude.

  “I hope you are well,” he said, in a voice that could have said many other things. It was then that, with a visible reluctance, he released her hands.

  “Yes, thank you. And you? How was your journey?”

  “It was dusty and uneventful, which is the best that one can expect. I am ve
ry glad to see you again.”

  For a moment there seemed nothing more to say. They were both embarrassed, but it was the sort of embarrassment that had its own peculiar pleasure. He seemed on the verge of saying something which, she somehow sensed, she did not want to hear, so she took refuge in the mundane.

  “Are you hungry? Shall I call Hannah…?”

  “I have not yet broken my fast, but at this moment I could eat nothing. Later, perhaps, it will occur to me to be hungry.”

  It seemed to her the most beautiful declaration of love she could have imagined. She wanted to embrace him, but of course that was impossible.

  “I have thought much of … of what passed between us,” she said. As soon as the words were spoken she considered that they were too bold, but in the same instant she knew she did not care.

  “Is it possible you have reached any conclusions?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled. She was on the verge of laughing. When in her life had she ever been so happy?

  Noah did not smile. Strangely, he appeared stricken.

  “Something has happened,” he said finally.

  And then he told her a story, one she could hardly comprehend. It involved a man named Caleb, an evil man who had killed the prophet John, and a priest, and a letter Noah had written that had angered the man named Caleb, enough that he had had Noah beaten, and now Noah had been forced to flee.

  “And this is all because of the Master?”

  “Joshua? Yes, I suppose.”

  “Because you would not write lies about him.”

  “Yes.” Noah shrugged, as if there were no more help for this trouble than for a summer of drought. “If I did as he expected I would not only betray Joshua and consign him to death, I would separate myself from God. I would be breaking the commandment against false witness, and I cannot bring myself to enter that darkness.”

  “Then you have acted as a good man and an obedient servant of God. If this is a crime, then the times are as bad as the Master says.”