“Good morning,” he said, and then, turning to his sister, added, “we will be leaving in less than an hour.”
It was all the hint Sarah needed. Doubtless she was looking forward to the walk home, when she could be with Abijah.
“I suppose I should go put my things together,” she said, and was gone.
Noah sat down beside Deborah and smiled.
“I hope this is the last time I shall have to construct an excuse for being alone with you,” he said. He glanced about, to make sure no one was near, and then kissed her.
When the kiss was finished she studied his face for a moment and asked, “What is wrong?”
“Does something have to be wrong?”
“I can see it in your face. You smile at me, but not with your eyes.”
It was a peculiar feeling to be understood so easily. He supposed he would get used to it. Perhaps getting used to it would be one of the pleasures of marriage.
“As it turns out, you were right about Judah.”
31
It had become a habit. Almost every afternoon, about an hour before sunset, Caleb went up to the roof of his house and looked out over the Galilean countryside. His servants, and even his wife, knew not to disturb him. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts.
These days his thoughts were not pleasant.
He drank wine—perhaps more than he should—and watched the wind play across the wheat fields. Galilee was an abundant land. To own even a small share of it was to be rich, and Caleb’s share was not small. He owned several large farms and all the land surrounding some ten or twelve villages—he had lost count—and twice a year the rents poured in like spring rain.
Still, the view from his roof no longer comforted him. It simply reminded him of all he had to lose.
There was not a day, not an hour, when he was free from fear. Fear haunted him. Fear had become his second self.
But on his roof at least he could be alone with it.
Eleazar had the Tetrarch’s ear. Eleazar had seen to it that Caleb would not be received in Tiberias—neither he nor his wife.
Since the beginning of her exile from court, Michal had spent her days writing long, pleading letters to the Lady Herodias, which went unanswered. Caleb knew, because he had had the letters intercepted. Most he burned, but a few of the more temperate and supplicating he allowed to reach their destination—the mighty of this world like to be fawned over, and it would not do to have the tetrarch’s wife feel herself neglected.
Still, no answers came. Forgiveness and reinstatement were not to be expected. Eleazar had seen to that.
And Michal, after a series of indescribable tantrums, had at last decided that life in Sepphoris was not to be borne and announced that she intended a visit to her family in Jerusalem. And Caleb found he lacked the strength of character even to refuse his permission. She would go—he couldn’t stop her. And if he tried, she might punish him by never coming back.
Marriage was an ordeal, a thousand tiny steps toward despair.
He could divorce her, simply end it. But then he would lose her entirely, and that would be infinitely worse.
This was one more injury the Lord Eleazar had done him.
And Eleazar, Caleb knew, would not be content with merely this. Eleazar meant, in the end, to destroy him. He would be arrested one day and made to vanish. No one would even know where he was buried.
But there was still a chance of survival. Still a chance that he would live to enjoy the income from his various estates. He merely had to demonstrate that Eleazar was wrong, that the Tetrarch really was hedged in by enemies, that the danger was real. Then Eleazar would fall, and Caleb would be safe.
To do that he needed to destroy Joshua bar Joseph.
But he had to be careful. Joshua had to be exposed as a threat to the state. Joshua had to suffer and die as an insurrectionist. But it could not happen in Galilee, and it could not happen at Caleb’s hands.
The Romans had to do it, in Judea. Antipas would be suitably impressed if the Romans crucified Joshua.
“Are you sure he plans to be in Jerusalem for the Passover?” Caleb had asked Judah.
“Yes. He always goes. He stays with his cousin.”
The cousin being, of course, Noah bar Barachel, now attached to Eleazar. Well, provided the ironsmith didn’t interfere, he could await his time.
Judah had quite a story to tell of his adventures with the peasant preacher. He had come out of the countryside more than half convinced that Joshua really was God’s messenger.
“He is not a threat to anyone,” Judah told him. “He is a wise and good man. He teaches love, charity, and forgiveness. He says we should not resist evil, but overcome evil with good.”
“It is a question of what one defines as evil.” Caleb smiled indulgently and poured Judah another cup of wine. It was a particularly good vintage, but Judah, in his old life, had been accustomed to the best. “If one defines as evil the social order, that is sedition. And since the social order is ordained by God, and since we must all submit ourselves to the will of God, it is also a sin. Your peasant holy man is nothing more than a rebel disguised as a prophet.
“What does he tell you, this peasant prophet? What words does he use?”
“He says God will send one like the son of man to judge the world. He says this one will come in power and glory and establish God’s kingdom.”
“‘God’s kingdom.’ Is that the phrase he used?”
“Yes.”
“This judge, he will be like the son of man, but not himself a son of man?”
“Yes.”
“So he does not mean himself? He does not mean a human being?”
“No.”
“An angel perhaps?”
“Perhaps. He does not say.”
“And who will rule, once the angel has rendered his judgment?”
“He does not say, except that the first shall be last and the last first.”
“I see.”
He really did see. It was all painfully clear.
A palace guard had found Judah huddled by a doorway—the same doorway through which he had been released from prison. It was evening, and the guard, who thought Judah was a beggar seeking a little shelter for the night, was about to drive him away with a kick when he said, “Inform the Lord Caleb that I am Judah bar Isaac.” So the guard told him to wait.
When Caleb, who happened still to be in his office, came down for a look, Judah was sitting with his arms wrapped around his legs, staring out like an owl. He looked up at Caleb as if trying to remember his face and then said, “Put me back in my cell.”
“Nothing awaits you there but death,” Caleb had answered him. “Do you remember the lower prison? Do you remember Uriah? Or perhaps you never knew his name. Uriah will make your death into an amusement lasting the whole afternoon. Do you want to suffer for hours and hours?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to go back to Tiberias? To your old life?”
“I don’t know.”
He was a wretched creature. After two months with Joshua bar Joseph, he looked and smelled like a peasant.
“Come along,” Caleb told him. “That’s it. Stand up. I’ll take you to the baths, where they’ll wash your clothes and the steam will revive you.”
They spent four hours in the baths. Caleb never let him out of his sight. He didn’t dare.
After he was clean and had drunk some wine and had eaten a slice of cold melon, Judah began to return to himself. He began to complain that he could not remember the last time he had tasted meat, so Caleb ordered him a plate of grilled lamb. Judah ate it all and then curled up naked on one of the marble benches and fell asleep.
It was almost midnight when he awoke. The baths would have closed hours ago if Caleb hadn’t bribed the attendants. The two men dressed and walked to Caleb’s house, where they spent another two hours drinking wine. Finall
y the servants made up a bed for Judah in one of the rooms reserved for guests, and Caleb locked him in for the night.
Fortunately, Michal was in Jerusalem visiting her family.
The next morning Judah, who had lost the knack of drinking, was in a sullen mood and suffered from a headache. He cheered up after breakfast and another jug of the Cyprian wine Caleb had been saving against the day he was named warden of the city.
That was when Caleb began to interrogate him about Joshua.
“I see.”
Joshua really was a dangerous revolutionary. The trick was putting that conclusion into terms that a political simpleton like Judah could understand.
“‘God’s kingdom,’” he repeated. “But God already rules the universe. Do we not pray to Him, every day, calling Him ‘King of the Universe’? God rules history—one only has to read the Prophets to know that. And He rules in Galilee and Judea and in all the lands where Jews worship Him. He lives in Jerusalem, in the Temple, in the Holy of Holies. Why does this fool Joshua preach the coming of a thing which is already here?”
“I don’t know.” Judah looked uncomfortable, but then, he was a little drunk. “Perhaps he means God will rule directly.”
“Directly?”
“Yes.”
Caleb could only laugh.
“What are men but His instruments? Does a mason chip stone indirectly when he uses a chisel? God rules directly now.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“I suppose not.”
They were on the roof of the house, where Caleb could be sure no servant was listening. He knew that Eleazar had spies in his household, but none of them could have known the identity of his guest.
The sun had just broken free from the eastern mountains, so the morning was still cool. There was even a slight breeze. The world seemed both serene and beautiful.
But it was all an illusion. Caleb had long since concluded that life was no more than a cruel jest. There was neither mercy nor justice. There was only struggle.
Joshua bar Joseph might believe in angels, but Caleb bar Jacob knew better.
“If your prophet has his way,” he said, pronouncing each word with elaborate care, “if this glorious, divine revolution ever happens, all it will mean is that mankind exchanges one set of masters for another. In place of the Tetrarch, we will have some peasant dictator. And the ground will be covered with corpses. Trust me. There will be death everywhere.
“But he will not have his way, because no one is listening.”
“Then why did you send me to him?”
Caleb regarded his cousin with faint amusement. This child of a Levite family as old as his own, this pleasure-loving dabbler in religious fantasy, wanted to know why.
“That you might achieve your salvation,” he said. It was perhaps as true an answer as anyone deserved.
“I don’t understand.”
“No, I am aware that you don’t.”
Caleb decided he had sufficiently baffled the man and it was time to change the subject.
“What is Joshua doing in Nazareth?”
“Visiting his family. His father is ill and not expected to live long.”
Judah was eyeing the wine jar in a way that suggested he might like to hide inside it, so Caleb poured him another cup.
“His family, I gather, is not sympathetic.”
Judah shook his head, even as the cup was at his lips.
“No.”
“I gather few people are.”
“Some are. He gains followers everywhere he goes.”
Caleb considered this. A man goes about preaching that God’s kingdom is at hand. He has small groups of followers scattered over the countryside, but he seems to stay away from the cities. Is such a man dangerous? Probably not. Probably Eleazar was right about that.
For one thing, revolutions usually began in cities, where there was power to be overthrown and the numbers at hand to accomplish it. You needed a mob to start a revolution. Peasants in the countryside did not pose a threat unless they were pushed to the edge of starvation, and sometimes not even then.
Joshua bar Joseph was not a threat to the established order, but he could be made to look like one. Jerusalem, after all, was a city.
“You are sure he is going to Jerusalem for the Passover?”
“Yes. He has spoken of it. He goes every year.”
Caleb did not wish to know any more, primarily because he did not want to draw attention to his interest.
“What is your opinion of him, Judah? I am curious.”
The disciple’s face registered first surprise and then wariness, as if the question might be some sort of trap. His eyes fell to his empty wine cup, which rested on the table in front of him. He seemed to be trying to decide how it had come to be there.
“Just tell me. Don’t be afraid,” Caleb said, refilling the cup.
Judah took a swallow and then set the cup down. The gesture was like a decision made.
“I think he is a good man,” he said. The look in his eyes was wary and at the same time almost defiant. “I think he is a man of God, and I believe he wants to redeem the world. He would save us all if he could. He is without hatred or envy or malice. He truly loves his enemies. He would rejoice to lead the worst man on earth to the love of God.”
It was a challenge of sorts, and Caleb felt a strong inclination to smile. But he did not. He met Judah’s eyes with a steady gaze.
“Was it hard for you to say that?” he asked finally.
“Yes.” Judah blinked and looked away, like a child expecting punishment.
“Why? Because you are afraid of me?”
“Yes. I know what you are capable of.”
It was like a slap in the face—the rebuke all the more telling for being administered by a coward. Caleb waited until he was quite calm before he spoke again.
“Your holy man has nothing to fear from me,” he said, filling his own wine cup for the first time. “I will not disturb him while he waits for his angel. What you say has eased my mind.”
No one could have been more surprised than Judah. Whatever he had expected, it was not this. For a long moment he hardly moved, as he seemed to struggle to comprehend what he had just heard.
“You are free, Judah bar Isaac.”
“Free?” He hardly seemed to know what the word meant.
“Yes, free. Go back to Tiberias and rejoin your friends, if that is what pleases you. Your old life awaits you there.”
Caleb waited a few seconds and then smiled.
“Or perhaps that is not what you want. Do you want to remain with God’s messenger?”
“I don’t know.” Judah shook his head. “I only know that I don’t want to be who I was.”
“Then think about it.”
With an almost ostentatious casualness Caleb patted the pocket of his tunic, as if trying to remember where he had put something. Then he pulled out a small leather pouch and dropped it on the table.
“Here,” he said. “You deserve a vacation from rectitude. Go out into the city and amuse yourself. Get drunk, stuff yourself with meat. Find a woman. Come back tomorrow morning and tell me what you have decided. But come back. Don’t make me send the guards after you.”
Caleb had issued orders to have Judah followed—at a discreet distance—and the reports were illuminating. The whores of Sepphoris went disappointed. The peasant prophet’s disciple wandered aimlessly for several hours, speaking to no one, and then bought one simple meal and a small jar of wine, which he carried away with him. When night fell, he curled up in a doorway and, apparently having lost the habit of comfort, fell asleep with his head against the cold stone.
The next morning he found his way back to Caleb’s house.
“I want to return to Joshua,” he announced.
This was not a surprise. In fact, Caleb had counted on it.
“Well, at least stay for breakfast,” he said. “And return the purse. It will seem strange if you go back t
o your friends with so much money. They might wonder where you got it.”
They talked for a long time. Caleb made no effort to guide the conversation and was careful not to mention Jerusalem.
Judah simply needed to confess, first his own unworthiness and then his devotion to Joshua. Had it not been so foolish, it would have been touching.
“I truly believe God loves him,” he said.
“Does he perform miracles?”
“Not that I have seen, but Simon speaks of a woman who was cured of a menstrual discharge merely by touching him. He turned to her and said, ‘Daughter, your sins are forgiven,’ and she was cured. Also, he once restored a blind man’s sight.”
“But you did not see it?”
“No.”
“Curious.” Caleb smiled faintly. “I have heard hundreds of reports of miracles, but I have never met anyone who actually saw one. If you ever do see one—if Joshua raises the dead, for instance—you must be sure to tell me.”
“I will.”
“Thank you.”
At last, when they said their farewells, standing in the bright sunshine in front of Caleb’s door, it was necessary to remind Judah that he had not quite slipped the leash.
“Remember who gave you back your life,” Caleb told him. “Remember that I can reclaim it anytime I wish. If you betray me, I will make you wish for death long before you die.”
It was interesting to watch the way fear seized him. Judah seemed to grow smaller even before his eyes. He was like a whipped dog that can think only to lick its master’s hand.
“I would never…”
“I know.” Caleb raised his arm in dismissal. “Now go back to your peasant friends.” Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he said, “Be sure to come to me in Jerusalem when you are there for the Passover. I will not be difficult to find.”
It was all quite simple, he thought as he sat on his rooftop. The peasant revolutionary, whom they would not allow him to arrest, would go to Jerusalem to be arrested, tried, and crucified by the Romans. No blame would attach to the Tetrarch, who would nonetheless be brought to see that the danger had been real all along. Then, as the Tetrarch’s eyes were opened, he would remember to be afraid and would turn from Eleazar to his servant Caleb.
The Ironsmith Page 29
