Harvest - 02 - Harvest of Gold

by Tessa Afshar

  “I would love to come,” she said, unable to hide the eagerness in her voice.

  “Are you not tired after your journey?”

  “I would never raise a murmur of complaint against Lysander, but I must confess that in deference to my condition, he drove our cart so slowly from Jerusalem that at one point I saw a small lizard slither past us. Any more rest, and I might lose my mind. I’d much rather come with you.”

  “And you’re not leaving me behind,” Roxanna said, bouncing to her feet. “If there is news, I need to hear it.”

  On the way out, they ran into the proprietress of the inn. She bowed to Darius and murmured, “My lord,” and then bowed to Sarah as she came out, though not quite as low as she had to Darius. Then she froze as she saw Roxanna bringing up the rear.

  “Here now! I don’t know what you’re all doing in there. This is a respectable establishment.”

  Roxanna shrugged a shoulder. Sarah had to put a hand over her mouth to strangle her laughter when Roxanna said, “Don’t worry. No one is perfect.”

  Niq and Nassir stood to attention as Sarah and the rest of Darius’s entourage walked into the room. Darius had left Lysander outside as guard; everyone else crowded into the tight chamber, trying to find a spot big enough that did not squish them against someone else.

  Nassir was holding a block of wood he had been carving in one hand, and a thin blade in the other. His hands were dusted with fine wood shavings from the deepening hole in the middle of the block. On the table in one corner sat four identical wooden chalices. Sarah was impressed. Another week, and he would have a complete set.

  Niq was covered in perspiration, his hair lank. Sarah guessed that he had been engaged in intense physical exercise. Keeping up with his odd combat training, no doubt. After a short greeting, Darius motioned for everyone to sit, and settled himself on a skinny cushion after finding a sturdy stool for Sarah.

  Roxanna leaned against the closed door. “These are the Babylonian brothers, I presume?”

  Sarah bit down a smile at the way Niq marched forward, pushing out his chest, sucking in a deep breath to flatten an already muscled belly. “I’m Niq, my lady. And this is my brother Nassir.”

  “Never mind that!” Darius said. “Tell me your news. Meres says you have something of import to tell me.”

  Niq scratched his head and sent a doubtful look first in Sarah’s direction, and then in Roxanna’s.

  “You can speak in front of my wife.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s just that the story is a bit colorful.”

  “How colorful?”

  “It involves a baby. Out of wedlock, so to speak.”

  “My wife is an old expert at babies. And Roxanna knows more swear words than you do. Go on. You won’t corrupt them with your tale.” Sarah pretended a deep interest in the fringe of her scarf.

  “Yes, my lord. We discovered an interesting piece of information from an old woman who works here. She’s been kind to us. She has no sons of her own, and likes to spoil us now and then.”

  Meres rolled his eyes. “She likes to spoil him. That boy can charm the grey out of a storm cloud.”

  Niq shrugged. “I was born with natural talent.”

  “Am I to understand you found out something worthwhile?” Darius crossed his arms.

  “Yes, my lord. This old woman told me an interesting story. It’s from years past, but I think it may prove significant to your search. You see, at one time she worked in the household of a Syrian official named Zikir. He lives in Damascus now.”

  That name again, Sarah thought. She noticed that Darius sat up straighter. “Go on,” he said.

  “Our story concerns something that happened twenty-five years ago. And it involves no less a dignitary than our king’s own father. Xerxes ruled in Persia at the time. He was on a tour through the empire when he chose to stop in Damascus for a royal visit. He stayed at the palace, of course.

  “According to the woman who works here, one night, he was sleepless and he went for a stroll in the palace gardens. To his delight, he found a young maiden bathing in a pool in the starlight.”

  How convenient for the old king, Sarah thought. She shifted on the stool to make herself more comfortable.

  Niq scratched through his thick beard. “That maiden was Zenobia, the daughter of Zikir. He had brought his family to the palace for the royal visit so that they might enjoy the glamor of the royal entourage. Zenobia was his only child and he doted on her. The old woman says that she was a little wild. Spoiled, probably. Not many virgins go frolicking in the palace pool after dusk. But on that fateful night, Zenobia would not be dissuaded. She dragged her servant with her into the garden for that forbidden midnight swim. And when the king happened upon her, he was smitten. Apparently Zikir’s daughter was famed for her beauty. Anyhow, according to the old woman, she received the king’s advances with open arms.”

  “If she’d been my daughter, I would have—” Nassir made a garroting gesture against his throat. “No daughter of mine would be allowed to throw herself into the arms of a strange man, be he royalty or not.”

  Sarah arched an eyebrow and gave silent thanks to the Lord that she had not been born into Nassir’s family.

  Meres flicked a well-fed fly that had sat on his sleeve. “Fortunately for the girl, her father did not have your stringent standards, Nassir. The point is that Zenobia became pregnant.”

  “With Xerxes’ child?” Darius asked.

  “According to the old woman, yes.”

  “Why did the king not take her as concubine?”

  Niq flipped a hand in the air. “Do I understand the way of kings? By the time they found she was pregnant, he was long gone. Before leaving, he gave this Zikir a hefty gift of land and cattle, and entrusted him with high office. Apparently, Zikir was from a noble Syrian family, but they were impoverished. There would have been no advantage in the king taking the woman into his household. He probably thought he had more than paid his debt for a girl who came to him willingly enough, and without asking for a lifelong bond.”

  “What was the name of Zikir’s grandson, do you know?”

  Roxanna twirled the tip of her scarf in the air. “Xerxes. Like the king’s father.”

  “That seems to support the old woman’s story.” Darius leaned forward. “Why else would a Syrian name his grandson after a Persian king?”

  “Of course Zenobia did marry,” Roxanna said, twirling her scarf in the opposite direction. “This son we are bestowing upon King Xerxes in fact has a legal father.”

  “Who?”

  “The daughter married some minor Syrian official. A forgettable man who was far beneath her, by all accounts. The one thing he seemed to have done right was to drop dead after they had been married a couple of years. What is interesting, however, is that their son, Xerxes, was born six months into the marriage. And he was a strapping, fat, healthy child. Nothing like a babe brought forth so prematurely.”

  Sarah abandoned her uncomfortable stool. “So, Zenobia’s midnight indiscretion got her pregnant by Xerxes. Her father, desperate to alleviate scandal, found her a husband who was too grateful for the association with a now-wealthy family to be offended by her lack of purity.”

  Roxanna nodded. “That would be my guess. A bride who is carrying another man’s child is not such a bad deal if she comes with a fat dowry and excellent connections.”

  “This explains how the child came to be born three months early,” Darius said. “Now we need to connect that old story to the new plot. Was the assassin who cut his own throat in Susa none other than Zikir’s grandson? That man claimed to be called Achaemenes. A Persian name to be sure. But not Xerxes.”

  Darius used the tip of his dagger to smooth out a sliver of wood sticking out of the floor. “This is what we have so far: Zikir’s grandson has the blood of kings. So at the outset, Zikir loves the Persian line; he’s famed for his service to the empire. At the same time, those kings have withheld every royal right from his grandson. He ha
s never been officially acknowledged as the son of Xerxes. Zikir has lived with that shame. Borne it. Then, Artaxerxes unknowingly delivered an unforgivable insult by not giving Zikir the position of satrap in Trans-Euphrates. A position that was almost royal. A position that he had long deserved both by virtue of his service and abilities.

  “Instead, Artaxerxes honored a bumbling man who was drunk more often than sober. Why? Because Pyrus was the acknowledged scion of an aristocratic Persian family. This must have proven too much for Zikir. Finally, his hatred must have overtaken his love of the royal line.”

  Nassir dug his blade deep into the block of wood he held in his hand. “Revenge is a common motive for murder.”

  “This is still conjecture. We don’t have proof,” Darius said. “There are a few key pieces of evidence we are missing. Roxanna, since you have conveniently turned yourself into a woman again, pay a visit to Zenobia and get what you can out of her. I’ve heard she’s a recluse who does not visit the palace. Find her. Use your charm. Lie. Pretend you are the undertaker. I don’t care what you do. Just get her to talk to you. We need to unearth the truth about how Xerxes died. No one at court seems to know the details, except that he was not in Syria at the time of his death. We must establish whether he is the man who killed himself in that tavern in Susa or not. If he is the assassin, then it stands to reason that his grandfather would have been the mastermind.”

  Sarah was beginning to feel heavy and uncomfortable. She decided to try sitting on her stool again. “Don’t you have one more advantage that the murderer doesn’t know about?”

  “Niq and Nassir. Yes. They can identify him and his servant. I’ve kept them out of the way so far, not having a good suspect at hand that would be worth exposing them for. But we now have enough information to risk coming out into the open. I’m going to take you men out of hiding and bring you into the palace today. What I need from you is to identify Zikir. Once I have your testimony, the case is closed.

  “I’ll try to sneak you into Damascus without being noticed. At the palace, I’ll set up some kind of trap for Zikir so that you can see him without being seen. Roxanna, bring your report to me as soon as you have seen Zenobia. Sarah, you and Pari will remain here with Lysander until this business is wrapped up.”

  Sarah, who was beginning to feel herself wilt with pregnancy fatigue, said, “Yes, my lord.”

  Darius turned to her. She thought his lips softened for a moment. “So biddable, my lady.”

  “I try, my lord.”

  He wrapped his fingers around her arm. “You mean you are too exhausted to argue. Come. I’ll take you to your chamber. I want to see you eat and rest before I leave.”

  The first men who volunteered to work on the walls of Jerusalem were priests. Nehemiah had expected farmers or laborers—men accustomed to manual exertion—to step forward before others. The priests, however, jumped first at the chance to restore Jerusalem.

  It came to Nehemiah that they knew better than most the spiritual significance behind the shattered walls of the city. They were a reminder of their people’s sin, which had caused God to remove His hand of protection from them. If the Lord was opening the doors for the restoration of Jerusalem as Nehemiah promised, then He must have forgiven His covenant people. To rebuild the walls meant that they were cooperating not with the governor, but with God Himself. And they set the example for the rest of the people.

  Before the high priest Eliashib picked up a single stone, he and his priests dedicated the Sheep Gate to the Lord. They blessed the people who would one day bring their sheep through these gates again, on their way to be sacrificed at the Temple.

  Afterward Nehemiah watched Eliashib tuck his long robe into his belt and begin to sweat under the hot sun of northern Jerusalem, his dignified priests looking like a bunch of laborers as they toiled alongside him. This portion of the wall was large and of particular importance, for this part of the city stood undefended by steep hills.

  Under their hands, the blistering work of laying stone upon stone became an act of worship. They were honoring God. They sought to show Him their obedience. They started at the Sheep Gate and toiled their way westward for uninterrupted hours as if God Himself empowered every small accomplishment.

  Nehemiah sent a carpenter to oversee their efforts when they began to set the framework of the door. Even the religious enthusiasm of a priest could not compensate for a lack of construction experience.

  “We don’t want the doors to fall upon our heads the first time we open them,” Nehemiah told his brother. “I don’t care how much they pray as they are building. You need a bit of human expertise as well.”

  Sanballat the Horonite delivered a fierce kick to the stool next to his oak table. The stool crashed against a wall, shattering one of its delicately carved legs. He cursed under his breath. Carved stools were not cheap.

  He picked up the letter from Tobiah and handed it to his son. “Selemyah, what do you make of this? Tobiah says that Judah has a new governor. And what do you think he is doing? Rebuilding the walls of that pockmarked Jerusalem, that’s what!”

  Selemyah grasped the delicate papyrus in careful fingers. “Let that backwater city do what they will. You are the leader of troops from Samaria. What harm can a little stretch of wall do to you?”

  “Don’t be shortsighted! Why are these Israelites roaring to rebuild their dear Jerusalem, do you think? They chase after power and profit. And if they get their way, will not the governor of Judah curry more favor and authority than the rest of us in the region? I plan to become governor of Samaria one day. As such, I don’t intend to tolerate a new power rising up next door, breathing down my neck.”

  Selemyah perched on the edge of the oak table. “What do you aim to do?”

  “First, we must establish if this building project has the Persian stamp of approval. Not many years ago, the king stopped the very same project. I suspect these people are probably in outright rebellion. In which case, we threaten them with exposure and that should bring their precious wall to an end.

  “Let us send for Tobiah. Come to think of it, I will call in the aid of Geshem the Qedarite as well. He is another powerful man in our region and is bound to be equally displeased with the developments in Judah.”

  Nehemiah read the letter that bore the seals of Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem. It was short. But in the few lines, Nehemiah could detect scathing contempt. He read it aloud for the grim-faced Jewish leaders who surrounded him, his voice devoid of expression.

  People of Judah,

  What do you think you are doing? Hasn’t the king already forbidden the rebuilding of Jerusalem once? Are you now rebelling against the king?

  Nehemiah gazed at the young man who had delivered the missive. “Did your master, Sanballat, have an additional message for us?”

  “He was laughing too hard to say much.”

  “Tell your master that not only do we have the king’s permission, but we also have the help of the God of heaven. He is the One who will make us prosper. We, His servants, will rise up and rebuild this city.

  “But you, Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, you will have no share in or claim to our Jerusalem.” He handed the letter back to the messenger. “Will you remember my words or shall I write them down?”

  “No. I … I … er … will remember.”

  “Excellent. Don’t let us keep you.”

  Before the young man was out of earshot, Nehemiah addressed his leaders. “Nothing but the buzzing of a fly. Let them mock away. We’ll see who is laughing when we accomplish the task God has placed before us. Let’s return to work. Everyone to his post.”

  Nehemiah knew that every day of building was crucial. There was no time to waste. The faster they could accomplish their task, the less chance they would have of being derailed by unforeseeable forces. For the sake of efficiency, he had divided the building project into forty-two sectors, with various leaders overseeing the work in each section.

  It was a daunting project. In
places, the original wall had been as wide as the length of five tall men lying down end-to-end. The enormous width had been necessary in order to support the wall’s considerable height. Nehemiah had directed the laborers to build directly on top of the old foundations where possible, changing the location of the wall only when absolutely necessary. Some of the ancient foundations had been laid at the time of King David. Others, like the Broad Wall, were from the time of King Hezekiah, a reminder of a time in Judah’s history when its enemies had breathed down its neck, requiring extraordinary defenses. But in the end, those defenses had failed. What use was a wall without the hand of God behind it to hold it up? There were times when the builders wept as they worked, remembering what they had lost.

  Nehemiah recognized that the structure they were building would lack the splendor of the City of David. But he did not concern himself with grandeur now. What Jerusalem needed was practical protection. In order to grow and prosper into a true city, they needed to surround it with an effective shield.

  He fell into the habit of visiting several sites each day. On the fifteenth day of building he began with Eliashib’s section of the wall. He noted that the high priest was not as fast on his feet as he had been at the beginning of his labors.

  The governor recalled that Sanballat’s daughter was married to one of Eliashib’s grandsons. It was one thing to toil for the glory of God, but quite another to get tangled up with disgruntled family members. In addition, if what he heard was true, Tobiah was a personal friend of the high priest. Nehemiah pursed his lower lip for a moment. He had not counted on having enemies who were related to his friends.