THE CHOSEN : The Prophet: Historical Fiction (The Chosen Trilogy Book 2)

by Shlomo Kalo

  The keen look that he gave his interlocutor showed him that Nashdernach was among the opponents of the malicious proposition.

  He looked down and made no response, and Nashdernach went on to say:

  “And in the meantime my mild-mannered brother-in-law is so terrified he has taken to his bed, and his body temperature is fluctuating wildly, his teeth chattering and his hands shaking, and he has neither saviour nor redeemer.

  “Lord of the world, Belteshazzar!” cried Nashdernach in bitter despair, “Can you not appeal to your God, pray to Him, lay your entreaties before Him – plead for an end to the killing, and the repeal of that cruel decree?”

  “With your permission, I shall sit for a moment!” he said and sat down at the table, hands clasping his temples.

  Nashdernach stopped, quietly pulled up a chair and sat on it reversed, a cavalry officer’s pose. His tense look followed every one of his movements, and in the gloom of his oily little eyes there rose the pale glimmer of a distant hope.

  He laid his hands on the surface of the table, looked up and said:

  “That mild-mannered brother-in-law of yours was in the wrong, pretending to be a magician or an astrologer and accepting payment that wasn’t his by right, and the same judgment applies to all his colleagues, including those who are now making every effort to incriminate the innocent as a way of saving their own skin. I shall try to meet the challenge, and contend with the evil. For three days you shall not see me, and when those three days have passed, I hope I shall have an answer for you.”

  “And what is the purpose of those three days?” asked Nashdernach.

  “Fasting and prayer” he replied and left the room.

  He called upon Mishael and Hananiah and they, knowing what was afoot in the royal court, and having heard of the proposal to lay the blame upon them and sacrifice them as scapegoats, were troubled and fearful, not knowing how to behave and what to do. He addressed them and asked them too to fast and pray, so that the good God might see their oppression and also take pity on the soothsayers and astrologers of Babylon, and save them all from the hands of the executioner.

  He shut himself away in his lodgings, and ordered his slaves not to disturb him and to admit no guests or visitors. All official business was to be referred to Nashdernach, his superior. And so he prayed and fasted, with pleas drawn from the depths of his grieving heart:

  “The people have sinned, sinned in pretending to be what they are not and eating bread for free, bread that is not theirs!

  “My God, my holy Father in Heaven, my lord and teacher and master! You are love and you are all forgiveness and mercy, and they – they who do not know how to repent, let them be saved, by your grace, from the hands of the executioner, and their families spared from grief and penury and from the torments of fear. Give them the joy of Your pure love which whitens every sin, and ease their suffering, and bring them out of darkness into a great light!”

  Indeed, his heart told him that more members of the royal household – wizards, astrologers and magicians – were bound to pay for their deception with their lives, their unfortunate families despoiled of their property and evicted from their homes. And this thought tormented and saddened him until he cried out in his prayers and in the depths of his grief, not rising from his knees day or night. He could no longer feel the limbs of his body, and it seemed to him it was not he but some other person, not known to him, who was kneeling there, clasping numb and frozen hands and praying without cease.

  And suddenly he was visited by that familiar sensation, a feeling of cautious relief arising in the heart and spreading through every part of his body. And for the first time since embarking on his fast, he was aware of his limbs, emerging painfully from their torpor, and this in itself was a comfort.

  He crawled to his bed, and with strenuous efforts that seemed to last hundreds of years, managed to climb into it. And then, as his body began to relax and to regain its vigour, he saw the dream that the King had dreamed, that troubled his heart but was forgotten when he awoke.

  He called to his slave, and was surprised by the sound of his own voice, which was thin and barely audible. He had to muster his strength and cry out again to make himself heard, but to no avail. Nobody heard him and nobody came. An oil-lamp made of clay stood on the tiny table beside his bed and he pushed at it, knocking it to the floor. The lamp shattered, making a sound loud enough to reach the ears of his slave, who came running. He tapped on the door, and hearing the faint voice of his master, opened it.

  The tanned face of the slave was alarmed, as were his bulging eyes, twitching in their sockets.

  “Enter!” he cried, relieved to find that his voice was becoming clearer. The slave entered hurriedly and stood before him. Seeing the fragments of clay on the floor, he stooped and started picking them up.

  “Leave those!” he commanded and added: “Go to Nashdernach at once, run to him! Tell him that the problem is solved! Run!”

  No further urging was required. The slave was aware of the situation and of the exceptional circumstances involved: his master’s prolonged fast, his lean appearance, the breaking of the lamp as an alarm signal, and the strange words about solutions and urgency – all of these gave him wings, and he ran out of the building, passing the sumptuous residences of the senior counsellors and reaching Nashdernach’s house. He knocked on the great door, and panting heavily succeeded in transferring his panic to the footman, who ran up the stairs to alert his master, at that time in his night-shirt.

  “Imp-p-p-portant message from Beltesh-esh-esh-azzar – s-s-something’s s-s-solved, s-s-solved!” was the garbled message delivered by the stammering footman, but Nashdernach immediately understood what he was being told, and he changed his clothes and without another word spoken set out in pursuit of the messenger-slave. Despite his age – at least two decades older than the slave – he overtook him and arrived first at Daniel’s bedside.

  “So?” he asked him, breathlessly.

  “The killing can stop!” he told him, his voice still thin and grating. “There is a solution! Go to Arioch, the chief executioner, and tell him I am ready and prepared to stand before the King tomorrow…”

  “The Heavens be praised!” Nashdernach interrupted him with his high-pitched exclamation and added: “The solution has come just in time! Arioch, the chief executioner, wants your life and the lives of your companions, since the rumour going about the palace is that you are sorcerers, casting magical spells to destroy the sages of Babylon, and the King has decreed that your fate will be the same as that of the astrologers, and if you fail to tell him the dream that he has dreamed – you will be taken to the scaffold! And I asked Arioch to wait until first light, giving you time to fast and pray to your God, the all-powerful God, and he could expect a miracle that would stop the killing! This day alone,” Nashdernach continued, “three more sages have been beheaded, and Babylon is plunged into grief over the bitter fate of its sorcerers and magicians, wizards and astrologers!”

  Nashdernach shook his hand firmly and warmly, and retraced his steps at the same hectic pace, making his way to the house of Arioch, chief executioner to the King,

  He dressed and sent his slave to summon his friends. When they arrived and stood before him, tense and nervous, he was quick to reassure them:

  “The name of the Lord be praised from everlasting and to everlasting, to whom is all wisdom and might! He is the Lord of all and the One who changes the times, and all things own his sway and He it is who deposes kings and appoints kings, giving wisdom to the wise and understanding to the judicious, knowing things that are hidden from the eyes of mortals, and He is the one and the only light, the living light!”

  And here he went down on his knees and his two companions did likewise, and he joined his hands and raised them, and went on to say:

  “To You, my God and my Father, be thanks and praise, seeing that through your bountiful grace and your manifold mercies, and Your love that embraces the whole world, that
conquers all – You have given us wisdom and strength and have revealed to us what we asked of You, the solution to the King’s riddle and the dream that he dreamed, the dream on account of which many have died, and we too were in mortal danger, and You, in Your might and Your mercy, will save us from death in this foreign land, the land of our exile!”

  He rose from his knees and his two companions followed his example, and they were light-hearted and in good spirits, praising God and jesting among themselves about the unwarranted terror that had gripped them. And meanwhile the kitchen slave informed them that, as the fasting was now over, a meal had been prepared and would shortly be served, and would the gentlemen be so kind as to take their seats at the table. He thanked his scullion warmly, and invited his friends to break bread with him.

  Later that night he was visited by Arioch, the chief executioner.

  He told Arioch: “You need slay no more of the sages of Babylon! Take me to the King tomorrow and I shall show him his dream!”

  The following day Arioch was waiting for him in the avenue leading to the palace and the royal residence, and he was impatient, because the King’s edict was still in force and if the solution failed to satisfy the King, then a grim fate was in store for him, his life in jeopardy.

  Armed guardsmen opened the great door of the royal council chamber before them. At the end of the room stood the high throne of the King, three steps of cast gold leading to it, and the throne itself fashioned from gold and ivory, and Nebuchadnezzar seated there in all his regal splendour.

  A broad strip of purple carpet stretched from the throne to the entrance, and on either side of the carpet troopers of the royal guard were drawn up, standing in motionless ranks face to face, wearing blue tabards embroidered in gold with the three recumbent lions that were the emblem of the royal household. Around their waists the guardsmen wore black belts with gold buckles, and each carried a gold shield in his left hand, and a broad-bladed drawn sword in his right. On their heads were gleaming helmets, likewise of gold.

  So they entered, and Arioch hastened to lie full-length on the ground, and he did the same. Then they stood up and paced towards the King who sat on his throne awaiting them, until they reached the stool at his feet. They prostrated themselves once more before the King, and did not rise until so commanded.

  For the second time he looked into the bronzed features of King Nebuchadnezzar, reminiscent in their composure and their ferocity of the face of a lion, crouching in his lair, confident of his power and ready at any moment to spring upon his prey.

  The King wore blue breeches embroidered with gold, a white shirt also with gold trimmings, a broad white belt set with pearls and other precious stones, and a straight-bladed sword hanging from it in a gold scabbard, the hilt inlaid with silver and ivory.

  “Speak!” the King commanded, his voice calm, clear and resonant, the voice of dominion and authority, not to be defied.

  He bowed to him once more, and began:

  The secret of which the King is asking – sages, wizards, astrologers and magicians could not explain to him. But there is a God in Heaven who reveals secrets, and He is telling King Nebuchadnezzar what is to be hereafter…

  Your Majesty, thoughts came into your mind as you were in your bed, as you sought to know what is to be hereafter, and the Revealer of secrets showed what is to be. By the grace that has been bestowed on me, the secret has been revealed to me, so that I may stand before your Majesty and inform you of the solution, and you shall know the thoughts of your heart.

  You looked, Your Majesty, and you saw before you a great and wondrous image. The head of the image – pure gold, the chest and arms – silver, the belly and thighs – brass. Legs of iron and the feet – partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked on, a stone was hewn from a mountain, and not by any hand, and it struck the feet of the image, that were of iron and clay, and destroyed them and pounded them to dust. And then all was shattered together – the clay and the iron, the brass, the silver and the gold, and they became like chaff from the summer threshing-floor, and the wind bore them away, and no one know whither, and the stone that struck the image became a great and high mountain and filled all the earth. This is the dream, he concluded, his voice miraculously clear and limpid, like the voice of an angel, and the meaning of it I shall explain to my lord the King:

  Your Majesty, you are the King, and the King of Kings, to whom God in Heaven has given the kingdom, the might and the valour and the glory, and wherever men dwell, and wherever there are beasts of the field and birds of the air, he has given you dominion over them. You are the golden head. After you, will come another kingdom inferior to yours, and another, a third kingdom of brass that shall rule the whole earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, for iron crushes everything, and as iron shatters and crushes, so it shall shatter and crush. And as for the feet that you saw and the toes, partly of clay and partly of iron, they will be a kingdom divided in itself, and it shall have something in it of the strength and fortitude of iron, while the other part will be brittle. As for the iron that you saw mixed with clay, when this is joined by the intermingling of the seed of mankind, there shall be no cleaving together, for iron does not cleave to clay. And in the days of those kings, the God of Heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and no other people shall prevail over it, but it will shatter and crush all those kingdoms and it will last forever. And the stone that you saw, hewn from a mountain not by any hand, and shattering the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver and the gold – the great God has made known to the King what is to be hereafter. The dream is true, and its interpretation to be trusted.

  Hearing his words, the King rose from his throne and descended the three gold steps, deeply moved, and he bowed to him and prostrated himself on the ground before him, and rising he clapped his hands and commanded the slave who appeared at once to bring offerings to Daniel and to anoint his feet with incense. Then he turned and addressed him, shaken to the very roots of his soul, his voice quaking:

  “Truly, your God is the God of Gods and the Lord of kings, and of the kings of kings, and a revealer of secrets, even of this great secret!”

  And the King sent word that the chief steward of the royal household be summoned, and he appeared in full ceremonial regalia, his clerk and slave following closely behind him, with a phial of ink in his belt, stylus and pen in his sleeve, and parchment scrolls in his pocket. And the King commanded that around the neck of Daniel the Jew, the revered Belteshazzar, there should be hung a gold necklace, with a pendant bearing the royal cipher, a sign and a symbol not to be ignored, and henceforward Belteshazzar was to be deputy to the King and all were to acknowledge his sway. He was to be the first and the chief of ministers, with authority over every official, clerk and counsellor within the palace and outside it. And the King ordered that he be allotted suitable remuneration, and given a house in the royal compound, and provided with as many slaves and maidservants as he wished for, and according to the King’s own specific proclamation, all the soothsayers and wizards and magicians and diviners and astrologers in Babylon were to defer to him, to Belteshazzar, who would deal with them as he saw fit, with powers of life and death to be wielded entirely at his own discretion.

  And Daniel bowed at the feet of the King, Nebuchadnezzar the valiant and the wise, conqueror of the world, and prostrated himself before him, and then rose to his feet and thanked him profusely for the honour done to him and for the recognition accorded to his God, the God of Gods. And he added that he had a favour to ask, and the King replied:

  “Speak, and it shall be done!”

  He reminded the King that he had companions who were scholarly and knowledgeable, God-fearing and God-loving, and loyal subjects of the King, and he asked that they be appointed his deputy ministers in all respects.

  “So be it!” the King replied, beckoning to the chief steward of the royal household, and he hastily ordered the slave who accompanied him to record on parchment al
l of the King’s edicts and stipulations, which would then be given to the copyists to transcribe in the proper manner; thus the King’s will would be done in the great city of Babylon and throughout the Chaldean nation, and in every race and principality and state and country that the King ruled by right of conquest.

  And so it was.

  I Am Your Servant

  He was given charge of a department adjacent to the royal council chamber, composed of five separate offices, and on the instructions of the King himself, he was assigned the largest of these offices, opening directly into the council chamber. His door was guarded by two sentries, men of the elite royal household corps. Three of the offices were allocated to Mishael, Hananiah and Azariah and one was left unoccupied. He was minded to offer this for the general use of the other ministers, but then an idea occurred to him and he decided to try to implement it.

  One evening he knocked on the door of Denur-Shag’s lodging, after dismissing the pair of bodyguards accompanying him.

  The old slave opened the door cautiously, and the moment he saw him, he fell at his feet, prostrating himself before him.

  “Get up, please! Please get up! There’s no need for this!” There was a note of annoyance in his voice, which only added to the confusion of the slave, who now tried to scramble up from the floor and found the effort beyond him. He stepped forward and took the slave’s arm , helping him to stand upright.

  “My Lord,” the slave mumbled, the pupils of his eyes dilated in abject fear, “my Lord and deputy King! Let this not be held to my discredit, may I rather gain grace and favour in Your Worship’s eyes…” his voice trailed away.

  “Calm yourself, my good man!” he addressed him mildly, adding in the same tone, “if Denur-Shag is at home, please be so kind as to inform him of my arrival, and ask if he is prepared to receive me!”