Simon rose at dawn and inspected the sword. Romanis’ hands now rattled around the hilt, devoid of flesh, bleached by the sun. He eased them free, buried them in a shallow hole and rolled a rock on top.
As Simon turned away, a lion slunk from behind a nearby boulder, its head framed in a majestic black mane. It locked eyes on Simon and broke into a trot, silently padding the ground, lowering its body, circling its prey. As the lion leapt at him, Simon reached for the sword, stiffening it in front of his face, impaling the giant cat. As the sword tore from his grip, Simon deftly sidestepped the beast as it thumped to the ground, blade imbedded in its chest. It clawed at the earth and bit at the hilt, roaring in pain before succumbing with a guttural moan. Shaking, Simon pulled the deeply rooted sword free and while wiping it clean he spotted a brilliant green gem in the dirt at his feet.
Simon found a cavity in the sword’s grip where the gem had loosed and inside it was a tiny bronze lever. Poking the lever with a small stick, disengaged the hilt, revealing a dagger with a hole in its tip, sheathed inside the sword.
By late afternoon the birds were quiet and ants swarmed across the ground. The sky spun with dark clouds, and big drops of rain dotted the earth.
The wind strengthened and by midnight it screamed around the mountain. Simon huddled deep inside his cave as rain blew in the entrance and drained back out across the floor. At dawn the wind stopped, then quickly commenced in the opposite direction.
Hours later, when the storm finally faded, Simon opened a pine box, removed a long strip of papyrus, a clay inkwell sealed with wax, and a sheaf of reeds tied with a strand of wool. He dug the wax plug out of the inkwell with the point of a knife, dipped a reed in ink and filled one side of the papyrus with Aramaic script. When the ink dried, he wrapped the message around a short wooden dowel and inserted it through the hole in the dagger’s tip, then softened wax over a candle flame to seal the end.
Simon slept fitfully. At sunrise, he packed the cube and hilt into his sack and strapped the blade to his back with thin lengths of linen tied around his chest.
The dead lion was a sodden mass of fur and was already thick with flies and bugs. Simon dragged it by the tail away from his cave and rolled it down the mountain out of olfactory range.
The violent storm had devastated the forest. Tall pines crisscrossed the ground, and rain had carved wide crevasses and washed away banks of sand and gravel. The plain was a shallow brown sea littered with broken trees. Simon splashed through knee-deep water past dead rats and drowned birds, finally trudging from the mud onto a cobbled street.
Tiberius perched on a low hill.
Simon kept his hooded head bowed. As two Roman centurions passed him he knelt on one knee, pretending to pick something from the dirt.
The streets were filled with people. Soldiers patrolled the margins of Herod’s palace, above which flew a bright yellow flag to signal the king in residence.
Simon posed as a beggar, limping past the grand gate, arriving at an old stone building that adjoined the palace wall. At a doorway, he parted a blue curtain and peered inside. Joshua was busy at a bench near a kiln emanating oppressive heat. Sensing a presence, he turned and stared at Simon who pulled the hood from his head.
‘Simon?’
‘It is I,’ Simon said.
Joshua embraced him warmly, feeling the sword running along his spine.
‘Your eyes betrayed you, Simon,’ Joshua said, inspecting the disfigured face.
Joshua sat Simon on a wooden chair. Skins, furs, stuffed animals and tools cluttered the floor. The walls were hung with skulls and the mounted heads of lion and antelope. A majestic eagle, wings spread, swung from the ceiling. On shelves were hundreds of insects and spiders enshrined in glass blocks.
‘Joshua, I am here to ask a favour’.
‘Ask anything, my friend.’
Simon opened his sack, removed the cube and handed it to Joshua.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘From the market in Nazareth,’ Simon said.
‘It’s beautiful, but what is it?’
Avoiding the question, Simon continued. ‘Joshua, could you preserve it just like the animals on the shelves?’
‘Yes of course, but why?’
‘I want it protected for a thousand lifetimes,’ Simon said, stirring deeper curiosity in Joshua.
Joshua left the room, returned with a plate of dried meats and goat’s cheese and poured two mugs of dark wine.
Simon ravenously devoured his share of food, washing it down with the wine and confiding in Joshua. ‘The cube is important beyond imagination. Never show it to a single soul or try to open it.’
Joshua did not press him. ‘I will ready it by nightfall.’
‘I am eternally grateful, Joshua. I have business inside the palace but will return at dusk.’
Simon pointed at a large furry spider on a bench in the corner of the room, unsure if it was dead.
Joshua picked up the fresh specimen and sat it on his palm.
‘Can you fix it to the cube?’ Simon said, indicating where.
‘The Golden Desert Tarantula - as you wish,’ Joshua said. ‘How will you enter the palace? It is heavily guarded, especially at the perimeter. You risk death if discovered.’
‘Joshua, in Herod’s court I protected many secrets. Do not concern yourself.’
Simon pulled the hood over his head, parted the curtain and walked into the midday sun.
The narrow alley ended against the palace wall at an old well, the low ring of rocks circling a hole crossed by heavy beams.
Simon forced the beams apart, peering into the darkness, lowering himself in, feeling the curved wall with the toe of his sandal until he touched a metal peg.
Further down, he pushed hard against the wall so it moved, revealing an opening, where he pulled himself into a horizontal tunnel.
On wooden runners greased with animal fat, the false wall slid further into the tunnel exposing stairs down to an empty room. In absolute blackness Simon descended through a doorway into another tunnel. He moved slowly along it, brushing the wall with a hand as chirping rats scattered out of his path. A final set of steps led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Pushing it open, Simon poked his head into a dungeon.
2
The Jordan River swelled. On a hot, windless morning, Jeremiah stood on the western shore watching the orange water rise slowly up its banks.
He oversaw four black slaves who were plunging beneath the surface to scoop gravel from the river bed. Dark skins sparkling in the sun, they waded to the bank, emptying their wooden buckets onto ever growing piles. Another seven slaves washed the gravel in broad clay dishes, pouring off water and mud to isolate the stones.
Lipik spread the stones across his dish with a sweep of his palm, scanning them with an expert eye before tipping them back into the river. He repeated the ritual for hours on end, occasionally finding a coloured stone and slipping it into the leather pouch strapped to his hip, while slyly watching Jeremiah.
Every two hours the slaves rested in the shade of the trees lining the bank. Those with leather pouches handed them to Jeremiah who emptied them onto a black silk cloth he’d spread on the ground. He sometimes collected one or two coloured stones but often there were none.
Watching the slaves labour in the heat, he longed to immerse himself in the cool river and soak away the tiredness that came to him in waves.
In the hottest part of the day Lipik saw Jeremiah’s head nod onto his chest then snap upright, fighting sleep. Lipik spied a bright green stone in the bottom of his dish, plucked it out and surreptitiously pushed it behind his left eyeball.
As the sun dipped into the lake, Jeremiah lined the slaves up along the river’s edge, searched their every orifice then marched them back to the camp and into a large barn where they were watered and fed.
Jeremiah drank mugs of beer to dull thoughts of his tedious day at the river bank. He untied the black silk cloth to examine the fifteen coloure
d stones the slaves had unearthed. Herod in Tiberius would select the best of them to decorate his royal armoury.
Lipik lay on his back in darkness. He squeezed the green stone from behind his eye, placed it in a small hole in the ground with the other stones he had stolen and covered them with a handful of hay.
At the river, the next morning Lipik washed his first dish of gravel and saw nothing of value. When he spread the next load, a large rock caught the bottom of his hand, but it was no ordinary brown lump. Turning his back to Jeremiah he walked into waist-deep water, tipped the rock off the dish and stood on it. A similar jewel crowned the ceremonial staff of his tribal king but this was far bigger, the size of his own clenched fist.
Heart racing, Lipik emptied the remaining gravel into the river, floated his dish on the water, took a deep breath and when Jeremiah turned away, dropped silently beneath the surface. Grabbing the rock from under his foot he pushed off the river bed, swimming unnoticed past the other slaves toward the middle of the course. The muddy water afforded no visibility as the quickening current swept him toward the Sea of Tiberius. Short of air he struck out for the surface, popping into daylight, gasping. Jeremiah and the slaves were out of sight. He held the rock tightly and let the speeding torrent carry him around a bend, farther from danger.
Jeremiah spotted Lipik’s dish near the bank and jumped down to the river’s edge, shouting at the slaves.
‘Where’s Lipik?’
They had not seen him slip away, and they huddled in a frightened group as Jeremiah ordered them up the bank to where a heavy square of wood lay on the ground. He dragged it aside, assaulted by the stench of rotting river mud. The slave box comfortably fit four men but Jeremiah ordered all ten slaves inside. One by one they lowered themselves into the putrid log-lined space where a man could not stand upright. When the tenth slave crammed into the hole, Jeremiah dragged the wood square back across it and rolled a heavy boulder on top. The slaves began to wail, with only their water skins to sustain them.
Jeremiah was an expert tracker. Since Lipik had not escaped up the bank, he must have pushed off into the river where the fast-flowing water took him downstream. The defiant little black man always turned up more coloured stones than the other slaves and Jeremiah suspected he’d found a large stone, not easily hidden. Now Jeremiah must find and kill him, slowly or in a heartbeat, as fate would fall.
3
The giant crocodile dozed on a sand bank in the middle of the river, its belly spread heavily on the ground. Flies buzzed through its teeth, seeking decaying meat in which to lay their eggs.
Slowly it lifted off the bank. On old clawed feet, it dragged itself to the water’s edge, slipping into the river with a powerful flick of its tail. Legs pressed against its body, it glided into the current.
Lipik tired. The river narrowed, lumping over boulders. He heard a distant thunder and made for the shore. A fallen tree jutted into the flood. Lipik grasped at a branch, hauling himself up onto the trunk, resting on his knees. Clutching the rock, he stood unsteadily, edging along the log onto a small white beach. Downstream, across the rumbling river, spray rose from the falls.
The crocodile veered out of the strong current into the quieter flow near the shore. It sunk in the clouded water and rested on the bottom, snout pointing at the bank as it walked slowly up the incline of the river bed until the tops of its nostrils broke the surface.
The river bank ended abruptly at a tall impasse of red granite, forcing the flood into a gorge. Jeremiah climbed a rutted goat track and from the cliff top had an unimpeded view along the water course. Lipik was either dead over the falls or had swum to shore. If he had made the river bank he remained in the gorge, for the little bushman was not on the ground above the cliffs. In the blazing sun, Jeremiah drank from his water skin.
Lipik sat in the sand, holding the rock to the sun so it shattered into every colour. Big as a vulture egg, it radiated power in his bony hand. Now he must leave the gorge and move cautiously toward the Sea of Tiberius to vanish amongst the tiny fishing villages dotting the shoreline, a free man.
Africa beckoned. Lipik dreamed of long hunts across the endless savannah, with the majestic rock the centrepiece of his royal headdress. But mostly he dreamed of his two wives and the four sons they’d bore him, for it was a year since he’d been taken from them.
Hovering just below the surface, the crocodile watched the man on the beach. It backed out into the current, swam in a sweeping circle and driven by its strong tail, accelerated at the bank.
Jeremiah spotted Lipik holding something that flashed in the sun. He readied an arrow and took aim.
The water exploded as the crocodile launched up the bank, clamping its jaws around Lipik’s head, dragging him back into the river.
Jeremiah lowered his bow, somewhat disappointed the crocodile had finished off Lipik. Seeing something sparkle on the sand, he descended to the beach to find a glistening rock. He picked it up and held it tightly, shuddering with excitement.
Upstream, a tumbling wall of foam barrelled toward the sea, rising rapidly along the gorge walls. Alerted by the approaching noise, Jeremiah scrambled back to the top of the cliff to escape the river roaring up beneath him. Remembering the imprisoned slaves, he broke into a run.
At the end of the gorge the river overflowed its banks, pouring onto the plain. Jeremiah stared vacantly across the wet expanse, cursing Lipik and the rock in his fist. Dejectedly, he turned away and headed for the shores of the great sea.
Joshua dissolved blocks of tree resin in a bronze bowl heated by coals, and poured the liquid through a finely woven cloth to filter out any impurities. He placed the cube, topped with the spider, into a mould, covering it with the molten resin, leaving it to harden. Dripping sweat, he stoked the kiln, added wood to the blaze and removed a crucible of fluid glass. He pushed the resin coated cube into the soft clear mass and plunged the whole assembly into hissing water.
Joshua admired the ornament, wondering about the mysterious cube at its heart. The kiln cooled with the dying sun. Joshua drank a mug of wine and listened to the rhythmic chirp of crickets heralding the coming of night.
Animals scattered ahead of the flood. Approaching the shores of the Sea of Tiberius, the plain dropped into a steep escarpment where a gorge funnelled the expanding waters into a wide delta. Jeremiah walked through knee-high grass to the outskirts of a small fishing village. Dozens of little boats bobbed on their moorings and as the sun sank through the clouds, the sky flared red.
Jeremiah followed a dirt road along the shore where gulls pecked at fishing nets strung between wooden poles, and a child played with a dog. Cooking fires glowed inside mud houses and the smell of seafood filled the air. Jeremiah turned onto a stone jetty and at its end was moored a boat with a mast. He stepped down into the sturdy hull, its timbers stained with fish blood and oil. Canvas was piled behind the mast, nets folded neatly in the bow. Jeremiah checked the rudder then pulled on a rope to hoist the sail.
A voice cried out. ‘Ahmed, I am too tired to fish. It is not yet dawn.’
Makab tried to pull the unfurling sail back over his head.
Jeremiah tied off the rope and the boat tilted in the breeze.
Makab blinked, trying to focus on the man standing over him, suddenly realising it was not Ahmed.
Jeremiah drew a knife from his belt and held it at Makab’s throat.
‘Be quiet,’ he said.
Wide eyed, Makab shook as Jeremiah gripped his arm and sat him up. Seeing his terror, he put down the knife.
‘I am taking your boat under the authority of Rome.’
‘The boat belongs to Uncle Ahmed,’ Makab said. ‘He will be furious and beat me if you take it.’
‘Then you can either stay for a beating, or sail with me to Tiberius. Afterwards you can return alone and I promise to compensate your uncle. Regardless, I am taking this boat.’
With little choice, Makab agreed to accompany him.
‘When do you wish to
leave?’
‘Immediately,’ Jeremiah said.
Makab climbed onto the jetty, unhooked the stern rope, cast it into the boat and jumped down onto the foredeck. The gunwale scraped along the jetty as Jeremiah steered away, threading through the moorings into open water.
Under a star-encrusted sky they cut quietly through the inky sea, green luminescence trailing from the rudder as they headed for the shores of the palace of Tiberius.
4
It was not a dungeon to keep men. It smelled of wild game, and littered amongst the straw were leopard spore and rhinoceros pats. The bronze rings in the walls were hung with chains and ropes to tether animals. Spearing from the arena high above, a shaft of sunlight lit the dusty air. Simon walked through it to a wooden door. Out of a dark corner a monkey scampered across the stone floor, leaping onto Simon’s shoulder. Startled, he flung the little creature into the wall and it dropped to the ground unhurt, chattering nervously, exposing its teeth.
Simon tried the locked door. The little monkey flew up the wall, through the bars of a narrow grate, landing on the other side. At the click of a latch the door swung creakily into the room and the monkey hopped up and down, screeching. Simon, let it run up his back and forage in his hair.
Together they travelled a long dim corridor and through a door into the fierce glare of a white marble courtyard. Simon’s eyes quickly adjusted to the bright emptiness. He continued along a shaded portico, under an archway, into the palace infirmary. Mallets, saws and chisels littered blood-stained tables. A trough filled with water was clouded red. The monkey burrowed into Simon’s neck.
Past an alcove, spread a lush garden where a hunting falcon sat unblinking on a leafless branch. Simon heard snoring. The monkey skipped off his shoulder and the falcon flapped its wings, shifting from leg to leg. A man slept in a chair, mouth ajar, the stumps of his legs poking off the seat. Handless arms rested together in his lap, their knobs pink and angry. Dark-ringed eyes sat in his pallid face. His grey hair was tied in a tail, and a spider tattooed in red showed proudly on his forehead.
The Jesus Germ Page 2
