A.D. 30

by Ted Dekker

  “With a few conditions,” Shaquilath said.

  “Naturally. With a few conditions.” Aretas paced to his right, stroking his beard again. “Assuming, that is, that you’re still willing.” He faced me. “Or has your time alone cast doubt on your proposition?”

  It had, of course. But I saw no alternative path to honor, and hearing that they had decided in my favor gave me some courage. At the very least I would be rid of Petra. I had come to despise what I knew of their city.

  “My offer stands as spoken,” I said, gathering strength.

  “Then you have lost none of your resolve?”

  “None.”

  “And you still believe you possess the strength necessary to approach Herod with all the cunning of your father?”

  The fog in my mind was clearing and I slowly drew breath to settle my focus. I was sure to be joined by Judah and Saba once again—together we would find a way.

  “Would I have presented the proposition if I doubted myself?”

  He smiled. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t have.” He turned and walked toward the table again. “So, then, you may take to Herod my demand for payment of one hundred talents of gold. We will supply all that you need for the journey, including a sealed letter from me, explaining my terms.”

  “And if I succeed?” I asked, finding more courage.

  Aretas reached his chair behind the stone table, seated himself, and stared at me.

  “Return to me with this payment, and you will be properly honored.”

  His words did not reflect what I had requested per se, but they were enough for the moment. I dipped my head in acceptance.

  “And if you fail,” Shaquilath said, “there will be equal consequence.”

  “As I said, I accept my risk with Herod.”

  “I’m not speaking of your own life. Do you think we would send you to Palestine without a guarantee?” She motioned to one of the guards with her finger, and he strode for the door behind the table. “What is to keep you from fleeing your duty once it is agreed to? Only the leverage that we hold over you.”

  I watched as the door swung wide. First Judah, then Saba was led from darkness, both in chains, wearing only gags and loincloths.

  My heart crashed against my breast.

  Judah had lost some of his color and he wasn’t as full in the chest. And yet his eyes were bright and full of courage as he looked at me. There was no sign of suffering on his face, nor regret.

  I knew immediately that the only way the Nabataeans could have my mighty Bedu warriors in chains without sign of struggle was by holding my well-being over their heads. Judah’s and Saba’s allegiance to me had put them in these chains.

  “Saba will go with you,” Shaquilath said. “Phasa will throw a tantrum, but you will need your dark slave.”

  Saba remained between two guards near the door as they led Judah across the floor.

  “And Judah?” I demanded.

  “Judah. The one you love will be held for your safe return, of course.”

  “How dare you!” I cried. My mind felt loosed of its tethers. “I cannot leave without Judah!”

  “Oh, but you must.”

  The large entrance door swung open and a man walked in. He stood in the light, dressed in the black fringed thobe of the Thamud. On his head a red-and-yellow kaffiyeh was bound by a black agal.

  For a moment I could not breathe.

  Kahil bin Saman.

  This was the son of the Thamud sheikh who had crushed my father. This was the man who had flung my son from the window in Dumah.

  My fingers began to tremble as he walked forward, first eyeing me, then stopping and bowing to Aretas and his queen.

  “You must,” Shaquilath said again. “And if you fail or defy this king in any way, your slave will be put to death.”

  I could not speak.

  She nodded at Kahil, and he returned the gesture. The two guards restraining Judah seized his arms behind his back and held him still.

  “So that you remember how serious this matter is…” the queen said.

  Kahil walked up to Judah without ceremony, withdrew his hand, and struck him in the face with a fist. Judah’s head snapped back with the impact. A white gash appeared over his right eye and immediately filled with blood, which flowed down his face.

  When Kahil drew his arm back for a second blow I could see that his knuckles were wrapped in hardened pitch.

  I had clung to my sanity for eleven weeks in Petra’s dungeons, but there in the arena it left me completely.

  I heard Saba protesting through his muzzle the moment I launched myself toward Kahil. It was only a cry, but I knew he was demanding I hold my place. Even I knew I should remain. Even I knew that any attempt to save Judah would end badly for both of us.

  And yet I could not stop myself.

  I hurled myself at Kahil’s back as taught to me by Johnin in Egypt. His hand was drawn for a third blow when the crown of my head struck the small of his back.

  Caught flat-footed, he roared in pain and arched backward.

  I was weak from their dungeons, and the blow stunned me, but it didn’t dull my instincts. Even as he staggered, I clawed at his face with my nails. Found his beard with my fingers. Yanked my hand away with all my strength. Heard the ripping of his hair.

  Kahil screamed.

  Then my hand was free and I plunged to the ground before rolling back to my feet and spinning back to him.

  Held upright by the two guards, Judah sagged, oblivious to the world.

  I went again before Kahil could recover.

  The Thamud prince was not prepared for such a scorned adversary. Despite my weakness, I would have torn his eyes from their sockets had the blow not struck me from behind.

  One of the Nabataean warriors reached me before I could strike again. His sword struck my head broadside. A dull pain flashed through my skull.

  I instinctively planted my left foot forward, then spun my right leg up and around, high, so that my heel caught the warrior on his jaw. He dropped to the ground with a soft grunt, sword clattering on the stone beside him.

  But the distraction had gained Kahil his time. He grabbed my hair from behind and slammed me to my back. Then he was on me, gripping my face with fingers of iron.

  I tried to free myself, but his weight was too great and his arms too strong. He held my face with one hand and slapped me repeatedly with the other, cursing bitterly. His fingers tore at my cheeks.

  Kahil surely knew that Aretas wouldn’t allow him to kill me. So he did what came naturally to a brutal man. He set his intentions upon maiming me.

  He snatched up sand from the floor and ground it into my eyes using his thumbs. His face was only inches from my own. I could feel his hot breath and his spittle as he screamed obscenities.

  Pain such as I had rarely felt cut through my eyes, and I realized that he was trying to blind me. Yielding to panic, I flailed and struggled to keep my eyes shut, but no matter how tightly I clenched them, the pain spread.

  “Enough!” Aretas roared.

  Who pulled Kahil off me, I don’t know, but he went with a roar of indignation.

  “The whore has ripped my beard!” he cried.

  “Enough!” Aretas thundered.

  “I have full right to take blood for blood!”

  “You’ve already taken it, you fool! Was it not her child you killed?”

  I lay on the ground, short of breath. When I tried to open my eyes, I could see light, but the world was only a fog.

  I heard Shaquilath’s voice, soft-spoken and intrigued. “You are fortunate to be alive, Kahil. This one is a warrior. If she were not so weak, you would be dead.”

  “By this dog? She is a woman who eats the bones of carcasses. Abysm!” Kahil spit to the ground. “The death of her son honors all men.”

  “Be careful or she may crush your bones.”

  The queen’s challenge hung in the room like poisoned smoke. Kahil was slow to respond, and when he did, there
was no bottom to his bitterness.

  “You dishonor me—”

  “And you are servant of my queen,” Aretas said. “Are you so eager to die?”

  Silence.

  “Take the slave Judah to Dumah,” Aretas said to Kahil. “If I learn that you have maimed or killed him, I will cut your throat myself.” He let the command set in. “Do you understand what I have said?”

  Kahil did not respond.

  “Are you deaf?”

  “No.”

  “Then answer me! Do you understand what I have said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Leave us!”

  I heard shuffling feet and I pushed myself up with my arms.

  “Judah…”

  My voice was weak, no more than a whimper from a dying dog. But I knew that he could not have heard me if I’d screamed.

  Then the door was closed and Judah was gone.

  For a few moments, no one spoke.

  “The Thamud are mindless animals,” Aretas said.

  He took a great breath, as if cleansing himself of his troubles before addressing me.

  “You will remain three days to gather yourself. Then you will journey to Herod with Saba. Return to me as proposed and I will see you honored. If you have not returned within thirty days, then both your father and Judah will be put out of their misery.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  JUDAH. MY mind was possessed with images of Judah. He, the lion, reduced to a sagging lump of flesh, chained by the same monster who had thrown my infant son from the window.

  Judah, who had rescued me from my misery and brought his stars into my eyes. Judah, who’d held me tenderly and kissed me with abandon. Who had cut down Brutus before the beast could lay a hand on me. Who could walk through the Nafud and weather any storm, who could surely lead a thousand men into war and remain standing, who could shrug off the wounds upon his back and laugh at his torment so long as I was safe.

  Judah, who had obsessed after his Galilean mystic as a Bedu boy might obsess after his first victory in battle. Who had followed me to Petra rather than follow his own destiny at the feet of that mystic, Yeshua.

  Judah, whom I had sentenced to death.

  And more, I had sentenced myself to death. Which meant there was no hope for Judah or me or the Kalb. I knew as much three days after Kahil blinded me, because my eyesight was still fogged and showed no sign of improvement.

  The Nabataean physicians had cast their spells over me in Petra, beckoning their gods to heal, and they’d applied their salves to my eyes, but their chanting only quickened my hatred for all gods, and their ointments only increased the sting.

  Still, the greatest pain lived in my heart, for it was enslaved to bitterness and dread. I could not rid myself of these, no matter how firmly I set my intention. My failure to rise above darkness made the pain worse, for it made a mockery of this blind queen in rags who came from a pathetic tribe of dogs deep in the barren desert.

  After three days in Petra, we set out for Palestine, and I wore my dread like a cloak. Try as I might, I could not find hope. Day by day my fear grew, like a monster that could not be chased into hiding.

  It became too much. I stopped Saba on a tall hill overlooking Palestine, overcome with unrelenting fear. It was then that I told him we could not go to Herod.

  He said nothing. I could not tell if he agreed with me or hated me.

  Tears flooded my eyes and there upon the camel I wept like a child. I was blind. It was too much! I could not overcome my fear. I would be thrown out because of my fear—I knew this as I knew my breath. Hadn’t Yeshua said as much in his parable of the harsh taskmaster?

  Wasn’t I destined to be crushed?

  I faced Saba with unbending resolve, tears still streaming from my pale eyes.

  “We must find Yeshua.”

  “We go to Herod,” he said, unsure.

  “No. We have to find Yeshua first.”

  “We don’t have time to—”

  “Then I will go to him alone.”

  He considered my desperation for only a few moments before speaking.

  “We will find Yeshua.”

  There was no more discussion. We would find Yeshua, who had spoken to me of my fear. Then we would go to Herod.

  But my fear did not abate. With each passing mile it seemed to press deeper into my bones. I was going back into the jackal’s lair, I thought. This time I would not emerge.

  Six days after leaving Petra, my camel padded over the rocky ground two lengths behind Saba’s, close to Sepphoris. We were weary from so many days in the hot sun, pushed by Saba’s driven pace, for Saba was always of singular purpose. It was clear that he served not one, but three now: Rami as before, but also his queen, Maviah, and his brother, Judah.

  The weight of the tallest mountain was upon my shoulders, but Saba bore it as well.

  There was Rami, there was Judah, there was Saba, there was I. The fate of the desert awaited us four.

  But there was more.

  There was Yeshua.

  The sun was slipping down the western sky to our left as we rode—night would be upon us in a few hours. Only at my hands and feet was my flesh exposed. Like a mummy resurrected from an Egyptian tomb, I was wrapped in a woolen cloak from shoulders to ankles. My head was hidden beneath a mantle and sheer scarf that covered my eyes.

  Yet even without the veil, my vision was clouded so that the whole world seemed to be made of jinn and fog. I could see well enough by day to make out Saba’s blurry form, well enough to function with careful estimation, but hardly more.

  Saba led me faithfully, surely aware of the depths of my misery, but he allowed me to abide without offering advice.

  Nine days of torment, and now Sepphoris was near.

  Entering a sandy wash, he slowed his pace until I was beside him. For a while we matched stride, and finally he spoke, voice soft.

  “I would tell you a teaching I once heard in the East,” he said. “With your permission.”

  “A teaching, Saba. This is unlike you.” We plodded on. “As you will.”

  “There is a woman on a path, wandering aimlessly. But a beast leaps from the rocks and she runs for her life, terrified. Sure to die, she reaches a cliff and leaps off to snatch a vine. Now out of the beast’s reach she hangs, momentarily grateful. But looking down she sees at the bottom another beast waiting to devour her. Now she is trapped.”

  He was talking of me, I thought. Naturally.

  “And above her the woman sees two mice chewing on this vine, one white and one black. Clinging to this vine she trembles, fearing for her life, for soon the mice will eat through the vine. Is not her fate sealed?”

  “So it seems.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “Only then does she close her eyes and calm her mind. And when she opens them, she sees strawberries on the cliff. Thus she picks one of the strawberries and eats it. And how sweet is that berry.”

  He stopped, as if finished.

  “This is your teaching?”

  “Not mine. Only one I once heard at a fire. Whenever I am in battle this teaching speaks to me.”

  I considered the tale and understood parts but not the whole.

  “So, then, tell me what it means,” I said.

  “The beasts are all that we believe threatens us. There is no way to stop troubles from coming in this life. The mice, one white, one black, are day and night, the passing of our days. Neither can this be stopped. And yet, if one can calm the mind, take her eyes off the beasts, and release her fear, she might see what is before her.”

  “The strawberries,” I said.

  “And how sweet they are.” He paused. “It is similar to the teaching of Yeshua and the harsh taskmaster, yes?”

  Yeshua also had spoken of being able to see the light. But hearing Saba say it, I was seeing only darkness. There were no strawberries and there was no light. I was bound by fear of the beasts all about me.

  “There is a beast in Dumah,
far behind us,” Saba said. “And one in Herod, ahead. Only by releasing your fear can you partake of what good stands before you.”

  “And if the woman on the vine is blind? What then, Saba?”

  “Is blindness of the eyes or the heart?”

  Anger welled up in my breast and I turned to him.

  “Look at me, Saba,” I snapped.

  His head turned and I lifted the veil from my eyes.

  “Tell me, are my eyes clear? Are these the eyes that Herod once saw?”

  “It is not—”

  “Answer me! What do you see? Are my eyes clear?”

  He didn’t speak, so I let the veil fall and faced the wash ahead of us.

  “I cannot see, Saba.” A great weight smothered me and I struggled to maintain my composure. “I’ve done everything the world has asked of me and now I find myself blind to it.”

  “This will pass,” he said.

  “So you said nine days ago.” I was disgusted with myself for having so little strength. Was not the whole world faced with suffering? I had to shed my own self-pity before it swallowed me entirely, but I was powerless to do so.

  Stinging tears came to my eyes.

  “Forgive me.”

  “It is a difficult thing asked of you, Maviah. I spoke too quickly with this teaching.”

  “No.” I exhaled slowly and gathered myself. “No, I am grateful for you. Please… forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” he said.

  Always the rock, I thought. Judah the lion, Saba the pillar.

  “I’m afraid for Judah. Even if we succeed…” My emotions choked me.

  “When we succeed, we will return to Dumah and crush the Thamud.”

  Saba seemed to have adopted Judah’s optimism. But I could not believe in any such future.

  “I’m afraid, Saba.”

  He brought his camel to a halt and faced me.

  “Then the mystic will give you courage,” he said.

  Yeshua.

  We’d decided that Saba would go into Sepphoris and find the woman named Joanna—the disciple of Yeshua who was married to Herod’s chief steward, Chuza. Nicodemus, who was pure in heart, had told me I could trust her, and so I would.

  Joanna would know Herod’s state of affairs. Nearly four months had passed since I last saw the king, and much had changed. She would tell us how to make an entrance to his courts. More importantly, as a follower of the mystic, she could tell us where to find Yeshua, who traveled often.