I wonder if Eleazar is taking us to one of the thirty-eight rooms built into the three-story walls of the temple and used by the priests. But no, he stops at a room in the corridor, unlatches the door, and bids us enter. We step inside, then Eleazar bars the door. It’s difficult to see with only the light from the small oil lamp in Eleazar’s hand, but even so, it takes only a second to realize we’re in a storeroom. Tables, laden with willow baskets of all sizes, cram the room. The baskets are filled with clay oil lamps, tunics, robes, sandals, and such. One table holds rush mats for sleeping, as well as pots, jars and other sundries. Eleazar’s possessions? Or gifts for the Temple priests? Who can say, and I have no desire to ask.
Eleazar walks over to a table containing four finely woven bags, four bulging scrips, and four water skins, which appear full. He quickly lights four oil lamps and indicates we are to take one. “Each bag contains a good tunic and robe and sandals, a hammer, chisel, and small hand shovel. You’ll need them. And the scrips are filled with raisins and hard cheese and almonds. You can travel many days on that.”
My sons grow restless and whisper among themselves. Aaron actually flits from one end of the table to the other like a nervous sparrow.
“I fear the priest will not take his golden pitcher to the Kidron Valley and fill it with the waters of Siloam during the Feast of Tabernacles this year.” Eleazar’s dark mad eyes shimmer as he looks around the dim, cramped room. “Hashem cannot be pleased with us for stopping the Continual Sacrifice. Ever since the last lamb was slaughtered and the fires died, the battle has not gone well for us. But where are we to find a lamb . . . or even a dove? Our people are starving. Starving people do not bring animal sacrifices to the Temple. They stuff them into their own bellies.”
“What is this about, my friend?” I ask, watching Eleazar rake his white hair with spindly fingers.
“One thousand priests were trained as masons in order to build the Holy Place without defilement. And when it was finished, Herod the Great sacrificed three hundred oxen to Hashem. Even that dog understood the holiness of our Temple. Now, the Romans will swarm over these sacred grounds and trample its holiness beneath their feet.”
“Eleazar. . .” I reach for his shoulder, but he pushes me away. Has he really gone mad?
“I give you and your sons one last command,” Eleazar says, holding up his lamp to study our faces. “If . . . the Temple falls . . . you must leave Jerusalem so our fight, so our cause can . . . will continue.”
“If the Temple falls there are still The Upper and Lower City to defend. How can we leave? How can you ask us to desert you and the others?” I say, hardly believing my ears. My sons, too, shake their head in disbelief and mumble their displeasure under their breath.
“It’s an order!” Eleazar barks. “You must obey. Swear to me you’ll do as I’ve asked.”
I look at my sons. They all shake their heads.
“I’ll stay here and fight till the end,” Aaron says.
Benjamin, taller than his brothers, and the one most resembling Rebekah, clasps Aaron’s shoulder. “As will I.”
I know my furled forehead reveals my anger at their refusing Eleazar, but I’m proud, too.
“And I’ll stay as well,” adds Joseph, the follower who always went along with the others.
“You are soldiers,” I finally bellow. “You will obey your commander.” At once, Joseph hangs his head. Benjamin, in quiet anarchy, pinches his lips and studies one of the bags on the table. Only Aaron remains openly defiant.
“John is our commander,” he says, but the words are flat, and ring false. Our loyalty has always been with Eleazar, not John. I stare at Aaron, beating him down with my eyes. Oh how much he reminds me of myself! Foolish, strong headed, and stubbornly faithful. At last he bows his head, and in a shaky voice gives Eleazar his promise, as do each of us.
When the last oath is uttered, Eleazar removes the bags, scrips, and water skins from the table, exposing an object that was hidden beneath them. In the poor light I can’t make it out. Eleazar beckons us closer, and as we cluster around the table, the light from our collective lamps reveals a thin flat copper scroll nearly five cubits long. The Temple housed a vast library of scrolls—the Torah, the Psalms, the writings of the prophets— all written with ink on papyrus or animal skins. None was hammered on costly copper. In Roman-Egypt, copper scrolls were used to inventory temple treasures. But I’ve never heard of us doing so.
I squint down at the scroll and see three sheets of copper riveted together as one. Odd, ill-formed lettering—ancient Hebrew from the looks of it—comprise the hammered text. I bend closer and begin reading, “In Har . . . Harubah . . . in . . . Valley of Achor . . .” It’s difficult to read. Some words I can’t make out at all. Still I continue, “be . . . beneath the steps . . . east . . . 40 . . . cubits . . . silver and . . . vessels, 17 talents.” I frown and look up at Eleazar. “What is this? A treasure map?”
“Yes.” Eleazar taps the scroll with a claw-like finger. “Temple treasure. A vast fortune that has, over the years, been dedicated to our God and His Holy Temple. More gold even than the eight-thousand talents Herod used to overlay and decorate the Holy Place. With it you can buy supplies and weapons for a new army.”
I blink in disbelief. Temple treasure? Even if it were true, what army could I raise? Galilee and Judea were in shambles. The population decimated—slaughtered or taken as slaves. And those who weren’t, were demoralized and barely able to eke out an existence in their ruined villages, or as exiles. Who was left to fight Rome?
“There are rebels at Masada,” Eleazar says, as if reading my thoughts. “You must take the treasure there. Once it is known you have resources, others will join you. The fight must continue!”
This was a fool’s errand. But can I tell Eleazar that? I close my eyes. And when I do, I see my son, Abner, hanging on the cross, and my heart is suddenly filled with rage. I have not had time to grieve him as I should. The fighting has kept me from it. Now, I am a swirling caldron of emotions: sorrow, longing, hatred, rage, the craving for revenge. But it is revenge that bubbles to the top, like dross over molten metal. It sears, it burns. I’ve never known its like. Not even my zeal for the Temple compares. I try to fight it. I squeeze my lids closed hoping to drive it back, but I can’t. Dark thoughts fill my mind. Bloodshed, pain, dashed hopes, despair, death—these are what shape me now. I never thought it possible to feel such hatred; never thought it possible to want to do such violence. Will I leave Abner unavenged? Surely Rome must pay. Surely Romans must be made to grieve for their sons, too. Eleazar was right. There can be no living in peace with Rome now. No living under Roman rule. My hate gathers strength. It steams and boils, twisting me into a new creature, one sliding down toward its own destruction; sliding toward the burning world of Hades itself.
“I’ll continue the fight.” My voice is the voice of a stranger. “Yes, I’ll continue the fight, but I’ll not speak for my sons.”
At once my sons surround me and bellow their support. They pledge their weapons. They make oaths. They thump my back and clasp my shoulder. And my heart breaks at the thought that I may be leading them into a pit.
But Eleazar appears pleased. He places his lamp on the table and begins rolling the scroll. When he does, the metal snaps. Without meaning to, he has broken the scroll in two. “No matter,” he says, after examining it. “The break is at a rivet line and will not prevent you from reading the words. Guard it well. With your lives, if need be. It cannot fall into the hands of our enemies.” He carefully wraps the scrolls in leather, ties them with a leather strap, then tucks the scrolls into his tunic. “Now, I’ll show you the hidden passage. Commit it to memory. All of you. If one falls in battle, the others will still know the way.”
He takes his lamp, ducks into the far corner of the room and pushes against one of the large wall stones. And then, right before our eyes, a section of wall opens revealing a narrow stairway cut into bedrock. He beckons us to enter. When we do,
he follows and closes the wall behind him, then inches past us on the narrow steps so he can lead the way.
The steps are steep and many, and empty into a cramped, highceiling passageway. It, too, is cut from solid rock. Chisel marks scar the white limestone, and black smudged niches show were workers once placed their oil lamps along the wall. The air is stale. But surprisingly, the tunnel is dry.
We walk a long way. More than once the passage forks. I have the sensation we are traveling downward. As we go, Eleazar points out the variations in the walls—where white limestone gives way to red; the curvature of the floor, the rising or lowering of the ceiling. And he admonishes us to commit them all to memory. Finally, he stops at a spot where the passageway bulges on one side, creating a large landing.
“We are outside the city walls now,” Eleazar says, pulling the scrolls from his tunic. He then stands on his toes and tucks the two leather-wrapped rolls into a niche high up on the bulging wall. “If the Temple falls, you must go to the storeroom, change clothes, take your scrips and water and whatever else you need, and come here for the scrolls.”
He holds his lamp up to the tunnel opening that yawns before us like a grave and that stretches far beyond the flickering light’s reach. “Continue through that passageway. Follow it to the end,” he says, leaning against the cold limestone wall. Even in the dim light I see the strain and fatigue on his face. “It leads to the hills of Qumran and empties into one of the caves.”
“Such a tunnel exists?” I squint at the long, black passageway in front of me. Jerusalem abounds with tunnels that honeycomb its underbelly: the well known Hezekiah’s Tunnel and Solomon’s quarries, also cisterns, waterways, plastered ashlar stone drainage channels. Many I’ve used myself to move about, undetected, especially when Rebekah was still in Jerusalem, but I never knew of this passageway. When I say this out loud, Eleazar nods.
“It is most secret,” he says. “Only a few know of it. It was the passage we’ve been using for the past four years to take the Temple treasure and much of our library out of Jerusalem for safe keeping. We’ve hidden the sacred scrolls in the Qumran caves. The treasure, we’ve scattered in over sixty locations.”
Eleazar’s head slumps against his chest. At first I think he’s ill, then realize he’s eaten little today, having given his small ration to one of the priests guarding the altar.
“Come, let us go.” Eleazar pulls himself upright to begin the long trek back. “Remember,” he says, turning to look at us, “you have all sworn an oath. Dying will not be so unwelcome now that I know the fight will continue.”
My old injury has reopened. Blood streams from my wrist and also from the new injury to my arm, gained when I stopped a Roman broadsword aimed for my face. All morning we’ve tried to keep the Romans from pouring into the Court of Women through the gates they’ve burned, but all to no avail. Now, even the Nicanor Gate is gone, a gate that took twenty men to open and close.
The Court of Women is choked with smoke and embedded with a stench just as thick. The odor is a caldron of burning wood, decaying dead, blood, unwashed soldiers, and bodily waste from men whose bowels have failed from fear.
The taking of the women’s court has been costly for both sides. So many have fallen they form a carpet beneath our feet. Now, our men fight furiously to save the Holy Place. Even those priests, who up to now have only tended to the needs of the Temple, have taken up the sword. Hundreds, all in white linen, are stationed around the Altar of Sacrifice. Blood runs, like a stream, between their feet from the dead Romans that are stacked like logs around the base of the altar. Even so, an endless wave of legionaries continues to pour through every opening. And the tide is turning against us. Already, the eight stone tables north of the altar, where animals were once slaughtered for sacrifice, are fast becoming the platforms where priests are slaughtered by Romans. Even now, their death cries rise toward heaven, like incense, against the backdrop of the gleaming gold and white Temple.
I stand near the brass laver. I’ve killed so many Romans, my arm aches. I stay close to my sons. More than once my sword has saved them. But the circle is tightening. Our men are falling on all sides. I fear we will not be able to hold out much longer.
“Go! Fulfill your oath!” Eleazar says, suddenly coming up alongside me. His face is splattered with blood, his robe stained red. His eyes are wide and dark, like a man foreseeing his own death. “Quickly, there’s not much time!” Then he heads for the altar.
I have no stomach for this task. I’m no coward. Yet that is how I feel when I signal my sons with the predetermined gesture to retreat. Then I fight my way to the colonnaded enclosure and am nearly at the door of the storeroom when I slip on the blood-slick pavement. My weapon flies from my hand as I land on my back. At once a Roman is upon me, thrusting wildly with his broadsword. I quickly roll to avoid the blade and find I’ve rolled against a Corinthian column. Now, unarmed and unable to move, and with my face less than a cubit from the Roman’s hobnailed boots, I’m defenseless. When he raises his boot, I see the nail heads are tipped with blood. And just as he’s about to send them straight into my eyes, he topples forward, crashing into the massive stone column, then sliding, dead, to the floor.
Aaron lowers his dagger, and extends his free hand to pull me up. Instantly, my other sons are beside me, fending off attackers until I regain my footing. Then we all rush to the storeroom, enter and bolt the door. Eleazar has prudently kept one lamp lit. We light three others, remove our bloody clothes then replace them with the tunics and robes from each of the bags. Then quickly we gather the scrips and water skins, and a few supplies. Within minutes, we press against the movable stone in the wall and disappear down the narrow stairway.
PELLA 70 A.D.
CHAPTER 5
We begin our days before sunrise. We’re learning, Esther and I, to do chores our servants once did. She’s outside firing the oven while I mix flour, oil and water, then knead it into dough. The dough I form into small flat cakes and place on round clay platters. I’ve made extra. Zechariah is coming for breakfast.
“The oven is ready,” Esther says, entering the room. Her hair falls in oily strings around her face. Dirt smudges her cheeks. Even the bowl of fragrant henna blossoms on the shelf cannot disguise the fact that she hasn’t bathed in days.
I pretend not to notice. Lately, I’ve tried not to find fault for fear of breaking what’s left of her spirit. I gesture to the trays of flattened dough and begin cutting a cucumber on my small work table. The bread and cucumbers, along with yogurt made from the milk of our two goats, will comprise our morning meal.
“Do you need help carrying the trays?” I ask, watching my daughter out of the corner of my eye. Her shoulders slump like an old woman’s as she drags one foot then the other across the stone floor, and I send up prayers to God. I’m always sending up prayers for Esther. “Do you need help?” I repeat, thinking she didn’t hear.
“I can manage.” Her voice is barely audible.
She’s like one walking in her sleep, and I wonder if she’s ever going to wake up. She shuffles out the door with the trays, and I return to work. Before I’ve finished slicing the second cucumber a voice behind me thunders, “Maranatha!” Only one voice can fill a room like that. I turn and there’s Zechariah’s large frame filling the doorway.
“You’re early!”
“Good news begs telling.”
“Then tell me for I can surely stand some.” I add the cut cucumber to the other slices in the bowl.
“Ah, yes, Esther. Don’t worry.” Zechariah glances over his shoulder. “We’re all praying.”
“This is your good news?”
Zechariah fingers his beard that puffs like a cloud around his cheeks and chin. “The widow Leah is preparing her bread, too, and has promised to save a loaf for me. How I love her loaves of olives and rosemary. But then, the Evil One knows this.” He pats his bulbous stomach.
“Zechariah, please. The good news, remember?”
His belly shakes as he chuckles. “You know how to ruin a good story. All right, all right, I’ll tell you. We’ve had another miracle! Yes! Another miracle! Leah says she’s been dipping from the same jar of olive oil all week, and it’s not diminished a drop! Not one drop! No matter how much she uses, it stays full to the lip. Now what do you think of that?”
I wipe my hands on a rag and frown. “Her eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Perhaps it’s gotten worse. Or perhaps she’s dipping one jar and measuring another.”
“Oh, no. I saw it myself. She took a cup of oil from her jar, then another, then another, but still the jar remained full. And there’s nothing wrong with my eyes!”
I grunt as I gather three wooden bowls for the yogurt.
“You don’t believe it?”
“Yes, yes, I believe. It’s just that we’ve had so many miracles lately.”
“And what’s wrong with that? You should be praising God.”
“I do, I do. Only, I worry that these miracles have become more dear to us than the Maker of Miracles. When we gather at your house what do people say? ‘The cup, we want to know more about the cup.’” When Zechariah looks puzzled, I shake my head. “Don’t you see? They should want to know more about Jesus?”
“Well . . . I suppose . . . .”
“And Argos? He grows more troublesome by the day. Mary said she heard him speaking ill of us in the shops. He would turn the whole city against us if he could. His position as healer has been challenged by our miracles; miracles which he believes are due to my cup. We all know him to be a proud man. He cannot be pleased. The other day I passed him on the street and the hatred in his eyes . . . I can’t help but think he’s plotting some mischief.”
Zechariah pats my shoulder like Uncle Abner used to when I was upset. “Don’t trouble yourself. This is the work of God. Rejoice in it.”
“Yes I know . . . but . . . .”
“Let God do His miracles as long as He wills. There’s a plan in it all, Rebekah.”
Rebekah's Treasure Page 9
