by Tracy Groot
“But you’re fond of telling people you are a bad Jew. You’re proud of it.” He gestured at Joab. “Don’t you worry about corrupting the innocents?”
“That he can take care of himself,” Theron said, easing a strange grimace at Joab. Interestingly, Joab flushed at the comment.
“How many bad Jews are there like you, Theron?” Orion asked.
Theron dipped a big chunk of bread in a dish of mashed olives and oil. “Not so many,” he said regretfully, and took a mighty bite of the bread. Around the mouthful, he said, “Many are good. Too many.”
Conversation dwindled and eating revived, and with the settled silence came the thoughts that ceaselessly troubled Orion. He didn’t want to talk about it, not yet. He was enjoying the meal. The company. He was enjoying this part of his life that Pilate and the palace and Rome could not touch. He gripped his cup. But conversation usually came down to Pilate, the palace, or Rome. It came in particular to those delicate intricacies that lay below the surface of his occupation. Delicate things he kept from Pilate.
His first breach of Pilate’s protocol came before he knew Theron and Marina. Pilate had a palace edict in effect that Orion had followed without thought . . . until he met little Benjamin and his mother.
Pilate did not want the small children of palace slaves to remain with their mothers during the day. At the age of five, the children were placed in the care of a supervisor who taught them various jobs, like cleaning out the dung pits and sorting the charcoal. One day an upper-level servant, a Roman citizen who tended the triclinia, had dragged a laundress to Orion’s workroom. The laundress was a Jew and a palace slave, placing her two steps below the free Roman servant. The servant was a nasty woman named Rhodinia who announced to Orion that the Jewish slave had a son who stayed at her side during the day—even though the child was five.
The Jew was terrified, her eyes desperate and her face white with fear. She tried to keep her son firmly behind her, but he peeked out, interested in the doings. Rhodinia, in the midst of her tirade, seized the child’s arm and jerked him out to display him to Orion.
“I have a five-year-old son,” Rhodinia had screeched, “and he is not allowed to stay with me—a Roman citizen! This woman is a Jew, and her child stays at her side!”
Orion had looked down on the child, who looked up, black eyes full of uncertainty. The uncertainty caught Orion. Another child his age would have been fearful. He merely stared from adult to adult, unsure yet interested in what was happening. His face had an open and rather vacant look, an expression not normal on a five-year-old. His lower lip hung, adding to the wide-eyed bewilderment. He blinked up at Orion.
“What is your name, boy?” Orion had asked.
The mother bent to repeat the words to the child in Aramaic. The child thought it over carefully and said to Orion, “Benjamin.” Then slowly he said something to his mother and waited for her to say it to Orion. The woman hushed her boy, but Orion asked, “What did he say?”
And the woman, blushing crimson, replied in halting Greek, “He wishes to touch your face, sir. His father and his uncles have beards, and he has never touched the smooth face of a man.”
Orion went to his knee and put his chin out. The child first inspected Orion’s cheeks, then reached and put his palms on either side of Orion’s face. He rubbed his cheeks and patted them, serious as a merchant in a barter. Then, satisfied, the child smiled at Orion and looked up at his mother. Orion rose, and looked at Rhodinia.
“This child is not five. He is four.”
Rhodinia shrieked, “He is almost six! He is older than my Theophocles! And he is a Jew!” Then she realized with whom she argued. She dropped her eyes and cut a furious stare at the mother.
“He is four. He just turned four. He has another year with his mother,” Orion informed her. Rhodinia, with a white ring about her lips, had nodded and excused herself. Benjamin’s mother followed after, shepherding her child, and gave Orion a backward look he never forgot. It wasn’t gratitude, exactly, unless it was a stunned sort; it was a look he had never been able to define. Was it hope? Fear? Confusion? It was a look to visit him now and then, at the oddest of times.
Orion rubbed back the beginnings of a headache. “Where are you from, Joab?” he asked, deliberately shutting away the look of the Jewish laundress.
“Hebron.”
“Hebron. Isn’t that near Jerusalem?”
“South of it. East of Beth Ophra.” Joab flickered a look at him. What was that look? Then Orion remembered. Of course, Beth Ophra. Early this year Pilate had sent a cohort there to snuff a minor rebellion involving, as ever, the Zealots. Political tensions ran particularly high in the south, owing to the celebrated Jerusalem—and any sort of inflammation could usually be laid at the feet of the Zealots.
It made him think of the man who was to arrive any day from Rome, Pilate’s friend Decimus Vitellus Caratacus. Pilate had made a comment the other day, how Decimus would find the shenanigans of the Zealots amusing. He wondered if Decimus would find Pilate’s decree for the Jewish stonemason amusing.
“More gravy, Orion? Orion?”
Orion looked up. “Yes. Please.”
“You are making me crazy,” Marina said as she spooned the gravy onto his plate. “What are you trying so hard to not talk about?”
“What did Pilate put his paw into this time?” Theron asked.
Orion sat back. “Two problems tonight. Both have my stomach boiling.”
Theron tore off another hunk from the loaf. “Talk, my friend! Rabbi Theron is here. Soon your mind will be eased and your conscience at rest.”
“You may have to call in the rabbis on this,” Orion muttered. “You may have to take it to the Council.”
Theron stopped in mid-chew and regarded Orion. “You are serious.” He looked at Marina. “He is serious.” He sighed and tossed his bread on his plate, shoved it away. “Why do I get the feeling I am about to lose my appetite?”
Orion chuckled despite himself. Theron had already eaten enough for two. But the matters made the smile disappear. He put his elbows on the table and gripped his fist. “Here is the first: a Jewish stonemason for the new Tiberateum has refused to work on the Sabbath. Pilate’s judgment is this: grant him the Sabbath off, but punish him for it. He is to be scourged seven times seven . . . for every time he doesn’t work on the Sabbath.”
Shock froze the table. Joab paused with his cup halfway to his lips. Theron stared. Marina’s face went from disbelief to belief to anger. Her lips pressed into a thin line, and she and Theron exchanged a long, grim look.
“Forty-nine?” Theron finally demanded of Orion.
Bleakly, Orion asked, “What am I to do? Tell me what to do. Pilate will want details on this. I have one week to come up with a solution.”
“Forty-nine?” Theron growled. He rubbed his forehead. “And he wants details? Such as, will he survive forty-nine?” His hand dropped to the table. “What if this man changes occupations?”
“No chance, he was conscripted for service.” He glanced at Marina and dropped his eyes. “He has a family. Eleven children.” He hated to admit his helplessness. He liked being Marina’s sometime champion for her people, but it was always in small ways. This was huge. It did not involve a few whispers or slipping someone a coin. It wasn’t a game anymore. “If I don’t give this order, Pilate will find out.”
“Why do the evil always preside?” Theron demanded angrily, his thick black brows plunged into a scowl. “Why are not good people in power? Herod the Great was never great, he was an idiot. He had a chance to do something for us, but cared only for himself. And God help us from the procurators. Well—Valerius Gratus was better than Pilate. . . .” He held up a tiny space between his thumb and forefinger. “By about this much.”
“Gratus would never have paraded Roman standards in Jerusalem. Gratus would not have dipped into the Temple treasury for a Roman aqueduct. Gratus would not have crucified Jesus of Nazareth. We are not talking about Gratus, Theron.” Orio
n picked up his cup of wine and took a deliberately slow sip.
Marina had her chin in her hand, thinking furiously, to judge by her frown. She shook her head. “This one is not so easy, Orion. Sometimes Pilate can be led about like a placid donkey. This time . . .” She blew out a breath, then looked at Joab. “What do you think, Joab?”
After a quick glance at Orion, the lad licked his lips and said, “I think it is time for the Zealots to depose him.”
Orion sat back, rolling his eyes. By the gods, he had enough to deal with. He didn’t need the ignorant rhetoric of a young Zealot.
Theron lifted his eyebrows and appraised Joab. “So. My apprentice shows himself.”
Joab took his napkin and wiped his mouth. “Raziel of Kerioth has an idea that if all the factions can be brought together—”
It was too much, and Orion’s hands went into the air. “Raziel of Kerioth!” The name could set ablaze a heap of wet laundry. “Theron, can you tell your apprentice that for me to sit in earshot of that name is treason?”
Theron ignored him and said musingly to Joab, “I would not have taken you for a Zealot.”
Joab raised a defiant chin. “I am not a Zealot.” The defiance came down. “Not anymore.”
Theron threw a look at Marina. “Not anymore . . .”
But Joab looked at Orion. “You said there were two situations.”
The lad had intelligence in his eyes—for a young fool. Only a fool would talk of Raziel in front of Pilate’s number one. Yet he had the temerity to look Pilate’s number one straight in the eye without glancing away—and his question made Orion look away.
The other situation. “Yes. In some ways as tricky as the first.” Theron grunted at that. It didn’t make Orion feel better, but at least this matter was not as heavy as the other. It was nearly a relief compared to it.
“A woman has been coming to the palace for a couple weeks.” He already felt his face begin to warm. By the gods, he hoped Theron and Marina wouldn’t pick up on his admiration of her. He would be teased without mercy. “A Jewish woman. Eighteen years ago she planted a tree in the southeast quadrant when it was empty scrubland. It’s near a slope facing the Mediterranean . . . right where the new granary is going up. Apparently it is a custom of yours to plant a tree when a baby is born?”
Theron shrugged as he looked at Marina. “Yes. For some.”
“It is in Hebron,” Joab offered. “A cedar for a boy, an acacia for a girl.”
“We have different customs,” Marina explained. “Sometimes according to region.”
“The branches of the tree will be used to construct the chuppah,” Joab said.
“The what?” Orion asked.
“The wedding canopy,” Joab said. “For when the child is married.”
“It is a nice custom,” Marina said softly, nodding.
Orion inwardly winced; she and Theron did not have children. That was one subject of which the plucky Marina did not speak.
Theron put it together. “A Jewish tree planted where Rome is building a granary. So go on with what is about to become a heartbreaking story.”
“Pilate says cut it down. That’s what the workers tried to do from the beginning. The woman says the tree belongs to her Nathanael and will be cut down only if they take the ax to her as well.”
He happened to be looking at Joab when he spoke, and Joab’s eyes had gone wide. Perhaps it was a very important custom in Hebron. Theron and Marina did not seem so offended.
He scratched the back of his head. “Anyway, I feel sorry for her. That she has managed to save the tree this long is amazing. The foreman doesn’t know what to do with her.” He didn’t know what to do with her. “Stubborn thing. I should pit her against Pilate. Put them in a room and see who comes out worse for wear.” He chuckled. “She would make a great procurator.”
Theron cleared his throat. “This woman. What is she like?”
“Well, she—” But he caught Theron’s face. He had a funny little smile. And Orion certainly didn’t like that tone. “What do you mean, what is she like?” he snapped. That was the last thing he should have done.
Theron’s face suddenly shone in delight. If a face could caper, Theron’s did. He shook his finger at Orion and beamed at Marina. “Ah, Marina, set another place next Sabbath!”
Orion held up his hand. “No, no, no. You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty!”
“She’s a prostitute.”
Theron’s glee came down. “Oh.” But then he raised his arms in an expansive shrug. “So what? We shall reform her of her wicked ways. I have not seen a woman unsettle you yet. Not even Nashir’s daughter, and she could turn the head of a eunuch.” He banged the table and laughed loudly at his own joke. “She could make a eunuch curse the day he was born, let alone curse the day he—” He caught Marina’s look.
“Oh?” Marina said archly, folding her arms.
Theron’s expression changed so fast it was Orion’s turn to laugh. “Marina . . . turtledove . . .”
“How would you like to curse the day you were born?” she asked him sweetly.
“Marina,” he pleaded, hands on his chest. “I am an artist! It is hard for me not to notice beauty.”
“I’ll give you something to notice.”
Theron did not deserve to be rescued, but Orion took the conversation back with, “Listen . . . the Jews on the job are clearly in a dilemma. I went to the site myself and spoke with one of the Jewish workers. They want to support her because she is Jewish. But she is also a prostitute. For the Jews to take her side would mean condoning her occupation. ‘How can we support her? What kind of example is that to the pagan workers?’ That kind of thing.”
“What is her name?” The question came from Joab. Strange, the question. Stranger yet his tone.
“Rivkah.”
The name was an explosion.
Theron and Marina gasped as one. Shocking enough, their reaction. But Joab . . . his face went the color of ashes. He stood up so fast his chair fell over.
Marina and Theron pulled from their distress to stare with Orion at Joab. He was flat against the wall, pale as the plaster.
“I—I don’t feel so well,” the boy stammered. “Onions do not sit well in my stomach. Please . . . excuse me.” He stopped short when he saw his overturned chair. He righted it, then hurried back to the passage and ducked through the curtain.
Marina stared after him. “But . . . I didn’t serve onions.”
“How would he know Rivkah?” Theron demanded to know.
“How do you know Rivkah?” Orion snapped.
But Theron did not answer. He thoughtfully tapped a thick finger against his lips, looking to where Joab had left. “He said he was looking for a Jewish prostitute. And I am now thinking he did not mean in that way.”
Orion looked at the curtain flap too. The little reprobate was looking for Rivkah? What then? Was this prostitute’s—talent—known far and wide?
Theron had shrunk into a deep brood. He pinched his lower lip and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. Considering how huge the lip was, it was not a pleasant effect. “I wonder if he is a friend of Nathanael’s,” he murmured to himself.
Orion took his eyes from the rolling lip and said to Marina, “How do you know her?”
“We invited her to a Sabbath meal, a long time ago,” Marina murmured. Her mind seemed only half on her words. “Nathanael was only a little boy then. They came every Sabbath after that, for nearly a year. Until she feared for our reputation. As if we ever cared about such a thing.” She threw a scornful look out the window. “Not many people around here could countenance her visits. They treated her shamefully.”
Such a defiant thing she was. A little younger than Orion himself, maybe in her early thirties. He remembered the first day she came. Throughout her impassioned speech, Orion had to constantly train his mind to her words. She did not wear a decent head covering like every other Jewish woman. She wore that filmy gre
en-blue veil, secured by a circlet of bangles that tinkled every time she made a vehement point. Which was often. She was not tremulous with the intimidation that usually accompanied anyone who brought an appeal past local magistrates to the doorstep of Pilate.
Daily she haggled her request under his nose as if good bargaining could make both walk away pleased. It wasn’t that simple. No, she couldn’t clean the palace floors for a year. No, she couldn’t work in the kitchen. And no, thank you very much, but it would be inappropriate for Pilate’s chief secretary to—and she had laughed at his blush—accept other . . . services. (On that score, he kept his gaze fixed on his tablet while hastily assuring her the proposal itself was not unappealing. It was simply, well, the wrong time and wrong palace.) Thankfully she only offered that bargaining chip once. Orion had a measure of fortitude, and did not care to discover its limitations.
The last few days she had tried a different tack, throwing reason on her request. To save this tree is for the good of Rome, she had declared.
For the good of Rome? Orion had countered with an incredulous grin. This is interesting. Tell me how it benefits Rome.
She had drawn herself up, haughty as a patrician lady, and replied, Many of my—and here she faltered, just for a blink—my clients are Roman. Important Romans, she had direly assured. Romans in Caesarea only on business. It would not do to have those very important Romans know about the way things are run around here. You place great importance on diplomatic relations, and this is nothing short of a matter of diplomacy. It could very well become an incident.
Orion had just stopped himself from laughing out loud. He was doing well, he thought, acting as though it were no different looking into her eyes than looking into Pilate’s. An incident? he had repeated, wide-eyed, folding his arms.
And the woman came close to laughing herself.
Every day she had acted as though Orion himself could grant her request, and he should do so immediately—with remuneration. She had all the imperiousness of a woman who had justice coming to her on a solid silver platter.
“What are you smiling about?” Theron demanded. Then he said, wistfully, “Perhaps you see she is more than just beautiful.”
