Humiliation ate at her like a worm at a fig. After her father took the shekel, she’d begged Gilad for more time to pay the rent. He hadn’t flirted—and he surely hadn’t talked of marriage—but he’d agreed not to throw her family out of their home. “As the Most High is merciful, so am I,” he’d announced. “But there is a limit to my mercy.” If she didn’t have the full rent by tomorrow, the day after Tabernacles, they would be sleeping in the street by nightfall.
The din of clattering hooves and braying donkeys echoed off the stone walls. She took a deep breath, tasting the dust and promise of heat. Where would they be after tomorrow? They had no one to turn to in the city. Her parents had lost their friends when they’d succumbed to gambling and wine. Her father’s family was long buried. Her mother’s people in Bethany hadn’t spoken to them in years.
Cedron persevered in prayer each day. “The Lord is my strength and my shield,” he sang. “My heart trusts in him and I am helped.”
But Nissa knew better.
She guided Cedron past the Pool of Siloam, rounded a corner, and arrived at the doors of the synagogue where Cedron said the morning Shema. It was crowded with pilgrims, already singing songs of thanksgiving. Women and children lined the walls, waiting to hear the word of the Almighty. She had been like that once.
As a child, she had memorized the words of the Tehillim, the songs of praise and thanksgiving. The songs had filled her with joy, and the praise of the Lord had filled her with peace. But no more.
She pushed through the crowd, ignoring grunts of displeasure from shabbily dressed men. When Cedron was positioned near the front, she left him and joined the women. Why should I praise the one who abandoned me? And what is there to be thankful for?
She’d been hopeful when the Feast of Tabernacles began. For ten days, the city was filled with pilgrims. At night, they lived in tents in the olive groves and vineyards outside the city. Each morning, the high priest, followed by the people, fetched water from the Pool of Siloam, carrying it in a golden pitcher to the altar of the temple. Surely, with all the feasting and goodwill, she would find work.
She’d walked the streets of the upper city until her feet bled, knocking on doors. She offered to scrub their marble floors, clean their stables, carry water. They took one look at her and shooed her away with words she wouldn’t use on her donkey.
Abba watched others at dice. Mama disappeared most days. Nissa and Cedron shared Amit’s barley and drank water from the Pool of Siloam to fill the emptiness in their bellies.
Nissa slumped against the wall and surveyed the men in front of her. If she had a husband, life would be better. But it was too late for that. Several men in this very synagogue had come to her father when she was young, shopping for a wife. But none had wanted her.
Beg or whore, her mother had said as her hopes of marriage dwindled. Those were her choices if a man didn’t speak for her. Begging didn’t bring in enough to keep her and Cedron fed. And selling her body in the brothels of the lower city? Cedron would die of shame, and they would both die of starvation.
It’s not my fault. It’s because Abba is one of the am-ha-arez. She couldn’t remember the last time Abba had prayed the Shema or tithed to the temple. Yes, it was his fault they were despised, but they would starve just the same.
The bleak voice whispered between the murmurs of prayers around her. There is another way.
No. She shook her head to dispel the voice. No more stealing. The idiot centurion was still looking for Mouse. Perhaps Abba would come to his senses tomorrow when his family had nowhere to lay their heads. Perhaps he’d take Amit outside the city and gather wood to sell at the market, like he’d done before he’d surrendered to the lure of the dice. She’d do it herself, but no one would buy wood from a woman.
When the prayers and songs ended, she found Cedron outside the doors of the synagogue easing toward a loud group of men, their faces flushed with excitement.
A man in a worn robe spoke out. “There is no master but our God. The Romans defile our city. We’ve been under their rule for long enough.”
Another man, a pilgrim from the country, pushed forward. “But the Sadducees, the traitors, they’re in bed with the Romans. They’ll do whatever it takes to keep their money and power, even support the pagan occupation of our land.”
“The Pharisees are no better. We must fight the Romans, not compromise with them!”
A scruffy young man stepped forward. “I’ve heard there’s a man who calls himself the Messiah.”
A man as old as Noah grumbled, “Another messiah?”
The youth nodded. “The Sadducees hate him. So do the Pharisees. But the people love him.”
The pilgrim spoke up. “Yes, and he performs miracles. Heals the sick. Makes the lame walk. Thousands flocked to hear him in Galilee.”
The youth lowered his voice. “He’s in the city for the feast. He speaks in the temple almost every day.” He glanced to each side. “Perhaps he is the one to overthrow the Romans. If we can get enough men and some weapons—”
“Come on, Cedron.” Nissa dragged her brother away from the group. “This can only lead to trouble.” No good would come from the Zealots plotting against the Romans. Enough of them had already been crucified.
Cedron turned his sightless eyes to her, his brows raised. “Nissa. Bring me to the temple. I want to hear this man. Perhaps he is all they say. If he can cure the sick, heal the lame . . .”
Nissa’s chewed on her lip. How many miracle workers had they seen? How many times had Mama brought Cedron to a man claiming to be a prophet, a healer? Too many to count. Magic men curing lame beggars who were never lame to begin with. So-called prophets full of promises. Frauds. This one would be no different. She guided him toward the street. “We need food more than we need a prophet.”
“Perhaps he is the one who will deliver us from the Romans.”
How could he think about overthrowing the Romans when they didn’t even have bread? “Today is the last day of the festival. There will be plenty of pilgrims coming through the Dung Gate. Maybe you’ll get enough to buy barley.” They passed through the dyers’ district in the southernmost edge of the city.
“The Dung Gate? Nissa, I need to be at the temple. And it’s the Sabbath.”
Nissa didn’t alter their course toward the southern gate. Better that he get a few coins for barley than chase after a charlatan. “Begging isn’t considered work; you know that. But don’t let the Pharisees see you tying any knots.” Her voice held a note of contempt that made Cedron scowl. He should worry less about the law and more about what they would eat tonight. He sighed and nodded, but she could feel his disappointment in the weakening of his grip.
She squeezed his hand. “I promise, Cedron. We’ll see the healer together. Tomorrow.” Tomorrow, when they had no home.
After she settled Cedron at the Dung Gate, she trudged home. She pushed through the gate into their courtyard. The fire was out, as usual. Would it be too much to ask of Mama to keep it lit?
“Amit, I’m home.” Nissa rounded the corner of the house. No soft-nosed donkey brayed in greeting.
“Mama?” She ducked into the dim house. Her mother slept propped in the corner, her dusty cloak askew, her gray-streaked hair unwashed and loose.
Nissa shook her mother’s shoulder. She awoke with a snort.
“Where’s Abba?”
Her mother rubbed her hands over her face and wet her cracked lips with her tongue.
“How should I know?”
“But Amit isn’t here. Is Abba gathering wood?” Perhaps her father really was going to take care of his family.
“On the Sabbath? Ha!” Her mother stood, swaying unsteadily. “He doesn’t work any other day of the week. Why would he work on the Sabbath?”
“He took Amit.”
Her mother rubbed her hand over her lined face like she was trying to remember something. “He took him to Gilad.”
“To Gilad?” Her stomach dropped. But that
made no sense. “Even if he gets a good price, it won’t be enough to pay what we owe.” Better to keep the donkey. Gilad would throw them out either way. What was her father thinking?
Her mother picked up an amphora, shook it, and dropped it back on the ground. “Said some nonsense about winning him back at dice.” She snorted. “With your father’s luck, Amit will be at the tanner by tomorrow.”
The tanner? Not her dear Amit. Pain squeezed her chest like a clenched fist, and she fought to draw a breath. Amit was gone. Her father had doomed them all to the streets. Was this where Cedron’s trust in the Lord had brought them?
Her mother slumped back in the corner.
Nissa ran for the lean-to. She threw herself into the pile of straw, rage boiling up in her. By tomorrow, her Amit—the only one who knew her secret—would be slaughtered, his skin used for cheap leather and his body rendered for tallow. She rubbed her burning eyes. And now they had no way to gather wood, no money for food or rent, and no soft-nosed, brown-eyed donkey to listen to her troubles.
Cedron would say, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him and I am helped.” But the Almighty hadn’t helped them, not for a long time. And he wasn’t about to start now.
The dark voice whispered its refrain. You don’t have a choice.
She breathed in the smell of donkey and dry straw. The voice was right. There was only one way to save herself and Cedron, and maybe even Amit.
Dangerous, yes, but in one day—one afternoon—she could steal enough for a week’s food and rent. She could move with Cedron to a little house of their own, a place where they wouldn’t have to put up with her mother’s drunken binges or her father’s rage. She wouldn’t have to dress in rags and eat barley, and she could save Amit.
Trumpets sounded in the distance, announcing the third hour of the day.
She sat up and wiped her runny nose. Today was the last day of the festival. The temple courts would be crowded with rich Pharisees and Sadducees. The same rich men whose wives had insulted her and refused her a decent job. Why shouldn’t she steal from them? They deserved it.
She brushed the straw from her hair and stood up. If the Almighty wouldn’t help her and Cedron, Mouse would have to. Mouse would take care of them both.
NISSA SLUNK DOWN the dead-end alley to her hidden hole in the wall. Mouse’s disguise lay buried under the dirty straw, just as she’d left it and pungent enough to make her eyes water. She changed quickly, winding the linen tightly around her chest. She bound her hair, covered it with the dirty cloth, and rubbed her face with a charred piece of wood and some dirt. Her father’s cloak was a good substitute for the one she’d left in the centurion’s hands. She didn’t care if he missed it.
She’d made the mark on the wall near Siloam, but would Dismas meet her? She’d ignored his marks for almost two weeks; perhaps he’d given up on her.
If he doesn’t show up, I’ll go by myself. Without Dismas’s skill at distraction, stealing would be more dangerous and she wouldn’t get as much, but she had to try.
She was breathing hard by the time she reached the meeting place. Sweat trickled down her back and dampened her tunic, but her fingers tingled and calm focus seeped through her. When she was stealing, she thought of nothing else. Not Cedron, not her parents, not even Gilad.
She’d hardly drawn two breaths inside the cramped space when Dismas eased in beside her. Relief rushed through her limbs. She wouldn’t have to go alone.
“So. You decided to try again? I must admit I was surprised to see the mark after all this time.” Dismas ran a dirty fingernail between the cracks in his yellow teeth.
“I was busy.” Nissa pulled her head covering closer around her face.
“You were scared.”
She bristled. “Since when have I ever been scared?”
“Since that centurion scared the skata out of you last time. You probably had to wash your tunic that night!” He grinned and shoved her.
A smile tugged at Nissa’s lips. Dismas was uncouth and crude, but she’d missed him.
He sniffed her shoulder. “You smell like a stable. I told you, Mouse, you’ll never get any girls that way. Clean yourself up. When I was your age, I had girls begging to lie with me.”
Nissa’s cheeks heated. She hadn’t missed Dismas’s talk of women.
Dismas picked at his fingernails. “Always have something for them. That’s the key, Mouse, a pretty bangle, a little perfume. How about we get you a pretty little something today, and you can get yourself a girl?”
She pushed past him. “Let’s just go.”
“What’s your hurry? And why today, on your feast day? There are only Greeks in the marketplace.”
She shook her head. “We’re not going to the marketplace. We’re going to the temple.”
“The temple?” His black brows pulled together.
Dismas didn’t like taking chances. But he did like taking money.
“It’s the last day of Tabernacles. The temple will be packed with pilgrims. There’s a man there, a miracle worker with crowds that follow him.”
Dismas rubbed his beard. “I’m with you so far. Crowds, money, plenty of distractions. But also Roman troops and your temple guards.”
Her heart sped up. That centurion—Longinus—might be there. But she needed silver. “We’ll stay away from them. Keep to the center of the crowd.”
“They’re looking for us. Especially you.”
So Dismas had heard of the reward for Mouse and the Greek. “We’ll be fast. They won’t even know we’re there.”
Dismas raised a brow and smiled. “Mouse, I’m proud of you. You’ve finally grown some órcheis, even if you can’t seem to grow a beard.”
Nissa flushed and looked at her feet.
“Let’s go then, my little friend. Don’t get too close; they’ll be looking for a pair.” He sniffed again. “And stay downwind.”
Chapter 6
DISMAS LED THE way, gliding through the side streets and around the marketplace. As they reached the bridge linking the upper city to the temple, a river of rejoicing pilgrims swept them along. A song of praise filled the air. “Give thanks to the Lord of lords, whose mercy endures forever.”
A woman dressed in rough wool and sturdy sandals smiled down at Nissa. “Come on, boy. Sing!”
Nissa moved her lips to the words. “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad.” She’d be glad when she had money to pay the rent.
The crowd marched south to the Huldah Gates. Men and women herded children and carried lambs, pigeons, and baskets of wheat. They lined up to enter the temple through the massive double doors.
Beggars lay on the steps below the doors, crying out for mercy. Blind men like Cedron, men with the vacant eyes of infants, grotesquely disfigured men. But it was the women who made Nissa’s heart twist in pity. Women who were little more than piles of dirty rags. One clutched a skeletal baby to her withered breasts. See what trusting in the Lord brought you?
She cut through the line, weaving amid the packed pilgrims through the Huldah Gates into wide passageways that crisscrossed under the temple mount. The crowds of pilgrims shoved their way up two steep staircases and finally emerged in the Court of the Gentiles.
Nissa blinked at the bright sun reflecting off a sea of polished stone and searched for Dismas.
The immense Court of the Gentiles ran along three outer edges of the temple. Its wide paved squares were open to both Jews and Gentiles, even to beggars and the diseased. Along the east side stretched the Royal Stoa, four rows of towering stone columns—each as big as the trunk of a cedar tree. A carved cedar roof spanned the colonnade, forming three covered walkways wide enough for ten men to walk abreast. In each walkway, stacks of cages held turtledoves and pigeons, lambs bleated in cramped pens, and money changers stood at tables cluttered with scales and weights.
Groups of pilgrims from Babylon, Thrace, a
nd every other province of Rome lined up to buy sacrifices and change their silver for the Hebrew coins they needed to pay the temple tax. The din of animals, shouts of merchants, and clang of silver ascended like a discordant song to heaven.
Yes, it is a good day to steal.
There was Dismas, in the shadowed stone columns of the Stoa, next to a group of brightly dressed Alexandrians. She slipped past warm bodies and eased close to him. He glanced down and winked.
“Do you see soldiers?”
He craned his neck. “On the east side. By the Beautiful Gate.”
In the center of the complex stood the temple sanctuary, rising on terraced platforms and guarded by stone balustrades. A tall, ornate entrance, rightly named the Beautiful Gate, glittered at the top of fifteen wide stone steps. Inscriptions carved in both Greek and Latin warned any Gentile against passing on pain of death.
Languages from every corner of the empire swirled around them as Dismas wove through the crowd with the grace of a leopard. Nissa followed, sliding through even the smallest gaps between pilgrims.
Nissa eyed a gaggle of rich women—the wife and daughters of a high priest, perhaps. One ran a hand over her shining black hair, brass and silver bangles tinkling on her wrist.
These preening pigeons haven’t gone hungry a day in their lives. Nissa stumbled forward and came down hard on the black-haired woman’s delicate sandal.
“Watch yourself, boy!” She bent to rub her scraped toes and glare at Nissa.
“Please, lady, I’m sorry,” Nissa mumbled as she tucked three bangles into her tunic.
A jeweled brooch dangled precariously from the older woman’s elaborate braid. When she bent her head toward her giggling daughters, Nissa helped herself to the brooch without disturbing a hair on the woman’s head.
Nissa shifted through the milling pilgrims, avoiding the entrances to the central courts where the Roman soldiers stood guard. The pagan Romans couldn’t pass through the Beautiful Gate or into the Court of the Women beyond it. Farther into the complex rose the Court of the Israelites, for ritually pure men, and then the Court of the Priests, where bulls, lambs, and pigeons were sacrificed on the great altar of unhewn stone.
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