14
IT STARTED with an innocent question.
"Daniel, what is a wedding?"
Across the mat with its earthen dishes, Daniel looked at his sister. They sat late over their morning meal. He knew that the shop door should be open, but he was in no hurry about it. Well into the morning hours he had celebrated the wedding of his new friend, Nathan, son of the tax collector. He felt heavy-limbed and slow-witted. He wished Leah would stop prodding him with questions.
How pitifully little the girl knew of the world outside their walls. Had their grandmother never talked to her? In the early days here in Simon's house, he and Leah had eaten their meals and done the work with few words. Then, out of his own loneliness, he had begun to talk, as he used to talk to Samson, sorting out his own thoughts aloud, not expecting any response. Leah had listened in silence, as Samson had done, but later she had astonished him by remembering. She had begun to ask questions, odd, childish questions that revealed an incredible ignorance. Lately, since Thacia's visit, there had been altogether too many questions. She wanted to know about the girls he saw in the village, what they wore, what they did in the town, what they talked about. He did his best to answer her, because he could understand how his words were like a window through which she could peek out at a world of people she did not dare to meet face to face. Now, scowling in the effort, he tried to tell her about a wedding.
"It's a feast," he said slowly. "On the day a man takes a bride into his house. When all his friends come to celebrate with him and wish him happiness."
"Does the bride have friends too?"
"Oh yes, all making a fuss and talking at once."
"Did many people come to Nathan's wedding?"
"Well no, not so many as usual, I guess. Of course this was the first wedding I've been to since—" Since that far-off night when he had carried a torch in his uncle's procession! He hurried on. "You see, Nathan is ashamed because his father is already making money from the tax collection, so he refused to let his father give the feast for him. I guess as weddings go it was a pretty poor one, but Nathan was satisfied."
"Did you have good things to eat?"
"Yes. Cakes and lots of fruit and grape wine." Curse his selfishness! Couldn't he have brought her a morsel?
"Tell me about it, Daniel!" Her blue eyes sparkled. He wished he had Joel's gift for words.
"First we went to the bride's house. Her family had made garlands out of flowers. Nathan and Deborah stood in the garden behind the house, because the house was too small to fit in so many people."
"Was the bride pretty?"
"I don't know. I guess Nathan thought so."
"As pretty as Thacia?"
For a moment he was disconcerted. Then he remembered that Thacia was the only girl she knew.
"No," he said honestly. "Not so pretty as you, either."
"What did she wear?" Leah looked pleased and flushed.
"Oh—" he floundered. "A dress—white I think it was. And a veil over her head, and the flowers. Then we all made a procession to Nathan's new house. There were some little boys who played on pipes, and we all carried torches, and the older people threw rice and grain at the bride."
"Why?"
"Oh—it's a custom. To wish her a fine family. And everyone sang songs and shouted and clapped their hands and stamped their feet."
He stopped at the alarm in her eyes. Even the mention of noise terrified her. She could not imagine that noise could be merry. He got to his feet and began to clear away the meal. But Leah did not move, only sat brooding over what he had told her.
Finally she asked, "Will Nathan's bride live in his house with him all the time?"
"Of course. Just as our mother and father lived in our house."
"Daniel," she said slowly. "When you bring a bride here to live with you, what will happen to me?"
He was completely taken aback. "That's a silly question," he snapped. "I'm not going to marry."
"Why not?"
"Because I have no time for such foolishness. Not till the last Roman is gone from our land."
"Is Nathan foolish because he has a bride?"
Daniel felt his good humor sliding away. "It is another matter for Nathan. I have taken an oath. I live for just one thing—to rid us of our Roman masters."
His voice sounded loud in his own ears. Was he shouting at Leah—or himself? Angrily he began to pull on his cloak. He felt sore, as though she had unexpectedly probed a wound he had not even been aware of.
"Are the Romans our masters?" she asked, her soft voice sounding puzzled.
"Don't you even know that?"
She sat silent. But as he opened the door of the shop he saw that another question was beginning. He did not intend to listen. He had had enough for one morning. But the words caught him like a suddenly flashing net.
"That soldier—the one who comes into your shop sometimes—the one who rides on the horse? Is he a Roman?"
"Yes. May his bones rot!"
"Is he your master, then?"
"Ask him! He would say he is!"
"Oh Daniel—how silly! He is only a boy, not half so big and strong as you. And he is homesick."
A fury of impatience seized him. "What does it matter how strong he is? He carries a sword. He has the whole Roman army to protect him!"
"Daniel—why are you so angry at the Romans?"
In a rage of frustration he glared at her. Because they did this to you! he wanted to shout at her. Because they robbed you of your parents and a decent life and a chance to drink out of the marriage cup like that girl last night. Because they robbed you of everything—all but one thing. A brother to avenge you!
Suddenly all he wanted was to get away from her. He felt choked. A heavy weight he could not understand dragged at him. But as he stumbled through the door he turned back.
"What made you say he was homesick?"
Her eyes looked up at him, misty blue. "I think he is homesick," she said. She bent and began to roll up the mat.
Furious, he slammed the door behind him. Homesick! That stiff-necked son of a camel!
But where had she learned the word?
He could not put his mind on his work. His head throbbed. Without warning, Leah's childish questions had unleashed all the rebellion he had kept so carefully chained. All day at the forge he thought of the mountain. Twice he laid down the hammer and went to stand in the doorway of Simon's shop, looking up at the line of hills shimmering in the heat against the unbroken blue of the sky. Up till now he had been able to deal with his restlessness, push it down out of sight, hammer it out with great blows on the anvil. Today it seized him with the strength of a hundred demons. All day he stuck to his work, trying to hammer out his longing on the metal, frying to keep his eyes from the distant hills. In the late afternoon he laid down the hammer, banked the fire carefully with earth as for the Sabbath, and bolted the door of the shop.
"I must be away tonight," he told Leah. "There is food and water, and oil enough to burn all night."
"You will come back?" Could she sense the demons that were driving him?
"Of course I'll come back. Bar the door when I have gone."
He took the road toward the hills. With every step the tiredness went out of him. As he began the long climb he could feel the air growing cooler. A light breeze moved the tops of the cypress trees. With every breath he drew in freedom.
How many nights, lying on Simon's rooftop, had he imagined the moment when he would walk again into camp? For a few moments it was just as he had pictured it—the shouts, the surprise, the good feeling that he had come home. But the brief excitement soon died down. Rosh, after a sharp demand for news, went back to an oath-studded argument with two of the men. No one else had much to say to him. Daniel wandered about the camp, noticing a few new faces, trying hard to experience the elation he had expected to feel. Then he knew what was missing. He had been watching, all the way up the trail, for a motion on the hillside above, for a familiar welc
oming figure to come bounding down to meet him. Ridiculous. The black man had something better to do than to sit watching for him after all these weeks. But why wasn't Samson somewhere about? The forge had been heated. He could feel the warmth of the stone when he laid his hand against it.
"How's the village?" asked Joktan, coming in with a load of thorns which he flung down near the fire. There was a hint of hostility—or was it envy—in his voice. "Did you b-bring anything to eat?"
Daniel looked surprised. He had come away empty-handed without a thought.
"We've had trouble getting meat lately," Joktan explained. "S-some of the shepherds made an ambush. You'd think they'd taken lessons from us. Two of our men got beaten—bad. The shepherds are in a mean humor, and Rosh ordered us to lay low for a while."
Daniel was suddenly uncomfortable. Up here on the mountain he had taken for granted that the flocks that grazed on the slopes were free for the taking. Now he knew by name the men who owned those flocks. They were not wealthy men.
"Oh well," Joktan said. "Rosh won't be patient long."
Daniel laughed, pushing away his uneasiness. "Where's Samson?" he inquired.
Joktan shrugged. "That's anybody's guess. Samson has his own rules."
"Rosh lets him?"
"Rosh l-leaves well enough alone. If you ask me, he's sorry he ever got the brute. But Samson earns his keep. Look! There he is now. G-goodness, look what he's brought!"
The giant stood at the head of the path. Over his shoulder, as easily as a rabbit, was slung the carcass of a sheep that must have weighed more than a man. Swinging it from his shoulders, dropping it to the earth, he stood grinning, looking from man to man, waiting for their praise. With a shout Daniel sprang forward. At the vast white-toothed smile that split the black face, his own spirits gave an answering leap. For a moment the two stared at one another. Then Samson stepped over the carcass of the sheep. When he would have gone down on his knees, Daniel reached out both hands and grasped the powerful arms and held on hard. They stood grinning at each other wordlessly.
Two men had pounced on the carcass and were worrying off the skin with the ferocity of jackals. Others heaped thorn branches on the fire and made ready the spit. Men poured from the cave into the clearing as word of a feast spread. Rosh, glowering from the door of the cave, shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.
While the meat was cooking Daniel debated with himself. Was this the time to tell Rosh about his band? But he did not want to spoil the moment when he could confront Rosh with a real army. Besides, he had chosen a poor day to come back. Rosh was obviously out of sorts.
"Your friend Joel," Rosh inquired once. "Ever see him again?"
"Yes," said Daniel. "Quite often."
"Keep an eye on him," Rosh growled. "I'm going to need him soon." He said no more, and only half listened as Daniel tried to tell him about the move to Simon's shop.
Later in the night Daniel sat watching the thorn fire leaping and crackling. He felt satisfied, full of roasted mutton. He leaned back against the rock, feeling with his shoulder blades for the remembered niches. "It's good to be back," he said.
"G-good to be full," Joktan commented, wiping a hand across his grease-smeared chin. "We've got you to thank fork."
"You mean you've got Samson to thank."
"Samson only did it for you. He knew you were coming all right. He j-just knows things. He's deaf, maybe, but he hears things that aren't there. Look at him sitting there s-staring at you. You'd think you were one of his gods. You think it's an accident we've had the only good meal in a week?"
Someone else, too, knew that the meal had been no accident. Glancing at Rosh, Daniel saw the small eyes, above the unkempt tangles of black beard, glittering at Samson. The dislike in them startled him. Rosh had gorged himself on the forbidden mutton, but he hadn't forgiven the one man in the camp who had dared to flout his orders.
Later still Daniel lay awake. Overhead the stars were big and close. The cool air was clean, free of the mists and taint of the town. He lay filled with meat and wine, his old comrades stretched out beside him. It was all just as he had imagined it on those endless steaming nights in the town. Yet sleep did not come. He turned over, twisting his shoulders to fit a hump in the rocky ground. In these few weeks his body had forgotten the feel of pebbles. In the same way, his mind shifted uncomfortably, trying to find a resting place.
Pictures began to form in his memory. Leah alone behind a bolted door. Joel reading aloud from the scroll. Thacia standing in the doorway of the smithy in her striped headdress. Simon looking away down the road, waiting for Daniel to accept the offer of all he owned.
Simon had chosen a different leader. Daniel thought now of the one meal he had shared with Simon's comrades. He remembered the silence as Jesus had stood to bless the meager feast, and how each one had taken less than he needed so that those outside could be fed. A closeness had seemed to draw them all together. Tonight, who but Samson had cared that he had come back?
All at once he thought of Leah's little black goat. Would some child in the village be hungry because of tonight's feast?
At the first gray glimmer he got up. Instantly Samson was awake. Daniel put a hand on his shoulder. For a moment he stood, shaken by the question that stared from the dark eyes. Then he shook his head and made his way among the sleeping figures to the top of the trail. Samson did not try to follow him.
He wished he could take the black man with him. But how could that huge figure fit into the narrow cage of his life at the smithy? Samson would alarm the villagers and terrify Leah into a corner forever. No, Samson belonged to the free life on the mountain.
Where did he himself belong?
The fire in Simon's forge had almost gone out. He raked back the ashes, blew on the coals and coaxed it back to life. Then he opened the inner door to the house. Leah looked up at him, her blue eyes as lifeless as the fire. She had not combed her hair or bothered to get herself breakfast. With irritation he saw that the water jar was empty and that he would have to stand in line at the well with the snickering women. He bent and picked up the jar, and the bars of his cage slid into place around him.
15
FROM THE MORNING when Daniel went back to hear Jesus on the shore of Capernaum, life in the village began to seem less burdensome. Though he would have been surprised if he had stopped to realize it, the long hot days of the month of Ab came to be the happiest he had ever known.
He went first because Joel had asked him to, and because he was still curious to find what it was about the preacher that had drawn first Simon and then Joel. Two days later he went back again, because he could not get the words of the carpenter out of his head. After that, nearly every morning in the week he rose before dawn and walked three miles to the city to join the little crowd that always waited at the shore. Though it meant that his shop would be late in opening, Simon encouraged his coming, and seemed glad to see him. Daniel could meet Joel and talk with him freely, and often he had the added reward of Thacia's flashing smile. Even the fishermen came to greet him by name.
It was harder to explain to himself why he sometimes was drawn to Bethsaida at night, when he could not expect to meet Joel, and when he could only sit in the little garden of Simon's house and listen to the words of Jesus. He did not always understand the words, and often he walked home puzzled and impatient, but a few nights later, almost against his will, he would go again. He was still not sure what Jesus intended to do, but day after day the hope and promise in Jesus' words drew him back.
At mealtimes he told Leah the stories he had heard. Sometimes he thought that if the long walks to Capernaum and the hours away from his work had accomplished nothing else, they had at least given him something to talk to Leah about.
"Was Andrew there?" she would ask. "Did he have a lot of fish in his net? Did the rich women come and bring food for the poor people?"
She would sit with her own food untouched, wanting only to listen. Often when he returned late at nigh
t she would bounce up on her mat, her eyes shining with wakefulness, and hug her knees with her arms. Even when he was too tired to think he would manage some bit of news before he climbed to his bed on the rooftop, or the disappointment in her face would nag at him.
It puzzled him that this timid creature who had never dared to venture beyond their tiny garden patch should now be so curious about the busy life of the city. How could he possibly make her see it, when she had never even glimpsed the little crossroads and the well and the small flat synagogue that made up the center of their own village?
"I like to go in the morning best," he told her. "When the fishermen are just coming in with their night's catch. Some of the families have been bringing their boats in at the same spot for years, so that everyone takes it for granted that certain places belong to certain men. That's why no one really dares to interfere when Jesus sits and talks, because everyone knows that that spot belongs by right to Simon and Andrew.
"Why should they want to interfere?"
"The overseers think he keeps the men from starting their work. Not the fishermen. They have been out all night and their work is done. It's the men loading the trading boats who stop and listen when they should be working. And people like me with work waiting to be done at home."
There was so much he could never find words to make her see. The lake, gray and still at sunrise, the hills beyond like huddled sheep, the first lines of camels and donkeys coming sleepily to the water's edge. The crowing of a cock somewhere in the town, and the first busy chirping of sparrows, and, abruptly, the swifts, coming from nowhere, filling the air, darting over the water. And then suddenly the sun, leaping over the hills, warm and yellow, so that the mists melted and the lake shone blue and sparkling. The boats coming in, dragging the nets with their heaving burdens of fish. The smoke of little fires quickly lighted and the fragrance of roasting fish Worth getting up in the dark, even when his tired muscles pleaded for a little more rest; worth the long walk to the city and the waiting. But how could he put it into words?
The Bronze Bow Page 13
