The Ironsmith (38 page)

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you want to go back to Tiberias? To your old life?”

“I don't know.”

He was a wretched creature. After two months with Joshua bar Joseph, he looked and smelled like a peasant.

“Come along,” Caleb told him. “That's it. Stand up. I'll take you to the baths, where they'll wash your clothes and the steam will revive you.”

They spent four hours in the baths. Caleb never let him out of his sight. He didn't dare.

After he was clean and had drunk some wine and had eaten a slice of cold melon, Judah began to return to himself. He began to complain that he could not remember the last time he had tasted meat, so Caleb ordered him a plate of grilled lamb. Judah ate it all and then curled up naked on one of the marble benches and fell asleep.

It was almost midnight when he awoke. The baths would have closed hours ago if Caleb hadn't bribed the attendants. The two men dressed and walked to Caleb's house, where they spent another two hours drinking wine. Finally the servants made up a bed for Judah in one of the rooms reserved for guests, and Caleb locked him in for the night.

Fortunately, Michal was in Jerusalem visiting her family.

The next morning Judah, who had lost the knack of drinking, was in a sullen mood and suffered from a headache. He cheered up after breakfast and another jug of the Cyprian wine Caleb had been saving against the day he was named warden of the city.

That was when Caleb began to interrogate him about Joshua.

“I see.”

Joshua really was a dangerous revolutionary. The trick was putting that conclusion into terms that a political simpleton like Judah could understand.

“‘God's kingdom,'” he repeated. “But God already rules the universe. Do we not pray to Him, every day, calling Him ‘King of the Universe'? God rules history—one only has to read the Prophets to know that. And He rules in Galilee and Judea and in all the lands where Jews worship Him. He lives in Jerusalem, in the Temple, in the Holy of Holies. Why does this fool Joshua preach the coming of a thing which is already here?”

“I don't know.” Judah looked uncomfortable, but then, he was a little drunk. “Perhaps he means God will rule
directly.
”

“Directly?”

“Yes.”

Caleb could only laugh.

“What are men but His instruments? Does a mason chip stone
in
directly when he uses a chisel? God rules
directly
now.”

“I hadn't thought of it that way.”

“I suppose not.”

They were on the roof of the house, where Caleb could be sure no servant was listening. He knew that Eleazar had spies in his household, but none of them could have known the identity of his guest.

The sun had just broken free from the eastern mountains, so the morning was still cool. There was even a slight breeze. The world seemed both serene and beautiful.

But it was all an illusion. Caleb had long since concluded that life was no more than a cruel jest. There was neither mercy nor justice. There was only struggle.

Joshua bar Joseph might believe in angels, but Caleb bar Jacob knew better.

“If your prophet has his way,” he said, pronouncing each word with elaborate care, “if this glorious, divine revolution ever happens, all it will mean is that mankind exchanges one set of masters for another. In place of the Tetrarch, we will have some peasant dictator. And the ground will be covered with corpses. Trust me. There will be death everywhere.

“But he will not have his way, because no one is listening.”

“Then why did you send me to him?”

Caleb regarded his cousin with faint amusement. This child of a Levite family as old as his own, this pleasure-loving dabbler in religious fantasy, wanted to know
why.

“That you might achieve your salvation,” he said. It was perhaps as true an answer as anyone deserved.

“I don't understand.”

“No, I am aware that you don't.”

Caleb decided he had sufficiently baffled the man and it was time to change the subject.

“What is Joshua doing in Nazareth?”

“Visiting his family. His father is ill and not expected to live long.”

Judah was eyeing the wine jar in a way that suggested he might like to hide inside it, so Caleb poured him another cup.

“His family, I gather, is not sympathetic.”

Judah shook his head, even as the cup was at his lips.

“No.”

“I gather few people are.”

“Some are. He gains followers everywhere he goes.”

Caleb considered this. A man goes about preaching that God's kingdom is at hand. He has small groups of followers scattered over the countryside, but he seems to stay away from the cities. Is such a man dangerous? Probably not. Probably Eleazar was right about that.

For one thing, revolutions usually began in cities, where there was power to be overthrown and the numbers at hand to accomplish it. You needed a mob to start a revolution. Peasants in the countryside did not pose a threat unless they were pushed to the edge of starvation, and sometimes not even then.

Joshua bar Joseph was not a threat to the established order, but he could be made to look like one. Jerusalem, after all, was a city.

“You are sure he is going to Jerusalem for the Passover?”

“Yes. He has spoken of it. He goes every year.”

Caleb did not wish to know any more, primarily because he did not want to draw attention to his interest.

“What is your opinion of him, Judah? I am curious.”

The disciple's face registered first surprise and then wariness, as if the question might be some sort of trap. His eyes fell to his empty wine cup, which rested on the table in front of him. He seemed to be trying to decide how it had come to be there.

“Just tell me. Don't be afraid,” Caleb said, refilling the cup.

Judah took a swallow and then set the cup down. The gesture was like a decision made.

“I think he is a good man,” he said. The look in his eyes was wary and at the same time almost defiant. “I think he is a man of God, and I believe he wants to redeem the world. He would save us all if he could. He is without hatred or envy or malice. He truly loves his enemies. He would rejoice to lead the worst man on earth to the love of God.”

It was a challenge of sorts, and Caleb felt a strong inclination to smile. But he did not. He met Judah's eyes with a steady gaze.

“Was it hard for you to say that?” he asked finally.

“Yes.” Judah blinked and looked away, like a child expecting punishment.

“Why? Because you are afraid of me?”

“Yes. I know what you are capable of.”

It was like a slap in the face—the rebuke all the more telling for being administered by a coward. Caleb waited until he was quite calm before he spoke again.

“Your holy man has nothing to fear from me,” he said, filling his own wine cup for the first time. “I will not disturb him while he waits for his angel. What you say has eased my mind.”

No one could have been more surprised than Judah. Whatever he had expected, it was not this. For a long moment he hardly moved, as he seemed to struggle to comprehend what he had just heard.

“You are free, Judah bar Isaac.”

“Free?” He hardly seemed to know what the word meant.

“Yes, free. Go back to Tiberias and rejoin your friends, if that is what pleases you. Your old life awaits you there.”

Caleb waited a few seconds and then smiled.

“Or perhaps that is not what you want. Do you want to remain with God's messenger?”

“I don't know.” Judah shook his head. “I only know that I don't want to be who I was.”

“Then think about it.”

With an almost ostentatious casualness Caleb patted the pocket of his tunic, as if trying to remember where he had put something. Then he pulled out a small leather pouch and dropped it on the table.

“Here,” he said. “You deserve a vacation from rectitude. Go out into the city and amuse yourself. Get drunk, stuff yourself with meat. Find a woman. Come back tomorrow morning and tell me what you have decided. But come back. Don't make me send the guards after you.”

Caleb had issued orders to have Judah followed—at a discreet distance—and the reports were illuminating. The whores of Sepphoris went disappointed. The peasant prophet's disciple wandered aimlessly for several hours, speaking to no one, and then bought one simple meal and a small jar of wine, which he carried away with him. When night fell, he curled up in a doorway and, apparently having lost the habit of comfort, fell asleep with his head against the cold stone.

The next morning he found his way back to Caleb's house.

“I want to return to Joshua,” he announced.

This was not a surprise. In fact, Caleb had counted on it.

“Well, at least stay for breakfast,” he said. “And return the purse. It will seem strange if you go back to your friends with so much money. They might wonder where you got it.”

They talked for a long time. Caleb made no effort to guide the conversation and was careful not to mention Jerusalem.

Judah simply needed to confess, first his own unworthiness and then his devotion to Joshua. Had it not been so foolish, it would have been touching.

“I truly believe God loves him,” he said.

“Does he perform miracles?”

“Not that I have seen, but Simon speaks of a woman who was cured of a menstrual discharge merely by touching him. He turned to her and said, ‘Daughter, your sins are forgiven,' and she was cured. Also, he once restored a blind man's sight.”

“But you did not see it?”

“No.”

“Curious.” Caleb smiled faintly. “I have heard hundreds of reports of miracles, but I have never met anyone who actually saw one. If you ever do see one—if Joshua raises the dead, for instance—you must be sure to tell me.”

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

At last, when they said their farewells, standing in the bright sunshine in front of Caleb's door, it was necessary to remind Judah that he had not quite slipped the leash.

“Remember who gave you back your life,” Caleb told him. “Remember that I can reclaim it anytime I wish. If you betray me, I will make you wish for death long before you die.”

It was interesting to watch the way fear seized him. Judah seemed to grow smaller even before his eyes. He was like a whipped dog that can think only to lick its master's hand.

“I would never…”

“I know.” Caleb raised his arm in dismissal. “Now go back to your peasant friends.” Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he said, “Be sure to come to me in Jerusalem when you are there for the Passover. I will not be difficult to find.”

It was all quite simple, he thought as he sat on his rooftop. The peasant revolutionary, whom they would not allow him to arrest, would go to Jerusalem to be arrested, tried, and crucified by the Romans. No blame would attach to the Tetrarch, who would nonetheless be brought to see that the danger had been real all along. Then, as the Tetrarch's eyes were opened, he would remember to be afraid and would turn from Eleazar to his servant Caleb.

Power was the one goal in life and, behind it, fear lurked as the only reality.

 

32

Never in his life had Noah been so impatient for a Sabbath. In the early afternoon of the preceding day, Abijah arrived to accompany him and Sarah to Nazareth. Noah closed the shop and they started out.

As usual, his sister and her betrothed had no attention for anyone except each other, and Noah was content to be alone with his thoughts.

Tomorrow, or possibly even today, he would see Deborah again. At the Sabbath dinner they would probably have a chance to speak to one another. Then, in another two days, the wedding would take place. He would not see his house again until he was able to lead her into it as his bride.

He had not thought it possible to miss anyone the way he had missed her during these few days.

Be patient,
he told himself.
Only three days.

They found Grandfather sitting beside his doorway. He looked up and smiled. Then he put aside the latch lock he had been repairing, wiped his hands on a torn piece of cloth, and stood up to greet them. He kissed Sarah, who then went into the house. He put his hand on his grandson's shoulder and then nodded to Abijah, who took the hint.

“I have it in mind to call on my friend Abner,” Abijah said.

When he was gone, Benjamin shook his head in mock dismay.

“Given a chance, he'd hang about all day, waiting for Sarah to come back out. I'm surprised you let him accompany you and Sarah here. City ways, I imagine.”

“He loves her, Grandfather. And he's an upright man. There's no harm in it.”

“I suppose you think I'm old-fashioned.”

“Yes.”

The old man saw the amusement in his grandson's eyes and smiled.

“Still, Deborah comports herself with more modesty.”

Noah, who felt no temptation to inform his grandfather of certain events which had taken place earlier in the week, offered only a vague agreement.

“She's a proper village girl,” Benjamin continued, patting Noah's shoulder as if this were all his doing.

“She's also a widow,” Noah added helpfully.

“That is true. So she knows what to expect.”

“I imagine she does.”

*   *   *

The next morning Benjamin and his grandchildren went to the house of prayer. They were almost the first to arrive, so Noah excused himself from entering with his grandfather and sister by announcing that he would wait for Abijah. In fact, he was hoping for a glimpse of Deborah.

But Abijah also came early, perhaps hoping to see Sarah, and thus the whole stratagem was on the verge of collapse when Noah had the happy thought that they should both wait outside a little longer so that Abijah could be introduced to Joshua.