The Liars' Gospel (18 page)

Caiaphas, attempting to impress the older man, had spouted the lines he had learned.

“There are eleven spices in the incense,” he said, “frankincense and myrrh and cassia and spikenard and saffron and—”

“Listen to yourself. Stop. Understand how much is necessary for that list you spool out. Where does the saffron come from?”

Caiaphas shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “From flowers?”

“From only one flower, which grows most plentifully only in Persia. We use a sack of it every month. A good handful of saffron
is the product of ten thousand flowers. A hundred handfuls in a sack. A hundred men laboring crouched over their flowers are
needed to supply us with saffron alone.”

Caiaphas looked out over the Temple courtyard, where he could count easily a hundred priests hurrying about their duty. He
nodded slowly.

“You are not impressed, I see. You think that a hundred men laboring in the hills of Persia are not so very much for the glory
of God. Then consider. They dry those tiny threads in the sun. They bundle them into sacks—and where do the sacks come from?
Someone must weave them, someone must stamp them with our seal. They put the sacks into the back of a closed wagon—and who
made that wagon? Who bred those mules? The wagon is driven by a strong man, with five other men guarding it. They pass through
mountains and valleys. A dried-up riverbed. A pasture of waving grass and biting gnats. They fight off bandits who attempt
to steal the precious treasure. At night they take turns to sleep. Perhaps in the crossing one of their usual waterholes is
empty. Perhaps one of the animals dies. They must change the route regularly or the bandits will ambush them. They must check
the sacks for weevil and mold—if it rains too heavily and the saffron becomes wet, their journey is in vain. At last they
arrive in Jerusalem, if we are lucky. And of all these things, do you know what is the most needful?”

“The cunning of men,” said Caiaphas wonderingly, “all the craft and skill given to them by God, to elude the bandits and to
keep their cargo safe.”

Annas shook his head.

“A thousand dangers threaten. And to make the incense, we need not only the saffron threads but also those other ten fragrant
ingredients: frankincense and myrrh, spikenard and fennel resin, cinnamon and ginger, cassia and balsam, distillation of rock
roses and wine from Cyprus. And we need salt from Sodom, amber from Jordan, lye from Carshina. Think of the many wagons bringing
them from around the world. And consider that all these go to make just the incense, and not any of the other sacred matters
of the Temple. And you are correct that cunning and skill are needed to make them and bring them to us.

“But most important of all, none of this can happen if at any point along the way a war is being waged. If an army is laying
siege to a city, the saffron wagon will be requisitioned. If angry defeated soldiers are wasting enemy land, the saffron will
be burned. If the men who tap the trees and pluck the stems and brew the wine and mine the salt have been taken for an army,
their work will go undone. To bring us all these things, that which is most needful is peace.”

Annas drew himself to his full height. He was an exceptionally tall man, over six feet. “That is the role of the Cohen Gadol.
To maintain the Temple services. To maintain the peace. Nothing is more important.”

Two people come to him with a disputation. Natan the Levite shrugs apologetically as he brings them in and whispers, “I’ve
tried to sort this one out myself, but the two stubborn goats insist on seeing the High Priest. If you order them both flogged
I won’t blame you.”

He has a mock-rueful smile on his face as he bows his head low and leaves the room, muttering, “The Cohen Gadol, if his judgment
is sufficient for you and you do not require a voice from heaven.”

They are traders in the outer courtyard of the Temple. They both sell the pure white doves that are used for the thanksgiving
sacrifice brought by a woman after she has given birth and recovered safely from those many dangers.

It is holy work to sell the birds. There are three or four families who have done so for generations. They breed the birds
in dovecotes just outside the city, catch them by hand—for no bone can be broken before they are sacrificed—keep them docile
with a special mixture of seeds which each family guards closely.

And now this. A tall gaunt man of about fifty with a close-cropped beard and a loose skullcap stands before him. Next to him,
a short woman in her sixties with sun-cured skin and a heavy gait. Caiaphas would ask each of them what the matter is, but
neither of them will let him speak.

“I am but an old woman,” she says. “I have no strength left in my bones. The place nearest the entrance is fitting for me,
for I cannot carry my wares across the great courtyard.”

“Pah,” he says, “pah. I suppose you have not four strong sons whom I have seen carrying your wares and your stall for you!
I suppose those four strong sons did not threaten my Jossya with cudgels unless she moved her stall to the far end of the
courtyard.”

“My sons would never threaten,” the woman snaps, “unless they were provoked. Isn’t it true that your daughter Jossya crept
behind their stall and released the birds intended”—and here the woman sheds an impressive tear—“for the Lord’s holy table,
so bringing shame on the whole house of Israel?”

“If she did it is because she knew that your family have stooped so low as to catch the birds with nets! I have seen birds
dragging a broken wing on your stall, sold at a low price to farmers who know no better. I have seen them try to make their
sacrifice and be turned away by the priests and come in shame to buy a good bird from me or my daughter. It is you who should
be ashamed.”

“You spread these lies about my family so that people will pay your inflated prices! Everyone knows you have grown rich off
the piety of the poor!”

“You have grown rich yourself, bringing shame on the holy house of the Lord!” he says.

“You have tried to steal from an old woman in her last years on the earth!” The woman has brought herself to the point of
real half-hysterical tears now.

“You are a liar and a thief!” The man is so angry his face has turned pale, his nostrils flaring, the skin of his neck beginning
to redden.

“Do you see how he speaks to me? In the chambers of your holy presence!”

Caiaphas continues to be silent. He watches. He waits. They are in a chamber of his house next to the Temple. Through the
small half-shuttered window which looks on to the inner courtyard, he can see the sacrifices being performed. A meal cake
and oil are utterly consumed. The Lord forgives the sin which prompted the sacrifice. The man and woman burn themselves out
after a few more angry expostulations and before they come to physical blows.

He smiles his diplomatic smile, the guileless face he puts on to deal with common men and with the Prefect. He is all sympathy,
all respect. He is sometimes amazed by the way his mouth carries on speaking and his face composes itself into such a usefully
sympathetic arrangement while inside his mind he is thinking only of, for example, his wife leaning in to take the ripe date
from the sticky fingers of Darfon, son of Yoav.

They reach an agreement after a time: the woman will have her stall near to the front all days of the week but Friday—a day
when many people come to buy offerings—and they will both submit to stock checks by one of the Levite treasurers under Natan’s
command. Outside, the sacrifices continue.

Annas comes to see him at the end of the day, as he is relaxing in his city home. He has two homes: the official residence
at the Temple, which he uses during the day for his business, and this, his own house in the city, the place he had built
for himself and which would still be his if he were no longer High Priest. Here he is a private man, insofar as he can be.

His daughters have put out fresh goat’s milk and bread with soft white cheese mingled with thyme leaves and good black olives
from the north. They have poured the cold clear well water into an earthenware jug and flavored it with citron. The courtyard
of his house is cool and still when Annas comes to visit.

Annas arrives unannounced, as he so often does, but he is welcome. He is a powerful man still, both physically and politically.
He is wide in the shoulder and his arms are well muscled—when he was High Priest, it is said he could bring a fretful ox to
its knees by the force of his grip. And his personality, Caiaphas thinks sometimes. Annas is a clever man with a strong will.

He became High Priest just when the old King Herod died, when his various heirs, mostly also named Herod, were squabbling
and pleading with the Emperor for pieces of the kingdom. Many said that Annas bought his way into the office with bribes to
the Prefect and the captains of the army, but he stayed there because he was able to broker deals between the Temple and the
Prefect, between the King and the people, between heaven, it sometimes seemed, and earth. He had spies—“Not spies,” he would
say, “friends”—in the courts of the Governors of Syria and Egypt, and even some said as far as Rome itself. He is no longer
High Priest now—an earlier governor took that position away from him when he tried to execute a man for murder, because Rome
does not allow its occupied states the privilege of executing their own criminals—but he still has as much influence as ever.
He gives good counsel, and Caiaphas embraces him as a welcome guest when he arrives.

“I hear the sellers of doves have come to blows,” says Annas, chewing on an olive and spitting the pit into the bushes of
the courtyard.

Caiaphas shrugs. “They have been ready to kill over the bird of peace for the past five years.”

“I also hear that you dealt with them extremely well. Both families seem to feel they have come out best from the bargain.”

Caiaphas smiles in spite of himself.

“It was no judgment of Solomon.”

“Even Solomon is remembered for only one case. Your day may yet come. Besides, it is a good training ground for you. I will
not live forever and someone will have to do my work when I’m gone.”

Caiaphas is well aware that Annas says this frequently, to various men, including several of his sons. Caiaphas is some way
down the list of successors. And yet it is true: it is hard to imagine who will stop the various factions in Judea from shattering
apart and breaking themselves on the wheel of Rome after Annas is gone.

“You have many good years left,” says Caiaphas.

“Mmm,” says Annas. Then, staring up through the vine-laden trellis above them to the cool night sky, “Have you heard that
there will be war between King Herod Antipas and the Nabateans? There’s no way to prevent it. King Aretas of Nabatea is still
fuming on his throne in Petra that Herod dared to divorce his daughter. He’ll use these border scuffles as an excuse to invade
the south.”

“A war? Over a dishonored daughter?”

“Men love their daughters, Caiaphas.” Annas grins, showing his teeth, and bites off a piece of bread.

Caiaphas’s wife serves them boiled whole Galilee-fish wrapped in herbs and freshly cooked flatbread, with two sauces, one
of yoghurt and one spicy with cumin and hot pepper. There are aubergines stewed in olive oil and doused in hyssop and dried
parsley, and roasted onions seared from the fire.

She bends this way and that as she lays out the food and gives them their plates. She is beautiful and he cannot help but
watch her still, the way her robe outlines her buttocks when she stoops and the sky-blue square covering her hair slips a
little as she moves. She is past forty and has given him two sons and three daughters and still he desires her. And he wishes
his suspicion were not true. And he hopes that it is not. But he thinks of her eyes darting to Darfon and a fire burns in
his veins.

When she has finished with the food, she comes and wraps her arms around Annas’s shoulders, leaning in close, and he kisses
her on the cheek.

“Is he treating you well, my darling?” Annas says, laughing.

“Oh, father,” she says, “he’s terribly cruel and beats me every night.” She winks and smiles and they all laugh, because it
is so very far from anything that could ever be true.

Caiaphas would not be High Priest if it weren’t for his wife. He knows it, the whole city of Jerusalem knows it. There is
no shame in it, not really. This is how a man becomes powerful: by becoming precious to men who are already powerful, by impressing
an older and wiser man with his skill and his cunning, and by marrying his daughter.

Annas was High Priest for ten years before the Prefect demanded he resign the office. But Annas’s power has not waned. He
has been succeeded as High Priest by his sons, one after another, none of them for quite long enough to secure a power base
for themselves. And now it is the turn of Caiaphas, his son-in-law, who has been gently shepherded through the twists and
turns of office, spoken of highly to the Prefect and the other priests and to Herod Antipas, the king in the north. And by
dint of diplomacy, and through Annas’s support, he has somehow clung on longer than all the others. Annas has given him special
favor. Men love their daughters.

The next day, after he has finished with the morning sacrifices, there are various pieces of business to attend to. Natan
the Levite arrives carrying a jar of wine from Tyre under his arm.

“From that Asher family in the north,” he says, “the people who had the trouble with bandits. They’ve offered fifteen casks
in place of their tribute.”

“Is wine less likely to be stolen than grain?”

Natan shrugs, scratches his grizzled beard.

“Fewer wagons for the same value. They can protect it with a smaller number of men.”

“And keep more men to work their farm, and send fewer of their sons to make the offering at the Temple?”

Natan pours the wine into Caiaphas’s two earthenware cups, rough red pottery on the outside, smooth blue glaze inside the
bowl. The wine smells good as it gushes into the cups.