Jerusalem's Hope (25 page)

“But they're up to something.” Emet was certain he was correct.

“So's everybody up to something,” Lev spat in irritation. “
I'm
up to something!” He raised his hand as if to smack Emet across the mouth.

Blue Eye growled a warning and stood stiff-legged to protest the hostile gesture.

Lev lowered his hand. “So. Et tu, Blue Eye? Always taking the side of scrawny worthless things, aren't y'? Well, just remember who feeds y', dog! All right then. Tell this stump of a boy you're so fond of to shut up or I'll take a switch to him when the dogs are away!”

Blue Eye sat down on his haunches, content to have Lev back off. Emet gave up. Why should he expect Lev to be impressed with anything he said?

Lev didn't care one whit that there were men lurking in the woods beyond Beth-lehem. Maybe Emet shouldn't care either.

ZEH DEVAR

T
he synagogue at the fortress of Herodium had been declared unclean so long ago that Roman soldiers freely used it for dice and the practice of fighting techniques when the weather was bad.

At the request of Oren, Marcus banned the games. The nearly forgotten Torah scrolls and copies of the writings of the prophets were removed from storage and once again made available for the stonemasons to study on
Shabbat
and during their off hours. It was good for morale among the guilt-ridden and much-maligned workmen. The synagogue became a house of worship where the outcasts of Israel could meet, study, and pray once more.

Marcus was invited by Oren into the sanctuary. It had been scrubbed clean, Latin graffiti removed from the pillars. The place was, in fact, a beautiful structure.

“I remember the stories of this palace from when I was young,” Oren remarked. “My father told me that the future tomb of old Herod was more glorious than the tombs of Israel's true kings. But it didn't make Herod the true King of Israel.”

Silence. Then Marcus asked, “Who
is
the true King of Israel?”

“All that's behind us,” Oren said. “Our King was meant to be from the line of David. Herod clearly was not. He had the genealogy records destroyed at the Temple the same year the star appeared in the heavens.”

In a flash of memory Marcus recalled one of the anecdotes he had heard about the madness of Herod the Great. “Thirty-some years ago. In Beth-lehem. A rival king being born and . . .”

“I was a boy. A great star appeared. We used to sit up on the roof to watch its progress. I remember it! I was five or six that summer. Everyone said it meant something wonderful. A king born in Israel to save us all. But nothing came of it . . . except it pushed Herod further into madness and cruelty.”

A sign in the heavens? A star? A king from heaven born to redeem the suffering world? Marcus knew that in the lore and legends of Rome such visions had been seen and written down. Always, however, they related to Rome's pantheon of gods, and often to human rulers. Could myth be truth in this case? He waited to hear more.

“I can show you in Scripture. Everyone learned it well.” The stonemason shyly opened the first scroll of Isaiah. Scanning the page he found a place and began to read:

 

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name, Im manu'el.
That is, God-with-us.
The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light . . . For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. . . .”

 

Oren scanned the rest silently for a moment. At last he raised his face to Marcus. “This was supposed to be our promised Messiah.” He shrugged. “Some have said he's alive. In the north. The Galil. Yeshua of Nazareth. Have you heard of him? Many are saying he'll come to Jerusalem this year.”

Marcus didn't admit he had seen Yeshua or that he believed if any man could be the king and savior of a hurting world it was Yeshua of Nazareth. To speak such a thing aloud would be tantamount to treason against Rome.

Some phrase of Roman poetry stirred in Marcus' mind. “I've heard this prophecy before . . . something like it. An oracle recorded by our poet Virgil.” He closed his eyes and remembered the stern face of his tutor during recitation. Then he spoke the words aloud to Oren:

Oren stared at him in amazement.

Marcus had heard those stanzas applied to the Emperor Augustus, the god-man who had brought the golden age to earth.

There were other supposedly miraculous occurrences connected with Augustus, but everyone rational understood them to be political propaganda.

Nobody had ever seen Augustus raise the dead.

Besides, Marcus thought, it was possible the verse of Virgil had been lifted from the Isaiah scroll and adapted to fit Roman religious belief. Yet it was clear that there were those in Rome who expected a god to be born of a virgin and to reign on earth. To a certain degree they, like Marcus, would comprehend the meaning of the son of God taking human form and coming as a king.

“Messiah. King,” Marcus said. “The Caesars of Rome claim they are sons of gods. Though I've yet to see one heal a cripple or raise a little girl from the dead. Rome won't appreciate anyone who is capable of these things.”

“Then you've heard of him?” Oren stared at him intently.

“Who hasn't heard of him?”

“I'd like to hear him teach. For myself, I mean. See the miracles. I'd given up hope until I heard . . . all the stories. Do you think it's possible?”

Marcus considered his words carefully. “If he is what people say he is, God help him. There's not a more stiff-necked nation in the empire than your people! And if the sons of Herod the Great are half as jealous as their father was, they won't take kindly to competition. Herod Antipas made his position clear when he executed Yochanan the Baptizer, didn't he? And as for Rome's pantheon of sons of the gods, they'll resent him, surely.”

“But if he is the Messiah, they won't be able to harm him,” Oren stated.

“Well, there's a test for you then. But I don't suppose it will keep them from trying.”

Emet watched the glowing orange ball of the sun sink rapidly toward the west. The late-afternoon sky was a pale blue, daubed with translucent white smears of clouds.

The boy was anxious to get his next chore completed and wished it would start soon. He, Ha-or Tov, and Avel were to take an evening meal to the shepherds on the far side of the valley. The longer their departure was postponed, the darker the return journey would be.

Despite Lev's derision, since hearing the voices on the wind, Emet was afraid of what . . . or who . . . lurked on the hillside. Fear of ridicule made him draw back from sharing his concerns with anyone else, but in Emet's heart a shadowy dread grew.

Ha-or Tov sat on the edge of the stone wall, dangling his feet as they waited for the baskets of provisions. He appeared totally unconcerned with the approach of darkness. As he said, after living in its totality for so long, night was a mere inconvenience and nothing more.

Avel teased Emet about his nervousness. “We're surrounded by thousands of sheep and a hundred shepherds. The stonecutters go back to Herodium at night and the Romans go out on patrol. What's scary in any of that?”

Rejecting the notion of taking Avel and Ha-or Tov into his confidence, Emet substituted, “It's the jackal. There's still a jackal out there.”

Ha-or Tov considered this. “It's plenty light right now,” he said, gauging the angle between the sun and the horizon.

“But it won't be on the way back,” Emet argued. “What if it grabs us?”

Zadok approached with three wickerwork containers of food. After handing the larger ones to Ha-or Tov and Avel and a smaller one to Emet, he extracted something else from the folds of his robe: three leather slings, their straps cut down in size to fit young boys.

“If you're to be shepherds,” the white-haired man said as he offered the weapons, “y ' must practice with these. An accomplished slinger can hit a mark at a hundred paces. Good protection from jackals . . . or other creatures.”

Emet was confused. Did the old man somehow know about the voices on the wind? If so, he said nothing further.

“No hitting sheep with these,” Zadok instructed sternly. “Practice against trees and rocks and remember: a slingstone can kill a man if it hits him in the head.”

The three apprentices agreed to be careful, indicating their understanding of the gravity of the new tools.

“It was from near this very spot,” Zadok continued, “that the youngest son of Jesse of Beth-lehem . . . it was David, who was later our king . . . set out to watch his father's flocks.” Zadok's words stopped as his face turned toward the setting sun. Emet wondered what extraneous thought about a shepherd's son had disturbed the old man's concentration.

Shaking his head, Zadok returned to his lesson. “In his day David killed lions and bears with one of these.”

“At my age?” Avel asked.

“Only a little older,” Zadok returned. “And then he struck down the giant Philistine warrior, Goliath of Gath. One stone to the forehead was all it took.”

Avel and Ha-or Tov immediately searched the ground for suitable rocks for their slings.

Emet continued to watch Zadok. How was it possible that such a battle-scarred, gruff elder could at times display a side of such understanding of boys?

“Off y' go, then,” Zadok said sternly. “No dawdling! I don't want you falling into a pit because y' got lost in the dark. And the night watch won't like it if you spill their suppers either!”

The night was the thickest Emet had ever experienced.

That was the only word he could think of to describe the sensation of the darkness. He could almost touch it.

Or, more correctly, he could sense its touch on him.

A surreptitious caress on his cheek, the barely felt lifting of the hair on the back of his neck. And sounds! So many sounds! Too many! The air moaning with the wind. The breath of sheep kneeling in sleep on the slope. The hum and tick of insects. Things creeping in the brush. And the murmur of men's voices carried in dark octaves of sound.

The journey was full of broom brush that mimicked bears and boulders that appeared as lions. But none of these was as terrifying as the writhing, groaning blackness itself.

Patting the fold of his robe where the sling was lodged didn't comfort Emet. The one thing that would help would be to get this duty completed, rejoin Avel and Ha-or Tov, and, as quickly as possible, return to the safety of Zadok's house.

They came to the hilltop above the Valley of the Sheepfold. Standing beside a chalky boulder as big as Jerusalem's Dung Gate, Avel said: “Here's where we split up. Emet, you go down there, to the watchmen in that canyon. Then we meet back here.”

It sounded like a reasonable plan. That is, until the darkness closed in around him without any watch fire being seen, without any hungry shepherds eager for their supper.

When Emet looked back, he could no longer see the boulder that was the sentinel of safety. He thought then about retreating, about running up the slope all the way to the meeting place.