My Glorious Brothers (10 page)

“Will our children grow up like savages in the wilderness?”

“No,” Lebel said.

“Or Jews who cannot read or write?”

Lebel shook his head.

“Then make peace in your heart, Lebel!”

Then Judas told the Adon that the few slaves in Modin must be freed. “Why?” “Because only free men can fight like free men.” Judas said. The Adon said, “Then ask the people—” And thus was our first assembly in the open valley. From the near-by villages of Goumad and Dema, people came to listen, and the synagogue would not hold them all, so Judas stood on the fragment of ancient stone wall to speak, and he said to people:

“I want no man who is faint of heart to follow me! I want no man who cares more for his wife and child than he cares for freedom! I want no man who counts the measure when he pours it out! I know a road that leads in only one direction, and who travels it must travel light. I want no slaves or bondsmen—turn them away or put weapons in their hands!”

“Who are you to talk like that?” some of them cried.

“A Jew out of Modin,” Judas said. There could be an incredible simplicity about him—yet a cunning measure of the people he spoke to. “And if a Jew should not speak, then I'll be silent”—and he began to climb down. But they shouted at him:

“Speak! Speak!”

“I don't come with gifts,” he said simply. “I come with blood on my hands—and there will be blood on yours when you listen to me.”

“Speak!” they told him. And afterwards, when twenty men from Goumad came armed, to seek him out, they asked in the village:

“Where will we find the Maccabee?”

And the people of Modin directed them to the house of Mattathias. Thus it was in the days before Apelles came back…

I told you how the road ran through our village and through the valley. There was much that Judas did, but this I took on myself, and each morning I posted one of the village boys on a high crag, where he could see the road for miles. Eastward, over hill and dale, through a necklace of villages, the road traveled to Jerusalem, but westward by stages it went down to the forest and through the forest to the Mediterranean. One day it was Jonathan, one day another of the boys, and as long as it was light they perched on the rocks, straining their young eyes for the glitter of a breastplate or the flash of a spear. I knew it must come and come soon; no secret can be a secret in a land like ours, where every bit of news travels like the wind through the valleys and the villages.

I had none of Judas's sublime faith. There were the weak and the strong, the poor and the wealthy, and it was well enough to talk about the warden and his men, but what would happen when the test came? Already Eleazar and Jonathan worshiped Judas; his every word, his every wish was their law. How can I deny that I envied the way they listened to him, the way they watched him! When I saw that, the old hatred, the old bitterness, the old resentment welled up in me—so that I asked myself over and over again, Why isn't he like other men? I soaked myself in guilt, because I knew deep in my heart that if Judas had been here, Ruth would be alive—and somehow I held it against him that there was never a word of reproach, never a word of blame for me, never a word of anger. Yet when John came to me looking for sympathy, I turned on him.

“Are you for this too?” he wanted to know. His wife was heavy with child.

“For what?”

“For war, for death? Walk in righteousness, it says, walk in peace. But when Judas speaks, we stop thinking.”

“What would you think of, John?” I demanded.

“At least, this way we live.”

“And is life so dear?” I cried. “Is it so good, so sweet, so just?” I caught myself. Was I like the Adon already? Was this my brother or a stranger? Yet in spite of myself, I said the cruelest thing I knew, “Are you a son of Mattathias, or a bastard? Are you a Jew?”

It was like the lash of a whip, and John cringed visibly; it was worse than the lash of a whip, for this was a saintly man who had never lifted up his voice against any living thing, but accepted God's will with that gentle Jewish Amen, so be it; and he stared at me for a while before he dropped his head and walked away…

And then Apelles returned.

In the morning, Nathan ben Borach, thirteen years old and fast as a deer, came leaping down from the hillside, calling, “Simon! Simon!” But all the people heard, and when I reached him, I had to push through the press of the people. “From where?” I asked him. “From the west.” “And how far?” “Two or three miles—I don't know how far. I saw the gleam you told me to watch for, and then I saw the men and I came.”

“We have time,” Judas decided, quieting them. “Go to your houses and bolt the doors and close the shutters—and wait.” He had a little silver whistle that Ruben had made for him. “When I call you, come—those who have spears with spears and the rest with bows. Watch your shafts when you drop them and shoot well.”

“And the men from Goumad?”

“It's too late,” Judas said, “and this will be for Modin.”

“We could go to the hills now,” someone said.

“And we could bend our knees to Apelles. Go to your houses, and those of you who have no heart, stay there, stay there.”

They did as he said, and doors closed and the village became silent. The Adon and Rabbi Ragesh and Judas and Eleazar and I stood in the square and waited. I had my knife in my belt, and under his cloak Judas wore the long two-edged sword of Pericles. Then Jonathan ran from the house and joined us. I would have sent him back, but Judas looked at me and nodded—and I held my peace. A moment later, John joined us, and with him was Ruben ben Tubel, cloaked and clenching his hammer under his cloak. Close together, the eight of us waited, until presently we heard the beat of a drum and the metallic clash of armor—and then the mercenaries came, first a rank of twenty, then Apelles in his litter, then sixty more in three ranks of twenty, no horsemen now, for which I breathed a sigh of relief, but walking among the mercenaries a Jew, a white robed Levite whom I recognized as one of the Temple attendants from Jerusalem.

The slaves set down the litter, and Apelles hopped out, grotesquely magnificent in a golden mantle and a little red skirt. How well I remember him as he stood there in the cool Judean morning, the apostle of civilization, his hair carefully set and curled, his cupid bow lips delicately rouged, his pink cheeks carefully shaven, his jowls underlined with a golden necklace, his capon bosom swelling the golden mantle, his fat thighs setting off his flounced skirt, his little feet encased in high silver sandals that wound up his dimpled calves.

“The Adon Mattathias,” he greeted us, “the noble lord of a noble people.” My father nodded, but said nothing. “And is this a welcome?” he lisped. “Are eight men a fitting delegation for your warden?”

“The people are in their houses.”

“Their pigpens,” Apelles smiled.

“We will call them if you wish,” the Adon said, gently and respectfully.

“Presently, presently,” Apelles agreed. “You suit my mood. There is a civilized way of doing everything. Jason!” he cried, waving at the Levite.

Hesitantly, the Jew joined him. The man was afraid. His face was as white as his cap, and his tiny beard and his two tiny mustaches trembled visibly.

“Now welcome, Joseph ben Samuel,” my father said gently, “to the poor hospitality of Modin.”

“
Shalom
,” the Levite whispered.

“An ancient greeting, a warm greeting,” the Adon said. “And peace unto you, Joseph ben Samuel. Our house is enriched with an elder of the tribe of Levi.”

“He comes to the sacrifice,” Apelles lisped smilingly. “The great King to his poor wardens saith thus, ‘My heart is heavy with this dark folk and their dark worship. An unseen God makes a secretive and vile people.' So saith the King to me, his poor warden, and what else should I do but obey his orders? Yet I brought the good Jason here, a Levite, so that you might sacrifice in your own way.” He clapped his pudgy hands, and two mercenaries fetched a bronze altar they had been carrying and set it down before us. It was a slim thing, about four feet high, and crowned with the figure of Athene.

“Pallas Athene,” Apelles said, mincing around the altar. “She was my own choice—Wisdom. Knowledge comes first and then civilization. Is that not so? Later Zeus and the swift Hermes. A complete man is a full man, is that not so? Make a flame, Jason, and burn the incense—and then we will have the people forth to see the Adon do honor to this noble lady.”

“Yes, make a flame, Joseph ben Samuel,” my father said. “Pallas Athene—later Zeus and the swift Hermes. Make a flame, Joseph ben Samuel.”

Looking at the Adon, never taking his eyes off the Adon, the Levite approached the altar. Then, with one quick step, my father reached out a long arm, seized the Jew, and in a motion so quick I could scarcely follow, drew his knife and plunged it into his heart.

“There is your sacrifice, Apelles!” he cried, hurling the dead Levite against the altar. “For the Goddess of Wisdom!”

The shrill sound of Judas's whistle broke the morning air. The two mercenaries who had brought the altar leveled their spears and came at us, but Eleazar raised the altar and flung it at them, bowling both over. Apelles turned to run, but Judas was on him, his first grasp short and stripping off the golden mantle. Half naked, Apelles tripped and fell, rolled over, and then squealed wildly as he saw Judas above him. With his bare hands, Judas killed him, lifting him by the neck and snapping it suddenly, as you do with a chicken, so that the wild squeals stopped and the head lolled.

Then, for the first time, I saw Judas fight. The mercenaries were driving down on us, their brazen shields lapping, their shovel-like spears leveled. Judas drew his sword; I picked up the spear of one of the groaning mercenaries Eleazar had struck, and Eleazar had gotten from somewhere a wine mallet, an eight-foot pole with twenty pounds of wood at the end of it, used for mashing grapes in a deep cistern. The blacksmith joined us with his hammer, but it was Eleazar who broke the first rank of spears, charging in and using the long, heavy pole as a flail. Judas was beside him, sword in one hand, knife in the other, never pausing, never still, quicker than I had ever dreamed a man could be, a stroke here, a cut there, always in motion, always making a circle of steel around him with the sword.

It was not a long battle, and my own part was small. The spear of a battle-maddened mercenary tore my cloak, and I closed with him and broke my spear on his shield. We rolled on the ground, he trying to draw his sword, I cursing the neck plates that impeded my fingers. He half drew his sword, and I stopped trying to throttle him, but beat his face in with my clenched fist and continued to beat at the bloody face even after he was dead. I took his sword, and all of this seemed like hours but could only have been a minute or two at most, yet the people of Modin had already poured out of the houses, some with spears and some with bows, and the world was full of that wild screaming that goes on in a battle—and the mercenaries were no longer in orderly ranks with lapped shields, but in clumps and clusters, and a good many of them on the ground and others running.

But around Judas and Eleazar and Ruben they made a knot, as if these three must be torn down and offered to whatever Gods mercenaries worshiped, or the world would end surely; and there I went, where my brothers fought, and there too the Adon came, knife in hand, cloak torn and bloodstained. I killed another man—I remember yet the blasphemous ease of slaughter—running through the small of the back, severing his spine just beneath his armor; and I saw the Adon drag down another, an old wolf, truly, and terrible in the strength of his wiry arms—and then it was done, and Judas and Eleazar and Ruben and my father and I stood panting and gasping for breath with twelve dead and dying men at our feet, and what remained of the mercenaries fled. They fled through the streets and the Jews followed them with arrows and slew them. They fled into the houses where they were hunted down and fought like wolves until they were slain. They fled up the hillside, pricked all over with arrows, and yet they were dragged down. We took no prisoners; these were mercenaries we fought. The last one was dragged out of a cistern where he crouched, soaked in olive oil, and a spear was driven through his heart.

And then the battle of Modin was done. Only eight Jews were dead, although at least fifty, including my father, bore wounds of the fight; but every mercenary had died. Apelles was dead, as was the Levite. Of the
nokri
, only the slaves who bore the litter remained.

***

So I tell it here, I, Simon, the least of all my glorious brothers, and as I tell it, the fighting in Modin was finished, and Ruth was avenged, hollow as vengeance is, and the blood ran in our village street, and the whole valley was like a charnel house, with ninety dead men sprawled through it. It was the end and the beginning; for after that fight, no man of Modin was ever again the same, and even to this day it is said of the few of us who are left, the pitiful few out of Modin—“He was in the valley when we first slew the mercenaries.”

In an hour, we, the people of peace, of the book, had learned to kill, and we learned well. With Judas, I faced the huddled knot of slaves who had borne Apelles's litter. Coldly, Judas told them that they could do one of two things; they could join us, accept circumcision, become Jews and fight by our sides, or they could go out of Judea forever. Uncomprehendingly, they stared, and Judas repeated what he had said, and still they stared uncomprehendingly, their mouths wide, their frightened eyes still mirroring the brief, bloody, savage fight in which no quarter was asked and no quarter was given.

Where could they go? They were branded breast and face as slaves; slaves they had been and slaves they would always be, and there was no hope and no courage left in them. All over their bodies, they bore the marks of Apelles's metal whip; but Apelles they knew, and we were strange, bearded devils whom they did not know; so finally they trudged out of the valley, westward to the sea, where some new master would find them and put them into bondage once again.