The Ironsmith (24 page)

“And this priest,” he asked, “this Eleazar—do you trust him?”

“No. He is the Tetrarch's man.”

“Good. Then you are finally learning cynicism. And this cousin of yours. What of him?”

“Joshua may be a prophet. Or he may be just another poor fool. I don't know. But I do know that his life is worth saving.”

“And he cannot be persuaded to leave Galilee?”

“No. I've tried.”

“Then it seems an insoluble problem. You know, of course, that there has been a great harvesting of the Baptist's followers lately. Antipas has been busy.”

Noah felt something clench his heart.

“No. I didn't know that.”

“They may already have your cousin—in which case it doesn't matter what you do. You won't be able to save him.”

“Yet I must try.”

Saul pursed his lips, apparently considering this answer.

“I think you would be wiser to stay in Damascus. I can arrange to have your sister brought here.”

“No. I must go. Soon.”

“Then I can at least arrange for the Romans to detain our hungry friend outside.”

“I can imagine how they would ‘detain' him. No. I prefer not to have anyone's blood on my hands. He might be perfectly innocent.”

“No one is perfectly innocent. Except, perhaps, you, my friend.”

*   *   *

That night, the men who had accepted Saul's invitation to dinner might, had they found it expedient, have settled among themselves any question touching on Rome's province of Syria. The imperial legate himself was there, along with two of his military commanders and leading figures from the Greek and Jewish communities. Saul, who lived by his friendships and the influence they afforded him, was in turn courted by them all, and tonight Saul had steered the conversation around to Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea.

Noah, the least in so distinguished a company, occupied a couch farthest from his host. He did not enter into the discussion, nor was he expected to. The other guests seemed not even to have noticed his presence. He merely ate and listened. This suited his purposes nicely.

“I would not, of course, dream of criticizing the emperor for supporting him,” said Phineas bar Kidron, nodding to the legate, Lucius Flaccus, his intimate friend, whom he had helped to make rich, “but he is an odious creature. Like his father before him, he is an insult to the people he governs.”

The legate, who did not seem to have taken offense, busied himself with the breast meat of a sparrow as he considered his answer.

“The emperor,” he said at last, “must manage his affairs with the tools he has at hand, and Galilee has been quiet for decades.” He shrugged, suggesting that the point was unanswerable. “You, Phineas, my friend, do not like him. Your reasons are religious, but what is that to us? In any case, aside from direct Roman rule, which everyone would find inconvenient—you should hear my man Pilatus on the subject of governing the Jews—what alternative is there?”

“Still, I notice you keep that nephew of his safely tucked away in Rome, well out of his uncle's reach. What's his name again?”

“Agrippa. Herod Agrippa.”

“Yes, that's him. His grandmother, at least, was a Hasmonean, and
they,
at least, were actually Jews. Saving him for something, are we? A little insurance in case the current Herod disappoints you?”

This was greeted with general laughter, in which the legate did not scruple to join in.

“Well, one thing at least,” said Panaetius, a white-haired Greek of vast age and absolutely incalculable wealth, “that fellow Antipas certainly knows how to make the money fly. In debt I hear.”

“Perhaps that is your solution, my dear Phineas,” the legate suggested. “Perhaps, if his creditors grow too insistent, you can persuade him to sell you Galilee.”

This was widely appreciated as the best jest of the evening. It was several minutes before the laughter died away.

“Unfortunately, Herod has an easier source of money.” The speaker was one Amos bar Benjamin, an elegant man and reputed to be a great scholar. “He simply increases the taxes. Galilee is a land of plenty, and yet one hears that in the villages they are starving. He risks a peasant revolt if he is not careful.”

“And now he has killed one of their heroes.”

It was not clear who spoke, but the silence that followed this reference to the Baptist was itself painful testimony.

“Yes,” Amos replied at last. “He has murdered one of God's prophets. He will be made to pay for that.”

Noah glanced at the imperial legate, a man who could not be suspected of sympathy with someone like John, and noticed that he, in his turn, was carefully observing the reactions of the other guests. Perhaps he was silently readjusting his appraisal of Antipas. The Romans did not like trouble in their subject lands.

“About a year ago I had an interesting exchange of letters about John,” the legate said at last. “Pilatus was afraid of him. He argued that the man had many followers and was preaching the overthrow of the existing order. I wrote back, ‘Where is he? What does he do?' Pilatus replied that he immersed people in the Jordan, in the wilderness of Perea, and I asked, ‘So then, they go to him?' and he answered, ‘Yes. Large crowds collect to hear him preach and to have their sins washed away.' I gave instructions that he was to be left in peace, that we have nothing to fear from a holy man in Perea, that it is never wise to tamper with religion, that we would gain nothing by creating a martyr. It would appear that I was right.”

*   *   *

“So, my friend,” Saul asked as he and Noah enjoyed a final cup of wine together, after the last of the guests had departed, “what did you learn?”

“Nothing I have not heard elsewhere in my travels. That the moneylenders do not have confidence in Antipas. That the execution of John is resented and, what is worse, regarded as a sign of weakness.”

“And you will put all this in your letter to your priest friend?”

“He is not my friend, but yes, I will report what I have heard.”

“And what will you say of the legate?”

“Only a general statement that the Roman authorities do not seem unwilling to hear criticism of the Tetrarch.”

“Ah, then of course you would have no interest in reading the reports that Flaccus sends to the emperor.”

Noah could do no more than put down his cup and stare. It seemed impossible.

“Oh yes, my friend,” Saul went on, smiling with pleasure at the reaction he had elicited. “The legate dictates his correspondence to a scribe, who prepares a copy for the emperor and a copy for the legate's archives—and another copy, which by a mysterious process finds its way into my hands. When he writes to the emperor, by the way, he writes in Greek. Tiberias is a great scholar who surrounds himself with philosophers and poets. His Greek, they say, is better than his Latin. Did you know that?”

“No, I did not. But then, I am not personally acquainted with the emperor.”

“Neither am I, but I read everything that he reads touching on this little corner of his empire. Would you like a peek?”

“Yes, I—”

“Then tomorrow. You will have complete access. I only ask that you make no copies and that, in your letter to this priest, you leave out names. Agreed?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. This is a very great favor.”

“Nonsense. I would simply have them know that you are well connected. That you are a man with powerful friends who would resent your death at their hands.”

He touched Noah on the shoulder and smiled.

“I am a selfish brute, you see. Besides, you make such amusing toys.”

*   *   *

Noah had the name of a man in Paneas who could be trusted to convey to the Lord Eleazar any communication put into his hands, but first it was necessary to reach Paneas alive.

The city was on the main trade routes, about seventy miles south and west of Damascus. It was in Philip's realm, which might or might not be a problem, depending on Philip's current degree of cooperation with his brother, a matter more unpredictable than the weather.

Yet Paneas had certain advantages for a fugitive. It was almost on the Syrian border, which facilitated escape to the north, and if one preferred to flee south, it was directly on a tributary of the Jordan River. Noah also had friends there who, if the need arose, would probably be able to smuggle him to Tyre. In Paneas, Noah would feel reasonably safe.

But first he had to get there. He had not seen the hungry man again, but wherever he went in Damascus he could not shake the sense of being watched. Seventy miles of road meant at least two days of traveling, more likely three. Two days—or three—gave an assassin many chances.

Saul arranged for Noah to leave his house in disguise and then to travel with a caravan on its way to Ptolemais.

In Paneas, Noah immediately found the man who would convey his letter to the Lord Eleazar. He was a shopkeeper named Dothan. He took the letter, sealed it, and put it in a drawer. That was the end of the transaction. Dothan, one suspected, did not want to know any details.

The question then was, what to do? The hungry man was nowhere in sight, but that meant nothing.

Noah spent four days in Paneas, which was a pagan city, named after one of their countless gods. He visited the famous grotto and stood with a crowd of people watching the water gush from the mouth of a cave. At the end of his visit he set out for the city of Seleucia, a good day's journey to the south. Except for his donkey, he was alone.

He arrived in Seleucia before sundown, having encountered no one on the road except strangers traveling north.

In Seleucia he stayed away from people he knew. He was gripped by a strange passivity. He ate, he slept, and to comfort himself he said his prayers and read Torah, trying to pretend that there was no world beyond these things. For ten days he never left the city. He began to think he would never leave it.

Then, late one afternoon, while he was sitting on a bench in front of the inn where he stayed, reading about the deliverance of Isaac, he saw the hungry man again. The hungry man was across the street, watching him. When he caught Noah's eye, he smiled. Then he crossed the street and sat down on the bench beside him.

“I am sorry if I have frightened you,” he said. He glanced at the scroll in Noah's trembling hands. “What are you reading?”

Noah forced himself to look down at the writing—in that moment he could not have recalled what it was.

“The story of Abraham and Isaac,” he said, after a pause in which he struggled to find his voice.

“Where the angel stays Abraham's hand?”

“Yes.”

“I always liked that story,” the hungry man announced, with evident satisfaction. “The stories are the best part of Torah.”

Noah did not reply. He was too busy adjusting to the idea that he was not about to be killed.

“The Lord Eleazar sends you his greetings. He wants you to know that he found your report beyond anything that he expected. When you reach Hippos there will be a letter from him awaiting you.”

“How do I know that you are from the Lord Eleazar?” Noah asked. It did not seem an inappropriate question.

“He wished me to tell you that he has not forgotten what you said about it being better to die than to break the commandments.”

Noah allowed himself a deep breath and the hope that he might live to be a few months older. Was it also possible that he might also live to see his home again, or Deborah's face?

“Am I going to Hippos?” he asked.

“Yes. Perhaps I could accompany you. It would be safer. But you must promise not to slip away from me again.”

“I promise. By the way, have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Then you must join me for dinner.” Noah observed that the sun was low in the sky and allowed himself to smile. “I thought you might be hungry.”

 

19

Upon reading the letter, which covered several pages, the Lord Eleazar at first suspected that Noah had simply made it all up, that it was all a self-serving fabrication, the sort of thing one expected from paid spies who knew the market value of dramatic information. However, he was not far along before he abandoned this idea. It was all too specific, too full of direct quotations that had the ring of authenticity.

Thus it was with a mingling of excitement and fear that Eleazar made his way from line to line of Noah's Hebrew, so magisterially perfect that it was almost like reading an intelligence report written by the Prophet Isaiah. Indeed, the rebuke of Antipas was all the more stunning for coming from a chorus of voices, their identities concealed, but in one case, at least, perfectly obvious.

Eleazar knew that Noah had dined with Lucius Flaccus in Damascus, and many of the expressions attributed to a “high Roman official” sounded exactly like the man who over the years had honored Eleazar with several private conversations.

Although, judging from the candor of some of his remarks, the imperial legate must have been deep in his wine that night.

But it was all perfectly believable. Besides, Eleazar tended to trust the ironsmith, who did not seem to possess the temperament of one who simply made things up.

So, having digested the letter and being satisfied of its veracity, Eleazar was faced with the problem of how best to present it to the Tetrarch.

First of all, as Antipas hardly even knew the Hebrew alphabet, it would have to be translated into Greek. Then the source would have to be disguised. He owed Noah that, and besides, the man was revealing himself to be too valuable an asset to risk. The best plan, he decided, would be to present it as a summary based on several different reports. And last, of course, many of the actual words would have to be softened, since Antipas was so quick to take offense.

All of these were tasks that Eleazar felt he could entrust to no one else. He himself would prepare the document he would carry with him to Tiberias.