Authors: David Epperson
Naomi crept around the firewood toward the outside entrance. Once there, she watched carefully for a few minutes and then signaled for us to follow.
After we had caught up, she first wrapped her scarf around Sharon’s hair. Once she was satisfied that the blonde tresses were properly concealed, Naomi whispered to Lavon, who in turn signaled Markowitz.
The two of them each grabbed one end of a long cross-cut saw and sauntered outside. I watched them go about fifty yards before they disappeared into a brushy ravine.
The rest of us understood what to do next. We each grabbed a tool and followed the others into the scrub.
Once we had reunited, we continued south for another quarter mile until we found a collapsed limestone overhang partially concealed in a tangle of dense brush.
Out of force of habit acquired during many years of service, I did a quick head count and set up an observation post. From there, I stared back at the city, half expecting to see Herod’s thugs charging down the slope after us.
But no one followed, to my great relief.
“I can’t believe we got out that easily,” said Markowitz.
Quite frankly, I couldn’t either, though after Naomi explained, it made perfect sense.
The city confronted no significant external threats, and the common peasants knew that nothing good could come from sneaking inside the palace; so they didn’t try. During daylight hours, at least, sentries weren’t really necessary.
I also suspected that those who were stationed near the wood shop would be as bored, and as drunk, as the ones Sharon had slipped past on the wall.
***
As I assessed our situation, my instinct was to strike out to the west and put as much distance between ourselves and the city, as fast as we could. With the full moon, we could even push on through the night.
“They have no way to call ahead,” I argued.
Lavon initially was inclined to agree.
Once we reached the more cosmopolitan coast, our appearances would be less likely to stand out. Plus, he admitted later that he was grasping for an excuse to see Caesarea. Some of that city’s ruins had survived into modern times and the original was supposedly an architectural gem.
On the other hand, when pressed, he couldn’t guarantee that we wouldn’t encounter robbers, or worse, the Zealots – some of whom might even recognize us from the ambush a few days earlier.
Bryson started to join the debate, but he soon fell silent. Rather than argue, he got up and began to hobble, as if he had a sprained ankle.
“I can’t make it that far anyway,” he said. “We don’t even have water.”
I suspected he was faking the injury, but decided not to challenge him. We couldn’t afford to waste our energy squabbling amongst ourselves. Besides, his second point was correct.
“All right, then,” I said, “we’ll stay in the area. How long do we have before all hell breaks loose?”
Lavon glanced up to the sun and guessed that it was about 9:00. Since we had rescued Sharon an hour earlier, he estimated that we had another hour, perhaps two, before the king finished with his bath.
“The servants already know I’m missing, though,” said Sharon.
That they did, and the bath attendants were undoubtedly scrambling to find her that very instant. But from what Naomi told us, they would do so as quietly as possible. Word of Herod’s dark mood had surely spread.
Naomi also reminded us that Azariah had assembled every slave in the palace to witness Sharon’s guard being flogged.
“No one will dare admit to losing the king’s woman a second time,” she said. “Until the servants can be certain that they themselves can escape blame, they will obfuscate and delay as long as they can.”
“Eventually, they’ll have to fess up, though,” I said.
“Yes. When the king returns from his bath, he will call for her.”
“What then?” I asked.
“They’ll keep stalling as long as possible,” said Naomi. “They’ll ask the king to be patient, say she is not quite ready …”
“If Herod is as angry as he sounded, that won’t last long.”
“No; half an hour at most. Then the steward will be forced to confess to Azariah that they cannot locate her. Azariah will conduct a brief inquiry, but once he realizes no one has answers, he will have no choice but to inform the king.”
“And then?”
“They will turn the palace inside out.”
Whatever the actual timetable proved to be, we needed to get moving, though Naomi insisted that we leave our tools behind where they would be discovered by the lumberjacks at the end of the day.
I started to object – at the very least, an axe might come in handy – but she explained that the slaves responsible for their maintenance would be held accountable for their loss.
“A guard being flogged is one thing,” said Lavon, “but she doesn’t want an ordinary servant to suffer that fate.”
This was understandable, though for a brief moment I began to wonder whether she might also be hedging her bets. If we got caught, she could go back to being a demure slave girl who had no choice but to accompany the savage beasts whom the king had assigned her to serve.
Once again, I needn’t have worried.
“Slaves like her can be tortured at will,” Lavon explained. “The truth would eventually come out, and she knows it. Whatever happens, she’s not going back.”
This was comforting, in its own twisted way.
Even more reassuring, Naomi told us that if Herod kept dogs, she had never seen them. This would buy us at least a few additional hours, though probably not the two whole days we needed.
We crept through the increasingly thick brush, heading south through what was known as the Hinnom Valley, on a course parallel to the city’s western wall.
About half an hour later, we reached the corner where Jerusalem’s fortifications turned to the east. There, we paused for a brief rest at the base of an enormous bridge leading into the city from the southwest.
“This looks like an aqueduct I saw in Spain, years ago,” I said.
“That’s what it is,” replied Lavon. “Pilate’s aqueduct.”
Lavon stared up at the structure for several minutes, carefully noting its features.
“This is magnificent,” said Bryson.
“Yes,” said Lavon. “It’s unfortunate that barely a trace has survived into modern times. Archaeologists have always wondered what it looked like.”
“Where does it start?” asked Sharon.
“Somewhere south of Bethlehem, we think,” he said absently. “About ten miles away.”
“Why don’t we go there?” asked Markowitz.
This jolted Lavon’s mind back to our present situation, but before he could answer, Bryson brought up the same objections he had raised to prevent us from fleeing to the coast. He even started hobbling again.
I started to argue – by following an aqueduct, we’d at least have no trouble finding water – but by then I also noticed that Naomi had begun to lose her reassuring sense of confidence.
She explained that she had traveled many times with the king to Tiberias, his capital to the north on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Once, she had even journeyed as far as Caesarea, on the Mediterranean coast to the west.
But the territory to the south of Jerusalem was as unfamiliar to her as it was to us.
***
We concealed ourselves behind a support column as we considered our alternatives.
We quickly ruled out Bryson’s suggestion to return to the Antonia, and not just because of the obvious danger to Naomi. Markowitz had his own good reasons to avoid the governor, and Sharon categorically refused to go anywhere near the place.
“Pilate would send me back to the king,” she insisted.
Bryson turned to Lavon. “You told us those two hated each other,” he said, explaining the logic behind his brainstorm.
“They
did
,” replied the archaeologist, “but Herod and Pilate became good friends after Jesus’s death.”
The Professor now looked thoroughly confused. “Why?”
“Luke’s gospel doesn’t say,” answered Lavon. “My guess is that Pilate could appreciate the skillful way the king ducked the issue. Herod could have sent Jesus back to the Romans with a blunt note saying the prisoner had committed his offense in Jerusalem – and thus was the governor’s problem.
“But he didn’t do that. By mocking Jesus, Herod signaled his approval of what Pilate was about to do, in a manner that acknowledged the quandary the governor faced.”
That struck me as a reasonable interpretation, though from the conversation we had heard a few hours ago, the skill involved was Azariah’s.
“So you’re saying the
Romans
are our enemies, too?” said Bryson.
“Oh, I think we’ve done better than that,” I said. “Accounts of Ray’s swordsmanship undoubtedly filtered down to the dungeons. We know that at least one prisoner, Barabbas, got away. Any Zealots we encounter will be highly motivated to kill us.”
I couldn’t resist needling him, though given the horror to which two of their compatriots were being subjected at that very moment, any of Barabbas’s ill-fated crew who had managed to get away would undoubtedly be laying low.
***
Lavon and Naomi conversed in Greek for a few minutes and then explained their plan. In light of our circumstances, they concluded that our best bet would be to head for the Mount of Olives. Lavon and the others had at least a passing familiarity with the surroundings, which covered a broad area of broken, rocky terrain.
“We should find a number of places to conceal ourselves, at least temporarily,” said the archaeologist. “The Mount’s difficult topography was the reason the authorities needed an insider’s knowledge of Jesus’s whereabouts to arrest him. They knew they would never find him stumbling around by themselves.”
This made sense to us all, so we started in that direction. For the most part, we were able to remain hidden in the deep ravine to Jerusalem’s south as we worked our way toward our destination.
We had only one brief uncomfortable moment; a short interval in which we had to climb out into the open to cross the main thoroughfare leading to the Tekoa Gate – the same portal we had passed through two days earlier, in what now seemed like a different age.
Naomi, however, assured us that the line of travelers waiting to go inside were far more concerned with getting past the Roman soldiers who now monitored the entrance than they would be with a handful of individuals going the other way.
This proved to be the case, and we slipped back down into the Kidron Ravine without incident. Shortly thereafter, we wound our way through a narrow trail until we reached the southern end of the Mount of Olives, where we halted at the edge of a copse of trees.
Lavon studied the terrain carefully, as did I. He and Naomi exchanged a few words; then he turned back to the others.
“We can rest here, under the cover of the trees, for an hour or two,” he said.
***
Sharon had had virtually no sleep for two nights in a row, so I cleared out a hollow space between two boulders and folded my robe to provide her a thin layer of padding.
“Not much of a mattress, I’m afraid.”
She smiled, though she was so tired that it didn’t matter. She curled up into a ball and within less than a minute, she had fallen into a deep slumber.
Citing ancient Army wisdom about sleeping whenever the opportunity presented itself, I instructed Bryson and Markowitz to rest also – though in truth, I just wanted them out of the way while Lavon, Naomi and I worked up a new a plan.
By now, we had to assume that knowledge of Sharon’s disappearance had reached the king’s ears, and that a search for her whereabouts had begun.
“How long before they discover the dead guards?” I asked.
Naomi admitted that she could not answer that question with certainty. The palace grounds covered more than twenty acres, which could take days to search, though Herod’s investigators would concentrate their initial efforts on the known routes from the king’s bedchamber to the central baths.
“Sooner, rather than later, then?” I asked.
“Probably,” she said.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have strangled them,” Lavon added.
“If we’re caught, we’re dead either way,” I replied. “Besides, if those two had lived, they could tell Herod exactly where they were attacked, and how we got in. Naomi had to protect her friends.”
Lavon was aware of this, though his conscience resisted admitting it.
He pointed out that once Herod’s men found the guards’ bodies, they would be certain that she had outside help. Despite Sharon’s proven resourcefulness, none of them would believe that a lone woman could disarm and kill two soldiers by herself.
This was true; but on the positive side, even if the king’s guards knew she had external assistance, they wouldn’t necessarily know who had provided it, unless –