Jerusalem's Hope (39 page)

Part of what Avel experienced was the tumult of the huge crowds. At Migdal Eder sheep outnumbered humans, and quiet could be counted on most hours of the day. Here, in Jerusalem, throngs of pilgrims jammed the roads. To be thrust into the teeming warren of the Holy City at Passover was to be overwhelmed by chaos and confusion.

Though Avel had grown up in the middle of it and had experienced the sights, sounds, and smells of Passover every year of his young life, this year he found the turmoil unnerving.

Humans were a lot more unruly than sheep!

Jewish pilgrims from distant parts of the Roman world stopped mid-street to gawk at the sights, to gossip, or to haggle over fruit in the stalls. Self-important Pharisees, unmistakable with their broad phylac teries on foreheads and arms, paraded ostentatiously about. Rich merchants were trailed by retinues of servants; harried mothers fretted over losing their children in the mobs; Torah teachers loudly vented their opinions on obscure doctrines.

It was a carnival atmosphere.

Then why did Avel also have such a sense of dread?

More than revulsion at the noise and confusion, Avel had a nagging premonition of danger, an anxiety that a serious threat loomed nearby.

He told himself it was because of the death of his friend Hayyim in such a crowd scene. Arriving in Jerusalem brought it back: the awareness of threat that had also been present that day. Avel had been a horrified witness as Hayyim was trampled by a Roman's horse.

Hayyim had been killed during the bread riots at the Feast of Purim a little more than a month earlier. It felt like no time ago . . . and yet a lifetime since.

How could both be true?

Avel could not sort it out. Did the recollection of Hayyim's death account for all his present fear, or was there something more?

At the end of his musing he knew only that he'd be relieved to get away from the noisy hordes and back to the relative peace of Migdal Eder. He had lived as a Jerusalem Sparrow out of necessity and as a small rebel out of hatred of the Romans. Now Avel recognized what he truly wanted: to be a shepherd at home in Beth-lehem.

There was contentment at having recognized and named the desire of his heart. Avel had a sense of place, of belonging, as never before in his life.

That satisfying realization temporarily shut out the dread, closing a door on fear . . . until the band of apprentice shepherds neared the Sheep Gate.

Even after the trek up from Beth-lehem, the journey of the herdsmen was not complete upon reaching Jerusalem. At this holiday season it was impossible to drive a flock through the city streets. A detour was required, all the way around the city walls to the Sheep Gate at the northern end of the Temple Mount.

There, despite being under the watchful eye of the Roman fortress of the Antonia, a tightly packed, excited mob had gathered.

With Zadok leading, using timely nudges of his staff to part the multitude, they advanced toward the gate until Avel was near enough to see what the excitement was about.

Graffiti was scrawled on the walls of the passage:
Death to the Korban traitors! The fall of Siloam's tower is the punishment of the Almighty! Be ready to strike!

In reeking letters that dripped onto the paving stones, the messages appeared to be written in blood.

Animal, or human? Avel wondered.

The tension in the archway and in the surrounding passages was not the convivial enthusiasm of Passover! The air, rank with anger, smoldered with talk of rebellion.

“The tower proves the anger of the Most High against traitors and blasphemers,” Avel heard a man announce.

“The tower's collapse was caused by rebels,” retorted another.

“Then the rebels are doing the work of the Almighty” was the reply.

These were not the wealthy of Jerusalem doing the talking. Avel was not hearing the sentiments of the ruling class. The agitated sounds of hostility came from the working men of Jerusalem, augmented by the country twang of villagers from the Galil.

“They killed the prophet and some of us,” proclaimed a cobbler, referring, Avel surmised, to the death of Yochanan the Baptizer and the violence at Purim. “And they think we've forgotten already.”

“Come along, boys,” Zadok ordered, jabbing left and right with his shepherd's crook. “Make way there!”

They were able to make better progress then, but only as far as the Sheep's Gate Inn.

A solid wall of pilgrims blocked further motion while leaving a space in front of the hostelry's entry.

“What's this, then?” Zadok demanded. “We have a delivery to make.”

“Hold on, old man,” snapped a burly Galilean. “They're bringing out a dead body.”

That explained why everyone kept back. There would be no Passover celebration for anyone defiled by contact with the dead.

Avel scrambled up on a balcony. He got a glimpse over the crowd as the corpse was brought out. At that instant Avel recognized two faces below him. He saw the features of Zacharias, the Ethiopian servant of Nakdimon ben Gurion, frozen in shock and horror.

The boy also identified the body: it was the hawker from whom Nakdimon had rented the donkey. His throat was slashed from ear to ear.

Outside the Sheep Gate was a pool of water for the flocks and herds coming to the Temple. Beside this pond was Marcus. The centurion was in disguise and had the hood of his cloak flipped up over his head. He leaned against a broken column left over from some ancient ruined structure. The looming height of the Temple Mount bathed both the pool and Marcus in shadow.

A decade of legionaries led by Guard Sergeant Quintus double-timed up from the Kidron Valley. Shouting, “Get out of the way!” Quintus led his men toward the scene of the hawker's death.

As the troopers passed, Marcus called out to Quintus, then stepped back into deeper shadow.

With the stump of the pillar between them, Marcus carried on a conversation with Quintus while remaining unseen by passersby. “You're too late to do him any good,” Marcus informed him. “The man murdered in Sheep's Gate Inn.”

“Who was he?”

“A traveling hawker. Nobody seems to know his name.”

“Killed in a brawl?” Quintus said hopefully.

“Assassinated,” Marcus corrected. “Murdered in his sleep and the room smeared with his blood. They're here. Keep your eyes peeled for bar Abba and others. And keep marching up and down. The more your men are seen in the streets, the better.”

Quintus swore, “There's precious few of us for it. Praetorian Vara has more'n half my men out of uniform and wandering about in the crowds. And Vara's own soldiers are playing at provoking trouble, shouting traitorous slogans and the like, to see who agrees. Can't tell who anybody is! Had two men from different cohorts denounce each other as rebels! What about you, sir?”

“Right now I'm following a servant of Nakdimon ben Gurion. The man was near the Inn when the murder was discovered.”

“Are you thinking he's a rebel?” Quintus asked. “Or his master? What's the connection?”

“Right now I'm just watching,” Marcus retorted sharply. “And trying not to jump to conclusions. Will your squadron be at Pilate's audience this afternoon?”

“We've been ordered to keep away so as not to antagonize the delegation of Jews,” Quintus replied scornfully.

“That's dead wrong,” Marcus concluded. “But too late to change it now. Do your best.”

“And you, sir,” Quintus returned. Then he added, “And watch your back too, sir. A rebel'd just love to put a blade between your ribs . . . or Vara, who could blame the rebels after. But here, I almost forgot a message. Governor wants to see you . . . right away.”

A faithful servant was better than a well-paid informant. Zacharias the Ethiopian was Nakdimon's eyes and ears on the street.

“And, sir.” Zacharias trembled as he described the scene at the Inn of the Sheep Gate to Nakdimon. “The hawker's throat was cut from ear to ear! The words
death to all apostates
and
traitor
were scrawled on the walls in his own blood. The innkeeper showed me the bloody bedchamber himself. And there was more written boldly beneath the arch of Sheep Gate!”

Nakdimon pressed his fingers together in thought. “What word of this man's murder on the streets?”

“That the hawker, like the dead stonemasons crushed by the Tower of Siloam, has received a just punishment from the Almighty!”

“The people are against the Sanhedrin then?”

“Oh sir! All! All of them! And those who aren't are afraid to speak! There's not a word of support for our rulers that anyone dares to whisper!” Zacharias mopped sweat from his brow, “They're all saying death should come to any who spent the Korban funds for Rome's projects! Every mouth contains a curse against Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. Some openly proclaim that the time is right to restore a righteous king to Yerushalayim. That any who gives information to the Sanhedrin has become apostate! And by the blood that flows from the hawker's throat, they vow that this is the fate of all who oppose righteousness.”

Had the hawker been a member of the rebel band, after all? Otherwise how had his assassins known that the hawker had offered information to Nakdimon and thus to the Sanhedrin?

“Who do they say will overthrow the council?”

The old servant shook his grizzled head from side to side. “Many say by the sword of bar Abba.”

“And?”

“Others proclaim Yeshua of Nazareth will come to Jerusalem and call down fire on the council chamber and the Temple Mount! He'll destroy the Temple, they say, the same as he drove out the money changers last year!”

“Do they say he's in league with bar Abba?”

“Some say there's a secret alliance between the two. I've heard that bar Abba's rebels are all Galileans. Like the talmidim of Yeshua. Violent, uneducated men.”

“Yeshua is neither violent nor uneducated,” Nakdimon countered.

“Still the people remember how Yeshua drove out the money changers from the Temple in his rage. There's speculation that he'll avenge the murder of his cousin, Yochanan the Baptizer, this week! Slaughter Herod Antipas and restore the throne of David!” Zacharias declared. “They twitter about it. They look for it! Hope that blood will run!”

So already the mob had perverted the message of Yeshua.
Blessed are the peacemakers.

“Yeshua has nothing to do with bar Abba,” Nakdimon claimed.

“The people aren't convinced of that, sir! They'll acclaim him if he comes! With one voice they'll shout the hosanna! They'll gladly stand by and cheer when he brings judgment and vengeance upon the rulers of Rome and Israel together!” The servant glanced nervously toward the barred gate of the house. “Your name is among the seventy.”

“I'm not afraid of the mob.”

“The mob didn't slit the hawker's throat. But an assassin through the window of the inn at night.”

“The walls of this house are high.”

“Be glad the children are away with your mother, sir. As for me, I'll be sleeping light.”

“I'll sleep with a clear conscience and a sword by my side. So I'll sleep soundly no matter what happens.”

“You should have Temple bodyguards here at the house, sir. And so should every
cohen
and member of the Sanhedrin until the holy days are over. I tell you! The people are praying for revolution! Hundreds of thousands have come expecting it! Rome can't kill them all. They've not been so stirred up since the days when the Maccabees stormed the gates and recaptured Yerushalayim from the Greeks!”