Rebekah's Treasure (15 page)

My old injury has reopened. Blood streams from my wrist and also from the new injury to my arm, gained when I stopped a Roman broadsword aimed for my face. All morning we’ve tried to keep the Romans from pouring into the Court of Women through the gates they’ve burned, but all to no avail. Now, even the Nicanor Gate is gone, a gate that took twenty men to open and close.

The Court of Women is choked with smoke and embedded with a stench just as thick. The odor is a caldron of burning wood, decaying dead, blood, unwashed soldiers, and bodily waste from men whose bowels have failed from fear.

The taking of the women’s court has been costly for both sides. So many have fallen they form a carpet beneath our feet. Now, our men fight furiously to save the Holy Place. Even those priests, who up to now have only tended to the needs of the Temple, have taken up the sword. Hundreds, all in white linen, are stationed around the Altar of Sacrifice. Blood runs, like a stream, between their feet from the dead Romans that are stacked like logs around the base of the altar. Even so, an endless wave of legionaries continues to pour through every opening. And the tide is turning against us. Already, the eight stone tables north of the altar, where animals were once slaughtered for sacrifice, are fast becoming the platforms where priests are slaughtered by Romans. Even now, their death cries rise toward heaven, like incense, against the backdrop of the gleaming gold and white Temple.

I stand near the brass laver. I’ve killed so many Romans, my arm aches. I stay close to my sons. More than once my sword has saved them. But the circle is tightening. Our men are falling on all sides. I fear we will not be able to hold out much longer.

“Go! Fulfill your oath!” Eleazar says, suddenly coming up alongside me. His face is splattered with blood, his robe stained red. His eyes are wide and dark, like a man foreseeing his own death. “Quickly, there’s not much time!” Then he heads for the altar.

I have no stomach for this task. I’m no coward. Yet that is how I feel when I signal my sons with the predetermined gesture to retreat. Then
I fight my way to the colonnaded enclosure and am nearly at the door of the storeroom when I slip on the blood-slick pavement. My weapon flies from my hand as I land on my back. At once a Roman is upon me, thrusting wildly with his broadsword. I quickly roll to avoid the blade and find I’ve rolled against a Corinthian column. Now, unarmed and unable to move, and with my face less than a cubit from the Roman’s hobnailed boots, I’m defenseless. When he raises his boot, I see the nail heads are tipped with blood. And just as he’s about to send them straight into my eyes, he topples forward, crashing into the massive stone column, then sliding, dead, to the floor.

Aaron lowers his dagger, and extends his free hand to pull me up. Instantly, my other sons are beside me, fending off attackers until I regain my footing. Then we all rush to the storeroom, enter and bolt the door. Eleazar has prudently kept one lamp lit. We light three others, remove our bloody clothes then replace them with the tunics and robes from each of the bags. Then quickly we gather the scrips and water skins, and a few supplies. Within minutes, we press against the movable stone in the wall and disappear down the narrow stairway.

P
ELLA
70 A.D.

CHAPTER 5

We begin our days before sunrise. We’re learning, Esther and I, to do chores our servants once did. She’s outside firing the oven while I mix flour, oil and water, then knead it into dough. The dough I form into small flat cakes and place on round clay platters. I’ve made extra. Zechariah is coming for breakfast.

“The oven is ready,” Esther says, entering the room. Her hair falls in oily strings around her face. Dirt smudges her cheeks. Even the bowl of fragrant henna blossoms on the shelf cannot disguise the fact that she hasn’t bathed in days.

I pretend not to notice. Lately, I’ve tried not to find fault for fear of breaking what’s left of her spirit. I gesture to the trays of flattened dough and begin cutting a cucumber on my small work table. The bread and cucumbers, along with yogurt made from the milk of our two goats, will comprise our morning meal.

“Do you need help carrying the trays?” I ask, watching my daughter out of the corner of my eye. Her shoulders slump like an old woman’s as she drags one foot then the other across the stone floor, and I send up prayers to God. I’m always sending up prayers for Esther. “Do you need help?” I repeat, thinking she didn’t hear.

“I can manage.” Her voice is barely audible.

She’s like one walking in her sleep, and I wonder if she’s ever going to wake up. She shuffles out the door with the trays, and I return to work. Before I’ve finished slicing the second cucumber a voice behind
me thunders, “
Maranatha
!” Only one voice can fill a room like that. I turn and there’s Zechariah’s large frame filling the doorway.

“You’re early!”

“Good news begs telling.”

“Then tell me for I can surely stand some.” I add the cut cucumber to the other slices in the bowl.

“Ah, yes, Esther. Don’t worry.” Zechariah glances over his shoulder. “We’re all praying.”

“
This
is your good news?”

Zechariah fingers his beard that puffs like a cloud around his cheeks and chin. “The widow Leah is preparing her bread, too, and has promised to save a loaf for me. How I love her loaves of olives and rosemary. But then, the Evil One knows this.” He pats his bulbous stomach.

“Zechariah,
please
. The good news, remember?”

His belly shakes as he chuckles. “You know how to ruin a good story. All right, all right, I’ll tell you. We’ve had another miracle! Yes! Another miracle! Leah says she’s been dipping from the same jar of olive oil all week, and it’s not diminished a drop! Not one drop! No matter how much she uses, it stays full to the lip. Now what do you think of that?”

I wipe my hands on a rag and frown. “Her eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Perhaps it’s gotten worse. Or perhaps she’s dipping one jar and measuring another.”

“Oh, no. I saw it myself. She took a cup of oil from her jar, then another, then another, but still the jar remained full. And there’s nothing wrong with
my
eyes!”

I grunt as I gather three wooden bowls for the yogurt.

“You don’t believe it?”

“Yes, yes, I believe. It’s just that we’ve had so many miracles lately.”

“And what’s wrong with that? You should be praising God.”

“I do, I
do
. Only, I worry that these miracles have become more dear to us than the Maker of Miracles. When we gather at your house what do people say? ‘The cup, we want to know more about the cup.’” When
Zechariah looks puzzled, I shake my head. “Don’t you see? They should want to know more about
Jesus
?”

“Well . . . I suppose . . . .”

“And Argos? He grows more troublesome by the day. Mary said she heard him speaking ill of us in the shops. He would turn the whole city against us if he could. His position as healer has been challenged by our miracles; miracles which he believes are due to my cup. We all know him to be a proud man. He cannot be pleased. The other day I passed him on the street and the hatred in his eyes . . . I can’t help but think he’s plotting some mischief.”

Zechariah pats my shoulder like Uncle Abner used to when I was upset. “Don’t trouble yourself. This is the work of God. Rejoice in it.”

“Yes I know . . . but . . . .”

“Let God do His miracles as long as He wills. There’s a plan in it all, Rebekah.”

“The bread will soon be ready,” Esther says, suddenly entering the room.

And when I turn and see my thin, ragged, sad daughter, I hope, in spite of what I’ve said, that God will perform just one more miracle.

Everyone is looking for Jesus to return. They say all the miracles are a sure sign of His coming. Such miracles, they claim, have not been seen since Jesus walked the earth. I remind them that miracles abounded at the hands of the apostles. Why should it be any different now? But they ignore me. Even Zechariah encourages this belief. “Christ is risen. Christ is coming again!” he says to everyone he passes. He is almost giddy with the thought. After all, wasn’t it rumored that his beloved John the Apostle wouldn’t die until Jesus returned, and wasn’t John getting on in years?

Oh, I know, Jesus
is
coming again, and I wish it were right now, right this minute, but I’m discomforted in knowing that everyone believes
His coming is at hand because of
my
cup. It seems wrong somehow. Besides, have Zechariah and the others forgotten that Jesus said no man knows the day or hour?

Will Zechariah talk about it again at his house today? I hope not. I dress, then fix my hair in preparation of meeting with the other believers. For the past two weeks he has talked of nothing else. “Don’t you know that Jesus was crowned king on Passover, the traditional coronation day for Jewish Kings?” he said. “And though his crown was a crown of thorns in order to take even the curse of thorns and thistles from the earth onto himself, it was still a coronation, and soon he’ll return as King of Kings.”

Amen, so be it
. Absently, I secure my plaited hair with a small goathair belt. It’s not well done, but my mind is too preoccupied to attend to such details. “Haven’t many rabbis, for years, been expecting two Messiahs?” I hear Zechariah’s voice drone in my ear. “One, the suffering servant, Messiah ben Joseph; the other, ruler-and-King, Messiah ben David? And anyone who knows the scriptures knows that Jesus, Messiah ben Joseph, has already come. But soon, very soon he’ll come again, this time as Messiah ben David.”

Yes. Yes. Please come Jesus. I’m weary of this life. It’s so hard here. How I long to see your sweet face again, to see you smile, to feel your hand tousle my hair, to look into your eyes and see a well of love that flows into eternity, that will never run dry, that will always refresh and satisfy me, the little girl, yes the little girl still, the one who used to stand by the Hinnom Valley wondering what animal had been sacrificed for her when all along you were that lamb, you were that sacrifice. Oh, what a wonderment! To think you loved me so!

Oh, Zechariah, you are right and I am wrong. You must tell us again how Jesus is coming back. You must tell us over and over again. Never stop telling it. What a blessed hope! And when you tell it today, I pray you look right at Esther, who has promised to join us. And when you look at her maybe, just maybe, she will listen . . . maybe, just maybe, she will hear
.