The Bronze Bow (16 page)

It took a considerably longer time than Daniel had reckoned, because Joel and the young weaver lost themselves in the intricacy of a theological debate. It was nearing sunset when they started back toward the smithy.

"He's going to be one of the best we have," Joel said. "But you should have stopped us. When I get started on an argument I forget what time it is."

He did not seem to want to hurry, however, and shortly it appeared that he had something else on his mind.

"I've put off telling you this," he said finally. "I don't know just why. I saw your carpenter again."

"Was Simon with him?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact, when I told you that day that I'd run into Simon, that wasn't altogether true. I went back to Bethsaida on purpose. I went back several times. Lately I've been getting up early to hear Jesus when he talks to the fishermen."

Daniel was surprised. "You think he will help us?"

Joel hesitated. "He has helped me. He has explained several points of the Law that have always puzzled me."

"Explained them to
you?
You're the scholar. He is only a carpenter."

"I don't know where he got his training," Joel said. "But he knows the scripture. Some of his ideas are the same as Father's, only he seems to go beyond somehow. He has a way of making something very clear and—uncomplicated—so that you wonder why you never thought of it that way before."

"The first time I heard him," Daniel said, "I thought that if only he and Rosh could join together—"

"I've thought so too. So many people follow him. Some mornings there are more than a hundred. If anyone could persuade them—But then again I'm not sure. I wish you'd come to listen to him, Daniel. Every time I hear him I wish you were there. We both think—"

"Does Kemuel go with you?"

Joel laughed. "Not Kemuel. I persuaded him to go once. He was horrified. He's too much like Father. No, Thacia goes with me. She—oh my word! I forgot Thacia! She'll be furious at me."

The girl was not in the smithy. As the two boys stood uncertainly in the doorway, a soft murmur of voices drifted through the inner door. Surely it could not be—? Then Daniel heard the quick light peal of Thacia's laughter.

"Wait here!" he told Joel.

There was no one in the inner room. Beyond, in the small garden, two girls sat side by side on the bench.

"Oh Daniel!" Leah cried, catching sight of her brother. "Thacia came to see me!"

Dumfounded, Daniel stared from one to the other.

"How—?" he stammered, and then caught the warning in Thacia's eyes. Don't spoil it, her look cautioned him quite plainly. He could think of nothing at all to say, could only stand stupidly. How had she managed it, when no one, not a neighbor or an old friend, had been allowed to see Leah's face for almost ten years?

"We've been having a lovely visit," Thacia said, as casually as though it happened every day. "Leah has been showing me her vegetables. The time has gone fast. We had so much to talk about."

These two—so utterly different! "What could you talk about?" he burst out before he could stop himself.

Mischief danced in Thacia's eyes. "You," she said.

He felt his ears redden. He knew he would never know how she had accomplished it. Girls were strange creatures. He could not understand them. But he could see the change in his sister's face. She was fragile and pale beside Thacia's vivid beauty, but smiling with a smile so like their mother that it caught at his throat.

Joel, impatient and curious, came through the inner door. It was too much to hope that the miracle should include him too. At the first glimpse of him, Leah's bright face grayed with fear. Thacia motioned him out of sight.

"My brother and I must go home now," she said gently. "But I will come back soon. You won't forget me, will you, Leah?"

There was no answer. Leah's head was bent. The folds of the scarf that hid her face were trembling.

"Here's something to remember me by," said Thacia. She undid the green embroidered girdle from her waist and laid it gently across Leah's knees. The gold threads twinkled in the afternoon sun. "God be with you," she said quickly, and not waiting for any answer, moved past Daniel through the smithy, too quickly for him to stop her or to try to thank her. Daniel stood looking down at his sister. He saw one finger slowly move out from the veil and touch the girdle, tracing the scarlet and blue and purple threads as though they might vanish at too heavy a touch. It was the first beautiful thing she had ever owned.

Thacia's visit caused Daniel to look at his sister with new eyes, and one thing that he had never noticed before suddenly shamed him. She spent all day weaving fine cloth for a wealthy woman, and she herself was dressed in a faded gray rag. Next morning he took down the jar in which he kept the money his customers gave him, counted out a handful of coins, and made his way to the market.

It was a confusing place, the kind a man did well to stay away from. The booths of the weavers were surrounded by women, chattering like a woods full of sparrows, fingering the lengths of scarlet and purple, bargaining with sharp, accusing screams. He gathered his courage and approached, trying to ignore their derisive glances. Presently he found what he wanted, a length of smooth cotton the clear fresh blue of the ketzah blossoms.

"How much?" he growled.

A girl with gold earrings studied him shrewdly. "Blue dye is rare," she said. "Two shekels."

He knew it was too much. He had no way of knowing how much too much, and he had no knack for bargaining anyway. He paid the money, and cursed himself when she did not hide her contempt.

"Thread?" He glared at her. When she had found it for him, "Do you have a needle too?" he asked.

The girl laughed. "We don't sell needles. Surely your wife must have a needle."

He said nothing, but the flush creeping up his cheeks made the girl laugh again. "Oh," she said, "a present, is it? Wait a minute." She delved beneath a pile of odd articles. "Here. Take one of mine. I won't charge you for it." The fine gesture, he could see, was an apology for the scandalous profit she had made on the cloth. He took the package and walked away, his ears red.

Leah could not believe that the cloth was hers. Just to touch its smooth surface seemed to give her such joy that Daniel did not dare to suggest that it had a useful purpose. He waited for two mornings before he brought out the needle and thread. Leah watched his clumsy experiments, fascinated. Suddenly a squeal of laughter broke from her, so startling that he dropped the needle. He had never heard her laugh before! The breathy little sound died away as he stared at her.

"Oh Daniel! You hold it like one of those great iron things. Give me that."

"Can you thread a needle?" he asked, astonished.

"Anybody can thread a needle! Daniel, do you think—would you be angry with me if I made a dress out of the blue cloth?"

Through the door of the smithy he watched Leah spread the cloth on the floor, marveling at the capable way she turned it this way and that as she cut. Praise be! Perhaps she could even make him a new cloak!

I
T STARTED
with an innocent question.

"Daniel, what is a wedding?"

Across the mat with its earthen dishes, Daniel looked at his sister. They sat late over their morning meal. He knew that the shop door should be open, but he was in no hurry about it. Well into the morning hours he had celebrated the wedding of his new friend, Nathan, son of the tax collector. He felt heavy-limbed and slow-witted. He wished Leah would stop prodding him with questions.

How pitifully little the girl knew of the world outside their walls. Had their grandmother never talked to her? In the early days here in Simon's house, he and Leah had eaten their meals and done the work with few words. Then, out of his own loneliness, he had begun to talk, as he used to talk to Samson, sorting out his own thoughts aloud, not expecting any response. Leah had listened in silence, as Samson had done, but later she had astonished him by remembering. She had begun to ask questions, odd, childish questions that revealed an incredible ignorance. Lately, since Thacia's visit, there had been altogether too many questions. She wanted to know about the girls he saw in the village, what they wore, what they did in the town, what they talked about. He did his best to answer her, because he could understand how his words were like a window through which she could peek out at a world of people she did not dare to meet face to face. Now, scowling in the effort, he tried to tell her about a wedding.

"It's a feast," he said slowly. "On the day a man takes a bride into his house. When all his friends come to celebrate with him and wish him happiness."

"Does the bride have friends too?"

"Oh yes, all making a fuss and talking at once."

"Did many people come to Nathan's wedding?"

"Well no, not so many as usual, I guess. Of course this was the first wedding I've been to since—" Since that far-off night when he had carried a torch in his uncle's procession! He hurried on. "You see, Nathan is ashamed because his father is already making money from the tax collection, so he refused to let his father give the feast for him. I guess as weddings go it was a pretty poor one, but Nathan was satisfied."

"Did you have good things to eat?"

"Yes. Cakes and lots of fruit and grape wine." Curse his selfishness! Couldn't he have brought her a morsel?

"Tell me about it, Daniel!" Her blue eyes sparkled. He wished he had Joel's gift for words.

"First we went to the bride's house. Her family had made garlands out of flowers. Nathan and Deborah stood in the garden behind the house, because the house was too small to fit in so many people."

"Was the bride pretty?"

"I don't know. I guess Nathan thought so."

"As pretty as Thacia?"

For a moment he was disconcerted. Then he remembered that Thacia was the only girl she knew.

"No," he said honestly. "Not so pretty as you, either."

"What did she wear?" Leah looked pleased and flushed.

"Oh—" he floundered. "A dress—white I think it was. And a veil over her head, and the flowers. Then we all made a procession to Nathan's new house. There were some little boys who played on pipes, and we all carried torches, and the older people threw rice and grain at the bride."

"Why?"

"Oh—it's a custom. To wish her a fine family. And everyone sang songs and shouted and clapped their hands and stamped their feet."

He stopped at the alarm in her eyes. Even the mention of noise terrified her. She could not imagine that noise could be merry. He got to his feet and began to clear away the meal. But Leah did not move, only sat brooding over what he had told her.

Finally she asked, "Will Nathan's bride live in his house with him all the time?"

"Of course. Just as our mother and father lived in our house."

"Daniel," she said slowly. "When you bring a bride here to live with you, what will happen to me?"

He was completely taken aback. "That's a silly question," he snapped. "I'm not going to marry."

"Why not?"

"Because I have no time for such foolishness. Not till the last Roman is gone from our land."

"Is Nathan foolish because he has a bride?"

Daniel felt his good humor sliding away. "It is another matter for Nathan. I have taken an oath. I live for just one thing—to rid us of our Roman masters."

His voice sounded loud in his own ears. Was he shouting at Leah—or himself? Angrily he began to pull on his cloak. He felt sore, as though she had unexpectedly probed a wound he had not even been aware of.

"Are the Romans our masters?" she asked, her soft voice sounding puzzled.

"Don't you even know that?"

She sat silent. But as he opened the door of the shop he saw that another question was beginning. He did not intend to listen. He had had enough for one morning. But the words caught him like a suddenly flashing net.

"That soldier—the one who comes into your shop sometimes—the one who rides on the horse? Is he a Roman?"

"Yes. May his bones rot!"

"Is he your master, then?"

"Ask him! He would say he is!"

"Oh Daniel—how silly! He is only a boy, not half so big and strong as you. And he is homesick."

A fury of impatience seized him. "What does it matter how strong he is? He carries a sword. He has the whole Roman army to protect him!"

"Daniel—why are you so angry at the Romans?"

In a rage of frustration he glared at her. Because they did this to you! he wanted to shout at her. Because they robbed you of your parents and a decent life and a chance to drink out of the marriage cup like that girl last night. Because they robbed you of everything—all but one thing. A brother to avenge you!

Suddenly all he wanted was to get away from her. He felt choked. A heavy weight he could not understand dragged at him. But as he stumbled through the door he turned back.

"What made you say he was homesick?"

Her eyes looked up at him, misty blue. "I think he is homesick," she said. She bent and began to roll up the mat.

Furious, he slammed the door behind him. Homesick! That stiff-necked son of a camel!

But where had she learned the word?

He could not put his mind on his work. His head throbbed. Without warning, Leah's childish questions had unleashed all the rebellion he had kept so carefully chained. All day at the forge he thought of the mountain. Twice he laid down the hammer and went to stand in the doorway of Simon's shop, looking up at the line of hills shimmering in the heat against the unbroken blue of the sky. Up till now he had been able to deal with his restlessness, push it down out of sight, hammer it out with great blows on the anvil. Today it seized him with the strength of a hundred demons. All day he stuck to his work, trying to hammer out his longing on the metal, frying to keep his eyes from the distant hills. In the late afternoon he laid down the hammer, banked the fire carefully with earth as for the Sabbath, and bolted the door of the shop.

"I must be away tonight," he told Leah. "There is food and water, and oil enough to burn all night."