The Bronze Bow (25 page)

"Much prettier than most of them."

He had meant to please her, but he was surprised that his answer should seem so important to her.

"Thacia said so too," she said seriously, thinking this over as though it were something she had never before considered. "Do you think perhaps someone else might think so, not just you and Thacia?"

"Joel said so too."

With a little smile she dismissed Joel. "He is kind, like Thacia, isn't he?" she said, her thoughts elsewhere. Then she made one of her surprising turns to the practical.

"Your supper is ready," she said. "I have a surprise for you."

The mat was already laid out for him, and he saw that he would have to eat, however little he wanted to.

With the garland still in her hair, Leah unwrapped the bread and set out the bowl of boiled carrots and onions. Even in his own preoccupation he noticed the trembling eagerness with which she watched him eat, like a child brimming with a secret that can scarcely be contained.

When the vegetables were finished, she went behind the curtain in the corner. She brought out a woven basket of fruit. He saw at once that it was very fine fruit, sleek scarlet pomegranates, plump juicy figs, the sort of fruit that no Galilean ever kept for his own table, and only once a year dared to reserve for the sacrifice of First Fruits at the Temple in Jerusalem. What neighbor could have brought such a gift?

"Is this payment for your weaving?" he asked her.

"No," she said, breathless with pleasure. "It was a present for me."

He waited, puzzled.

"Marcus brought it today."

His teeth, already sunk into the first luscious bite, stopped as though he had struck a rottenness. "Who is Marcus?"

"You know. The soldier who comes on the horse."

He sent the pomegranate spinning across the room. He heard the sickish splash as it flattened against the wall, and saw the basket rolling from his vicious kick. He was on his feet, half blind and shaking. With a wail, Leah went down on her knees, scrabbling on the floor for an orange, sobbing, trying to wipe it against her dress. He snatched it from her hand.

"How do you know his name?" he shouted. "How dare a Roman dog bring you anything?"

Leah cowered against the wall.

"Answer me! How do you know him?" He reached out, gripped her shoulders, and held her up. Without a sound Leah drooped.

He heard his own voice, shouting words he had never used before, words he had heard in the cave. Then slowly the whirling blackness slowed down, and his sight began to clear. In the center of the blackness he saw his sister, shrinking under his hands, the garland of flowers slipped sideways on the streaming golden hair, her white face averted, waiting for his blow. His hands unclenched and let her fall. Shamed, he stood back.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said more quietly. "Answer me. What has this man done?"

Faintly, her voice came from under the screen of hair. "He has been my friend."

"How long?"

"Since last summer. He has come to see me when you were gone away."

He held himself rigid. "You have let a Roman come into my house?"

"No—no! He has never come into the house."

"What then? Tell me."

"He—he sits on his horse outside the garden wall and talks to me."

"Only that? You give me your word?"

She raised her head and looked at him with such a strange dignity that he backed away.

"What does he talk about?"

"He doesn't know many words. He tells me about his family—they live far away in a place called Gallia. He lives in a little village with a forest all around it. His village was conquered by the Romans. He has a brother and two little sisters, and they all have yellow hair like mine. I wanted to tell you, Daniel. So many times I wanted to! But whenever he came to the shop, when you even thought about him—your face was so black. I was afraid."

"You should have been afraid. I would have torn his tongue out! I will yet, when I find him."

Her face went gray. "No! Oh no!" Suddenly she flung herself at his feet. "Don't harm him! Tell me you won't harm him! Oh—if you hurt him I will die!"

He looked down at her, loathing her. But he knew that she had told him the truth. The Roman had not come into his house.

"Stop groveling and listen to me," he said cruelly. "If I do not kill him, you must never speak to him again."

"No. Never!"

"You must give me your solemn word."

"I do. I promise anything you say."

"You will not show yourself where he can see you."

"No. I will never go out into the garden again."

"You have brought shame on my house, and on Simon's house and on our father's name. On the name of Israel, even."

She began to sob again.

"Weep!" he railed at her. "Weep your silly tears! See if you can cry your shame away."

He turned blindly toward the door, wanting only to be out of sight of her. She lay with her head against the earth floor, her face hidden. For an instant he wavered. Then he remembered something. When was it—on a summer day—she had said, "He is homesick." Even then! All this time she had deceived him. He plunged through the door and out into the street.

For hours he walked, rushing through the village streets, trampling the pastures on the slopes, striding along the road, drenched by intermittent rain. At first he had some wild thought of finding the Roman. For most of the night he did not really know where he went. As the first pink streaks of light streamed up in the sky he turned back toward the village. He was exhausted and empty, and his shoulder throbbed with pain. He had walked out the fierce anger that had driven him. Now, in its place, shame flowed in.

It was a good thing he had not met a legionary in the night. He might have brought down a reprisal on the whole village. Now that his head was clearer he saw that in spite of his bitter loathing, no one else would recognize his claim to vengeance. The Roman legion had its own laws, as strict as those of the Jews. But it was unlikely there was any law, either Roman or Jewish, that said a Roman legionary could not speak to a Jewish woman over a garden wall.

What did Rome mean to Leah? She had seen a boy, scarcely older than herself, with yellow hair like her own. But why hadn't she been afraid?

"I shouldn't have shouted at her," he thought with shame. "I will try to make it up to her. I will show her that she does not need to be afraid of me."

But let that Roman never set foot in his shop again!

The house was very quiet. On the floor of the room the spilled fruit lay in the dust. Leah sat in a corner, a wilted blossom still clinging to her hair. When Daniel came in, she did not raise her head.

I
N A FEW MOMENTS
he had undone the work of months. Overnight Leah had become again the wan ghost who had cowered beside her dying grandmother. She did not comb her golden hair, or sweep the floor, or speak. She did not seem to recognize her loom. All day she sat with her head bowed and her hands idle. It was as though everything that had happened since the day of Daniel's homecoming had never been, except that one thing had changed. Now, above all else, she feared him.

In a torment of remorse, Daniel did all the work about the house, the sweeping and washing and baking. He steeled himself against her constant trembling, and the cringing whenever he came through the door. When she refused to notice her food so long as he was in the room, he left the bowl on the mat beside her. Sometimes when he returned it was half empty; more often it was untouched. He pleaded with her very gently. He was more patient than he had ever imagined he was capable of being. But her eyes, when he glimpsed them rarely, were like empty windows. He dreaded to look lest he should see the demons staring out of them. He was sure now that they possessed her completely.

Just when the hope of Jesus began to work in him he did not know. It began as a small flicker in the darkness of his mind. All dav at the forge the hope grew slowly, till it filled his every thought. They said that Jesus could cast out demons, demons so terrible that they made a man tear his own flesh.

Could he cast out the silent demons, too, those that hid themselves deep in the shadows?

Could he ask anything of Jesus, when he had refused to follow him? And did he dare to ask Jesus to help Leah, when he knew in his heart that he himself was to blame that the demons had come back? Yet he remembered how Jesus, in a way he had never understood, had somehow lifted from him the terrible weight of Samson's death. If only he could take to Jesus this heavier burden of guilt. In the sleepless hours he forgot the doubts that had confused him that night on the rooftop. He remembered only the infinite kindness of the teacher's eyes. He did not think that Jesus would turn him away.

There came an afternoon when his mind was suddenly made up. He laid down his hammer and took the road to Capernaum. He reached the city toward evening, and made his way at once to the shore.

The fishing boats were deserted. A single aged man, his crutches beside him, stared out over the water.

"They have all gone," he whined. "Not a thought for us who couldn't walk."

"Gone where?"

"Who knows?" the man sighed. "They have been gone all day. They followed the master; a great crowd of them. He went out in the boat, and Andrew rowed him across the lake. The people ran after him along the shore. Hundreds of them. I couldn't keep up."

"Which way?"

"To the west. Toward the plain."

Daniel hurried away. He was in no mood to wait, especially in this dismal company. He would go out to meet the returning crowd. For the first time he understood why they had refused to be left behind. This time he wanted something himself, and he knew their impatience.

It was not hard to follow the route they had taken along the rocky shore path. He began to realize, as one excited person after another pointed the way, that a very large crowd had passed by, and that many along the shore must have dropped their work and followed after. He saw before him a barren rise of hills. The light was failing fast, but he could just distinguish a great mass of people, more than he had ever seen before in one place, clotted like a vast herd of sheep on the slope. What were they doing there so late?

Presently the sound of their voices reached him like the roar of the sea in a storm, louder and louder, swelling wave on wave. The master must be through speaking, for no one could possibly make himself heard over such a tumult. Above the roar he caught an occasional scream, hysterical, high-pitched. He had never heard a sound quite like this. His heart began to pound.

He caught up finally with the rear of the crowd. They were all on their feet, pushing, shoving, craning their necks with a frenzy he had never seen before. Up ahead their voices rose in a sort of chant.

"What is it?" He caught the aim of the man nearest him. "Why are they shouting?"

"Why? Where are your wits, boy?"

"I've just come. Tell me."

"It's the Messiah! Listen!"

As he grasped the words his heart gave a great leap. "Hosanna! Blessed be He that cometh!" Over and over, over and over.

"It is the day of the Lord!" screamed a voice above all the rest.

He has declared himself! Daniel thought with rapture, forgetting Leah, forgetting his exhaustion and doubt, forgetting everything but the fierce joy that shook him from head to foot.

"Did he tell you?" he demanded, still clutching the man's arm. "Tell me—what did he say?"

"Say? He did better than say. He fed us. Don't you see the bread? Pick some up for yourself. There's plenty." The man shook himself loose. "Praise be!" he shouted, pushing forward. "Salvation is come!"

Daniel looked down. He saw a glimmer of white on the ground and stooped to it. Bread. He held it in his hand. Farther on he saw another crust, and another. Bread? For all these people? People all over the hillside? There must be thousands.

"Wait a minute!" He ran after the man. "Where did the bread come from?"

"How do I know? All I know is they sent back word for us to sit down. Then someone passed me bread."

The shouting was growing more frenzied. "Let him be king!" they screamed. "He is our Deliverer! Down with Rome!"

Still Daniel could not see Jesus. He began to push his way through the jostling bodies. If only Joel were here, he thought with sharp regret. The end of all their waiting, and Joel was not there to see it!

"Daniel!" Out of the darkness came a familiar voice.

"Simon!" The two friends grasped each other's arms. "Where is he, Simon?"

"He has gone."

"Gone! They're going to crown him king!"

"I know. But he has gone. We pleaded with him. But he told us to hold back the crowd, and then he went, with Simon and James and John."

"Where?"

"Back into the hills somewhere."

"We must go after him! Hurry!"

"We will not find him. He said that no one was to follow him."

Daniel rocked back from the words as from a wall. Baffled, he stood quivering, his eyes straining ahead. Where could he look in the darkness? Numb with disappointment, he stared at his friend. Then he realized that all around him, like a bonfire that had leaped too high, the exaltation was dying down. Shouts of joy were giving way to cries of anger. Like Daniel, the people could not believe that Jesus had gone. He must be hiding, waiting to be coaxed. Here and there fierce sudden arguments broke out. If the man wanted to be king, why didn't he stand up and act like a king? Women threaded through the crowd, searching out their men and urging them to go home. Slowly the tide turned back down the hill.

"Come," said Simon quietly. "You can spend the night with me."

"Simon—why?" Daniel burst out. "They would have given him a crown!"

"I don't know. Perhaps it is not time."

"When will there ever be a better time?"

"That is for him to choose."

"But will he? What does he want? What sort of man is he, anyway?"

Simon looked back at him. In the darkness his eyes suddenly blazed. "I believe he is the Messiah, sent from God," he said.