The Chronicles of the Kings Collection

by Lynn Austin

  “I can’t take this!” Manasseh wept. He curled into a tight ball, hugging himself, as he battled hysteria. “Do something, Zerah! Help us both, or I’m going to go insane in here!” But Zerah appeared to be in a stupor as he slumped in the corner, staring blindly at the wall. He rocked slightly, as if cradling a baby, and uttered a soft, keening sound.

  Manasseh crawled across the floor to him and took his face in his hands, forcing him to look at him. “Zerah, look at me! Say something! Talk to me!” Zerah’s glazed eyes were unseeing. Manasseh clung to him and wept until the cell grew dark and he finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

  He awoke to the dim light of dawn and the sound of their food being slid beneath the bar into the cell—a bowl of water and a plate of cold table scraps. Manasseh felt the fiery heat of Zerah’s body and realized that he was burning with fever. He scrambled across the floor on his hands and knees, hampered by the shackles that still chained him hand and foot, and pleaded with the guard through the narrow grate.

  “Please, my friend needs a physician. Have mercy, I beg you. Don’t let him die in this terrible place.” His voice echoed and died in the silent jail. As if in a dream, Manasseh suddenly recalled the night his soldiers had brought the badly beaten body of Joshua’s grandfather to him. Hilkiah had needed a physician, too, but Manasseh had condemned him to a prison cell to die. Were the gods playing games with his mind, reminding him of the past? Were they punishing him for his sins? But no, he wasn’t a sinner. Sin was an illusion.

  “I’m going crazy,” he murmured as he crawled back to where his friend lay. “You have to get well, Zerah. You can’t leave me all alone in this place. I’ll go mad.” He lifted Zerah’s head to give him a sip of water, but he couldn’t swallow. Water dribbled from the corners of his mouth into his beard. Manasseh held him in his arms, helpless to do more.

  As the cell grew lighter he noticed the huge, festering sores on Zerah’s ankles where the shackles had rubbed his flesh raw. They weren’t healing as Manasseh’s blisters were but had turned a sickly greenish color, with darker streaks radiating up his legs. The heavy bonds, still in place, bit deeply into Zerah’s wounds. During the night Zerah’s insides had turned to water, but there was no way to clean him or change his clothes. The stench killed any appetite Manasseh might have had, and he watched, uncaring, as rats brazenly carried away their food.

  For several days, Zerah was incoherent with fever. Manasseh hoped he was reciting incantations to bring healing or to get them out of this stinking prison, but he knew in his heart it was mindless babbling. He swatted the flies that swarmed around Zerah’s sores, but as time passed, he eventually gave up the impossible task.

  Their food came only once a day, and Manasseh soon learned to eat it before the rats did. Using the meager bowl of water to cool Zerah’s fever had proved futile; instead, Manasseh carefully rationed it between them. By the end of the week his friend’s body had grown so foul that Manasseh didn’t want to be near him anymore, let alone touch him. But the guard continued to ignore his pleas for help.

  As death approached, madness overpowered Zerah. His eyes rolled back in his twitching face, and his body convulsed the way a sorcerer’s did when a spirit took possession of him. He screamed obscenities, cursing the very gods he had once worshiped for not helping him. At times he howled and snarled like an animal, clawing at invisible assailants and lashing out with surprising strength. Manasseh huddled in a far corner in terror, waiting for the end.

  After what seemed a very long time, the babbling ceased. When the sun rose in the morning and the cell grew light, he saw that Zerah was dead. Manasseh was alone. He covered his own face and wept with hopeless grief.

  Joshua leaned against the half-finished wall of his latest project and stared into space as Nathan ordered the workers to their various tasks. His son had asked him to visit the site, insisting that he needed his advice, but Joshua recognized it as a ploy to try to reignite his interest in their work. He knew Nathan could easily complete the project without him.

  For months, ever since the viceroy’s rebellion had failed, Joshua had been unable to find joy or satisfaction in anything he did. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” the proverb said, and Joshua lived those words. He had successfully battled the flames of his anger and rage, but in the aftermath, Joshua’s life seemed dull and flat and gray, as barren as a charred landscape. Worse, he still couldn’t go to the temple or pray.

  As he watched his laborers erect the new scaffolding, he slowly became aware that Nathan was speaking to him. “Abba? You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

  “I’m sorry, son. I don’t have the energy for this. I’d better go home.” He turned to leave just as a boy came running up the path to the worksite. It was Jerimoth’s youngest son.

  “Uncle Joshua, wait,” he said breathlessly. “Abba sent me to get you. He says you need to come and talk to him and Prince Amariah right away.”

  “Do you know what he wants?”

  “One of Abba’s caravan drivers has brought news. Abba thinks you should hear it.”

  Joshua sighed in exasperation, certain it would prove to be another ruse to try to help him shake his apathy. Nevertheless, he followed his nephew to Amariah’s audience hall.

  “Sit down,” Jerimoth insisted, hovering nervously around him. “You need to be seated to hear this.” Joshua obeyed, too weary to argue. Jerimoth spoke slowly, hesitantly. “Listen, Joshua, the last thing in the world I want to do is raise your hopes, but my driver is a reliable man. He was an eyewitness. We can trust him to tell the truth.” He nodded to the man. “Go ahead. Tell him what you told us.”

  “My trading ventures took me to Jerusalem four months ago. While I was there, a battalion of Assyrians arrived one morning in full battle array. Everyone bolted for home at the sight, believe me, and I stayed holed up in my booth in the caravansary. But eventually they blew the shofars and ordered the entire city into the streets to watch a procession. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The Assyrians had King Manasseh and all his noblemen in chains and shackles, parading them through the streets with hooks in their noses.”

  “And you’re certain it was the king?” Jerimoth prompted.

  “Yes, my lord. I recognized King Manasseh even in his undergarments, without his crown and fancy robes and bodyguards. Besides, they announced his name all through the streets as they made him march, saying he was a traitor to the empire, telling us they had proof that Manasseh had conspired with the emperor’s brother to take part in a rebellion.”

  Joshua opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t utter a sound.

  “When they finished making an exhibition of him,” the driver continued, “they deported the king and all the nobility to prison in Babylon.”

  “All of his officials?” Jerimoth asked.

  “There weren’t that many, my lord. King Manasseh murdered all but a handful years ago when they opposed his treaty with Assyria.”

  “Who’s governing the nation?” Prince Amariah asked.

  “No one. Chaos reigns. Every man is doing as he sees fit.”

  Joshua didn’t realize that he had stopped breathing until his brother pounded him on the back, seconds before he would have fainted. Someone thrust a cup of water to his lips and made him drink. The room reeled as Joshua struggled to comprehend what he’d just heard. Manasseh has been imprisoned by the Assyrians! He’s been stripped and hauled away with hooks and chains!

  “O God, make him suffer!” Joshua cried out when he could finally speak. “So many have suffered by his evil hand! Pay him back double the pain he has inflicted on others!”

  Everyone stared at him. Joshua sat trembling in his seat, as stunned by the force of his hatred as they were. It pumped through every inch of him, darker than blood, more bitter than gall. After all these years, his desire for revenge had suddenly sprung to life again, from deep within his heart. He had starved it, held it down in shackles as he’d vowed, but it had remained alive, curling around
his soul like a writhing serpent—inert but alive.

  Amariah’s astonishment made Joshua defensive. “Didn’t King David wish the same for his enemies? ‘Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work,’” he quoted. “‘Repay them for what their hands have done and bring back upon them what they deserve.’ That’s all I’m asking for—justice!”

  Amariah frowned. “I know, Joshua, but how can you wish for anyone to fall into the hands of the Assyrians?”

  He slowly realized what Amariah meant. God had placed Manasseh in the hands of the Assyrians—masters in the art of cruelty and torture. They would inflict far more pain than Joshua could ever imagine. Manasseh would die a slow, agonizing death.

  “Yes!” he shouted, fists clenched. “You have no idea just how much I’ve wished for this very thing!” Joshua slid his hand beneath his eye patch to wipe the tears of joy and triumph from his eyes.

  Prince Amariah turned away. The vehemence of Joshua’s hatred seemed to unnerve him. “I know this news has shaken all of us—especially me,” he said. “It seems that by joining the viceroy’s rebellion I unwittingly brought about my brother’s death.”

  “Wasn’t that the reason you joined?” Joshua said angrily. “To de-throne Manasseh? What’s the difference whether we went back and killed him or the Assyrians do it? Either way God is finally judging Manasseh’s wickedness.”

  “I know, I know,” the prince said with a heavy sigh. “But the Assyrians torture their prisoners horribly. . . .” For a moment he couldn’t speak. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I think I should return to Judah as soon as possible and see what’s become of our homeland. If it’s truly without a leader, then perhaps God wants me to step in.”

  “What about the Assyrians?” Jerimoth asked.

  “I’ll need to see if they’re still there, of course. And if they’re still a threat. I’ll survey the situation, then wait for God to lead me.”

  “I’m going with you,” Joshua said.

  Amariah studied him. “All right,” he said after a moment. “I’d appreciate your help.”

  When Joshua finally left the throne room, he didn’t wait for Jerimoth or anyone else but hurried straight to the temple. He wanted to offer a thank offering, but when he reached the gate to the courtyard, shame and guilt stopped him short. He had turned his back on God in anger these past months, questioning His wisdom and goodness. He had refused to pray. But God had been in control all along. Manasseh was finally paying for his crimes. Joshua knew he wasn’t worthy to enter the temple courts, guilty as he was of doubt and unbelief.

  “I’m sorry, Lord,” he prayed, gazing with longing at the altar. “Can you ever forgive my lack of faith?”

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to face Joel. “I haven’t seen you here in a while,” the high priest said gently. “Are you going in?”

  “I’ve been a fool, Joel. A stubborn, unbelieving fool.”

  “Well, as the psalmist has written, ‘There is no one who does good, not even one.’ But God provides forgiveness if we ask.” He gestured to the altar, then guided Joshua through the gate into the courtyard.

  As Joshua knelt before the fire that consumed his sin offering, renewed energy and zeal coursed through his veins. He remembered the proverb he’d been living and realized that the second half of the verse was also true: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

  25

  Manasseh never knew that days and nights could be so endless. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the long, tedious days spent pacing in the stifling cell or the never-ending nights, lying awake on the hard stone floor, waiting to hear his jailer’s footsteps at dawn. They were the only sounds of life that he ever heard, apart from the scurry of rodents and his own echoing cries.

  “Talk to me, please! Say something,” he pleaded with his captors through the slot beneath the door. “Let me hear another voice before I go insane!” But the owner of the dark hand that shoved food through the hole disappeared day after day without a word, leaving Manasseh with only a parting glimpse of sandal-shod feet. He remembered doing the same thing to Dinah—ordering the servants to give her the silent treatment to wear down her resistance. He studied the jagged wounds she’d made on his arm and stomach and knew that if there was such a thing as divine retribution, then he was paying for his crimes. He had not only left Dinah alone in silence like this during the day, but he’d returned each night to brutalize her. He could no longer remember why. Unable to face what he’d done, he closed his mind against all memories of the past, as if sealing the door to a part of a house he no longer wanted to use.

  Over the days and weeks and months that followed, Manasseh’s life settled into a nightmarish routine. Horrible dreams filled the restless nights, and he would awaken dozens of times to find the cell still dark—as black as the endless night in his soul. He longed for the dawn, for light to filter through the three holes near the ceiling, but with it would come the terrible heat. Within hours of sunrise, his clothes would be soaked with sweat, his throat parched, and he would have to force himself not to guzzle his meager bowl of water in one gulp. They had arrested him in late winter; he’d arrived in Babylon in early spring. The long, hot months of summer stretched ahead.

  His food arrived once a day at dawn, and Manasseh often lay awake in the dark hours before sunrise dreaming of what the guards might bring. Images of platters loaded with delicacies filled his mind: lamb and quail, roast venison and fattened veal; fruit and vegetables of all kinds: cucumbers, melons, olives, grapes, dates, figs, lemons, and pomegranates. He longed for a taste of dark bread, warm from the oven and dripping with honey. But when his daily scraps appeared with numbing uniformity—dry, tasteless, often inedible—he was forced to seal his mind against such fantasies, closing yet another door.

  All day long Manasseh stared at the four walls, the ceiling, the floor, until he knew every crack and stone. He began to imagine shapes of animals in the rough-hewn surfaces the way a child sees figures in the clouds. Eventually even those became unchanging, and he stopped looking for them. The barrenness of his world sucked the very life from him, the monotony of gray rock deadening his mind. He longed for color, beauty, pattern, texture. But even his skin and linen undergarments had turned the same dingy gray as the stones.

  The only spot of color that remained in his world was the blue tassel from his royal robes, which he had miraculously clung to all these months. He treated it like a treasured prize, handling it carefully to keep it clean, rationing the rare glimpses of it he allowed himself, so he would have something to look forward to. It became his talisman, his touchstone with reality, reminding him that a world had once existed outside these four unchanging walls. But he couldn’t bear to dwell on those memories too long, either.

  Manasseh spent part of each day pacing in his tiny cell, exercising his aching muscles so they wouldn’t grow weak and stiff. The chains between his ankles dragged back and forth across the cell, scraping the floor as he walked while his mind spun endlessly, going nowhere, like a donkey treading a mill wheel. He had been born under the sign of the lion, born into the tribe of the lion. But what had it all meant? That he was destined to end up here, pacing like a caged lion? Signs and omens had once been so important to him, but now he couldn’t make sense of any of them.

  Gradually his mind became blank to all thoughts but his present misery. He was imprisoned, his freedom lost forever. Manasseh had always been in control of his life, but now other people decided his fate and there was nothing he could do about it. The anger and frustration he felt at his lack of control consumed him, but with no way to vent his rage, it eventually transformed into hopelessness. Despair seemed a living thing to him, following him around the cell as he walked during the day, lying next to him at night, damp and clammy like an unwelcome bed partner. He would never know freedom again. He was going to die here. His mind was slowly unraveling.

  One morning the footsteps outside Manasseh’s ce
ll sounded different, lighter. After so many months he had memorized the sound of the guard’s familiar tread, and he knew before he glimpsed the feet outside the grate that this was a different man. The hand that slid his food through the hole was slender, the flesh pale.

  “How much longer am I going to be imprisoned here?” Manasseh cried. “When will I receive my trial?”

  “Soon,” a soft voice answered. The footsteps retreated.

  Manasseh wept on and off for most of the day, but whether it was from the sound of another human voice at last or from the words of hope that voice had offered, he didn’t know. Perhaps it was both. He awoke long before dawn the following day to wait for the guard, unwilling to risk being asleep when he returned. Tears filled his eyes when he heard the same light footsteps as the previous day.

  “Please . . . you said my trial will be soon. How soon?”

  “Very soon, I think.”

  “When? Can you find out when? Can you let me know tomorrow?” he called to the retreating steps.

  Now the endless days seemed longer still as Manasseh waited with renewed hope for each dawn. Day after day, the guard’s reply was the same, spoken in a voice that was warm and soothing: “Your trial is coming very soon.” At first Manasseh didn’t care that this promise never changed; the human contact alone was enough to sustain him. But slowly, he grew impatient.