Among the Gods (Chronicles of the Kings Book #5)

by Lynn Austin

  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 cell 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.

  “Try to find out the date,” he begged one morning. “I need to know how soon!”

  He had said the wrong thing. The new guard turned as silent as the first one had been, day after day, reducing Manasseh to such a state of despair that he lay on his stomach with his arms extended through the slot, weeping and pleading with the man every morning. “I’m sorry I was impatient. It won’t happen again. Please talk to me! Please say something!”

  His pleas were met with silence. Then, after several weeks of unending silence had passed, the guard suddenly spoke to him one morning. “I have good news. You will be set free soon.”

  Set free!

  For the first time in many months, Manasseh remembered what hope was. He sobbed uncontrollably. His ordeal would end soon. He would be set free. The part of his mind still mired in despair urged him not to believe it, not to let the guard raise his hopes, but the man’s voice was so gentle, so filled with compassion, that he couldn’t possibly be lying. Manasseh dreamed of what it would be like to crawl out of his cell, to be a free man again. Thoughts of freedom consumed his waking hours.

  Day after day the guard spoke the same promise, “Very soon you will be set free,” until once again, Manasseh lost control.

  “When?” he screamed. “You have to tell me when! When will I be set free?” The guard rewarded his outburst with so many days of silence that Manasseh eventually lost count of them. Little by little he stopped begging, stopped reaching his shackled hands beneath the bar as he waited in vain for the man to speak again. Instead, Manasseh greeted the sound of his footsteps with pathetic sobbing.

  Then one day the guard spoke again. “Tomorrow,” he said. “You will be set free tomorrow.”

  Manasseh repeated the word over and over like a chant throughout the long day and endless night.

  Tomorrow …

  Tomorrow!

  When dawn finally arrived, Manasseh sat huddled by the opening, waiting for his freedom at last. His heart pounded wildly when he heard the approaching footsteps. His friend would pry away the bars. He would set him free.

  Instead, the slender hand shoved a bowl of water and a plate of food beneath the crack.

  “No! Wait!” Manasseh cried. “You said I’d be set free!”

  “Yes,” the voice said. “Tomorrow.”

  In spite of his devastating disappointment, Manasseh believed him. He needed to believe him. And so he did.

  But after endless days of repeated torture, repeated promises of “tomorrow” that went unfulfilled, Manasseh finally understood. The guard had been playing a cruel game from the very start. “You lied to me,” Manasseh screamed. “You kept saying tomorrow, but you’re never going to set me free! It’s a lie!”

  “Yes, I lied,” the voice said softly. “And now that you know the truth, they will take you out and execute you. Tomorrow you will die.”

  “No! That’s another lie! It isn’t true!” But as the footsteps retreated, Manasseh began to wonder if it were true. As he waited in terror throughout that long day and night, images of Assyrian executions tormented him—slow, painful tortures. Being impaled, flayed alive. The sleepless night flew past too quickly. Too soon, the cell grew light. When he heard the footsteps descending the stairs they seemed different. He listened
in horror and recognized the heavier tread of the first guard.

  Manasseh backed away from the cell door, his heart leaping in panic. He trembled from head to toe. When the feet paused outside his door, he began to whimper like a frightened animal. “I don’t want to die…. Please … please … I don’t want to die….”

  Bowls of food and water slid beneath the crack, then laughter echoed in the passageway outside his cell. Manasseh felt his grip loosen as he slipped toward madness. He slid down the wall of his cell and curled into a ball on the floor.

  “I can’t take this anymore! I can’t!” he screamed. He was hanging on to sanity by his fingertips, and as his strength slowly gave way, he took the only escape route left to him—he unlocked the door that led to his memories of the past.

  Manasseh closed his eyes and he was a child again, nestled beside his mother. He saw her beautiful face, smelled her rich scent. She began to rock him in her arms, and her sweet voice soothed him as she sang her favorite psalm. “‘Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name….”’

  Miriam sat across the table from her husband, watching him devour his food with gusto. Her plate sat before her, untouched. Like a man newly released from prison, Joshua seemed happier and more alive than he’d ever been in his life. It worried her. Sometimes when he didn’t know she was watching, he would close his eyes, as if murmuring a prayer of gratitude, and a slow smile of triumph would spread across his face. Miriam would shudder, knowing he had imagined his enemy’s torture.

  “Is there more food?” he asked after he’d cleaned his plate. “That was delicious.”

  “Here, take mine.” She shoved her plate across the table to him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why aren’t you eating?” His tone was curious, not concerned. The relaxed expression of satisfaction never left his face.

  “There’s nothing wrong. I’m not hungry, that’s all.”

  “Don’t you feel well? Are you sick?”

  She decided to confront him with the truth. “Yes, I’m sick with worry—over you.”

  “Miriam, why?” he asked, grinning. “I’ve never felt better in my life! And if you’re worried about my safety after I return to Jerusalem, I’ve already told you—”

  “It’s not fear for your physical safety that concerns me as much as fear for what’s happening in your heart.”

  “Did you like me better when I was depressed?” He seemed mildly amused, as if he didn’t take her seriously. He moved his own plate aside and began eating the food on hers.

  “No, you know I hate to see you depressed. But your joy is all out of proportion, Joshua. It seems wrong for you to gloat like this over another man’s suffering.”

  “Manasseh was my enemy, and justice brings satisfaction, especially after I’ve waited so long for it. Don’t you suppose our fore-fathers rejoiced and celebrated when 144,000 Assyrians died in the night? Or when Goliath fell? Or when the walls of Jericho came down?”

  “I’m worried about what might happen to you if you’re disappointed again—if your hopes all fall through like they did when the rebellion failed.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “But that’s ridiculous. How could I be disappointed?”

  “Because you have everything all figured out in your mind—what’s going to happen, how God is going to work—and if things don’t end up exactly the way you think they will, you’ll be angry with God again.”

  Joshua used a piece of bread to mop the plate clean, then popped it into his mouth, shaking his head as he chewed. “The Assyrians arrested Manasseh as a traitor,” he said after swallowing. “He’ll be executed, just like the emperor’s brother was. In fact, he’s probably already dead.” He couldn’t suppress a smile. It made Miriam ill.

  “What about the rest of your plans? What if you and Amariah can’t win control of our country again?”

  “We’ll take it one step at a time, Miriam. First we need to slip back into Jerusalem and survey the situation for ourselves, then—”

  “I’m going with you.”

  For the first time, his smile disappeared. “You know that’s impossible.”

  “Why? You’re traveling by ship, aren’t you? Then by caravan? I can easily ride along. Besides, no one will suspect that you’re spies if you bring a crippled woman along.”

  He rose from the table. “I’m not even going to discuss this, Miriam.”

  She rose, as well, grabbing her crutches in case he walked away from her. “When you came back from the war you promised that you’d never leave me again, remember?”

  “It’s only for a month or two. Besides, you won’t be alone. You’ll have Nathan’s wife and baby to fuss over.” He walked around the table to her as he talked, then wrapped her in his arms. “Look, would you feel better if Nathan didn’t come with me? If he stayed here with you?”

  “I’m going with you,” she said firmly. The decision brought Miriam peace of mind for the first time since Joshua began making plans to go. “You can leave without me, Joshua, but you can’t stop me from boarding the very next ship and following you to Jerusalem. If you’re not around to pick me up when my crutches slip, I’m sure someone else will do it for me.”

  “Miriam, you’re being stubborn—”

  “Does that surprise you? Didn’t you once say it was one of the reasons you fell in love with me?”

  Joshua’s arms dropped to his sides as he exhaled in frustration. His contented look had vanished completely. “And just what do you think you can do for me in Jerusalem?” he asked angrily.

  “Probably the same things I do here—cook your meals, soothe your temper, save you when you get into trouble.”

  “Look, I’m not the only one going on this trip. Joel and Amariah will never agree to let you come.”

  She gave a short laugh. “They’ll agree to anything you say. You and Nathan are the only ones who can use a sword.”

  “You’re not going!” he shouted. She knew he raised his voice only because he had run out of excuses. She turned her back to him and began clearing the table.

  “I’m going to Jerusalem, Joshua. So you’d better start writing me into your plans.”

  26

  EVERY DAY, BEGINNING AT DAWN, Manasseh opened the door to his memories of the past and left his prison cell to journey to another place in a different time. He decided to start with his earliest memories of childhood and relive every moment he could recall of his life. He knew that many of those memories would be painful, but pain was good—it meant that he was alive and still clinging to his sanity.

  The sound of his mother’s voice, singing to him, was his first memory. He hummed the tune that had been Hephzibah’s favorite over and over to himself and felt the warmth of her arms, smelled the flowery scent of her perfumed skin. He wandered the halls of the palace nursery and felt safe, secure, and utterly loved.

  Before long, his brother toddled through the rooms behind him, shouting, “Wait, Ma’ssah … wait!” Manasseh remembered how Amariah would look up to him, his big eyes pathetically hopeful, longing for his friendship. But he had been cruel to Amariah as a child, shoving him roughly aside, and even more cruel to him as an adult, pressuring him to embrace all of Zerah’s changes. “Amariah cries out in his sleep sometimes,” Zerah had once told him. For the first time Manasseh understood that his actions had driven his only brother into exile.

  Slowly, the memories became harder and harder for Manasseh to face as Joshua entered his life. For years they had been inseparable, doing everything together from the time the morning sacrifice began until the evening one ended. He smiled when he remembered how serious Joshua had always been, how he’d hung on to every word Rabbi Gershom had uttered in their Torah lessons, and how clumsy and inept he’d been with a sword. Joshua, his best friend, had grown up to become a traitor conspiring to usurp his throne—hadn’t he? In the silence of his prison cell, Manasseh closed his eyes and heard Joshua struggling for air, the painful wheezing of his breathi
ng attack after Manasseh had left him stranded in the rain. “You know I’m not your enemy, Manasseh…. We’re best friends, aren’t we?” He wondered which of the lies he had believed were true and which truths had been lies.

  As the long days passed and Manasseh’s journeys continued, he came at last to the memories he feared the most—the ones of his abba. He thought it strange that he should fear his father’s memory, because he had loved Abba deeply and had been so completely loved by him in return. He remembered how tall his father was, how he had to look up and up to see the familiar warmth in his eyes. He remembered the slight limp in his step from his scars, the scent of aloe balm and incense on his clothes. Manasseh could linger for hours over these memories, but when Abba opened his mouth to speak, Manasseh drew back in fear, knowing what his first words would be.

  “Hear, O Israel. Yahweh is God—Yahweh alone. Love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”

  The memory brought Manasseh back to his prison cell with a jolt, shaken out of his reverie by the force of his father’s voice. Think about something else, he told himself. Think about the mountains and valleys that surround Jerusalem. Think about all the things you learned in your studies: the history of Israel beginning with Abraham and Isaac; the stories of Joseph and Moses and the exodus from Egypt; recite all of the nation’s kings, starting with Saul and David and Solomon. As he recited, Manasseh realized he was part of that history. He had taken his place on Judah’s throne as his father had before him, fulfilling the prophecy spoken to King David that a descendant would always sit on his nation’s throne.

  He closed his eyes and saw Abba, seated on his throne in splendor with Eliakim on his right, Shebna on his left. He saw the judgment hall filled with people, bowing before King Hezekiah, seeking his wisdom, his justice. But there was no pride or arrogance in his father’s posture as he reigned, only a quiet humility that somehow made him seem more powerful. He saw his father striding up the royal walkway to stand on the platform at the Temple, a sovereign king of authority and strength. But then his father, who had never bowed a knee to any Assyrian overlord, fell down on his knees—on his face—before God, humbling himself in obeisance to his King and Lord. He heard the passion and awe in his father’s voice: Yahweh is God—Yahweh alone.