by Tracy Groot
Sometimes in the fancies all would leave, they would board the next ship and look long behind them at the woman on the harbor who watched them go. Lately she made the fancy have one of them stay. One wanted to stay with Rivkah and serve her as handmaiden for the rest of her life.
It was a client who had told her about the cult prostitutes in Corinth. He tried to persuade her to come with him, told her grand stories of Greece and that she would be the most sought-after temple prostitute because of the striking color of her golden eyes.
Nathanael had been nine or ten. The client suggested that he would be sought after as well. When Rivkah asked what he meant by that, and when the client explained, she rose in a screaming rage and beat him all the way out of the brothel. Later she was told the truth about the temple prostitutes. They were slaves, sold to the temple by merchants like the client. They had no choice in what they did, and while Rivkah did things decent women wouldn’t, they were forced to do things that made Rivkah tremble in fury and fear.
Rivkah had cried in despair that Nathanael had been thought of in such a way, cried in rage at herself for her naïve stupidity, cried because the man had nearly beguiled her to go. That night she was thrown out of the brothel for her treatment of the man, told never to return. That was fine with her, she could make it just fine because she had her own home and what did she need them for?
She and Kyria had a better setup than others. They had their own clientele—mostly soldiers from the Roman garrison—and had only to pay a percentage if someone sent business their way. Sometimes business was at the inn, but never again at one of the brothels. Some prostitutes begged to come live with them, but Rivkah and Kyria turned them away; they didn’t want to run a brothel. Ha—that seemed indecent.
Once she asked a sailor on the quay which way was Corinth. He turned and looked, then pointed across the sea. Northwest.
Was there a Rivkah at the temple in Corinth? Did she have a son? Was he forced to do unthinkable things, and did it tear her apart? Did she want to kill herself, did she want to kill whoever stole her and sold her? Even if it was her own mother?
Nathanael, Nathanael. I hope you never come back. I hope you’ve made a life for yourself. I hope you forgive me for the life you had to live with me, and I hope you will forgive me—
—for the other.
That shook her from the sea and fancies.
Because he loved her, because she knew him, Nathanael would be back. He said he would. If Kyria cast doubt on that with her nasty silences when Rivkah spoke of his return, well, that was Kyria with all her miserable pessimism. She could look at an array of springtime flowers and find something depressing to say. She didn’t see much point in Rivkah’s determination to save Nathanael’s tree. Rome was all-powerful, and Pilate hated Jews. What chance did a tree have when it was in the pathway of Rome?
Rivkah would do anything she could to make sure he stood beneath his wedding canopy. Then, somehow, her son would be ensured of a decent life. If she had stood beneath her own chuppah, maybe . . . but at least he had the blood of a priest in him.
That accounted for something. If God heard the prayers of a prostitute.
Joab hardly remembered the walk from the granary to the commonyard. Here he was, ready to unlatch the gate. He stared stupidly at the leather thong hooked on the peg.
A coward twice. She was not what he expected, whatever that was. If she had looked mean and ugly it might have been easier. She sat like a sentry at that tree. He closed his eyes. At the tree of her dead son.
He could not. Even with the bundle, and he had fancied the box could help, he could not tell her. Not with what he had overheard at the curtain flap last night, when Orion spoke of her determination to save the tree. How she faced down Roman authority daily at the Praetorium. Joab wouldn’t dare do that.
He put his hand on the latch, and desperate thoughts came. He could leave right now! He could take the first ship out of the harbor, he could trade service for passage. He would leave the poor woman at the tree, let her live in the illusion that her son lived. What was wrong with that? Wasn’t it mercy?
Tell her for me. No stones.
She’d find out someday, but not from him. She’d live a lot of years without grief until then. Wasn’t it mercy, after all?
The silver box in the burlap felt like a sack of stone. Did he think to appease her grief with a stupid box? What would she care who owned it? The Teacher was dead, and it never did help Nathanael. What foolishness, that the box had powers and could help him do the impossible. It was only a box.
He unlatched the gate. It was still Sabbath, still early in the day. According to law he could only travel a Sabbath day’s journey . . . but he was lawless now. He would have to get used to that. He had let Nathanael die, as surely as if he had plunged the knife himself; what did it matter if he traveled on Sabbath? He wasn’t his father’s son anymore.
Joab slowly started for the mosaicist’s home. He would say good-bye to Marina and Theron. Maybe collect his wage, whatever was due him, pack his extra tunic, and hope that Marina would send him off with some food. He thought she probably would, she was good that way—
Joab stopped, stared, and his life came to an end in the commonyard.
Marina stood in front of the home, in front of the upright mosaic, with a girl. Talking, smiling with . . . Jorah. Jorah ben Joseph, sister of the Teacher, Jorah who had loved Nathanael. The bundle slipped from his hands.
How God hated him for his cowardice. Images flashed. Avi’s malevolence, the streak of the knife. Joab held Nathanael. Oh, God—oh God, he held him while Avi . . . Why hadn’t he done something sooner?
How God must hate him, to bring her here.
He gazed helplessly on Jorah while she did not see him. He should run, now, before she looked up! She was excited . . . so different from when he last saw her at Nathanael’s side. She was bedraggled, then, lovely in her love for Nathanael, dark circles under eyes set in an ashen, desperate face. Now she was groomed, with color in her cheeks and sun on her face. Now she was smiling eagerly at Marina. He had not seen her smile before. How lovely she was.
Run, Joab, run away. You still have a chance.
It was what he deserved, her here. And he suddenly knew he would not run anymore.
God had done his worst. In a moment, Jorah would look up and see him, and the sweetness on that face would turn to hatred. The face of Joab ben Judah of Hebron would scour the sweetness away. He would be to her what she was surely trying to escape. He was the living reminder of the murder of her beloved.
Joab died, then, he snapped in half and sank away and who stood there now did so by the vengeance of God. God would force him through this, make him witness her pain. It was only a matter—
—of time.
She looked up. She saw him.
He only thought he had died.
She was smiling from something Marina said, but now the smile froze. Her eyes grew large, and the sun on her face vanished. She took a step toward Joab, staggered back two, put out her arms for balance and turned as if to go to Thomas’s home. She did not make it three steps. She collapsed as if her life strings were severed.
Marina cried out and moved to her, but Joab’s shout was a roar.
“Leave her!”
He was at her side in the beat of a heart. He gathered her up and lifted her. Marina rushed to their door, and Joab carried Jorah into the home.
He would be there when she woke.
4
EVENING HAD PASSED, and it wasn’t a bad dream. He was Joab.
Lavender dawn slowly illumined the boy in the corner. He was sleeping, and sleeping, not the person she had seen in the commonyard. He was huge in the commonyard. She tilted her head to match his. He wasn’t as old as her memory of him. She remembered a man, a faceless man, barely there. She remembered someone who hovered anxiously in the background. She remembered wishing he weren’t there, that he was a discordant intrusion.
He sat on a palle
t slouched against the wall, one leg drawn up. Arms folded, head sagging on his shoulder. He was Joab.
Joab, the friend of Avi, who had killed Nathanael. Joab, who had killed Avi.
He was maybe eighteen. Through the hair fallen across his face, she could see his face was smooth, Roman style, but his hair was not Roman short. Not even Jewish short. It came nearly to his shoulders, wavy and straggly.
What would she do when he awoke? Everything had changed.
The pretending was done, over before it began. Maybe Cousin Thomas couldn’t remember who his relatives were, or maybe he never owned up to them; with Joab here, she was Jorah ben Joseph, sister of the crucified blasphemer. For the first time, she wondered what Joab was doing here. It was as if the thought shook him awake.
He pulled in breath like a snort, unfolded his arms, drew his hair behind his ear. He froze at the sight of her.
Her head spun briefly at his eyes on her, but something had changed. All she knew was that he had been reduced. Everything he had been to her came down to what she now saw . . . just an ordinary boy. To her great surprise she did not hate him. She tested it, like a toe in the water . . . no, it wasn’t hatred she felt for him. It wasn’t anything at all. What wonder was this?
“What are you doing here?” she said softly.
A chuckle burst from him. “That’s not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?” she said, and this time he didn’t chuckle.
It occurred to her how little she had noticed him. The first time she saw him he had come to the shop with Avi to vex the family with yet another curiosity visit, perhaps to abscond with tokens of wood or stone, like pagan amulets. When was that? Months ago, years ago. They wanted to convince James to convince Jesus to join up with Raziel and his Zealots, to throw in his miracles with their military strategy to overthrow Rome and regain what the Hasmoneans had lost.
The second time she saw him was on the road to Jerusalem after Nathanael had been wounded. She remembered looking on him with hatred when she sat on a boulder and watched him scrounge for firewood. She didn’t recall when he had left their traveling party, before or after arriving in Jerusalem.
“You’re not what I remember,” Jorah murmured without thinking.
“Neither are you.”
She blinked. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nathanael made you beautiful.”
Did he—dare he speak Nathanael’s name? Did he dare speak it so casually?
“You’re still pretty. And you can stop looking like that; I speak as plainly as I like. Nothing matters anymore. You’ve changed everything.”
She was speechless and blinking. Finally, “I have?”
He put a finger to his lips and glanced at the curtain partition. “If I know Marina, she’s trying to listen.”
She had to calm herself. She had to think clearly. “How—” she swallowed, and tried again. “Why are you here? How do you know Theron and Marina?”
“I work for Theron.”
“You work for him,” she repeated dully.
“I needed to eat.” His next words were less clipped. “I came to tell her. Just as you did.”
They were quiet words, but stark as a slap. So. Rivkah already knew. And not in the way Jorah intended to tell her. She had been cheated out of her carefully prepared speech, thanks to Joab.
“How did she take the news?”
But his gaze dropped, and he did not answer.
Jorah sat up straight. “You didn’t tell her.”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t look at her.
“How long have you been here, and you haven’t told her?”
His gaze shot back. “What about you? When were you going to tell her?”
“I—I’ve only been here a few days.”
“You will not find it any easier than I.”
“Oh really?” she snapped. “It will be perfectly easy to tell her he’s dead. I know things you do not.”
His lip rose in scorn. “Likewise, maiden.” Glowering at her, he stood and went to the partition. He peeked out, then turned to Jorah. “The way I see it, we have a choice to make.”
Uncertainly, she looked him up and down. “What choice?”
He studied her. “It seems you don’t want to tell her any more than I do. Who says we have to tell her at all?”
“Can you hear anything?” Theron said in the loudest of whispers. Marina furiously waved him down. From her post at the loom she leaned as far as she could toward the curtain. She had even grabbed a wool comb and a fat ball of wool in case either of them came out.
“They’re awake. They’re arguing,” she finally whispered to Theron, who sat at the kitchen table. He was supposed to be mending a broken chisel.
“What are they saying?”
“I can’t make out the words,” she said, frustrated. “Only that they argue.”
Theron nodded. “That is good. It is as you thought: they are former lovers.”
Marina frowned, and noticed the ball in her hand. She idly picked at bracken in the wool. She had never seen a former lover stagger and collapse the way Jorah did. She had never seen a former lover look fresh from the grave, like Joab. There was no joy at their reunion.
Of course they were former lovers, but it must have been a devastating breakup. What preceded it? Were they mismatched? Was Joab a servant, and Jorah—well, Jorah was the sister of the prophet. It meant she . . .
The fat ball of wool tumbled to the floor.
Marina gasped, pressing one hand to her chest, clawing the air with the other. “Theron!” She hurried to the table and dropped next to Theron. “Of course! Oh, the poor things!” She clapped her hands to her cheeks and gazed at the curtain. How tragic! How exquisitely tragic!
“What?” Theron followed her gaze.
“You will not believe it.” Marina slowly shook her head at the majestic conundrum. “Jorah and Joab have been desperately in love. Oh, so in love! But Theron, my heart, who is Jorah but the sister of that young man who was crucified! The sister of Jesus of Nazareth!” She gave his arm a thump. “Didn’t the Council from Jerusalem declare that anyone who held to the teachings of this man was banned from synagogue?”
Theron’s eyes went wide. No intellectual slouch was her man. She nodded sadly at him, and delivered the rest with the slow weight it deserved.
“Yes, my love. The family of the young prophet had been shunned. And Joab’s family, knowing of his love for Jorah—” she poked his arm with every word—“forbade . . . any . . . further . . . contact with her.”
Her man was dazed, then, as she expected, angry. His face darkened, and he rubbed his hand over his fist. “Do we not know of such things . . .”
“You see why they have come to our doorstep?” Marina shook her finger. “This is no coincidence.”
“Who could understand but us?”
“Joab could not endure his family’s treatment of Jorah.”
“They treated her like garbage.”
“But he could not disgrace Jorah by taking her without his father’s blessing.”
“I knew he was a good Jew,” Theron said darkly. “He doesn’t fool me.”
Marina gazed at the curtain. “So he broke his own heart by running from Nazareth. He meant to sail for Rome, but oh, he stopped right when he put his foot on that boat. Couldn’t do it. He realized that though he could never see her again, his feet were still upon the same land as hers. He knew he could never leave.” She clicked her tongue. “Joab, Joab.”
“You know, I didn’t buy it that he was from Hebron. I knew that was a fake accent.”
“You should have seen him in the commonyard! Oh, Theron, so manly. Oh, that shout of his. ‘Leave her!’ Swept her up like a child. That heartbroken look. It made me want to weep, and I didn’t know why.”
Theron sat back and appraised his wife. An affectionate smile slipped through. “You knew it all along, my turtledove. ‘Joab has heart trouble,’ you told me from the first.” But his
admiration drooped to puzzlement. “But I thought he came looking for Rivkah. I thought maybe he brought word from Nathanael.”
She patted his hand kindly. “Well, it is clear why God had him come. How could Joab know that Jorah’s cousin is our neighbor? And now Jorah is here.” She wagged her finger. “No, no coincidence, absolutely not. By their very meeting it seems our work is half done.” A light leapt to her eyes. “Or perhaps it has just begun.” She grasped her chin and fell into thought.
“What do we do?”
“Do?” She tapped her lips and frowned as she thought. Then she nodded briskly. “We do nothing. We say nothing. We go carefully—in fact, we go delicately. As delicately as . . . pressing gold leaf under glass.”
“Ahh . . .”
“We keep our wits and say little. Our hands must come away; it is time for God to do his work. Maybe an artful word here or there, but much healing needs to take place. Jorah lost her brother and her Joab—for good, she thought. The poor thing! But by God’s mercy she has her love again, and that is where our work lies. She may have hardened herself to any happiness. Who can say?” She rapped her knuckles on the oak table. “Follow my lead, Theron, at all times. Do not let on that we know. Theron, that is very important. Innocence is the road we take for now.”
“As you say, my dear,” Theron said happily. He gazed at her dreamily. “You thieved my heart and devote your life to fixing others’. Do you do it with pieces of my own?” Then his eyes went wide, and he banged his palm on the table. “Turtledove! I have the most astonishing proposal!” Face bright with excitement, he put a thick finger to his lips, then nodded. “Yes, it is perfect! As you say, no coincidence.”
“What?”
“The mosaic walkway at the palace!” Craftiness deepened his smile. “I will need an extra hand with the walkway. Joab, I have. What do you think about—”
“Hiring Jorah? Oh, Theron!” She reached to seize his face for a kiss, but his eyes skipped to the back of the room. The curtain flap had swished aside.