Ben-Hur

by Carol Wallace

  Ilderim glanced at his guest. “I usually take the horses down to the lake for a last drink,” he said. “Would you like to accompany us?”

  Ben-Hur’s face lit up. “More than anything,” he said. “Our conversation tonight was absorbing, but I confess I was aware of our tentmates as well.”

  “Yes, they are sociable. Did you see their outlines when they pressed against the dividing curtain?” the sheik asked as he gathered up his robe to stand.

  “I did. And the muzzles where the curtain meets the ground. Do you ever let them in here?”

  Ilderim looked at him with a rueful smile. “I know I should not. And I never do when I have guests. But I admit that sometimes when I am alone, they join me for dinner.” He shook his head. “I have always been far more severe with my children than with these horses.” He clucked his tongue and untied the thong that enclosed the bays. One of them nickered in answer, and they swarmed out of the tent onto the grass, surrounding the sheik.

  HORSE NAMES

  The sheik’s horses all have star names:

  One of the brightest stars, Aldebaran is an orange giant in the constellation Taurus. The name is Arabic and means “follower,” perhaps because it rises near and soon after the Pleiades.

  Antares is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius and is often referred to as “the heart of the scorpion.” Part of the “Royal Stars of Persia,” Aldebaran and Antares, with two other stars, were said to guard the sky: Aldebaran watched the east and Antares, the west.

  Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion and the seventh brightest star in the sky. The name is derived from an Arabic phrase that means “the left leg (or foot) of Jauzah,” the Arabic name for the Orion figure.

  Atair, more commonly known as Altair, is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and is one of the closest stars visible to the naked eye. The name is actually an abbreviation of the Arabic phrase “the flying eagle.”

  “This one, whom you have met, with the star—he is Aldebaran. He is the youngest of the four. They all have the names of stars. Here with the blaze is Antares. Rigel is unmarked. And Atair—it’s hard to see by moonlight, but his dark points are very pronounced.”

  “But aside from the markings they are almost identical,” Ben-Hur said, walking around them. “Do they all have the same sire?”

  “No, the same dam. She is Mira. My forefathers have always had a dam named Mira, the fastest and bravest and most beautiful of the herd.”

  “Have you raced them before?”

  “No,” Ilderim answered. He turned and started walking toward the lake. “Not publicly. This, I admit, was vanity. I wanted to train them in the desert, then appear in Antioch in the most public way and trounce those thieving dogs of Romans.”

  “Who drove them in the training?”

  “One of my sons. A good boy, very brave. But I wonder now if he was strong enough. Anyway, he had an accident. He wasn’t terribly injured, but he is still recovering. His mother is furious with me.” Ilderim’s smile gleamed in the moonlight.

  “How did you choose that driver I saw today?”

  Ilderim shook his head and Rigel pawed the ground in response. “Oh, look, now you know the worst: I teach them silly tricks.” He shook his head again and Rigel pawed. “Not very dignified.”

  Ben-Hur laughed. “No. But they are obviously clever.”

  “You have no idea. We have to change the knot on the tent fastening every week or so because they learn to untie it.”

  “And yet they run.”

  “Yes. They are true Sons of the Wind. Tame as a child’s plaything with me, but they love to gallop.” He sighed. “It would break their hearts to lose this race. And much as I want to win, it would break my heart to break theirs.”

  “Malluch told me the rules follow Rome’s.”

  They had reached the lakefront and the horses fanned out in the shallows along the shoreline to drink their fill. The ripples from their movement broke up the silver satin of the moonlit water. “Yes. In fact, everything must be exactly as it is in Rome. You know this race is in honor of Consul Maxentius, who arrives tomorrow. He is mounting a campaign against the Parthians. There will be a parade and other competitors, wrestling and footraces and the javelin toss . . . Oh, but you have just come from Rome. You know all this.”

  Ben-Hur nodded. “Yes. Some of his staff were on my ship—the ship I took from Rome. But then I realized I was tired of Romans, so I went ashore in Ravenna and waited for a Syrian vessel.”

  “You have no love for the Romans?”

  Lew Wallace’s sketch called Old Pony

  “For one Roman, yes,” Ben-Hur said. “But only one, and he died.”

  “Forgive my curiosity,” Ilderim said, “but could you tell me your story? I have never met a Jew who could so easily pass for a Roman. Oh, look, there goes Atair. The only horse I’ve ever had who likes to swim.” The bay’s head and neck went arrowing through the moonlit water for a moment; then he turned around. When he stepped out of the lake, the other three horses shuffled away from him as he shook water from his head, tossing the drops from his mane high in the air. From nowhere a servant appeared with a long, tasseled blanket and began drying Atair’s coat.

  Ben-Hur told his story briefly, watching the grooming as he shared the bare facts—the friendship with Messala, the tile, the betrayal, the galley, Arrius. “I arrived in Antioch today,” he said. “I went right away to visit my father’s man of business, Simonides. I never met him when I was young, but I had someone find him.” He looked up at the stars. “I had hoped he might know me. Or at least acknowledge me. But . . .” He swallowed hard and met Ilderim’s gaze. “He has a daughter, Esther. He reminded me that they are slaves. My father owned them. So if I am who I say I am . . .”

  “You own him. And Esther,” Ilderim completed the sentence. There was a pause while he thought. “I know Simonides quite well,” he finally said. “And Esther, of course. There was also the death of his wife, after the second beating. They were vicious, those men. And perhaps it is just habit with Simonides. He has for so long guarded the Hur fortune that he can’t begin to think of another way to live.”

  “Possibly,” Ben-Hur answered.

  “And you know, young man . . .” Ilderim looked sidelong at him. “For some people who have suffered greatly, hope is a terrible thing. They can endure. That requires a . . . what? A kind of clamping down.” Ilderim drew his arms close in to his sides and made his body narrow beneath his robes. “So then to hope, to draw a deep breath and look ahead and think about a change that might come . . . that is very difficult. Maybe Simonides is not brave enough for that risk.”

  “Maybe,” Ben-Hur answered bleakly.

  “And that could change,” Ilderim continued. He turned to face the tent and snapped his fingers. The horses splashed their way out of the lake and came to him. Ben-Hur was touched to feel the warm bulk of one of them at his side—Antares, the stallion with the blaze. He reached up and rested his hand on the horse’s withers, feeling the muscles move beneath the coat as they strolled toward the tent.

  “You saw them today at the track,” Ilderim said casually. “What did you think of the way they ran?”

  Ben-Hur took a few steps before he answered. “It was hard to tell because the driver was so inept. But now that I know them a little bit, I think the problem is that they don’t run together. As a unit. Didn’t he have Aldebaran and Atair as the outside horses?”

  WHITE HORSES

  In all three major productions of Ben-Hur (as well as the animated film), the sheik’s horses are portrayed as white, not the reddish-brown bays Lew Wallace described. While this could simply be an intentional decision to match the horses’ coats with Judah’s race colors, another theory is that filmmakers paired Ben-Hur’s white horses against Messala’s dark or black horses in classic hero versus villain imagery.

  “Yes,” Ilderim said. “That was how we ran them at home.”

  “I would ne
ed to see them in action, of course—see their pace. But I wonder if Rigel should not be changed with Atair.” He looked over at Ilderim. “There is so much to consider, you know. The length of the stride, of course, but we see right now, when they are half-asleep and half-playing with us, that they have different characters. Think how it is in battle, when you align your warriors so that one shares his calm and one his daring, one his experience and one his fierce joy.”

  Ilderim nodded. “You know, because you heard it, that I need a driver. I can see how much the horses like you. Perhaps you would do me the honor of harnessing them together tomorrow. Back that way—” he pointed toward the hills—“we have a track. You could show me what you mean. And perhaps we could trounce those Romans after all.”

  Ben-Hur grinned at him, a smile that lit his face and made him look, for an instant, young. Ilderim grinned back. In the velvet sky above them a spark of white streaked to the horizon. “Look,” Ilderim said, pointing upward. “An omen!”

  “If you say so,” Ben-Hur responded. But he was still smiling.

  CHAPTER 24

  UNVEILED

  Iras woke early. There was no reason not to. In Ilderim’s encampment the men might chatter in their tents until the moon set, but the women slept early and woke before the sun heaved itself over the eastern hills that cupped the oasis. They had fires to start, children to tend to. Wheat to grind, flat bread to pat onto griddles over the open flame. They must all have hands as tough as leather. Without thinking, she rubbed her palms together.

  She slept, as always, in a gown of white cotton spun so fine that the fabric was almost sheer. At home she might wear something similar all day and no one would be shocked. But here she must be covered. So her father had told her before they set out.

  She had thought he was talking about the sun. But it turned out he was talking about the people. Not only the men—she was accustomed to men who stared at her. She was a beauty; it was normal. But the women here were worse. She could see the shock on their faces if an inch of her skin showed. Only at the Grove of Daphne could she uncover. And down at the side of the lake, if she went out early enough.

  There was a long gray garment with a hood draped over the divan in her tent. The Arabs called it a burnoose. It covered everything. She flung it over her head and slipped past the tent flap.

  There was still dew on the grass. That was something she liked. She never woke to see the dew in Alexandria. In any event, she was always indoors. With a cool marble floor beneath her feet.

  The air was pleasant; there was that, too. And Iras had to grudgingly admit to herself that the lake was beautiful. She liked the stillness and the great pearly sky above. The burnoose dragging against the wet grass made the only sound.

  But as she approached the lake, she heard something else and frowned. Splashing. Not an animal, she hoped. She would not be able to complain—her father did not know she left her tent alone. But she could not bathe where an animal had churned up the ground and possibly soiled the water.

  No, not an animal. She spotted a head out in the middle of the water. Human. Male, of course. On a rock lay a creased robe, woven in stripes. For a moment she felt fury. She could feel the water, soft on her skin, lifting her heavy hair away from her neck. Sometimes she would wade out and lie down so that the water held her up. Women did not swim, of course, but she had seen drawings of young men playing in waves. She envied them.

  And there was that handsome Jew, out there in the center of the lake, but coming toward her smoothly. She hesitated. Pull up the hood to cover her hair? No. He might as well be shocked. He was swimming in her lake. She turned and began walking back to her tent. Her footprints left a blurred dark trail in the wet grass.

  She walked slowly. Just to see what would happen.

  In a moment she had her answer.

  Steps sounded behind her and he caught up. He had thrown the robe on, and water still streamed from his hair. “No need to leave. Were you going to bathe? I have finished.”

  She stopped and faced him. “I was. But I won’t. The sun is rising. People will be awake. Look.” She pointed toward the tops of the palms by the lake, where coral sun etched the fronds in sharp angles.

  “Forgive me,” he said. “Don’t you have a handmaid who could go with you, somewhere further along the shore?”

  “It’s not the same,” she said.

  “No,” he answered, meeting her glance. “I understand.”

  “But I will go back to the water’s edge,” she said. “Just for a few minutes.”

  He hesitated as she took a few steps; then she said to him, over her shoulder, “You may come with me. Or not. I don’t need protection at this hour. But company is always welcome.”

  She almost heard him make up his mind, and in two long strides he was at her side. “Does . . . ? Do you and . . . ?” He paused and started again. “What did you make of the Grove of Daphne?”

  IRAS SINGS TO JUDAH

  An excerpt of a song Iras sings to Judah beside the lake in this scene from Lew Wallace’s original novel:

  Kapila, Kapila, so young and true,

  I yearn for a glory like thine,

  And hail thee from battle to ask anew,

  Can ever thy Valor be mine?

  Kapila sat on his charger dun,

  A hero never so grave:

  “Who loveth all things hath fear of none,

  ’Tis love that maketh me brave.

  A woman gave me her soul one day,

  The soul of my soul to be alway;

  Thence came my Valor to me,

  Go try it—try it—and see.”

  She looked fully at him for the first time. The sun shone on his face now. Was that what made him look like he was blushing? Perhaps not. Sometimes it happened with military men: they spent so much time fighting each other that they never spoke to women. Probably never even saw women, except the ones paid to service them.

  “Remarkable,” she said. “Didn’t you think so? We have gone several times, and I am always amazed.”

  They had reached the lake now. Iras walked into the shallow water at the very edge and felt the fabric of her burnoose pull at her shoulders as it began to absorb water. She looked at Ben-Hur, a step or two behind her. Even blushing, even dressed in a crumpled robe with huge damp patches where it had met his wet skin, he was strikingly handsome, she thought.

  “And aside from that? How do you pass your days?” he asked. “I just ask because I have never met an Egyptian princess, and this seems like a strange setting for you.”

  She nodded. “It is. I am . . . more content at home in Alexandria. I study; I make music; I see people. Women have more freedom there.” She glanced at him. “But my father is so old. He was determined to come here. I felt I should be with him.”

  Without realizing it, he had closed the distance between them. “And your husband was willing to see you leave?”

  She laughed. “There is no husband! No. We are not . . . With my father’s ideas . . .” She glanced at him. He was frowning into the distance. “This idea that my father has, about one god . . . Even in Alexandria, which is tolerant, he is seen as peculiar. And as he grows more old, he grows more insistent. I am his daughter, so I am also seen as peculiar. Thus, no husband.” It was true, somewhat. There was no husband, at any rate.

  “But that seems impossible,” he exclaimed with an energy she enjoyed. “A woman of your charms!” He was definitely blushing now. Iras thought back to the other young man, the one who had almost run them down, and his smooth, outrageous compliments. There was something endearing about this man’s awkwardness. It would be almost cruel to flirt with him. Almost. “I always thought the Egyptians were connoisseurs of women,” he went on. “How could . . . ?” He made a gesture and shook his head.

  Iras shrugged. She bent down and cupped her hands in the water, then lifted her hair and rubbed the water on the back of her neck. “Each of us has his fate. This is mine,” she said. “It has consolations. I have s
een more of the world than some women. I have more freedom than these Arab women who are little more than beasts of burden for their husbands. I am here, talking to you. Not one of them could do that. But I hear the camp waking, don’t you? I should go back.”

  She lifted the hem of her burnoose clear of the water and stepped onto the grass. After two steps, she stopped. “Wait a moment,” she said. She bent down to pick up the hem and wring the water out of it, making sure that her ankles and calves were visible. She spent a moment twisting each side, squeezing as much fabric as she could. Now it would cling. They set off again. She tripped and reached out to steady herself on his arm. “I’m so sorry,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I’m not usually so clumsy.”

  He seemed to be the one man in a hundred who would believe her. “Not at all. Can I help you?”

  “No, it’s just that the wretched thing got wet, and that drags it down. Don’t look,” she instructed him and leaned over to grasp the hem. Carefully and slowly, knowing that the neckline of the burnoose would fall open and reveal her skin to the waist. She straightened up and caught him whisking his eyes away.

  “Permit me,” he said and put a hand to her elbow.

  She let it stay there for a moment, then said, “Better not. You are kind, but among these people, it would be misunderstood.”

  So they returned silently to her tent, and she thanked him and watched him go. It was amazing how simple a man could be.

  CHAPTER 25