Ben-Hur

by Carol Wallace

  He liked horses. Years earlier, in another life, he’d grown up in a country where wild horses roamed salty, marshy grassland. The skills you learn young are the ones you never forget—so it was easy for him to find a job at the Roman stables. There were never enough hands to carry water and manure and straw, let alone groom skittish high-bred animals. Besides, the surroundings were good for passing secrets: dark, busy, full of movement. Torches burned outside the stalls, but a man could hide behind a pile of straw, vanish into a storeroom, bend over to mend a bit of harness, and never be seen.

  Better yet, people talked in stables. The spy knew lots of languages, being something of a mongrel himself. He smiled; he worked; he listened. And he assembled bits of information. It was a lot easier than keeping track of barrels in Simonides’s warehouse, and he learned more.

  Like the story of the duumvir Arrius, who survived a shipwreck and returned to Rome with the galley slave who had saved him. A Jew, whom Arrius adopted.

  And word of a stranger staying at the Orchard of the Palms. Anything that happened in Sheik Ilderim’s camp was usually a secret, and men who told Sheik Ilderim’s secrets rarely prospered. So the spy cherished this bit of knowledge.

  Along with the rumor circulating that very night that the sheik had found a new driver for his bays—a Roman named Arrius.

  He thought about it as he cleaned the hoof of one of Messala’s black horses. They were difficult. Quick to startle and quick with a flying hoof or a nip. He moved slowly and gently around them. Maybe that would be the way to handle Messala as well. It seemed possible to the spy that this new driver of Ilderim’s was the duumvir Arrius’s Jewish adopted son. Was it the same man as the Jew he had seen at Simonides’s warehouse? And would it matter to his client?

  The horse let him know his client had arrived. Its head flew up, and it yanked its hoof from the spy’s hand.

  The spy stood upright, with the horse’s back between him and the Roman.

  “You!” Messala exclaimed. “What are you doing grooming my horse?”

  “Grooming your horse, naturally. What does it look like?” he answered. “I have news.”

  “Get away from him! This is a racehorse!”

  “That’s all right. I’m good with horses. And you want to hear what I have to say.”

  Ben-Hur branded tools

  Messala looked around, frowning, trying to find something amiss in the stall or with the horse.

  “It’s a better meeting place than the inn,” said the spy. “You and I both have reasons to be here. And nobody can overhear us.”

  “All right, quickly then.” Messala pulled his cloak up around his neck as if to hide his face. Which was silly, when you thought about it.

  “Is it possible that the man I saw at Simonides’s warehouse spent some years in Rome?”

  “In Rome! I don’t know who that man was, let alone whether or not he’d been in Rome.”

  A first-century Roman horseshoe

  “Well, there’s a story going around about the adopted Jewish son of the duumvir Quintus Arrius. I just wondered if they were connected.”

  “This is what you call news? Just because there are two Jews in Antioch?”

  “Well, it’s news if they are the same man. And the fellow I saw could have pulled a mighty oar.”

  “Why on earth would that matter?”

  “Oh, I forgot to mention. Because Arrius’s adopted son rescued him from a shipwreck. So he might have been a galley slave.”

  “Galley slaves are chained,” Messala growled.

  “All right,” the spy said, raising his hands. “They are. Usually. I’m just telling you what I’ve heard. That’s what you pay me for. And two more things.” He clicked his tongue to the horse and walked around its head, scratching the forelock as he went. Now he was very close to Messala. Less than a step between them.

  “Well?” Messala said, aggressively.

  The spy put his hand out. “Money first.”

  “No. Tell me.”

  The spy put a hand back on the horse’s neck. “I’m taking care of your horses. Money first.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “No. I just don’t trust you,” the spy explained. “Am I wrong? I hear you’re in debt.”

  The horse, feeling the tension, shifted its hindquarters and swished its tail.

  “Everyone knows you gamble too much,” the spy went on. “You should hear my news, but you have to pay my price.”

  “All right,” Messala said, fishing for a coin. He held it up.

  The spy shook his head. “Two. It’s important.”

  “I think I decide that,” Messala growled but gave him another coin.

  “Right,” said the spy. “The son of Arrius was a champion driver in Rome. Sheik Ilderim has a new driver staying with him at the Orchard of the Palms. Simonides and Sheik Ilderim are friends. Your tall Jew went to the Grove of Daphne yesterday, where . . .” He left off with a leading tone.

  “Where Ilderim’s horses ran away with that idiot Lucius! Yes, and I even saw a tall Jew at the Fountain of Castalia . . .” Messala’s eyes widened. “Ye gods! It’s hardly possible!” he muttered. “I’m sure he didn’t know me.” He took a step back and the horse moved away from him. “He would have had to survive the galleys. Impossible!” He spun around and left the stall, closing the door behind him. He strode away, then came back. “Find someone else’s horses to groom, would you?”

  The spy just raised his eyebrows. Now that Messala was gone, the horse relaxed. The spy bent down, nudged the horse’s shoulder, and gently picked up another hoof.

  CHAPTER 27

  THE KING WHO WILL COME

  Back in Simonides’s house on the Orontes, Esther crossed the room and spoke to the servant who stood outside. When men began talking about plans, conversations extended and throats grew dry. She gave the order for refreshments to be brought: arrack—the soured milk she knew the sheik favored—wine, honey, and soft wheat cakes.

  Reentering the big room, she went to an ivory-inlaid table and lifted it to place among the men. She was surprised when Ben-Hur crossed the floor in two long strides and took it from her hands. The older men watched silently as he set the table down between them. “Thank you,” Esther said. “The servant will be up shortly with drinks. I will leave you now.”

  “But wait,” Ben-Hur said. “Simonides, does this plan involve you and the mechanisms of your trading business?”

  “It certainly does.”

  “And does Esther not assist you closely?”

  “She does indeed,” Simonides said proudly.

  “Then should she not stay with us to hear more of this plan? Surely her help will be needed in some way.”

  The two older men exchanged a glance. Esther saw her father’s minute nod and the sheik’s answering smile. “In the tents of my people,” Ilderim said, “such a thing would not be thought of. But—” he raised his palms from his lap—“what we have to discuss is perhaps a new world entirely. She should stay.”

  “Esther, my dear,” Simonides added, “you will hear, and if you dislike our plan, you need be no part of it. What we contemplate, I must warn you, is without precedent, but not without great danger. Those who join us must do so with open eyes and whole hearts.”

  “I understand, Father,” she answered. She heard the servant scratch at the door and opened it. There was a moment’s bustle as the table was covered with a linen cloth, a stool brought for her, another cushion for her father, a lamp moved away to reduce the glare.

  Simonides began. “Son of Hur,” he said, “I wonder if you saw anything remarkable about the accounting I gave you earlier of the money I conserved for your father.”

  “Yes, I did,” Ben-Hur answered. “I was amazed. In Rome, Arrius taught me how to understand the workings of his estates, and although he was very successful, there were always difficulties: failures, rents unpaid, a landslide that ruined a vineyard—that kind of thing. It is the way of life. Not every proj
ect succeeds.”

  “Exactly. Yet these setbacks have not happened to me. If there was a tempest, it passed over my ship. If there was a fire, my warehouse did not burn.”

  “I can attest to this,” added Ilderim. “When Simonides’s goods traveled through my lands, the guards we provided were unnecessary. The Parthians did not raid; the oases did not dry up.”

  “And strangest of all, not one individual who works for me betrayed or cheated me. I rely more than most men on hirelings,” Simonides went on, gesturing briefly at his broken body. “But no servant, no agent, no sea captain, no camel driver ever strayed from my commands.”

  “It seems uncanny,” Ben-Hur commented.

  “It is exactly that!” exclaimed Simonides. “This rate of success goes beyond what is reasonable. I thought for a while that, perhaps, after my misfortunes my luck had changed, but we Jews don’t think much of luck. No. Eventually I concluded that this was God’s doing.”

  Esther felt a little chill. Her father had never shared this with her. Of course he was devout, and so was she. Of course she saw the hand of God everywhere. But . . . in the warehouse? On the decks of a ship?

  “And if it was God’s purpose,” Simonides was saying, “what for?” He paused and looked at his daughter. “I have believed this for years,” he said to her as if he had heard her thoughts. “But I did not tell you, lest you think my wits were going astray. Hard enough to care for a father with a broken body. A broken body and a broken mind—that is too much even for a woman as capable as you.” There was great sweetness in his smile. “So I just wondered in silence. And now I think I know.” Esther, watching closely, saw him glance at Sheik Ilderim, who took up the narrative as if on cue.

  “Son of Hur,” the sheik began, “you heard the tale Balthasar told us in the tent, of following a star across the desert in search of a King.”

  “I did,” he affirmed. “And it has been on my mind. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  The Fair God, Lew Wallace’s first novel, published in 1873

  “No,” Ilderim agreed. “Nor do I. Yet in spite of myself, I find that I believe it. After the three wise men worshiped the infant in Bethlehem, they had a dream. Each of them, the same dream.”

  Simonides interrupted. “You’ll understand,” he said to Ben-Hur, “that for practical men like the sheik and me, these mysterious happenings are very disturbing. How do three men have the same dream?”

  Ilderim nodded. “But they did. In the dream an angel came to them and told them to flee Judea by a new route. The camels brought them to us, and indeed, we heard later that Herod sought for them everywhere. They were right to hide.”

  “And the babies, don’t forget,” Simonides said.

  “Herod also slaughtered all the male Jewish babies in and around Bethlehem,” Ilderim said, nodding grimly. “Evidently he had his own dream. Which makes me wonder a little bit about this business of dreaming. Nevertheless, the three wise men found us in the desert and stayed for a year, until they knew it was safe to leave.”

  “They were informed of that in another dream,” Simonides added with a sigh.

  “So they left. But during that year we spoke often of their vision of the infant,” Ilderim went on. “Each of them believed he had seen the same thing: the birth of the one God. The true God.”

  “‘He who was born king of the Jews,’” Simonides added. “Born, not made. Not appointed by Rome.”

  “No wonder Herod was frightened,” Ben-Hur said. “If this is true, the entire world will change.”

  Again Esther saw the two older men exchange a glance, and she noticed that her father’s eyes grew brighter, despite the late hour. “Exactly,” he said. “The world will change. Now Balthasar interprets this as a new kingdom, not just of men, but of souls. A kingdom of wider bounds than the earth. He is not especially attached to the concerns of the world we live in. Perhaps because he is so old.”

  “Or because he lives in Egypt, where the Roman yoke lies easier on his shoulders than on yours or mine,” added Ilderim. “Nevertheless, I was convinced by this story the three wise men told. Strange and wonderful things happened that night. So let us think of what that means. If on that night an infant was born to be king of the Jews, he would now be twenty-eight.”

  THE KING WHO WILL COME

  Of all the characters in Lew Wallace’s story, Balthasar is the first to believe that the star he followed led him to the Christ child, who would one day become king of the Jews. But he also understood that this King would not necessarily rule here on earth.

  An excerpt from the original text of Balthasar’s explanation to Judah:

  There is a kingdom on the earth, though it is not of it—a kingdom of wider bounds than the earth—wider than the sea and the earth, though they were rolled together as finest gold and spread by the beating of hammers. Its existence is a fact as our hearts are facts, and we journey through it from birth to death without seeing it; nor shall any man see it until he hath first known his own soul; for the kingdom is not for him, but for his soul. And in its dominion there is glory such as hath not entered imagination—original, incomparable, impossible of increase. . . .

  What it is, what it is for, how it may be reached, none can know until the Child comes to take possession of it as his own. He brings the key of the viewless gate, which he will open for his beloved, among whom will be all who love him, for of such only the redeemed will be.

  “In full manhood,” added Simonides. “Young, strong, but mature enough to lead. To claim his kingdom.”

  “But Simonides and I have been considering,” said Ilderim, “how this will all happen.” Esther could tell, by the way the two men spoke, that they had been over this subject again and again. “How does someone become king of the Jews?”

  “What does it take to be a successor to Herod? we asked ourselves,” Simonides went on. “The answer is, of course, to follow the Roman way. With weapons. With armies and laws. With force, in fact. So if this new king of the Jews is to rule, naturally he will also need armies and laws. He will need to wield a force. But this is precisely what we Jews do not possess.”

  “It takes time to build an army,” Ilderim took up the story. “You know this better than either of us. If the King will come to rule, he must start building his force soon.”

  “Very soon!” added Simonides. “And you . . .” The conversation had finally reached its point. “You have everything that is needed.”

  There was a long pause. Esther could tell that her father had not finished speaking, and that Ilderim knew it. They were simply letting the idea sink in. She glanced at Ben-Hur. His face gave nothing away. Did he understand what they were proposing?

  “You know the Romans and their ways of warfare,” Simonides continued. “The immense fortune you have just given back to me—I dedicate it to this cause. To building an army for he who was born king of the Jews.”

  “Of course an army cannot be assembled, armed, and trained under the eyes of its enemy,” Ilderim added. “But the desert is mine. My lands can absorb any number of legions and keep them safe from spying eyes. So I offer the territory I control.”

  “That is the plan,” Simonides concluded. “Together Sheik Ilderim and I can offer part of what is needful so that when the King appears to deliver us from the oppression that is Rome, an army fit to fight that oppression is ready on hand. What we did not have, until you arrived, was a leader. If you will indeed be that man.”

  Both of them looked eagerly at Ben-Hur. He stood and walked to the end of the room.

  Then he turned back and looked at the two men. He was silent for a moment, holding them with his eyes. In that moment the power in the room palpably shifted. Esther thought later that she could almost see it, some kind of transparent glowing cloud, migrating from the older men to the young one. He was physically the same: still tall, still handsome, still graceful. But now he had authority as well.

  “This has been a night of surprises,” he said. He rubbe
d his hands over his face and added, “Actually, a day full of them. Two days ago I woke as no one, a man with a broken past. Today I am once again the son of my father, with riches piled upon riches.” He paused, then went on. “Money to me is useful only for what it will do. What I want is to find my family. Or perhaps I should say, what I wanted. Because I know that you, Simonides, have already done everything in your power to find them, and I know also how broad the scope of your power is. There may be other . . .” He came to a halt and took a deep breath. “Forgive me. The hope is hard to give up.”

  “Nor should you abandon your hope,” Simonides interrupted. “I have heard rumors of a new procurator for Jerusalem, a man called Pontius Pilate. A new leader, new rules, sometimes information escapes. I have people in Jerusalem. I don’t offer much hope, but you most certainly should not give up.”

  “Still,” Ben-Hur went on, “a man must do something besides wait for news.” He fell silent again and returned to his chair. There he sat close between the two older men but looked only at the floor.

  They waited. They were old men. They were used to waiting. Esther watched Ben-Hur’s hands, fingers interwoven, lock and unlock. Finally he spoke, after a deep sigh. “My friends, I am honored. And at the same time, overwhelmed.”

  They waited more, so long that Esther wondered if he would speak again. Simonides stirred and took a breath, but Ben-Hur finally went on.

  “Friend Simonides, you mentioned your improbable good fortune with my father’s money and how you wondered what it was for.” He looked around the group and caught everyone’s eye, each in turn. “You believed that there was a purpose, before the purpose became clear to you.”

  He stood and walked away a few steps. Almost, Esther thought, as if he were going to address a crowd. “My fate has been different. I had improbable bad fortune. I did not wonder what it was for. I assumed that there was no reason. That life was not a matter of reasons or consequences. Or even the concern of God or gods. I believed that life was a matter of accidents, good or bad. For men as for animals.