Ben-Hur

by Carol Wallace

  “I don’t know,” Esther answered with a sigh. She turned and went back inside. “Come, you need to eat.”

  “Will you sit with me?” he asked as he sat in the chair she held for him.

  “I?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I am a woman. Do women eat with men in Rome?”

  “We are in Antioch,” he answered. “And we are alone in this room.” He stood and held the chair for her. “Sit down. I refuse to eat until you do.”

  She blushed but sat while he pulled a stool toward the table. “And I am your slave,” she added. “It isn’t right.”

  He poured a cup of wine and slid it across the table to her. “Who will know?”

  “Malluch. He always knows everything.”

  “Your father is lucky to have Malluch.”

  She nodded. “As he said when you were discussing the King who will come, he has been very lucky, in some ways. Once his misfortune ended.” She watched as he cut some lamb and tore off a piece of bread. “Will you do it?”

  “Lead their army?” He took a few bites, thinking. “I still don’t know.”

  “Why would you?”

  “For the reasons they named: liberation from Rome, support of the King. To free Judea—that would be worth anything, don’t you think?”

  “Then why have you not made up your mind?”

  He spat the pit of a date into his hand and laid it on the side of his plate.

  “Selfish reluctance, perhaps.” He looked at her and offered her a date. She took it with a little smile. “When I went to Rome, Arrius told me I could do anything, be anything. If I’d wanted to be a poet or a politician, he would have seen that I was trained, had what I needed, knew the right people.

  “But I was angry. Rome might have rescued me, but before that she had held me prisoner for three years. I wanted nothing but to become a soldier. That was all I could think of to do with myself. I was so full of rage that I could barely breathe, and the training was what I wanted. In the palaestra, where you learn how to strengthen your body and fight man-to-man, I turned myself into a weapon. The next step was going to be training with the army, to learn to lead. And then Arrius died.”

  “And you were free.”

  He nodded. “Free to find your father. And any trace of my family.”

  “Instead Messala found you.”

  “Yes. And now, if I do not join with your father and Sheik Ilderim . . . what shall I do with myself? But if I do . . . do I really want the life I had planned?” He stood and stretched his arms over his head. “I will have to cut myself off from everything. I’ll be an outlaw. Beyond the laws of Rome, which extend almost everywhere. It’s a terrible step.”

  Esther rose as well. “Do you not believe in this King, then? Isn’t he supposed to topple Rome from power? ‘Born king of the Jews . . .’ What else could that mean?”

  “Yes, of course. But it won’t happen at once. It could take years.”

  “And you are hesitating before years as an outcast,” Esther said. “No one could blame you. The problem with being a weapon is that weapons are not human. It’s a harsh choice to make for a lifetime.”

  “Yes, I’m beginning to understand that,” he said somberly.

  CHAPTER 34

  SURPRISE

  Ben-Hur didn’t want to ask Esther how to find the palace of Idernee. That would have meant explanations. So he simply left the house above the wharf the next day with a vague excuse, trusting that someone would be able to direct him. Heading toward the big palace across the river seemed like a good start.

  A small boy with a donkey pointed him in the right direction. He glanced at the sky. He had been summoned for midday. Was the sun high enough in the sky? What if he arrived too early? Would Iras think he was foolish? But he didn’t want to be late. His hand, for the twentieth time, went up to the wound on his cheek. Esther’s ointment had helped, he thought, but it was still puffy. He could barely see past the swelling when he looked at his feet, buckled into his best sandals. He wished he had brought better clothes to Simonides’s house, even one of his Roman tunics.

  Well, she had asked for him. And here he was, bruised and plainly dressed. He turned into the outer vestibule of the palace that he assumed was his destination. It certainly looked Egyptian, with its massive dark stone and a fountain in the shape of an ibis. Twin stairways were guarded by sculptures of winged lions, but no human presence betrayed itself.

  He climbed the stairs, wondering. At the top, a narrow hall led him forward to a tall closed door. He waited for a moment, looking for a bell or a knocker, but found nothing, so he pushed the door open.

  And there inside was the atrium of a Roman villa. Ben-Hur smiled. It was a clever idea, to hide this splendor behind the stern Egyptian facade. He stepped into the rectangle of sunlight at the center, where the ceiling opened to the sky. From there, the interior seemed shadowy. He stood listening. Strange, not to have been met. And strange that the house should be so quiet. Where were the servants? Someone should have come to welcome him, wash his feet, offer him a goblet.

  Well, Iras was not a housekeeper like Esther. He tried to imagine Iras cleaning his wound. No—impossible. But his mind drifted to what she might say. Congratulations, of course. Admiration? Would she tell him how brave he was? Probably not. There was always something slightly challenging about her.

  He left the sunlight and moved back into the shady portion of the atrium. It was vast, stretching deep into the house, and extremely luxurious. Tables and chairs were inlaid with patterns and the cushions woven to match. Elaborate gilded chandeliers hung from chains, and the columns supporting the ceiling were all hewn from colored marble, here green, there red, there white streaked with gray.

  Whose palace was this? Why were Iras and her father staying here, anyway? He knew they weren’t going to the desert with Ilderim. He thought Iras had probably insisted on a spell of comfort. He sat down to test the cushion of a divan. Soft enough even for Iras, he thought.

  His eye fell on the mosaic next to him. The entire floor was covered with thousands of tiny tesserae, placed into designs and scenes and polished so that the furniture seemed to float on a mirror. Only when you stood near them could you make out the scenes.

  At Ben-Hur’s feet a beautiful woman with golden hair lay back, half-covered by an enormous swan. Of course—Leda, welcoming Zeus in the guise of the bird. She looked . . . He bent down. She looked quite delighted.

  Was that a sound? He rose from the divan and stood tense. No. Nothing. He crossed the room, looking at the floor. Hercules, with his leopard-skin cloak, embracing . . . What was the nymph’s name? Omphale? Another blonde nude lying back beneath a shower of gold. Ben-Hur looked away. It was very detailed.

  Could he have made a mistake? No. The message from the little man had been clear: meet Iras at the palace of Idernee. She was just late. She had often been late for meals at the Orchard of the Palms. She was getting ready to see him. Putting something on, taking something off. A bracelet, a veil. Rouge from an alabaster pot.

  But it might be worth asking someone where she was, if he could find a servant of some kind. He crossed the atrium back to the door where he had entered, hearing his sandals slap against the mosaic. Slap, he stepped on the tail of a mermaid. Slap, Apollo’s chariot underfoot. Slap, the ornamental border by the door . . . which did not open. Push, pull. No.

  He took a breath and tried again deliberately. Pushed the door with his shoulder, but it stood as solid as the wall. Pulled the elaborate handle, which did not move. He had entered through this door and now, plainly, it was locked.

  Before he even thought about it, his fingers were unbuckling his sandals. Whatever else happened, he wanted to be silent. His body had decided that, and his mind belatedly agreed. That was what military training did for you.

  An ancient Roman key

  He left the sandals by the door and prowled around the outside edge of the atrium. In most grand Roman houses these would be rooms
for sleeping, for eating, maybe hallways to kitchens. But all of the doors were locked. He tried calling out once, but his voice echoed strangely.

  Strange indeed. His mind had worked slowly at first but now reached one conclusion after another.

  This was a trap.

  No one knew where he was.

  Whatever happened, there would be no witnesses.

  And if he were to be attacked, he would have no help.

  There were weapons everywhere, if he was given time to use them. The furniture could be thrown, the candelabra swung. The doors might even be broken down.

  One conclusion he could not reach: was Iras involved?

  No way to tell.

  He resumed his pacing, stepping silently from one column to another. They were fortunately thick. A man could hide behind them. And the silence might be on his side. When they came, he would be ready. He could surprise them.

  Whoever they were.

  Time passed. The sun moved, and with it the shadows. New scenes on the floor slid out of the shade: Apollo chasing Daphne; Diana surprised while bathing. The columns laid bars of shadow across the myths on the floor. Ben-Hur thought there might be something useful there. Pull an opponent from the shade into the glare, or vice versa, take advantage of the confusion to his eyes . . .

  But maybe not. Maybe there was no opponent. He sat down on a divan and put his legs up. Maybe the doors had been closed on him by mistake. Maybe he should have stayed in the vestibule. Maybe he had misunderstood the message.

  He had not misunderstood the message, though. He repeated it again in his mind: Iras, midday, the palace of Idernee. But . . . tomorrow, perhaps? Did he have the day wrong?

  No. He heard a footstep. He leapt to his feet and put the length of the room between himself and the door he had entered. There were two sets of steps now. Two men coming in where he had. Talking.

  It was not a language he knew. Harsh and guttural, it came from the back of the throat. And the sandals, he could tell by their sound, were heavy things. He slid around his column to take a look at the men.

  They stood by a chair, pointing at the carved wood. One sat in it and laughed with pleasure. The other gestured at the floor, where both crouched to run hands over an image, amazed by the smoothness of the tile. Then they stood, and Ben-Hur understood everything.

  They were assassins, come to kill him. The taller was the Saxon with straw-blond hair who had won at wrestling the day before. The other was dark-haired, a bit shorter but equally muscular. As they turned away from him to look at a statue of a woman with a jug of water, the dark man caressed her smooth white marble haunches as if she were a live woman. The blond giant laughed and Ben-Hur identified him further.

  Thord, who had taught him wrestling in Rome! He had seen the man the day before in the victory parade, his features half-hidden by the laurel wreath. Something about him had looked familiar, but Ben-Hur had not recognized him.

  And now the situation was clear. Like him, the assassins were strangers to the house. Like him, they had been given their instructions and sent to follow them. For him, the bait had been Iras. For them, he supposed, money. But who could so badly want him dead? Surely not Messala, not in his current state.

  They were in no hurry. They ambled around, examining, touching, admiring. Thord lay on a divan and pretended to snore. Ben-Hur watched and tried to think.

  Two of them. One of him. No escape.

  That was as far as he got in his thinking. Two of them, one of him.

  If he was going to live, he would have to attack. Two of them; one would have to die.

  How?

  He crept backward away from them, considering his options. They had come in through the door, which he had thought locked. So either they had keys or they had help. He wondered if they had seen his sandals, but he thought not. They acted like men who thought they were alone.

  He watched them for a moment as they examined one of the heaviest candelabra, a massive bronze column, branched at the top, resting on a set of rollers. Naturally they had to test its movement. Did it roll easily? Could one man move it alone? How quickly could it be made to move?

  Not fast enough to be a weapon, Ben-Hur decided.

  He considered his clothes, his sandals. Could he reach the door, throw a sandal, distract them, attack one man, disable him . . . ? No. Not with fighters of this caliber. He would have to separate them, then. Kill one and then the other. He began to look around the space again. Could he climb up a column, leap onto one man’s back . . . ?

  Thord said something to the dark-haired man, who wiped his hands on his tunic and nodded. They separated and started looking for him.

  Ben-Hur decided to take the initiative himself. He stepped away from his column, into the bright square of sunlight.

  “Who are you?” he asked in Latin.

  They turned around and approached him. “Foreigners,” Thord answered. He grimaced, though it might have been a smile. As he drew closer to Ben-Hur, his bruises from the previous day’s competition were more visible. One of his eyes was dark and swollen while a tuft of his straw-like hair had been torn from his scalp.

  “I know you,” Ben-Hur said. “I saw you yesterday at the games.”

  “And I saw you,” Thord replied. “But your horses are not here now.”

  His friend snickered.

  “But I recognized you from before. You taught wrestling back in Rome. You taught me, in fact.”

  “No,” Thord said, laughing. “I never taught a Jew.”

  “I passed as a Roman in those days.”

  Thord laughed louder. “Can’t be done. I don’t believe it.”

  “I’ll tell you something else,” Ben-Hur went on. “You were sent here to kill me.”

  “That much is true.” Thord nodded. “And we won’t get paid until we do it, so maybe we should start.”

  “Let me ask you—did you win much money yesterday?”

  ROMAN WRESTLING

  Wrestling was a popular sport in the ancient world. Romans split the competition into two parts. In upright wrestling (orthia pale), the athletes would attempt to throw each other to the ground; three throws constituted a victory. In ground wrestling (kato pale), two men would wrestle on the ground until one of them admitted defeat.

  “Oh yes, some,” Thord answered.

  “Enough to make a bet with me?”

  “About what?”

  “I bet I can prove to you that I was your student in Rome. Three thousand sestertii.”

  Thord’s face lit up. “Done! How will you prove it?”

  Ben-Hur stepped out of the sunlight and began to take off his robe. “Your companion there—is he a friend of yours?”

  Thord looked at the dark-haired man and spoke to him in their guttural language. “No.”

  Ben-Hur uncovered his head and laid his clothes on a chair. “Then I will show you, by fighting him.”

  “Oh, good!” Thord said. He spoke again to the dark-haired man and the two of them pushed a divan out of the way, clearing a broad space on the floor. “Wait until I tell you to start.” He lay down on the divan. “This is funny! You two look so much alike! You could be brothers fighting!”

  The two men, now stripped down to undertunics and bare feet, surveyed each other. It was true.

  “All right, begin,” commanded Thord.

  The opponent raised his hands. Ben-Hur stepped in close. He feinted with his right hand. The opponent raised his left arm to fend off the blow. Ben-Hur caught that arm at the wrist. He shoved the arm forward across the man’s throat, pressing into the windpipe. At the same time, he spun the opponent’s body around, exposing his left side. With the side of his free left hand, Ben-Hur struck the man just under the left ear, breaking his neck. Done.

  As the man slumped to the tiled floor, Ben-Hur stepped back. He noticed, beneath his victim’s knee, the snaky severed head of Medusa. Thord leapt to his feet. “But I couldn’t have done it better! I invented that move!”

  “And I l
earned it from you,” Ben-Hur said, looking down at the man he had just killed.

  Thord knelt and gently wiggled the dead man’s head. “Snap! Did you hear it? Clean as could be.” He looked up at Ben-Hur. “But I swear I never taught a Jew.”

  “I was known as Arrius in those days,” Ben-Hur said. He wished Thord would leave the corpse alone. “Who sent you here?”

  “Messala,” Thord answered as he closed the corpse’s eyes.

  “But . . . he could speak?” Somehow Ben-Hur had not envisioned this. He thought he had neutralized his enemy. Instead, it seemed, Messala and his hatred endured.

  “Groans, mostly.” Thord stood. “He truly hates you. He is going to pay me six thousand sestertii to kill you.” His face fell. “But I haven’t . . .” He turned to Ben-Hur with his hands raised as if to attack.

  That was what Messala could do—keep menacing him. As Simonides demonstrated, a man could achieve a great deal from a chair. If Messala lived, Ben-Hur knew he would never be safe. A knife blade in the back, poison in a cup, an ambush in an alley . . . Forever. His eye fell on the nameless corpse. Dark hair, tall, strong build. An idea began to form.

  Before Thord could step closer, he said, “Yes, here I am, still alive. And you owe me three thousand sestertii, since I proved I was your pupil.”

  Thord’s hands dropped as he tried to work this out. Ben-Hur waited.

  “I will just kill you and get the money from Messala,” Thord finally announced, nodding to himself.

  “Or make more money.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “Very easily. You said this man and I looked like brothers. I want to trick Messala into thinking I am dead. If you help me do that, I will pay you.”

  “Oh, that is a good trick! How will we do it?”

  “Easily. I will change clothes with him and leave the palace with you. Whoever let you in saw two of you—someone will see you leave with the same man. Only it will be me.”