Ben-Hur

by Carol Wallace

  The stones did hurt. Even a well-aimed pebble. Boys were pitiless. They ran around in packs, daring each other to cruelty. The older and stronger ones were also meaner. By the time the Water Gate was in view, Tirzah despaired.

  But Naomi dragged her onward. No words were said between them. It was simply Naomi’s will that kept Tirzah upright and shuffling forward.

  By then they had attracted a following. It was as if every bored and malicious urchin in Jerusalem had somehow heard of the sport they provided. A jeering ring surrounded them, moving with them, taunting and launching stones. Finally there were so many boys yelling that the guard at the gate intervened.

  “You’re blocking the street; move along!” he shouted, brandishing his spear. Apparently a tall, helmeted Roman was less entertaining than two miserable leper women. The boys dispersed, vanishing into alleys in search of new entertainment.

  The guard walked alongside Naomi and Tirzah the rest of the way to the gate. Naomi had given the warning: “Unclean!” and he nodded as if he understood. He kept his distance, but he escorted them safely out of the city.

  And then they still had to walk. It was hot. They were thirsty. They ate the persimmons. They drank from the flask in the basket but did not dare finish the water. There was no telling when or how they would get more.

  Outside the city walls, the country began. Hills folded on hills, some bare and some covered with vines. Narrow footpaths climbed up and down them.

  Naomi was not quite sure which way to go, but keeping her distance, she asked everyone they met. A laborer with a scythe set them on the route, and a shepherd carrying a single sheep confirmed it. When the sun was at its peak, they were lucky enough to be passing an untended orchard. The trees, Naomi said, were too old to give fruit. They sat and dozed in the dappled shade for a while, but it was still hot when they resumed walking.

  “Not too much longer,” Naomi finally said. They were on a hillside, looking down into a valley. “There is a well down there, called En-rogel. That is where we are going.”

  Tirzah nodded. The hem of her robe was spattered with blood from her feet, but her mother might believe that was from the rotten fruit earlier in the day. Earlier. In the world’s longest day.

  She had dreamed about this, about being free. At first she had thought about it constantly, when they were new to the prison. She had complained without ceasing, she realized now. Whined. She knew she had cried. Her mother had been patient. If Naomi had cried, she had done it in secret. Maybe while Tirzah slept.

  When they were freed, Tirzah had been happy. She had thought only about the easy things: light and food and seeing the world outside.

  She had forgotten she was a leper. And when she’d thought about freedom, she had remembered her old life.

  How could she have imagined this? Even if she had been told, what would that have meant? You will be outcasts. You will be infirm. You will be hated and feared, and people will pelt you with stones. And you will be hideous; every movement will cause you pain.

  Who could imagine such a thing?

  And who could bear it?

  For how long?

  She looked down the hill to the well and saw a dry, rocky valley. There was a structure of sorts in the middle. Some kind of stone house, falling apart.

  No movement, though. No shade. No future.

  Just sun and rocks and the further decay of her body. Then death.

  Maybe it would be fast. That was all she had to hope for.

  She took a step, and another, and kept on walking. There was no other choice. When they finally reached the valley, shade had begun to creep down one of the hillsides. There was no sign of other people. Naomi said the hills were full of caves and that people would come out before dawn and after sunset. In the meantime, they would try to find an empty cave. That would be their home.

  It was the worst part of the day. They would trudge up to a cave entrance and call out: “Greetings” or “Peace be with you.” Naomi thought that if no one answered, they could hope that a cave was uninhabited. Several times cracked voices answered, “Peace be with you. This is our dwelling.” Once there was no answer, but when they stepped beyond the mouth of the cave, they saw a . . . creature. A voiceless creature of no visible gender, lying on the ground, making a senseless gesture. They fled. The worst was the next cave they entered, thinking it empty. They had actually sat down, put the basket on the ground, when a shrieking woman entered and furiously hissed at them. Or maybe it was a man whose voice had gone high with the disease. The person had been tall. And frightening.

  They ended up in a shallow cave near the valley floor. “It will be convenient to the well,” said Naomi. Tirzah thought it must have some terrible flaw, or it would not be empty. But she was so exhausted she didn’t speak, simply lay near the back of the space and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 41

  CAVES

  Judah refused to spend the night at the Hur palace. Malluch was on his way to Jerusalem to launch an inquiry into the fate of the Hur women, and it seemed foolhardy to risk being seen and possibly recognized by the Romans at a time when attention was drawn to the family. Instead, Ben-Hur promised to visit Amrah each day after dark. He would stay at a khan in the modest outlying neighborhood of Bezetha, north of the Temple.

  But Amrah slept little on the first nights after his return; her joy kept her awake. Finally she rose from her narrow cot and wandered around the house, seeing its dilapidation as Judah might see it and regretting that he had forbidden her to so much as sweep. “You have been very clever to keep the house looking shabby,” he had said. “When we start questioning the Romans about my family, they may return here. They must see a house that has been empty for years.”

  “And haunted, too,” she added. “I hear about it sometimes in the market. There are stories about ghosts. Perhaps because of what happened that day. The emperor was to sell the house, I think. But there were no buyers. It was certainly thought to be cursed.”

  “That could not be better,” Ben-Hur told her. “In time I may be able to buy it, secretly, and then, Amrah, you may clean and polish to your heart’s content. But for now, leave your broom alone.”

  He hadn’t told her not to cook for him, though. He had even left her money for food and a new robe and veil, more money than she had seen in the previous eight years. So she set out to the market that she knew would be open at dawn. They had the best honey. Judah had always loved sweets.

  It was not a market she used often. It lay too close to the house, not far from the Antonia Tower. It was a small neighborhood affair with just a few vendors, the kind of place where people keep track of each other. Amrah had not wanted to be known.

  On this morning, there was an unusual bustle. She felt the excitement and almost kept on walking, but the honey vendor looked up from his jars as she passed. “Have you heard?” he asked.

  “Heard what?” she asked, pausing.

  “The latest Roman horror! Right here in our quarter! Shocking!”

  “And what is that?” Amrah asked. It might be something Judah would want to know.

  “Well, you know, this new procurator, Pilate—he’s been cleaning out the prisons,” the honey seller said. “Turns out there were prisoners in there nobody knew about.” He thrust his thumb behind him to where the tower loomed. “Dozens of them! So they’ve been releasing them. After dark, of course. Some were tortured.”

  The interior of Lew Wallace’s study in Crawfordsville, Indiana, set up the way he used it

  Amrah stood still, all attention now.

  “But wait, did you want some honey? I’m sorry. I am so angry I cannot think.”

  “I . . . Yes, please. A small jar. From your own bees?”

  “Yes, of course. They’re all from my bees.” His hand hovered over a small jar, but he looked at Amrah and chose a larger one instead. “Here. For the same price. I feel the need to do something kind this morning, after what I have heard.”

  She nodded and thanked him.
“Was . . . was that all? Were any of the prisoners women?”

  He put the jar gently in the bottom of her basket. “Yes. That’s the worst part. Do you know the Hur palace just around the corner? There were two women from that family! Princesses, no less, imprisoned by the Romans for eight years!”

  Amrah felt her heart pounding. “And they . . . Were they tortured?”

  “No,” he answered heavily. “Worse than that. They are lepers. They had been placed in an infected cell and the door was covered over. The evil of it!”

  The basket suddenly felt very heavy and Amrah put it on the ground, then found herself sitting next to it. Lepers! Her mistress and her lovely baby Tirzah!

  The honey seller was at her side. “Are you all right? Forgive me; that was a shock. Perhaps you knew them?”

  “No, no,” she murmured. “But the idea. Those poor women! What has become of them?”

  He helped her to her feet. “They were released in the middle of the night. There is only one place for people like that, you know. They will have gone to the Valley of the Dead, where the lepers all live together.”

  She scrabbled in her basket for the coins to pay him, but he put up his hand. “I’m sorry, good woman. I didn’t mean to shock you. Take the honey. May it bring some sweetness to you.”

  She returned to the palace by a roundabout route, glad that the sun was not yet above the hills. Shadow was Amrah’s friend. She slipped into the postern door and took her basket up the stairs to the tiny room she had claimed as her own. Once there, in her safe little burrow, she sat on the floor, nestled into a corner.

  Was this terrible story true?

  Why wouldn’t it be? Grim accounts of Roman misdeeds constantly circulated in Jerusalem. Rabbis beaten, children killed, virtuous women assaulted—the same tales again and again. This, though, was a new one. And it had names attached to it. And a time span: eight years. Of course it was true.

  Amrah let her head drop back into the angle between the walls and shut her eyes. She felt she might fly apart under the pressure of emotion. She was still trying to understand Judah’s return, and now this horror had come upon her . . . and upon Judah.

  If it was true. She took a deep breath and got to her feet. There was only one way to know, and sooner would be better than later.

  As she prepared herself, she tried not to think ahead. There was some bread in the house and a small bit of meat. A jar for water—where people lived there must be a well. She put on a heavier veil and took up her basket again. The morning was bright when she pushed open the postern door, but the streets were still quiet.

  She paid attention to her route out of the city. She tried not to imagine what she might find at the end of it. She tried not to remember Tirzah, her beloved and beautiful charge, or Naomi, the kindest of mistresses. Instead she carefully looked from side to side to keep track of where she was, noticing where the streets branched and marking the distances. It would be easier to get home that way. With whatever she had learned.

  Unwittingly, she followed Naomi and Tirzah’s footsteps. There was a different Roman on guard at the gate, and no one thought to bother a respectable-looking servant. She found the right paths and reached the well of En-rogel just as the sun pulled loose from the hilltop and spilled golden light into the valley.

  There was a man at the well, not a leper but a drawer of water. Amrah approached him.

  “May I fill a jar for you, mistress?” he asked.

  “Not yet, thank you,” she answered. “But perhaps you might tell me about this place.”

  “It is the Valley of the Dead,” he said. “Those who dwell here are lepers. Did you not know?”

  “Yes,” she answered calmly. “Are there any who have just arrived?”

  He shrugged. “By night, perhaps. Or in the middle of the day. They only come out when the sun is low in the sky, so I am here at dawn and sunset.”

  “And where do they live?”

  “In the caves, of course,” he answered as if it were obvious.

  She looked at the hillsides and saw that their rocky surfaces were marked with dark gashes. One of them, not far away, opened to the east. It must be hot, she thought, by midday.

  She shaded her eyes and looked closer. There were two white figures emerging from it.

  Behind her, she heard a splash as the man dipped a jar into the well. She turned and saw a ghostly figure several steps beyond him. Man? Woman? Tall, so possibly a man. The figure was shrouded in layers of ragged garments, as if he had put on one worn robe after another in the effort to cover his body. A kerchief covered his head, but long, coarse white hair swung forward beneath it. He bowed his head and uttered something. The well man seemed to understand.

  A jar stood on the ground between them. The well man used his own jar to fill it, then stepped back to the well. The leper nodded, walked forward, and picked up his jar. Amrah thought he might fall over with the strain, but he managed to grasp it in his arms. His sleeve fell back and she saw the mass of bulbous blisters covering his arm before he turned away.

  Then she heard a shout behind her and a light clatter. The two figures from the cave had approached the well with a jar of their own. “Stay back! Unclean!” shouted the well man. A handful of pebbles dropped from his hand to the ground. “You must not come so close!”

  Amrah watched the two figures. They could not have been in the valley for long—their robes were new, and they did not seem to understand the customs. She stiffened. No, it wasn’t possible. They were old, ancient! Each of the women had white hair down to her knees! They moved slowly, hesitating as if each step pained them and the uneven ground might trip them. They could not be . . .

  But then she heard a threadlike voice saying, “Is it . . . Amrah? Is that you?”

  She approached them, ignoring the well man’s muttering.

  “Unclean!” one woman shrilled. “Come no closer, Amrah!”

  But she still could not recognize them. They knew her. Reason said this must be her mistress and Tirzah. But where were those women? There was no trace of them in this pair of crones.

  “My mistress?” she asked, faltering.

  “I am here, Amrah,” said the one on the left. “It is I, Naomi, princess of Hur. As you see me.”

  “But then—Tirzah?” Amrah looked at the other woman. The face was little but a mask, a distorted, thickened skin-like cover for a skull. The eyes stared out of the sockets and yellowed teeth thrust forth from the jaw.

  But this apparition was nodding. And a voice came from it, saying, “Yes, Amrah. I am Tirzah.”

  They could not cry, but she could. In that stony place beneath the hammering sun, she felt her tears sheeting down her face, trickling beneath her chin and along her neck. All the grief she had been holding back for years, the tension and the anguish, the fear and the guilt, welled up in a storm of emotion. But within moments, Naomi’s voice recalled her to herself.

  “Amrah, are you come to help us?” She nodded, still gulping. “Then bring us some water,” Naomi said. “Do you have any money?”

  “Enough, I think,” she said. “How much?” she asked the well man, holding out some coins. He took the smallest of them and filled Amrah’s jug.

  “And did you bring food?” Tirzah asked.

  “Of course I did,” Amrah answered. “Not much. I did not know I would find you.”

  “Can you come every day, Amrah? Can you come without letting Judah know?”

  She almost dropped the jar. “You know?”

  “We saw you two nights ago,” Tirzah explained as they began to work their way back up the hill. Naomi took the basket. Amrah, walking several yards behind, followed with the jug. “They had just released us. We saw Judah asleep.”

  “But we did not touch him, Amrah,” Naomi added. “And you must not tell him you have seen us.”

  At that, Amrah’s legs failed her and she almost dropped the precious jug as she stumbled. “But, mistress!” she protested. “He is looking for you!”
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  “I am glad to know it,” Naomi said. “I am glad he has not forgotten his family. But he must not find us.”

  “Mistress, he is in agony,” Amrah said firmly. “Your son longs for you!”

  “Don’t you think I long for him?” Naomi retorted. “But think of it, Amrah. What would happen if he came here?”

  “He would want to embrace you, of course,” Amrah answered slowly.

  “Amrah,” Tirzah said, “imagine how we felt that night. In our state, unclean. And seeing Judah asleep, knowing for the first time that he was alive . . . not being able to touch him. Mother just kissed his sandal. The sole of it. He must not become like us. Surely you see that!”

  Their voices had been so changed by the disease that Amrah could not have known them. But somehow their grief and desperation could be heard.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “I do. But I tell you again, he will be in agony.”

  “In agony, but healthy,” said Naomi. “Isn’t that better than being exiled to the living dead?”

  “Of course, mistress,” Amrah said, drooping over the jug. “Oh, mistress, my heart is breaking!”

  Naomi paused and looked at her old servant. She shook her head. “So is mine. But this will be my consolation: I will sit on that rock outside our cave. And I will look over the hill, toward our old house. When Judah is in Jerusalem, you will tell me, and I will imagine his days. Yes?”

  “Yes, mistress. I will come every day. The man at the well says he draws water at dawn and at sunset. I will be here, with my jug and your food. You will tell me what you need, and I will bring it.”

  “And you will tell us about Judah,” Tirzah added. “Where he has been and what he is doing.”

  “Of course,” Amrah agreed. “I will tell you now that he is about to begin a great search for you. He has a man who is going to the Romans. There will be a scandal, about the house and your imprisonment. I heard about you in the marketplace—there is ill feeling against the Romans on your account.”

  A sketch of the caves at En-rogel, where the lepers lived