The seer woman said that the streets would rise up in rage, and Berenike believed that, because the streets had already risen up. To say that they would do so again was plausible. To say that one could prevent this unrest by putting men to work—that too was plausible. The seer woman’s ripple effect might be real.

  After much thought this afternoon, Berenike had decided that it was real. The seer woman spoke as one who has seen a thing, not as one who wishes for a thing. Berenike would wager many ten thousand dinars that this ripple effect was real, that it would smother the flames of discontent in the streets.

  But it required money, and Agrippa did not like spending money on things that were merely useful. If it was a matter of building statues to beautify a city, he was happy to do so. He had commissioned much art in Banias and Caesarea this year. But paving streets? Where was the honor in that?

  They had spent the whole evening meal arguing about the matter, and Berenike had a headache. They were reclining on a broad couch in their dining room, looking out over the Temple and enjoying the cool of the evening. Torches in the Temple courts flickered in the twilight—the Temple guards moving to their posts at the gates. The courts of the Temple were paved in white stone. It was the greatest Temple in the world, and all because their great-grandfather had been a man of vision, one willing to dare great things. Whereas Agrippa would not even dare small things.

  “So you will do nothing then?” Berenike said.

  “I did not say so.” Agrippa’s eyes glittered in the light of a dozen olive-oil lamps. “I said that you must give me a more persuasive argument.”

  That made no sense. Berenike had made her best arguments already. She was tired of this foolish game. The seer woman was right, but Agrippa did not care. Perhaps, once again, he did not wish to be told what to do by a woman. Berenike snapped her fingers. “Shlomi, come! Help me up!”

  Her servant Shlomi extended a hand and pulled Berenike up. Berenike swung her legs over the side of the couch and stalked out. She had asked Agrippa a most reasonable thing, and he refused it, for no reason. Was there no way to resolve this muddle?

  * * *

  Berenike

  At midnight, Berenike woke from a light sleep. She lay for a time, tense as a tiger.

  On a small bedroll on the floor, Shlomi lay snoring. Shlomi was a heavy sleeper and she never awoke when Berenike rose in the middle of the night to pass water.

  Berenike rolled silently out of bed and stepped past Shlomi to her small latrine. She relieved herself, then stood for a long time at the window slits, staring out through the ivory shutters at the Temple.

  The city lay sleeping beneath her, this city which looked to her for help. And she had none to give.

  Except ...

  Berenike looked again at Shlomi. Still snoring.

  She went to her large closet and selected a tunica. Berenike was not used to dressing herself—that was what servants were for—but she fitted it over her head and let it slide down her body. Carefully now.

  Berenike tiptoed to the door of her sleeping chamber. She cracked the great oaken door ajar and peered out. The palace lay sleeping. Olive-oil lamps burned in a few niches in the walls, splashing pools of light in the dark hallway. Berenike eased out into the hallway and held her breath as she pulled the door shut. It was so rare for her to go anywhere without a servant that she felt naked when she was alone.

  She glided silently down the hallway, steering around the patches of light as best she could. Several doors passed her on either side. She had done this once before. Only once, and it had ended badly, because it was for herself. This time, it was for her city.

  Berenike reached the door.

  Turned the golden handle.

  Eased it inward.

  Stepped inside.

  She shut the door and dared to breathe.

  Moonlight flooded in through the window. Berenike moved inward on silent cat feet.

  A great golden bed. A silent figure in the bed, breathing evenly.

  Berenike sat on the bed. Her lungs were on fire now. She must not do this. She had to do this.

  She lay down.

  The even breathing became ragged and then ...

  A fierce whisper. “Berenike! What are you doing here?”

  “To persuade you.” Berenike felt sick at heart. She had promised herself never again.

  Agrippa laughed softly.

  * * *

  Ari

  “Ari the Kazan!”

  Ari turned at the shout. Two men hurried toward him. Ari had met them once in the Hasmonean Palace. Their names were Saul and Costabar and they were cousins of King Agrippa. Ari did not like them. They had a reputation as gamblers and idlers, and they treated Ari as scum, a commoner who actually worked for pay.

  Ari waited. Saul was taller than his brother Costabar, and he had an auburn tint to his hair, though his beard was black. Costabar was the younger of the two, and he had a scar across his forehead for which Ari had never heard a satisfactory explanation. He understood that it involved an angry husband, but the details were vague.

  “Ari the Kazan,” Saul said again.

  “Saul.” Ari did not smile. “Costabar.”

  “You were speaking with Agrippa this morning in the palace.” Saul said this as if Ari should be ashamed of it.

  “Yes.”

  “On a matter of importance?” Saul’s eyes gleamed. For him, a matter of importance could only involve money.

  “Yes.”

  “He has commissioned you for a task?” Saul pronounced this as if it were a disgusting and fatal disease.

  “What can I do for you?” Ari looked at both men. They were much shorter than he, but there were two of them and they had taken an intimidating stance, with Saul directly in front of him and Costabar to the side, slightly behind Ari.

  Saul smiled as if Ari were a slow student. He took out a very short iron dagger and began cleaning his fingernails. “I have a minor debt—a foolish fellow won a sum from me at dice. I would consider it a service if you could make me a small loan.”

  “A loan.” Ari knew that neither Saul nor Costabar ever repaid loans.

  “A small one,” Saul said.

  “How small is small?” Ari said. “I have a few dinars with me now.” This was a deliberate insult, but he was tired of their petty foolishness.

  “Two thousand dinars.” Saul smiled. “A small sum for one such as you, who deals in large contracts with our cousin, the king.”

  Costabar coughed gently. Ari turned to look and saw that Costabar had also taken out a short dagger and was calmly holding it in his palm.

  It was a holdup, as simple and direct as the one Ari had seen once in Princeton, when a man walked into a bank with a gun and asked the teller for money. He could complain to King Agrippa, but the king turned a blind eye to his cousins and it would be two men’s word against one. They would say that they had politely asked for a loan, that Ari the Kazan had misinterpreted their innocent request. And Ari would seem like a petty man, unwilling to help others when he had a contract for fifty thousand dinars for the paving of the streets of Jerusalem.

  Sweat stood on the back of Ari’s neck. He could not afford this foolishness. But to refuse them would be to ask for violence at the hands of these thugs.

  “You will help us, yes?” Saul said, and the dagger gleamed in the blinding noon sun.

  “Of course, my friends.” Ari’s eyes flickered from one man to another. “But I do not have two thousand dinars in cash. It would be foolish to carry so much.”

  Both men nodded, their cold eyes watching him closely.

  Ari gave them a wry smile. “In fact, I have only two hundred dinars with me now. A trifling sum. I would not insult you—”

  “It would be of some small value now,” Saul said. “So long as the rest were forthcoming tomorrow.”

  Ari shook his head. “Two hundred dinars is nothing. Tomorrow—”

  “Now.” Saul’s tone had gone flat and menacing.

  “As you wish.” Ari reached inside his cloth belt and pulled out a leather bundle. He unfolded it carefully, revealing a large and heavy dagger forged of Damascus steel. With two quick slashes, he knocked the light iron daggers out of the two men’s hands.

  Costabar leaped away, a thin red line dripping from his right hand. Saul was caught wrong-footed. Ari seized his beard and put the blade near his throat. “This blade is valued at two hundred dinars. Shall I give it to you?”

  Costabar tried to circle around, but Ari stepped sideways, keeping Saul between himself and his brother.

  “My friends,” Ari gave them a savage smile. “You may be thinking that I have a woman and daughter.”

  Saul’s eyes told him that this was exactly what he was thinking.

  “If anything should happen to my woman or my daughter, I would hunt you down like rats. I have many friends and many eyes in this city. I have a weapon in my house that you have not imagined. It throws fire at a distance and no iron can stop it. There is no country you could flee to, not Babylon, not Rome, not Spain, that I would not pursue you. Do I make myself clear?”

  Saul’s eyes were white with terror. “Y–yes.”

  Costabar’s teeth gleamed with malice. “Ari the Kazan, perhaps you have misunderstood.”

  “Please, you will enlighten me.”

  Costabar’s eyes flicked to the dagger in Ari’s hand. “We meant no harm. We took you to be a friend, a man of honor who might aid his friends in need. It is said that you are a generous man. Perhaps we were mistaken.”

  Ari pushed Saul backward hard. Saul stumbled against Costabar and both of them fell in the dusty street. Ari dropped to his knees and made two swift strokes with his heavy dagger, shattering the blades the two men had dropped. He stood up and stepped toward them, holding up his weapon. “I have many friends in this city and each of them carries a dagger like this. Do not trouble me ever again.”

  Saul and Costabar staggered to their feet and fled.

  Chapter 19

  Rivka

  SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER ARI WAS commissioned to pave the streets of Jerusalem, in the heat of a sleepy late summer afternoon, Rivka heard pounding on her door. She went downstairs and opened the door.

  A servant boy of about fifteen stood with a folded piece of papyrus. He handed it to her. “Agrippa the king sends word to Rivka the Kazan.”

  Rivka examined the wax seal on the papyrus. It looked authentic, though she had no way to know for sure. She broke the seal with her thumbnail and opened the note. It was written in Latin, which told her that Agrippa did not wish the note to be read by anyone but her.

  Marcus Julius Agrippa, king of Trachonitis, Batanaea, and Gaulanitis, to Rivka, the woman of Ari the Kazan, peace. You will come promptly with the messenger boy to my palace. My sister the queen and I wish to question you on a matter of importance.

  Rivka folded the note and stuffed it in her belt. “Just let me get my daughter.”

  “You will hurry.” The boy fidgeted, looking nervously up and down the street as if he expected to be waylaid by bandits.

  Rivka closed the door and ran upstairs. “Rachel! Come, let’s go see Dov.”

  Rachel was playing with a small carved wooden doll on the floor. Her face lit up. “Dov! He can be the abba and I’ll be the imma!”

  Rivka’s heart did a little flutter, then tried to claw its way up into her throat. Rachel was almost six years old. In another six years, she’d be ready to get betrothed. And in the year Rachel turned twelve, destruction would come like a flood over Jerusalem. Rivka leaned against a wall, her head feeling light.

  “Imma?” Rachel tugged at Rivka’s tunic. “Imma? Why are you looking that way? It frightens me.”

  Rivka took Rachel’s hand in her own and just held it. She knelt down and hugged her. “I’m sorry, Racheleh. I love you so much, and I’m frightened too. Bad things will happen and I don’t want them to happen to you.”

  “Or Dov?”

  “Not Dov either.” Rachel stood up. “Let’s go see him. You can play there and I need to go see somebody.”

  “Is it the queen?”

  Rivka looked down at her. “What made you say that?”

  Rachel gave her a pearled smile. “I don’t know. Maybe HaShem told me?”

  “Maybe.” Rivka tugged her downstairs, wondering how Rachel was always so good at guessing things.

  Outside, she locked the door and set off with the messenger boy. He kept hurrying ahead, then turning back and spearing her with impatient eyes. Rachel was dawdling along, stopping every few feet to look at a crack in a wall or a ragged weed or a dead rat in the gutter.

  “Let’s hurry,” Rivka said. “So you can play with Dov.”

  Rachel hurried.

  * * *

  Rivka

  Eventually, Rivka got Rachel to Hana’s place and then followed the boy to the palace of the king and queen. She was no longer awed by them. They were royalty, yes, but they were just people. The boy led her up to the highest floor, to the dining room Ari had designed for them years ago, which had caused so much trouble. Rivka had never been to this room. She gasped when she saw how high up she was, what a magnificent view of the Temple the room gave.

  Agrippa stood at the window staring out across the narrow valley at the Temple. Berenike was pacing behind him. Tension crackled in the room like the last few seconds before kickoff at the Super Bowl back home in San Diego.

  “What’s going on?” Rivka said.

  Berenike kept pacing. “Five years ago, you told us certain things to come.”

  Rivka nodded. “That’s right. Was I wrong?”

  Agrippa turned and studied her with black hawk’s eyes. “You told true, so far as you told. Now a thing has happened which you have not told.”

  Rivka jutted her chin at him. “I promised you five years.”

  “And the five years ended after Pesach.” Agrippa took a stance with his feet spread well apart, like a gunslinger.

  Rivka’s pulse notched upward but she met his gaze evenly. “You failed to keep your promise, and yet I kept mine.” And I’m not sure Berenike will keep hers, but she still has two years before the crunch comes.

  Agrippa leaned toward her, his face menacing. “You did not tell us what was to happen this summer.”

  “That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

  Agrippa moved toward her. “You will tell us more now.”

  Rivka folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t have to put up with your threats.”

  Berenike stepped between them and put a soothing hand on Rivka’s arm. “Please, seer woman. My brother means you no harm, but we have heard word of a thing that has happened at Rome—”

  Rivka gasped and felt her face go clammy.

  “You know something?” Agrippa said.

  Rivka’s mind was spinning. She hadn’t thought about it much, but yes, she did know something. This was the summer of the year A.D. 64, a terrible year. The year Nero would decide that Christians were not Jews. “There is to be a great fire in Rome.” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.

  Agrippa shot a quick look at Berenike.

  Rivka read reams in that glance. “Has it happened already?” She remembered that the fire was set on the night of July 19, A.D. 64. Rivka tried to think what today was in the western calendar. Close to the end of August. So the fire had roared through Rome five or six weeks ago—enough time for a fast ship to bring news to Judea.

  “Tell us what you know,” Berenike said.

  Rivka’s throat felt raw. “There was a great fire. It burned for six days before the city fire wardens finally put it under control. Then it got past them again and burned for another three days. It destroyed two thirds of the city, but the Jewish districts were spared. Caesar Nero will take the opportunity to rebuild the city to his liking. He will build himself a new palace, the Domus Aurea, Palace of Gold.”

  “And what is to happen here in Jerusalem?” Agrippa said. “Seer woman, did you not think to warn us about this matter?”

  “I ...” Rivka felt like a fool. “I didn’t think of it.”

  Agrippa looked like he might slap her.

  Rivka pulled away from him, stumbled toward the door, tripped, fell.

  Berenike interposed herself between Rivka and Agrippa. “Enough!” she hissed at her brother. “Seer woman, you should have warned us. There will be trouble over this.”

  Rivka raised herself off the floor. “Tell me what you know.”

  Agrippa held up a parchment document. “I had a letter from Governor Florus today by a fast rider, telling me just what you have said.” He looked furious. “You will tell me what is to happen here.”

  Rivka gawked at him. The truth was, she didn’t know. Josephus said little about this period, which only made sense, because he was gone to—

  Rome.

  To get certain zealous priests out of prison.

  To spy out the land of Canaan.

  The only districts not burned were those where most of the Jews and Christians lived, but the Christians would get the blame. And so would begin the first great persecution in Rome. The apostles Peter and Paul would soon be martyred. Hundreds more would also die, burned alive as human torches by Nero, who was hungry for a scapegoat. Others would die in the arena.

  This was the year that the church of Rome would go underground, separating itself from the synagogue of Rome. And Rivka had a tiny little suspicion who was to blame. Yoseph. Of course she could never prove it. There would never be enough information to answer the question.

  Rivka felt like somebody had just slugged her in the stomach, leaving her winded and gasping.

  Berenike clutched at Agrippa’s arm. “She saw something just now. HaShem showed her a thing.”

 

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