“Flay him.” Albinus pointed toward the palace gate. “Take him to the public square in front of the market and flay him there.” He turned to Agrippa and Berenike and intensity lit up his eyes. “You will join me to enjoy the spectacle.”

  Not an invitation.

  Not a request.

  A command.

  Berenike did not like watching public floggings, not even with a Jewish whip. But a flaying—with a bone and metal-tipped Roman flagrum—that would leave her nauseous for days.

  Agrippa nodded. “Of course, Excellency.”

  Berenike gritted her teeth.

  The insane man continued to shout his mindless words as the group proceeded out through the gates and into the public square. Stone benches ringed the perimeter. Children played in the dust. Mothers sat and gossiped. Men stood in their own circles, chatting in the lazy autumn warmth. Heads turned all around the square as they approached.

  “A voice from the north! A voice from the south!”

  Berenike wanted to vomit.

  The soldiers led the way to the far edge of the square. Two matrons sitting on a bench saw them coming and scurried away, their eyes white with fear. The soldiers stopped before the bench. One of them unchained the prisoner.

  “A voice against this city!” shouted the man.

  A soldier yanked at his ragged tunic. It ripped down the middle.

  The man wore nothing underneath. “A voice against the bridegroom and against the bride!”

  Another soldier took leather straps and bound them around the man’s wrists. All the while he continued bellowing his absurd oracle. The soldier bound his arms to the bench. Another tied his ankles together, fastened the strap to a spike, and drove it into the hard ground.

  “A voice against the king and his consort, the queen!”

  “Flay him,” said Albinus. “Ruthlessly.”

  “A voice against the Temple!”

  A trained lictor stepped to one side of the man, shook the tangles out of his flagrum, and then swung it high overhead in a great circle. The lashes wrapped around the man’s back. The embedded bits of bone and iron bit into his chest. Blood spurted to the ground.

  “A voice ... from the west!”

  The lictor jerked on the flagrum, yanking out the embedded ends. More blood.

  “A voice from the east!”

  The lictor gathered his flagrum and made another stroke.

  “A voice from the north!”

  Berenike turned away.

  Behind her, Albinus stood, all his attention focused on the flaying. Smiling.

  Chapter 6

  Rivka

  RIVKA SET DOWN RACHEL IN her bed and held her breath. At four years old, Rachel thought she was much too old to take an afternoon nap. But she was worn out from playing chase all morning with Baruch and Dov.

  It felt strange to be back in her own home again. Rivka had gotten used to the exorbitant pleasures of living in Mattityahu’s palace, a home that was almost civilized. She walked back downstairs and tried to think what to do first. Ari had gone to the market to buy some food. Maybe she should do some cleaning. They’d been gone for a full week and the house smelled musty.

  She went through the house opening the wooden shutters at all the window slits. The afternoon breeze felt warm, with a hint of autumn. The days were getting shorter now and soon it would be cold at night.

  Rivka went into her room and began putting away the stack of clothes she had brought back from Yoseph’s palace. Ari had made a lumpy mess of his shelf, wedging everything in. Typical man. She dumped the whole stack on the bed and began refolding. Honestly, you’d think a guy who could design a crane—

  Something small and brown leaped out from one of the tunics.

  Rivka screamed, thinking it was a mouse.

  It lay unmoving on the bed. A small olive-wood cross.

  She inspected it closely. No doubt about it. One of those cheap touristy things people from the States bought in Bethlehem and took home to put on their Christmas trees.

  This one had a shiny, polished feel to it, like it had been rubbed smooth by the touch of many fingers. But where had it come from? They didn’t do Christmas trees here in this city, this century.

  Ari must have brought it with him through the wormhole. But why? It didn’t make sense. No way would Ari Kazan, the great Christian-basher, carry around a cross. Rivka put it on Ari’s pillow where he would find it. She finished folding his clothes, stretched out on her bed, and closed her eyes.

  All right, HaShem. Baruch says I’m supposed to listen to you. Learn to hear your voice. I’ve been trying. And I hate to be rude, but you’re not following through. It’s been days and so far I haven’t even heard a dial tone. Are you there or not?

  Rivka waited.

  Nothing.

  The ridiculous part was that there was nothing she could do to fix this problem. No AT&T guy she could call to come out and climb the telephone pole and make it all right. If she couldn’t hear God, it was his fault. Or was it? Baruch had said HaShem wanted to talk to her. So was it her fault if she couldn’t hear anything? Was she the one who was broken?

  Or was the problem that she wasn’t broken enough? An image formed in her mind. Baruch on his face in the dirt, kissing her feet. Which was just plain gross. Disgusting. Even she wouldn’t kiss her feet.

  Rivka put her hand over her mouth, nauseated. If she had to go around kissing people’s feet, she was going to pass on the whole repenting thing. Kissing feet was Baruch’s style. She would find her own way to repent. Something meaningful that—

  The door downstairs clicked quietly open.

  Rivka’s heart jumped into orbit. If Hanan ben Hanan had sent somebody to get her and Rachel ... Rivka jumped up and looked around for something heavy she could swing. Nothing. She rushed to the head of the stairs and collided with ... Ari.

  He held her tight, and she heard his heart pounding in his chest.

  He sighed deeply. “Rivkaleh.”

  “What’s the matter?” She leaned back and looked at his face.

  Sorrow filled his eyes. “I was in the upper market buying food. They were flaying a man there—the man we saw in the Temple last week, the crazy man who shouted the woes to the Temple.”

  Rivka shuddered. Josephus had said something about that man. How Governor Albinus flayed him until his bones showed through his skin. How he showed no pain. How he lived another seven years, shouting his weird prophecy of doom.

  Ari told her what he had seen. Deep pain etched his voice. He knew what it was to be flayed. “I would have brought him home with me,” he finished, “but they took him back into Herod’s Palace.”

  “And he never screamed at all?” Rivka could hardly believe that a man could endure that kind of pain in silence.

  “He only shouted his strange oracle.” Ari gripped her tight. “The new governor was watching it, the man called Albinus. He enjoyed the sight. He licked his lips when he saw the blood of a fellow man.”

  Rivka shut her eyes tight, wondering how anybody could be so evil. “Why don’t you lie down? I’ll get you a nice drink and you can relax for a little. It’s been an awful day.”

  Ari kissed the top of her head and lurched to the bed.

  Rivka turned to go downstairs, and heard the sharp hiss of his breath. She spun around and saw Ari scoop something off the pillow and stuff it into his belt. He looked at her, guilt written across his face.

  Rivka took a deep breath. What was that all about?

  Ari lay down on the bed and turned his face away from her.

  Rivka went downstairs, found a clean stone cup, went to the pantry, lifted the top off a huge stone jar, and scooped up a cupful of beer. Her InterVarsity friends back in Berkeley would have a cow if they knew that Rivka Meyers had a vat of beer in her house. Rivka had quit worrying about the alcohol thing a long time ago. There wasn’t any choice. The drinking water here simply wasn’t safe unless you added in some beer or wine to kill the germs.

  Rivka walked upstairs, checked that Rachel was still asleep, then went into their room.

  Ari hadn’t moved.

  She knelt beside him. “Ari?”

  He jumped as if she’d slid a knife into his back.

  “Do you want some beer?”

  He rolled over and downed it in one long draft. “Thank you.” His voice sounded thick.

  Rivka took the cup downstairs and put it on the kitchen table. She tiptoed back upstairs and lay on the bed beside Ari. Took his hands in hers. Snuggled up to him. “What’s the cross about, Ari?”

  His eyes gleamed in the half-darkness. “You would not understand.”

  “I want to understand.”

  Long silence.

  “Is it about some girl? Somebody from your past?”

  “Not a girl, no. My mother gave it to me.” Ari blinked rapidly. “On the day of my bar mitzvah.”

  Rivka waited. “And?”

  Ari gave a deep sigh and rolled onto his back. “When I was very young—younger than Rachel, my mother and I lived together in Haifa with my father. He was a tall man with a very neat beard. He smelled much of tobacco. I do not remember more of him.”

  Rivka had never heard Ari talk about his real father. Every time she had asked about him, Ari changed the subject. She put a hand on his chest. His heart was pounding.

  “He was in the reserves, like every Israeli. That year, he drew duty in Bethlehem in the week before Christmas.” Ari stopped, swallowed hard. “It was quiet that year. Very safe. In those days, Christians still outnumbered Muslims in Bethlehem. You knew this, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “There was an incident.” Ari put his hand on Rivka’s and gripped hard. Two tears formed at the corners of his eyes. “It was never established how it happened, but a gang of young Palestinians caught him alone. Arab Christians. They disarmed him and ...”

  Rivka found that she had stopped breathing. She forced her lungs to draw breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  “They kicked him to death in an alley. They stomped in his face, on his body. They ...” Ari fished the small wooden cross out of his belt. “They forced this halfway down his throat. It was found in the autopsy. The doctors gave it to my mother.”

  Rivka was staring at him, feeling deep horror inside her. Rage. “And so she gave it to you.”

  “So that I would never forget what Christians do to Jews. What they have done to Jews for two thousand years.”

  Rivka was weeping now, weeping because she was finally beginning to understand.

  “My mother’s parents survived the Holocaust,” Ari said. “Her father was liberated from Auschwitz, weighing forty kilos. Her mother came out of Bergen-Belsen. They made aliyah after the war. To Israel, to a homeland where Christians would not send mobs to murder and burn on Easter, on Christmas. To Israel, where a Jew could be a Jew without fear. To a land free of the blood curse.”

  “The blood curse?”

  Ari closed his eyes. “It is a thing written in the Christian Bible. It was preached in Europe for many hundred years. The priests would gather the whole city into the cathedral at Easter. They would bring the Jews of the city to sit on the front row, wearing dunce hats. Then the bishop would preach about how the Jews gave Jesus a crown of thorns. How the Jews flayed Jesus. How the Jews murdered Jesus.” Ari’s voice cracked.

  Rivka did not trust herself to say a word. She had heard all this before and yet she had never heard it. Not like this.

  “The bishop would tell how the Roman governor offered Jesus back to the people. Would they take him free? No. The Jews shouted that he must be crucified, that his blood must be on them and their children to all generations. This is the blood curse. It is in the New Testament. It was repeated for many hundred years at the famous play in Oberammergau. It is the reason that a Jew who hears the words Christ-killer knows to run first and ask questions later. It is the reason Christians killed my father. Because he killed Jesus. Because he, personally, murdered God.”

  Ari held up the tiny cross. “The cross is the blood curse and the blood curse is the cross. My mother gave this to me to remind me that a Jew must never forget that he is safe nowhere, not even in his own land, his own city, his own home.”

  Rivka was crying so hard she could not see. She smeared the sleeve of her tunic across her eyes and pulled herself up so that she was kneeling on the bed beside Ari. She put her face on his chest and just wept. “I ... I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. No, that’s not true. I read Exodus. I read The Source. I must have read twenty books about Christian anti-Semitism. But it all seemed so ... far away. So medieval. Another galaxy. I’m sorry. Will you ... forgive me for not listening to you? For just blowing it off like it was just a little religious tiff? For not understanding what the cross means to you?”

  Ari’s big hands patted her softly on the head, stroking her hair gently. “Yes, I forgive you. Only ... never forget. Never, ever forget, please.”

  Rivka lifted her bleary face and fumbled with Ari’s hand. She folded back his fingers. Pulled out the small wooden cross.

  Kissed it.

  “I won’t forget. Ever again.”

  * * *

  Hanan ben Hanan

  Late at night, ten Roman soldiers came to Hanan’s palace with a message from Governor Albinus. When Hanan’s steward showed them into his receiving room, they calmly informed him that his presence was required by the governor at Herod’s Palace.

  Immediately.

  Hanan realized at once that he was a dead man. Albinus had sent him a threatening letter while on the road from Egypt. Now the governor meant to make good on it. Hanan knew he could not fight the soldiers. He had no Temple guards anymore. The governor would kill him, and few would mourn him. He asked permission to kiss his eleven-year-old daughter. The soldiers granted this request.

  Hanan went to her room. Sarah was asleep. He kissed her head. She did not stir. He came back out. The soldiers led him outside. At the door, Hanan’s steward hovered, anxiety on his face.

  “A secret meeting,” Hanan said. “I will return shortly. Tell no one of it.”

  The steward nodded. Perhaps he even believed this lie.

  Hanan strode out into the night. He steeled himself for his ordeal. Kazan’s woman was wrong. He would not live another seven years. Tonight he would go to the long sleep of his fathers, to rest forever in the outer darkness of the grave. A Sadducee did not believe in an afterlife. Angels, demons, souls, spirits, pah! Pharisee foolishness. Torah said nothing of Paradise or Gehenna.

  They marched through the dark streets without a torch. The month was nearly ended, so there would be no moon until near dawn. The stars lit the way. They walked north to the upper market, then turned west to Herod’s Palace. The governor had flayed a man here today—that foolish man who cursed the Temple at Sukkot.

  Hanan’s insides quivered at the thought that he would endure such a punishment also. As he had done to Kazan, so it would be done to him. He would not cry out nor beg for mercy.

  The main gates of Herod’s Palace were shut, but the men entered through the heavy iron door next to it. The governor was staying in the palatial residences on the west side of the compound, in the great edifice that butted up against the city walls. The soldiers marched rapidly across the broad outer court and through the doors into the main receiving room. They led Hanan into a large side office. The governor reclined on a long low couch. Before him was a marble table with an assortment of vile foods, unclean meats of the goyim.

  The governor pointed to a couch. “I am told your Greek is excellent. Recline with me here. I wish to discuss a matter with you frankly.”

  Hanan gaped at him, then lowered himself onto the couch.

  The governor waved the soldiers out of the room. “Be ready when I ring for you.”

  Hanan’s heart slowed to a gallop.

  The door shut behind the soldiers. Hanan and Albinus were alone.

  The governor pointed to the table. “Eat, if you like.”

  Hanan shook his head. He would not defile himself with the food of a goy. “Thank you, Excellency.”

  “I have heard tale of you from the king and queen.” Governor Albinus cut a slice of a small roasted bird of a type Hanan did not recognize and popped it into his mouth.

  Hanan bristled. “The king is a weakling and his sister is a whore.”

  “They say you are ruthless.” Albinus leaned forward, his eyes gleaming.

  Hanan did not know what to say, so he said nothing.

  “It is said you killed a man with your own hands.” Admiration shone on Albinus’s face.

  Hanan felt a shock run through his body. “Who told you that?”

  Albinus smiled. “An eyewitness. He saw you push the man into the stoning pit when the nerve of your executioners failed.”

  An eyewitness? Impossible! Hanan’s throat felt painfully dry. “Which eyewitness?”

  “One of your Temple guards.” Albinus took a handful of raisins and shoveled them into his mouth. “A very short man with a large head and an honest look to him. On account of his testimony, I ordered King Agrippa to put you out of your office.”

  Hanan fought to show no reaction, but his heart pulsed with fury. The description could fit only one man. Gamaliel ben Levi had testified against him. Had disgraced him. But Gamaliel was a nobody. He would not have testified without a powerful backer. That could only be Eleazar ben Hananyah, leader of the Sons of Righteous Priests.

  “I am informed that Judea is overrun with bandits,” Albinus said. “What do you know of this?”

  “It is the fault of Governor Felix,” Hanan said. “He strangled the countryside for his own profit, driving the people to banditry.”

  “I mean to rid Judea of bandits.” Albinus took a small bite of a melon, made a face, and spit it on the floor. “And I mean to do it quickly. You know this people and this country. I want you to make a plan. Some ruse to allow me to capture many bandits. A ruthless plan that will terrify the whole country.”

  Hanan narrowed his eyes. Why should he help this disgusting corpse of a man?

 

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