The Bronze Bow: Chapters 17–24

Some men praised Rosh’s daring, elated to see the rich men defrauded. But more, like this man, were indignant.

This, then had been the reason for Joel’s enterprise? A wholesale looting of rich men’s houses.

Bit by bit the boys from the city had garnered every crumb of news to relate to the village boys.

“I’m going to keep at it,” he boasted. “It would be a shame to give up such an opening. I’ve got a special order from the centurion’s head steward—two-dozen fish every second and fourth day of the week. There’s no telling what I may chance on!”

Looking at the circle of intense swarthy faces, at the flashing eyes, feeling the unquestioning loyalty that bound them all to Rosh, Daniel cursed his own heavy misgivings.

A bridegroom, son of the wealthiest elder in the synagogue, left the city with a gala party of his friends, laden with gifts, to claim his bride in Sepphoris.

Next day the whole party returned to their homes, clad only in their tunics, bereft of their handsome cloaks, their gifts, almost of their senses.

Any traitor who sold his goods to the Romans did so at his own risk. Those who flaunted their wealth or patronized a Roman theater were fair prey.

Boys limped with a swagger, leered smugly through purpled eyelids and grinned through swollen lips. To harass the Romans was their real delight.

Boys limped with a swagger, leered smugly through purpled eyelids and grinned through swollen lips. To harass the Romans was their real delight.

A pilfered bit of Roman equipment, a spur, a leather gauntlet, was a prize worth risking one’s neck for.

Over and over, during the long night, the boys retraced the devious path to the watchtower, staggering under heavy planks and crossbeams.

When the sun rose next morning the catapult had disappeared without a trace. Nor did Roman offers of reward or threats of reprisal produce a single hint of its whereabouts.

Two days later a farmer, about to move with his family to man the watchtower in his field, came upon his near-ripened crop and found it plundered, trampled, wantonly ruined.

“From the Romans? Use your head. We took Samson from some scurvy traders. Roman soldiers—that’s another matter.”

He and Joktan had the trail to themselves. But as he went down, the uncanny feeling grew on him that someone was behind.

“Nothing?” Nathan cried out, incredulous. “After Joel has—” His voice broke.

Tumult exploded in the watchtower, anger flaring instantly into new hope.

In the darkness they had followed the shore road south past Magdala, striking inland to a place where the Via Maris, the road the Romans must follow to the coast, wound between steep, almost unscalable banks.

A fissure in the rock extended in an oblique line down the face of the rock, wide and deep enough in some parts to hide several men, ending on a narrow shelf barely ten feet above the road.

As the hours went by, Daniel’s foreboding deepened.

“Did you see Joel?”
“No. Too far away. But they’ve come a distance. The horses are lathered.”

The cavalry rode in pairs, their spurs almost touching in the narrow pass, erect, silent, the plumes of their helmets rising and falling with the horses’ pace.

“Four days from today is the Day of Atonement. First the fast, of course, and then the service at the synagogue. Why—I never thought—I’ll see it at the Temple in Jerusalem! I can’t believe it! But I’ll miss the festival here in Capernaum. The girls will dance and sing in the vineyard. Will you come to town for it?”

You see, it’s different with our family. When our mother was only eight years old she was betrothed. But when she was fifteen my father, who was a poor student, came to do some work in her father’s library, and they fell in love.

Then, heedless of the master’s weariness, forgetting everything but the guilt that had tormented him every moment since the day of the rescue, he poured out the story of Rosh, of the betrayal on the mountain, of Nathan’s death, and the debt that Samson’s sacrifice had laid upon him.

With terror, he pushed away the words that struck treacherously into his own weakness.

Pious Jews moved with dignity toward the synagogue, looking with disdain on the frivolous folk who took the occasion for an idle holiday.

Pious Jews moved with dignity toward the synagogue, looking with disdain on the frivolous folk who took the occasion for an idle holiday.

Through the morning hours he stuck dourly at his work, trying to ignore the tug of restlessness in the air.

He walked along the road to the city, holding himself aloof from the holiday travelers, his unhappy, forbidding face giving no one any encouragement.

As she came nearer, he saw that from time to time she gazed directly at the line of men, not coyly, not boldly, but with searching.

In a moment she would pass by where he stood, and those seeking eyes would find him out, standing there in his homespun garment with his soot-grimed hands and his bare feet.

Even in his own preoccupation he noticed the trembling eagerness with which she watched him eat, like a child brimming with a secret that can scarcely be contained.

For hours he walked, rushing through the village streets, trampling the pastures on the slopes, striding along the road, drenched by intermittent rain.

Overnight Leah had become again the wan ghost who had cowered beside her dying grandmother.

“It is the day of the Lord!” screamed a voice above all the rest.
He has declared himself! Daniel thought with rapture, forgetting Leah, forgetting his exhaustion and doubt, forgetting everything but the fierce joy that shook him from head to foot.

The physician, loath at first to come, looked down at her and shook his head.

“If you could save my sister’s life, I would not profane our house,” he said. “I would rather let her die. Understand this. If you try to walk through that door, I will kill you.”

“My sister will get well,” he said, his voice harsh. “The fever has left her.”
A quick guttural sound burst from the soldier.