The Book of Longings(31)

Father typically received the seat of honor at Herod’s right—he boasted of it often, though not as much as Mother, who seemed to think Father’s power and glory extended to her. I glanced at Father, standing with Nathaniel, full of pompous expectation. How could he be so confident? His son had joined Antipas’s enemies and committed public acts of treason. The entire city knew of his actions—I could not believe they would go completely unnoticed by the tetrarch. Surely not. The sins of the son were visited on the father just as the father’s sins were visited on the son. Hadn’t Antipas once ordered his soldier to cut off the hand of a man whose son was a thief? Did Father truly think there would be no repercussion for him?

It had perplexed me that Judas’s rebellion had thus far yielded no apparent consequence to Father. It occurred to me now, however, that the tetrarch would strike at Father unexpectedly, in a moment when he could inflict the most humiliation. Mother’s face was strained with worry, and I could see she had the same thoughts as I.

We watched the men being escorted to their places one by one until only four places remained: the two seats of gloat beside Antipas and the two seats of shame at the end. Left waiting were Father and Nathaniel and two men unknown to me. Shiny diadems of sweat had formed on the brows of the two strangers. Father, however, showed no sign of concern.

With a nod to his palace steward, Chuza, Antipas had Father and Nathaniel escorted to the seats of honor. Nathaniel clasped Father’s arm, a gesture that seemed to celebrate the alliance the two of them had made. Father’s power was intact. Their treaty was safe. I turned to Yaltha and saw her frown.

The women dipped their bread and ate. They prattled and tossed back their heads and laughed, but I had no stomach for food or gaiety. Three musicians played the flute, cymbal, and Roman lyre, and a barefoot dancer, no older than I, leapt about with her brown breasts protruding like mushroom tops.

Visit a pestilence upon my betrothal. Let it be broken by whatever means God chooses. Unbind me from Nathaniel ben Hananiah. The curse I’d written formed lips of its own and repeated inside me. I no longer had faith God would hear it.

Antipas lifted himself from the couch with some labor. The music ceased. The voices hushed. I saw Father smile to himself.

Chuza struck a little brass bell and the tetrarch spoke. “Let it be known that my counselor and chief scribe Matthias has not rested in his search for my enemies. Today, he delivered unto me two Zealots, the most vicious of rebels, who have waged transgressions against my government and the government of Rome.”

He looked toward the doorway, raising his arm in dramatic fashion, pointing, and every guest turned in unison. There, bare chested, his skin a bewilderment of whip marks and blood crust, stood Judas. His hands were bound and he was cinched about his waist with a rope that was tied to that of a wild-eyed man I guessed to be Simon ben Gioras.

I leapt to my feet, and my brother turned and found me. Little sister, he mouthed.

Yaltha caught my arm as I bolted toward him, forcing me back onto the stool. “There’s nothing you can do but draw trouble on your own self,” she whispered.

“Behold the traitors of Herod Antipas,” called Chuza, and a soldier led them stumbling into the room. It seemed they would be made into a sport for our entertainment. They were dragged a full circuit about the banquet hall to the sound of my mother’s crying. The men spewed abuses on them as they passed. I stared at my hands in my lap.

The bell was rung again. The parade halted, and Antipas read from a scroll that I imagined my father had penned. “On this day, the nineteenth of Marcheshvan, I, Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, decree that Simon ben Gioras will be executed by sword for traitorous acts and that Judas ben Matthias will be imprisoned at the fortress of Machaerus in Peraea for the same offense, his life spared as a dispensation to his father, Matthias.”

It passed through my mind that my father had not acted as monstrously as I’d thought, that he’d delivered Judas into the hands of Antipas in order to save him from certain death, but I knew that was more wishful than true.

Mother was slumped onto the table like a discarded cloak, her hair braid falling into a bowl of honeyed almonds. Just before Judas was led away, I looked at him, wondering if it would be my last glimpse.





xxv.


A fever sickness descended on Sepphoris. It came like an unseen smoke, blown down from heaven to afflict the unrighteous. God had always chastised his people with plagues, fevers, leprosy, paralysis, and boils. So people said. But how could this be when the sickness bypassed Father and took hold of Yaltha?

Lavi and I bathed her face with cool water, anointed her arms with oil, and sponged her lips with balm of Gilead. One night when delirium took hold of her, she sat up in bed and clasped me to her saying the name Chaya, Chaya.

“It’s me, Ana,” I told her, but she smoothed her palm along my cheek and spoke the name again. Chaya. The name means life, and I thought maybe in her feverish state she was calling out for her life not to leave her, or perhaps she’d simply mistaken me for someone else. I dismissed the incident, but I didn’t forget it.

The entire city was closed up tight as a fist. Father did not venture to the palace. Mother withdrew to her quarters. Shipra went around with a garland of hyssop around her neck and Lavi kept a talisman of lion’s hair in a pouch at his waist. Day and night I climbed onto the roof in quest of stars and rain and birdsong. There, I witnessed the dead carried along the street to be laid in cave tombs beyond the city, where they would remain sealed until their flesh rotted and their bones were gathered into ossuaries.