Zealot Page 7

  He chose instead the torturous serpentine path that wove its way in and among the rocks on the craggy eastern face of the rock. It was by this path he had originally come to Masada, it was by this path that Herod had created his fortress a hundred years before that. During his work with the archaeologists excavating Masada in the 1960s, Avram had needed some fancy excuses to explain why he always preferred the fifty-minute he up the serpentine to the easy walk up the Roman ramp—Professor Yadin thought he was an exercise nut—but he’d sworn he’d never take his ease on the broken backs of ten thousand of his Jewish brothers.

  Once he finally reached the top, Avram wasted no time. Bypassing the bathhouse, the synagogue, the swimming pool, and the other remains where the excited tourists all gathered, he moved away from them to the far southern end of the site, to the thick stone wall that had surrounded the plateau, creating Herod’s fortress. Avram passed through an opening in the rocks. Just beyond him, another wall of stones. Together, the two was formed concentric rings around Masada. And within the space between the walls, the remains of walls more narrow, partitioning the space into smaller rooms. He moved quickly, confidently through a maze of ruined stone partitions standing no taller than his waist, sure of his destination.

  Avram stopped in an opening between the rocks where a door once stood. In front of him the stones marked out a tiny cubicle, hardly bigger than a closet. He entered with reverence. In one corner, set into the walls, a small clay oven, worn and eroded by time. Still, he thought he could smell bread baking…

  Masada, Idumaea: 14 Nisan 3833 (A.D. 73)

  “More bread?” The flat rounds of dough were still warm from the oven and filled their tiny stone room with a fresh, homey scent. Deborah reached across the tattered cloth that functioned as their table and served her husband, placing more bread next to his bowl of pottage. Avram took both her slender hands into his own and brought them to his lips, kissing them gently. His face was filled with love and the certain knowledge that he was the luckiest man in the world. He turned one of her hands in his and covered her palm with kisses. Her hands still smelled of yeast and flour, and he drank in the perfume. Then his lips moved down her hand to her delicate wrist, stopping only at the embroidered sleeve of her gown.

  Deborah laughed, a silvery sound like the jangle of coins. “Does that mean ‘thank you’ by any chance?” In the sputtering lamplight that bathed their chamber in a golden glow, her eyes were burnished chestnut, and they sparkled at his touch. Her thick, black hair, free and loose only in the seclusion of their room for the delight of her husband, adorned her face as no jeweled bauble ever could.

  Deborah’s whole world was the barren plateau on the heights of Masada. She’d come here when she was ten, her parents dead of fever, her brother Judah one of the fighters who helped Menahem the Galilean recapture Masada from the Romans early in the Great Revolt. In the seven years since, Jerusalem had fallen, the Great Temple destroyed, but Masada had held and Deborah had grown into a beautiful young woman within its protective walls. “Whatever you don’t eat, we’ll just have to burn before Pesach begins tomorrow.”

  Avram pushed aside the bread and pottage. “Funny, I don’t feel hungry anymore.” He rose to his feet from his seat on the floor and offered Deborah a hand to stand. “Not for food, any-way,” he said with a smile, as his young wife stood before him, willing, wanting. He touched her cheek, her hair. Even now, after three months of life as man and wife, the simple act of touching her sent sparks through his body. He knelt at her feet, carefully removed her sandals, kissing the dusty tops of her feet.

  Avram had been nineteen when he arrived at Masada three years before. He was a scholar and a Pharisee like his father before him, and his father before him. His whole life had revolved around the study and interpretation of the Law and the Prophets and strict adherence to the ancient traditions of the Jews. He and his parents had been trapped in Jerusalem when the Roman forces of Titus laid siege during the festival of Pesach. Every day, like the rest of the besieged city, they had scrabbled to find a little food, enough water to stay alive. In the fourth month of the siege, Avram’s mother Tamar finally succumbed to the hunger and disease that was claiming thousands each day, and died. But somehow Avram and Mordecai, his father, managed to hold on. At the end of summer, the Romans finally breached Jerusalem’s defenses and took the city.

  In front of thousands of starving Jews, they burned the Great Temple to the ground, trapping hundreds inside. His father was in shock at the destruction of the Holy of Holies, but Avram managed to get him out of the city in the midst of the chaos.

  They escaped to the wilderness. Mordecai, all spirit gone, had begged to be left there to die, but Avram, the scholar who had never held a bow or a sling, was determined to fight for his birthright. He herded, cajoled, and sometimes even carried his father across the wasteland until they came to Masada. There, Avram had found purpose in his life, united with his fellow Jews to reclaim their homeland. And there, Avram had found Deborah.

  Avram’s hands slid up the sides of Deborah’s legs, gathering and raising her woven tunic as he stood, hands tracing the gentle curve of her hips, her waist. Deborah dropped to one knee, arms raised high, and he pulled the linen garment off, revealing her splendid body in the light. Slowly, almost ritually, she untied the lacings that twined up his calves, and removed his sandals. He shrugged off his mantle and pulled his tunic off over his head.

  The body lit and shadowed by the oil lamps was no longer that of a boyish scholar. Three years of hard work on the rock had tempered it. Sinews defined his calves and forearms; muscles rippled down his firm belly; the dark tendrils of his hair curled to touch powerful shoulders. A boy had come to Masada wanting to play war with the Romans. Now, despite the Romans, a man hoped to start a family there. He bent low and gathered his wife in his arms. As she reached out to kiss him, he carried her to his bed.

  Avram and Deborah had been betrothed for a year before their marriage, a year of waiting, of dreaming what might be. Neither Deborah’s brother nor Avram’s father had consented to the engagement at first, both men firm in their belief that the times were too unsettled, their situation too precarious for marriage. The young couple and the love they shared grudgingly won them over. But soon after the betrothal, the Romans came with their siege walls and their engines of war, trapping the fighters and their families on the mesa top. They all watched in horror as their enslaved Jewish brothers, once their friends and neighbors back in poor Jerusalem, built the earthwork ramp that slowly crept up the mountainside toward them. Preparations for the wedding had helped keep their minds, especially those of the women of Masada, from dwelling on the encroaching danger.

  They wed in borrowed finery, Deborah wearing a simple gown and veil she’d covered with intricate needlework in the year of their betrothal. There was no dowry, no bride-price, no elaborate procession on horseback. But all of the nearly one thousand residents of the rock were gathered when Avram met his bride beneath the canopy in the courtyard of Herod’s palace. The feast afterward lasted until dawn, the musicians playing and the revelers singing as loud as they could, to make sure the Romans far below them had no doubt there was celebration, not fear, on Masada.

  During the dancing and merriment, a group of men including Deborah’s brother Judah and Eleazar, the commander of Masada, had escorted Avram to the tiny stone chamber built into the double wall surrounding the fortress that would be his and Deborah’s new home. No longer would he live in the bachelor’s barracks with his father. Amid last-minute advice and lewd jokes, his drunken friends departed, leaving him alone in front of the wooden door. Suddenly, he felt very nervous. With sweating palms, he pushed it open.

  On a pile of mats and skins that nearly filled the room, Deborah waited for him. She was arrayed in nothing but gold and gems, collected from a dozen women. They had anointed her body with oils so that her dusky skin glowed with a marble-like luster and had painted her face with rouges and powders. It was said that t
he wise King Solomon had had a thousand wives—Avram knew not one in that thousand could compare with his Deborah.

  He stood in the doorway for some time, speechless, simply staring at the vision of beauty that was his new wife. Deborah looked to her new husband, waiting for a sign, a word, something to indicate that he was pleased. Neither of them moved.

  Finally, when she knew if the silence went on much longer she was going to scream, Deborah spoke. “Avram, my love,” she began, “would you mind closing the door? I’d rather the neighbors weren’t watching.”

  His trance broken, Avram looked out at the open corridor, then at Deborah, and they both started to laugh. Avram shut the door, still laughing, so great was his relief. He sat on the bed of skins and embraced his closest friend, this woman who was now his wife.

  Their marriage bed had been tentative, full of false starts and friendly laughter, both partners fumbling and inexperienced. Now, three months later, as they’d grown to know each other’s needs, their lovemaking was confident and lasting. It was sensual, yet spiritual, as they sought to express their love for each other and for God in the creation of a child from the joy of their bodies.

  After Avram had filled her with the promise of children yet to be, the couple lay back on the mat that was their bed, Deborah’s head on Avram’s shoulder. She drew idle patterns on his chest with a gentle finger as he played with a lock of her ebony hair. “What do you think of Mattathias?” he asked.

  “It’s…” Deborah crinkled up her nose, “quite a mouthful for a child, don’t you think? 1 always think simple names are the best. How about Simon?”

  Avram shook his head. “I have an Uncle Simon. Can’t stand him.” He thought for a moment, wrapping her hair around his finger. “We could name him after my father.”

  “Mordecai? But then he’d be frowning and grumpy all the time, just like your father. I wouldn’t wish that on a child.”

  “He hasn’t always been like that.” Mordecai had never re-ally recovered from the death of his wife and the destruction of the Temple. “I just wish you could have known him before.”

  “I know. I wish I could have, too.” Deborah had never got-ten along well with Avram’s father. He’d made it abundantly clear he felt his only son had married far beneath his station. It was Deborah’s hope that once they had children, Mordecai would accept her as the mother of his grandchildren. “If it makes you happy, we’ll name our firstborn Mordecai.”

  “Now, what makes you so certain our firstborn will be a boy?” Avram wondered.

  Deborah laughed. “Because you’re a man, and that’s all men ever want.”

  “Haven’t you realized by now, I’m not like other men?” Avram tugged playfully on one of her ears. “A beautiful little Deborah or two will always be welcome. Or three. Or five. As many as you want.”

  She ran a hand across his taut belly. “Easy for you to say, you don’t have to bear them all.” She rolled over slightly so she could Look him in the face. “And we name the first girl-child Tamar.”

  “Tamar.” His voice caught a hit as he said the name. “I think my mother would be very pleased.”

  Deborah lay her head on Avram’s chest. “Then it’s decided. Tamar and Mordecai.”

  “And Zebediah and Benjamin and Dan and Tabitha and Esther and-”

  She reached up and put a hand across Avram’s lips. “Stop!” she laughed. “I’m exhausted just thinking about it.”

  There was a knock on the wooden door to their chamber. Deborah and Avram sat up. “Yes?” Avram called out as he stood, reaching for his tunic.

  “It’s your father, Avram, I need to speak with you.”

  “It’s late, Aba, give us a moment.” Avram handed Deborah her gown with a weak smile and a shrug, then pulled on his own tunic. When he was sure his wife was decorously clothed, he untied the latch and opened the door to his father. “Welcome, Aba.”

  Avram’s father stepped into the room. The years of the Revolt had not been kind to Mordecai ben Enoch. He was a bearded man of middle age, grown gray and stooped beyond his span of years. Lately he’d taken to walking with aid of a cane. He inclined his head briefly toward his daughter-in-law. “Deborah.”

  “Welcome, Aba. Would you like some wine?”

  If he had heard her, Mordecai did not show it, moving straight to his son. “Avram, we must talk.”

  Avram waited a moment, and, when further conversation was not forthcoming, he prompted: “So, talk.”

  “Not here.” He indicated Deborah with his eyes. “Alone.”

  Avram looked at him, unable to read his expression, then reached for his girdle and began to tie it around his middle. “Fine,” he said, “alone.” Without prompting, Deborah found his sandals and knelt at his feet to lace the thongs.

  The silence in the tiny room was palpable. Helping her husband dress, Deborah thought to lessen it. “Guess what we’ve decided to name our first girl, Aba. Tamar, after Avram’s mother, God rest her soul.” There was no response from Mordecai. “I hope that pleases you.”

  A dark shadow passed across Mordecai’s face, then he said, as gently as his gruff demeanor would allow, “That would please me.” He stepped out into the corridor, “Come, Avram.”

  Avram picked up his mantle and followed his father out of the room. Deborah closed the door behind them.

  As soon as they had passed out of earshot of Avram’s room, his father took him to task. “Why do you fill her head with such things?”

  “What things?”

  “You know. This nonsense about children…and the future. She should know the truth.”

  “Why? So we can all share this pit of despair you’ve been living in? What’s the harm in living with a little hope?” Avram stopped walking and turned to face his father, angrily. “What should I tell her, Aba? That in a week’s time she’ll be forced to pleasure some oily Senator and his pagan friends in a house of decadence in Rome? Or that by sundown tomorrow I’ll be dead on a cross along the road to Ein Gedi? Or that maybe I’ll be lucky, and face the wild beasts in the arena at Caesarea instead? Is that what I should tell her?” He could feel his eyes beginning to well with tears, tears he could never allow his father to see. He turned away from the old man and started walking quickly down the corridor that ran between the two walls ringing the fortress.

  Mordecai hurried to catch up. “Son, I—”

  “She’s not stupid, Aba. She knows. Everyone knows. But when we give up hope, we’ve lost.” He tried to look his father in the eyes, but the tears came again. He turned away and leaned his head against the stone wall, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

  “Avram…” Mordecai reached out and touched his son on the shoulder.

  Avram shook him off roughly and turned on him with an icy glare. “Why did you come here? You said you wanted to talk about something. For once, let it not be about my wife.”

  “The wind has shifted. The last barricade is on fire,” Mordecai said quietly. “Now even God has forsaken us.”

  Avram’s heart sank. When the giant Roman battering ram built at the top of the earthen ramp had broken through first one, then the second stone wall just days before, the defenders of Masada had quickly built wooden walls in the breach with loosely packed dirt between to cushion the blows of the battering ram and render it useless. But what the Romans couldn’t batter down they attempted to burn, hurling flaming torches at the wooden wall. When the fires were fast lit, the winds suddenly shifted to the south, blowing the Romans’ fire back upon them and their siege engines, clearly a sign of God’s intervention in the eyes of many of the besieged.

  Now the winds had shifted to the north, driving the fire quickly through the barricades. There was no use in denying that the Romans would try to take the fortress at first light. “So now we fight,” Avram said, resigned. “After three years, maybe it’s finally time.”

  “I don’t know what we do, Avram,” his father said. “There are ten thousand men down there, and we are less than a thou-sand, e
ven if you count the women and children. I don’t know what we do.”

  Through the stone walls, they could hear the sounding of the shofar, calling the men of Masada to gather. “It sounds as if we’re about to find out,” Avram said, putting on his mantle as he led the way to the door leading to the interior of the fortress.

  Chapter Six

  Masada, Idumaea: 14 Nissan 3833 (A.D. 73)

  The men gathered at the crossroads near the northern end of the mesa, where the paths between the palace, the villas, the barracks and the storehouses all converged. It was a long walk, nearly a third of a mile from the tiny stone room in the southern wall Avram shared with Deborah. a walk made longer by his father’s halting gait. Far below them in the camps of the Romans, they could see the lights of a thousand campfires, hear the shouts and obscene songs of the soldiers passing the night as clearly as if they occupied the rock with them. Tonight Avram thought he could detect more activity and a tension-filled energy from the camps than on other nights, as if the Romans could sense as well that the coming dawn would spell the end of the siege of Masada.

  Despite Avram’s urging his father to hurry, the meeting had begun by the time they arrived. Eleazar, Masada’s commander, stood at the top of the stairs to the administration building, addressing his people. Eleazar was a tall, muscular man with flowing hair and beard who carried himself like a soldier, and in Avram’s eyes he could do no wrong. As he came within earshot, Avram was astounded to hear Judah, Deborah’s brother and one of Eleazar’s most trusted captains, openly confronting his commander.

  “You are a coward! In your fear, you have lost your manhood, and I will follow you no longer.” The crowd of men shouted in response, many trying to shout him down, others sounding their allegiance with Judah.

  In the crowd, Avram found Simeon, another of his unit, and tapped him on the shoulder. “What’s happened?”