Read Online The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare - Free Book Online

escape the sight of Roman soldiers. They stood on the docks, counting off bales of wheat and vegetables. They strolled through the marketplace. Everywhere, the Jews went about their business, paying no attention. The boy who had lived for five years in the solitude of the mountain, nursing his hatred and keeping it ever fresh, could not credit his own eyes. How could these city people endure to be reminded on every hand of their own helplessness? More shameful still, he saw merchants joking with the soldiers. He could not understand. Where was their pride? Had they forgotten altogether? If Rosh were here he would open their eyes. Why did that Jesus do nothing?
    At the thought of Rosh he was reminded of the reason he had come to the city. It took him some time to find the house of Rabbi Hezron. Finally someone directed him up the steep hill that rose above the harbor. As he climbed the cobbled street his stomach began to clamor. He had counted on Joel to observe the unwritten law that provided that any stranger who came to one's door must receive food and shelter. But as the crowded stone dwellings gave way to the long forbidding walls of large estates, and he caught glimpses of gardens and terraces rising, one upon another, green and golden, he felt his first doubt. Rosh had warned him that Hezron had inherited great wealth. But Daniel had no acquaintance with wealth. He had not been prepared for the hugeness of it. Would such houses as these remember the law of hospitality? Or would they turn him away like a beggar?
    He came to the heavy door in the wall to which he had been directed, and rang the bell that hung there. After some time the wooden door creaked open and a wizened man peered out at him. Hezron? In the nick of time he noticed that the man's ears had been pierced. He had almost made a fool of himself and bowed to a slave!
    "I have come to speak with Joel bar Hezron," he announced much too loudly.
    With reluctance the servant allowed him to step into a narrow tiled corridor. "You will wait here," he said. "What name shall I give to the young master?"
    "Tell him it is Daniel bar Jamin, a friend from Ketzah."
    The hallway where he waited was cool and dim, the oaken doors that led from it all closed. Through the open archway opposite him, Daniel stared with astonishment into a sunlit courtyard, at flowering trees and green borders and white marble. His ears caught the gentle splash of water and the trilling of birds. He had not dreamed that even Herod's palace could boast such wonders. What a fool he had been to think that Joel would even remember him!
    There was a soft footstep, a rustle of silk, and a shadow fell between him and the sunlit opening. It was not Joel who stood there, but his sister Malthace. A robe of thin soft material fell in exquisite folds to delicate embroidered sandals. Her dark hair was bound back from her face with a thin fillet of gold. She started at sight of a stranger, and there leaped into her eyes recognition, and then something else, an unmistakable shrinking. His careful greeting fell back at his own feet. She made no greeting at all, only stared at him with dismay.
    Then there was a thumping of feet. The boy who came charging across the courtyard had not changed at all. He was the same country boy who had jumped into the fight on the mountain road. He grasped Daniel by the elbows, his dark eyes glowing.
    "Daniel! Welcome! I've been wishing—" He broke off with a quick glance over his shoulder. "You'll stay to eat with us? Of course you will!"
    Pride battled with Daniel's clamoring stomach. "No," he said. "I came only to speak with you."
    "You're certainly not going right away, after all this time."
    "My clothes are dusty from the road."
    "Oh—that! Just leave your cloak here in the hallway. For Father's sake, you know."
    Daniel flushed, remembering that a common man who visited a Pharisee must leave his cloak at the door lest he make the household unclean. Slowly he undid Simon's