Dark and troubled thoughts haunted Rabbi Hilkiah as he hobbled down the cobblestone road toward his simple, single-room home, taking care where he placed each step. His old bones demanded it.
The sun was setting hard and fast, deep oranges enflaming the horizon. He hoped to reach the safety of his house before the night emerged in force. Ever since the Roman visitors had arrived, the city he had given his life to for nearly a century felt foreign and frightening, like a miasma of evil had descended upon the land—violating it, desecrating it. Such was life for Haaretz, for the Land of his people stretching back to the patriarchs and kings of old. But this latest episode was a different sort of blasphemy.
And he blamed one person above all.
Months ago, Helena Augusta of Constantinople, the consort of Emperor Constantius Chlorus and mother of Emperor Constantine the Great had arrived, towing along with her a large entourage and an even larger army of Roman soldiers. Even before she arrived, news had reached the old rabbi that Emperor Constantine had appointed her as Augusta Imperatrix, giving her unlimited access to the imperial treasury in order to locate the relics of Judeo-Christian tradition. So she had set out on a pilgrimage to Palestine, where she had been quite busy of late.
Ever since Constantine had signed the Edict of Milan proclaiming religious tolerance throughout the Empire and enacting a period of favoritism to the Christian Church, thousands of Christians had flocked to Haaretz Yisrael, the precious, holy land of the Jewish people. It was only a matter of time before the converted Emperor himself took an interest in the artifacts of the Christian faith. And his mother had been making quick work to preserve and extract those precious relics.
She immediately ordered the pagan temple dedicated to Venus that Emperor Hadrian had built over the site of Jesus' tomb near Calvary destroyed, and the site excavated. Apparently, she had made interesting discoveries, with rumors swirling she had recovered such artifacts as Jesus of Nazareth's scourging post, the crown of thorns, and even the cross from his crucifixion. While fascinating if proven to be true, those discoveries weren't what interested the rabbi or sent his teeth on edge.
He continued inching forward through the street, deep in concentration, deeply troubled. Earlier that morning, the Queen had paid the man an unannounced visit, believing that her honorific title and imperial mandate gave her blanket rule over the affairs and people of the ancient, holy city. Including the ruling Rabbi.
The conversation started pleasant enough, but quickly turned to the matter of her inquiry, an ancient relic from old that hadn't been spoken of for twenty generations stretching back to the Babylonian exile.
She had made mention of an ancient, Jewish relic made of acacia wood and overlaid with pure gold, protected by a lid of golden-winged creatures guarding stone tablets of a divine covenant.
He couldn’t believe his ears when she voiced her request. “You are speaking about the Ark of the Covenant? Is that right?”
“Correct,” she had said curtly. “And as the ruling Jewish Amora sage, Rabbah bar Hilkiah, I assume you have insight into its whereabouts.”
What brazenness, what arrogance that Roman woman had to demand such information! Information which he had pledged to preserve and protect—even unto death if need be.
“This object you seek,” he had replied, “has been lost for generations, ever since the great Babylonian exile. No one has seen of it or has spoken of it since its disappearance.”
She leaned in closer, the scent of lavender setting his skin on edge. "I cannot imagine a holy object of such great import would have simply vanished from the face of the earth. Surely its whereabouts are known. Surely you know its whereabouts, Rabbi."
Yes. He did. But the curses of a thousand suns would fall upon him if he broke his vows to this heathen.
Rabbi Hilkiah shifted and rubbed his nose, then leaned back and smiled. “Empress Helena, as the prophet Jeremiah stated in his book, ‘And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in Haaretz, in those days, saith Hashem, they shall say no more, The Aron Brit Hashem: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they ask for it; neither shall another be fashioned.’”
Helena sat stone-faced as he quoted the ancient, prophetic passage related to the Ark, clearly not used to being denied her wishes.
The rabbi continued, “The prophet Jeremiah from the ancient days declared that the Ark you seek would neither enter the Jewish peoples’ minds nor be remembered; it would not be missed, nor would another one be made. And, as I said previously, it hasn’t since the time of the Exile. So, you see, there isn’t any reason for someone such as myself to possess information relating to the Ark’s location, secret or otherwise.”
One end of the old woman’s mouth curled upward. She said, “I see, Rabbi Hilkiah.” She paused, then continued, “As you know, my people have made quick work and great progress at unearthing the ancient relics of my faith, particularly relating to the events surrounding the new covenant, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Would you allow us to apply the same techniques to the site of the original Temple? Excavate it to determine whether any other Temple treasures had been secreted away?”
The rabbi felt his mouth go dry and quiver in disgust. His eyes widened involuntarily, and he quickly blinked them and swallowed hard, trying to suppress the urge to shout down this woman for such a suggestion.
“I cannot allow such a…” he had meant to say desecration, but thought against it. “Such an intrusion into our sacred space. Surely you can understand.”
“But the Emperor desires that all relics connected to the Christian faith be recovered so that their memory will be preserved for future generations. Surely the Empire would benefit from the memory of the former covenant contained within the Ark. And surely an official designee of the Jewish faith would want to help the Empire.”
Hilkiah had felt himself grow warm with anger at the suggestion.
He simply replied, “Helena Augusta, I am sorry I could not be of more service to the Emperor.”
She smiled weakly. “We shall see.”
What was that?
A clay pot toppled behind him, crashing to the narrow cobblestone pathway and breaking his troubled recollection.
He turned around sharply, his breath catching in his throat, his heart beating faster with anticipation in his shallow chest.
The dusk seemed to envelop the world behind him, but the remaining sunlight cast a long, dark shadow of a cat scampering along toward him. It slowed to a trot as it approached him, then stopped to rub against his leg, purring contentedly.
The rabbi chuckled. "There, there," he said softly, bending slightly to scratch his new friend as his heart rate and breathing eased back into a normal rhythm. "You gave me quite the fright. Yes, you did."
A loud cheer arising from a group of Roman revelers tumbling out of a house startled the cat, causing him to run off to a place of refuge.
“Until next time, my friend.”
The rabbi continued along the road, avoiding a drunken man who had stumbled down the curbstone and his fellow revelers who were trying to help him back up.
He continued on his path toward home, troubling over the meaning of Helena’s advances and insistence on violating the former Temple’s ruins. What if she went forward with the excavation, searching the tunnels underneath and probing its secret chambers?
Another thought stopped him from walking: What if she found what she sought? What impact would that have on her son’s faith?
On his own?
He started back up toward his home, hurrying his pace as the setting sun made the journey more difficult.
“Won’t you spare a double denarius or two, kind sir?”
A near-naked man hunched over against a low-rise wall off the road caught the rabbi’s attention. He squinted at him in the dark, his eyes not what they used to be.
The man seemed encouraged by the attention, for he sat up straighter, motioning to a small, open-mouthed clay pot at his feet.
“A double denarius, please? I haven’t eaten in a week.”
The old man gently smiled at the poor soul. He carefully walked over to him, reaching into a purse hidden within the folds of his cloak. He pulled out two of the silver coins embossed with the likeness of that dreadful woman’s son, the emperor, and reached down to deposit them into the pot.
His wrist was suddenly seized. Instinctively, he tried pulling away, but it was no use. The man grinned, darkened, crooked teeth showing through a broad dark smile. "Hello, Rabbi Hilkiah."
The recognition of danger immediately pinged the rabbi's gut. He tried pulling away again, yanking his arm with everything his spent body had left inside. The man's grip was firm, betraying his feeble appearance.
Then the world went black in a blossom of stars and pain.
A pitcher of cold water brought Rabbi Hilkiah back to consciousness.
“Ahh, back to the land of the living, Rabbi. How good of you to join us.”
What? Where am I?
The rabbi tried recovering his breath from the drowning sensation and opening his eyes, but they stung from the cold liquid running down his face. After wiping it and recovering, he tried lifting his head, but a lancing pain sent him sinking backward. He was lying in a bed, the burnt-orange hue of the just-setting sun replaced with the yellow flicker of a single candle doing its best to light the darkened room. Recognition hit him: he was home. But how had he arrived?
Then the fog of confusion was replaced with remembrance. The cat, then the beggar; the footfalls of two or three men behind him, then the pain; the darkness, then the dimly-lit room in his home.
Hilkiah moaned. He tried focusing, but the dim light and the even dimmer eyes wouldn’t allow for it. He caught sight of a figure. Not-all-that visible, barely recognizable, and yet…
No. It can’t be.
The face of an ancient threat long thought gone. One his people had dealings with stretching all the way back to Egypt, before the great Exodus to the time when Yahweh's people suffered under oppressive slavery.
The dreaded Ibis Bird-Man. Thoth, the Egyptian god of knowledge.
The rabbi could barely make out the man, but it was unmistakable: the man who wore the ancient face was bare-chested and tanned to a burnished bronze, his upper shoulders ringed by an intricate weave of gold and turquoise beads at the base of his neck. A long beak of onyx black peered down at him. Silent and probing.
Hilkiah shuddered. Yahweh, save me…
“Hello, Rabbi Hilkiah,” the Bird-Man intoned, deep and commanding.
The rabbi was trembling, his mouth had gone dry. He tried to speak, but his tongue stumbled over itself.
“What was that? Here, let me help.” Bird-Man brought over a ceramic tumbler of water and offered it to the old man. He took it and drank greedily. “There you go. Now, you were saying?”
“What…What…?” He caught his breath, then finished the water down to the last drop. “What is the meaning of this?”
“It’s simple. You have something I want.”
Hilkiah pushed himself off of his bed, propping himself against the hard, stone wall of his simple home. “And what is that?”
“First things first,” Bird-Man said, turning around to pull a wooden chair over to the bedside. He sat down, his large frame looming over the short, rotund Rabbi cowering under the covers. “You were visited upon by Helena, consort of Emperor Constantius Chlorus and mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, is that correct?”
“Yes,” he said quickly. No use denying it. “Are you with her entourage?”
Bird-Man launched into a loud, long cackle-of-a-laugh. “With Augusta?” He laughed again, nearly falling out of the chair.
“In a word, no. I'm something of a foil to the Empress. But then again," he said deeply, standing up and leaning over the bed, "you already knew that, Rabbi.”
His eyes grew wide, and he felt himself sinking under the thin blanket covering him.
Bird-Man sat down, then continued. “She spoke to you this morning, asking you about the location of an ancient weapon of power, a vessel of secret, divine knowledge, of a divine covenant that’s been hidden away for generations—unseen and unsought. Yes?”
Hilkiah nodded vigorously.
“There we go. That wasn’t so hard. Now, what did you tell her?”
“I…I told her the truth. Not since the Babylonian exile have we caught sight or caught word of such a relic. Yahweh’s holy Ark has been lost to history.”
“Good,” Bird-Man said silkily. “Of course, you and I both know that the ancient relic has been kept safe as much as kept secret for the past twenty generations. With only a handful of Guardians knowing its true location.” He leaned forward, heaving heavy, sour breathes of air inches from Hilkiah’s face “Including you.”
The rabbi’s mouth went dry again, his heart galloped forward uncontrollably.
“And you will tell me where those Levites carried it off to.”
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think.
Bird-Man stood up. From behind him, he pulled out a gold-sleeved object the length of his forearm. Sticking out was a handle, a golden cloisonné with precious stones and pieces of glass in blues, reds, and greens.
An ancient Egyptian ceremonial dagger.
The masked figure unsheathed the object, its golden strength glimmering in the dimming candlelight. He held it out in front of his chest and over Rabbi Hilkiah, the blade perpendicular to his body.
“Yahweh,” the old man whispered, delirious from the moment, “the secret of your hidden covenant is safe with me.”
“Really? We shall see about that. Because mark my words: one way or another, you will tell me, Rabbi Hilkiah.”
At once Bird-Man was on top the old man, wrenching his lower jaw open and positioning the dagger’s tip just inside his mouth.
“O Osiris, King Unas,” he intoned, head tilted back, “I offer this sacrifice to you.” Then he began speaking in an unknown dialect, his body rocking back and forth as if possessed by the forces of Sheol itself.
Eli, Eli lama sabachthani? the old Rabbi thought.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?