“Where were you?” Miriam asked as she secured the threads at the top of the loom. “Looking for Joseph again?”
Esther walked past Joseph’s house almost every day, trying to meet him…by chance, of course. But today she hadn’t been looking for Joseph.
“No.” Esther shook her head. “I was in the orchard.”
“Under your ‘thinking tree’?” Miriam teased. “And what were you thinking about today?”
She couldn’t tell Miriam. No one could know that her own brother was the mystery killer everyone in Jerusalem was talking about.
Esther watched Miriam’s fingers dance along the edge of the loom. “How can you spend all day tying threads?”
“If you don’t set it up properly,” Miriam said, “then all the work you did before, and all the work you’ll do afterward, is for naught. Don’t you think it’s worth spending one more day to make sure it turns out right?
Esther wasn’t sure; one more day was a lot of time.
Miriam’s fingers paused. “You’re going to have this bed cloth for the rest of your life. I might as well make it as beautiful as I can.”
“This is for me?” Esther asked.
Just then her mother walked toward them. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” Sarah said, holding out a spindle. “If there’s no yarn, there’s no cloth. And if there’s no cloth, you won’t have a dowry.”
Her dowry! It was all happening much too quickly. It felt like the yarn was being wrapped around her throat, instead of around the spindle. Still, she knew her parents hadn’t finalized anything with the Kallos family yet. She had time—she hoped.
She didn’t want the cloth or a dowry. She had learned to spin when she was nine, and had hated it ever since. She got bored; she got blisters on her fingers, and her back hurt. No matter how hard she tried, her thread was always loose and lumpy, not tight and smooth like Miriam’s. Often the family courtyard was full of the neighborhood women gossiping while they spun, but they always stopped—to pick up a sniveling child, or to feed the oven—just when the stories got interesting. Miriam tried to entertain Esther by making up funny songs, but it didn’t help.
Esther took the spindle and reluctantly sat down.
Miriam could spin twice as fast as anyone else, twisting the plant fibers without snapping them; Esther usually spent more time twisting the flax strands back together instead of spinning them. Miriam was even more skilled on the loom, weaving the madder- and saffron-dyed threads into elaborate geometric designs.
After a while, Esther took a break, shaking her shoulders and stretching her cramped fingers. When she looked up, she saw a man enter the courtyard. It was Joseph!
He walked through the courtyard gate, commanding the space around him as if unseen spirits were announcing his arrival. He looked regal, dressed in a pink robe tied with a crimson sash. A mantle with a brilliant blue border was draped over his broad shoulders and chest.
Why had she worn her old gray tunic? Esther hurried to the rain cistern behind the house and splashed water over her face, then scrubbed fiercely. Quickly she ran back toward him. She stood close enough to inhale his scent, like fresh leather and smoldering ashes.
“Ah, Esther,” he said, smiling. “Is your father home?”
Her face grew warm. At the treading, Joseph had said she was “alluring,” and he had touched her. He must have come to speak with Hanan about her. Even though her father had begun negotiations with the Kallos family, it wasn’t too late.
Hanan came out of the house to greet him. Esther pretended to leave, then snuck behind a pile of unwashed wool.
“She’s almost a woman,” Joseph said to her father. “Are you negotiating yet?”
“We’ve just started.”
Esther’s limbs tingled; she felt like she could fly.
“I didn’t invite you over for a social visit,” Hanan said, his voice taking on an urgent tone. “We need to discuss something of the utmost importance.”
Her marriage! Her father had listened to her after all. And Joseph was interested too! Esther clasped her hands in front of her mouth.
Hanan went on, “The murder in the Temple was a sight I never thought I’d see. This violence is spinning out of control. We have to do something.”
Violence? Murder? That’s what her father wanted to talk about? Her heart sunk. But still, she wanted to hear everything they said. She leaned in.
Hanan said, “Some of the priests—the young ones, of course—are pushing for a rebellion against Rome. Why is it always the hot-blooded young men who want war? I wish they’d listen to their fathers. I’ve heard that some even joined the Sicarii! Yehuda too is spouting slogans.”
She wished that spouting slogans was all Yehuda was doing.
Joseph tugged at his perfectly trimmed beard. “Our relationship with Rome has never been good, but in the past, people accepted it. Now they seem to think that God wants us to run the Romans out of Judea.”
“And the young priests are to blame,” Hanan said. “They’re whipping up the masses with their tales of an upcoming apocalypse.”
“Anyone, like me, who has seen Rome with all its power and wealth, knows that a rebellion is suicidal.”
“Exactly!” said Hanan. “The young priests won’t listen to people like me, the old guard, but maybe they’ll listen to you. You just got back from Rome, and they respect you.”
Joseph nodded slowly. “I know the Romans. It’s better to work with them than against them. We’ve been through difficult times before.”
“I agree,” Hanan said. He hobbled over to the bench by the front door and sat down, resting his cane over his knees. “The Temple priests have partnered with the Romans for years. I buy incense from a trustworthy Roman whose goods are as pure as those from the Jewish suppliers—and are a third of the price.”
“Who is this dependable gentile?” Joseph asked.
“A freedman named Tiberius Claudius.”
That was the Roman who found my coin! He said he was a trader, but…no, it couldn’t be the same man. Maybe “Tiberius” is a common Roman name.
Joseph scowled. “What’s his family name?”
“Masculus.”
“Tiberius Claudius Masculus is here?” Joseph asked, his voice rising.
“You know him?” Hanan looked surprised.
“Does he have a scar on his right hand?”
It was him!
“Yes,” Hanan answered. “Tiberius told me that an oil lamp tipped over and scalded him as a child.”
Joseph began pacing. “It can’t be. I was told that he…I thought he was dead.”
“He’s very much alive, I can assure you,” Hanan said, regarding Joseph curiously. Esther too had noticed the shift in Joseph’s demeanor.
“He’s the one I told you about at dinner,” Joseph said. “The ex-slave. He may have come for me. To settle the score.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I have to go.”
Esther stomped back to the loom, grabbed a fistful of goat wool, and began pulling out the brambles. Maybe Joseph would have talked to her, or at least stayed longer, if he hadn’t been distracted by the news that Tiberius Something Something was back in Jerusalem.
Oh how she hated the Romans. Every last one of them.