So Daniel won his first recruit in the village, Nathan, son of the new tax collector.
As though Daniel's very eagerness had somehow acted as a signal between them, a few days later Joel walked into the smithy, bringing with him a recruit of his own.
"How did you know where to find me?" Daniel demanded, eying with curiosity the slender scholarly boy who accompanied his friend.
"I ran into your friend Simon," Joel told him, after just the slightest hesitation. "He told me you were looking out for his shop. He suggested I come to see you."
"A good thing," Daniel said. "I was wondering how I could get to Capernaum. There's business enough for two men here." He tried to sound matter-of-fact, but he could not keep the pride out of his voice.
Joel showed a flattering interest in the shop. He wandered about, picking up the tools, weighing bars of metal from one hand to another. He was impressed with the shining gleam of a newly finished blade.
"I've brought someone who wants to join with us," he said. "Kemuel feels as we do."
Daniel looked uncomfortably at the newcomer. The boy was plainly wealthy, and used to having his own way. There was an edge of disdain in his voice, and in his proud, handsome face. Yet there was something else too. The new boy whirled suddenly round at him.
"Do you mean to fight them?" he demanded. "Or are you playing a game? I came today to see if you are serious."
"We are serious," said Daniel levelly. "What right have you to ask?"
"Because I am tired of words!" the boy answered. "Everywhere men talk and argue, while Israel lies helpless at the feet of Rome. Where is our courage? Why does no one dare to step forth? If you mean to fight them, then I am with you. But I have no use for children's games."
A feverish light burned in his dark eyes. He reminded Daniel of a panther, lean and dark and fiery, and his own fire leaped up to meet this boy's. He forgot his suspicion.
"You're welcome here, Kemuel," he said. "You'll find we're not playing a game." Yes, Joel had chosen well. Strong arms and muscles were easy to find. A fiery spirit was not so common.
Presently Nathan stopped by on his way home from the field, as he had formed a habit of doing. Already Nathan had lost his resentful air. At first awkward in the presence of the city boys, he soon surrendered to Joel's friendliness. Daniel disconnected the bellows, banked the fire for the night, bolted the door, and the band of four held its first meeting. Certain of Simon's approval, Daniel offered the smithy as a gathering place. They agreed to meet on the third day of each week.
"If you want members," Nathan offered, "I could name you ten here in our village who would give their right arms to join you."
Daniel hesitated. "I've thought about that," he told them. "I know there are plenty. If word went out tomorrowhalf the village would probably be with us before night. Some because they love Galilee, or hate the Romans, and some just because they love a good fight. But would they lose heart? The trouble is, we can't fight tomorrow. We've got to work slowly, and it may take a long time."
"How long?" Kemuel demanded.
"We must be strong enough so that we cannot fail." Daniel tried to remember how Rosh had talked to them in the cave, whetting their impatience, but always holding it back, leashed for the day to come. He saw how much he had still to learn from Rosh.
"Right now we need members who will be willing to work without any reward," he went on, not looking at Kemuel, but speaking chiefly to him. "We've got to be absolutely sure we can trust them, no matter what happens."
"Then we shouldn't take too many right away," Joel said thoughtfully.
"We should not make it too easy," Kemuel spoke. "We only value the things we pay for."
"Who has money to pay?" Nathan bristled. "That would keep out all the villagers."
"I was not speaking of money," Kemuel answered, with a touch of scorn. "I meant we must be committed altogether, without any reservation. Only that way can we be sure."
"We will each take the oath," Joel reminded him.
His friend was not satisfied. "An oath can mean one thing to one and something altogether different to another," he argued. Daniel suspected that he argued habitually and enjoyed it, like the Scribes who debated the fine points of the Law.
"I know!" Nathan sprang to his feet. He seized a rod of iron from the wall near him. "We can brand ourselves! That way we would know—"
"Are you forgetting the Law?" the scholar cut in icily "You shall not print any marks upon you!" It was exactly as though he had pulled his cloak tighter to avoid contamination. Peasant! his tone said unmistakably. Daniel's heart sank. Already his little army was behaving like the men in the cave.
"We don't need a brand," Joel spoke quickly, in the reasonable friendly way that made everything he said so convincing. "If we choose carefully we can trust each other. We will carry the sign of the bow in our minds. You know—from the Song of David: 'He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.' That is our password."
Within three weeks the four members had increased to seven, then to nine—twelve—sixteen. Young men would meet each other on the village streets, in the school at Capernaum. "Did you ever see a bow made of bronze?" they might ask, in passing. Or they would drop in at the smithy and pick up a lump of metal. "It would make a good bow," they would say. The password gave them pride and pleasure. They were bound together by the sign. On the first day of Ab, twenty-one boys crowded the smithy. Daniel looked around at them with a surge of elation.
"When can we tell Rosh?" Joel demanded, eager for another glimpse of his hero.
"Not yet—" Daniel answered. He could not tell even Joel how he dreamed of the moment when he would tell Rosh. Now, while Joel read aloud to the listening boys the thrilling accounts he had shared with Daniel in the passageway, of David and of Judas Maccabeus, Daniel thought how he would lead Rosh down the mountain and confront him with an army, ready for his command. Then Rosh would no longer be an outcast. Then everyone would recognize the leader they had longed for, and the day would be very near.
On the morning after the third meeting, the fair-haired Roman soldier appeared again at the smithy. This time he had a broken stirrup to be mended. He paid no attention to the sullen scowl that showed that his business was unwelcome. He stood, his feet planted well apart in that Roman pose they seemed to learn young, looking deliberately about the shop, at the shelves of metal bars, the tools hanging along the wall, the door that Daniel had instantly shut between them and the inner room. Daniel kept his eyes on his work, fighting down a compulsion to find out what the man might be looking at. Could there possibly be a sign of last night's meeting? He did not draw an easy breath till the Roman, taking his time about it, finally clanked through the door mounted his horse and rode off. Then, searching the room frantically, he could find nothing that could possibly have drawn the man's suspicion. Had it been his imagination that the man was looking for something?
The Roman returned. Sometimes on the very day of a meeting, often on odd days between. He came now with work for his fellow legionaries, or with ridiculous excuses to have some perfectly sound bit of harness checked for a flaw. Once or twice Daniel, hearing the hoofbeats in the street, looked up to see the man ride slowly by his door, and then, almost immediately, so soon the man could scarcely have turned his horse, ride slowly back again. He discovered the prints of a horse's hoofs in the soft earth of the alleyway that ran along the garden wall where there was no possible reason to ride a horse. No question now, the house was being watched. The meeting place would have to be changed.
A new recruit, son of a farmer in the village, offered a solution. He led Daniel to an abandoned watchtower in his father's cucumber field, a small round stone house in which the whole family had once lived during the time of harvest to watch lest thieves despoil the ripening crop. Below the tower a shaft had been cut, designed, Daniel suspected, for hiding part of the crop from the count of the tax collector. It made a fine place to store the weapons they pla
nned soon to have. The tower could be approached from many sides, across the field of vines. It was an ideal meeting place.
Abruptly, almost as soon as they shifted the meeting place, the Roman stopped coming. Warily, they stationed a guard near the new headquarters, taking turns at the duty. Not a sign of the soldier was ever reported. Luck was with them, Daniel decided. Still, there was something about it that made him uneasy.
13
DANIEL'S CHIEF DOUBT about the new meeting place, that it would take him from home for long hours at a time, resolved itself more simply than he expected. Leah listened to his explanation and seemed to grow accustomed to his absences as she had once accepted the fact that her grandmother must work in the fields. Leah was gaining confidence. She did not tire as readily at the loom. She had even completed a length of cloth which had been paid for by the servant of the widow of Chorazin. When Daniel had laid the shining silver talent in his sister's hand, she had been bewildered. He realized that she had never before known any recompense for her hours at the loom. He showed her how to sew the coin into her head scarf, where every village girl, even the poorest, boasted the jingling coins that would be her dowry. Leah was as enchanted as a child. Now she always wore the headdress as she worked, and from time to time her hand stole up to touch the coin. Underneath the scarf the long yellow hair was always combed and carefully arranged. Was it the work in the little garden that had brought a faint flush to her pale cheeks?
One afternoon, looking through the door of his shop, Daniel saw two figures coming slowly along the road in the shimmering waves of heat. One, he soon saw, was Joel. The other he was not sure of. A new recruit? The two figures were almost at his door before he recognized, with a shock of pleasure, that the one who had come with Joel was his sister Malthace. She wore a yellow mantle with a green embroidered girdle, and a green and white striped headdress that showed just the edge of the dark sweep of her hair.
"I've never been in a blacksmith's shop before," she exclaimed, sweeping back the headdress in the impulsive gesture Daniel always remembered first when he thought of her. "I've been begging Joel to let me come to see it."
Embarrassed, Daniel wiped his sooty hands and brought a jar of water from the house, wishing he had more to offer.
"I'd like to ask you to come into my—into Simon's house—"he began.
"It doesn't matter. It's lovely here in the shop," said Malthace quickly. The two visitors sat on the bench and watched him complete the lock that he had promised to deliver before sunset.
"I'm glad you came today," Darnel told Joel, when the work was done. "There's an apprentice I want you to meet over in the Street of the Weavers. I think he wants to join us, but he has some foolish ideas in his head that the rabbi has taught him. I can't talk him out of them, but you could."
"Go along and see him," Malthace suggested. "I don't mind staying here alone. I'd rather start back when it's cooler."
"Are you sure? It would take only a short time."
It took a considerably longer time than Daniel had reckoned, because Joel and the young weaver lost themselves in the intricacy of a theological debate. It was nearing sunset when they started back toward the smithy.
"He's going to be one of the best we have," Joel said. "But you should have stopped us. When I get started on an argument I forget what time it is."
He did not seem to want to hurry, however, and shortly it appeared that he had something else on his mind.
"I've put off telling you this," he said finally. "I don't know just why. I saw your carpenter again."
"Was Simon with him?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact, when I told you that day that I'd run into Simon, that wasn't altogether true. I went back to Bethsaida on purpose. I went back several times. Lately I've been getting up early to hear Jesus when he talks to the fishermen."
Daniel was surprised. "You think he will help us?"
Joel hesitated. "He has helped me. He has explained several points of the Law that have always puzzled me."
"Explained them to you? You're the scholar. He is only a carpenter."
"I don't know where he got his training," Joel said. "But he knows the scripture. Some of his ideas are the same as Father's, only he seems to go beyond somehow. He has a way of making something very clear and—uncomplicated—so that you wonder why you never thought of it that way before."
"The first time I heard him," Daniel said, "I thought that if only he and Rosh could join together—"
"I've thought so too. So many people follow him. Some mornings there are more than a hundred. If anyone could persuade them—But then again I'm not sure. I wish you'd come to listen to him, Daniel. Every time I hear him I wish you were there. We both think—"
"Does Kemuel go with you?"
Joel laughed. "Not Kemuel. I persuaded him to go once. He was horrified. He's too much like Father. No, Thacia goes with me. She—oh my word! I forgot Thacia! She'll be furious at me."
The girl was not in the smithy. As the two boys stood uncertainly in the doorway, a soft murmur of voices drifted through the inner door. Surely it could not be—? Then Daniel heard the quick light peal of Thacia's laughter.
"Wait here!" he told Joel.
There was no one in the inner room. Beyond, in the small garden, two girls sat side by side on the bench.
"Oh Daniel!" Leah cried, catching sight of her brother. "Thacia came to see me!"
Dumfounded, Daniel stared from one to the other.
"How—?" he stammered, and then caught the warning in Thacia's eyes. Don't spoil it, her look cautioned him quite plainly. He could think of nothing at all to say, could only stand stupidly. How had she managed it, when no one, not a neighbor or an old friend, had been allowed to see Leah's face for almost ten years?
"We've been having a lovely visit," Thacia said, as casually as though it happened every day. "Leah has been showing me her vegetables. The time has gone fast. We had so much to talk about."
These two—so utterly different! "What could you talk about?" he burst out before he could stop himself.
Mischief danced in Thacia's eyes. "You," she said.
He felt his ears redden. He knew he would never know how she had accomplished it. Girls were strange creatures. He could not understand them. But he could see the change in his sister's face. She was fragile and pale beside Thacia's vivid beauty, but smiling with a smile so like their mother that it caught at his throat.
Joel, impatient and curious, came through the inner door. It was too much to hope that the miracle should include him too. At the first glimpse of him, Leah's bright face grayed with fear. Thacia motioned him out of sight.
"My brother and I must go home now," she said gently. "But I will come back soon. You won't forget me, will you, Leah?"
There was no answer. Leah's head was bent. The folds of the scarf that hid her face were trembling.
"Here's something to remember me by," said Thacia. She undid the green embroidered girdle from her waist and laid it gently across Leah's knees. The gold threads twinkled in the afternoon sun. "God be with you," she said quickly, and not waiting for any answer, moved past Daniel through the smithy, too quickly for him to stop her or to try to thank her. Daniel stood looking down at his sister. He saw one finger slowly move out from the veil and touch the girdle, tracing the scarlet and blue and purple threads as though they might vanish at too heavy a touch. It was the first beautiful thing she had ever owned.
Thacia's visit caused Daniel to look at his sister with new eyes, and one thing that he had never noticed before suddenly shamed him. She spent all day weaving fine cloth for a wealthy woman, and she herself was dressed in a faded gray rag. Next morning he took down the jar in which he kept the money his customers gave him, counted out a handful of coins, and made his way to the market.
It was a confusing place, the kind a man did well to stay away from. The booths of the weavers were surrounded by women, chattering like a woods full of sparrows, fingering the lengths of scarlet
and purple, bargaining with sharp, accusing screams. He gathered his courage and approached, trying to ignore their derisive glances. Presently he found what he wanted, a length of smooth cotton the clear fresh blue of the ketzah blossoms.
"How much?" he growled.
A girl with gold earrings studied him shrewdly. "Blue dye is rare," she said. "Two shekels."
He knew it was too much. He had no way of knowing how much too much, and he had no knack for bargaining anyway. He paid the money, and cursed himself when she did not hide her contempt.
"Thread?" He glared at her. When she had found it for him, "Do you have a needle too?" he asked.
The girl laughed. "We don't sell needles. Surely your wife must have a needle."
He said nothing, but the flush creeping up his cheeks made the girl laugh again. "Oh," she said, "a present, is it? Wait a minute." She delved beneath a pile of odd articles. "Here. Take one of mine. I won't charge you for it." The fine gesture, he could see, was an apology for the scandalous profit she had made on the cloth. He took the package and walked away, his ears red.
Leah could not believe that the cloth was hers. Just to touch its smooth surface seemed to give her such joy that Daniel did not dare to suggest that it had a useful purpose. He waited for two mornings before he brought out the needle and thread. Leah watched his clumsy experiments, fascinated. Suddenly a squeal of laughter broke from her, so startling that he dropped the needle. He had never heard her laugh before! The breathy little sound died away as he stared at her.
"Oh Daniel! You hold it like one of those great iron things. Give me that."
"Can you thread a needle?" he asked, astonished.
"Anybody can thread a needle! Daniel, do you think—would you be angry with me if I made a dress out of the blue cloth?"
Through the door of the smithy he watched Leah spread the cloth on the floor, marveling at the capable way she turned it this way and that as she cut. Praise be! Perhaps she could even make him a new cloak!