“What about the mob scene at the pool?” I described the raw pandemonium I had witnessed.
“You saw that?” he asked, incredulous. Apparently, nothing remotely similar had happened during their visit.
“Why was it so important?” I asked.
“Rise, take up your mat and walk,” he replied.
I stared at him blankly.
“Evidently, some sort of geological phenomenon causes the underlying spring to bubble up every now and then. The people here, in the first century, believe that it’s an angel stirring the waters. Whenever that happens, the first one in gets cured of what ails him.”
That explained the mad rush, though not the rest of the story.
“What did you mean with the bit about the mat?” I asked.
“John’s gospel records it as one of Christ’s first miracles. An invalid had been lying there beside the pool for 38 years when Jesus walked up and asked him if he wanted to get well. Rather than say yes, the man launched into a litany of excuses about how someone always beat him into the water. Christ healed him and told him to go home.”
“Does this spring still exist, in our time?”
“Not really. The Church of St. Anne rests over the site now, but that’s a twelfth century Crusader structure, renovated in the late 1800s. We think the current building replaced a Byzantine church, but before that, who knows. Like I keep saying, Jerusalem has been scraped and rebuilt many times. Exactly where things were is a matter of conjecture.”
“Why allow a Greek temple there?” asked Markowitz.
“I’m not really sure,” admitted Lavon. “My guess is that the Jewish priests didn’t have any better answers to medical problems. I suppose it gave people hope.”
“Or provided a good place to shuffle off grandpa,” said Bryson. “You could dump a sick relative there and not feel bad about it.”
***
I encouraged the others to continue this line of discussion, but despite my best efforts, I couldn’t evade the inevitable question.
“Where’s Sharon?” asked Lavon.
I explained what little I knew.
Once I had done so, Bryson and Markowitz immediately began arguing about the best way to rescue her. Their schemes, though, struck me only as efficient ways to commit suicide. None would have done Sharon any good at all.
Lavon didn’t seem to think so, either, but he stepped away from us for a moment, lost in thought.
“I think she’ll be OK,” he finally said,
“We can’t just abandon her!” said Markowitz. “You know what they’re going to do.”
He nodded. “Yes, but we have a little while to work out a plan. Ancient documents describe a regimen of baths and beauty treatments to be completed before a girl was deemed fit for the king. This will take time.”
“How much time?” I asked.
“At least a day,” said Lavon. “Possibly two or three.”
“Today’s Wednesday, right?” I asked.
They nodded.
“Then we have until tomorrow night at least,” I said, “Friday if we’re lucky.”
I didn’t have to add that we hadn’t exactly had the best of luck so far.
“This is my fault,” said Lavon. “Kings sent retainers to round up pretty girls all the time. I just thought we’d be safe in the Antonia, in addition to the story of her being royalty.”
“Obviously they didn’t believe that,” said Bryson.
“That was my fault, too. We all slept in the same bed last night. If she had been a real princess, she would have had the bed to herself and the rest of us would have spent the night on the floor. I just got carried away watching everything else; it slipped my mind.”
“What do you think they really take us for?” asked Bryson.
“Our hands, even yours Bill, are not the rough hands of manual laborers, and our clothes are too well made to be peasant garments. I’m guessing they see us as prosperous merchants.”
“Exactly what we started out pretending to be,” said Bryson.
Lavon nodded. “Ironically, whoever did this might even think they’re doing us a favor. If she pleases the king, she could open up profitable trading opportunities.”
“I can’t imagine her feeling very good about that,” said Bryson.
“No,” said Lavon, “but this is the first century; she is a woman. Her feelings are of no consideration at all.”
Chapter 32
At that point, the only sensible thing to do was to head straight back to the Antonia the way we came. That would allow us to avoid the worst of the crowds, and with Lavon able to speak for us, I was certain that we could eventually persuade a soldier to fetch Publius.
I suggested this, but my comment had the opposite effect. Markowitz and Bryson strode forward toward the city, while Lavon just rolled his eyes and followed.
In truth, he wanted to see the Temple as badly as the others did; he just wouldn’t admit it.
We pushed our way back into the line of travelers and passed through the gate without incident; and once we got inside the walls, we could not have turned back even if we had wanted to. The stream of itinerants had become a river, flowing in only one direction, to the north.
We passed a spring where a gaggle of angry women stood in line with buckets, and I realized then that if the area surrounding Herod’s palace was Jerusalem’s high-rent district, we had now crossed over to the wrong side of the tracks.
The main path leading north from the Tekoa Gate followed along the western edge of the ridge bisecting the city all the way past the Temple Mount. West of our path, the ground sloped down into a deep valley, filled with densely packed structures that reminded Bryson of a colleague’s research facility at MIT.
From what I could see, the lab rats probably had it better. At least they didn’t have to live under a pall of acrid smoke.
Bryson coughed and struggled not to gag. “What is that smell?”
“Firewood is expensive,” said Lavon. “They use dried animal dung as fuel.”
I had seen this before, in India, but never on this scale.
Off to our right, Lavon pointed to a collection of shabby stone buildings, noting that this area constituted the original Jerusalem, the City of David.
“Who could have figured it?” he said.
We each had to acknowledge the peculiarity of it all. David’s Jerusalem extended only a few hundred yards in each direction, covering ten acres at most. At its peak, it probably housed fewer than a thousand inhabitants.
Yet such a place, the headquarters of a man who was in reality more of a tribal chieftain than a king, became the focal point of three global religions with billions of adherents.
***
I was still reflecting on this oddity a few minutes later when I heard a loud yell. I ducked out of the way just as a boy, about ten years old and sporting a ragged tunic at least one size too small, ran past us with two angry men in hot pursuit.
The kid probably would have made his getaway but for a loose paving stone that protruded up about half an inch.
Seconds later, he tripped over the block and went sprawling face-first onto the ground. He attempted to rise, but the men were on top of him in an instant, pounding his body with wooden staves.
