“These are complicated matters of kingdoms, not best understood by women,” Saba said.
Judah wasn’t as dismissive of me. “She has a right.” He faced me. “Palestine was in the charge of a powerful Roman governor named Varus, who found his charge threatened by the rebellion of the Jewish Zealot, Judas. And so Varus called on King Aretas of the Nabataeans, because Nabataea borders Palestine and would also be threatened if the Zealots could not be crushed. Also, Aretas owed the Romans a favor. Thus Aretas called on the Bedu, through Rami, to aid him. You see how it works… the Romans call on the Nabataeans and the Nabataeans call on the Bedu. There are no warriors so great as the Bedu.”
“So my father went on Aretas’s behalf, forming an alliance.”
“Yes,” Saba said. “Rami took a thousand Kalb, the best of raiders, to ride with the Nabataeans into Galilee, to the city called Sepphoris, which had been overtaken by the Jewish Zealots. Together with Varus’s army, they crushed the revolt in Sepphoris and burned the city to the ground. The Zealots fled. It was a great victory.”
Judah spit to one side.
“For Rami and Rome, not for my people. After he left Palestine, Varus went throughout the south, hounding the Zealots to a bitter end. His army crucified over two thousand in one month alone. Truly, all Jews mourn them still.”
I was familiar with the Roman crucifixion—a brutal death sentence meant to terrify those who saw victims hanging on the tree as much as to punish the guilty. I did not relish being witness to such a scene.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Saba seemed unconcerned.
“To honor Rami, Varus presented him with his own dagger. Rami returned from Galilee a victor in the eyes of both the Romans and Aretas, and for this the Nabataean king honored him, years later, with full control over all trade through Dumah, sealed by his marriage to Nashquya, daughter of Aretas. In her death, he will now see Rami as enemy.”
I understood the rest: the Romans and Herod would give me audience because they owed Rami a debt of gratitude, to be proven by the dagger.
We sat on the camels in silence.
“But now,” Judah said, looking into the desert, “our greatest enemy is the Nafud.”
He turned his gaze to the stars and I knew he was reading them, for the Bedu trackers find their way at night by the lights in the sky.
“One stage south, then twelve stages west to Aela,” he said. “From there, north into Perea, Decapolis, and to Galilee. Perhaps we will find him there.”
“Perhaps? Herod is in Sepphoris.”
“Yes, of course. Herod.” Judah said this as if he’d been thinking of someone else. He lovingly scratched his camel’s neck, for he, like most Bedu, was very fond of his mount. Her name was Raza and she leaned into his fingers.
“Herod, who conspires with Rome for the ruin of all Jews,” he said absently.
Again he betrayed the conflict in his heart. Though a servant to my father vowed to deliver me into an alliance with the Romans, he despised all that was Roman. He was as much a Zealot as a Bedu, and his desire to reach Palestine was directed by something even deeper than his loyalty to Rami.
“We go,” Saba said.
“To glory or to our graves,” Judah said. Then he turned to me, eyes bright. “But at my side it will only be glory.”
Saba grunted. He slapped his camel with his riding stick and urged it toward the dunes.
I nudged Shunu to follow, keenly aware that our fate, whatever it might be, was now sealed, for there is no forgiveness in the Nafud.
THE NAFUD
“Truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies,
it remains only a single seed.
But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”
Yeshua
CHAPTER FIVE
ON THE FLAT desert leading up to the dunes, we passed clumps of ghada shrubs. Their white, fist-size fruit is good only for medicinal purposes, for it is a bitter fruit, but the ghada wood burns hot and is used to light the fires of all who live along the Nafud’s edges.
I could not keep my sorrow at bay, but I did not wish to appear weak, so I kept my thoughts to myself and mourned in silence. Judah remained quiet as well, though I suspected this was because he sensed my need for solace.
As for Saba, he might have remained mute in any circumstance.
The pale dunes of the northern Nafud rose like mountains and cast shadows even in the darkness. Judah was riding with one leg tucked under him, as was the preferred position for long stretches. We had traveled the flat for over an hour before he began to sing under his breath.
To this, Saba took exception, so Judah went silent again, but within a short time, his voice rose softly in song once more.