A.D. 30(67)

“Never,” Saba said.

“No,” Judah said, having made his point. “So, then, today you are only a common woman and a foreigner. They now entertain a Pharisee from Judea who would surely object to your presence in the room. But they assure me the wait will not be long.” He headed through the gate.

“And you?” I asked, following quickly.

“I must speak to them, you understand.” His mind was already back in the house.

“How many?” Saba asked.

“There is Peter and his brother, Andrew. They share news with a Pharisee who has come from Judea in secret. Something is in the wind, I tell you. I must return. Wait here. You will be comfortable. Saba will see to you. Watch over them, Saba.”

And then he was gone, leaving us in a cold courtyard without a fire. I had expected signs of women and children, for Levi was a tax collector and children were a sign of wealth among the Jews, Phasa had told me. They might have been tucked away in one of the other houses.

“This isn’t what I expected,” Phasa said, crossing to a dead fire pit on the far side. “Not in the least.”

I tried to reassure her. “As Judah said, we aren’t in Sepphoris. But we are with Saba—no harm will come to us.”

“I don’t fear harm. I only resent being left out in the cold while these men plan my downfall.” She was referring to the Zealots who plotted the demise of all things Roman, which included Herod and, by extension, her. No one would recognize her, covered as she was, but I too would have felt the rejection. Still, the choice to come had been hers. “I can scarce keep my head atop my shoulders, and Judah leaves us without so much as a bed? It is not what I expected.”

“He’s taken with this sage,” Saba said. “You must be patient. In agreeing to come, we agreed to this.”

Phasa looked at him, then settled. “Then be a good slave and keep me warm.”

Saba hesitated. “We are in a Jew’s home. I cannot be seen like this.”

She sighed. “So now you too are a Jew.”

“If I must be. To keep you safe.”

We waited for a long while, until I too felt growing frustration. Judah seemed to have forgotten us entirely. The absurdity of our situation became more plain as the darkness deepened. I had left Dumah on matters of life and death for my people, and yet here I stood in a tiny fishing village, risking that very mission for the sake of a man who seemed to have forgotten that I existed. The reasoning I’d harnessed to visit Capernaum for Judah’s sake vacated my mind, and my irritation strengthened.

“I will check,” I finally said. “Saba, stay with Phasa.”

“Maviah, this is not wise.”

I ignored Saba’s objection, walked to the door, and eased it open. Firelight from a room beyond a short hall flickered on the walls. Soft voices reached me. I slipped in and carefully approached.

There in the shadows I stopped, wondering if I’d been seen. But none of the five men reclining at the table seemed to notice, so I withdrew far enough to guarantee my concealment.

Firelight lit a vessel and chalk cups used for wine on the wooden table, which, unlike Herod’s table fashioned in the Roman style, was surrounded by simple wooden stools and a stone block along one side. Food also waited, covered by cloth. The men were too engrossed in their talk to pay food or drink any attention.

“But by saying kingdom, he can only mean Israel,” Judah said in a low, urgent voice. “As you say, Andrew, the Baptizer also spoke of the kingdom’s restoration. It is this the prophets foretold, is it not? And it was of this the elders from my tribe surely spoke.”

“So it seems.” Andrew sat across from Judah—a thin laborer or fisherman who looked to eat too few of the fish he caught.

At the far end of the table, a heavily bearded man with gray hair wore a clean robe and a blue mantle over his shoulders, and I took him to be the guest Pharisee. Which would make the man next to Andrew his brother, Peter. Also a fisherman, I guessed. And across from them was a well-dressed man I thought must be Levi, for the trimmed beard on his chin.

They did not appear to be the kind of men a great leader would gather for any reason, much less for an uprising.

Miriam had spoken about her son as a teacher, not a warrior, but I felt as though I was witness to the heart of a conspiracy.

Andrew continued: “But the master’s speaking of this kingdom is different from the Baptizer’s.”

“Different?” Judah said. “What can you mean? A kingdom is a kingdom.”

“Yes, of course.”

“The kingdom of God is Israel. And his rightful seat is in the temple.”