The arrest was interrupted by the sound of a loud hammer blow, the dull thud of metal striking metal. The soldier’s arrogant air was displaced by a look of sheer confusion, as he leaned forward involuntarily. What was that noise? What had robbed the soldier of his superiority? Within two heartbeats there was another blow, again the identical sound of a heavy, muffled metallic strike. This time it was followed immediately by a deep but distant belch from the western ridge. The second soldier fell from his horse, a long wooden shaft protruding from his back. A third metallic thud struck his hunched-over companion from the saddle to join him on the ground. Again, a belch echoed from the western ridge.
5
Amram hurried down from the ridge. Still amused by the audacity of Theudas, he looked him in the eye, “Good morning?” he laughed. “Best you boys make for that there hill while I clear up this little mess.” He did not wait for the brothers’ consent before setting about his fallen victims as though it were his daily routine. On seeing that one of them was not dead he adopted a more serious tone. “Go!” he growled, nodding again towards the hill. The brothers, still stunned, complied without word.
The Egyptians hurried away in silence until Theudas could contain himself no longer. “Do you think tomorrow we might make it as far as breakfast before killing any soldiers?”
Yeshua sighed and shook his head. “It looks like we might be spending the autumn here in Judea after all.”
“Amram must have been following us all the way from Yudah’s house!” said Theudas, before succumbing to the gravity of his own observation.
Yeshua shook his head as the realities began to sink in. “They all knew this was going to happen! They let us go, knowing this would happen.” The brothers both glanced back at Amram. No wonder he knew what he was doing, he had probably been planning his attack all night. “What was I thinking? I just wanted to get us home.” He stopped near the top of the appointed hill and turned his head towards the sea. A full day and night had not granted them much distance from the coast. “Maybe we should try to get back through Caesarea. We could be on a boat by this afternoon.”
“Yeshua. We’ve tried the safest option and look what happened. We’re not going anywhere.”
“I don’t like this,” said Yeshua with a grim determination to do something if only he could think of what that something might be. “We’re as captive to our allies as we are to our enemies.” He paused for a moment to gather breath as the climb continued. “I’m not sure who’s toying with us more. The sooner we can get away from all of them the better.”
“But that’s just it!” Theudas argued. “We are trapped. Like you say, by our friends as much as our enemies.” He looked over at his brother. “And for now I know who’d I’d rather be with.”
Yeshua exhaled slowly and turned to carry on up the hill. On reaching the top the Egyptians sat together, looking out towards the coast. “Look at that.” Theudas pointed down across the plain towards Caesarea. “Not a single ship has left the port. We’re stuck here.”
“We’re not stuck! We can see the coast, and walk to it from here. We don’t have to climb walls or dig tunnels. It’s there. We can walk straight . . .”
“But every soldier between here and there is looking for us!” Theudas grabbed his brother’s arm. “Looking for you and me, brother. And there are thousands of them.”
“But look at the area they have to cover. We could go north and board a vessel to take us to Joppa. They’d have to be extremely lucky to get anywhere near us.”
“So how lucky were they this morning, when they found us within an hour of us trying to leave?”
“We’ll just have to stay off the road. It’ll take us longer but we could do it. Why not? If we just leave now?”
“I know you just want to get home. And I know why. But if you were in your right state of mind you wouldn’t be suggesting this.” Theudas took his brother’s silence as a sign that he was beginning to accept their fate. “When I think of how carefully you wanted to plan our attack in Caesarea, what you’re suggesting now sounds like insanity. It’s not the same person speaking.”
Visibly, energetically, silently, Yeshua cursed at the situation in which the brothers now found themselves. Theudas was right. The attack had been planned so carefully, but their escape? It could hardly have been planned.
“Until yesterday you were in control of this quest. Today this quest is controlling us. Be patient, for our father’s sake! Patience is now our safest route home.”
“I don’t want to be sucked into some hair-brained, half-thought-out, anger-fuelled gang of rebels,” he said. “You heard Miriam. If we’re patient, we’ll find ourselves caught up in something we’ll never escape.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Theudas remarked. “Amram has just saved our lives. As far as I’m concerned that’s good news. Now, our journey here has made us dependent on other people, whether we like it or not. And of all the people to choose, Yudah is a lifelong friend and Amram has saved our lives.”
“And followed us, knowing that we were walking into a death trap,” said Yeshua, still amazed that his brother had not seen this. “Whatever they might be to us, they have not been honest with us. They are toying with us.”
“No. I’m sorry,” Theudas argued, “they tried to talk us out of running away, and it’s you that wouldn’t listen to them.”
Offering wisdom was far preferable to Yeshua than receiving it. Nor was he accustomed to receiving it from his younger brother. Unable to concede verbally that his brother might be right, he allowed his silence to do the job, before eventually turning to Theudas and nodding.
“Strangers in a strange land,” said Yeshua. “Not really the kind of thing a son of Abraham would say when in Israel!” The brothers smiled and lay back on the crest of the hill, wondering what kind of eruption was building below them. Whatever fate was to befall them, Yeshua was beginning to accept that for now it was beyond his control. As he stared up into a sky as empty as his future and his thoughts, he closed his eyes and attempted to escape into sleep.
Images of yesterday’s victims flashed across Yeshua’s consciousness, joined by the horsemen whose victims they had so nearly become. The cold rhetoric of Kaleb’s oration combined with the warm embrace of Yudah’s greetings. The screams of a grief-stricken peasant girl merged with the tears of the boy represented by the figurine. The gaunt image of Amram appeared in his mind, whilst not bringing enough comfort to free his troubled mind, it nevertheless released him from the traumas of the Egyptian’s full consciousness. The voices in his head overcame other sounds around him, but weaving its way through the succession of pictures that formed the beginnings of a dream, was a single, disturbing constant. A snake, that now paused and recoiled, was ready to bite. The Egyptian was saved from the serpent’s attack only by the most unexpectedly welcoming belch as it thundered like a volcano from below. Yeshua sat up from his brief dream to hear his brother’s voice.
“Ah, the sweet sound of our salvation,” said Theudas as he scrambled to his feet. Yeshua followed his brother downhill before his consciousness had fully returned.
The three assassins met at the foot of the slope, along with two horses, a large bundle, and the brothers’ belongings.
“Can you boys ride?”
“We can ride donkeys,” Yeshua suggested in reply.
“Do you know what the Parthians call these creatures?” asked Amram, as he threw a blanket over one of the horses.
“Er, Horses?” asked Theudas.