The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare Read Free Book Online

the trail. Suddenly he flung himself on his face and buried his head in his arms and could have wept for homesickness.

4
    T HE S ABBATH MORNING was very still. Not a grindstone rumbled, not a voice was upraised. No puff of smoke rose from the clay ovens. No women passed on their way to the well. Descending the ladder to the house, Daniel found a handful of olives and a cold crust of bread waiting for his breakfast. The little goat wandered in the small garden patch behind the house.
    Very early in the day, when Daniel was already wondering how he could endure another hour, Simon came to the door. His knock sent Leah cowering into a corner. Daniel hastily went out into the road, shutting the door behind him.
    "I'm on my way to the synagogue," Simon said. "I'd like you to go with me."
    Daniel scowled. "I haven't been to a synagogue for five years," he countered. "One more Sabbath won't matter."
    "On the contrary," Simon answered with a smile. "Today is none too soon."
    Daniel's lips tightened. He bent and picked up a pebble and shied it at a little green lizard that had crawled from under the house. Simon's eyebrows lifted. Probably it was against the law to throw a stone on the Sabbath.
    "There's a man I'd like you to see," Simon told him. "They say he will visit our synagogue this morning."
    Daniel glanced up. Beneath the words there was a hint he could not miss. "What sort of man?"
    "I'm not sure," said Simon. "He comes from Nazareth."
    "Good reason to stay away," grumbled Daniel. Then, feeling the pressure of Simon's silence, "A Zealot?"
    "It may well be. Come and see what you make of him."
    "In these clothes?"
    "I have brought you a cloak and shoes."
    Daniel stared at his friend. If Simon, stickler for the law, had carried a bundle on the Sabbath just so that Daniel could see this man, he must consider the matter important. Daniel took the cloak and went inside the house. His grandmother was nodding again in the corner. She looked up and muttered his father's name, her eyes confused with sleep. Leah crept forward shyly and bent to fasten the leather sandal.
    "Will you go with me?" he asked on impulse, and could have bitten his tongue at the terror that leaped into her blue eyes.
    "Never mind, I didn't mean it," he said miserably, jerking away from her.
    Simon looked him over with approval as he stepped out into the roadway. "How does it seem to be home?" he inquired.
    "You call this home?" Daniel burst out. "My grandmother does nothing but sleep, and my sister is possessed by demons."
    "She is no better?"
    "Before I was apprenticed—when she was five years old, she hid herself in that house. In all this time she has never stepped outside the door."
    "So I've heard. The demons must have a strong hold.
Yet she does good weaving, I understand. Your grandmother sells it in Chorazin."
    Daniel had not paid much attention to the loom in the corner, but now Simon's words somewhat lightened his shame.
    "Who is this man we go to see?" he asked, not wanting to think about Leah.
    "Jesus, son of Joseph, a carpenter by trade. He has left his work and goes about preaching from town to town."
    "Preaching? I thought you said he was a Zealot."
    "He preaches the coming of the kingdom."
    "You have heard him?"
    "No, but I have seen him. I journeyed to Nazareth with a friend who went to arrange for a wife. While we were there this carpenter came back to preach in his own synagogue."
    "A town like Nazareth must have boasted—"
    "They did not boast. They tried to kill him."
    Daniel glanced quickly at his friend, his curiosity roused not so much by the words as by the tone of Simon's voice. But Simon had no time to say more. They were approaching the small stone and plaster building in the center of the village, and men and women brushed close to them on either side of the road.
    Daniel had to stoop to go through the low doorway. He sidled close to the wall, tensing his muscles, conscious of his shaggy height and his wide shoulders, trying to