The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Had Simon understood? Daniel stayed close beside his friend as the crowds streamed from the synagogue at the close of the service. "Is he a Zealot or isn't he?" he demanded, as soon as they had outdistanced the others.
    "What do you think?" countered Simon.
    "I couldn't tell. Why did they try to kill him in Nazareth?"
    "They said he blasphemed. Some of them said he had set himself up as God's anointed, a common carpenter's son. They were beside themselves."
    "How did he get away?"
    Simon slowed his steps. "I'm not quite sure," he said, "though I was there and saw it. I didn't know what it was all about, but you know how it is with a crowd—I ran with them, and I'm ashamed to tell it, I had a stone in my hand too. They dragged him up the hill to a cliff and they meant to push him over. But just at the edge of the cliff they fell back, and he stood there alone looking at them. I don't know how it was with them, but all at once I was ashamed, terribly ashamed, of the stone in my hand. Then he walked back down the hill, and not one of them touched him."
    "Didn't he fight to defend himself?"
    "No. He was not angry. He was just—not afraid. I have never seen anyone so completely not afraid."
    Strange. Daniel would have liked the story better if the man had fought back. He was vaguely disappointed, let down as he had been in the synagogue. He scuffed along the dusty road beside Simon.
    "I can't make the man out," he said finally. "What did he mean that the day is at hand?"
    Simon walked on for a moment, his eyes on the ground. "I don't know what he meant," he said slowly. "But I intend to find out."
    At a crossroads Simon left him. "I will look in on you tomorrow," he said. "Keep the cloak. It is an old one, but you may have some use from it."
    Daniel walked on through the noonday heat, lingering to peer furtively at the people who passed. Though he shrank from their curious glances, he was in no hurry to return to his grandmother's house.
    Without warning, the sound of a trumpet split the Sabbath calm. Instantly the peace around him dissolved into terror. There was a frantic scramble to be out of the road. Ahead of Daniel two women and a child darted senselessly to one side and then the other. The younger ran back to jerk her child after her, the older woman shrieking at them both. Barely was the way cleared when a detachment of Roman cavalry trotted by, the horses' hoofs sending up a choking cloud of dust.' In their rear four soldiers suddenly reined in, horses rearing, and stood guard. Some distance behind them marched a detachment of foot soldiers.
    Paralyzed with hatred, Daniel watched them. This was not the same as looking down from the mountain. Here he could see them plainly. They were not even Romans but Samaritan auxiliaries, traitors, paid to fight in Caesar's army. He watched their brutish faces pass, one after another, looking neither right nor left. To smash those faces—even one of them! He bent and picked up a rock. "Infidels!" he shouted.
    A hand slapped down over his mouth. Another hand gripped his upraised arm and forced it back. He felt himself jerked flat against a wall, held fast, while two men stepped in front of him, between him and the marching soldiers. With the sharp pressure of their hands on him, Daniel's senses came back. He stood still, not trying to fight them off. He saw that they had acted so quickly that not a soldier had noticed. The detachment went on down the road, their laced boots slapping an unbroken rhythm.
    "Gone!" said a voice. "And no trouble, praise God."
    "No thanks to this one," another voice rasped.
    Abruptly the hands released his jaw and wrist. "Are you possessed?" one man hissed.
    "One of those hotheads!" the other scoffed.
    Another came closer, peering into his face. "Who are you, boy? Not one of ours, that's sure."
    Daniel looked back at them sullenly. "I am Daniel bar Jamin."
    "Son of Jamin? Wasn't it your father who—"
    "Yes."
    "Then you ought to know better. Do