Before They Awaken: The Stone Gardner's Fire

By Robert S Wright

In the sequel to King David's Lost Crown, Mahlir is given a note by a stranger disclosing that his two-year-old son is the blood offspring of King Philip of the northern regions. It is a revelation that marks the child for assassination, because he is the unwelcome heir to a crown that would otherwise belong to King Philip's younger brother, King Antipas of Galilee.
There is hope, however, even though the child lies dead. There is a man who is rumored to have the ability to raise up the dead, and he is in Jerusalem for Passover.
But there is only one way that can happen now. It is the way of the impossible. Because this man, this mysterious sorcerer, worker of the miraculous whom some are beginning to call the Messiah, would have to first raise himself from the dead, for unbeknownst to Mahlir, he has been executed, nailed to a cross, a method of death reserved for the most heinous of criminals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350944358

Robert S Wright

Robert S. Wright has been a student of history and comparative religion all his life, beginning with his years at the University of Idaho in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Philosophy and Comparative Religion. It was there that he discovered that theology and science do not necessarily conflict with one another, if viewed through the proper lens. His research over the years has been exhaustive, and has included religious texts from modern to ancient, from Biblical to Far Eastern. Over the years he has been a church youth group leader, a ski racer, and a journalist and newscaster, in a career that has spanned over five decades. He is currently a real estate broker and investor in Seattle and a private pilot.

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© 2024 Robert S. Wright All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 979-8-35094-434-1 eBook 979-8-35094-435-8

To Ray,

who opened his library to me

and changed my world.

Contents

Part I

Chapter 1 New Beginnings

Chapter 2 The Saver

Chapter 3 Eli’s Legacy

Chapter 4 The Secret

Chapter 5 The Secret Revealed

Chapter 6 Forever Changed

Chapter 7 A Goblet for Amanirenas

Chapter 8 The Touch

Chapter 9 The Thief in the Night

Chapter 10 Golgotha

Chapter 11 A Conversation with Pilate

Chapter 12 Redemption

Chapter 13 Shammah

Part II

Chapter 14 Tyre

Chapter 15 To Honor a Vestal Virgin

Chapter 16 In the Emperor’s Prison

Part III

Chapter 17 The Little Girl Across the Street

Chapter 18 Taharqo

Chapter 19 The Night Visitor

Chapter 20 Kidnapped

Chapter 21 The King’s Meat

Chapter 22 The Banishment of Antipas

Chapter 23 To Soothe a Madman

Chapter 24 The Arena

Chapter 25 Simon Peter the Rock

Chapter 26 King Agrippa

Chapter 27 The Slumbering Demon

Chapter 28 The Beginning

Notes

Chapter 1

New Beginnings

Caesarea Philippi

Year 74(28AD) into Year 77(31AD) of the

Calendar of Pater Patriae Gaius Julius Caesar

While the southern part has the Judean Wilderness, waterless and unforgiving, the northern part has Pan, the god of the wild, and of shepherds and flocks, and of mountains free, and valleys soft with purples and yellows, and of deep green forests, and music, and – who knows? – maybe nymphs and other unseen creatures frolicking about in carefree play. The little family arrived simultaneous to the cresting of the sun over the Syrian heights, so that the entire city and its three conjoining rivers were bathed in gold.

Caesarea Philippi, they call it, a garden to rival the beauty of Eden, the peristylium of civilization, the new home of Mahlir-of-Matthias and his tall Nubian wife and their maid servant Esther, and their two children, one as yet unborn. The blending of two very different seeds, Mahlir with his olive-colored Hebrew skin and Amanirenas with skin as black and as flawless as polished obsidian, gave two-year-old Tabitha a type of beauty that would make the gods themselves envious. The child’s hair was so black it was blue, and her skin was the color of a golden sunset. Her lips were triangular like her mothers, ever pointed upward in happiness, as though each moment was one of wonder and fulfillment.

And soon they would have another. Amanirenas’ stomach had already begun to grow.

In six months’ time she would give birth. A boy. They nearly named him Yeshua, for without the hand of this man, if indeed he could be called a man, the child would not exist, because Amanirenas had died on that hillside, and had taken the unborn child with her. She quite simply collapsed with catastrophic pre-birth hemorrhaging and died…until this man called Yeshua raised her up with no more than a single command. Daughter, he had said. Open your eyes and rise, and sin no more. That was it. And she obeyed, as if she had been called back from beyond the gates of Heaven itself. There had been the smell of alabaster, strong and powder pure – Mahlir remembered that specifically – like the way an empty anointing jar smells, a slight whiff of perfume mixed with the powdery scent of newly crafted stone. A haze of yellow was shrouding his head and shoulders, translucent, almost like it wasn’t there, some kind of trick of nature, like heat shimmers on a hot day. It had given him a certain warmth, softened him, or empowered him, words fail. It was unlike anything Mahlir had ever seen.

To name a boy after one so high seemed blasphemous. So they chose the name of another who spoke and wrote down profound words, words similar to those of Yeshua, about love and forgiveness, and about fire and purity.

…it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc; no weapon forged against you will prevail...

Isaiah, they called their child.

…I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places...

Isaiah, the prophet who spoke of a future time.

No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise. The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.

What specifically happened on that mountainside – whether the child had never actually been dislodged from the womb, or whether Yeshua, by his power, had made the child whole and placed him back within his mother, or whether the child was a surviving twin – would never be known. Only Yeshua knew, and the Lord God from whom he came, from whom springs creation, the Father, as termed by Yeshua. What Amanirenas and Mahlir did know, was that the child had been given back to them by God, that his existence was meant to be, and that he would be protected. It became a powerful comfort, knowing there existed that wall of protection. The child had a purpose, perhaps a grand one, perhaps as a great teacher like Yeshua. God himself had ordained it.

Isaiah.

And the child was precious. He slept between his mother and father at night, waking from time to time to nurse, then falling quickly back into his slumber. Sometimes Mahlir would sleep with his hand on the top of his son’s head, and feel the heat, the flow, the energy. Tabitha slept there too, between her mother and father, and felt the same flow. Each felt it for the other, and for the whole. It was a family bonded with a fusion unbreakable. Tabitha was beginning to walk. Her first step was taken while reaching out toward her baby brother. Her first word was his name, Isaiah, spoken Eye-Hey. Her favorite game was when they played, Who loves baby Isaiah? She would jump and clap her hands and point. She nursed alongside her brother, and held no jealousy. Which was something else that had happened – perhaps due also to the hand of Yeshua that day – Amanirenas could now hold milk in her breasts, whereas before, her nipples were cracked and split. She nursed free flowing and without pain, both children.

Philip also was attentive to the boy, almost as if the child were his as well. King Philip was a good man. When Herod-the-Great was on his death bed – in the 33rd year of the reign of Caesar Augustus – he divided the kingdom and gave each of four parts to his three sons and his sister Salome. Salome was bequeathed the southernmost portion of Idumea. Judea, later to be annexed by Rome, was given to his son Archelaus. Galilee and Perea were given to his son Antipas. And the eldest son, Philip, a viper lying deadly beneath a lovely flower, so said the talk, was bequeathed the portion to the north that lies peaceful and serene in the shadows of Hermon, the land of Pan, of Caesarea Philippi. Strange how rumors and third-party information can lead one astray. Philip, it turned out, was a noble king, far different than his brother Antipas. Philip was a small man, soft spoken, and very proper and businesslike. In all his mannerisms he was dignified. He had a full head of hair, white with streaks of gray, Roman style, and was beardless. Being a private person, never seeking public attention, Philip rarely wore a diadem, and he was polite, even to slaves. And while his brother Antipas’ stomach poked out from a thin frame like he had swallowed a meal of too many rocks, Philip was as trim and muscled as a soldier.

Philip had been good to his word. He accepted Mahlir immediately into his court. Within days they had set up the outline for the business, which was the reason for the move to Caesarea Philippi, to form a shipping company with Philip. Prior to the move Mahlir had been principal advisor to Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, where, in addition to his administrative duties, he was assisting Pilate with his shipping and import/export business, being good with figures and with negotiation.

King Philip was wise in the ways of business, and realized that Mahlir had been the staple of Pilate’s company, even though by title and salary he was only a clerical subordinate, and had made the statement to Amanirenas in private, when she had been lamenting the fact that her husband’s talents were going unrecognized by Pilate, Send him to me. I shall fund a company and pay him twice as much. Never mind that, I shall make him an equal partner. So when Mahlir came to a parting of the ways with Pilate, when Pilate went against his advice and built an aqueduct using Temple treasury funds, causing the people to riot, Mahlir accepted Philip’s offer. Capital was to come equally from three sources, from Philip, from loans secured in Rome, and from Mahlir. A quirk of fate had befallen Mahlir. His father had died and had bequeathed to him a set of golden menorahs and a sum of two hundred thousand sesterces. Mahlir didn’t know his father had money at all, let alone two hundred thousand sesterces. Philip put in two hundred thousand, Mahlir and Amanirenas put in two hundred thousand, and two hundred thousand was borrowed from the Probi House in Rome. The Probi House, established many years ago in the days of Augustus when the settlement of Egypt and the liquidation of the royal estates of Cleopatra provided enormous commissions to bankers, was one of the oldest and most respected money lenders in the Empire. It was headed by Sextus Probus, a loyal friend of Philip’s. Sextus loaned the money at twelve percent, using one of Philip’s well rented insulae as security, with the understanding that during the time the ships were at sea the rate would go to twenty-four percent. Philip provided the goodwill of his creditworthiness and the security of his insulae; Mahlir brought to the partnership his knowledge of accounting and of the shipping business. Each was valued equally. It was a legitimate fifty-fifty partnership.

There was but one concern – Antipas, and his threat to seize Mahlir’s assets. A real possibility, said Philip, now that Mahlir was no longer under the employ and protection of Rome. Mahlir had been one of the fifty Jews that had traveled to Rome and petitioned for annexation, marking him as a traitor in the eyes of many. Following Herod’s death, the other kingdoms ran well, but not so Judea. In Judea the people suffered under the rule of Archelaus. Confiscation of assets, torture, even murder were the norm, until Mahlir and a gathering of his fellow Jews traveled to Rome and pleaded for annexation and to have a Roman procurator named, as it was with Syria. The action was particularly offensive to Antipas.

There is a way, said Philip. He leaned across the table that separated the two of them and spoke low, though there was no one else in the room. Mahlir had to move a lamp so its tiny flame wouldn’t catch on Philip’s large sleeve. Philip’s eyes darted back and forth to quickly survey the room, and his lips parted in a way that reassured Mahlir it was all for his protection. There is a way for you to safeguard all that you are building. Your wife is a Roman citizen, is she not?

Mahlir nodded. She was made so by my marriage to her. Though a Jew by birth, Mahlir years ago had been made a citizen of Rome during his annexation efforts, by proclamation of Caesar himself.

Place ownership under her name. We will make it by written testament that you own nothing, which I will certify by my signet ring. We will send copies to Antipas, to Pilate, and to Rome. We will let it be known to the world that if my brother, the tetrarch of Galilee, lays his hands on one denarius of this money, he will be guilty of thievery upon a citizen of Rome against whom he has no claim. Under Roman law, a woman has as much right to possess property and operate a business as does a man. There exists within Rome many a wealthy matron.

Philip could see concern in Mahlir’s face, could read it in his silence.

The thin-lipped smile of reassurance cornered upward. We can place in a vaulted box another document signed by Amanirenas and certified by me, acknowledging that the assets belong equally to you. The vault can be kept in your possession. You and Amanirenas will have its only keys.

Still Mahlir said nothing.

Or –, continued Philip. We could keep it in the safest of all places, in the heart of Rome itself, where the wills of the Senators are kept, in the House of Vesta with the Vestal Virgins. There it will be sacrosanct and absolutely guarded. I can arrange it.

The longer Mahir sat without speaking the more innovative Philip became.

We will set up our accounts with Sextus. One will be for the business, another will be a personal account for me, and the third will be a personal account for Amanirenas. At the time Amanirenas sets it up, we can have a separate document prepared which will add you to her account as well, allowing you to withdraw funds in an emergency. It will be a document certified with the seal of the Probi House, and with my seal, and signed by Amanirenas. It too will be kept with the Virgins, and can be retrieved by you and presented in the event the need arises. I will have my jewelers design special signet rings for both of you. You will both need one.

Would not my funds be safe from Antipas in Rome anyway? Mahlir questioned. Why must we go to such extremes? Why could I not keep my own funds there in my own name, safely? Antipas has no power in Rome.

But he does. If he were able to convince Tiberius that you are a criminal, and that you owe the Galilean treasury money, he could gain the Emperor’s approval to seize our ships. My brother lies convincingly. It is best this way. It is the safest way. This way there is irrefutable evidence in Rome, the principal city of the world, that you have absolutely no possessions of any kind.

Again Mahlir turned silent, as his mind considered the clever scheme.

The reassuring smile came again. You are forgetting, I will be the witness. I am Philip. I am the Tetrarch. What better witness could you have? Who would dare question a king?

Philip was right. No one would question a king.

So it was done. The rings were made and the documents prepared and witnessed and taken to Rome. Mahlir himself placed them in the vault at the House of Vesta. It was the best way. And there was no one in the world Mahlir trusted more than Amanirenas.

The ships were built in Tyre, in exchange for silver and iron, sometimes for tin and lead, sometimes for work horses. The masts came from the cedars of Lebanon and the timbers from the pines of Hermon. The oars came from Bashan and the decks were fashioned out of wood from the island of Cypress. And the sails came from the embroidered linens of Egypt. The ventures were costly, and the returns slow in coming, but Philip was generous to Mahlir, allowing him to draw against future profits.

At last Mahlir and Amanirenas, together as a team, came to be successful. They had struggled under Pilate, living in poverty while surrounded by luxury. But now things were changing. Amanirenas learned the business well, and was a good and loyal partner. Mahlir would joke with her that if he died she could run the business as well as he, better maybe. She learned all its details, its intricate methods of accounting, its dealings with landowners and with foreign governments, the negotiations involved, the various peculiarities of each of the cultures, the special precautions needed for perishable goods, the risk factors on seas, all of it.

And Philip learned nothing at all, did nothing at all. But that was fine with Mahlir and Amanirenas. At least this way they could make decisions without interference, without the disagreements that so often plague partnerships. Though their work was doubled and their profits halved, they were at peace. They were traveling an exciting road, one of adventure, of unbounded opportunity, and they watched their creation take shape and their profits begin to grow. The only frightening thing to Mahlir was the way Amanirenas spent money. What if a disaster came? One storm could send their ships to the bottom of the sea. It was Mahlir’s opinion that they needed reserves. He cringed every time she brought home a lamp stand purchased from a street huckster, or a pair of shoes or an iron pot from one of the hundreds of merchants whose window shutters and counters sprawled out into the streets to tempt passersby, often stopping traffic altogether.

Too often she patronized the establishments of the higher-class merchants. Mahlir came home one day to find a bedstead of carved Mahogany for which she had paid twelve hundred sesterces. Another time she bought a dinner couch veneered in tortoise shell. Mahlir soon resigned himself to simply letting it be and saying nothing at all, because she owned half the business and had as much right as anyone to decide the way of its profits. He was perhaps too conservative in the outlay of expenses, and not thankful enough for the blessings of their success.

Esther continued with her servitude in the new place. Without being forced, without needing direction, she continued to keep the business in order, following its complexity as it grew, always creating new systems for organizational simplicity. And she continued to help with the children. The children were her passion, her priority. Her greatest pain came when Amanirenas began to nurse. It was Esther who had encouraged her to try. It was Esther who showed her how, and helped her prepare for the duties. And, in Esther’s face could be seen satisfaction as Amanirenas took to the role. Yet there also could be seen the pain.

Amanirenas and Mahlir had better lives because of Esther, a woman wonderful to the point of godliness. She had insisted on coming with them on their journey into fate’s uncertain future, though Mahlir had offered her her freedom, though Pilate had offered to take her into his own household among his own servants.

Caesarea Philippi, the city of their new home, was built by Philip in honor of Caesar, as was the city of Tiberias built by Antipas for the same reason, though Philip’s homage was to Caesar Augustus. Caesarea Philippi, also called Paneas by the Greeks in honor of their god Pan, was built on the shores of the Banias, the largest and most powerful of the Jordan headwater streams. The Banias quite literally leaps out of the rocks of Mt. Pan, the footstool of Hermon, rising upward from the recessed cliffs wherein is built the playful and carefree demi-god’s temple. It is joined by the Dan, the Sa’ar, and the Hazban, along with a collection of smaller streams, to form Israel’s mightiest and holiest river. From the base of Hermon, the mighty mountain of God, it begins its travels, and grows and matures and sanctifies, until it plunges into the Dead Sea and is stripped of itself, only to rise from its death new and transformed, having manifested itself into countless individual droplets destined to fall onto the earth and bring forth life all over again. Glimpses of the foaming Banias could be seen from Mahlir’s and Amanirenas’ veranda as it tumbled its way through the forest. The power of its flow turned the milling wheel in the flour mill, which they could hear grinding through the night, if they were silent enough to discern it, if they took the effort to separate it from the hushing roar of the streams themselves and the whisper of the wind through the leaves of the sycamores, always stronger after the disappearance of the sun. Mahlir and Amanirenas sometimes lay at night in each other’s arms and listened to those sounds, and savored the innumerable scents of the forest, also stronger at night, strongest of all in the purple hours of dawn. Also to be heard, a less pleasant sound, were the prayers of the Pan worshipers, a reminder of the diversity within the city, and the quite amazing fact that two religions so vastly different could co-exist with one another. Mahlir never went to the Temple of Pan, nor did any other Jew, though its pillars and altars were visible from most every part of the city. It was inset into the steep orange and golden crags of the mountainside, almost at the exact place where the Banias emerges. So imposingly does Pan rise, cliff like, with mounds of pennywort and lip fern growing out of solid rock, that the taller Mt. Hermon can’t readily be seen.

Mahlir’s and Amanirenas’ veranda swept a view of the forest north to south, from the cliffs of Pan all the way to the city gate, below which bubbled the Sa’ar at the bottom of its tree lined canyon. Entrance to the city from all routes was through this monolithic arch of stone, its form-fitted rocks interwoven with sturdy vines and flowers. The highway dropped down from the crest of a rolling ridge upon which converged the roads from Tyre, Bethsaida, and Damascus, and crossed over the Sa’ar and through the gate. Sometimes Mahlir looked out over it all and felt undeserving, for being so happy with Amanirenas. His prayer, said each morning as he stood on the veranda with the forestland in view, was that he be able to travel through the day doing no harm. Perhaps there would be days when he wouldn’t do anything good, but neither would he do harm to anyone. Not anymore. Not ever.

They rented their house from one of the city’s wealthy Sadducees at a fair figure. It was a building separate from the king’s mansion, unlike in Caesarea where their home had been a room within Pilate’s palace, and a small room at that. Here at Philippi, their home was a small country villa – Philip thought it small at least – and was a short walk only to the palace. Their front gate opened into a colonnaded street filled with merchants; in back was a garden of a thousand acres, the forest itself, lavish with vegetation and foaming fountains made by the hand of God. It was the furthest home to the south, abutting the forested city’s edge and the road to the city gate. Travelers leaving or entering Caesarea Philippi had to walk right by the house. People would sometimes scrawl writings and poems on its walls, in the varied languages of their origins. Amanirenas and Mahlir would play games and wager with one another over who could offer the best translation. Philip’s palace, to the east, lay a stone’s throw away at the confluence of the Sa’ar and the Banias, and made up the city’s southeast corner. Its entrance was underground on the Banias side, and was through a complex system of gates and tunnels. Attached to the palace’s opposite end, on the city side, was the town synagogue, separate from the palace, yet a part of it, so the people could assemble while being close to their king, so that if they had grievances the king would be there to hear.

The difference between the palaces of the three heads of state, of Pilate, Antipas, and Philip, marked the differences between the men. The design of Pilate’s Caesarea home was a collection of bold military lines and angles, right down to the cut of the hedges and pathways in the garden, softened by the artistic presence of things Greek and Roman. The palace of Antipas was sprawling and open, with road sized hallways and sky high ceilings, as if announcing to the world that here lives a man large and powerful. Philip’s abode, though also large and spread out, didn’t quite have the same grandiose appearance. In design it was far larger than any of the others; it just somehow seemed more comfortable, more like a place where someone would want to live, unpretentious, somehow.

In Philip’s palace Mahlir often thought he was inside the fortified walls of a village, one of plentiful but modest means, a peaceful village with murmuring fountains and groves of fruit trees at every turn, a pleasant place. Now and then Philip could be seen strolling about, unguarded, uncrowned, smiling and speaking to all that passed, almost in a shy way. Recreation for Amanirenas and Mahlir often took the form of walking in the forest, their preferred way of spending the afternoon rest periods. A waterfall was generally their destination. It was forty-five minutes away through a pathway along the Banias, arched over with trees and vines and flowers, a playland for birds and other forest creatures. Puffs of brown regularly scurried across the path, darting shadows in the filtered sunshine, the Shaphan, harmless. While the city slept, Mahlir’s family was at play. Caesarea Philippi, like Rome, the city after which it was patterned, observed the standard two-hour Roman nap period with the regularity of a religious festival. During this time the streets were deserted, more so than in the middle of the night. Businesses and shops closed down, roving peddlers disappeared and children ceased their play. All was silent save for the occasional barking of a dog and the swirling of leaves over the paving stones. Professional dealings were impossible. That was the frustrating part, because so often Mahlir would be in the middle of a transaction requiring urgency. And the world would stop. The rest period did of course allow Amanirenas and Mahlir their family time, to stroll to the waterfall for a mid-day meal of bread and wine, splash in the water, talk, play with the children. Sometimes they would take Esther. Mostly it was just the two of them and the children.

The waterfall, double channeled and decorated in streaming sprays of white and blue, and ornate hangings of green, was, to Mahlir and Amanirenas, the most beautiful spot on earth.. No wonder the forest here was sacred to the Romans and Greeks as the home of their god Pan. The pool along the edges was shallow, ankle deep most of it. Isaiah loved to splash in it. They had to be careful; it spilled into rushing rapids that would surely whisk away a young life. He was just beginning to form words. One was Ba-yah, which meant Banias. Whenever he said it, Mahlir and Amanirenas knew he wanted them to take him to the pretty water, as Tabitha named it. On the Sabbath they spent the entire day there, resting, as God will rest when his creation is completed.

The days seemed to sew themselves together in a kind of wonderful blur, becoming weeks, becoming months. Before they knew it Tabitha was three, Isaiah almost two. The mix of Kushite and Hebrew blood had bestowed upon both children the gift of beauty – soft golden skin the color of burnished bronze, ice black hair, eyes dark and large with wonder. Tabitha’s hair was just beginning to grow long. Isaiah, who had been bald until only recently, had hair that flipped up in short squiggly curls. His mouth was always wide with that same smile that came with his birth. Like Tabitha, he was late in talking, forming only the basics of words for the first two years of his life. As it had been with Tabitha, he was drinking in information, because all of a sudden, he began to speak. One surprising day words and sentences flew from his lips, in mixes of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. It was then that Mahlir began to have fun with his son, this child meant to be, this child protected by God, destined for deeds great and numerous. Isaiah more than made up for being late in talking, being able to carry on a conversation at a near adult level. He was brilliant, far beyond the average two-year-old, yet another sign that here was a child meant to be. They loved to play hiding games with each other. Isaiah would always hide in the same place – not so brilliant – then say, "NO!" when Mahlir would ask if he was in there. And they loved to look at the moon at night. Moon was one of his first words. Sometimes its light would stir the child from sleep. He’d wake Mahlir and they’d look at it together, then Mahlir would light a lamp and tell him a story, his arm hooked around the little shoulders, feeling Isaiah warm against the side of his chest, feeling, hearing his breathing as the child would fall off again into his dreams. Stories of his own heritage were Isaiah’s favorites, because they were exciting and filled with adventure. Could it be that a child so young could understand? But then Isaiah was no ordinary child. Your grandfather Matthias, he was high priest, you know, under Herod-the-Great.

Isaiah nodded his head and examined Mahlir with those large brown eyes.

A high priest is someone who can help you talk to Yahweh, Mahlir explained.

Way-Way, Isaiah would repeat, whenever someone would speak of the name of God.

"Your grandfather was the one who pulled down Caesar’s golden eagle from over the great gate of the Temple and hacked it to pieces. Your great grandmother was famous too. She was the queen of an entire kingdom, down below the habitable earth in a place called Kush. She had the same name as your mother. She was Queen Amanirenas."

And he told Isaiah about Eli, the wealthy Saducee who’s dream it was to see the client state of Judea annexed by Rome, a dream later realized by Mahlir when he was successful in convincing Caesar to proceed with the annexation.

That was a long time ago, Mahlir said.

The story Isiah found most fascinating – Mahlir should never have told such a tale to a child so young – was the one where Isaiah’s uncle had been killed in the Bethlehem massacre, where King Herod had all the children in the town killed, not that Isaiah was fascinated by the carnage of it, but by the idea that such evil could exist, like he was trying to figure it out, like it was some perversion of nature that didn’t fit, that shouldn’t exist, and he needed to understand the reason why. Again! Isaiah would say, his forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. Tell again. Uneasy with the story, but proceeding anyway, Mahlir would recount how his first wife Rachel had been playing with her little brother one morning in the early hours before dawn, when the sun was just beginning to show itself. She had been sixteen at the time, her little brother three. No, four! he would always insist, because four was so much better than three. When the sun crested the horizon it silhouetted something confusing, an array of soldiers on the eastern ridge. The scent from the breakfast fires was beginning to fill the air, and the world seemed new, like good things were about to happen – but such was not the case that day. The soldiers, every tenth one on horseback, were not there to protect them. They were there to kill the children, just the children, to hunt them down like jackals, passing adult men and women by. Just the children. The mothers and fathers, the older children, the elderly, they all did their best to protect their most valued asset, using as weapons anything they could lay hands on, stones, cooking ware, even spears plucked from the bodies of their own children. It was a futile effort. The soldiers were too many in number, and they had been trained in the art of killing from the time they were themselves children. Spears and javelins were skillfully impaling toddlers; heads were being sliced off with swift precision; fleeing children were being cut in half as they ran in terror; infants were being ripped from their mother’s arms and dashed against stones; women were being disemboweled in a deadly search for even the unborn. If a king had decreed it, how is it that anyone would follow such an order?, Isaiah wanted to know. Mahlir of course couldn’t answer that question. Nor could anyone. Rachel lived her days in confusion, trying to figure it out. And she spent her days in guilt, because she kept wondering – what if she would have taken her brother immediately and run? Then would he have survived? The way it happened, she just stood there in her shock, and watched as a sword came slashing across her brother’s face. A red line appeared through his eyes then fell open to expose tender muscle. She told of being surprised that there was that much thickness in a human face. Her little brother’s mouth formed a look of surprise, like the look a child might get when there is sudden pain, as tiny red bubbles started to form on the whiteness of the splayed open wound. But there must not have been any pain, because no sound came out, not even when the eyeballs bulged and burst from the blood building up inside them. There was only the look of surprise, then nothing at all. Then he fell, and before she could react or run to the body, the soldier’s hand was there and plucked it up. In the single grip of that huge hand the soldier galloped away with her baby brother, carrying the tiny body in an almost tender way, as if he was ashamed of what he had done and was going to try to fix it. And that was it. That was the last she saw of her brother. Nothing she could do. It was as if an eagle had swooped down and flown off with him. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think about her little brother, and wonder where the body might be, or parts of it. Her mind would turn on it awhile, then when the pain would become too intense to bear, her mind would rescue itself by calling up a pleasant memory. Usually it would be something cute he used to say, like his insistence that he was really four. No, I four! Or how he thought he was too big to be hugged and would squiggle away. Sometimes it was just the way he looked with his curly black hair and his brown little eyes of enthusiasm. Sometimes it would just be the way she would feel at night when he’d sleep next to her, the soundlessness of an unspoken connection. Was he my uncle?

Yes. Step-uncle, to be precise. It means you and he have the same bloodline on your father’s side, but a different one from your mother.

Rachel was his mother.

That’s right, and Amanirenas is your mother.

Where Rachel? Why we don’t see Rachel?

Rachel? Well, Rachel was – It was painful for him to talk about it, and he’d already filled Isaiah with enough fear of the world he had entered. And Rachel’s demise was even more brutal, she having been a victim of the purging of Archelaus, son of Herod-the-Great, where Archelaus personally tortured and murdered family members of those he considered to be political enemies, in front of their anguished eyes.

Where? Where Rachel?

Rachel was, I’m afraid –. I’m afraid I lost her in the purging.

We go find her then.

I wish we could. But she’s been dead for a long time.

You mean she was killed too in Bethlehem by the soldiers?

No, she died later, under the kingship of Herod’s son Archelaus, in the purging.

What is purging?

Purging is where an evil king kills those who openly disagree with his rulings and his policies.

Isaiah was silent. Mahlir had gone too far. He spoke in a voice of reassurance. Sometimes children need to be protected from knowing too much about the world they have entered. You know, don’t you, that it’s not going to happen to you? What Herod did? You know that, don’t you?

But why Her’ do that?

It’s important to me that you know that it’s not going to happen again. Herod-the-Great is dead. And his sons are much better people. And anyway, Governor Pilate is now ruling in place of the king, and you know Pilate. Governor Pilate is a very nice man.

Yes, he’s nice, affirmed Tabitha. Will we ever see him again? I liked Pilate.

I’m sure we will someday.

Do you know what Pilate told me? said Tabitha. He told me that if he was twenty years younger I’d have to watch out. Why did he say that?

I think he meant that you are a very pretty girl.

Oh.

Father? asked Isaiah.

Hmmm?

But why Her’ do that?

Mahlir shook his head. I don’t know. Men do deeds of evil for various reasons. Jealousy. Greed. A craving for power.

Isaiah’s little forehead remained crunched up as he tried to make sense of the puzzling world to which his birth had subjugated him. You mean women don’t do deeds?

Mahlir laughed. Of course they do. By men I mean both men and women, just easier to say.

Well you should say it the right way, said Tabitha. If you mean both you should say both. There was a smile on her face to match the playfulness of her words, though the intent was serious.

OK. Yes, you’re right. I will do that next time. You’re like your mother, do you know that?

You mean ’cause my skin is more black than yours?

Well, that too, but more importantly I meant your personality. Your personality is like your mother’s.

What’s personality? Tabitha asked.

Means the way we think about things, the way we react to life’s circumstances.

"What is circumstances mean?"

Story! Story! Isaiah blasted out.

OK, little man, back to the story. The reason for the massacre. I think the reason might have been because of the Kingmakers.

What’s kingmakers?

"Kingmakers. They’re Parthian Magi. The Magi make up half the Parthian Senate. They’re the caste-born royal upper crust. People call them the Kingmakers because they are the ones that nominate and install kings in the land under Parthian rule. No king wears a Parthian crown anywhere within the umbrella of Parthia without first gaining the approval of the Magi. Some twenty and more years ago the Magi showed up in Jerusalem looking for a child they claimed had been born their king.

This time the question was from the lips of Amanirenas, who had been silent up to now. One thing has always confused me about that story. Why would the Magi be looking for their king in Jerusalem?

I heard it this way, from the very lips of a Magus. Belteshazzar was his name. The story goes like this: The Magi for years have held a belief that a world savior would be coming that would lead them in a battle of world conquest, beginning first with Rome then expanding to the other empires and kingdoms. Same with the Jews. They believed the same thing, which is not surprising, given that five hundred years ago the two cultures and beliefs merged. You’ve heard people speak of ‘The Exile?’ The Parthians, who were then called Babylonians, captured the Jews and forced them to relocate in Babylon. Their king, Nebuchadnezzar, was a crafty one. Instead of forcing them to live like slaves out of which hatred and resentment would grow, he assimilated them into his society, made them a part of the Babylonian citizenry, so that they would work with pride for the betterment of their new nation and forget about their homeland. People intermarried, languages merged and changed – Aramaic evolved from such a merger – and most significant of all, religious beliefs fused and reformed themselves, resulting in a belief both sides shared of the coming of a savior. When you hear people speak of ‘The Exile,’ that is what they are talking about, the leading of the Jews into Babylon. Follow me so far?

They all wagged their heads yes.

"Good. All right. So. Both the Jews and the Parthians were expecting a savior to be born. Right? The Magi are not only the royal born upper crust of Parthian society, but there are also those among them that are mystic seers, able to study the stars and learn from them the hidden meanings they hold for life on earth. Symbolic of this are the tall conical caps they wear, embroidered with stars and half-moons. Well, one night, as these Magi were watching the heavens for a sign of the savior’s