Christ the Lord - Anne Rice [20]
“We remember the year when Herod Archaelaus was deposed,” Cleopas said. “Ten years the man ruled, and then he was made to step down. And what happened in the land when the Emperor, on our behalf, took this action? I'll tell you what happened. Judas the Galilean and his Pharisee conspirator rose up, out of those mountains, and filled the countryside in Judea and Galilee and Samaria with murder and fire and pillage and riot! And we who'd seen it before, this very carnage at the death of Old Herod, we saw it again, in wave after wave, like a blaze in a dead field licking the grass out of the very air with tongues of flame. And down the Romans came as they always do, and the crosses went up and to walk those roads out there was to walk amid the cries and the groans of the dying.”
Silence. Even Jason gazed at Cleopas in silence.
“Now will you bring that here again?” asked Cleopas.
“You will not. You will stay where you are, in this village, here, in Nazareth, and you will let the High Priest and his advisors write to Caesar and lay before him this blasphemy! You will let those men set sail, as surely they will. And you will await their decision.”
For one moment, it seemed the battle was won. Then a cry rose from the doorway. “But everyone's going; they're all going . . . to Caesarea.”
Protests and fierce declarations rose on all sides.
Jason shook his head. The older men were rising to their feet, pushing and arguing, and men reached for their sons.
Menachim pulled back from James, defying him, and James blushed red with anger.
“Men are on their way now,” cried another voice from the back. And yet another. “A crowd is halfway there from Jerusalem!”
Jason shouted above the melee. “These things are true,” he said. “Men won't bear this insolence, this blasphemy, in silence. If Joseph Caiaphas thinks we will bear it to keep the peace, then he is wrong! I say we go to Caesarea, with our countrymen!” Shouts and screams rose louder and louder, but he was not finished. “I say we go not to riot, no! That would be folly. Cleopas is right. We go not to fight, but to stand before this man, this arrogant man, and tell him he has breached our laws and we will not stand down until he acknowledges us!”
Pandemonium. No young man was left on the floor; all stood, some jumping in their excitement, like the children who were pumping their fists furiously and leaping this way and that. Most of the women had risen. And others had to rise, as they couldn't see over the others. The benches from one end of the room rattled and thumped with the dancing feet.
Menachim and Isaac pushed their way to Jason's side and took their stand with him, glaring up at their uncle. Menachim took ahold of Jason's mantle. All the young men struggled towards Jason.
James grabbed for Menachim's arm, and before his son could get away, James gave him the back of his hand hard, but Menachim stood firm.
“Stop this now, all of you,” James cried out, but in vain.
A gasp came from Joseph. I felt it, though I couldn't hear it.
“You go into Caesarea as a body,” cried Cleopas, “and the Romans will draw their swords. You think they care whether you carry daggers or plowshares!”
The Rabbi echoed these words. The elders struggled to add their agreement, but it was all lost in the passionate cries of the young.
Menachim climbed up onto the bench beside Jason, and Cleopas, thrown off balance, fell. I caught him so that he stood on the ground on his feet.
“We go,” cried Jason, “we go together to stand before Pontius Pilate in such numbers he cannot imagine. What is Nazareth to be, a byword for cowardice! Who is a Jew that won't go with us?”
A new wave of noise