The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [22]
"I have come to speak with Joel bar Hezron," he announced much too loudly.
With reluctance the servant allowed him to step into a narrow tiled corridor. "You will wait here," he said. "What name shall I give to the young master?"
"Tell him it is Daniel bar Jamin, a friend from Ketzah."
The hallway where he waited was cool and dim, the oaken doors that led from it all closed. Through the open archway opposite him, Daniel stared with astonishment into a sunlit courtyard, at flowering trees and green borders and white marble. His ears caught the gentle splash of water and the trilling of birds. He had not dreamed that even Herod's palace could boast such wonders. What a fool he had been to think that Joel would even remember him!
There was a soft footstep, a rustle of silk, and a shadow fell between him and the sunlit opening. It was not Joel who stood there, but his sister Malthace. A robe of thin soft material fell in exquisite folds to delicate embroidered sandals. Her dark hair was bound back from her face with a thin fillet of gold. She started at sight of a stranger, and there leaped into her eyes recognition, and then something else, an unmistakable shrinking. His careful greeting fell back at his own feet. She made no greeting at all, only stared at him with dismay.
Then there was a thumping of feet. The boy who came charging across the courtyard had not changed at all. He was the same country boy who had jumped into the fight on the mountain road. He grasped Daniel by the elbows, his dark eyes glowing.
"Daniel! Welcome! I've been wishing—" He broke off with a quick glance over his shoulder. "You'll stay to eat with us? Of course you will!"
Pride battled with Daniel's clamoring stomach. "No," he said. "I came only to speak with you."
"You're certainly not going right away, after all this time."
"My clothes are dusty from the road."
"Oh—that! Just leave your cloak here in the hallway. For Father's sake, you know."
Daniel flushed, remembering that a common man who visited a Pharisee must leave his cloak at the door lest he make the household unclean. Slowly he undid Simon's coat, allowing Joel a glimpse of the torn and scanty garment underneath.
"Never mind," Joel said hastily. "Better wear it after all. It doesn't matter really."
Propelling his guest along the corridor, Joel was all at once aware of his sister, who still stood just inside the archway. "Thacia," he said, an uncertain note in his voice. "Do you remember Daniel—the one who—" He floundered to a stop.
Her fine dark eyebrows lifted. "I remember," she said, in a cool light voice. Then she turned on her embroidered sandal and walked away from them.
Joel looked after her with annoyance, then he shrugged. "Don't mind Thacia," he said. "She's putting on city airs lately. Come, we'll go up to my room where we can talk. If you knew what it's like to see someone from home!"
Daniel had to follow so rapidly through the courtyard that he had only a blurred impression of green beauty. They passed beneath a row of slender columns into another corridor, up a flight of shallow steps and into a small square room. Apparently Joel slept in this room, and did not even have to share it with anyone. There was a single low couch, with a striped linen covering, two carved wooden benches, a painted chest, and a desk with quills and an inkpot and a scroll propped open as though Joel had just been working on it.
Joel poured water from a fine pottery jar and laid out a smooth linen towel. Self-consciously Daniel washed his hands and feet and retied his turban. It was plain that Joel did not care whether he was respectable or not, that the boy was overjoyed to see him. Daniel's wiry self-confidence reasserted itself. He would not let himself be shaken again by a silly girl.
"Did Rosh send you?" Joel demanded. "Have you held up any more caravans? How about the slave,