The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [48]
"I need it at once," the Roman answered. "I will wait for it now."
Daniel studied him, trying to assess how much delay the man would tolerate. Then, with a shrug, he set to work. The sooner the job was done the sooner his shop would be rid of the man.
The soldier did not sit down on the bench by the door as ordinary customers did. He hesitated, through pride—Daniel would not admit that it might be decency—waiting to be asked. Let him rot away on his feet, Daniel thought. He would get no such invitation in this shop. Turning his back, Daniel seized the bellows and blew up the fire.
When he straightened again, the Roman was pulling off his helmet, revealing crisp fair hair. He wiped the back of his hand across his wet forehead where the metal had left an uncomfortable-looking crease. With a shock Daniel saw that he was very young, certainly no older than Joel. The beardless cheeks and chin scarcely needed a razor. His skin was white, mottled and peeling from exposure to the sun, so that he could not have seen service long under Galilean skies. The eyes that stared back at Daniel were a clear bright blue. He looked as though he might be about to speak and Daniel turned his back and resumed his work.
He took a ridiculously long time for the simple job. When finally he turned again, the soldier still stood, looking hot and uncomfortable, swinging the bronze helmet from one hand. He was no longer looking at the anvil, and Daniel, swinging to follow that intense blue gaze, suddenly stiffened with horror. The door to Simon's house stood open. Leah, who had surely not known the man was there, was coming through the little rear door from the garden, her hands full of green lettuce. The long golden hair streamed around her shoulders, lighted up all around her head from the sunlight behind her. Her eyes, blue as the ketzah blossoms, were empty with surprise.
Before she could shrink back, with one lunge, Danielslammed the door between them. Murderous hate boiled up in him. How dare the man look at his sister? The very touch of his eyes had defiled her, as surely as though he had touched her with his hand. Daniel was quivering as he handed over the bridle ring. It took every ounce of his will not to hurl the coin back into that blond face.
That night he began again to think of the mountain.
12
LATE ONE AFTERNOON a village boy came into the shop with a scythe to be mended. He had a bonv, weathertoughened face under a shock of straight black hair, a defiant, touchy alertness, and a blackened eye that roused Daniel's curiosity. As Daniel examined the blade, the boy paced the length of the smithy floor.
"Sit down," Daniel suggested, jerking an elbow toward the bench near the door. The boy, unable to sit for more than a moment, resumed his nervous pacing. Daniel set to work, blowing the waning fire with the bellows, heating and pounding straight the blade, then applying the sandstone to the nicks that the pebbly land had left. From time to time he glanced at the boy. Daniel seldom had words to spare for his customers. He did the work they required of him and took their money, not caring that he had a reputation for being surly. Today, for the first time, he was prompted to speak. For one thing, the boy was about his own age, and for another, he looked like a fighter. When he could make himself heard, Daniel attempted a joke.
"Must have been quite a scrap you were in."
There was no answering grin, but Daniel tried again. "What did you give him in return?"
There was a pause. Then, "What could I?" the boy burst out. "There were five of them."
Daniel's eyebrows lifted. He bent over his work.
"My own friends!" Bitterness rasped through the boy's voice. "Waited and jumped on me coming home from the field last night."
"Why?"
"Because my father has gone to work for Shomer the tax collector."
No wonder the boy looked defiant. It was a contemptible business for a Jew to hire himself out to collect the taxes the Romans did not stoop to collect for themselves. "There