The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [51]
"When can we tell Rosh?" Joel demanded, eager for another glimpse of his hero.
"Not yet—" Daniel answered. He could not tell even Joel how he dreamed of the moment when he would tell Rosh. Now, while Joel read aloud to the listening boys the thrilling accounts he had shared with Daniel in the passageway, of David and of Judas Maccabeus, Daniel thought how he would lead Rosh down the mountain and confront him with an army, ready for his command. Then Rosh would no longer be an outcast. Then everyone would recognize the leader they had longed for, and the day would be very near.
On the morning after the third meeting, the fair-haired Roman soldier appeared again at the smithy. This time he had a broken stirrup to be mended. He paid no attention to the sullen scowl that showed that his business was unwelcome. He stood, his feet planted well apart in that Roman pose they seemed to learn young, looking deliberately about the shop, at the shelves of metal bars, the tools hanging along the wall, the door that Daniel had instantly shut between them and the inner room. Daniel kept his eyes on his work, fighting down a compulsion to find out what the man might be looking at. Could there possibly be a sign of last night's meeting? He did not draw an easy breath till the Roman, taking his time about it, finally clanked through the door mounted his horse and rode off. Then, searching the room frantically, he could find nothing that could possibly have drawn the man's suspicion. Had it been his imagination that the man was looking for something?
The Roman returned. Sometimes on the very day of a meeting, often on odd days between. He came now with work for his fellow legionaries, or with ridiculous excuses to have some perfectly sound bit of harness checked for a flaw. Once or twice Daniel, hearing the hoofbeats in the street, looked up to see the man ride slowly by his door, and then, almost immediately, so soon the man could scarcely have turned his horse, ride slowly back again. He discovered the prints of a horse's hoofs in the soft earth of the alleyway that ran along the garden wall where there was no possible reason to ride a horse. No question now, the house was being watched. The meeting place would have to be changed.
A new recruit, son of a farmer in the village, offered a solution. He led Daniel to an abandoned watchtower in his father's cucumber field, a small round stone house in which the whole family had once lived during the time of harvest to watch lest thieves despoil the ripening crop. Below the tower a shaft had been cut, designed, Daniel suspected, for hiding part of the crop from the count of the tax collector. It made a fine place to store the weapons they planned soon to have. The tower could be approached from many sides, across the field of vines. It was an ideal meeting place.
Abruptly, almost as soon as they shifted the meeting place, the Roman stopped coming. Warily, they stationed a guard near the new headquarters, taking turns at the duty. Not a sign of the soldier was ever reported. Luck was with them, Daniel decided. Still, there was something about it that made him uneasy.
13
DANIEL'S CHIEF DOUBT about the new meeting place, that it would take him from home for long hours at a time, resolved itself more simply than he expected. Leah listened to his explanation and seemed to grow accustomed to his absences as she had once accepted the fact that her grandmother must work in the fields. Leah was gaining confidence. She did not tire as readily at the loom. She had even completed a length of cloth which had been paid for by the servant of the widow of Chorazin. When Daniel had laid the shining silver talent in his sister's hand, she had been bewildered. He realized