The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [82]
Joktan squatted on the doorstep gnawing at the flat wheaten loaf that Daniel had brought out to him. "The apprentices have the day off," he remarked, eying Daniel hopefully.
"Go ahead then," said Daniel. "There'll be little business today." When Joktan had scampered off, he turned back to his forge. Through the morning hours he stuck dourly at his work, trying to ignore the tug of restlessness in the air. Once temptation had come from the distant mountain. This time it came from the city in the plain below.
At noontime the sound of singing drifted into the shop. Daniel laid down his hammer and went into his house.
"Would you go with me to see Thacia?" he asked Leah. "She will be dancing with the girls in the vineyard." He spoke idly, but half seriously too, thinking that her longing to see Thacia might tempt her.
"Are you going?" she cried now. "Then you can tell me about it!"
"Will you go with me?" he asked again.
A cloud shadowed her eyes. "Don't tease me, Daniel. But you will go, won't you?"
"I don't know," he answered, still trying to hide his real intentions from himself. "If I have time. I have to go to the city to take a lock and key to old Omar."
"Not in your old work clothes," Leah protested. "I've seen people going by. They're all dressed up. Wait—" She ran to the chest and pulled out his clean woolen cloak, and laughed at his halfhearted grumbling as she straightened it across his shoulders.
He walked along the road to the city, holding himself aloof from the holiday travelers, his unhappy, forbidding face giving no one any encouragement. In Capernaum, as he might have expected, the house of Omar was deserted, and he left his bundle inside the door.
He still told himself that he did not really intend to go to the festival, but his steps turned, almost against his will, toward the long slope of the vineyards. It was not hard to find his way. Voices and laughter drew him on, and he had only to follow their lead. Around one of the vineyards the young men of the town had gathered in a shifting, animated ring. He saw at once that he did not belong here. Even in his best cloak he stood out plainly for just what he was, a peasant and a smith. He dared not even approach too near to these elegant youths with their gaily striped cloaks, their leather sandals, their carefully oiled and combed forelocks and beards. They knew each other, called out greetings, jostled and jested, while he stood awkward and angry and alone.
Suddenly the merriment halted. The ring of boys tightened, drew inward. Daniel, who stood taller than most, craned his neck to see over their heads. At the other end of the vineyard a line of girls wound slowly from the green booths, a weaving line of white-clad figures, with wreaths of flowers in their hair and chains of flowers linking them one to another. The girls' voices, thin and high and sweet, floated among the trees.
"Look not, young men, upon gold or silver,
Nor upon beauty in these maidens.
Look only upon the good families from which they
spring,
So they may bear thee worthy sons."
Still keeping well behind the row of listeners, Daniel watched the line weave nearer. Then his breath caught as he saw Thacia. He had never seen her dance, but he knew well that sure flowing grace. He had marked it on that first day on the mountain. How gently she moved. Not like some others, striving to attract all eyes, nor yet fearfully, like those who crept with downcast lashes. She simply danced, as though she loved the motion for its own sake, her head up, her eyes shining, her lips parted in a little smile as she sang. As she came nearer, he saw that from time to time she gazed directly at the line of men, not coyly, not boldly, but with searching. She was looking for someone, and suddenly Daniel could not bear to see her face when she found him. He was shaken with terror. In a moment she would