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By Root 1192 0

pure logic when he needed to advance on his enemy. I stood upon the wall with the rest of our people and watched our valley fill with columns of fighting men. Following were those who would bake the soldiers’ bread and cook their meals and mend their cloaks, along with the zonnoth, women who would be kept in tents for the soldiers’ pleasure, and the slaves who would build the camps, dragging enormous timbers from the north through the desert, along with the smiths with their carts of weaponry—spears and shields and thousands of arrows. But there was something more fearsome that arrived with the legion, the sign of our fate, for the Romans had brought a lion on a chain with them. We grew faint when we saw this beast. He, who had once been free in the desert and had ruled the wilderness from his cave, the symbol of the strength of the ancient tribe of Judea, now must do his keepers’ bidding. He gazed at us, and in his eyes we saw the Romans’ desire.

They meant to devour us.

They attached the poor creature to a metal post, constructed directly across from the palace that had belonged to King Herod. This was where Silva’s camp was to be built, in a location that would be an insult and a challenge every time we looked upon it. While they built, we heard the roaring of the vanquished beast.

Yael had confided to me that she dreamed of a lion. As she had feared this creature, so had she been drawn to it. She wept when she told me this, and I understood why she was torn by the meaning of her dreams. A lion may lie beside an ibex in the shade if his appetite is sated, they may even sleep together, their backs resting against each other, but on the next day, if the lion wakes with hunger, then he must serve himself.

Now Yael’s dream had appeared before us. She stood beside me and wept to see the lion subdued in his chains, trapped as we were, enslaved by those whose brutality was an affront to nature, and to our people, and to God. After the dust had settled, we could observe him clearly, for there was only the pale blue air of winter before us and the light was clear, the wind fresh. Many said it was possible to view heaven from this mountain of ours, but now we seemed much closer to the first gate of hell. What we heard and what awaited us did not come from the reaches of God. It was below us, in the roar of the lion.

SOON ENOUGH a village was constructed by camp followers, with tents and shacks set up overnight. The scent of food drifted over the valley, cooking meat, bread, spices. We watched, poverty-stricken, starving, like ghosts at a table laden with a great feast. The building went on without ceasing, with slaves working through the night. This was an endeavor that was meant to last; the Romans were settling in. They would not leave, and they would not admit defeat. They began to build twelve towers, set a hundred yards apart, rising so quickly it seemed they came into being before our very eyes. Once the towers had been constructed, any man wishing to break through to the eastern valley would be running a gauntlet, with guards atop the observation posts. He would never make it to the other side.

As the slaves were completing the camps, more were brought in from the north to give form to a wall of stones. This wall was no worry to us until it began to zigzag into the mountains in a strange design. We did not understand the Romans’ intentions, for it seemed a fool’s endeavor to set a thousand Jewish slaves to labor throughout the day and night, carrying boulders so heavy many of the workers fell prostrate on the ground. When these pitiful men could not rise again, they were slain and left in the dirt, for it was easier to dispose of them than to heal them. The Romans were intent on this wall they built. We assumed they meant to enclose their camps, thereby protecting themselves from us. Certainly our warriors had plans for raids, however perilous, already in the making.

As soon as he was told of this wall, Ben Ya’ir came to look down upon it. When he took note of the stones cutting across the cliffs, he saw that this