Empire's End (7 page)

“I've seen it. It's in the worst repair.”

“Do you really have tentmaking experience?”

“I don't mean to boast, but in a few days, you will know.”

As Nadav disappeared into the night, I turned to find Alastor waiting just inside the tent, laden with the mat he and I had shared at supper, along with a heavy fur blanket. I apologized for putting him out and asked if I really needed so thick a covering.

“You might be surprised.”

He told me he had scolded Zuriel for his treatment of me and had also informed him that before I started repairing his tent, I would fashion my own lodging quarters. “For tonight you will sleep right here, but by tomorrow night you should have your own area around this side.”

Alastor led me out and showed me in the moonlight where I could add on to the side of his tent an eight-foot overhang, enclosed at the back to accommodate a sleeping mat, and open at the front except to block the sun, where I could work in the afternoon. “By the time you return from
the wilderness, I'll see to it that you have all the equipment and tools you need. We will all be glad to give up this odious chore, at which none of us bear any skill.”

“That is clear.”

“I'll thank you not to continue to emphasize that.”

Alastor started back inside but I lingered, having more questions and not wanting to bother his daughter or grandson. I asked him how I might earn actual money in the event I had debts, and how I would send money out of Yanbu. He told me of an elaborate scheme he and the others had devised that included their Red Sea night-fishing parties bartering with occasional caravans, and sometimes sending someone on a long journey to get messages to families and loved ones they had left.

I wondered how I would send payment to the Sanhedrin for my horse without revealing more about myself to these people than I cared to. I saved the question for another time.

Before we retired, Alastor whispered, “Taryn asked me to thank you for your kindness to Corydon. He has few playmates, and few adults pay him any attention.”

“Oh, she should think nothing of it. I find him amusing. But tell me, is she too shy to speak to me on her own?”

“She is in pain, Paul. And I'm sure she wonders about propriety. Give her time to get accustomed to having you around. It was insensitive of me to give her so little notice. I did not tell her of my dream because I was unsure of it myself, and then Corydon and I simply arrived with you, saying you would be staying with us.”

“How long ago did she lose her husband?”

“It has been only this year.”

Alastor's voice caught telling me that, which should have slowed me, but I asked, “And how did he die?”

He looked away and sighed. “We, ah, find it difficult to talk about yet.”

“Forgive me. You were close to him too.”

“I did not live with them, but he wanted me to. Taryn's mother has been gone for many years, but I am healthy, and I wanted to allow them time to themselves. Now I wish I had accepted his offer. He was such a wonderful man. I didn't know if we would ever smile again. Taryn told me you had the lad laughing.”

“I was just teasing him.”

“It humored her too. So good for her.”

“Well, I'm glad.”

We stepped back inside the tent and I spread out the fur covering. Alastor bid me good night, but just before he reached the curtain he returned. “Tell me something,” he whispered. “Were you really in Damascus yesterday?”

“I mounted Theo at first watch.”

The old man shook his head. “And I thought
I'd
had an experience when the Lord spoke to me. I don't know how you'll sleep.”

“I'm finally tired. I'm curious, though. I have no idea what I am to do in the morning. You say I am to meet God in the wilderness. I don't even know where that is.”

Alastor put one hand on his belly and another over his mouth and wheezed, clearly trying to keep from laughing. “You have been in the wilderness since you reached the Red Sea, my friend! All you have to do is leave the tent and head east and you'll have all the wilderness you want. But don't you think the God who got you here from Damascus in one day's time can get you where He wants you tomorrow?”

THE ARABIAN WILDERNESS

I
SLEPT THE SLEEP
of the dead and woke before dawn to a most unusual mixture of pungent odors. Next to my head sat a small table draped with a striped cloth, on which lay a loaf of warm bread and a shallow bowl of olives, which appeared to have been tossed with grapes.

I crept near the curtain to listen for whether anyone would join me, but I heard the old man's snore and nothing of the boy or his mother.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

“You are welcome, sir,” came Taryn's whisper, in a tone implying that I should not wake the others. She extended a cup of wine around the curtain.

“I don't usually eat this early,” I said. “But I'm grateful.”

“Father said you were going into the wilderness this morning,” she said dismissively. “You need something.”

I found her voice captivating, but it was also apparent she wished I would not make too much of her gesture and that she didn't care to commence a conversation.

The combination of sour olives with sweet grapes and the warmth of the bread made me close my eyes and sigh, and I silently thanked God for every bite. I considered returning the bowl and cup to Taryn, but not wanting to cause her any discomfort, I merely slipped out of the tent in the darkness and headed east through the communal area.

There the sand had been packed hard by daily life. I smelled the livestock and heard the horses nickering before I was confronted by the man on watch. He stepped into my path and I heard the faint scrape of blade against scabbard.

“Friend?” he said, tension in his voice.

“The new man, Paul,” I said. “Greetings in the name of Christ.”

“And to you, sir. If you're looking to relieve yourself, you'll find the easement area to the northwest about a quarter-mile.”

“Thank you. And might you have a lamp? I want to check on my horse.”

“A moment.”

He trotted away and returned to kneel and scrape a flint twice before a torch erupted with a hiss. “Yours is the big black stallion then?”

“He is. I call him Theo.”

“Well, Theo's been hungry, Paul. There's all that's left of his second bale.”

I held the light where I could see that my horse barely seemed to notice me as he chewed.

And God spoke to me.
Fuel for a long journey
.

“Oh, Lord, no.”

“You don't want him eating that much?”

“Sorry, no, it's fine,” I said, handing back the torch. “I'm off.”

Beyond the easement area I reached the softer, windblown desert sands that quickly filled my sandals. With no idea how far I was to go or what I was to do when I got there, I turned west again, my eyes on the horizon, waiting for the sun to rise behind me and lighten the sky.

Frustrated with myself for having responded aloud to the Lord's message about Theo, I determined again to speak to Him only in my spirit. Silently I said,
I believe You, I trust You, I am here. I will obey. But the steed has been so faithful to me. Must he—?

Do you seek to please Me or to please men?

I stopped.

Do not stop
.

I continued, but what a question! In my past I thought I pleased God by being zealous for Him, but I
had
craved the praise of men. I lived for the approval of my superiors, the priest Nathanael, who served as the vice chief justice, and the high priest, Caiaphas. Yet even then I was not serving God as much as I was serving the Law.

I no longer want to please men, Lord. I want to serve You and You alone
.

You must become a bondservant of Christ
.

A bondservant. Bound to serve without wages. A slave. All my life I had been superior to everyone else, at least everyone my age. I had been the best, the brightest, the fastest, the most accomplished, the most revered. Many considered me boastful. I couldn't deny it. I hadn't cared. I'd had much to be proud of. Surely the last thing anyone would have expected of me was to be a slave.

Yet now, as soon as I pledged myself to serve God alone, He asked me—no, commanded me—to become a bondservant of Christ. And strangely, nothing appealed to me more.
Yes, Lord! Anything!

My Son appeared to you to make you a witness of the things you have seen
and what I will reveal to you. I will send you to open the eyes of the Gentiles in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to Me, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in My Son
.

I wanted to say,
Yes, Lord
again, but I could not find utterance, even silently. I merely trudged on as a pinkish hue spread in the sky.

Make your way to the plateau before you
.

It appeared about a half mile away, and I prayed God would not remain silent as I increased my pace. I gathered my mantle at my thighs so it would not restrict me, and sand flew from my sandals as I broke into a trot. I felt as if I were racing into the very presence of God and couldn't get there fast enough. My breath became short and I wondered why He could not have prompted me to ride Theo.

The pink in the sky gave way to orange and then yellow and finally a cloudless blue, and the sun warmed the skin above and below the hair that rimmed my head. Sweat trickled down my neck, and I slipped out of my mantle, draping it over my arm as I ran on across the desert.

When finally I reached the plateau, I was spent and thankful beyond measure for the perfect breakfast I had enjoyed, without which I would not have been able to endure that run. But now I had to climb ten feet of steep, slippery rock, my throat parched, and spread my mantle across the broad boulder at the top so I could prostrate myself there in prayer.

I draped myself over it, planted my elbows, and rested my head in my hands.
Lord, I thirst
.

Thirst for Me
.

I do
.

And as my panting slowed, my physical thirst disappeared.

Prone there in the early morning sun, I might have dozed had I not been so expectant. Who else anywhere had been awarded such a privilege?
Should I have brought parchment and quills? On the other hand, could anyone forget anything told him by God Almighty?

He had to be amused at the very sight of me. What must the desert creatures have thought of the crazy man racing through the sand to the point of exhaustion, without food or water, now stretched out like a lizard in the sun?

Yet I had the sense I was where I was supposed to be, and I would wait there all day for another word from on high. It wasn't long before I wondered if I might have to. I lay there in an attitude of prayer for about an hour before my back stiffened and my joints ached and I found myself constantly shifting to take the pressure off my bones. Finally I sat up and crossed my legs. What a contrast to the comfort I'd felt on Theo's back as he hurtled hundreds of miles throughout night and day to get me to Arabia.

Was this a test? Did the Lord require something else of me? I would have done anything. But being sovereign and omniscient, He knew that. It began to dawn on me: I had never been a patient man. God had brought me to this remote, desolate wasteland to free me of the distractions of life. He had stripped me of all but the clothes on my back and the sandals on my feet and left me dependent on an old man, a widow, a child, a trade I hadn't plied since childhood, and a horse that didn't even belong to me and of which He had already implied He was about to deprive me.

Now He was forcing patience upon me. But had He not told me that He would use the same zeal, the passion that I had misdirected against Jesus, now to make Him known, yea, even to the Gentiles? Had He not planned since eternity past to make me both Greek and Roman and a Pharisee of Pharisees, to give me such a fervor for life that I would do anything for His cause? Would not my singular restlessness be of benefit to Him if I were to become a bondservant to His Son?

So young in my faith, so new in my rapport with God, and yet here I was already trying to shape the nature of how we should work together.

The silence of God is a harsh discipline, especially when you have known the sweet, rich fullness of His voice. I found myself suddenly overcome with emotion, conscious of His presence but also of my unworthiness. So unclean, so undeserving, so lacking in merit was I that even my conversion had been the result not of my repentance from sin, but entirely His doing. Jesus had, in effect, attacked me, forced His way into my heart and life and soul.

I had not sought Him. I'd even had to ask who He was! And when He told me, I had no choice but to surrender to Him!

Sitting on the unforgiving plateau in the hot sun under the unrelenting stillness of God, I bowed my head, wishing myself capable of wholly hiding from Him. It was as if the sun embodied Him now and my sin, all of it, was exposed. When He had merely impressed upon my heart that Theo had eaten nearly two bales of feed because he had another long journey ahead, my first response was to say no.

Well, of course it was, in my flesh. That animal had become almost human to me. But
no
?
That
was my response to God Himself?
That
was the attitude of a man who said he would become a bondservant and do anything? Did I not trust the Creator of the universe—the One who had miraculously delivered me to Yanbu from Damascus in one day—to provide for me without a horse? Did I not trust Him to get Theo all the way back to Jerusalem, to the Sanhedrin stables, to Nathanael himself, thereby clearing my debt?

Was my plan better? To eke out some sort of cash from this tiny band of refugees who had fled the same persecution I myself had inflicted on the followers of Jesus throughout Judea, and then risk exposing their
whereabouts to the authorities by sending payment for my horse to the precise ones looking for me and for them?