Sunrise on the Mediterranean (54 page)

After a long silence Dadua spoke reluctantly. “You are invited to stay. My palace is still under construction, but every effort
will be made for your comfort.” Mimi would have docked him hospitality points for his lack of enthusiasm. Then again, his
house
was
under construction. “Our celebration of the New Year begins day after tomorrow.”

RaEm raised her chin a notch. “I wish you well on its eve. Do you celebrate?”

Dion was glaring ferociously at RaEm, then glancing at Cheftu. I felt like laughing because Dion anticipated that I was she
and expected Cheftu to react to that. Meanwhile RaEm knew what I looked like as me, but Dion didn’t. So she was also looking
at Cheftu, probably surprised that he was alive and casing him to see if I was around.

And I had to feed and entertain all these people.

“It is a month for celebrations,” Dadua said. “In weeks we will bring the totem of my people into this city as its new home.”

“I have heard of this marvel,” RaEm said.

“Then you must of course stay,” he responded coolly. “As you are also invited, Zakar Ba’al.”

Dion bowed his head just a fraction. Modern business power plays were managed by who spoke first. Now, they were using the
degree and angle of head inclinations in the same way. In my time, he who made someone wait carried the power. Here, he, or
she, who bowed his, or her, head the least seemed to broker it.

Dadua was holding his own well, especially considering he didn’t have the experience of his fellow rulers. He really
was
a Bronze Age Bible character. RaEm had played around in the twentieth-century world. I guess Dion had lived through the past
millennia. They both had a right to more polish, but Dadua was recognizably a king.

How had RaEm become Pharaoh? I was dizzy with questions.

Avgay’el touched my hand, speaking from the corner of her mouth. “Is dinner ready?”

Hysterical laughter bubbled up. She had an immortal— make that two—three time travelers, the founder of the nation of Israel,
and twelve Amazons in this audience chamber, and she was worried about dinner?

“Klo-ee?” she repeated my name.

Yep, she was worried about dinner. “Thy will be done,” I said on my way out.

The New Year (
Rosh
—first;
ha
—the;
shan’a
—year) began with the
shofar
blowing. Each family would eat sweet things, pray to Shaday, and prepare for the Day of Atonement.

Cheftu was cracking nuts and eating the meats as we sat on our balcony, watching the sky darken with night. It was our first
moment together alone since the weirdness that was a transvestite RaEm and Hiram Revealed had showed up.

“She’s Pharaoh?” I commented, still amazed.

He grunted.

“Has she said anything to you?”

“
Lo
, though there has been no time, with the feasting, the harvesting, the preparing for the day, and the return of the totem.”

“Has he?” I asked, though my tone was a little arch.

“
Lo
, nothing.”

I leaned my head back, looking up at the stars. “Why are we here? Just how screwed up is history that RaEm is on the Egyptian
throne? My sister the Egyptologist would completely freak out at how we’ve messed up the past with this crazed ancient Egyptian!”

“Do you not like being here?”

“I’m with you, but you must admit it’s kind of odd. Nothing is blowing up, no one is sick. There are no fires, no locusts.
In fact, I don’t know what our purpose here is at all.”

He looked up. “Perhaps simply living?”

I sighed, antsy. “Perhaps.”

“Dadua just completed negotiations for the plateau above the Tsori Milo,” Cheftu commented. We could see it from our balcony
if I leaned out really far from the southern corner of the window.

“More land for us to inhabit?”

Cheftu’s gaze sharpened. “Is there an ‘us’?”

“You and me,” I said. “Just you and me.”

We harvested the olives by spreading linens beneath the trees, then using long poles to shake the branches so that it rained
olives.

RaEm and Dion sat on opposite hills, alternately seeking audiences with Dadua. RaEm wanted gold; Dion wanted access. Dadua
gave RaEm some gold; he assured Dion of escorted access. Still they sat sprawled over the mountaintops, their entourages mingling
in the city, growing lax under the summer heat, glowering at each other, trying to get more out of
haMelekh.

Cheftu wrote: letters to Abdiheba’s old vassals, demanding tribute; documents that created a formal state with a governing
structure; and transcriptions of N’tan stories. Around him the Tsori built the city of Jerusalem.

Avgay’el was pregnant again. Mik’el never showed up for anything, ever. The mushroom sprouted breasts, and somehow her teeth
began fitting in her mouth. The heat of summer faded into Indian summer—though pre-Indian, it seemed a strange statement.
And every night Cheftu took delight in trying to impregnate me.

It was
Shabat
morning, in the courtyard of the under-construction palace, where we all still were after the evening’s storytelling and
feasting. The court—
giborim
, wives, priests, seers, and the ever-present minor nobles—were lying about in the sunshine like cats. My head was on Cheftu’s
knee as we lazily munched grapes, listening to some musicians plink and pluck.

From inside the palace there was a shout; doors slammed against walls, then another shout. Running footsteps, then Dadua stepped
into the sunshine. The
giborim
were just getting used to treating him like royalty, affording him the protocol his station demanded, but there was a delayed
reaction before we all knelt.

“I have heard from Shaday,” he said without preamble. This was news; Dadua had been mournful because Shaday had been silent.
“He has told me how to build his house,” he said.

God’s house? What would that be? I wondered. Not a church or a synagogue—omigod. Suddenly I was fighting the urge to shiver
and run. God’s house, on the Temple Mount? I swallowed.

Dadua unrolled a sheaf of papyrus. “I dreamed, then drew the plans.” Motioning for us to step forward, he began to describe
the House of Shaday.

“It must be finely wrought from cedar and gold,” he said. “A temple that shows the most beautiful side to the world, but encases
Shaday.”

I looked at the plan. It seemed fairly small, compared with Karnak, where Amun-Ra was worshiped, or Knossos, home of the mother-goddess,
but very elaborate. “It will be a permanent Tent of Meeting,” he said.

Dadua was pointing to the drawing. “The outer court is here, where the sea and the fires are.”

The sea was a huge basin of water. Huge. Sitting on the back of life-size bronze calves. The fires were at the top of ziggurat-looking
buildings, a place for sacrifice. “This will be the outer court, where those who are not tribesmen, but who believe in Shaday,
may come to be close to his glory.”

His finger moved to the next enclosure. “This will be the court for women to worship. Here and here,” he said, moving his
finger to the left and right, “will be storage rooms for the Levim priests.” The next space was the court for men, then for
priests only, and finally only the high priest would enter the room with the Seat of Mercy.

“The two pillars from the current tabernacle will front the building. The whole thing will be from limestone and cedar, the
interior walls coated in gold, then etched with pomegranates and the winged lion of my tribe.”

I watched the raised eyebrows among the
giborim.
With those emblems he would be making a clear point.

God’s House. The Temple in Jerusalem. David went on to explain that this Temple would not belong to any one tribe; it would
be the property of this city, which was the possession of Dadua. The strategic position of Jerusalem would be not only in
bridging the tribes of the north and south, but also in housing their holiest relic. Dadua would not only be king, he would
be comptroller of the faith.

He showed another piece of papyrus filled with his passionate but illegible writing. “These are the outbuildings, the priests’
offices.” He indicated how they would link through an underground passageway to the governmental offices below.

“What does this symbol mean?” Yoav asked, pointing to a repeating character.

“Covered in gold,” Dadua said.

The whole Temple was going to be gold.

We looked at the Temple drawings in silence. I wondered if these tough soldiers realized how this building was going to change
everything. Had they brought back enough gold to do all of this?

“What say you, N’tan?”

“Most excellent,
haNasi!
This beauty is sure to please Shaday. These plans will be simple to execute. However, there is a great deal of gold needed.”

Dadua met his prophet’s gaze until N’tan bowed his head. “Thy will be done.”

The Feast of the
Shofar
, or New Year’s, segued into plowing season, interrupted by the Day of Atonement. Solemnly we stood on the walls and parapets
and streets of the city, watching as a priest tied a red sash around the goat’s neck.

One goat was sacrificed before the totem in Qiryat Yerim, coating everything in sacramental blood. We didn’t see that part.
Another goat, the one with the red sash symbolic of the tribes’ transgressions, was sent into the Hinon valley to live with
the garbage. He was the inspiration for the term
scapegoat.
The rumor was that if Shaday forgave the tribesmen their offenses, the red sash would turn white miraculously.

Nothing was eaten on this day. We didn’t bathe or dress ourselves, as an outward sign of the internal realization of how we
needed to strive after god. Although Cheftu and I weren’t tribesmen, we followed the ritual.

The next morning the tribesmen were back to plowing and I was back to avoiding RaEm, Dion, and the entire surrealistic mess.
RaEm wanted more gold; Dion—was just watching and waiting. He hadn’t sought out Cheftu, so maybe he had changed?

At dusk the
shofar
blew, summoning us to the city gates. Dadua stood above us, the dying sun creating a ruddy nimbus around his head. Abiathar,
the high priest, stood to one side, Dadua’s wives to the other. I was beside Cheftu.

“Good people of Jebus,” Dadua said, “my friends, my family, my
giborim.
The vines grow heavy with fruit all around us, all about us
el ha
Shaday blesses our efforts throughout the land. In worship of him I have decided that the city of Jebus will no longer be
known by this name. No more will the gods, the traditions, or the bloodthirsty rituals of the Jebusi be commemorated.

“Tonight Jebus is reborn as a city apart from the tribes. A city fought for and won by myself and the
giborim.
It will be called Tziyon. This is the name
el ha
Shaday has himself given it.”

What did Tziyon mean?

“No longer a part of Binyami or Yuda, but a royal city.

“Tziyon will be a city devoted to peace, to the worship of
el ha
Shaday. I will open her gates to any who seek to share their wisdom, knowledge, or skill with the tribes. Artisans may journey
from any land to rest within her gates. Craftsmen from any tribe will be welcome at my table in exchange for their training.
Scholars, scribes, and seers are forever after invited to stay for study, discussion, and to educate each other and us.”