Free The Ironsmith by Nicholas Guild Page B

nearest the track—so near that, once, a clod of mud thrown up by the horses’ hooves hit her in the breast, a mishap which left her strangely excited—and when the winners took their victory lap she would throw coins to them as they drove by. An afternoon at the races could turn into an expensive business, and in the winter months, when the weather was agreeable, she would want to go two or three times a week.
    And she was always buying clothes and new sandals and little jeweled pins, which she claimed were presents for her family but which somehow collected in the drawers of a small cabinet she kept in their bedroom.
    Once—just once—Caleb tried to persuade her to be less lavish in her expenditures, but the approach was met with scornful derision.
    â€œI am the daughter of a Levite family and was never taught to acquire the habits of poverty. Do you expect me to live like a porter’s wife?”
    Then she turned her back to him and refused to speak to him or even look at him.
    Caleb found he had no defense against this. Finally, he even tried to apologize, but she wouldn’t hear him. This went on through most of the day.
    At last, in the evening, when they were preparing for sleep, still turned halfway away from him, she opened her lips, speaking as if to some third person in the room.
    â€œPerhaps I should return to Jerusalem,” she said. “I could live with my mother, as a widow. A husband who cannot support his wife might as well be dead.”
    In bed, she wouldn’t allow him to touch her.
    This went on for several days and then, quite suddenly, she seemed to forget all about it. She was not affectionate, but at least she was civil.
    Perhaps she thought he had learned his lesson, in which case she was right. As the contents of his purse dwindled, Caleb became increasingly desperate. He was less afraid of poverty, or even of death, than of losing Michal.
    If he had not met the Lord Eleazar, there was no telling what he might have been driven to.
    The First Minister had seen in him qualities he had not even realized he possessed. And now, perhaps inevitably, those very qualities, ambition and cunning, had brought Caleb into conflict with him.
    And of late the Tetrarch had seemed to favor the servant over the master.
    Did Eleazar feel the cool breath of the ax upon his neck? Who could say. His demeanor was unchanged, but that meant nothing. Eleazar was an unreadable man and as cold as a pond eel.
    But Eleazar was also a wily man, as wily as he was inscrutable—a fact affirmed by his twenty years at the center of power.
    Still, he could be brought down. Anyone could be brought down. It was the one immutable fact they all lived with, that haunted their dreams.
    Caleb looked back at his house and decided, quite suddenly, that it no longer pleased him. It was too small and was in the wrong part of the palace district. The Lord Eleazar lived in a far larger house and owned perhaps another ten or twelve larger still. He even had houses in Tiberias and Jerusalem.
    Perhaps in time, Caleb thought, all of these would be his. Perhaps they would all be part of his reward, after the Lord Eleazar had fallen, for having saved the Tetrarch from his subjects.
    And he would stand in the reception hall on one of them and receive the submission of all the great men of Galilee.
    It was a pleasant idea.
    Caleb decided that he had lingered in the shade of his doorway longer than was consistent with dignity, and he stepped out into the street.
    The sun was unusually hot for so early an hour, which contributed to his almost voluptuous sense of grievance. The heat, as it shimmered over the cobblestones, really was unbearable. Nothing but his sense of duty could have called him out into the glaring sunlight on such a day, and he looked forward to spending the rest of it at the baths.
    But first he must wheedle an ironsmith into an insignificant act of treachery. Judah had let fall a name, which had led