As I came into the house, I saw he was with one of those students now, a young man named Nathanael, who sat quite literally at the old man's feet in the grand room of the house at the far end of the courtyard. I scarcely knew the young man. I'd seen him now and then on the pilgrimages.
I had a look at them both from a distance as I sat in the foyer. A patient slave washed my feet, as I took a drink of water from a limestone cup and gratefully gave it back to him.
"Yeshua," said the slave under his breath. "He's in a rage today. I don't know why he sent for you, but be careful."
"He didn't send for me, my friend," I said. "Please go in and tell him I must speak to him. And I'll wait as long as I have to."
The slave wandered off, shaking his head, and I sat for a moment enjoying the warmth of the sun as it came through the high lattice above the door. The mosaic floor of the courtyard had been our finest work. I studied it now, and I looked slowly at the full, rich potted trees that surrounded the mirrorlike pond in the center.
No pagan nymphs or gods decorated these floors or walls, not for this devout Jew. Only the permissible designs, circles, curlicues, and lilies, which once we had so carefully laid out to decorate a perfect symmetry.
All this was open to the sky, the dusty rainless sky. It was open to the cold. But for a moment it was possible to forget the drought, to look at the shimmering sheet of water, or the fruit glistening on the trees, fresh with droplets from a slave's pitcher, and think that the world outside wasn't parched and dying. And that young men weren't still flowing, by the hundreds, into the distant city of Caesarea.
The sun had warmed the floors and the walls; the heat was sweet and I could feel it creeping over my hands and even my feet as I sat in the shadows.
Finally the young man Nathanael got up and went out, without noticing me. The gate shut with the usual chink.
I said a silent prayer and followed the slave through the small forest of well-watered figs and palms and into the grand library.
A stool had been set there for me, a simple folding stool of leather and polished wood, very fancy, and very comfortable.
I remained standing.
The old man sat at his desk, in a cross-legged Roman chair, his back to the lattice, amid silken pillows, and Babylonian rugs, scrolls heaped before him and bulging from the bookshelves all around him. The walls were bookshelves. His desk had ink and pens and bits and scraps of paper, and a wax tablet. And a stack of codices - those little parchment books with stitched bindings that the Romans called membrane.
The sunshine twinkled in the lattice. The palm fronds outside scratched against it.
The old man was now completely bald, and his eyes very pale, almost gray. He was very cold, though the brazier was heaped high, and the air was as warm as it was fragrant with the scent of cedar.
"Come closer," he said.
I did as he asked. I bowed.
"Yeshua bar Joseph," I said, "from Nazareth, to see you, my lord. I'm grateful that you've received me."
"What do you want!" he said. His voice had leapt out of him sharply with these words. "Well, say it!" he declared. "Tell me."
"On a matter concerning our kinsman, my lord," I said, "Shemayah bar Hyrcanus and his daughter, Avigail."
He sat back or, I should say, collapsed in his heap of wrappings. He looked away from me, then pulled the blankets up tighter around him.
"What news do you have from Caesarea!" he asked.
"None, my lord, that hasn't reached Cana. The Jews are assembled there. It's been many days now. Pilate does not come out to speak to the crowd. The crowd won't go away. That's the last I heard this morning before I left Nazareth."
"Nazareth," he whispered crossly, "where they stone children on the say-so of other children."
I bowed my head.
"Yeshua, sit down on that stool. Don't stand in front of me like a servant. You didn't come here to repair these floors, did you? You came on a matter of our families."
I moved to the stool, and slowly sat as he'd told me to do. I was looking up at him. Perhaps six feet lay between us. He was higher because of all the cushions he required, and I could see that his hand was withered and thin, that the bones of his face all but poked through the flesh.
The air here, near the brazier, was intoxicatingly warm. So was the sun falling on my face, and on the back of his head.
"My lord, I come on a distressing errand," I said.
"That fool Jason," he said, "the nephew of Jacimus, is he in Caesarea?"