By the second day of advancing through the crowd Uri was singing their psalms softly to himself, having learned the texts; they did not sing many psalms in Rome. Joyfully treading in step with pipes, the Samaritans were carrying their produce northward — wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, honey. They said a golden-horned ox decorated with olive branches proceeded at their head, while the women carried fruit in baskets wreathed with laurel leaves on their heads. It was one of the psalms of King David that they sang most often, the thirtieth:
I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.
O Lord my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me.
O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from Sheol; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.
Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong; thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.
I cried to thee, O Lord; and unto the Lord I made supplication.
What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth?
Hear, O Lord, and have mercy upon me; Lord, be thou my helper.
Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;
To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent, O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever.
He switched to a dance rhythm as he hummed the psalms, in the way that the others did, and found out that it was easier to move ahead by dancing and singing in this manner.
One more day, Uri thought to himself as evening drew in, and we shall be reaching the sacred mountain.
They had just set up camp for the night when Aaron, who was standing and looking to the north, called them over to him. He pointed to the distance, up in the sky. Uri didn’t see anything, but Uri’s companions did, and a great excitement took hold of them. Others looked in the same direction and noticed too.
“Birds,” whispered the thin youth, Jehoram.
Uri squinted but could still see nothing.
The sun was peacefully preparing to go down.
People discussed something excitedly, a few cried out, then there were ever more people as a large group arrived running from the north, yelling, “Soldiers! Soldiers! Soldiers!”
The tribes got together, and the elders consulted one another. There was a general commotion, no one lay down to sleep.
Those coming from the north related with sobs that soldiers had attacked and slaughtered the people assembling at the foot of Mount Gerizim. Syrian soldiers, a whole cohort; they had come from the north, from Antioch via Galilee, and encamped peacefully two days ago at the foot of the hill, but then they had unexpectedly set upon the people, striking at will, chopping, lashing. Many had died — children, women, and old people alike.
“Let’s push on,” said Aaron.
They resumed their northward muleback trek in the gathering twilight, while people streamed past in the opposite direction, shouting, lamenting, raising their hands to the heavens, and cursing.
That night they stretched out farther away from the trail. Aaron again organized them into a duty roster. He ordered a start soon after daybreak the next day, only allowing them a drink from a brook but giving them nothing to eat.
By the morning they reached the village of Tirithana at the foot of the hill.
Several hundred corpses were scattered around, with blood, or something very like it, still oozing from some of them. Fires were smoldering. Children, women, and old people, decapitated, without legs, impaled, all lay motionless, among them mourning relatives kept vigil, whole clans beating their chests, sprinkling ashes on their heads, rocking back and forth as they prayed and rent their garments.
There were no soldiers to be seen.
Aaron went with two men into the village to seek out the elder. Meanwhile the rest sat down. Uri felt a dull empty numbness overcoming his insides. He had no wish to look at the dead bodies, but some force ordered him to look. The women were all dressed in colorful garments; they had been cut down in their finest clothes.
Here and there, wailing mourners raised a dead person aloft to take them to be buried. A crowd tried to carry the body of a small child; everyone wished to get near, jostling and wailing, shaking fists. The mountain loomed on high; Uri narrowed his eyes but couldn’t see any ruins, only the clouds above.
An old man was being carried off next to him. A long, white beard flowed down his face, and his eyes were open as if in wonder, even though he was dead.
Farther off, a man who had been split in two lengthwise was now being put back together, his innards stuffed back into his abdomen and the two halves knotted together with cord. A sword blow had landed on his shoulders and split him apart again down to the navel.
Uri shivered; he would have easily vomited had there been anything in his stomach. Aaron knew full well when he did not allow them to eat.
Uri suddenly discovered that even sitting down he was rocking back and forth, quietly intoning a prayer for the spiritual tranquility of the murdered. That made him feel better. He grasped a handful of earth and sprinkled it on his head; the ground was cool, which was gratifying.
Aaron appeared with the two companions.
“We’re going back,” he declared.
Two mules that had gone lame during the journey were left behind, and they proceeded in turn by muleback and by foot. Aaron hustled them along, almost as if they had been responsible for the murders of those several hundreds.
They spent the Day of Atonement praying in a cave. It occurred to Uri that Aaron had too much local knowledge for it to have been pure chance that they came upon a suitable cave on the way back — and what’s more, an uninhabited cave.
Uri entered the high priest’s palace in Jerusalem for a third time, this time along with his companions.
Before that they took a dip in the basin of the bathhouse built on Mount Zion, the water in which was only knee-high. The Essenes said that they, having seen dead bodies, would be going through a cleansing process for another week.
It was only on the third day that the reek, the stench of rotting human flesh, comparable to nothing else, left Uri’s nostrils.
They were now led to the upper level, where they entered a chamber. Someone came and took Aaron away with him.
They waited.
Uri wondered whether Joseph ben Nahum was here in the palace. What did he know about the mission?
They waited and held their peace.
Eventually a short old man in a blue robe and white tunic appeared, supported by two men, Aaron and the hunchbacked, narrow-eyed man who had sent Uri to Beth Zachariah.
All the others prostrated themselves, and Uri quickly followed.
The old man made a sign of blessing with his right hand and took a seat on a bench. The other two remained standing. Uri’s fellows got to their feet, as did he.
Aaron then spoke.
“The high priest Ananias has honored us by welcoming us in person.”
Uri squinted. So this was the high priest who was no longer a high priest but father-in-law to the present high priest, as someone had said.
Aaron carried on.
“It is Ananias’s wish that as a sign of reaching agreement on the text that is to be read out you all subscribe to it with your signatures.”