“I’ll be damned,” I heard him mutter.
Decius eyed them curiously, as did I. I had heard the name before, but couldn’t for the life of me think of where. But that wasn’t my real concern. I could see the obvious question running through the Roman’s mind: how would travelers from the edge of the world have heard of such a pathetic little place?
I went back to the wagon to check on the wounded soldier I had treated and told Sharon to follow with some water. I made sure Decius saw it, too, better to reinforce the notion that we were useful people, worth keeping alive.
Chapter 19
The soldiers re-packed and formed a marching column with their customary efficiency. Seeing that all was in order, Publius gave the command and we trundled forward once more to the east. As before, Sharon rode in the wagon and did her best to tend to the injured Romans, while the rest of us kept pace on foot.
Once we had settled into a rhythm, I pulled Lavon aside.
“Decius noticed that you recognized the name of that village,” I said.
“I know,” he admitted. “It took me by surprise.”
“Why was it so important?”
“Luke’s Gospel records that after the Resurrection, Jesus met two of his followers walking down the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They didn’t recognize him, and he had a little fun with them. He pretended to be a stranger who knew nothing of what had happened in Jerusalem over the previous few days.”
I was still confused. “OK, but that doesn’t explain the significance of the place.”
He considered this for a moment.
“It’s not the location,” he finally replied. “It’s the name itself. In our time, Road to Emmaus is the name of a well-known Christian retreat, along with Christian schools, an Orthodox journal, and all sorts of other things related to the church. I always thought of the town as more significant for that reason.”
“Is it mentioned anywhere else in the Bible?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“I’m starting to think I should have paid more attention in Sunday school,” I said.
It was not the last time I would find myself echoing that sentiment over the next few days.
Both of us pondered this for a few minutes; then Lavon glanced over toward Bergfeld.
“We might have another problem as well,” he said. “Decius asked about her. Who was she? How was she related to the rest of us?”
“And?”
“I told him she was the second daughter of her father, our king.”
I gave Lavon an odd look. That wasn’t the story we had cooked up in Boston.
“I know,” he sighed. “It sounds really stupid. But we need to protect her, and I thought that if she were a princess, the soldiers would be less likely to molest her. In the first century, the daughter of a merchant, even a rich one, was often just another trading commodity.”
“Did he buy it?”
Lavon shrugged. “Maybe. He commented that her clothing did not match her station. I answered that by telling him we concealed her status because we were a small party, unable to defend ourselves against robbers. We didn’t want to make ourselves any more of a target than we already were.”
“That sounds reasonable enough,” I replied.
“Yes, but now we’re safe from attack. He seems genuinely puzzled as to why she is still helping his soldiers instead of sitting back and expecting everyone to wait on her hand and foot. I think that has been his usual experience with the royal families around here.”
“How did you explain that?”
“I said our king required all women of high rank to spend time serving others, to keep them from becoming mean-spirited.”
He struggled not to laugh. Obviously Decius knew nothing about the ferocious social competition of the Dallas charity ball circuit. From Lavon’s description, it was even more intense than that of his native Atlanta.
“So what do we do now?” he finally asked. “What should I say if he brings up the subject again?”
I advised him to let it rest for the moment. “We’ll have to pretend to give Sharon some deference, though,” I added.
As soon as I did, I wished I hadn’t. Lavon glanced backward and waited for her to notice him. Then he bowed obsequiously, leaving her wondering just what on God’s green earth that was about.
Decius saw it, too, and though he chose not to comment, I had a suspicion that he would make inquiry at some point. I could see the wheels of his mind turning, trying to resolve a puzzle with a more than a few pieces still out of place.
***
For the moment, though, there was nothing to do but march on, and that’s what we did. We proceeded uneventfully for another hour as the road weaved its way through low, rocky, scrub-covered hills.
At first, we didn’t see many other travelers, although we could hear the bleating of sheep being driven on parallel tracks about a hundred yards to either side.
Perhaps the Romans had laws against flocks of animals soiling their roads. With everything that transpired later, I never found the opportunity to ask.
A short while later, Publius called for another break and the Romans went through the same well-drilled procedure — though with different squads stuck on guard duty.
Based on the Biblical account of the journey to Emmaus and the time we had traveled, Lavon guessed that we were about four miles from the city center. He and Bergfeld both stared up at two big hills to our right, trying to identify vaguely familiar landmarks.
“I think the modern freeway passes just over there,” she said. “We’re getting close.”
Lavon concurred. As for me, I could only shake my head at the incongruity of it all.
Sharon’s assessment of the geography turned out to be correct, and once we started up again, it wasn’t long before the city itself hove into view for the first time.
We all stopped in our tracks at the sight. Although it’s a bit embarrassing to recount, I’ll have to admit that I stood and gaped along with the rest of them, like backwoods hillbillies seeing tall buildings for the first time.
I had not expected to be impressed. I had done the tourist circuits across the globe and had become jaded to old ruins. After a while, one pile of ancient bricks was the same as another.
But this Jerusalem was not a museum piece.
The city itself stretched for about a mile from end to end. An outer wall, varying between forty and sixty feet high, ringed the perimeter, which was interspersed with taller battlements spaced about a hundred feet apart.
Situated, as it was, at the top of a hill, the picture was even more imposing. One didn’t have to be an old soldier like myself to shudder at the hazards of attacking this place.
Lavon explained that the fortifications were constructed mostly of tan crystalline limestone, known in modern times as meleke. These glowed in the mid-afternoon sun, only adding to the splendor.
“Match what you expected?” I said to Lavon.
“Honestly, I don’t know yet,” he replied.
As it turns out, much of what modern researchers know of Roman-era Jerusalem derives from a single source, the writings of the slippery Josephus, whose actions in the Great Revolt suggest that scholars employ at least a modicum of caution when interpreting his works.
Lavon directed my attention to three tall towers at the city’s mid-section which rose to a height of about twice that of the nearby walls. “How tall would you say those are?” he asked.
My eyes went back and forth from the towers to the people passing by on the road running just underneath the walls. Given the distance, I found it a bit hard to judge.
“Eighty or ninety feet,” I guessed.
“According to what I’ve read, the tallest one was 130 feet.”
I shrugged. “Maybe they added on to it later?”
“Perhaps,” said Lavon, though he remarked upon one other bit of modern conjecture that was clearly incorrect. A popular scale model of the ancient city in the Israel Museum depicted the center tower, the Phasael Tower, as square while the other two were rounded at the top, with a columnar base.