The psalms rose to Heaven. " 'I flee unto you, O Lord, to hide me... I cried to you, O Lord - .' "
Soldiers on horseback came racing after the people, both men and women who ran right towards us.
"Joseph, look," cried my mother. "Get him, pull him down."
I pulled free of the hands that tried to tug at me.
The people ran on top of those kneeling, right over them as if they were rocks by the sea. The prayerful groaned and cried out, and as a single horseman drove his way towards us, the bodies fell back to either side.
Down I went with a hand on the back of my head and another on my back. I could hear the snorting of the horse and the clatter of his hooves.
My head was pressed right to the stones.
Yet out of the corner of my eye I saw the legs of the horse right beside us, and as the horse shied backwards, I saw a man rise from the mounds of huddled figures. He drew a stone from under his robe and thew it at the soldier.
He cried out in Greek:
"There is no one but the Lord Himself who has a right to rule over us! Take those words to Herod. Take them to Caesar!"
Then came another stone from under his mantle and another.
The soldier's spear came down right into the man's chest. It went deep into him and through him.
The man dropped the stone he held, and fell back with his eyes wide.
My mother sobbed. Little Salome screamed, "Don't look, don't look."
But was I to look away from this man in his last moments? Was I to turn away from his very death?
The soldier pulled up his spear and the man rose with it. Blood poured out of the man's mouth.
The body was cast this way and that, and then the spear pulled free and let the body drop.
The man rolled onto his left side, and he stared right at us, right at me.
I couldn't see the horse anymore. I could only hear it, and the terrible noise of its running wild. I saw the soldier in the grip of men all around him, those who had pulled him from the horse which was now gone.
His body was lost in the crowd that covered him, as elbows rose and fell over him.
Our men bowed and prayed.
The dying man if he heard it, if he knew it, didn't care.
He didn't see us. He didn't know about the soldier. Blood came out of his mouth onto the stones.
Terrible cries came out of my mother.
The people who'd taken hold of the soldier got up and were running away. More people got up and ran. Beyond them more stayed on their knees and prayed.
The body of the soldier was covered with blood.
The man who stared at us reached out his hand, but his arm flopped down, and he died.
People ran between us and the man. I heard the sheep again.
I felt my mother slip over on her side on the ground, and I tried to catch her, but she sank down on the ground with her eyes closed.
Again the stones flew from everywhere over our heads.
Who had come into this Temple that did not carry stones for this war?
The stones rained down on us, and hit us on our heads and shoulders.
When Joseph raised his arms in the chanting, I managed to get out from under him, and I got up on my knees.
The crowd was loose and broken. Bodies lay everywhere like heaps of bloody wool for the wash.
Everywhere I looked men fought and men died.
On top of the beautiful porches, men who looked tiny and black against the sky were fighting, soldiers with their swords drawn stabbing those who tried to beat them with clubs.
I saw way out on the stones where there was no crowd anymore another man attack a soldier, rushing right against the spear that went through him. Women ran right to the dead to cry over them. They did not care where they were, these women. They cried and screamed. They howled like dogs. The soldiers didn't hurt them.
But no one came to our dead man, the man who lay on his side with the blood all over his mouth, staring and not seeing. He lay alone.
At last the soldiers were everywhere, so many soldiers I could never count them. They came on foot into the crowd. They moved through the families of those kneeling and came closer and closer on the left and on the right.
All the fighters were gone.
"Pray!" said Joseph to me, breaking his chant for only a moment.
I obeyed him. I raised my arms and prayed.
"But the souls of the righteous are in the hands of the Lord, and no torment can harm them."
New soldiers came riding out. They raised their voices, and they spoke in Greek. At first I couldn't hear them, but then one of them came nearer to us, walking his horse.
"Leave, go to your homes!" he said. "Get out of Jerusalem, by the King's order."
Chapter 6
The quiet was not quiet. It was full of crying and sobbing and the clatter and noise of the horses, and the soldiers shouting at us to go.
Some bodies were dead all alone on the tops of the porches. I could see them. And our dead man was all alone. The sheep wandered everywhere, the sheep without blemish that would have been the Passover sacrifice. Men ran after them. They ran after the oxen that were still bellowing and that bellowing was the loudest noise of all.
At last we rose to our feet, because Joseph rose, and we followed, all of us together, Cleopas very shaky, and laughing still under his breath, but not so any soldier could hear him.
Aunt Salome and Aunt Esther had my mother by her arms. She started to sink again and she groaned. Joseph struggled to get close to her, but the little ones were underfoot. I had hold of Little Salome.
"Mamma, we have to go now," I said to my mother, staying close to her. "Mamma, wake up. We're going now."
She was trying to be strong. But they turned her and they pushed her along. Uncle Alphaeus had a time with Silas and Levi who were whispering questions to him, but I couldn't hear them. Now they were each past their fourteenth year, and they took all of this perhaps not the same as we little ones did.
All the people moved to the gateway.
Cleopas was the only one of us like Lot's wife, who turned back and back.
"Look," he said to anyone who could hear him. "See the priests there?" He pointed to the top of the faraway wall of the Inner Court. "They had sense enough to run for cover, didn't they? Did they know the soldiers were going to attack us?"
We saw them for the first time, the gathering of men up there above the gates, who could have watched the whole thing from there. I could barely make them out. I think they were in their fine robes and headdresses, but maybe not.
What did they think as they looked on this? And who would come for our dead man? How would this blood be cleaned away? The whole Temple was defiled with it. The whole Temple would have to be cleansed.
But there wasn't much time to look. And I only wanted to get out now. I was not afraid yet. I was wide eyed. The fear would come later.