The Bronze Bow

Up here, in the clean sunlight, Daniel bar Jamin, orphan, runaway slave, had found something to live for.

“All the mighty ones,” he said, remembering Rosh’s very words. “Joshua, Gideon, David, all of them fought on the soil of Galilee. No one could stand against them. It will be so again.”

“Yes,” breathed Joel. “It will be so again. God will send us another David.”

Mark my words, boy. Israel has one great strength, mightier than all the power of Rome. It is the Law, given to Moses and our fathers. When the last Roman emperor has vanished from the earth, the Law will still endure. It is to the Law that our loyalty must be devoted. I wish Joel to understand this, and I must forbid him to see any old friends who will turn his mind to violence. I ask you to go now, at once. Go in peace, Daniel, with a prayer that you may see the truth before that rash tongue of yours betrays you.

“Did you ever think that Rosh—that he might be the leader we are waiting for?” […]

“I know he is,” said Daniel.

They sat silent, trembling at the immensity of the secret they shared.

“He’s like a lion!” Daniel said, his confidence mounting. “He has no fear at all. Up there in the cave, whatever he says, the men obey him without question. If there were more of us—if we could only get enough—Rosh would drive every cursed Roman back into the sea!”

“God is my strong refuge,
and has made my way safe.
He made my feet like hinds’ feet,
and set me secure on the heights.
He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.”

“It couldn't really be bronze,” said Daniel, puzzled. “The strongest man could not bend a bow of bronze.”

“No,” Thacia spoke. “I think it was really bronze. I think David meant a bow that a man couldn't bend—that when God strengthens us we can do something that seems impossible.”

For Daniel nothing could ever be the same. He had never admitted to himself that he was lonely here on the mountain. He had worshiped and feared Rosh. He had fought and eaten and slept side by side with the hard-eyed men who made up Rosh’s band. But the few days in Joel’s passageway had shown him a new world. He had found someone to talk to, someone who had shared his own thoughts, and who had instantly taken Daniel’s burden as his own.

The other mighty ones had lived and fought in distant ages. But Judas had lived in a time like his own, not two hundred years ago, when Israel was helpless, as it was now, under the foot of the heathen. Judas, with his heroic father and brothers, had dared to rise up and defy the oppressor, and for a time Israel had breathed the free again. […] This time—! There were young men everywhere who longed for such a chance again. Together, he and Joel would find them.

Daniel’s control gave way. “You’d just use him and then let him go? Without even a try—?”

Rosh squinted up at him. “I’ve warned you before,” he said, his voice ugly. “There's a soft streak in you. Till you get rid of it you’re no good to the cause.”

The red mist of anger cleared suddenly from Daniel’s mind. He looked at the man who had been his leader. He saw the coarsened face with its tangle of dirty beard. He saw the hard mouth, the calculating little eyes. He saw a man he had never really looked at before.