Chapter 6

As he set off for Tiberias after breakfast, the Big Fisherman was confused and unhappy. The mysterious girl’s account of herself and her errand in Galilee—a much amended story—was anything but satisfactory. It was plain to see that Hannah was worried. He had been a fool to bring the waif home with him.

There was nothing to do today. The crews were off duty, supposedly at the Synagogue, but more likely to be found loafing at the wine-shops. However, there were always some odd jobs to be done on shipboard. He would net a basket of fish from the live-box at the wharf and deliver them to the palace. The rest of the empty day he could spend alone, tinkering at trivial chores on The Abigail.

A quarter-mile down the road a procession was coming, led by a large contingent of cavalry, the sunshine flashing from their polished spears and the burnished bosses of the shields.

Still farther away a rising cloud of yellow dust, suspended over the rear of the parade, meant that a long train of heavily laden pack-asses was already scraping its hooves, though a laborious three-day journey lay ahead. Simon knew what it was all about: Antipas was setting forth, as was his custom, on the annual excursion to Rome. The party would travel to Caesarea and embark. Galilee would see no more of its Tetrarch until the flowers bloomed again.

Not that it mattered. He meant nothing to Galilee. The people’s welfare did not concern him. He was more a Roman than a Jew. Nobody would care if he went to his precious Rome and stayed there. But he would be back, as usual. Returning, he would hold court for a month at the Galilean embassy in Jerusalem, at the time of the Passover fast and festivities; and then—with much pomp—he would come home to Tiberias, accompanied by a horde of other rich idlers, and sit half-naked in the sun—and swill his expensive wines—and splash in his celebrated pool—until it was time to go to Rome again…But Galilee would be no better off under another ruler: provincial governors were all alike. Indeed, Antipas might be preferable to a more ambitious ruler: he was much too lazy to stir up trouble among the people. Perhaps the best ruler you could have, after all, was a drunken loafer who would let the province govern itself.

Ordinarily, when Simon sighted the Tetrarch’s garish cavalcade making off toward Caesarea, he indifferently sneered and spat on the ground. Today—he was cross, anyhow—the pageant made him hot with indignation. This renegade, Romanized Jew had so little respect for the cherished traditions of Galilee that he thought nothing of setting out on his pleasure trip while the people were on their way to the Synagogue! The insolence of it! Fine way, indeed, to observe the Day of Atonement! It was little he cared about the feelings of the people! Antipas ought to be in the Synagogue today, at least going through the motions of honouring the religion of Israel. He was a disgrace to the province!

Simon wondered how many of the servants, and which ones, would be left behind, this time. He hoped Leah and Anna would remain at the palace. He always enjoyed their banter. Yes—and that impudent minx Claudia, too. It was impossible to have any respect for her: she was an outrageous flirt; and, besides, she was a Roman; but she was witty. And the Greek girl, Helen, who never had anything to say, but always smiled shyly as if she understood. Maybe she did. Sometimes he playfully winked at her, and she would show the tips of very pretty teeth. Helen often lingered for a while in Simon’s thoughts, after he had discharged his errands at the service entrance, but he always put her out of his mind with a ‘Pouf!’—for however winsome, she was a heathen. But—heathen or not—there was something very attractive about this Helen; her physical frailty, perhaps. Simon often asked himself why he had so much interest in fragile women when he was so contemptuous of any physical weakness in men.