"And where was Ch'in," the rebbe demanded, "when the Lord was forming His Covenant? Why did it come so late to His Word-and then at the hands of a barbarian invader?"
"He planted us like a seed in the rich earth of the Middle Kingdom," said the rabbi, "and when we were ready to bear fruit, He gave us His Word."
"A twisted and distorted Word in an outlandish tongue."
"That might be said," said the rabbi silkily, "of the Word as it was given to us."
Even his disciples gasped at that. The rebbe's followers surged to their feet. There might be no weapons in the hall of disputation, but fists and feet would do well enough-as many a tavern keeper could testify.
A battlefield bellow froze them all where they stood. Moishe, running toward the sound of battle brewing, recognized the voice when it spoke more softly, although it still echoed down the corridor. Moishe halted in the doorway and looked across the makings of a brawl to the men who stood above it. Barak had mounted one of the benches that ringed the room; with his height and bulk, that was enough. He raked his glare across the lot of them. "Sirs! Honored masters. This is a place of peace. Will you make it a house of war?"
Some of them most certainly would, but the sight of him cowed them into silence. "I think," he said with terrible gentleness, "that this discussion is over. We'll rest now, yes? And ponder the uses of restraint."
He had the gift of command. The brawl broke into a few dozen sullen men, going their separate ways under his stern eye. There would be no fighting today, though what might happen later, only God knew.
Moishe was drawn to approach him, though what he would say, or what would be safe to say, he hardly knew. But when he reached the place where Barak had been, the man was gone. Moishe found him after a long moment, wrapped in relative anonymity again, slipping out a side door.
It was too late to follow, and Moishe's wits had caught up with his impulses. He slipped away as Barak had, but in the opposite direction. It truly was best if only one of them knew what the other was.
The molds were made, the gold brought to the proper temperature and poured in a molten stream. Now the smiths were ready to unmold the newest and most splendid of the Temple's ornaments: golden lotus blossoms that would crown the gold-sheathed pillars of the sixth court.
In his preoccupation with the westerners both all too real and as yet all too imaginary, Moishe had barely noticed the passage of time. The fifth court, to his surprise, was nearly done. The sixth was rising with gratifying speed. The masters of the Diaspora were increasingly less pleased with the Temple and its builders, but the Lord, it seemed, did not share their opinion.
Work under the western wall was not going so well, but it was progressing. None of those involved had seen fit to inform the guests of that particular portion of the Temple's building. It was a tactical decision, made before Moishe could offer his own suspicions. An enemy who knew of the caverns and of the weakness that they represented could bring down the Temple.
Such summer heat as Chengdu knew had descended, and with it an influx of idlers and pilgrims from the lower plains. To them this heat was blissfully cool. They filled the city and crowded the Temple, gaping at its wonders.
The city's market had in past years shown a tendency to spill over into the first court of the Temple. The priests allowed it because the merchants paid a portion of their profits into the Temple's coffers. It was a useful arrangement, permitted by the Khan, whose treasury took its share of the profits as well.
In that crowd of gawkers and pilgrims, it was a great deal more difficult than it had been to keep watch over the westerners. The guards were in more difficulty than the watchers and spies-they were more obvious and therefore easier to elude.
The westerners, of course, were not even slightly amused by the sight of commerce in the Temple-and never mind that both the First and Second Temples had been markets in their day. This was a more righteous age, said the Rebbe of Prague. When by the Lord's will there was a Third Temple in Jerusalem-for he would not grant that this was the Third Temple itself-its courts would never suffer such an outrage.
He said this to Abraham Han Li, who so far had managed to leave these troublesome guests in Moishe's care. But there was no escaping the occasional press of duty. He had refused the Rebbe's invitation to dinner seven times already-Moishe had kept count.
"Accept once," Moishe said, "and the duty is done. I'll make sure you won't be asked again."
"Swear to that by the honor of your ancestral clan," said Abraham Han Li, "and I may-may-consider it."
"Agree to it, master," Moishe said, "and you won't have to look at them again until we celebrate the eve of their departure."
"May that be soon," growled the chief architect. "Very well. I'll waste an evening that could better be spent building the Temple, and you will waste it with me."
Moishe suppressed a sigh. Duty was duty, as he had reminded his master. Abraham Han Li would suffer duly for it: he would have to hear from his host that his entire great work and devotion to the Lord was a false construction, the child of a delusion.
He maintained a remarkable degree of calm in the circumstances. Moishe was proud of him.
"Tisha B'Av," said Barak.
Moishe had been seated beside him, an arrangement to which he would have objected strenuously if he had been on his guard. A place well down the table, among the least of the rabbinical students, would have suited him much better. But this was the westerners' banquet. They had seated him near the head of the table, between Barak and the assistant to the Rebbe of Prague.
It was a banquet in the western style. Its dishes were heavy and strange, its spices familiar but oddly combined. Guests were expected to bring a knife and a spoon to the table. There were no chopsticks; nothing so civilized. Moishe overheard one of the younger Chinese rabbis murmur to another, "Knives at the table-barbaric! I wonder how many banquets end in bloodshed?"
Thank the Lord, none of the westerners seemed to understand the dialect of southern Hunan. In any case they had their own obsession, and it had nothing to do with food or the eating of it.
"Tisha B'Av," Barak said. "It's nearly upon us. Do you observe the rite?"
His expression was bland, his tone courteous. Moishe was careful to respond in kind. "Certainly we mourn the sorrows of the people, and the downfall of the First and Second Temples, each on the same day of the same month, half a thousand years apart. Is there any Jew in the world who does not?"
"I had wondered," Barak said, apparently unoffended to be lectured like a child. "So much else is… different."
"It's the same God," Moishe said, "and the same Books of the Law. Interpretations will vary even within the schools of the west-is that not what the Talmud is? Sacred argument that goes on for years, centuries-voices out of time, offering opinions and counteropinions. Ours is a lively faith, honored sir, and very much alive. And living things grow. They change."
"Not all change is desirable," said Barak. "Some in the west would say that the Christians are a radical sect of our own faith. We disagree. The Messiah has not come-though wars have been fought in his name, and nations have risen to oppress us because we refuse to accept their falsehood."
"Christians are harmless eccentrics in our part of the world," Moishe said. "We had one here not long ago, calling us heretics and condemning us for building a temple to an outmoded God. Our rabbis demolished his arguments. He ended the day a convert. You may have seen him in the newest court. He has a divine gift for working stone."