ULRIKA FOUND HERSELF IN A STRANGE PLACE.
She was not in Sebastianus's tent, but in wilderness. It was night, the moon nearly full, casting the desert in a silver landscape. "Sebastianus?" she called, as she turned in a slow circle. She saw that she stood in front of ruins, moonlit and ghostly, out in the middle of the dunes, with the lights of Babylon far in the distance. She recognized it as a place called Daniel's Castle, which lay some ten miles from Babylon. Legend told of a prophet named Daniel who had lived in Babylon long ago, and it was said that he was buried here. The "castle" stood against frosty stars, cold, deserted. It felt otherworldly, as if Ulrika had stepped through an invisible portal and were now in the realm of the supernatural. She turned her face to the wind and thought: This place is ancient beyond measure. Long before the prophet Daniel read mysterious words written on a wall, this ground was hallowed.
Spirits dwelled here.
It was a queer monument. Even though crumbling and falling down, its original shape and intention could still be seen: a massive square block with a smaller square block on top, with no apparent entrance or openings. And it seemed much older than a mere few centuries. There was none of the surviving detail Ulrika had seen at Persepolis. These limestone walls appeared to have been sandblasted by winds over a thousand years or more. Was the prophet Daniel buried here? Were perhaps many people buried here, laid to rest by loved ones down through the ages in the hope that proximity to a sacred site would guarantee the deceased's entry into paradise?
When a man came from around the side, Ulrika jumped. "You startled me," she said. And then she saw that it was Rabbi Judah, dressed in the familiar robes and fringed shawl of his religious calling. "You are alive!" she said, and took a step toward him.
"Do not approach me, Ulrika," he said. "You cannot come near me. I have come with a plea. Do not let them burn me."
"What do you mean?"
"My body must be preserved. Save me from the fire. Tell my family to bring me to this place and bury me here. Tell them to remember me."
The dream-vision ended and Ulrika awoke, her face damp with tears. Sebastianus was still asleep. She began to cry and he opened his eyes. "What is it, my love?" he whispered.
"Rabbi Judah is dead."
Sebastianus did not ask how she knew this. He looked at her for a long moment, in the darkness of the night, and then he sat up. "It is a blessing," he said.
Ulrika pulled away from him, hating to do so, and slipped out of bed. "I must go," she said, reaching for her clothes. "We cannot let the priests burn his body."
"Ulrika, it is too dangerous."
"I must do it," she said, slipping into her dress.
"Very well, but you stay here," Sebastianus said, reaching for his clothes. "This is dangerous business. There is a man in the governor's office who owes me a favor. And in case he has forgotten, he will certainly not have forgotten what gold coins are."
"You tried. You said not even your connections could help. But perhaps I—"
"It is one thing to save a condemned man, another to save his body. This is something I can do."
She said in a tight voice, "I cannot ask you to risk your life for a man you never knew."
"I do not do this for the rabbi, my love, I do it for you." He bent his head and kissed her, his lips lingering on hers while Ulrika wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his.
"Sebastianus," she said, "if you are successful, can you take Rabbi Judah to Daniel's Castle, which lies south of here?"
He frowned. "I am familiar with the ruins."
"I will let the family know. They will meet you there. Be careful, my love."
Ulrika stood outside the tent and watched him steal softly through the sleeping camp and vanish into the night. When she turned her face to the east and saw that dawn was not far off, she went back inside to fetch her own cloak, then she too left the camp.
THE TWO-STORY HOUSE in the Jewish Quarter had been built against the city's western wall and was embraced on either side by other houses. An outside stairway led to bedrooms above, while the business of daily life took place in the large, central room downstairs, furnished with chairs and a table, pedestals for lamps, tapestries on the windowless walls. Here the rabbi's widow sat in a high-backed chair as she received visitors who had come to pay respects.
"It was kind of you to come," Miriam said to Ulrika. The rabbi's widow was dressed all in black, with dark shadows under her eyes. Her sons, whom Ulrika recognized, stood at her side.
Ulrika glanced around at the others in the room, and those out in the garden, people from various walks of life, she saw, for not all were of the Jewish faith, nor were they all Babylonian. Apparently Rabbi Judah had reached many people with his sermons of peace and faith, and with his ability to cure illness and make the lame walk, simply by laying on his hands. Ulrika lowered her voice so that no one else could hear: "I came, honored mother, to tell you that your husband's body will not be put on the fire with the other executed men."
Miriam listened in astonishment to Ulrika's message about a Spaniard named Gallus, who had friends and connections, and the rescue of Judah's remains. Tears filled her eyes, and when Ulrika was done, Miriam broke down and wept. Immediately her sons drew close. Ulrika recognized the eldest, Samuel. He was a tall, lean young man with olive skin and jet-black hair that hung in ringlets on either side of his face. He wore a fringed prayer shawl and displayed the same leather phylacteries his devout father had worn. His dark features, Ulrika saw, were etched with pain and fury. Her heart went out to him. He had witnessed what no son should.
"I am all right," Miriam said in a tremulous voice, putting a hand on Samuel's arm. "This dear daughter has brought good news." To Ulrika she said, "God will prepare places for you and your husband in Heaven. The consuming fire would have robbed my husband of the resurrection."
"Resurrection?" Ulrika said.
"We will live again when the Master returns and the faithful are restored to their physical bodies, just as the Master was."
"Forgive my astonishment, honored mother, but this is an extraordinary coincidence, for this the second time I have heard of this rebirth among Jews. The other was in Judea when I stayed awhile with a woman named Rachel. She was guarding her husband's grave against desecration by his enemies. His name was Jacob."
Miriam gave her a startled look. "But I used to know a Rachel and Jacob in Judea! Jacob was executed in Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa. We never knew what became of his wife."
Ulrika told her of her ordeal by the Sea of Salt, how Rachel and Almah found her and her took her back to their camp.
"Wonder of wonders!" Miriam declared. "Jacob and his brother John were the sons of Zebedee. They were part of the Twelve, and we wives followed them as they traveled with the Master during his ministry of the Good News. Yeshua worked miracles and after his death, thirty-one years ago, he passed that power to his disciples. This was how my Judah was able to help people. But he will work miracles again, when Yeshua returns to this earth, as he promised, and I will be reunited with my beloved husband in the resurrection." She frowned. "But now, like Rachel, my sons and I must protect my husband's body."