The Liars' Gospel A Novel by Naomi Alderman

Author:Naomi Alderman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: ePub Bud (www.epubbud.com)
Published: 2013-03-11T22:00:00+00:00

Every morning and every evening, a lamb is sacrificed. But this is only the beginning. Every morning and every evening, incense is burned on the altar in the Holy of Holies. Every day, there is the seven-branched candelabrum to be filled with pure-pressed oil. On the Sabbath, a meal offering of flour and oil and wine. And at the new moon, two yearling bulls, a ram, seven lambs. To say nothing of the particular sacrifices during the three yearly festivals of pilgrimage, and at New Year in the autumn and Yom Kippur ten days after that. And the sin offerings brought to seek God’s forgiveness by penitents around the year. And the peace offerings. And the thanksgiving offerings, for recovery from illness or escape from danger.

“And do you think this is easy?” Annas had said to him when he was a young man. It was when Caiaphas first began to be taken notice of in the Temple and by his fellow priests. Annas was High Priest then; he had these conversations with many young men who had been taken notice of. “Let us take the incense, for example. Do you think that when the servant from the house of Avtinas comes to bring the incense that it has come from nowhere?”

Caiaphas, attempting to impress the older man, had spouted the lines he had learned.

“There are eleven spices in the incense,” he said, “frankincense and myrrh and cassia and spikenard and saffron and—”

“Listen to yourself. Stop. Understand how much is necessary for that list you spool out. Where does the saffron come from?”

Caiaphas shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “From flowers?”

“From only one flower, which grows most plentifully only in Persia. We use a sack of it every month. A good handful of saffron is the product of ten thousand flowers. A hundred handfuls in a sack. A hundred men laboring crouched over their flowers are needed to supply us with saffron alone.”

Caiaphas looked out over the Temple courtyard, where he could count easily a hundred priests hurrying about their duty. He nodded slowly.

“You are not impressed, I see. You think that a hundred men laboring in the hills of Persia are not so very much for the glory of God. Then consider. They dry those tiny threads in the sun. They bundle them into sacks—and where do the sacks come from? Someone must weave them, someone must stamp them with our seal. They put the sacks into the back of a closed wagon—and who made that wagon? Who bred those mules? The wagon is driven by a strong man, with five other men guarding it. They pass through mountains and valleys. A dried-up riverbed. A pasture of waving grass and biting gnats. They fight off bandits who attempt to steal the precious treasure. At night they take turns to sleep. Perhaps in the crossing one of their usual waterholes is empty. Perhaps one of the animals dies. They must change the route regularly or the bandits will ambush them.

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