Page 5 of Unveiled Tamar’s Story (Mysteries & Wonders of the Bible #1)

A t some point, the high priest’s words had turned to little more than crashing cymbals and echoing gongs in Tamar’s ears. The cool stone of the temple floor was hard beneath her knees, but she’d stopped feeling that ages ago too.

Time had stopped. Reason had fled. Nothing made sense any longer.

She still knelt where Caiaphas had thrown her, where one heavy edge of the torn curtain was close enough that she was able to reach tentative, knowledgeable fingers toward it.

She’d overseen this veil. She’d studied every single thread, time and time again.

She’d examined every inch created with skill and expertise.

She’d smiled with satisfaction at the holy work her girls had accomplished when the three hundred priests carried it from the workshop to the temple just a month ago, ready to install it here.

Never had she expected to see it again—because no woman and few men were ever allowed this close to the Holy of Holies. She’d expected that it, like the veils before it, would serve its time and that before the first signs of wear could even be seen, a new veil would take its place.

Preserving perfection, always, as was right and just. If so much as a thread unraveled as it hung, it would be an offense to the Lord. It was why they always had a new veil underway. They took no chances.

Yet her fingers trailed now over countless broken threads. Every single thread in this line, broken. Snapped. Not frayed as if pulled apart by force, but sliced evenly, as if with some enormous sword.

It made no sense at all. Fabric this thick was impenetrable to anything but fire—even blades couldn’t cut it through in a single slice. No earthquake had ever wrought such damage to a veil before. How could it have done so this time?

It couldn’t have. Couldn’t have . That was the trouble.

Her fingers played with the cut end of a gold thread that had once been part of a tree in the scene of paradise so carefully woven into the curtain. Now it was nothing. Uncreated. A reminder not of the perfection of the Lord but of destruction.

She started, a squeak of protest slipping through her lips, when hard fingers gripped her arms and yanked her back to her feet. It took a moment for her eyes to refocus, to see the angry face of the high priest instead of the snapped threads.

“Well?” he demanded, the fury in his eyes unabated by however many minutes or hours or days or years she’d been on that floor. “What excuse do you give, woman?”

Her throat was so dry she didn’t know if she could speak, even if she had words to offer. Which she didn’t.

In the weaving room, she knew her place.

She could lead with confidence. She’d always been so certain of her every action and the reason behind it.

In her family’s homes, she could slip into her place too—doting aunt, loving sister, beloved cousin.

Blend in. Do whatever was expected of her without ever being more than one of the crowd.

Respected because of her position, but therefore also a step removed.

Here though? Now? With the high priest fuming at her? She had no words.

His hands apparently meant to shake some out of her. “Speak!”

She had to swallow first, and even then the sounds that emerged were so faint they should scarcely be called words. “It…it is impossible.”

Caiaphas pushed her away with a sound of disgust. “And yet there it is. Your handwork, mutilated. Will you tell me it is the fault of the earthquake, though such a thing has never hurt a veil in all the history of Israel? Since the first veil protected the ark in the mishkan , this has never happened!”

“I know it has never happened. And no, I would not tell you that.”

“How, then? What man is strong enough to rip the veil in two?”

She shook her head. “No man. Only God could do this.”

He sneered. “This is not the work of God—this is the failure of you , you and those useless women you employ. And you will pay for it!”

“What?” That pulled her out of the haze so sharply she felt the jolt from head to toe. He couldn’t be serious, could he? If he held them accountable, what punishment could even be prescribed? Would they simply be dismissed…or would he have them executed for such an affront against the Lord? “No!”

“My lord—I beg your pardon. A moment of your time.”

Tamar couldn’t tear her gaze away from the high priest long enough to see who had dared to interrupt his diatribe, nor could she quite believe it when Caiaphas turned toward the newcomer, smoothing out his features.

A reprieve, if only for a moment. But she hadn’t any idea what to do with it. A few extra minutes would give her no miraculous words to explain away the impossible nor to offer an explanation that would prove this disaster wasn’t her fault.

What if it is?

The words slithered through her mind and lodged in her heart. No…it couldn’t be. Could it?

“Tamar. Tamar .”

She blinked, the familiarity of the voice breaking through her new stupor and pulling her gaze to the right. Her cousin was there, dressed in his priestly vestments, motioning urgently for her to join him.

Her feet obeyed him before her mind had given them a recognizable command, and she was more than a little surprised to find herself at his side a moment later.

“Levi.” The syllables emerged as a weak whisper.

He’d always been one of her favorite cousins—and it was to him she owed her position.

He’d vouched for her skill in weaving twenty years ago, when she was little more than a child and he first began serving in the temple.

Was he in danger now too because of her failure? Would the blame extend its stain backward to him?

His fingers curled around her upper arm, yet even as they exerted pressure that allowed no argument, they were infinitely gentler than Caiaphas’s had been.

“Come with me. Now.” He darted a glance over his shoulder and propelled her quickly away from the Holy of Holies, out of the Holy Place altogether, and toward the outer courts.

“He has been in a rage all day—one would think he’d be satisfied over his victory at having the Rabbi executed, but instead… ” Levi shook his head, expression dark.

“Did you…were you…?” She darted a glance back too. Not at the high priest—at the failure for which he blamed her. “Did you see it happen?”

Levi shook his head and led her down a corridor she hadn’t even spotted until he pulled her into it.

“We heard it—everyone, all through the temple. It echoed like thunder, shook the complex in a way different from the quake. Or so it seemed. We knew something had happened. Though we never could have guessed that .”

“It is my fault.” She spoke the words so quietly that even she could scarcely hear them over the sound of their sandals against the floor. They tasted like bile on her tongue. They weighed like stone on her heart.

Levi sent her a hard look. “Do not be ridiculous. No person is responsible for that, and I will not stand by while you bear the punishment for it. I do not know what crime against Rome he would fabricate as an excuse to turn you over to them or if he would settle for a punishment we are permitted to dole out ourselves, but Caiaphas has been breathing threats of death, and I won’t let that happen. ”

“I deserve it.”

“You do not!” He bit the words off, kept them quiet enough that they didn’t echo in the corridor. Nor could they lodge in her heart. “You oversaw the weaving of a perfect veil, just like the four you oversaw before it. This is not your fault.”

“It must be.” The world tilted, shook, and for a moment she thought the earthquake had started up again—but no, it was only her own body betraying her, trembling in her cousin’s hand. “There must have been some flaw I failed to see.”

Levi pulled her around a corner but then halted, gazing down at her with an almost feverish look in his eyes, so intense was it. “And what of the other weavers, then? Is it their fault too? Should Caiaphas punish all of them?”

“No!” Tamar pulled away from his grip at that suggestion, the clouds before her eyes clearing. Those women and girls—Caiaphas couldn’t punish them all, could he?

But what if he tried? Even if he didn’t execute them— that was surely beyond what Rome would allow, even if he somehow convinced the governor that a crime had been committed—what if they were dismissed?

So many of them were widows or daughters of widowed mothers.

Weaving was one of the only things they could do to make an honest living, and the temple employment was the only such position with constant work and reliable pay.

Levi leaned close. “You are not responsible only for the veil, Tamar. You are responsible for the seventy-two women who weave it.”

She lifted her chin. “I know I am.”

“So protect them now by protecting yourself. You must disappear—just for a few days, until Caiaphas’s rage has cooled.

He will see reason soon enough and will realize that this is the fault of no human.

He will relent on his harsher threats, but he may still think it his duty to dismiss them all.

When that happens, you must still be alive to protect them. ”

A shiver coursed through her. “Of course.” She could agree easily to that much. But… “Do you really think he would have me killed?”

Levi’s mouth pressed into a hard line, and he pulled her forward again.

“I would not have thought so. But he just had a man executed for teachings he did not like, because they reflect poorly on him and the rest of the Sadducees. He will not want to be remembered as the high priest under whom the Holy of Holies was compromised. He will reason that swift action against some other culprit will salvage his reputation and legacy.”

Her stomach felt as though she’d swallowed a rock. “What am I to do?” The words emerged as little more than a whisper.