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willed it so.”
    â€œAnd it seems you have the monopoly on God’s will.”
    But despite his rebuke that bordered on blasphemy, Solomon knew that the high priest was right: for though he was beloved by his people and admired for his wisdom, all of the Hebrew people would obey the high priest. The power of the priesthood’s curses for those who transgressed held more sway than all the whips and swords in Solomon’s army.
    He had waited with growing impatience for years, and his many wives kept chastising him, reminding Solomon that he was the king, that all knelt before him, and that it was his right to order the priests to obey his commands. And the most vociferous of all, the wife who complained long and loud in his ear, was his lesser wife, Naamah the Ammonite. He had been pressured into marrying her by her father, Harun, the king of Ammon, who wanted a political alliance, and in the many years they’d been married, she had proven herself time and again as a wildly seductive and adventurous woman. No matter how many womenwere available to him, somehow Naamah was always close to his bed when it was time for him to retire.
    And it was Naamah, more than any other, who had urged him to pull down the pagan temple and rebuild it as God’s house, no matter what the cursed priests threatened. But Solomon was not that naïve.
    Shaking off his thoughts, Solomon looked at the man who stood beside the high priest, a man named Ahimaaz. Why his daughter Basmath had married him, he couldn’t understand: the man was short of stature, had a ridiculous giggle, and rarely said anything interesting. The king seemed as though he were about to renew the discussion but stayed his words and dismissed the two priests; he would win no arguments with them today, and diminutive priests like Ahimaaz were not worth the expenditure of breath. Instead he returned to his brooding over the pagan temple, starkly outlined by the cold but brilliant moon.
----
    A HIMAAZ AND A ZARIAH, the two priestly brothers, walked in silence through the streets of the sleeping city. Ahimaaz, as a junior priest, would return to his modest house low down on the hill on which the city of Jerusalem was built, and Azariah, as high priest, would be headed to a palace just below that of King Solomon. But for now they walked together.
    Ahimaaz had grown up in awe of the seeming brilliance, knowledge, and worldliness of his older brother. But as they walked he found himself questioning the wisdom of Azariah’s words.
    He said softly, “Forgive me for saying this, Azariah, but I don’t think you should have spoken to Solomon like that. He will become annoyed and it could go against us.”
    Azariah didn’t bother looking at Ahimaaz before saying, “And how would you have spoken to him?”
    â€œI would have explained to him the reasons we’re not allowing anybody to build the temple until it’s been cleansed.”
    â€œIs that not what I did? As I said to him two days ago, and last week, and two weeks before that. I have been telling him since I made the decree. It’s not that he doesn’t understand, brother; it’s that he doesn’t want to understand.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œOur job as priests of the temple, by our descent from the line of Zadok, is to ensure that the worship of Yahweh is conducted properly, purely, and by all. Any deviation, any breaking of the rules, will weaken us.”
    Ahimaaz contemplated the words of his brother and couldn’t help but wonder who Azariah meant by “us”: the people or the priesthood?
----
October 17, 2007
    Y AEL RIPPED OFF her gloves and mask as she left the theater and threw her bloodied gown into a dump bin. Dressed only in surgical shoes and a light frock, she walked briskly to the doctors’ changing room and showered. Now, dressed in modern street clothes and partly refreshed but tired after standing on her feet for four hours,