The Leper King

Joshabad the king scowled at the sun as it burned the Megiddo plains in a red glow. He leaned in his saddle and spat on the ground near where his horse was munching grass. The animal nickered a protest, swayed its head in the other direction, and continued grazing on a fresh patch of ground.

            “Looks like another night in the plains,” he said.

            He was leading a caravan from Rabbah in Ammon, where he had collected his annual tribute of grain, wine, livestock, and produce. The king looked back at the camels, loaded with plunder, batting their long eyelashes in the wind. Behind them the donkeys pulled five cartloads of winter stores flanked by the soldiers on each side. Bringing up the rear were the scarcest of all commodities—human slaves. He had been away for two months, and as he came close to home, his patience wore thin.

            Huri, his captain, sat alongside him. “It’ll be another two days before we see the gates of Samaria, sir.” He said this stiffly, in his detached way, looking straight forward with his chin tucked under an unchanging frown. Joshabad thought he always looked like a man who had just been punched in the face.

            “All right. We had better set up camp before we can’t see. It gets so dark out here you can’t find your hand, even when it’s in front of your face.”

            The captain dismounted and began shouting orders. The obedient line of camels, donkeys, soldiers, slaves, and dust immediately began forming itself into a well-organized camp set in neat rows of canvas tents. After so long on the trail, the king’s men could set up camp in their sleep if they had to, and many times they did.

            The next morning, they broke camp as quickly and mindlessly as they had set it up the night before and were on their way by daybreak. The caravan made good progress all morning, snaking its way through the grassy plains, until Huri returned from scouting the road ahead, reining in his horse in a choking cloud of dust.

            “What’s wrong with you, Huri?” the king wheezed, “You almost blinded me with this accursed dust!”

            “My apologies, king, but I have some disappointing news.”

“What is it now?”

            “The fords are flooded. We’ll have to go around them.”

            “How long will that take?”

            “At least another day, my lord.”

            “Will this dreadful journey ever end?” the king whined. It had been his advisors’ idea for him to travel to Rabbah and receive the tribute in person. They told him it had been fifteen years since any Israelite official higher in rank than a captain had visited the territory, and unless the king showed his face and made an impression on the people there, they might begin to entertain rebellious notions. By making a personal appearance, the king assured continued submission and an uninterrupted supply of Ammonite goods for Israel.

            Joshabad wasn’t used to this. His father had blessed him by vacating the throne during a time of peace and prosperity. Aside from a few local skirmishes, he had never been called away for long periods of time to fight battles. In his twenty-eight years, he had never been away from the comforts of his palace for more than a couple of weeks. Israel was powerful and prosperous. Who knew how long it would last? Everything could come crashing down tomorrow. A king might as well indulge every fantasy while he can. That was his philosophy, and besides this excursion to Rabbah, that was what he had been able to do.

            The captain led the caravan slowly around the flooding fords, searching for a pass that allowed them access to the Samarian foothills on the other side of the river. As they cut a new path through the wilderness away from the trade routes, they became more aware of their surroundings. The terrain rolled gently ahead of them, a sign that they were leaving the plains. Little blackstarts hopped in and out of the acacia and scrub, unsure whether they could trust this strange sight, never having seen an Israelite caravan before. High in the sky above them, the sun spied their course, punishing them with brilliant heat, the only respite being the quick shadow of a buzzard or a passing puny cloud.

            Almost two hours into their detour, the king made out the form of several tan-colored tents along the river’s edge ahead of them. Surprised by their presence in such a desolate area, he spoke to his captain: “Why is this settlement here? I know of no nomadic tribes dwelling in this area.”

            “Nor I, king.”

            Squinting, the king tried to make out bodies moving about in the midst of the tents, but he could see only two or three shapeless, robed forms by the river. He could not tell if they were male or female, young or old.

            “Could be sheepherders,” guessed the captain.

            “Where are the sheep? I see nothing but a few tents, a fire, some farming equipment, and a few bodies down by the river,” said the king. “I’m going to get a closer look.”

            “Do you think that’s a good idea?” asked the captain, guardedly.

            “If there is a settlement this close to Samaria, I need to know about it,” said the king. “It won’t hurt to get a closer look.” He dismounted and led his horse toward the first few tents, still seeing nobody besides the three individuals by the river.

            “Keep moving.” A gravelly voice came from the tent closest to the king. “Nothing for you to see here.”

            “Come out here,” commanded the king. “I want to talk to you.”

            “That’s not a good idea,” said the man in the tent.

            “This is the king of Israel who rules in Samaria. We noticed your camp as we passed by, looking for a place to ford the river. Come out and identify yourself. We know of no one who has settled in these parts. If you are honest Israelites, no harm will come to you. But if you are enemies, this tent and every dwelling in this camp will be burned with fire. You’ll come out, one way or another.”

            The man in the tent was silent.

            “Huri, light it up!”

            While Huri left the king alone at the front of the caravan to get the fire, the flap of the tent suddenly burst open, producing an apparition in rags. The king could not make out its face because it was loosely covered by a rag held in place by a pale hand.

            “Leave!” growled the man. “It’s not safe, I tell you! Go!”

            More out of a sense of duty than desire, the king persisted. “For the last time, show your face. I mean you no harm. If you refuse to identify yourself, what else shall I assume but that you are an enemy here to spy out the land?”

            Defeated, the cloaked figure dropped the pale hand, revealing a face so shocking it caused the king to trip over his own feet and fall to the ground as he backed away from it. The two pleading eyes looked normal enough, but below the nose the man’s skin became white and cracked. Blood and a runny discharge oozed from the cracks in his skin. The man’s lower lip was three times the normal size, making it impossible for him to close his mouth fully. The king was still on the ground, looking up at the afflicted soul hovering over him. He could smell its wretched breath, and it was all he could do to hold down the contents of his stomach.

            “You’re…a leper!” he began in a whisper, which soon crescendoed into a shout. “It’s a leper colony! Move out!” The king’s entire entourage staggered in fear, including the slaves, who began praying to their gods. As for the leper, he merely covered his face, turned, and went back to his tent.

            The king regained his composure and called for Huri, who was already running back to the front of the caravan to see what all the commotion was about. They left quickly, finding a place to cross a few miles up the river. In less than a day, they rejoined the trade route and made it to Samaria. They’d left the leper colony behind, but the king could not shake the feeling that a part of it had been smuggled onboard one of his carts, and a stowaway was sneaking into his palace.

            Three days later he sat on his throne hearing the first of several hundred cases that had piled up in his absence. The throne was made from acacia overlaid in gold, and its arms had been carved into magnificent twin lions that flanked the king on either side, adding further to the air of authority. A farmer stood before him complaining about some land dispute while the lions stared menacingly. The king’s hands caressed their rich manes, but his face was vacant, inscrutable. He could not focus on land disputes, petty religious squabbles, and violations of obscure kingdom ordinances right now. All he could think about was the leper’s mouth hanging agape, the yellow, chipped teeth, the stale breath he could still smell, and the purple, fat bottom lip spilling drool on the ground. His body sat on the throne in his palace in Samaria, but his mind was still in the leper colony. He carried its poison air in his lungs. He knew he was doomed. He imagined himself sitting on his throne, petting just one of the lions because he had only one hand to rest on its head, the other arm ending abruptly in a white-scabbed nub. He winced at the thought of raw skin that turned even the finest silk into sackcloth, the awful white scales, the oozing sores…

            “My king?”

            The farmer waited for a response. All eyes focused on the king. He surveyed the room of inquiring faces and realized he could not go on like this. He had to settle the matter.

            “We’ll have to continue this hearing at another time. A more pressing issue grips me at the moment.” He dismissed the farmer with a wave of the hand and barked an order to a puzzled advisor standing nearby. “Call the priest.”

The priest entered moments later and bowed theatrically before the king. He wore linen covered with a golden ephod. A turban adorned his head, and sparkling rings choked the sausages he used for fingers. His narrow eyes watered continuously from poor health, giving the impression of great compassion to those who did not know him well. Never one to miss an opportunity for securing his position as the highest-ranking official in the kingdom, he had come down from the hill country of Ephraim to welcome the king home. “I trust the Lord protected you on your journey?” he asked.

“He did,” replied the king. “Thanks in part to your continuous prayers.” Joshabad couldn’t stand the priest. He concentrated on holding the smile he had conjured up and got straight to the point.

“Did you know about the leper colony north of the trade routes along the river?”

The priest shrugged. “No, my king. That is a remote location. Nobody has much reason to go there, which makes it the perfect place for lepers, poor souls. How did you come to know about it?”

“No matter,” said the king dismissively. “I have a request.”

“Name it,” said the priest. “I am ever the servant of my lord.”

Joshabad had to work hard to keep his eyes from rolling.

“Uzzi, the blind prophet. Do you know him?”

“An onerous wretch, that one,” said the priest shaking his head. “Trouble follows him wherever he goes!”

“I want you to find him and bring him to me.”

The priest’s disposition darkened. “Find him? Your majesty! I— If it’s counsel that you need, the entire priesthood is at your service. Perhaps you would like to inquire of the Lord? Or maybe my lord has dreamed a dream and requires an interpretation. I assure you, there is no need—”

“Get Uzzi I said!” barked the king.

Any further protests were pointless. The heavy priest lowered his eyes, bowed, and exited the throne room.

The following morning the priest returned, followed by a lanky man in a plain brown tunic who struggled against the soldiers who were leading him, one on each arm, into the king’s presence. Joshabad had heard his clear voice bouncing off the marble walls of the palace hallways before he had entered. “Let go of me, you beast!” he shouted.

The priest was sweating more than usual. “Uzzi, the seer of Beeroth,” he said, as if the man needed an introduction.

“Let him go,” ordered the king. He examined the prophet before him. His father had always shunned the man’s guidance and warned him never to call upon him for counsel. He had a reputation for rubbing Israel’s kings the wrong way. That may have been true, but it was also true that all the calamity he had predicted came to pass. Earthquakes, floods, stillborn babies, humiliating military losses, assassinations. It all came true.

His eyes were useless. They stared into the air somewhere above Joshabad, two cold gray orbs, and the king could not shake the feeling that they received some kind of light, albeit an unearthly illumination invisible to others.

“You already smell like one of them,” sneered the prophet.

The words sent a jolt through the king. “Everyone out!” he ordered. “I want to be alone with the seer.”

The priest issued a meek protest. “Sir, if I may be so bold—do you think that’s a good idea? This man, he—”

“Out!” The king shouted so loudly his voice echoed throughout the palace precincts. Soldiers and advisors scrambled to get out of the room. A peacock had strutted behind the priest without his knowing it, and he almost tripped over it when he spun around to flee the room. Within seconds, the frenzy died, and the prophet and the king were alone. The room was dark and cool, and a ray of light beamed through a high window and crossed the prophet’s sightless eyes.

“You have taken me from my home by force. I do not want to be here.”

“Of course you may go! Take gold or grain or whatever you desire with you. But only after you do this one thing for me. It will be easy for you, hardly anything at all, but it will mean a great deal to me.”

“You kings are all alike. Every time I’m brought here, I’m asked about the unknown—the outcome of some battle yet to be fought or the name of a spy in the court. And every time I reveal the answer, you act as though I am somehow responsible! As if I control destiny. You want to know what lies ahead, am I right?”

“Tell me what you know, seer. Do you not have enough respect for your king to reveal your secrets?”

Uzzi looked just to the right of the king’s face, toward an empty space, as blind men often do. “Look within your heart. You already know the answer.”

“How can you say that?” cried Joshabad. “I’m no prophet! It is you who has the gift of God to read men’s hearts. You can see events before they happen, not I! You know how to interpret that which is bound in dark riddles, to unfurl the unknown like a scroll.”

“I have no more control over what will be than you! I am no God!”

“No, but he whispers his secrets into your ears, the fates that he designs for the world of men.”

“Oh is that how it works?” Uzzi laughed dryly. “You think God built all this? He placed you on your throne, eh? Made you his anointed.” The last word dripped with sarcasm, and the blind man laughed harder this time, slapping his knee.

The mockery was starting to wear on Joshabad’s patience. He was not accustomed to being the butt of anyone’s jokes. “I am king in Israel,” he shouted, “and I demand to know what you’re not telling me! Speak, prophet, or you’ll hang from the gallows!”

“Now, see what I mean? There you go controlling destiny.”

“You know something, and by God I’ll get it out of you.”

Uzzi grew serious. “Forgive me for asking, your grace, but may I have a chair? They forced me to walk here from my home. I have been on my feet so long they are beginning to burn.”

The king left his throne and pulled one of the cushioned chairs from a corner of the room over to Uzzi. Then he carefully guided the blind man into a seated position and made sure he was comfortable. In the company of his men, the action would have felt beneath him, but here, alone with the prophet, he felt like the lesser man. Despite all his bluster, he knew he needed Uzzi, and the prophet, who possessed the knowledge he desired, needed nothing more than to be left alone. He had truth, and so he was free.

“I’ll try to explain,” the prophet started, the fog in his eyes seeming to spin like a pair of hurricanes. “You have no future, only now. The future’s just a myth we made up to convince ourselves we’ll have more time. We say, ‘I’ll plow the thirty acres on the south side of the river tomorrow,’ or, ‘We can arrange for our son’s apprenticeship next year,’ or, ‘Give him some time. He’ll cool off, and we can deal with him later.’ But if we ever get around to doing any of those things, they won’t be done ‘tomorrow’ or ‘next year’ or ‘later.’ We can only plow fields, make educational arrangements, and smooth over relational conflicts now, in the present. You see?

            “I knew a farmer who dreamed of building a beautiful house with a stone spiral staircase going up the middle. He drew plans and collected supplies for years, but he was an old man before he laid the first stone. Before then, he made excuses about being too busy with his crops or taking care of the animals. When his two sons grew old enough to take the load of the farm work off of him, he had no more excuses, so he started building the house. The spiral staircase was the first thing he built. He said because the staircase was supposed to be the highlight of the house, it should be built first, exactly the way he saw it in his imagination, and everything else should be adjusted around it. It took him two years to build it. I don’t know how he did it. Somehow he built a freestanding, three-story spiral staircase without having to ruin its beauty with unsightly braces or supports, at least that is what I’m told. Ten men once stood on it to test its strength, and it held strong. He had built an architectural wonder. People kept asking him when he was going to build the rest of the house. He told them it had taken a lot of energy and resources to build the staircase and he needed to build up his strength for phase two. A year went by, and he was still putting it off. ‘Next month,’ he said. ‘Next week.’ ‘Tomorrow.’ But he never made it past the spiral staircase. He’s been dead for twenty years now, but if you go out to his place, you can see that beautiful stone monument to a nonexistent future, screwing up toward the sky.

            “So let’s dispense with talk of the future, as if it’s something that has already happened, or some land you’re visiting like a Phoenician crossing the Great Sea on his ship. There is no future. Yet.”

            “But you know things,” said the king.

            “Yes, I know things, things no one knows but God. But that is not exactly true, is it? Every secret I know is known by three: myself, God, and one other man.”

            “There is another?”

            “Oh yes, always.”

            “Who is he?” The king’s anger was rising again. “If you refuse to speak of my destiny, maybe he will!”

            The blind man hung his head and thought for a moment. “You can see,” he said, “and yet you are so blind.”

            “I can see well enough to know you’re toying with me! Perhaps you will have a change of heart after I have someone stripe your back!”

            “You are the third man!” Uzzi roared. “Three men know your destiny! I, God, and you, king!”

            The king stumbled backward and dropped into his throne, stunned by the prophet’s words. “What do you mean? Does some latent power lie within me to divine my own future?”

            “There is no future. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

            “How, then, do you predict what doesn’t exist. You have foretold the future. Do not deny it.”

            “I have spoken the truth. I’m not hiding anything. There is no future, but—”

            “But? But what?”

            “There is no single future, but there are futures.”

            The king leaned toward the sightless man, sensing he was finally getting to the point. “Go on,” he said.

            Uzzi sighed. “Think of life as a vast web of roads, more intricate and complicated than any spider’s silken snare. Every decision stands at a fork in the road. It may break three ways, or three thousand. The possibilities are often numerous, but never infinite. Of course there too many futures for any mere mortal to discern, but God sees them all, and he knows which one we will choose.”

            “So man is destined by fate.”

            “No! Are your eyes so clear that you have forgotten how to listen? Are there really so many bootlickers surrounding you that you have lost the ability to understand another person’s thoughts?”

            Joshabad stared menacingly at the blind man. “You forget your place, seer.”

            Uzzi breathed in slowly, then said, “There is no fate. The futures are certain, but the future is never decided.”

            “Stop beating around the bush! Tell me, how do you know what will be?”

            “God knows every one of us intimately, from the heart, better than we know ourselves. He also knows that impossibly complicated web of possible futures. He sees every crossroad before us and knows where each road leads after that. When you accept these two facts, the rest is simple.”

            “Not so simple as you make it out to be, seer.”

            “Suppose you, the king, are awakened by the trumpets’ alarm in the middle of the night. An enemy has surprised you and laid siege to the city. You must take decisive action. There are numerous possibilities, more than your small mind can possibly imagine…”

            The king issued a warning by clearing his throat.

            Uzzi ignored the threat. “In his divine omniscience, God knows which of the myriad futures you will choose. You see, you are predictable. The future, which doesn’t exist, is not. That is why I say three know what will be. God, because he knows all futures and those who must choose from them; I, because He whispers in my ear; and the one to whom the future belongs, because he chooses it.”

            The king said nothing for a long time. Uzzi sat in the silence comfortably, accustomed to the dark. Finally, the king revealed why he had summoned his guest. “Uzzi, tell me. What will become of me?”

            “If you truly believe I can tell you this, O king, then take my advice. Do not ask me to divine what lies ahead. At the moment there are many possibilities. Let that be enough.”

            “The priest was right—you are a troublemaker! It is not enough. I must know. I cannot focus, cannot sleep. Tell me, Uzzi. Tell me what will become of me, or else—I swear it—I will deliver you over to the torturers who will stripe your back. I will have you beaten until either you tell me, or you have no breath to do so!”

            “You leave me no choice,” said Uzzi. “I will tell you what you want to know. But just remember—I warned you not to coerce me to tell.”

            “Speak, seer. Tell what is to be.”

            “Your fears will soon be confirmed. You, O king, shall be a leper! Your skin shall fade white until it remains as pale as I’m sure you are now, and you shall cover your face and wander the earth in exile. You shall hang as a ghost betwixt life and death, until mercy releases your pitiful spirit, and you are finally gathered to your fathers.”

            “I knew it,” said the king in a whisper. “Somehow I knew it.” He rose from his throne and paced around the room in deep thought. “You said I choose my future, did you not?”

            The blind man’s shoulders slumped. “I did.”

            “So tell me this, seer, and I will let you go back to whatever miserable cave they dragged you out of. Is it too late? Have I already sealed my fate?”

            “How is it that a man with the mind of an infant can rule a kingdom? Do you still not understand? Do my shriveled eyes see better than yours? You have no fate! You are shaping your own dreadful end. Even now, by asking this question, you are doing it. I speak not of fate, yet what I foretell is inevitable. For you will always be you, king, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.”

            “We’ll see about that,” said Joshabad.

The next day, the king set out for the high places in Bethel. When he arrived, the priest performed the ceremony for the cleansing of leprous disease. Dressed in white linen robes, he took a dove in his left hand, and held its head between the knuckles of his right hand and pulled off its head over a bowl of fresh water. He held the warm, twitching body over the bowl and squeezed the blood into it. He then added cedarwood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop. Then he took a second bird and dipped it into the bowl until it was wet with the water and the blood of its companion and released it. He lifted the hyssop out of the bowl and flicked it toward the king seven times, sprinkling him with the bloody water. After pronouncing him clean, the priest ordered that he be shaved from head to toe. After shaving, the king bathed and dressed himself in new clothes. Then he returned home, bald and clean. A week later he returned to Bethel with two male lambs and a ewe and fine flour mixed with oil to complete the offerings. When he returned to his throne to resume his duties, the king felt clean for the first time since he had returned from his journey.

            The court physicians examined him and assured him of his good health, taking oaths upon their lives and the lives of their children that the king had not been afflicted by leprosy and that his skin was as clear as newly fallen snow. The queen scoffed at the words of Uzzi, remarking that his mind was as blind as his eyes. Other prophets gladly contradicted Uzzi’s words, and soon the king began to doubt them himself, forgetting how piercing they were at the time and how reluctantly they were shared.

            The day after his second trip from Bethel, before the hair had begun to grow back on his head, he called for Huri, the captain of his army. “I want you to return to the leper colony we found on the way home from Rabbah,” he said, “kill every miserable wretch that lives there, and burn it to the ground until every last trace of it is gone. Then I want you to scour the kingdom. Find all the lepers living within the borders of Israel and put them to death—man, woman, or child, no matter how severe or how minor the disease.”

            Huri started with the leper colony they had encountered by the river when they wandered from the trade route. His men dragged every leper, wraithlike and moaning, into the middle of the camp and put them to death by the sword. They killed the children first in a gesture of mercy, so they would not have to watch the others die. As the cold executioners worked, the haunting sound of the lepers’ moaning grew fainter and fainter, until there was only one old woman left. Then they cut her down, and it was quiet. They set the lepers’ tents and the rest of their possessions on fire, and a black plume rose out of the valley like a demon hoard riding into the sky. They worked their way from there to the rest of the kingdom, killing every leper from Dan to Beersheba, those who bore the signs of the disease and even those who were merely rumored to have it. The land groaned under their swords, for the king’s healing was severe, and widows and orphans filled the land.

            Thirty days after he had stumbled upon the leper colony, the king felt better than ever. No signs of the disease could be found in his body. His skin was clear, his energy high. He was certain he had changed his fate, if Uzzi’s words were even to be believed.

            He had delayed celebrations upon his return because he had been too distracted to feast. But now he could focus on the future. The leper colony was a distant memory; it felt more like a dream to him than a reality.

A banquet had been prepared in his honor in the Great Hall of the palace. City leaders, priests, government officials, advisors, and soldiers engorged themselves on platters full of dates, pomegranates, grapes, figs, roasted lamb, and bread. The wine flowed freely, and many of the revelers were already drunk. Musicians, singers, and dancing girls entertained the guests. Joshabad sat at the head of the long table as his guests, one after another, showered him with praise.

“No king in Israel has ever governed with such equity and peace,” one said.

“The kingdom has never known such lasting peace,” said another.

“May your wife bear you ten princes!”

The king received every blessing heartily and without reservation. After all, the kingdom was in good shape. He deserved the accolades. It had been a difficult three months. Why shouldn’t he receive his guests’ praise and enjoy the fruits of his toil?

The king stood. The sound of the lyre and the singers stopped abruptly. The guests quieted their brash and tawdry communications. All eyes turned to the anointed leader at the head of the table.

“I would like to raise a toast,” said the king, lifting his goblet high in the air. “First, to my priest and those who serve with him at the high places in Bethel, for your prayers on my behalf, without which I would not stand here in good health before these loyal subjects.”

The priest, wet-lipped and rosy-cheeked, smiled and dipped his balding head in a practiced bow.

“Next, to the captain of my army, might right-hand man, Huri, for your constant dedication, and to the army he leads, the fiercest company of fighting men Israel has ever known!”

The room erupted in cheers, and the soldiers shouted and slapped one another on the back. Huri, for his part, maintained his usual expressionless stare. If he was enjoying himself, it did not show in his countenance.

“Finally, to my wife, the queen. There is no match for your beauty and your grace. May we rule Israel together, and may our children become—”

A sudden crash interrupted the king’s toast, and he felt something cold splash against his lower legs and feet. A hush fell over the guests, and Joshabad felt their eyes on him, staring not at his face, which continued grinning absently as he tried to discern the source of the noise that had interrupted his speech, but at the arm he had extended to hold the goblet as he made his toast. Slowly, the king traced their stares to his hand, which was still cupped and held aloft, only it was empty. He had dropped the goblet and had not even felt it slip from his grasp.

All eyes watched the king as he withdrew his hand, taking it in the other, which he used to massage the muscles in his palm and stretch the fingers. There was no feeling in it. The goblet had not merely slipped out of his hand. He dropped it because the hand he had used to hold it aloft was weak and no longer had sensitivity.

An invisible dagger plunged through him as he recalled the words of the blind prophet—You shall be a leper! He did his best to recover his former demeanor. “Musicians, play us a song!” he said, forgetting his toast. The lyrist obediently began to strum, and the singers sang, but the eyes did not break their stare. “Excuse me while I confer briefly with my captain,” he said, looking over at Huri. “Please continue. There is plenty of wine.” He forced a smile, then turned and exited the banquet hall with the stolid army captain hot on his heels.

When they were out of earshot from the party, the king hissed at his captain: “You told me you had purged leprosy from the land!”

“I d-did, my king! I saw to it that every last one of those miserable wretches were put to the sword!” Huri, who was usually imperturbable, stammered as he tried to defend himself.

“How, then, do you explain this?” Joshabad held the numb hand before Huri’s face. He had not noticed it before, but now he could see that it was blanched, and the nails had begun to yellow and separate from his fingers.

“I-I can’t, my lord. I eliminated every one of them, just as you said.”

Joshabad’s eye caught a glimpse of something on the captain’s forearm, something red like slaughtered lamb. He had noticed earlier that Huri had been standing in the corner with that arm tucked out of sight. Quickly, the king snatched the arm up so that he could examine it in the torchlight flickering in the palace halls. White scales, dry like the skin of a fish dried by the sun, covered the greater portion of his forearm.

“So it’s you.”

Huri fell on his face before the king, the two of them bound by a slow, pale death. “I swear it!” he cried. “I didn’t know until yesterday morning!”

“Say no more, captain. I brought this about. If anyone is to blame, it is your king. The prophet was right. I chose this path. We returned from Rabbah clean. The only leprosy we brought home was smuggled in my imagination. That is, until I sent you back. You picked up the foul plague on your return, when you slaughtered those poor beggars by the river.

From that day forward, the king lived in quarantine by the river at the place where he encountered the lepers on his journey back from Rabbah. He had a modest dwelling built there upon the ashes of the former colony he had ordered his armies to incinerate, and in doing so, brought about the very outcome he had so desperately wished to avoid.

The king had plenty of time to reflect on his life while he was there. There was little more to do than think as he waited on death to take him one piece at a time. He thought about the blind prophet and how foolish he had been to ignore him. He also thought about how most of his life he had blamed fate for all the disappointments and the trials and how he had taken credit for the triumphs and the plunder. But all that time he had been responsible for all of it, while the Lord watched from his celestial throne, knowing what he would do before he did it. All his life he blamed others for his misfortunes, or he blamed God, but now he realized that he had been climbing a spiral staircase of his own making, one that rose high and then stopped midair, ending nowhere.