by Angela Hunt
“Auuuuuuuuu.” Quinn pulled on the neckline of Atticus’s tunic. “Auuuuuuuuu.”
Atticus jiggled the baby. Soon the boy would be hungry and he had no food on hand. This prophet had better hurry.
The shrubs rustled and the rabbi reappeared. His mouth curved in a slow smile when he caught Atticus’s eye. “I’m sorry you had to wait.”
Not certain how much respect had to be paid to a healing Jewish rabbi-prophet, Atticus bowed his head. “I would wait all day if you can help this boy.”
Yeshua approached with his hands outstretched. “How long has the boy been deaf?”
Atticus frowned as he handed the baby over. How did he know? No one looking at Quinn would guess he had a problem unless …
He exhaled in a rush. Of course. The first disciple must have prepared Yeshua for this encounter.
Atticus folded his arms. “I think he’s been deaf since birth.”
Yeshua tossed the child into the air, then held the laughing boy against his chest. “Do you know why this child cannot hear?”
Atticus stared. Was this some sort of test? Did the prophet suspect Atticus was only pretending to be Quinn’s father? He forced a laugh. “Who can say why these things happen? I must have done something to displease the gods, so they struck my son.”
Yeshua glanced at Atticus, his eyes bright with confidence, his smile sly with knowing. “This child is not deaf because of your sin or his parents’ sins. He was born deaf so the power of ADONAI could be revealed to you.”
Before Atticus could wonder at the mysteries contained in that brief speech, the prophet returned the child to Atticus’s arms, then placed his hands on Quinn’s ears. The boy’s pointed chin quivered as he stared into Yeshua’s dark eyes, then the prophet lifted his hands and commanded, “Open!”.
Quinn’s eyes blinked, then widened. His bewildered gaze focused first on the prophet, then on Atticus. Then he twisted in Atticus’s arms to look at a complaining crow that fluttered up from a bush and flew across the sky.
Yeshua rested his hand on the crown of the boy’s head. “Like a seed dropped by a bird, he will grow to maturity apart from his people. But the purposes of God will be revealed in him, and he will know the truth.”
Atticus had no idea what Yeshua meant, but the prophet could have promised that Quinn would become the next emperor and Atticus would have believed.
In the firm grip of a bottomless peace and satisfaction, he gave the prophet profuse thanks, then carried Quintus to Cyrilla.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Quinn, ordinarily a quiet baby, did not seem inclined to sleep on the journey back to Caesarea. He twisted in Atticus’s arms, fidgeted on Cyrilla’s lap, and fixed his eyes on everything that moved and made sound.
Cyrilla found the experience fascinating. “Can you imagine what must be going through his head? To live in a silent world and suddenly hear everything! Our little man must be shocked beyond all imagining.”
Atticus smiled, but his thoughts went far beyond wonder. He had been thrilled to see the results of the healer’s touch, but by whose power had the miracle occurred? The priests of Mithras, or at least the few he had been allowed to observe, made a great to-do of their rituals, performing their mysterious rites with powders, incantations, and extravagant blood-letting. Before they would even attempt something as important as a healing, they would first study the entrails of a goat or an ox to see if the day would be auspicious and the gods could safely be entreated. The petitioner would have to fast and endure testing to ascertain his worthiness of the god’s attention. If at any point something went wrong or looked doubtful, the request would be denied.
This Yeshua, however, had looked at Quinn with the fond gaze of an old friend and said, “This child is not deaf because of your sin or his parents’ sins.”
Had Atticus heard the comment correctly? The healer could not have known that Quinn wasn’t Atticus’s son—the boy had been wearing a tunic that hid the evidence of his circumcision. In truth, Atticus felt like Quinn’s father, and Cyrilla had developed real affection for the child. Yeshua could not have glimpsed any diffidence that might mark a pretend parent. So how had he known the truth … and how had he opened the boy’s deaf ears?
The question hung in the air, shimmering like the reflection from the sea at Atticus’s left hand. He was born deaf so the power of ADONAI could be revealed to you. ADONAI had to be a name for the God of the Jews, the God who could not be found in their synagogues or their temple. If he didn’t live in their places of worship, how in the world did they reach him?
He glanced behind him, wanting to ask Cyrilla if any of her people’s gods had such power, but her head hung low, as if she were dozing. He turned back to the road and clucked at the donkey.
Cyrilla had changed since those days when she’d traveled behind the army. The garrulous, blunt girl had softened. Perhaps the Lady Procula’s refinement had rubbed off on her. Cyrilla took more care with her clothing and hair these days, and her nails were no longer bitten to the quick.
All in all, Atticus decided, any man would find the changes in Cyrilla attractive.
The crowds on the road thinned as they moved southward. Atticus gave the donkey a ripple of the reins and urged the beast to pick up his pace. If possible, he would like to spend the night in Tiberias, where the atmosphere was decidedly less Hebrew.
They had just passed the stout gates of Magdala when Atticus glimpsed a disheveled figure among the tombs outside the city walls. A woman, wild-eyed and straggle-haired, stood among the graves, her arms planted on a gravestone, her face haggard and lined. Unlike the modest Jewish women Atticus had observed earlier, she wore no veil.
Cyrilla nudged him, then moved closer, tightening her arms around Quintus. “Hurry, Atticus.”
“Why should we fear a woman?”
“Don’t argue, just whip the donkey. Only madwomen and devils live among the dead.”
“Devils?” Atticus turned to give the woman another look, but Cyrilla snatched the flail and smacked the donkey’s rump, startling the animal into a trot.
Atticus tightened his grip on the reins and let the beast maintain that pace until they passed the graveyard.
As the air turned gray and congealed with the softness of twilight, Atticus found himself envying the family groups who had left the road and headed home through various city gates. How pleasant it would be to have a wife and child of his own! If he had never joined the army, if Cyrilla were his wife and Quinn his son, he would take them to a sturdy house, bar the door, and make certain they settled down to sleep in safety. No man, soldier, or thief would come against their dwelling, for Atticus would guard it with his life … just as a certain Jewish father had tried to guard his home in Magdala.
A wave of guilt rose and threatened to engulf him, but he pushed it back. Why was he wasting time with foolish fantasies? He was a Roman soldier; he had sworn to obey the emperor and defend the Empire at all costs. Rome was the light of the world, the civilizing influence that had tamed barbarians and educated the poor.
The house in Magdala had belonged to an enemy; the uncooperative man was one of those rebels who had sworn to instigate revolt against the Empire. If Gaius hadn’t ordered them to strike that night, that man and his headstrong son might have attacked and killed four or five of Atticus’ comrades.
Sometimes a leader had to make a preemptive move. And when a centurion commanded, a soldier had to obey.
Atticus took a deep breath and felt a dozen different emotions collide as he looked back and studied the child sleeping in Cyrilla’s lap. He hadn’t obeyed every order. Gaius had told him to deliver everyone in the house, and Atticus hadn’t delivered the baby. But Quinn was no enemy. If given a chance, an education, and training, he might serve the Roman army as well and as ably as Atticus, Gaius, or even Pontius Pilate …
“Atticus?” Cyrilla’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Would you mind taking him? I’d like to stretch out.”
Atticus
accepted the sleeping child without speaking, then propped the toddler against his shoulder. They should find a place to spend the night, but maybe they shouldn’t stay at an inn. Too many people, too many questions, and they no longer needed answers. They needed rest, and they could sleep in a grove as well as an inn.
He spied a spreading plane tree at the crown of the next hill and gestured with his free hand. “There. We’ll stop there for the night and sleep in the wagon. Tomorrow we’ll rise early and finish the journey to Caesarea.”
He smiled when he heard Cyrilla’s sigh of relief. The girl he’d once considered foolish and giddy had proven to be faithful and resourceful. She’d make a good mother. One day, if she’d wait, she might make a good wife.
With that thought uppermost in his mind, Atticus considered the road stretching toward the horizon and wished he were free to claim a wife of his own.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I wish I could tell you more about the days when I lived among the graves outside Magdala, but my memory of that time is cloudy. I remember darkness and pain, hunger and wretchedness, the breath of rough men in my face and the clawing of sharp-nailed hands on my heart. I remember being able to smell foul words as they escaped my lips. My eyes registered offensive sounds and obscene phrases. My nose inhaled a cacophony of noise and babble. I lived in complete confusion, frequently stumbling among the tombs and gravestones as if a host of pursuers nipped at my heels.
I felt as lived-in as a roadside inn that had been taken over by thieves and infidels. On some days my ears rang with silence; at other times the babble of inhuman voices made me scream and scratch at my skin in a desperate desire to be free. I became a shadow that slipped into villages at dawn and looked for scraps of food or tattered fabric with which to cover myself in the cold night.
I do remember one particular day … I was between villages, walking alone on the road, when I saw a company of Roman soldiers coming toward me. Instantly, my thoughts cleared and my vision focused. I knew the centurion who walked out in front. I had seen him on a road before, I had seen his eyes glare from beneath his helmet and focus on my firstborn son.
I recognized the hard lines of his face and the confident strut of his walk. He had not changed.
I darted off the road and hid behind a bush. Between each convulsive breath I heard myself repeating a name: “Gaius. Gaius. Gaius.” Murderer of my family.
I heard the centurion call a halt. I lifted my head and saw him step into the brush, a careless distance away from the men under his command. In the boldness of the eternally arrogant he had stepped aside to relieve himself, never dreaming anyone would notice him.
But I noticed. And so did my voices.
Look, there he is!
Who comes for you? The one you hate!
Rise, Miryam, rise and look!
He has come to kill you! Will you do nothing?
The one you hate is within your grasp!
The rattle of voices prodded me from my astonished state and focused my attention. Gaius, one of my enemies, stood only a few feet away.
I bent from the waist and crept toward him, using the roadside bushes as a screen. I halted two steps away and waited.
When Gaius had completed his business, he leaned against a tree and took a bit of bread from a scrip at his side. Below the leather pouch hung a dagger—pointed blade, steel hilt. Small enough for my hand.
Why do you wait? Have you no courage?
He presents his back to you, the fool! Rise and act! Take your revenge!
She’s too weak, she won’t do it.
She’s strong! She will!
She won’t!
“I will!” These words came from my own lips, and at the sound of them Gaius turned, his brows lifting as I rushed toward him like a whirlwind. Urgency fired my blood and I would not be stopped. The Roman tossed his bread away, but my hand was already fumbling at his waist, my fingers searching for the hilt of his dagger—
“As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women!”
I pulled out the dagger, drew it back, and felt his hand clamp around my arm. He shoved me down, his eyes burning into mine, his hand as rigid as the steel in my grip. I would have fallen to my knees, but by calling on the power of the gods within me I managed to resist his strength and push back until the blade kissed his neck. Color drained from his face and a strangled noise gurgled in his throat, then something hit me at the back of the head, sending a shower of lights sparking through my skull like a swarm of fireflies.
I crumpled as if my bones had been made of parchment.
As the energy of my gods ebbed away, I closed my eyes and feigned death, not groaning even when a heavy foot kicked me and something at my center snapped like a twig.
“Shall I kill her?” a man asked in Greek.
My enemy coughed and cleared his throat before answering. “She’s half-dead already. Leave her. With any luck, the next unfortunate who attracts her attention will be a Jew.”
Someone laughed and rolled me onto my back. I felt hands on my face and my tunic; I knew what would happen next. I prepared to withdraw into the dark well where I routinely escaped, but an unexpected voice intruded—“Leave her alone, soldier. Why would you add to this wretch’s misery?”
Amazed that a Roman—any Roman—could show mercy, I opened my eyes. The blinding sun prevented me from seeing distinct faces, but I glimpsed two men, one dark-haired, one a hulking brute. My voices went silent as the brute’s shadow fell over me, then they began to howl in maniacal glee.
Unable to endure their frenzy, I retreated into darkness.
* * *
I don’t know why I didn’t die during those months. I ate cast-off fish and grass and grubs, I drank from the lake. I took no care for myself because I cared nothing for myself, and the foreign gods within me delighted in my downfall.
Most of the time they jibbered in my head. Sometimes I could hear one voice above the others; sometimes I lost control of my tongue and the voices spilled from my own throat. When this happened, women drew their children close and hurried away; men stood in front of their courtyard gates and regarded me with folded arms and hard eyes. Even when my lips were silent, people who passed by would pull their cloaks around them lest we touch the same dust. Some spat on me as if I were an abandoned dog.
I must have reeked of idolatry and sin.
Most of those days are lost to me now, but I do remember waking one morning and finding my old neighbor in the Magdala graveyard. She was kneeling at my family tomb, cleaning dirt away from the inscription on the stone. For a long moment all I could do was stare, then I managed to speak her name: “Yudit?”
She recoiled as if she’d seen a ghost. “Miryam! You’re—you’re not well.”
I staggered toward her, tearing at my tattered tunic as a guttural voice roared from my throat: “What have you to do with this place, daughter of Avraham?”
Fear radiated from my old friend like a halo around the moon. “Miryam … why are you talking like that? Are you—do you want something?”
“Want?” I tilted my head and stared at her. “I want everything, I want nothing. I want the sun and moon and stars to help me; I want to kill the Romans, I want to kill those who didn’t stop them from murdering my family—”
I whirled as the graveyard gate creaked on its hinges. My lovely Hadassah stood at the entrance, a basket on her arm and a weight of sadness on her face.
My heart bounded upward. “Hadassah?”
“Miryam?” For an instant her face seemed to open so I could look inside and see the trail of her emotions. I saw joy, bewilderment, a quick flicker of fear … then grief. “Dear Miryam, what has happened to you?”
Yudit trembled as tears spilled over her cheeks. “Hadassah, don’t.”
“But Mother, it’s Miryam—”
“No. Run back to the gate.”
“But Mother—”
“Get out of here, now!” My best friend
and neighbor grabbed up her tunic and squirmed through the tombstones like an eel, then grabbed Hadassah and dragged her through the gate. I followed them onto the road, cursing Yudit’s cowardice with every step.
The elders at the Magdala gate, shamefaced and silent, retreated at my approach. I think they would have shut me out, but I was too close behind my fleeing neighbors. So the elders stood to the side as I stumbled into the city and skulked toward the ruins of my home. There I knelt in the rubble and wailed the names of my lost loved ones.
The Law allows three days for weeping, seven for lamenting, thirty for abstaining from laundered garments and from cutting the hair. The rabbis say anyone who mourns longer than the allotted time is really grieving for someone else. Perhaps I grieved for my lost life. I no longer knew who I was or what I was supposed to be. But I did grieve.
I spent that night in the ashes of my past, and when the city gates opened the next morning, a stranger entered Magdala. Not a Roman, this man, not a Greek or a Syrian.
A Nazarene.
* * *
I awoke at daybreak with a sense, unanchored but strong, that a storm was about to break. I looked up at the sky, expecting to see thunderclouds, but the heaven was a wide and faultless violet curve. Morning air floated around my bare arms, a blessedly cool welcome to the day.
So why did prickles of unease nip at the back of my neck?
The gods in my head whispered among themselves, but none of them spoke directly to me. When I trudged down the street and saw the watchmen opening the Magdala gates, I felt a surge of energy, a momentary alertness. I sensed that I stood on the threshold of some important occasion … and then the feeling slipped away. Gone. Like everything in my life.
I yawned, scratched at the insect bites on my arms, and idly wondered if I should be expecting a shipment of silk or a delivery of wool. No, no—my dyeing business belonged to my old existence, the life that had meaning.