by Angela Hunt
“Lord,” Peter called, “we have two swords among us.”
Yeshua hesitated. “That’s enough.”
My hand trembled as I moved to light the lamps. I didn’t understand everything he meant, but perhaps I wasn’t meant to.
One thing, however, was clear: Yeshua knew this night would be important, and he was ready to face it.
Chapter Forty-one
I left the men in the inn’s upstairs room and took myself to bed. John Mark had kindly provided a small chamber off the first floor, so I lay down on a straw-filled mattress. The inn had larger chambers, of course, but they had been filled with pilgrims to the holy city.
Before retiring to my room, I asked John Mark to wake me when the men left the upper chamber. Hadassah and I planned to walk with Yeshua and the disciples to Bethany, where Mary and Marta waited to shelter us for the night.
I meant to rest only for an hour or two, but the stars had begun to fade behind a brightening sky when my eyes flew open. Hadassah slept on a mattress across from me, her hand pillowing her cheek.
My first reaction was indignation—had Yeshua and the disciples gone off and left us behind?—then I heard voices from the street outside. A pair of strangers spoke in quiet but intense tones, not the sort of conversation I’d expect during a joyous festival.
Then again, I didn’t expect to hear anything before dawn.
I sat up and brushed straw from my hair, then tiptoed to the window. I stood in the shadows and held my breath, straining to hear the men outside.
“Where are they holding him?”
“The high priest’s house.”
“And his men?”
“Scattered like sheep.”
I felt my stomach drop and the empty place fill with a frightening hollowness. Whose men had scattered like sheep? Surely not Yeshua’s. His disciples were ready and armed … with two pitiful swords.
My heart began to thump almost painfully in my chest. I’d known they weren’t prepared! Hadn’t they noticed the extra guards at the temple this week? Hadn’t they felt the tension in the air?
The Romans must have taken Yeshua; the disciples must have turned and run. That’s why John Mark hadn’t wakened me—like the others, he was probably trembling in some dark corner, hiding from the authorities who had arrested the prophet of Isra’el.
I left Hadassah asleep as I grabbed my veil and hurried into the street. I didn’t know this section of the old city, but the temple wasn’t far away. Surely the high priest lived near the temple mount.
* * *
At some point in my flight, rational thought returned. The other women were more familiar with Jerusalem than I; they would know how to find Caiaphas’s house. They would know how to find Yeshua.
I went to the house where our rabboni’s mother waited with relatives and found her awake, her veil on her head, her eyes red and circled with grief. She rose without a word when the door opened to me; a moment later her arm circled my waist.
Together we walked toward the temple mount, then she gestured toward the avenue where the high priest Caiaphas lived.
We halted when a pair of gates swung open. An official-looking procession of temple guards moved out in a knot, a bound prisoner at their center. Yeshua’s mother and I stepped into the shadows, and I felt her body go limp when our eyes confirmed our fears—Yeshua walked at the center of this armed procession. Blood streamed from his mouth and nose; he staggered with the steps of a man too exhausted to lift his head.
He did, even so—and his eyes caught mine. And in that moment all my dreams and convictions of victory collided with a despairing reality. The world might as well have been turned on its head, for none of this was supposed to happen; none of it was even possible. How could the prophet who tossed moneychangers out of the temple walk like a lamb amid the same guards who had witnessed his fierce authority? How could the rabbi who commanded souls to break free of Sh’ol submit to being bullied by the religious rulers?
In that instant my heart sank with an emotion I never expected to feel toward my rabboni—shame. Why had Yeshua given up? Had he grown weary of the struggle? Had he surrendered when his men fled in the night? I would not have run; neither would his mother. I would have picked up a sword and fought the Romans until they stole my dying breath.
We had given up so much to enlist in his cause; we had left our homes and families and friends. We had believed in him; we had come to see him as the promised messiah of Isra’el.
I looked away as the awful feeling mingled with disappointment and hurt and pain. Yeshua had power, so why hadn’t he used it? I didn’t understand anything, but a memory surfaced as he passed―once again I saw myself lighting the lamps for the seder and felt the stirring of hope in my breast.
I might never feel such hope again.
Chapter Forty-two
For the briefest moment, a criminal’s battered face hangs in Atticus’s mind’s eye—faint at first, then as vivid as a portrait emerging under the hand of a skilled artist.
His contubernium had been called out to provide security for a trial, and for the better part of that morning, Atticus did not recognize the silent man who stood before Pilate. From his position, Atticus could see no more than the prisoner’s plain robe and the back of his head. When the accused finally turned, his face had been so battered Atticus still didn’t realize who they were guarding.
He and his comrades escorted the prisoner from the Praetorium to Herod’s hall and back to Pilate’s porch. Atticus had not been privy to the scene in Herod’s throne room, but the King of the Jews wanted nothing to do with the criminal and Pilate was clearly frustrated with the angry religious leaders who’d brought the beaten man to the procurator.
When they brought the prisoner before Pilate again, the governor had moved his judgment seat to the open courtyard. With an exasperated grimace, the procurator of Judea leaned forward and asked in a rasping voice: “Tell me truly: are you the king of the Jews?”
In a voice cracking with weariness, the prisoner answered: “I am not an earthly king. If I were, my followers would have fought when the religious leaders arrested me. My kingdom is not of this world.”
At the sound of that Galilean accent, awareness ruffled through Atticus’s mind like wind on water. He’d heard that voice before. In the temple, earlier that week, and by the Sea of Tiberias, where the wind had provided a haunting backdrop.
He was guarding the prophet Yeshua.
A flicker of horror coursed through him as he shifted his gaze from the procurator to the prisoner. Impossible to tell what the prophet had done to arouse the ire of the Jews clamoring behind the line of legionnaires, but he’d certainly done something.
Or had he?
Atticus looked at Pilate, who sat on the edge of his chair and drummed his nails on the armrest. His long face and glaring eyes, which could intimidate most men even from a distance, had filled with frustration and his voice had gone rough. He glanced left and right as if he could find an answer to his dilemma in the faces of his counselors, yet no one approached him except … Cyrilla.
Atticus tensed as Procula’s maid bowed before the governor. Pilate saw her and, with a smile that proved he was grateful for any interruption, motioned her forward.
Atticus felt Flavius’s eyes upon him as the girl walked toward the judgment seat, then bent to whisper something in her master’s ear. A tiny flicker of shock widened Pilate’s eyes and for an instant panic tightened the corners of his mouth.
Cyrilla bowed and drifted away, leaving the governor to deal with the effects of her message. His hands tightened on the chair’s armrests, then he lifted his chin and announced that in honor of the Jewish festival he would release a prisoner. Would the people prefer that he release the so-called King of the Jews, or Barabbas, a convicted rebel and murderer?
Atticus smiled at the wisdom in the procurator’s words. Barabbas, leader of a bloody insurrection, deserved to die under Jewish and Roman laws, while this Galilean had d
one nothing but offend the sensibilities of a few religious leaders.
“We want Barabbas!”
Atticus stared, disbelieving, as the cry started among the Jewish leaders and spread through the crowd. “Give us Barabbas!”
Pilate stood and held up his hand. “Then what shall I do with this man you call the King of the Jews?”
“Crucify him!”
“Why?” Pilate answered. “What crime has he committed?”
The tenor of the shouting changed from disjointed responses to a unified and powerful thunder: “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
Pilate glanced toward the tribune Claudius Lysias, who stepped forward and saluted.
“Release Barabbas,” Pilate commanded, “and flog this prisoner.” In a lower voice that reached no further than the Roman legionnaires, he added, “Perhaps that will satisfy their bloodlust.”
Two of the soldiers who guarded Pilate’s judgment seat descended the stairs and took the condemned man by the arms, turning him toward the Fortress Antonia. In that moment, Atticus glimpsed the prophet’s eyes … and knew Pilate had made a grave mistake.
Fortunately, Claudius put another contubernium in charge of the flogging. They scourged the prophet, blow after blow, with a flagellum that tore the flesh from the thin man’s back. Atticus winced with every strike, recalling how the flail felt when it tore into his own skin. He still bore scars from his initiation into the Mithras cult, and he had borne only seven blows.
Yeshua took more than forty. When it looked as though the prophet could stand no more, Atticus swallowed hard and stepped into the barracks.
Flavius followed him. “What are you doing? You shouldn’t desert your post—”
“He needs something,” Atticus answered, searching through his chest. “We stripped him; he needs something to wear as he faces the procurator.”
Flavius laughed. “Why are you so worried about this Jew? He’s common enough, though I’ll admit we don’t get many would-be kings.”
“Here’s something.” Atticus pulled a plain tunic from his belongings and shook out the folds.
“Don’t waste a good tunic on him. We have a trunk over here, old things of the governor’s, I think. The Lady Procula sent it over last week.” He walked to a chest against the wall and lifted the lid, then rummaged through the contents. After a moment, he pulled out a sliver of fabric. “I’d say this is fitting for a king.”
Atticus watched as Flavius unfolded a length of shimmering crimson fabric. “Fine enough for a Caesar, wouldn’t you say?”
Atticus felt his mouth go dry. “You’d put that on a prisoner?”
Flavius tossed the material over his shoulder, then jerked his chin at the tunic in Atticus’s hands. “Let him wear his own garments; don’t spoil yours. Beneath this fine silk, no one will notice what he’s wearing, anyway.”
Chapter Forty-three
The prophet’s mother and I stood in the crowd, our hands touching as we gazed at the spectacle beyond the line of legionnaires separating us from Yeshua.
So many soldiers stood between us and our rabboni, probably an entire cohort. Most of them stood in a line, their armored backs a formidable wall between us and our beloved Yeshua. More Romans stood at ease in front of fortress, sweat gleaming on their faces as they drank from gourds and hurled insults at the man they were beating.
I swallowed hard and squeezed Miryam’s shoulder, wishing I could cover her eyes and shield her from this awful sight. Yeshua, I noticed, did not acknowledge the crowd or the taunting guards, though I knew he heard everything. How many times had I whispered a question to Peter only to discover later that Yeshua had heard every word?
Our anointed prophet had been so invincible, so powerful—how had things come to this? I’d watched him feed five thousand men and believed he could feed an army. I’d watched him heal diverse diseases and believed he would heal those who fought against Rome. I’d watched him raise the dead and believed he would resurrect anyone who died in the fight to free Isra’el from oppression.
I had never believed our Messiah could die before the battle began.
How could this be? God had ordained that we would conquer our oppressors; his prophets had foretold the eternal reign of the Son of Man. Everything had been falling into place so perfectly … so what had happened?
Yeshua’s mother pressed her face to my shoulder, unable to look at her bloody son, but also unable to leave. The toothy flail rose again and again, striking my rabboni without pause or hesitation, but he did not lift his voice in anger or protest.
When at last the grinning legionnaire stopped to rest his arm, they cut the straps that held Yeshua upright between two posts. He folded gently at the knees and crumpled on the pavement, his eyes closed, his lips moving as if in silent prayer.
A centurion, recognizable by his distinctive plumed helmet, stepped forward with something in his arms. Two of his men jerked Yeshua to his feet.
While a legionnaire tugged Yeshua’s new tunic over that wounded head, the centurion unfurled a clump of scarlet fabric. Another Roman pressed a crown of thorns onto my beloved rabboni’s brow, pricking his scalp so new trickles of blood flowed over his bruised face. As yet another soldier pressed a slender reed, the symbol of Herodian royalty, into Yeshua’s hand, the centurion draped the shimmering scarlet over my master’s shoulder … a lovely silk that warmed in the morning sun and deepened to a royal purple.
The color of bloody sacrifice, the color of royalty.
When have those two colors ever been meant for a single man?
A suffocating sensation tightened my throat as I gazed at my master. That silk could only have come from Magdala. From my dye pot.
And my hands.
Sadness pooled in my heart, accompanied by an anguish I hadn’t felt even in my darkest hour with the demons. The shame I’d felt toward Yeshua turned to blacken my own soul. Our rabboni had told us he would die; he’d predicted this death, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it. Nor could I believe what that morning revealed: the work of my prideful heart lay upon my master’s back.
I clung to Yeshua’s mother as grief welled within me, black and cold.
Chapter Forty-four
Because his contubernium had been charged with the execution of the criminals scheduled to die on that Friday, Atticus wrote out the signs for the three crosses in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
For the prophet’s cross, he wrote:
Ἰησοῦς ὁ Ναζωραῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων, or Yeshua of Natzeret, the King of the Jews.
With Flavius, Gaius, and the other men in their contubernium, Atticus walked beside the three prisoners as they staggered toward the usual place of execution—a dreary spot outside the city gates and near a garden graveyard. The forlorn location featured a dome-like rocky plateau, hence the area’s name: Golgotha, or “place of the skull.”
Atticus had served on many execution squads, but never had he struggled with his conscience as he walked through the city streets. Roman justice was swift and sure, but in this case, he wasn’t sure the governor had enacted justice. Neither was Pilate, for the procurator had washed his hands of the affair before telling the guards to take the prophet away.
Due to the holiday, the shops and markets of Jerusalem were closed, but crowds still lined the street to observe the procession of condemned men. The first two malefactors were greeted with jeers, but when the onlookers spied Yeshua, men wept and women began to keen with sorrow.
Atticus turned to Flavius and lifted a brow. Where had these people been when Yeshua was standing before Pilate? Why had there been no lamentation for him then?
When they reached the gate of the city, Yeshua stumbled and fell beneath the weight of the patibulum, or crossbar. Flavius tapped a fellow coming in from the country and compelled him to carry the condemned man’s burden.
Atticus knelt to lift the fallen prophet. When Yeshua met his gaze, the look of resignation in his eyes pierced Atticus’s soul.
Once he was certain the prophet could walk, Atticus moved away and braced himself against the sturdy blocks of the city wall. Flavius’s voice rang over the keening crowd: “You all right?”
Atticus lifted his hand without turning. “I need a moment.”
By the time Atticus’s emotions had settled, Yeshua and his guards had moved to the place of the skull. Atticus swallowed the knot in his throat and joined them, then knelt at the cross of one of the condemned thieves. Flavius and Gaius could handle the prophet. Atticus couldn’t look into the eyes of the man who had healed Quinn and still do his job properly.
Nodding to the other legionnaires who tended the first malefactor, Atticus bent the criminal’s legs at the knees and twisted them back so the calves were parallel to the crossbar, with the ankles under the buttocks. He held the condemned prisoner in position while another soldier drove a spike through both heels into the simplex, or upright beam. The wrists had already been nailed to the crossbeam.
By the time Atticus joined Gaius at Yeshua’s cross, blood from the wounds in the prophet’s forehead had painted his face and clotted in his beard. The other legionnaires had shifted their attention from the condemned men to dividing the prisoners’ possessions.
Four legionnaires had crucified the prophet and piled his clothing near the foot of the cross. Five pieces lay on the ground; each soldier took one item: the outer robe, girdle, sandals, and turban. A single linen tunic remained, and the men hesitated when they saw it. The worn tunics of the two thieves were fit only for rags, but despite the bloodstains, the prophet’s garment looked new—and it had been woven of a single piece.
“Let’s not tear this one.” Flavius shook out the blood-stained garment. “Let’s throw the knucklebones to see who wins it.”