Simon went on. “If you . . . if she . . . would agree to marry me”—his throat jerked—“the people of this town would no longer call me Simon the Leper. My name would be restored, and my children would be honored.” He bowed his head. “I would be most grateful if you would consider a betrothal to your sister.”
Lazarus stared at the man in front of him. It was as though a lamp had been lit, illuminating his path through the night. The people of Bethany had never forgotten Simon’s shame, no matter that the priests had declared him clean. Even Abba had turned away from his impurity. Would not Simon be the one man who would understand and forgive Martha’s past?
And Lazarus would be free to leave Bethany. To follow the Messiah. His heart swelled in his chest. Praise the Almighty, who has done great things for me.
Simon went on, detailing his riches: his wheat fields, his vineyards, his olive trees, and his standing with the Sanhedrin. But Lazarus hardly listened.
Simon, the most respected scholar in Bethany. A doctor of the law. And wealthy beyond even Abba at the height of his riches. Someone Martha deserved so much more than that despicable pagan who had abandoned her.
Simon’s voice was more confident now. “And of course, if you do agree to a betrothal, I would forgive the debt that you owe me. Family is family. Your garden will be returned to you and yours—as a betrothal gift, you could say.”
Lazarus wouldn’t need the garden when he left Bethany, but he did need something else. “She has a servant, Penina. A former slave, but . . .” He tripped over his words, his face heating as he heard his own stumbling voice. “She’s like family. And she has a son.”
“I’ve heard this woman is a pagan.” Simon’s brows lowered.
Lazarus frowned. “Of course not.” Even though she had turned away from God, Penina was born a Hebrew, and Zakai was circumcised and studied at the synagogue.
Simon looked relieved. “Well, then. I have many servants.” He motioned to the house. “But two more would indeed be welcome. And, of course, your grandmother also.” Simon’s mouth turned up in a forced smile. “May the Almighty bless her with long life.” He rose from his chair, signaling the end of their business.
Lazarus stood, his mind reeling. Could it be that all his problems would be solved so easily?
He just had to convince Martha.
He followed Simon out of the house, praying again at each doorway. Yes, Simon was a demanding man, and living with him wouldn’t be easy. But Martha was very much the same. And Martha was practical. She didn’t want a handsome husband with sweet words and no honor. Not anymore. Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting. Fear of the Lord is to be praised.
Lazarus submitted to another kiss of peace. “I will consider your offer.” His eyes watered from the myrrh slicked over Simon’s hair. Martha despised myrrh, but if that was the only complaint she had about a husband, she would be a lucky woman indeed.
As he left the ornate villa behind, his hopes lifted despite the pain in his side. A man as devout as Simon would be forgiving. He would give Martha another chance. She could be betrothed in a week, perhaps less. Then, with his vow fulfilled, he would be free to follow Jesus. And when Jesus came into his glory, all would know he was the Anointed One of the Most High God. Even Penina.
He breathed deeply of the morning air. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. The Almighty had answered his prayers. And the answer was Simon.
Chapter Eighteen
Against you alone have I sinned; I have done such evil in your sight that you are just in your sentence, blameless when you condemn.
—Psalm 51:6
WHAT WAS THAT horrible stench?
A dead animal? A rotting carcass somewhere on the shores of this pristine lake?
Isa raised his hand to cover his nose, and the smell intensified. He pushed himself to his feet, retching and gagging. It was him. He was covered in filth. Blood crusted over fresh cuts on his chest. And what was he wearing? A scrap of linen that was no color he knew.
His hands—with nails grown out like claws—touched his face. A tangled beard reached to his chest. His hair, matted like an animal’s, fell in greasy clumps past his shoulders.
Go to your family. Announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.
The Lord in his pity . . . yes, he was pitiful. No wonder Jesus didn’t want him. He was filthier than the pigs that had run into the water. He stumbled to the lake, splashing through the shallows and plunging into the deep. His arms, of their own accord, spread wide, and his feet kicked.
I know how to swim. He dove down, under the lapping waves, until he heard nothing but silence. Blessed silence. No laughing voices. No torturous pounding at his temples. He held his breath as long as he could and came up gasping. The sun sparkled off the waves, blinding him with its brilliance. His chest swelled with gratitude. Thank you. For the silence.
Closer to shore, his feet sank into the silty lake bottom. He watched the filth dissolve in the swirling water. Shivering and as clean as he could get, he waded out. At the edge of the shore, he turned back to the sea, staring in the direction that Jesus had gone. The waves lapped at his ankles; the wind raised bumps on his wet skin.
Who was this Jesus, son of the Most High God? And why had he come to him?
Doubt buffeted him from every side. Jesus had found him—filthy and cowering, a shell of a human. He’d driven out the demons and commanded him to go home. But how could he? He was no prophet. Other than a name, he knew nothing. He had but one memory. Yes, even as the demons had racked his mind with torment and his body with agony, he had known this: someone was waiting for him. But who? And where?
A muffled shout and scrape of rock sounded behind him. “There he is. That’s the one.” He jerked around to see a boy, his face marked by red spots, pointing to him from the scrubby trees past the shoreline. A cluster of men emerged from the trees behind the boy. Perhaps they were his family, or knew of them.
As the men came closer, his hope turned to fear. There were five of them, and except for the spotty-faced boy, they were old and gray. Two held pruning hooks like spears; three more grasped wooden clubs. He eased away, but the water was at his back.
The men stopped ten paces from him, their faces wary. One pushed his way to the front. His clothing was shabby and patched and his face scarred with pockmarks. From the stoop of his back, he looked to be a hundred years old. “Let me talk to him, you bunch of cowards,” he barked in Greek. He advanced a step, his club raised in bony hands. “Who are you?”
Isa’s mouth opened. He understood the man, but no reply came to him. Instead a familiar memory pricked at the corner of his mind. The raised stick, the angry voice . . . His heart sped up.
The ancient man’s face furrowed. “Tell us.” He shook his club.
“I—I don’t know.” He could speak Greek. He let out a breath.
The man came a step closer. “Where did you come from?”
He shook his head. I’d hoped you would tell me.
“So that’s how you’re going to be.” The man narrowed his eyes. “Tell me then, where are my blasted pigs?”
The pigs? Isa remembered pigs, and how he’d wanted to eat them.
The boy spoke up. “There were men here. Jews. They came in a boat. And this one was screaming. Then he fell down, and the pigs—” He gulped and looked at the older man.
“What, boy?”
“They ran into the water.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “It wasn’t my fault. It was him.” The boy pointed to Isa.
Isa tried to remember. “There were demons. They screamed, and Jesus came . . . then they were gone, and the pigs were gone.”
The man waved his club like a knife, cutting the story short. “You mean to say that some Jew came and ran my pigs into the Galilee?”
Isa nodded.
The man turned red, and spittle collected in the corner of his mouth. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
Stop him? Hadn’t the old man heard what he
said about the demons?
“Those pigs were mine. And they were worth a month’s wages. And I’ll take that out of your hide if it’s the only way I’ll get it.” The old men came at him, their weapons raised.
Isa backed into the water. His mouth went dry. This, he knew. He could almost feel the coming blows. Before they reached him, a new man pushed past the others.
He had to be the ugliest man Isa had ever seen. His face was mottled with red, his nose the size and shape of an onion, and his eyes tiny slits under heavy folds of skin. “Let’s not be too hasty, Cyrus.” His voice sounded like the scrape of a sandal on gravel.
The pig owner turned on the ugly newcomer. “He watched my pigs drown, Nikius. He deserves a beating.”
Isa cringed, his heart hammering.
The ugly man stepped in front of him with a quizzical frown. “Are you the one who’s been living in these tombs for years, wailing and carrying on?”
Isa’s mouth dropped open. Years?
One man raised his club. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t start in again.”
Nikius’s bristly brows came together. “Now, now. Take it easy.” He eyed Isa from the top of his head to his bare feet. “Are you still mad?”
Isa shook his head. He’d just told them that Jesus had taken away the demons, hadn’t he? He was no more mad than they were. Perhaps less.
“Why’rya cowering like an old woman, boy? You could kill us all with one arm tied behind your back.” He squinted at Isa. “You’re strong, I’ll give you that. You look like a half-starved gladiator.”
Strong? He looked down at his body. He must be.
Nikius ran a hand over his grizzled face and gazed at Isa, then at the one named Cyrus, as though figuring in his head.
Cyrus snorted. “You’re not going to take him in, Nikius? He’ll kill you in your sleep.”
Nikius muttered, “Yes, by the gods. He’s gotta be strong.” He peered up at Isa with cloudy eyes. “He might be just what I need.”
Cyrus shook his head. “You’re crazy. And what about my pigs?”
Nikius grunted. “I’ll pay fer your scrawny pigs, Cyrus.”
“How much?”
“A week’s wages.”
“That’s robbery!”
“See anyone with a better offer? And I’ll get the work out of this boy. Now, get out of here and let him be.”
Isa watched the one named Cyrus and ugly Nikius haggle over the pigs. What was going on? After a short shouting match that Cyrus seemed to lose, Nikius grunted at Isa, “Come on, boy. We’re going home.”
Home? Isa stood uncertainly, looking from the men out to the water where Jesus had disappeared. But he had to find his family. Jesus had commanded it.
Nikius raised a brow. “Unless you have something better to do?”
The old man was right. He had nothing else to do. He didn’t even know what direction to go.
Nikius jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Come on. I have a place for you. Work. Food and some clothes. A week is all I’m askin’ to pay me back for savin’ your life. Then you can go.” He smiled like he had a secret. “If you want to.”
Isa looked sideways at him. Food and clothes. He needed that, but something seemed wrong.
Nikius answered his unspoken question. “Don’t worry, boy. I’m just an old man who needs some help. That’s all.” His attempt at a smile with his few blackened teeth failed to reassure Isa. But what else could he do? Set out half-naked and hope he came upon his family? And he was hungry again.
The rest of the men turned and began filing down the path toward the south, away from the lake. Isa fell into step behind Cyrus, stooped and shuffling.
As they climbed up the path, Cyrus looked over his shoulder at Nikius, then raised his brows at Isa. “A week,” he snorted. “After a week with Nikius and his . . .” He stopped short.
Alarm trickled through Isa’s chest and coiled in his belly. “What?”
Cyrus’s mouth twisted in the guise of a smile. “Well, boy, I’d bet my last drachma that you’ll never leave Gerasene.”
Chapter Nineteen
True, I was born guilty, a sinner, even as my mother conceived me.
—Psalm 51:7
ISA FOLLOWED THE line of old men up the steep bank that rose from the rocky shore. The sun, high in the sky now, warmed a dry and colorless landscape. Where were they? And where were they going?
His bruised body throbbed with every step as a litany of questions pummeled his tired mind. Who was he and where was his family? How long had he been a prisoner of the demons? Could it have been years, as Nikius said? How many years?
His stomach growled, and a cold wind tore at his thin tunic.
What he needed now was food, clothing, and a place to sleep. And Nikius was the only one offering anything more than a beating.
The path dipped into a narrow ravine, and a familiar dread tugged at his mind. Stone cliffs rose up on both sides, throwing murky shadows into the basinlike clearing. A chill shivered down Isa’s back and prickled his arms. Gaping mouths ringed the base of the cliffs, some natural caves, others hewn into the rock with inscriptions and symbols.
They were tombs. And he knew them well.
A pair of vultures rose out of the crevice, their screeches fading as they flapped heavily up above the cliffs. The men passed by the tombs without a glance, but Isa came to a halt. A wall of rocks—as tall as a man could reach—rose up on either side of the mouth of one cave. Beside it lay a rotten carcass and a scattering of gnawed bones. The smell of filth and rot was like a punch in the gut.
He choked and covered his nose. “Is this . . . ? Did I live here?”
Nikius grimaced. “You did.” He frowned. “For the first few years, we tried to catch you. We tied you up, even put you in chains one time. But you always broke free.”
The first few years? “How long . . . ?”
Nikius scratched his chin. “Let me see now, maybe six—no, it would be seven years.”
Seven years?
“As I was saying, after the first few, we just let you be. You never came into the village.”
Nikius pointed with his stick to the rocks ringing the tomb. “You carried these rocks from the shore, made this whole wall.”
His stomach twisted. This was his home. He’d been nothing more than an animal, eating what he could find, sleeping in filth. For seven years. Why had Jesus come to him? He was as vile as the carrion rotting next to him on the ground.
“Come on.” Nikius nudged him toward the path up the ridge.
At the top, the chill wind whipped over the height, driving away the smell of death.
Winter-brown hills rolled to the west. To the east, where the boy and the rest of the men were heading, was a barren wasteland of dry, whispering grasses and scrubby pines.
“So,” Nikius wheezed, “who are you?”
His name was Isa, but what else did he know? He was no Jew. So why had the son of the Jewish God come to him? Gratitude welled in him as he breathed the morning air, as he heard the crunch of feet on loose stones. Jesus—the son of the God of the Jews—had given him a new life. But what was he to do with it?
Nikius continued talking as if Isa had answered his first question. “Who are your people?”
Isa shook his head. He wished he knew. He looked to the south, where a river snaked in a narrow swathe of green. Bits of memory and half-formed images surfaced like flotsam coming to the top of the water. Jerusalem was there; he could picture the Temple, hear the prayers and the call of the trumpets. But Jerusalem was a long way from the Sea of Galilee.
“You don’t know much, boy.”
Isa grimaced. That’s the truth. They walked in silence. Perhaps when he’d eaten and slept he’d remember who he had been and where he’d come from. And who was waiting for him to come home.
A ramshackle town rose up against the hard gray sky. A few leaning shops lined a narrow street. Old women clustered at a well, their toothless mouths dropped open as he
walked by with the line of men. Gray-haired merchants came to their doorways, eyed him warily, then retreated behind their doors. Except for the spotty-faced swineherd, he didn’t see a soul under forty years.
As they passed through the town, Cyrus veered away. “I’ll expect payment for those pigs today,” he grunted to Nikius. “In case you don’t wake up in the morning.” He cast one last, disgruntled look at Isa before pushing through the doorway of a seedy inn.
As Isa followed Nikius to the edge of the village, they came upon a field strewn with rocks and boulders. Nikius stopped. “This is it, boy. This is what I need you to do.”
Isa’s mouth dropped open. Clear this field? Some of the boulders were half the size of a man. How did the old man expect him to clear it in a week?
His face must have shown his thoughts. Nikius slapped him on the back, harder than Isa expected for a man his age. “You’re strong enough, boy. Now follow me.”
Nikius crossed the field to a courtyard wall the color of dried dung. Isa followed. Half-dead bushes and weeds sprouted along the wall. A pile of broken clay pots lay beside a mound of decaying vegetables and what looked like the carcass of a wild dog.
Nikius passed the pile of refuse like he couldn’t see it—or smell it.
Isa followed him through a crookedly hung door into what should have been a courtyard but was more like a maze. Piles of pottery and baskets lay in heaps. In the center, an oxcart with one wheel lay tipped under a load of iron spikes. Rusty mattocks and hoes lay like a heap of dead soldiers beside a smoldering fire.
Isa eyed the debris. What kind of man collected useless refuse?
Nikius bellowed toward the door of the one-room house. “Alexa, get yourself out here, woman.” His beady eyes stayed on Isa, and a smile lurked under his bulbous nose.
A woman ducked out of the doorway, shading her eyes from the bright light.
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