Both witnesses came forward and held a long whispered conference with Hanan. When he dismissed them, his eyes glinted red in the light of the olive oil lamps that dotted the walls.
“This court finds Kazan not guilty of inciting the evildoer today in the Temple.”
A bolt of joy raced through Ari’s veins. Then he thought better of it. Hanan must have some other trick to play. He would never allow Ari to walk away from this.
Hanan fixed both eyes on Ari. “And did you leave the Temple with the evildoer?”
“Yes,” Ari said. “We ... Yaakov and Baruch and I wished to help him. Yaakov believed him to be possessed by an evil spirit.”
“And did you also believe this?” Hanan gave him a sarcastic smile.
“I ... did not believe in evil spirits,” Ari said. “He seemed to have a sickness of the heart, speaking much nonsense.”
“Nonsense? You helped this man escape so you could listen to nonsense?” Hanan glared at him. “What sort of nonsense would enlighten the famous magician Kazan?”
Ari tried to remember. He closed his eyes, desperate for something. Anything. “The man ... warned Yaakov the tsaddik that he should beware of left-handed men.”
A collective hiss ran around the room.
Ari opened his eyes.
Hanan sat frozen in his seat, a long strand of beard twirling in his hand. His left hand. “Very amusing, Kazan. It is well-known that I am left-handed. What other nonsense did you learn?”
But Ari’s mind had gone blank. He said nothing.
“You admit you helped the man escape from the Temple.”
Ari nodded. It was the truth, and what could he say?
Hanan turned to his two fellow judges and whispered to them for several minutes. He shook his head violently several times. Finally, he slammed his palm on his knee and turned back to face Ari.
“This court finds you guilty of aiding the escape of the evildoer. The penalty for this crime will be a flogging. Forty lashes, less one.” Hanan pointed to four of the Temple guards. “See to it.”
Baruch
* * *
Baruch had heard little of the proceedings. His ears still rang with the cries of little Dov. I love you, Abba!
The boy loved him. For no reason, he loved him. Baruch did not love the boy. Even now, he did not love the boy. Because of honor. The boy was the sign of his dishonor. And yet the boy loved Baruch as a boy should love his father, with a pure, bright, shining love.
Shame burned Baruch. He did not deserve such love, nor had he any impulse to return it.
But he wished to have such an impulse. The boy deserved a father. Baruch had been no father to him. And now he never would. Tonight he would die. Perhaps Hana would find another husband who could be a true father to the boy.
Now Hanan ben Hanan turned to Brother Ari. Hanan questioned Brother Ari closely. Brother Ari told the truth. Brother Ari was an honorable man. Of course he could not say he followed Yeshua the Mashiach. He did not follow Rabban Yeshua, so how could he say otherwise?
Hanan pronounced Brother Ari innocent twice before he found a charge on which Brother Ari was guilty. Two guards led Brother Ari out to be flogged.
Hope tore at Baruch’s heart. Brother Ari would be flogged, but a man could survive a flogging at the hands of Jews. Jews used a whip of leather only, not like the cruel whips used by the Romans. A man could not survive thirty-nine lashes with a Roman whip, but a Jewish one, yes. Brother Ari would live.
Hanan pointed to Baruch. “You, Baruch ben Yehudah. How do you answer the charges against you? Are you a follower of Yeshua called mashiach?”
Baruch wobbled on his feet, and dizziness filled his head. He could save his life. He could be restored to Hanaleh. And he could try again, somehow, to be a true father to the boy. To return the love so freely given. All he must do was lie.
He could swear falsely that he did not follow Yeshua the Mashiach. The others would take that as proof that he was an apikoros. They would then swear truthfully that he had once followed Yeshua, but no longer. Then Hanan could not kill him for sedition. Also, Hanan could not kill him for inciting the man with the evil spirit to sedition. It was established that none of them had incited the man.
If Baruch renounced Rabban Yeshua, he would receive the same forty lashes less one as Brother Ari. He could survive. He could be restored to the boy. Did not Yeshua command his followers to love? But if he dishonored Yeshua here, Yeshua would dishonor him in the World to Come. Sweat poured down Baruch’s sides.
Hanan’s voice cut through the silence. “You, Baruch ben Yehudah. Are you a follower of Yeshua called mashiach? Answer yes or no.”
Baruch’s eyes blurred with tears. For his own honor, he had spent these past years denying love to the boy. Now, he would spit on that honor if he could have a second chance. But to do so, he must spit on the honor of Rabban Yeshua. Could he deny love to the boy yet again—this time for the sake of Rabban Yeshua’s honor?
“You, Baruch ben Yehudah. Are you a follower of Yeshua called mashiach? Guards, strike him until he answers.”
Panic filled Baruch’s soul. He must choose between doing right and doing right, and which was the greater?
A fist slugged him in the belly.
Baruch doubled over, gasping for breath.
Two hands seized his beard and pulled it upward. “Answer the high priest!”
Baruch licked his cracked lips. Blinked twice so that he could see Hanan ben Hanan. Refused to look to the side, to meet the hot eyes of Yaakov the tsaddik.
“I ...” Baruch coughed, and a fit of choking seized him. Finally he straightened. He looked Hanan in the face. “I ... follow Rabban Yeshua.”
“This court finds you guilty of sedition and sentences you to death by stoning.”
Righteous rage filled Baruch’s heart. He spit at Hanan. “I curse you with this curse—that HaShem will punish you at the hands of Esau.”
The guard hit Baruch very hard in the face.
Chapter Forty-One
Ari
* * *
FOUR TEMPLE GUARDS FORCED ARI outside, down some steps, into a large walled courtyard. The chill night air refreshed him after the stale heat of Hanan’s palace. Fear and hope fought for control.
Two guards stood behind him, each holding an arm. A third stood in front of Ari with an iron club. “You will not move or it will go worse for you.”
Ari felt his hands being untied behind him.
He must choose now—fight, or submit? If he fought, he might escape. More likely they would catch him and club him to death. If he submitted, he would be flogged. Thirty-nine lashes would not kill a man.
Ari’s hands came loose and the two guards pulled his arms out to either side.
Ari did not resist. He would take what they gave him and survive. For Rivka and Racheleh he must submit.
The third guard slit the back of Ari’s tunic from top to bottom. Then he cut open the sleeves. The tunic dropped to Ari’s feet in front of him. The man with the club kicked it away.
Ari shivered. Now he wore nothing but a loincloth, and the night air chilled his sweating skin. It struck him that the stories Rivka had told him about Rabban Yeshua’s trial had happened here—in the courtyard of the palace of Hanan.
The men duck-walked Ari to the stone wall surrounding the palace. An old iron ring was set into the wall at the height of a man’s head. The guards lashed Ari’s wrists to this ring and tied ropes to his ankles. “Put your hands against the wall and step back, Kazan.”
Ari set his hands to the wall and shuffled his feet back until he was stretched out at an angle to the wall. He heard the sound of a stake being pounded into the hard dirt behind him. He felt his ankle ropes being tied snug to the stake.
The guard with the club prodded Ari in the ribs with the cold iron.
Ari flinched, but he could not move.
The guard laughed. He grabbed Ari’s loincloth and yanked it off.
Ari gasped. This final indig
nity ripped away the last shreds of his honor. He was naked to the world, as unprotected as a newborn child.
“Give me the whip,” said the guard.
Ari stared at the ground, cringing. He could not turn his head, could not know when the first blow would fall until he would hear the whip singing through the air. He waited.
The guard held the whip under Ari. “See Kazan, here is your new friend.”
Ari gasped. The weapon was not the one he had seen often—the humane Jewish whip, leather only. It was a Roman flagrum—a short wooden handle with several leather thongs, each tipped at the end with pieces of ragged bone or small balls of rusted iron. Sweat stood out all over Ari’s body, and a huge puddle of molten fear grew in his belly. This was evil, pure and simple, and he had no defense. A man could not survive thirty-nine lashes with a flagrum.
The guard laughed and pulled the flagrum away. “So, Kazan, you were expecting something else? Hanan is terribly sorry, but we seem to have misplaced the usual whip.”
Ari waited.
He heard the guard give a little grunt, then the whine of the whip, and then ... The leather bit into his back, wrapping full around his body so that the sharpened chunks in the ends sank into his chest like the stings of a dozen hornets.
Ari screamed. The pain so overwhelmed him that he lost control of his bowels and bladder. His knees buckled and his weight sagged against the ropes tying his wrists.
The man laughed and jerked hard on the flagrum. The ends ripped out and dragged around his body.
Ari screamed again.
“One!” shouted the four guards in unison.
Ari could not see. His hearing dimmed. The only reality now was the burning rivers of fire across his back and chest.
The man with the whip grunted again. The whip sang.
Pain like lightning seared through Ari’s soul.
Again the man jerked on the whip, and the ends tore loose again.
“Two!”
After the third stroke, Ari’s mind began losing grip. There was no past, no future—just an eternally raging present. Lash after lash. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
Then Ari heard shouting. The thirteenth blow did not fall.
He waited. Blood cooled on his lacerated skin. His ears could barely hear the words.
“Fools! Unloose him!”
Ari’s heart leaped.
“He is to be taken with the others to be stoned! They are gone already. You there, help me with Kazan. You three others, Hanan orders you to go quickly to the stoning pits. There will be much work to be done before morning.”
Ari felt his ankles and wrists unbound and he collapsed in the filth of the courtyard.
Strong arms seized his arms and hoisted him up. From a thousand kilometers away, words battered his ears. “You, Kazan, you law-breaker! The Court has changed its mind. You are to die after all.”
Baruch
* * *
Baruch lay on the floor, gasping. He heard the last two men affirm that they too were followers of Rabban Yeshua. They too spit at Hanan. Baruch heard the guards beat them.
For a moment, there was silence. Then Hanan said, “You fourteen have shown yourselves worthy of death. We will execute the sentence now. Guards, you will gag them and take them out by the back door to the Essene Gate.”
Rough hands yanked Baruch to his feet. A hand clamped over his nose.
He opened his mouth to breathe and a coarse cloth was wedged inside, then tied behind his neck. He blinked many times and his vision cleared.
Fear darkened the faces of the other men.
Baruch looked to Yaakov the tsaddik for courage.
Yaakov was crying.
“Move!” A guard poked Baruch in the back.
Baruch moved.
They went out single file into the courtyard. A scream ascended into the night sky.
Baruch felt his insides crawling.
They rounded the corner of the palace. There was Brother Ari, tied to the wall and staked to the ground, his back striped with many lashes.
A flagrum! Baruch turned his head so he would not vomit. Be merciful to him, HaShem. Give him death quickly.
The whip whined and struck again. Brother Ari screamed. “Six!” shouted his tormentors.
Acid fury burned in Baruch’s belly. Brother Ari was right, had been right all along. Evil ruled this world, and there could be no reason for it. Perhaps HaShem himself could give no answer.
A guard unlocked a small iron door at the back of the courtyard. The line of prisoners shuffled out.
Baruch knew that this slow pace would lengthen the pain and fear, but he did not wish to hurry. Yes, the resurrection was coming, and that was a comfort, and yet ...
And yet he did not wish to die. HaShem had created life to be lived. Therefore, even a life of pain and fear was better than no life at all. Baruch wanted one more day of life in this world, to walk under the sun, to lie down with his woman, to hear the laughter of ...
Of the boy. Yes, the laughter of the boy. He would give much to see the boy, even if his touch burned like the lash of the whip.
Brother Ari screamed again. His floggers shouted, “Seven!”
Hot tears blurred Baruch’s vision and he stumbled. He would not live another hour, would not see the sun or his woman or the boy again.
And he deserved death. Not for the reason given by Hanan—for his trust in Rabban Yeshua. No, he deserved death because he had failed to follow Rabban Yeshua’s commandments. It was a hard thing to love one’s enemies, and perhaps not possible to do so. That must have been a metaphor only. Rabban Yeshua did not really expect him to love Hanan ben Hanan, or the wicked man.
But surely Rabban Yeshua expected him to love the boy. The boy was the son of Hana, and deserving of respect and love. And Baruch had failed. Failed because he could not put aside his honor. Brother Ari was right—honor was not so important as the men of this world deemed it. Yaakov the tsaddik was a man who often put aside his own honor, and yet all loved him. All loved him precisely because he would put aside his own honor for the sake of the honor of Rabban Yeshua. Brother Ari, who did not follow Rabban Yeshua, had yet a better understanding of the Rabban than Baruch did.
If Baruch did not have a rag in his mouth, he would have raised up his voice to wail. Instead, he could do nothing but shuffle along. Far up the street, he saw the black outline of the Essene Gate against the starlit sky.
He stumbled and fell to his knees, then wavered off-balance.
The guards could have caught him now, could have kept him from pitching forward onto his face.
But they did not and he fell. Two of them laughed aloud, jeering him for his clumsiness. They kicked him many times while the other prisoners shuffled by. Finally, they pulled him to his feet.
“Hurry!” One of them cuffed him across the ear. “Hanan wishes this business done before the third watch of the night begins.”
Baruch hurried.
Rivka
* * *
Rivka huddled in the shadows of the wall in front of Hanan’s palace, clinging to Hana, clutching her club. Gamaliel had gone in a quarter of an hour ago. Would he come out? Or would he—
Iron hinges creaked. Rivka pulled back into the shadows, terrified of who might come out. The main gate swung inward. A Temple guard stepped out. Then Gamaliel.
Between them hung a man. Ari. More dead than alive. Blood streamed from his face, his chest, his back. He wore nothing, and his feet dragged in the dirt.
“We must hurry,” Gamaliel said.
“Move, Kazan!” The other guard slapped Ari in the face.
Ari’s head flopped limply to one side.
Rivka put her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. Hana pulled her back deeper into shadow. The three men staggered down the street toward them.
Hana backed around the corner of the palace into a dark alley, jerking Rivka with her. “Give me the club.”
Rivka’s nerveless hand let go of the weapon. She leaned against the w
all and tried not to vomit.
Voices approaching. Rivka heard Hana take a deep breath.
The men passed by them in the street.
Hana stepped out behind them and clubbed the strange guard in the back of the head.
He collapsed without a sound.
Ari and Gamaliel fell with him.
Rivka and Hana helped lift Ari. Rivka slipped in underneath Ari’s right arm. Gamaliel did the same under the left. “I am sorry, Rivka the Kazan,” he said. “They were flogging him when I found him.”
“We’ve got to find somewhere safe to clean his wounds!” Rivka said. “If he gets infected, he won’t ...” She couldn’t think.
Gamaliel pointed. “Back that way to the palace of Brother Yoseph’s father. I will speak to the guard at the gate—his brother is a follower of your Rabban Yeshua.”
They hobbled back up the street as fast as they could carry Ari. Rivka could not see through her tears. She heard Hana sobbing behind them.
At the palace of Brother Yoseph’s father, Gamaliel had quick words with the gatekeeper. In minutes, they placed Ari on a clean bed in the palace. “I need vinegar!” Rivka said. “Clean linen! Water! Olive oil!”
Ari moaned something.
“What of Baruch and Yaakov the tsaddik?” Hana said. “What will Hanan do with them?”
Rivka’s heart ached. “Oh, Hana, I’m so sorry. Hanan is going to take them out to be stoned in the morning. We’ll have to round up some help before then to go and stop—”
“No.” Gamaliel made a strangled sound in his throat. “Tomorrow morning will be too late. Hanan ben Hanan means to stone them tonight.”
“Tonight?” Rivka turned to stare at Gamaliel. “But ... I thought he was going to do it in public.” Josephus hadn’t said so, but Hegesippus did. In full view of the people. They must wait till morning. “Even Hanan ben Hanan wouldn’t murder those men in the middle of the night.”
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