by Jamie Buxton
Jude looked at Flea.
“Something you need to know about Yesh. He could have been anything he wanted, except he didn’t want to be anything you or I could dream of. That’s part of his difference. He’s a one-off. An original. When he started doing a new sort of trick and people began to think it was real magic, he didn’t exactly argue with them—and that made things dangerous. Every village has a priest, and while they might turn a blind eye to conjuring, real magic is witchcraft and you can be stoned for that. I tried to warn him, get him back to what we were doing before, but he said he was on the verge of something really important. He thought a change was coming to the world, and people—his people—should be ready for it.
“Soon he was pulling in the big crowds, really big crowds, and he picked up more people, which turned into an inner circle of followers. You saw them with him yesterday. We all got along at first, but then one evening, when we were sitting around the fire, I suddenly realized that instead of everyone talking and sticking it to each other, they were all just listening to him.
“Next thing, when we came back to places we’d already been, there were people waiting for us, and I found out all kinds of stuff I somehow hadn’t noticed before. He’d turned the water into wine, breathed on a dead sparrow and brought it back to life, cured people of leprosy and blindness. For a while we were followed around by an old pig man who swore Yesh had pulled little demons out of his throat and given them to his pigs to eat. Another person swore he’d fed a whole crowd with a handful of fish and a couple of loaves of bread—that’s the sort of audience he was pulling in …
“Truth was, he always thought his talk was more important than the magic. He found a way of getting through to people better than the priests ever could. He talked about a world where everything was turned upside down—good for the poor, hard for rich, where you could make yourself pure just by doing good things.”
Jude paused, and when he started talking again he wore the expression of someone taking bad medicine. “Then last year he ran into this Ranting Dunker called Yohanan, blast his miserable guts. This Yohanan, a grizzled old hermit, lived on the edge of the desert and had a following himself, but he said he was nothing compared to Yesh. He said Yesh wasn’t just the best conjuror in the world, nor even the best healer. No, he said he was the Chosen One himself, and Yesh’s other followers—the ones he’d picked up along the way—didn’t laugh it off, they believed him. They started calling my old friend Master, which was annoying enough, then Lord. And now, to cap it all, suddenly I realize they’re planning something big, here, in the city, on the busiest day of the whole year, and I don’t know what it is. You with me, Flea?”
“I think so—and it all had to start with Yesh sitting on a donkey?”
“That’s it. The man with the pitcher of water was a sign to Yesh; when he got on that donkey it was a sign to the people.”
“But what’s the problem? Why not just go along with it?”
Jude gave a wry smile. “Coming from you, young Flea, that’s a bit rich. When have you just gone along with anything? I’m frightened. I’m frightened of how it all might end. Yesh is walking into danger and your gang will go down with him if they’re not careful. We need to find out what it is they’re up to, and then we stop it. You and me.”
“One small problem. I was just chucked out of the gang, and they never listened to me when I was in it. No way I can stop anything.”
“But you want to get back in?”
“Of course I want to get back in. They’re my gang.”
Jude narrowed his eyes. “Maybe we can use the situation. Maybe you could save them.”
“But I can’t save them unless I’m part of them, can I?”
“True. But there is a way.”
“What?”
“Whatever else I say about Yesh, he is a good man. The best. Let him talk to you. He can’t bear it when people reject him. He can’t understand why, and it gets to him like an itch he’s got to scratch. You can use that.”
“What? Join his movement?”
“Nothing like that. Just be yourself, but give him a chance.”
“And then what?”
“Yesh will like you. If your gang sees that he’s on your side, chances are they’ll take you back.”
Flea nodded. “Just so long as I only have to pretend to like him.”
“Just think of it as your mission. Now from what I can gather, Yesh is down by the Healing Pool today, so that’s where we’re going now. All right?”
Flea was on the point of agreeing when something struck him. “You told me that when the crowd saw Yeshua riding on a donkey it was a signal,” he said. “What signal?”
Jude’s face took on an odd twist. “Perhaps ‘signal’ isn’t quite the right word. It’s a prophecy.” And Jude began to chant. “Be full of joy, O people of Zion. Call out in a loud voice, O people of Jerusalem. Look: the king is coming. He is just and he is good and he has power, but he is not proud, for he is sitting on a donkey.”
“Yeshua’s a king?” Flea could not keep the amazement out of his voice.
“He must be … He came to the city on a donkey.”
16
The Healing Pool was a few hundred paces to the south of the Temple, not far from the gang’s shelter. An underground spring fed a square pool that was surrounded by a deep, roofed portico to give shade in the summer. In the hot season it was dank and humid, in the cold it was damp and clammy, but it was always crowded. In the days before the feast, tourists joined the sick to create a solid heaving mass of humanity, jostling to get through the narrow gateway into the pool’s enclosure.
Even so, Flea had never seen the courtyard in front of it so crowded, and Jude lifted him up onto his shoulders for a better view.
Ahead of them a small red-faced woman was jumping up and down to try to get a view. Flea leaned down and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Can you tell me why so many people are here?”
The woman looked up. “Because the healer’s come! The Chosen One! The new king! Haven’t you heard? Just one touch and the heavens open and you see angels and live forever. A miracle, child, a miracle. He’s in there now. They’re letting people through, but only one at a time. I’m staying here for as long as it takes.”
“The king?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“And he really heals?” Flea thought quickly, then bent down to her and said in a low voice, “At last! Between you and me, my friend here’s got this massive problem. Yesterday his father started coughing and was dead that same day. Then his brother started to cough and died in the night. Now he’s not feeling too great and neither am I. We—” Flea interrupted himself with a racking cough and between fits managed to spit out, “You don’t think it’s plague, do you?”
The woman gave him a stricken look and let out a scream. A space around her cleared. She shouted, “Plague!” and a bigger space opened up. Flea added lolling forward to his coughing and took the opportunity to whisper into Jude’s ear, “Start coughing like you mean it and move quickly, before they start stoning us.”
The crowd melted away in front of them as they walked to the gate. It was guarded by one of Yesh’s followers, a tough, no-nonsense-looking man with eyes like chips of stone, broad cheekbones, and a chest like a wrestler. “Brother Jude. Might have guessed it was you,” he said. “The idea is to get people to trust us, not scare them away.”
“They’ll be back, Tauma, they’ll be back,” Jude said, as Flea slipped from his shoulders.
“Don’t doubt it, brother,” Tauma said. His eyes took in Flea, then looked away.
“I hear that people are saying he’s the king now, come in all his glory. Brother.” Jude sounded contemptuous.
“People will talk,” Tauma answered with a chilly smile.
“If they’ve been fed stories.”
Tauma stopped smiling and gave Jude a long and level stare. “Funnily enough, he was asking for you ea
rlier. It was embarrassing when no one knew where you were.”
“Oh, you know me. Always busy with this and that.”
“But on whose business?” Tauma said.
“My Master’s, of course.” A look passed between them. Profound suspicion from Tauma, satisfaction from Jude. “Come on, Tauma, you know I always have Yesh’s best interest at heart.”
“No, I don’t,” Tauma said, but he stepped aside to let Flea and Jude pass through the gate.
Behind the walls, the atmosphere was hushed. People were crushed under the portico and some were even standing in the shallow water, staring at the far end of the pool. Flea spotted Red and Little Big on the far side, eyes fixed in the same direction as everyone else’s, so he pushed through the crowd until he could see what had attracted their attention.
Yesh was standing on a raised stone platform at one end of the pool, to the right of the entrance. The platform was kept clear by his followers, who were holding the whole crowd back, except for a merchant with an expensively curled beard, wearing long, heavy robes.
Yesh’s voice just carried across the murky water of the pool to Flea.
“All right. What is a sacrifice?” he was saying. “When we buy a lamb to be slaughtered we’re sacrificing a life, but—”
“If you buy a lamb, you own it,” the merchant interrupted. “You can do what you want with it.”
“But I’m asking who makes the real sacrifice,” Yesh answered. “You or the lamb? You’ve spent a few coins, but the lamb’s lost everything it has: its life.”
“But the priests say, and the Rules say, that if you do something wrong you make up for it by making a sacrifice at the Temple. Your sins are washed away in its blood. It’s simple. It’s our custom. It’s right,” the merchant replied.
“And by your clothes I see you can afford a lot more sinning than my friend here,” Yesh said. He pointed to a beggar in the front row of the crowd, gray rags wrapped around his skinny body. “To buy a lamb for sacrifice, he would have to starve himself for a year. You could buy ten lambs and not even notice. By your reckoning, that would mean you are allowed to be ten times worse than him. Is that right?”
“That’s dangerous talk,” the merchant said. “Damn it, it’s blasphemous.”
Yesh shrugged. “You’re most welcome to carry on believing you can sin more than your neighbors just because you’re richer than they are. You’re welcome to carry on stuffing your money into the Temple coffers. You’re welcome to make the priests even fatter, if that’s what you want. But I’m talking about what goes on inside, my friend. I’m talking about your heart. I’m talking about how you clean your heart, and the only way to do that is to make a real sacrifice and make it willingly.”
The merchant stepped back, shaking his head. A path was cleared for Yesh through the crowd and he made his way down it until he came to a young man on crutches supported on either side by an older man and woman. The woman knelt and kissed the hem of Yesh’s clothes. The older man started to explain something but stopped when Yesh held up a hand. Yesh leaned down, pried the woman’s fingers from his robe, and lifted her to her feet. Then he knelt and touched the leg of the man on crutches. All around, the little sounds of the crowd were sucked up into a single intake of breath.
Yesh walked five paces, then turned. “Well?” he said. “Aren’t you going to give it a go?”
With trembling hands, the older man and woman took the crutches away. The man lurched slightly, bent down, and put both his hands on one knee.
“That’s good,” Yesh said. “One step at a time. It’s the only way to do it.”
The young man took a step with his good leg, then threw his bad leg around and forward. He lurched, straightened, and did it again, rowing through the air with his arms. The magician stepped forward and embraced him. The crowd cheered. Some fell to their knees, while others surged around him. Cries of “Heal me, Master!” went up. “Heal me!” A man jumped into the water, another went in after him, and soon the water was full of men waving and splashing. “Heal me! Heal me!”
Flea pushed through the crowd around the pool, away from Yesh, tired from his early start and feeling confused. The sun broke out from behind a cloud and he lifted his face to it.
Spring warmth. Fresh warmth. Through half-closed eyes he watched the water churn as people tried to force their way closer to the magician, the king, the Chosen One, or whatever else they were calling out. Had Flea really just seen a miracle? Everyone else seemed to think so, so why wasn’t he convinced?
He leaned against the wall and felt something digging into him. He reached inside his tunic, pulled out the carved ivory tube he’d stolen, and held it up in the light. Vines spiraled around it, but there was a join in the middle where they didn’t quite meet. If you twisted it, a spiraling ridge moved along a spiraling groove, and when one end came off, it uncovered a metal spike with thin channels cut into it, clogged with something dark and crusty.
Blood. Flea was revolted and fascinated. He screwed the thing back together, but his skin was still crawling and he caught the faintest trace of something rotten. A smell that was both thin and strong, like cotton thread, twined itself up his nostrils.
Then Big bustled up, Little Big trailing after him like an ugly shadow.
“What are you doing here? I said you were out of the gang.”
“I’m allowed to come here if I want,” Flea said.
“And I say you’re not. We’re here with Yeshua. We’re security. And I’m telling you to get out.”
“And I’m here with Jude. And he’s your man Yesh’s first-ever follower and best friend, and he said it was all right for me to be here.”
Flea planted his feet, folded his arms, and waited for the blow to fall.
Just before Big clouted him, one of Yesh’s followers, fleshily handsome and better dressed than the others, bustled over.
“Ah, Flea, I assume. Spent the day with brother Jude, I hear?”
“It’s all right,” Big said. “We’re getting rid of him.”
“That’s the last thing we want,” the man said. “The shepherd is always pleased when the lost sheep returns, or so the Master says. So, how was Jude, young man?”
“You calling me a sheep?” Flea asked.
“Ha-ha.” The man’s smile did not quite reach his eyes. “Very good. We love laughter and you have a great sense of humor, I can see. Have your friends been telling you about the dinner tonight?”
“No.” Flea looked innocently curious. “I think they couldn’t have quite gotten around to it.”
“Er, Flea’s no longer with us,” Big said uncomfortably.
“Nonsense. The Master wants him to come. Most insistent. He’ll never let anyone go, not without a fight.” The man’s very white teeth looked as thick as tombstones and, above his smile, his blue eyes stayed watchful. “Well?” he urged.
“Tell the Master that … I’m all right with that,” Flea said.
“Good. He’ll be pleased. Come on, all of you. No time to waste.”
All going according to plan, Flea thought.
17
The streets that led to the Upper City were drenched red by the evening sun. It felt odd to walk with a group of adults and even odder to be noticed without anyone throwing something rotten at you. Old people, young people, middle-aged people came to doorways and windows to watch. Some called out. Some offered water or bread or whatever they had. Others held up babies, pointed the magician out to children, or begged him to come inside. When a man called out, “Show us a trick!” Yesh smiled, clapped his hands, and looked up at the heavens as if he were expecting them to open. When nothing happened he shrugged and said, “Doesn’t always work.” He walked on, leaving laughter behind him.
Jude fell in step beside Flea.
“It worked.” Flea spoke from the corner of his mouth.
“Watch and learn. I expect that will be a new experience for you,” Jude said.
Flea decided to ignore that. “So,
what’s happening?”
“We’re on the way to the house of Yesh’s uncle, Yusuf of Ramathain, also known as Yusuf the Merchant, also known as one of the richest men in the city. Something’s going on.”
“And you said Yesh was planning…”
“Exactly, and I’m guessing they’re in it together, which makes it all the more important to keep your eyes and ears open. Wine will be flowing like water, but don’t touch it—understand? I don’t want you reeling around and I want you in a fit state to report anything odd that you see or notice. Now, do you need to know the names of the other followers?”
Jude went through the followers’ names, with Flea trying to commit them to memory. He’d met two at the Healing Pool: Tauma was the man at the gate, Shim was the creep with the fake smile. Then there were Yak and Yohan, who were always by Yesh’s side wherever he went. Yak was Yesh’s older brother. He had wild hair and an untrimmed beard, but once you knew they were brothers you could see the resemblance, though Yak was taller and broader across the shoulders. Yohan was young, with dreamy eyes, smooth skin, and a wispy beard. Mat was small and plump as a bee and always busy. If anyone had a problem, they went to him. The two biggest men were twins, but before Jude could tell Flea their names he was called away by Yesh, and Flea was left on his own.
Trailing behind them, Flea almost managed to convince himself that all was well. Halo was sitting on Shim’s shoulders, pretending to beat him like a donkey. The tall twins had taken Crutches’s hands and were swinging him along like a child. Clump was practically dancing, and even Red was walking along with a great big grin on his face.
In the Upper City, the houses hid behind high walls. Flea caught glimpses of pillars, open porches, fountains, and clean, empty spaces he had never even imagined, they were so far from his everyday life. The crowd trailing them was quieter now and fell totally silent when they stopped at a high metal-studded door. Pitchy torches smoked and flared, dropping fire on the pavement.
A small figure was standing on the edge of the crowd, watching. The skinny girl. She waved. Flea tried to look superior but felt oddly uneasy that she had seen him, as if he had been found out somehow. What had she said to him? That Yesh had come to the city to make trouble. Well, I’ll find out soon enough if I can do anything about it, thought Flea.