He began by building a makeshift causeway on the river-bank which would allow people to reach the water. He tore his fingernails trying to lift out the huge boulders, he hoisted them on to his chest to carry them, slipped and sank into the mud and on several occasions he nearly lost his life.
Next he repaired the boat with bits of wreckage and built himself a little hut out of tree-trunks and clay.
Once the ferry was known about, travellers came to use it. They hailed him from the opposite bank of the river by waving flags and Julian would straight away jump into his boat. The boat was very heavy and was further weighed down with all manner of bags and bundles, not to mention the packhorses who were frightened of the water and difficult to keep under control, which further added to the confusion. Julian asked for nothing in return for his troubles, although some gave him leftover scraps of food from their bags or worn-out clothes that they had no further use for. Some of the more unruly passengers would shout and swear. Julian would gently rebuke them, only to be sworn at himself. His answer to this was simply to give them his blessing.
A little table, a stool, a bed of dried leaves and three earthenware drinking cups were all the furniture he possessed. Two holes in the wall served as windows. On one side, as far as the eye could see, stretched a vast empty plain, scattered with pale patches of standing water, and in front of him flowed the dull green waters of the great river. In spring the damp earth gave out a smell of decay. Then would come a fierce wind, raising swirling clouds of dust that settled everywhere, tainting the drinking water and filling Julian's mouth with grit. A little later there were swarms of mosquitoes that buzzed in his ears and stung him incessantly day and night. Finally he had to endure dreadful frosts which made everything as hard as stone and filled him with an insane desire to devour meat.
Months would go by without Julian seeing a living soul. Often he would close his eyes, trying to remember the past and return to the days of his youth. In his mind's eye he would see the courtyard of a castle with greyhounds on the front steps, pageboys in the armoury and a young boy with blond hair standing beneath an arbour of climbing vines between an old man dressed in furs and a woman wearing a tall coif. And then suddenly he would see two corpses. He would throw himself flat on his bed, weeping and crying over and over again:
‘Ah! My poor father! My poor mother! My poor mother!’ He would eventually fall into an uneasy sleep in which these gloomy visions continued to haunt him.
One night as he lay asleep he thought he heard someone calling him. He strained his ears but all he could hear was the rushing of the water.
Then he heard the voice again:
‘Julian!’
It was coming from the other side of the river, which seemed extraordinary as the river was very broad at this point.
The voice called a third time:
‘Julian!’
It was a high-pitched voice and sounded like the pealing of a church bell.
Julian lit his lantern and went out of his hut. Out in the night a violent storm was raging. It was pitch-black with only the white crests of the waves to relieve the darkness.
After a moment's hesitation, Julian cast off from the shore. Immediately the water became calm. The boat slipped easily through it and reached the other bank where a man stood waiting for him.
He was wrapped in a tattered linen cloth, his face resembled a plaster mask and his eyes were redder than blazing coals. Julian held the lantern up to look at him and saw that his body was covered with the most hideous sores of leprosy. And yet there was in his bearing something majestic and regal.
As soon as he stepped into the boat it sank down heavily in the water beneath his weight. It righted itself again with a surge and Julian began to row.
With every pull of the oars the waves flung the prow of the boat in the air. The water was as black as ink and rushed past furiously on both sides of the boat. The waves formed deep troughs and then rose up like mountain walls; the boat leapt upwards over the crests and plummeted back down into the depths, where it spun round, tossed about by the wind.
Julian bent himself forward, stretched out his arms and arched himself backwards with his feet so that he could row more strongly. Hailstones stung his hands, rain ran down his back, the force of the wind took his breath away and he could row no more. The boat was swept downstream by the current. But Julian knew that this was no ordinary undertaking, that this was a command he could not fail to obey. Once more he took to his task and the rattle of the rowlocks sounded clear above the din of the storm.
The little lantern shone in front of him, its light occasionally hidden by birds as they flew past it. But all the time he could see the eyes of the leper shining steadily from where he stood in the stern of the boat, as still as a column of stone.
This continued for a long time, for a very long time.
When they reached the hut, Julian closed the door and saw the leper seated on the stool. The shroud-like cloth which he had been wrapped in had fallen to his waist to reveal his shoulders, chest and scrawny arms, completely covered in scabs and sores. Deep furrows scored his brow. Like a skeleton, he had a hole where his nose should have been. His lips were blue and from his mouth came waves of foul-smelling breath as thick as fog.
‘I am hungry,’ he said.
Julian gave him what he had – an old piece of bacon and the crusts from a loaf of black bread. After he had finished eating, the table, the stool and the handle of the knife bore the same marks that could be seen on his body.
Then he said: ‘I am thirsty.’
Julian went to get his jug. As he picked it up it released a fragrance that warmed his heart and made his nostrils dilate. It was wine. What good fortune! But the leper stretched out his hand and drank the whole jug at one draught.
Then he said: ‘I am cold.’
Julian took his candle and lit a bundle of bracken in the middle of the hut.
The leper drew forward to warm himself at the fire. He crouched on his heels and began to tremble all over. Julian could see that he was growing weaker. The light had gone from his eyes, his sores were oozing. Suddenly in a voice that was barely a whisper he murmured: ‘Your bed!’
Julian gently helped him to drag himself on to the bed and even spread the sail of his boat over him as a bed-cover.
The leper lay there moaning. The corners of his lips parted to reveal his teeth, his chest heaved as his dying breaths became quicker and quicker and with each breath he took his stomach sank down to his backbone.
Then his eyes closed.
‘My bones are like ice,’ he said. ‘Come and lie beside me.’
Julian lifted the sail and lay down on the dried leaves beside him.
The leper turned his head towards him.
‘Take off your clothes so that I may feel the warmth of your body.’
Julian took off his clothes. Then, naked as on the day he was born, he got back into the bed. Against his thigh he could feel the leper's skin, as cold as a snake and as rough as a file.
Julian whispered words of comfort but the leper could only stammer in reply: ‘Ah, I am going to die. Come closer. Give me your warmth. No, not just with your hands. Give me your whole body.’
Julian lay down at full length on top of the leper, mouth to mouth, breast to breast.
The leper clasped him in his arms. And all at once his eyes shone with starry splendour, his hair spread out like rays of sunshine and the breath from his nostrils smelt as sweet as roses. A cloud of incense rose from the hearth and the waves outside began to sing. In the same instant Julian felt as it were a flood of boundless delights and unearthly bliss entering his enraptured soul. And he in whose arms he lay grew taller and taller until his head and feet touched the two walls of the hut. The roof flew off and the firmament opened above them. Julian rose up into the blue, into the open arms of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who bore him up to Heaven.
And that is the story of Saint Julian Hospitator almost exactly as you will find it
told in a stained-glass window in a church near to where I was born.5
HERODIAS
1
The citadel of Machaerus1 stood to the east of the Dead Sea on an outcrop of basalt shaped like a cone. It was surrounded by four deep valleys, one on each side, one in front and one behind. Around the base of the rock was a cluster of houses, enclosed within a circular wall that rose and fell as it followed the contours of the land on which it was built. A zigzag road hewn out of the rock connected the town below with the fortress, whose walls were a hundred and twenty cubits high and built at irregular angles with battlements along the edges and towers dotted along them that looked rather like the ornamental points on this crown of stone, perched high above the abyss.
Inside there was a palace graced with colonnades and a terrace-roof enclosed by a sycamore balustrade and a series of tall poles which were designed to carry an awning.
One morning just before daybreak, the Tetrarch Herod Antipas came to lean on the balustrade and looked out over the surrounding country.
The mountain peaks immediately beneath him were just beginning to show themselves, although the lower slopes and the valley floors were still shrouded in darkness.
The lingering morning mists parted to reveal the outline of the Dead Sea. The sun rose behind Machaerus, spreading a red glow across the landscape and gradually lighting up the sandy sea shore, the hills and the desert and, away in the distance, the rugged grey contours of the mountains of Judaea. In the middle distance, Engedi appeared as a long black line, while further off was the round dome of Mount Hebron. He could see Eshcol with its pomegranates, Sorek with its vines, Karmel with its fields of sesame and the huge square Tower of Antonia rising above the city of Jerusalem. The Tetrarch turned away and looked at the palm trees of Jericho on his right and thought of all the other towns in his Galilee – Capernaum, Endor, Nazareth and Tiberias – that he would perhaps never see again. The river Jordan flowed across the arid plain, which stretched out beneath him, glistening white like a carpet of snow. At this time of day the lake looked as though it were made of lapis lazuli. At its southernmost tip, towards the Yemen, Antipas saw what he feared he might see – an encampment of brown tents, men carrying spears and moving about among their horses, the dying embers of campfires shining like sparks on the ground.
This was the army of the King of the Arabs, whose daughter he had renounced in order to marry Herodias, the wife of one of his brothers, who, because he had no pretensions to power, had gone to live in Italy.
Antipas was waiting for assistance from the Romans. But Vitellius, the Governor of Syria, had not arrived and Antipas was becoming extremely anxious.
Perhaps Agrippa had spoken ill of him to the Emperor.2 His third brother, Philip, the ruler of Batanea, was secretly taking up arms. The Jews had had enough of his idolatry and everyone else had had enough of the way he ruled. He was now faced with two possible courses of action: either he could try to conciliate the Arabs, or he could conclude an alliance with the Parthians. On the pretext of celebrating his birthday, he had chosen this day to invite the leaders of his army, the governors of the local regions and all the chief men of Galilee to a great banquet.
He carefully scanned the roads leading to the citadel. They were deserted. A group of eagles hovered above him; the soldiers along the ramparts had fallen asleep leaning against the walls. Nothing stirred inside the castle.
Suddenly he heard a distant voice that seemed to come from the very depths of the earth. His face turned pale. He leant forward to listen but the voice had stopped. Then he heard it again. Antipas clapped his hands and called out: ‘Mannaeï! Mannaeï!’
A man appeared, naked to the waist like a masseur at a public bathhouse. He was old and thin and very tall and at his side he carried a cutlass in a bronze scabbard. His hair was held back with a comb, which emphasized the height of his forehead. His eyes were dulled with sleep but his teeth shone white and he walked lightly over the flagstones on the tips of his toes, his whole body as lithe as a monkey's and his face as expressionless as a mummy's.
‘Where is he?’ asked the Tetrarch.
Mannaeï pointed to something behind them with his thumb.
‘Still in there,’ he said.
‘I thought I heard him.’
Antipas gave a great sigh of relief and began to ask about Jokanaan, the man whom the Romans called John the Baptist. Had anyone spoken to the two men who had been allowed to visit him in his cell the other month? Had anyone discovered what had brought them here?
‘There was an exchange of cryptic words,’ Mannaeï replied, ‘like thieves meeting each other at night at some crossroads. Then they went off towards Upper Galilee, saying that they would return bearing wondrous news.’
Antipas lowered his head and a look of fear crossed his face.
‘Guard him! Guard him well!’ he said. ‘Let no one in to see him! Make sure the door is locked! Cover the pit! No one must even know he is alive!’
Mannaeï did not need to be told; the orders had already been carried out, for Jokanaan was a Jew and, like all Samaritans, Mannaeï detested Jews.
Their own temple at Gerizim, which Moses had decided should be the centre of Israel, had been destroyed during the reign of King Hyrcanus.3 The Temple at Jerusalem infuriated them; they saw it as an affront, a permanent injustice. Mannaeï was among those who had broken into it to desecrate the altar with human remains. His companions, who had not managed to make their getaway as quickly as he, had all been beheaded.
He could see it now in the gap between the two hills with the sun glinting on its white marble walls and the gold lining of its roof. It looked like an iridescent mountain, something superhuman, reducing everything around it to nothing by its arrogant display of opulence.
Mannaeï stretched out his arms towards Zion. Drawing himself up to his full height and clenching his fists, he hurled a curse at it, convinced that the words alone had the power to bring about his wish.
Antipas listened to him without appearing the slightest bit shocked.
The Samaritan continued:
‘At times he becomes agitated, wants to escape and hopes he will be rescued. At other times he lies there quietly like a sick animal. Sometimes I have seen him pacing about in the dark saying over and over again: “What does it matter? If his reign is to come, mine must end!”’4
Antipas and Mannaeï looked at each other. But the Tetrarch was in no mood to think about these things.
The mountains all around him, heaped on top of each other like great waves of stone, the dark clefts in the cliff walls, the vast expanse of blue sky, the blinding light of the sun and the yawning chasms beneath him disturbed his mind. His spirits sank as he looked out over the desert; in its folds and convolutions he seemed to see the shapes of ruined amphitheatres and palaces. The warm wind brought a smell of sulphur, as if exuded by the two godforsaken cities that now lay buried beneath the shores of that leaden sea. These signs of divine wrath struck terror into his heart. He stood there with his elbows on the balustrade, his head in his hands, staring in front of him. He felt the touch of a hand and turned round. Herodias stood before him.
She was dressed in a light purple gown that reached down to her sandals. She had left her room in a hurry and was wearing neither necklaces nor earrings. A tress of her dark hair fell down on to her arm and disappeared between her breasts. Her nostrils were dilated and quivering. There was a look of joy and triumph on her face. She shook the Tetrarch and shouted:
‘Caesar is our friend! Agrippa is in prison!’
‘Who told you?’ he said.
‘I just know it!’
‘It is because he wanted Caius to be Emperor!’5 she added.
All the time Agrippa had been living under their protection he had solicited the title of king, which they had coveted just as much as he. They now no longer had anything to fear.
‘Tiberius does not usually let his prisoners go free and life inside one of his dungeons is sometimes anyt
hing but assured,’ said Herodias.
Antipas understood what she meant and, even though she was Agrippa's own sister, her murderous intent seemed to him perfectly justified. Such killings were part of the natural order of things, an inevitable consequence of belonging to a royal household. In Herod's, they had lost count of them.
Then Herodias explained how she had plotted Agrippa's downfall; how she had bribed his colleagues, opened his letters and posted spies at every door, how she had seduced Eutychus who then betrayed him to Caesar.
‘It was a small price to pay!’ she said. ‘Have I not done more for you already? Have I not abandoned my own daughter?’
After her divorce, she had left her daughter in Rome, hoping to have other children by the Tetrarch. She never spoke of her and Antipas wondered what had prompted this sudden display of affection.
The awning had been opened out and some large cushions were hurriedly placed beside them. Herodias sank down on to them and, turning her back to the Tetrarch, began to weep. Presently she wiped her eyes with her hand and said that she did not want to think about it any more and that she was happy. She reminded him of their conversations together in the atrium back in Rome, their meetings at the baths, their walks along the Via Sacra, the evenings spent in splendid villas, sitting beneath arches of flowers, listening to the murmur of fountains and looking out over the Roman Campagna. She looked at him as she used to do then, pressing her body gently against his breast and caressing him with her hands. He pushed her away. The love that she was trying to rekindle was now a thing of the past. It was also the cause of all his misfortunes; the war had been going on now for nearly twelve years and it had aged the Tetrarch. Beneath his dark, violet-edged toga his shoulders were bent with care; his long white hair mingled with his beard and the sunlight, as it filtered through the awning, lit up the wrinkles on his brow. There were wrinkles on Herodias' brow too. They sat there face to face, looking at each other angrily.
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