The Centurion's Wife

by Davis Bunn; Janette Oke

  In preparation for Leah’s departure, Procula had a new maid, Katurah, a silent wraith from Samaritan heritage. Katurah found mornings difficult, which meant Leah could maintain at least this small portion of her familiar duties. She balanced the tray on one hip, knocked on the door, and at the sound of Procula’s voice, entered the bedchamber. “Good morning, mistress. I hope you slept well.”

  “There was neither headache nor pain.” And indeed, the woman did look refreshed. She inspected her servant closely as Leah set the tray on the dressing table. “But I see you have not slept at all.”

  Leah adopted the formal pose, hands folded before her, head bent. “What clothes shall I lay out for you, mistress?”

  “One of the formal gowns. Pilate expects me to attend an audience of visitors from Damascus today.”

  Leah began brushing Procula’s remarkably thick hair while the woman held a small polished mirror before her. The dark tresses were accented with henna, as with most Roman matrons. But the hair was all hers. She wove in no plaits of others’ locks, a common practice among wealthy women.

  Procula asked, “When do you leave for the disciples’ gathering place?”

  “You wish me to return?”

  “Of course I wish it. What kind of question is that? Did you expect your betrothal would change my wishes? Or a few nights without my dreams?”

  “Mistress, forgive me, no. It is just, I fear I am learning nothing of real value to you.”

  “Nonsense.” Procula’s tone held an implacable force. “In this short space of time you have moved from being just another outsider to someone they trust within their inner keep.”

  “In the kitchen,” Leah corrected.

  “Where better to learn what threat they pose to my husband’s rule?”

  “Mistress, I confess that I have found no sign of threat whatsoever.”

  Procula watched Leah’s reflection in the mirror, her eyes dark and unfathomable. “Then why,” she demanded, “was I so plagued by dreams of this prophet?”

  To that Leah had no reply.

  Leah was donning her cloak and preparing to carry out her mistress’s continuing assignment when Herod’s maid arrived to announce, “My master wishes to speak with you.”

  “Herod orders me to appear?”

  The eyes gleamed with the pleasure of knowing more than Leah. “The tetrarch has already departed for Herodion. My master Enos says you must come now.”

  Leah followed the maid back through the gardens and into the smallest of the formal chambers, where Enos greeted her. “Ah. Do come in, my dear. How good of you to join me.” Enos sat in the thronelike chair used the previous day by Procula. Herod’s chair was placed against the side wall, awaiting the ruler’s return. Even Enos would not have risked one of the servants informing Herod that he had usurped his master’s seat. “Will you take tea?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  He motioned her to a backless chair with arms curved like an open vase. “How is your dear mistress this morning?”

  “She has rested well, I am glad to say.”

  “Please do remember me to her, and tell her how grateful Herod Antipas was that she could stand in for the governor yesterday.”

  Leah folded her hands into her lap, her senses on full alert. “I shall do as you command.”

  “ ‘Request,’ my dear. It is hardly my place to order you to do anything.” Enos toyed with an oversized ring. “Especially now that you are wed to a centurion in Pilate’s favor.”

  Leah held herself stiffly erect. “Betrothed,” she murmured.

  “Quite right.” His eyes were narrowed in what might have been humor. “I was merely looking ahead to that splendid day when your marriage is fully consummated.”

  Leah gripped the chair arms to hold herself steady and moved to rise. “Forgive me, but my mistress has ordered me to other duties, which—”

  “Of course, a servant holding Procula’s confidence could hardly have time for pleasantries with the likes of this poor servant.” He sighed theatrically. “How fortunate you are to find yourself in a position to grant favors to those who care for you and your mistress.”

  Leah now understood. She slipped the pouch carrying the remainder of Procula’s gold from her cloak. She balanced it on the arm of the chair closest to Enos. “My mistress has ordered me to be generous with all who assist her.”

  Enos rose to his feet, flipping his robe’s trailing end about his arm, and as he did so he made the pouch vanish. “Come, my dear. The courtyard is particularly attractive this time of day.”

  He said nothing more until they were well inside the central gardens. Herod’s interior plaza covered a space as large as the portside market in Caesarea. A dozen servants did nothing but tend the tropical growth. Enos led her to the back wall, where a bench rested against flowering vines and faced the smallest of the courtyard’s six fountains. Enos indicated she should be seated, then leaned over to murmur, “I have news. But to reveal it places my life in your hands.”

  She inspected his face but found no reason in his expression to disbelieve him. “I am known to be a safe haven for all secrets.”

  “Which is the only reason I speak with you at all.” He leaned close enough for her to smell the balm coating his skin. “Herod is in league with the Parthians.”

  A pair of hummingbirds flitted about the perfumed air. “Forgive me. I don’t know—”

  “Your centurion captured bandits attacking a caravan. A caravan, I might add, financed by Herod’s brother in Damascus. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “I . . . I believe so. Herod is using an alliance with the Parthians to attack his brother, who in turn, seeks to depose him.”

  Enos nodded and lowered his voice further. “Herod has secretly released the Parthian leaders captured by your centurion. He asked only one thing in return.”

  Leah said nothing, but she thought she knew what was coming.

  Enos continued, “Alban’s victory means both the Parthians and Herod have reason to hate him. They are conspiring to kill your centurion.”

  When Leah did not respond, Enos said, “The Parthians have vowed he will not return to Capernaum. They will seek a moment when he is removed from the city and its crowds and the Roman guards. One murderous moment is all they will need.” His expression held something slightly sinister. “Such news is worth far more than half a pouch of your mistress’s gold.”

  Somehow she managed to keep her voice as steady as her gaze.

  “I am in your debt.”

  “I knew I could count on you.”

  “I must go and warn my betrothed.”

  The glimmer of mirth returned to his face. “Of course, my dear,” he murmured. “Of course.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Disciples’ Courtyard

  LEAH WALKED QUICKLY through Jerusalem’s streets toward the now-familiar plaza. A meager breeze found its way through crowds turned irritable by the heat and dust. When she arrived at the plaza, those there seemed unaffected by the heat. Their swift inspections of Leah were accompanied by momentary silences, then they returned to their discussions and activities. Leah retreated to the sidewall that offered a narrow slice of late morning shade. She sat and stared at the razor line of light and dark that split the cobblestones at her feet. And then the thought came, All I need to do is . . . nothing.

  Over and over the stark words whirled through her mind. She could be free. Free to join her mother. Free from being consigned to a loveless marriage. Free to return to Italy. She would be a Judaean widow, but she would be free.

  She needed only to remain silent. Do nothing with the warning Enos had passed along. And why not?

  It was not as though she held the dagger. She had not enraged the Judaean tetrarch. She was not the assassin. She was not arranging anything.

  If she simply sat and waited, it would be done for her.

  All that would be required of her was to allow a good man to die.

/>   “Leah? Why haven’t you come inside?” A woman’s form enlarged the shadow at her feet. “We’ve been so concerned. How was the ceremony?”

  Leah grew aware that she was rocking slowly, back and forth, like the religious Judaeans who filled the streets about the Temple on the Sabbath and the High Holy Days. She stilled herself by gripping her arms against her waist. “I am ordered by the prelate’s wife to come here day after day. I am commanded to report back what I find. But no one will explain what everyone is talking about, or what is happening.”

  “The answer to what they discuss and why you are kept at a distance are closely linked.” Mary Magdalene seated herself beside Leah and laid a hand on her arm. “Four weeks ago, everyone you see here was in mourning because our beloved Rabboni had been crucified. His death was ordered by the man whose wife has sent you here.

  “But even so they do not weep and wail and accuse the Romans—or even Pilate—of robbing them of the most important person in their lives, the man whom they expected to become their king. The Anointed One, sent to restore Israel and purify the Temple. They have not turned away from you in anger or with accusations, dear girl. And actually, they have questions that are not all that different from the ones you bring.”

  She caught Leah’s hand. “Now, Leah, tell me about the ceremony.”

  Leah shook her head, tears pushing behind her eyelids. The truth was, she could not. Not without confessing to the dreadful temptation that tore into her soul.

  She had not wept the day the ship pulled away from the Venetian harbor, wrenching her away from her beloved home and mother. She had not wept at the news she was ordered to wed a man she had never even met. Yet here she sat, in a narrow strip of shade at the edge of a sunbaked plaza, surrounded by people who would prefer she stay away, listening to a woman ask about her betrothal in most loving tones.

  Leah wiped her face and took a deep breath. “I don’t understand why, day after day, I am forced to return here.” She turned to stare at the woman beside her. “I have told Procula that your prophet is dead.”

  Mary’s gaze was now fastened on a doorway at the plaza’s other end. “At the start of the week after Passover, after the terrible crucifixion, the Master’s disciples were gathered in a room above the courtyard. We had prepared a meal, and they were eating. Or rather, they would have been if they had not been so troubled. And confused. Because, you see, I had told them that I had met the Master.”

  Leah blinked fiercely to clear her eyes. “You met the rabbi.

  Jesus.”

  “Yes.”

  “After he died.”

  “On the third day after his crucifixion.”

  “You mean, you believe you saw his wraith.”

  “It was no being from beyond the grave that I saw.”

  “How can you say such a thing?”

  “I reached out to embrace him, and he told me I should not do so. That he had not yet been brought before his Father. So I knelt with the others and touched his feet.”

  “Others?”

  “There were other women with me. We saw wounds where the nails had been driven through his feet into the wood of the cross.” Mary stopped, still staring at the distant doorway. Then she said, “I went back and told the disciples. Several ran to the tomb and saw his burial garments. Among them was his prayer shawl, the folded cloth that had been settled around his head in the burial. Peter saw this and believed. So did John. Others did not.” Her gaze had moved to the shuttered windows above the ancient doors. “That night the disciples gathered in the chamber and locked the door because they feared the ones who have sent you. Which was understandable, for these same people had crucified our Lord.”

  Until that moment, Leah had not realized many of these followers of the prophet were afraid of her. She was viewed as one with the Roman power that had killed their leader.

  And despite this they had not sent her away, had not excluded her from the group.

  Mary Magdalene, now watching Leah closely, went on, “And then it happened.”

  Leah searched the face looking into her own. What made Mary Magdalene so unique—and so believable—was her innocence in spite of her past. Her face was filled with a purity as intense as the sunlight. “What happened?”

  “While they debated our report, arguing over what we had seen and whether we had seen it, and the significance of the empty burial tomb, Jesus came. Though the door was locked, he appeared. He stretched out his arms and he said, ‘Peace be upon you.’ He asked for a bit of fish. He showed them the places where the nails had pierced his hands and feet.”

  “This man who was crucified.”

  “Yes.”

  “And died. And was buried.” Leah shook her head. “I do not understand how you can believe this.”

  “Most of all, Leah dear, it is your unbelief that isolates you from the rest of us.”

  Leah was stung. “I do not understand how so many people can sit here, day after day, arguing over whether the man they once knew has done the impossible.”

  “You misunderstand.” Mary Magdalene swept one hand about, encompassing the crowded plaza. “These people no longer argue whether the Master has risen. The time for doubt is over. The Lord has appeared four times now. Twice to the men inside the locked upper room, once to his followers upon the road to Emmaus, and also, as I told you, to several of us outside the grave that could not hold him.”

  Leah shook her head so her entire body swayed. “No. No.”

  Mary Magdalene persisted, “What occupies us now is why. But before you can begin to delve into the why with us, you must first conquer your own unbelief.”

  Leah found frustration welling up to where she almost shouted the words, “I do not understand why my mistress insists I return and ask about such things. The man is dead. It is finished.”

  About the plaza, people shifted around to stare at her. But their expressions were not guarded or suspicious. They seemed to look at her with calm acceptance.

  Her companion rose to her feet. “Would you take a walk with me?”

  Mary Magdalene went back inside the inner keep and returned bearing a cloth satchel, the sort of shoulder bag that many local women carried when purchasing bread, vegetables, or other wares. Mary Magdalene cradled it within both of her arms, clutching it tightly to her chest as they passed through the crowded market lanes.

  They walked down the central craftsmen’s avenue, which ran in a straight line from the Upper City boundary to the Dung Gate. The farther they traveled away from the Upper City, the more basic and primitive became the market stalls. Beyond the Pool of Siloam, the alleys branching off to either side were occupied by leather workers and tanners and butchers. Leah had never left the city by this gate. She had no reason to, since this led to the juncture of the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys and the city’s burial grounds.

  Mary Magdalene must have noticed Leah’s rising unease, for she said, “Have no fear.”

  Beyond the gate they took a path that led them along the valley floor. They entered a grove of desert pines, stunted trees clustered together like a crowd of old men. But the shade was welcome and the trees scented the air with their resin. Mary Magdalene said, “The last time I walked this path was just before dawn on the Sabbath after Passover. The soldiers had cut my Master’s body down from the cross. . . .”

  She faltered, and tears dimmed her eyes. She tripped over a tree root and would have fallen if Leah had not been there to catch her arm.

  “This is more difficult than I thought,” Mary whispered.

  “Here, sit yourself on this rock. Shall I fetch water?”

  “No, no, join me, please.”

  “There is not room.”

  “We can make ourselves small.” Mary sidled over and patted the surface beside her. “Please.”

  Uncertainly, Leah settled onto the cool stone. In truth it felt good to give her feet a rest. The day was hot enough for the cobblestones to have baked through her sandals.

  Mary Magd
alene stared at the sunlit expanse beyond the trees. “A wealthy man by the name of Joseph of Arimathea was a secret follower of our Lord.”

  “I know that name.” Leah recalled overhearing the discussion between Pilate and Alban. Her mind leapt from there to the choice Enos had unwittingly placed before her. The scalding indecision bit deeper still. She cleared her throat. “This Joseph asked Pilate for the prophet’s body.”

  “Joseph of Arimathea’s burial chamber is carved from the hillside just over there,” Mary said, pointing. “Several of us followed him and another man, Nicodemus is his name, as they brought our Lord here. They were hurrying, for the Passover Sabbath was approaching. I was in no condition to recall the exact hour though. The sky was bleak and dark as my heart. You see, if Jesus was dead, then he was not who we had thought him to be, for Jehovah cannot die. He was not the Messiah as we had expected. He was an imposter. We were all overcome with despair. We held one another and wept—not just for him—but for ourselves as well.”

  Mary lifted an edge of her shawl and wiped her eyes. “We returned before dawn on the first day of the week. We had agreed to meet here at sunrise, and I was the first to arrive. I was in this grove, almost in this very spot. The earth shook and I saw a flash of light beyond the trees. I was frightened at the earthquake and waited for a while. When I thought it was safe to approach the tomb, the stone was gone, and the soldiers were no longer here. The tomb was empty. Angels told my friends, who had by now arrived, that the Lord was gone from this place. I did not understand and could only stand outside and weep.