The Apple and the Thorn

by Walter William Melnyk; Emma Restall Orr

  He searches my face, and I gaze back, So you too sense its potency. I wonder how far this feeling has spread, like a plague upon the heels of the Romans’ killing. “You must tell me all you know,” I say quietly.

  He swallows, pushing a hand across his face to wipe from it the tenderness and tears. "It is a long and grief-laden tale, Lady.”

  “And one you must share.”

  I watch the images move through his mind, like birds across a sky at dusk.

  “The lad you sent to the top of this tor those years ago, to find his destiny ... he met that calling on the crest of another tor, at the other end of the world.” He reaches to takes my hand again, an act borne upon the presumption of a connection made too long ago, and one most in these marshes would find unthinkable. A part of me longs to pull away. His hand is rough and cold, and seems somehow to remind me of my own limitations.

  “Vivian ... ”

  I gaze at his fingers, overwhelmed by an exhaustion.

  “May I stay now and tell that tale? You will not want to bear it all at once. It comes with many questions that have troubled my heart all these years.”

  Our eyes meet, and in silence we look at each other, the mist rising through the trees, the scent of rain in the gentle lift of the wind, both wondering at the details of each other’s thoughts.

  “The rain is not far off,” I murmur quietly. “Come, we must find ourselves shelter and warmth for this tale.”

  Chapter Four

  The Lad's Tale

  (Eosaidh)

  The west wind off the sea is heavy with the threat of rain as I follow the Lady of Affalon up a narrow, wooded track. Singing waters of the spring fade into the sighs of yew branches in the wind, fallen needles of past cycles pad our footsteps, and the mists of the sacred isle embrace us. I have not been this way before, it is strange to me, and I am not certain where we are headed. Vivian sings quietly, as if to the mist, and the mist responds. To our right the high summit of the tor fades, emerges and fades again, always in a different place. I find myself becoming disoriented as we walk. Finally the tor disappears altogether. The dark yew forest closes in, all but the lower branches now lost in a gentle gray-white. A chill rain begins to fall as we reach the crest of the path and begin to descend. We must be on the north side of the island, but my eyes have no frame of reference, and I am lost save for the presence of the Lady. She continues her soft song, a song that begins to warm the rain, to lift the mists.

  At the top of a ridge we pass through a barrier of blackberry brambles, still bare, with no promise yet of budding. I can smell the smoke from hearth-fires, mixed with the rich scent of tilled earth, and pastured sheep, though there is no sight or sound of them. So the isle is not uninhabited, as I had thought it to be. A smile crosses my face as I chastise myself. You can spot a Gaulish village or a Roman camp a mile away, Eos, I muse, but things are different here. Things are not always as they seem.

  We continue our descent, dropping below the rounded hill of the Red Spring, sheltering from the west wind. The rain continues to fall, but Vivian’s song seems to have tamed it so that it refreshes rather than chills. We cross the last of several streams, picking our way carefully across slippery stones. Suddenly we are in the orchards of Affalon. The mists lift, and all about us are trees slowly emerging from their winter’s sleep, their branches appearing yet barren as midwinter. Above, the sky is a deep, brilliant blue as the noonday sun brings only a chill promise of approaching spring. I look about, but the tor is still hidden in the mist. I cannot be sure where I am on the island. Then, to my surprise, I see the cluster of huts.

  A roundhouse, no more than five arm-lengths in diameter, stands at the center of several smaller structures. Smoke rises from the roof holes of three, as well as from an open fire ringed by stones nearby. All are simple structures, made of slender poles, mud and straw; a wild and uncivilized place by Roman standards. Several chickens scratch and peck through the golden straw strewn about. They mingle contentedly with a few wild geese. A doe and two yearlings forage at the clearing’s edge; their winter coats still dark, their eyes showing no sign of worry at the nearness of human activity. They gaze at us for a moment as we approach, then lower their heads once again to the sparse grasses at the base of the apple trees. A young girl, of perhaps sixteen summers, looks out from the roundhouse, her eyes like one of the yearlings, and quickly slips back inside.

  “She cares for me,” Vivian says, “She will heat some water for tea.”

  Though Vivian walks easily through the open doorway, I must stoop to enter. Indeed, I find I am only able to stand upright near the center of the single room, beside the hearth fire, where a kettle is already at the boil. The floor is strewn with hides. There is little else to indicate the purpose of the structure, whether it is dwelling or meeting hall. Almost without movement Vivian sits, and indicates a fur to her left. I sit with less grace, removing my damp cloak. The rain seems not have clung to her. The girl brings me a length of warm, woolen cloth, and I dry what parts of me I can.

  We have not spoken since we entered, but I feel the Lady’s eyes upon me. She speaks to the girl in words I do not understand, though I recognize a name. Gwenlli nods, pours steaming tea into two bowls, and offers one first to Vivian, and then to me. The warmth is a blessing to my cold, stiff hands. I settle into the fur beneath me and taste the gentle sweetness of the tea. Its scented steam curls about me. Blackberry leaves, I think to myself, and goodness knows what else. It seems a magical brew, clearing my brain and strengthening my body. Gwenlli withdraws to the edge of the floor hides, seats herself, and begins working with a drop spindle. She will not leave us alone here, I know, yet her concentration on her spinning will give our conversation full privacy. Vivian looks at me over her tea with expectant eyes. Though she does not speak, I hear again the words, Eos, you must tell me now everything you know. It is a few moments before I am able to begin. When I do, it is slowly, and quietly, as I search for words.

  “It was in the spring, in Jerusalem, now fifteen cycles ago. He met his death on a Roman cross.”

  Already the difficulty of speaking the tale is apparent. The look on her face tells me the Lady is not familiar with Roman crosses. I sigh, and give thanks for the blessing Adonai has given her. Then it occurs to me she knows nothing of Adonai either, the name of my people’s God. I explain the horrible instrument of torture and death, upon which the executed die slowly, from exposure, suffocation, and bloodletting.

  She lifts the back of her hand to her forehead as if reeling from the image. “Ever do men construct more brutal ways of taking each other’s lives,” she whispers. I can sense her disgust, but after a moment she shakes her head slowly and looks up. There is such sadness in her eyes. “And what did the young lad do to provoke such a violent passing?” she asks.

  “He had become the wrong person at the wrong time, for the Priests and for the Roman Governor alike. He had begun calling people to a revolt of the spirit at the very moment Rome most feared a revolt of the populace. A message that in any other time or place would be one of love became, there, in the turmoil that was occupied Jerusalem, a catalyst for rebellion. His mother and I tried to steer him clear of the authorities, but the more we begged him to heed us, the more zealous he became.”

  The last time Vivian had seen the lad, he was a carpenter and a mason, come with me to the Medydd to learn how to use lead and tin in the building trade. His arms were strong, his hands skilful, his eyes bright with an artist’s ability to see a finished product in a piece of raw oak. I close my eyes and try to see him again that way, rather than the image of death that comes crashing into my memory.

  Without being asked, Gwenlli appears at my side pouring more tea, and just as quietly returns to her spinning. Vivian watches me closely. I can feel her gaze in the center of my being as though she were listening to the words I am not saying, feeling the grief in my soul. I go on.

  “In his thirtieth year he gave up all pretext of carrying on his fath
er’s building trade. He took up the life of itinerant preacher and healer in the Galilee. He called people to embrace the reign of Adonai in their lives, and encouraged them to love and care for one another, even as our ancient prophets had exhorted. He was well thought of, but not well followed, except for a small band of Galilean fishermen. For three years he preached and healed.” The look in Vivian’s eyes changes, and for a moment I sense she is seeing him in some way I never have. “He could see things the rest of us couldn’t, Vivian. Things that were holy, things that were frightening.”

  Vivian is still. With the smallest of movements she sets down her bowl. She stares into the fire. “Many are teachers and healers,” she says. “This is not what brought his death.”

  “Perhaps if he had not begun to challenge the Priests . . .” My voice trails off as I see the lad on the hillside overlooking the sea, speaking to the people. I hear him again in his rebuke of the self-righteous:

  ‘Why do you see the splinter in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the tree in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the tree out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your neighbor’s eye.’

  I am silent again for many long moments as I see his face in the Galilean sunshine, and feel the calm breezes off Genesseret through my beard. Those times in Galilee were filled with promise. Perhaps he would have become a great Rabbi, had he let sleeping dogs lie! But he seemed determined to challenge the powerful for the sake of the weak. It was a grave risk. In the end it killed him.

  “I suppose it was at Caesarea Philippi in the northern Galilee where the beginning of the end came. For three years he had been traveling through the villages preaching the love of the reign of God.”

  Again, Vivian’s face bears a subtle change of expression. This phrase is not part of her theology, I suppose. Though she does not ask, I offer, “My people believe that the One God is like a Father, offering unconditional love to his children.” She nods in understanding, but a shadowed look tells me something in the idea is troubling to her. With embarrassment I remember she serves the Mother. A Father God is not familiar to her. I begin to worry that perhaps she will not connect with my tale after all. I struggle to go on, less sure of myself.

  “He met with some success, but most knew he was the builder’s son from Nazareth, and paid him little heed. Then he went to Caesarea, the old Greek city of Panias. I heard tales that he met there with the folk of the shrine of the Great God Pan.” Vivian stiffens and a tremor runs through her body. She looks down to the earthen floor, and moments pass in silence as her stillness returns. This is not going well. But another gracious nod bids me continue.

  “Perhaps he was seeking their advice. Perhaps he was just sharing what it meant to be so involved with the Holy, who knows? But his followers say he changed after that. He became obsessed with going to Jerusalem to confront the leaders of the Temple, there to become a sacrifice for the welfare of the people. It must have been at Panias he learned such a thing. There is no precedent among our own people. ‘I must go to Jerusalem,’ he told Petros, ‘and there be arrested, and beaten, humiliated, and killed.’”

  I am watching Vivian closely now, unsure of the effect my words will have. Her eyes are looking far off, to another place and time. She seems to be withdrawing into herself.

  “Petros tried to dissuade him,” I continue, “but he was all the more determined.”

  The tale is longer in the telling than I realize. No longer is there daylight at the doorway. Gwenlli lights an oil lamp that hangs from a roof pole. Vivian sits in absolute stillness, no longer looking at me, but the energy within her draws the hardest part of the tale from the depths of my heart.

  “He was not in Jerusalem a week when the arrest came. After the pretence of a trial, in which they could not decide whether his crime was Roman treason or Iuddic blasphemy, they settled on a charge for which the Romans could sentence death: they said he wanted to be King! My God, Vivian! He was a craftsman, a healer, and a teacher. He wanted no throne!”

  She turns again and looks deeply into my eyes, seeing with me. My body shakes with rage as I see the lad, bloodied, standing silently before Pilate. The rage turns to heart-wrenching grief as I see the cross raised above the Jerusalem hillside in the afternoon sun. The grief turns to emptiness as I see him drop his head, and give up his spirit. I cannot go on with the tale.

  Rising from the furs, I knock over my tea and nearly stumble into the fire. I begin slowly pacing the sparse floor, the image of the Lad’s death working its familiar torment in my mind. I stand in the doorway, hands on the doorposts, looking out into the gathering dusk. For the first time in a long while Vivian speaks aloud, her voice quiet as the whisper of the wind in the trees.

  “You must tell me all of it, Eos.”

  “Here is the most difficult part,” I answer. “I took him down from the cross myself that day, shortly after he died. With my own metal shears I cut the nails holding his arms and legs to the hard wood, and lowered him into my own arms. There was so much blood. So much blood, and his body seemed to weigh almost nothing. His mother was there, my little niece. I laid him across her lap. Miryam held him tenderly, the pity breaking her heart in two. Never have I seen such sorrow. I wiped his blood from my hands, and touched her shoulder. Vivian, she looked at me with the eyes of death, and my heart broke with hers. Joachim, the lad’s follower, helped her up and led her away. I took up his body, and laid him in my own tomb cut out of the hillside. I saw him there on the cold earth. I myself helped to roll the great, heavy stone into place, sealing the opening. I myself returned him to the bosom of his ancestors, to the earth from which he came.”

  For a moment I pause, remembering. In the quiet darkness of the tomb there would have taken place the final judgment of his soul. There his body would have rested until the resurrection at the Last Day, when God’s Anointed One will come to deliver Israel, and all the dead will rise again.

  “But on the morning of the third day after his burial, the stone was found rolled back, and the tomb empty. The lad’s followers and the authorities accused each other of stealing the body, to what purpose I cannot guess. The Galileans among us gave up and returned home. I went back to Arimathea.”

  I return to the furs by the fire and sit again across from Vivian. She watches quietly, always watching, with tender but inscrutable eyes.

  “In a few days astounding tales came out of Galilee, impossible tales that Petros, Jacob, and Joachim had seen him there, alive! They had shared breakfast with him on the shore of Genesseret. His followers became more enflamed than they had ever been in his lifetime. They proclaimed his resurrection, and called him Messiah, the Anointed Son of God who was the Savior of Israel.”

  A deep sigh escapes Vivian’s lips. I cannot tell her thoughts. At the sound, Gwenlli looks up, and comes over to fill her bowl of tea, and put another small log on the fire beneath the trivet and iron kettle. I had not noticed how cold it is becoming.

  “I truly did not know what to think of the lad,” I say, “who had stood with me on the Mendydd and learned the trade of tin. Can an ordinary man be the Son of God? But I threw my lot in with his followers, for they were in need of help. The authorities cracked down with renewed vigor. Many innocent people were chained and thrown in prison. I was removed from my Roman post as Minister of Mines and imprisoned, myself, for two years.”

  Vivian’s face turns to mine at this.

  “When I finally secured my release, I found those still most in danger and began planning an escape. A year later I sailed with them from Joppa on one of my family’s Phoenician trading ships. Miryam, the lad’s mother, was with us. And the Magdalene, who the lad loved.”

  Vivian speaks again, surprised. “He loved?”

  “She was always at his side. They often spoke of love. It is hard to know for certain how his followers lived, but it seemed to many she was his wife.”

  “And this girl,” Vivian asks, “What was she like?”

>   “Her name also was Miryam,” which in the tongue of my people means Star of the Sea. She was a Magdalene, a priestess. She was young, and strong, and there was a fire in her eyes and a power in her spirit.” Why, I wonder, is the Lady so interested in the Magdalene?

  “We sailed for Massalia in Gaul, where they settled. I followed the tin route across Gaul and the Great Channel home to Cornualle, and there for years tried to put Jerusalem behind me. But always there was the nagging in my soul: What is the meaning of it all? What could I have done to prevent it? Why did the Priests and the Romans find him such a threat? And always, always, is it possible that an ordinary man can be the Son of God?”

  Without speaking, Vivian stands and leaves the roundhouse. Gwenlli follows silently into the darkness outside.

  I sit looking into the flames of the cooking fire. The tale is nearly told, the Lady has gone out into the night. All is quiet except for the crackling of the flames. I feel the silence sweep over me, the stillness enters my bones, the sound of my breathing rises in my ears. It overcomes the crackle of the fire. Have I offended the Lady? Have I been too presumptive of her understanding? Has the tale caused a distress I could not foresee? I look around the single room. Its simplicity bespeaks a life that does not deserve – may not tolerate – the violence of Rome and Iudea, and the battles of Eastern gods. The feel of the Lady in this space is something physical. It seems to me I am out of place, disjointed. Perhaps I do not belong here at all. I close my eyes, and wait.

  Presently, Gwenlli returns with an iron pot and sets it by the kettle on the trivet. She pours grain into it, and herbs, dusting off her hands. I watch her anxiously, hoping to find the hospitality her actions portray. Where has the Lady gone, I wonder. As if in answer, Gwenlli looks up from the fire, her young face framing eyes that burn with intense feeling. As if to comfort me, she says, “My Lady will return.” Satisfied with the pot on the fire, she takes up her spindle once more.