by Angela Hunt
“Perhaps you know my brother. He is called Yeshua.”
At the mention of Yeshua’s name, the man’s mouth opened and the woman gasped. The man grabbed Jude’s tunic and led him down the steps until they stood apart from the others. Bewildered, the woman and I followed. When Antipas’s servant seemed sure no one else could hear, he clapped Jude’s shoulders. “You are the brother of Yeshua?” he said, managing a wavering smile. “And this is your wife?”
My cheeks went hot as Jude stammered a reply. “Yes, I am Yeshua’s brother, but this woman is a friend, not my wife. We are traveling to meet our families in Capernaum. But we heard about John’s arrest, so we came here to see if we could do something to comfort him.”
The servant’s face fell. “I only wish you could. Last night Antipas’s men put John on a wagon destined for Machaerus. Antipas always leaves Tiberias in late spring because the summers here are stifling. But where are my manners?” He patted his chest. “I am Chuza, steward to Antipas, and this is Joanna, my wife.” He gestured to the woman, who bowed her head and smiled. “We will travel with the royal family when they leave for the summer palace later this week. If you would like, I might be able to give John a message from you.”
Jude looked from the man to the woman. “You are quite certain John is no longer here?”
“I am in charge of Antipas’s household.” Chuza’s voice overflowed with humility and sorrow. “Trust me, your kinsman is gone. They will keep him in the summer palace until . . . until Adonai’s will is accomplished.”
“But why was he arrested?” Jude crossed his arms. “I have heard the man speak, and he did not speak of insurrection or rebellion. Surely Antipas has no reason to fear a man who preaches repentance.”
“Ah.” Chuza lowered his voice and leaned closer. “Antipas himself sent us to hear John. Not only us but also his best friend from childhood, a man called Manaen. Antipas wanted a firsthand report of John’s activities, so we told him the truth when we returned.”
Jude’s brows flickered. “What truth did you tell him? I did not hear John say anything deserving arrest and imprisonment.”
“Antipas’s action was spurred by Herodias.” Joanna’s brown eyes had sharpened. “She could not abide a truth John frequently mentioned—that Antipas was guilty of incest and adultery. Antipas disapproves as well, because John’s words disprove the man’s claim to worship Adonai. How can you worship HaShem and not obey His Law?”
Chuza nodded. “Antipas was fascinated by our reports of John and earnestly desired to see some miracle performed. He would have commanded a miracle if he thought John would perform it—sometimes I wonder if that is why he wants to keep John close by.”
Relief flitted across Jude’s face. “So Antipas will let him live, he’s in no danger.”
“Danger is never far from any of the Herods,” Chuza said, “but Antipas fears the people more than he fears John. He knows John is popular, so by keeping him alive and in prison, he does not rouse the people’s anger and he prevents the Immerser’s fame from spreading.” He rested his hand on the edge of his robe, then gave Jude a conspiratorial smile. “So you were there that day? You saw the skies open when Yeshua came out of the water?”
I turned to Jude, eager to hear his response, but a line had appeared between his brows. “I did not see anything.”
“You didn’t see John baptizing Yeshua?”
Jude slowly shook his head. “I had gone for a walk.”
“Ah, my friend.” A shadow of regret entered Chuza’s eyes. “I am sorry you missed it, but I was a witness. So were Joanna and Manaen. We will never forget what John said about the Lamb of God.”
I was about to press the man for details when the gilded doors of the palace swung open, the screech of metal hinges rending the air. As the crowd on the landing surged forward, Chuza looked up. “We must go.”
“Wait.” Joanna grabbed her husband’s arm, then looked at me. “You are on your way to meet your families?”
I nodded. “My brother is with Yeshua. Jude’s mother, too.”
“And they are in Capernaum?”
Jude nodded.
“Oh, Chuza.” Joanna turned wide eyes on her husband. “Let me go with them. You will soon leave with the king, and I have never enjoyed the summer palace. Let me go with these two so I can serve Yeshua. With so many following him, he will need people to arrange for food and shelter, to handle the details of daily living. I could be helpful.”
Chuza patted his wife’s hand. “Perhaps these two have made plans of their own.”
Joanna smiled. “Perhaps they would like a chaperone. I’m surprised the girl’s father let her travel in this man’s company, considering they are not even betrothed.”
“We meant to take only a single day for the journey,” I said, my cheeks burning, “but we were delayed by the news about John—”
“I do not doubt your virtue,” Joanna said with a smile. “Still, with an older woman along, no one else will have reason to doubt it. Please, let me go with you. When we arrive in Capernaum”—she transferred her gaze to Jude—“perhaps I can be of some comfort to your mother. I may also be of help to your brother.”
Before I knew it, our traveling group of two had become a group of three.
Abba would be pleased.
While we waited for Joanna to gather a few belongings, Jude purchased flatbread and cheese to break our fast. We sat in the shade of a terebinth tree and ate, neither of us saying much. I kept wishing Chuza had said more about when he and Joanna went to visit John because I desperately wanted to know what really happened when the Immerser baptized his kinsman. Did they see a dove light upon Yeshua’s shoulder? Did they hear a voice or thunder? Did the river become wine?
At least this unexpected delay had not been altogether unprofitable. We would not be able to see John, yet we had picked up a fellow traveler. Having a third person along might be good. Jude, being a man, had to be prodded to make conversation.
He elbowed me, interrupting my musings. “Tasmin”—a dark note shadowed his voice—“do not be obvious, but slowly look toward the cart where I purchased the bread. Do you know the man standing there?”
Alarmed, I lifted my head and pretended to look for Joanna. I spotted the man Jude mentioned—he stood near the flatbread cart but wasn’t buying food. Instead he seemed to be studying us, his arms folded, an intense expression on his face. He was clean-shaven, like most Gentiles, but something about him seemed alien. I shuddered when I realized what it was—he had only one eye. In the spot where his right eye should have been, I saw only a dark, gaping hole.
I turned back to Jude. “Do you know him?”
“Do you?”
“I have never seen him before.”
Jude cleared his throat. “I saw him earlier, when we were speaking to Chuza. He was watching us then.” Jude swept the street with a slow look. “He had been climbing the stairs, and when he saw us talking to the steward, he stopped. He watched us until Chuza went into the palace.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, finishing our morning meal, and all the while I felt the pressure of the man’s eyes—his eye—on us.
When I had finished, I brushed crumbs from my lap. “Is he still there?”
Jude nodded. “He has moved away from the bread cart, but he is still watching.”
“If Thomas were here, he would know what to do.”
I looked up and saw Joanna approaching us with a basket in her arms. She had covered her head with a scarf and managed to wave when she saw us.
“I am eager to be on our way,” she said when she drew closer. “Do we need anything else before we go?”
“Just one thing.” Jude turned his back to the one-eyed stranger, then discreetly jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “The tall beardless man over there, the one in the blue tunic. He has been watching us all morning. Do you know him?”
Joanna glanced over Jude’s shoulder, then looked at me with worry in her eyes. “He is a strang
er to me.”
“Are you certain? Could it be Manaen, the man who went with you to hear John?”
She gave Jude a slightly exasperated look. “I know Manaen well—he grew up with Antipas and is always at the palace. He is a good man, trustworthy. That other man I do not know, but I have seen him with Herodias.”
Jude lifted a brow. “Surely she is not unfaithful to her—”
Joanna snorted. “Not with him. This man is a eunuch who has served her since her marriage to Philip.”
“Why would a eunuch be interested in us?” I asked, edging into the conversation.
Joanna shook her head. “I have no idea, unless Herodias asked him to spy on Chuza. He probably saw you, didn’t recognize you, and now he wants to pick up a juicy morsel of gossip for his mistress. Fortunately, he will hear no gossip about us.” She shivered slightly. “I wonder if this is a good time to leave. If Chuza is under suspicion—”
“Why would he be?” Jude asked. “He went to see John the Immerser because Antipas asked him to go.”
Joanna nodded. “Still, anyone who favors the prophet is destined to be abhorred by Herodias. She cannot tolerate anyone who speaks for HaShem.”
“If you would rather stay here—” I began, but Joanna shook her head.
“I will not let Herodias ruin my opportunity to serve Yeshua,” she said. “Come, let us go. Capernaum is not far, but we should not tarry when daylight is wasting away.”
I gave Jude a questioning glance, and he shrugged. Joanna was a mature woman who knew her own mind. If she wanted to go with us to Capernaum, who were we to dissuade her?
“Chuza will send word if trouble is afoot,” she said, adjusting her basket on her back as we walked toward the gate. “And I will pray for Chuza’s safety while I am away.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tasmin
Magdala, another primarily Gentile city, was but a short walk north of Tiberias. Although we planned to avoid it, we had to pass by its gates on our way to Capernaum. The shining sea to the east—which Antipas had recently renamed the Sea of Tiberias to curry favor with the emperor—lay at our right, while Magdala loomed at our left. The settlement was not new and stately like Tiberias, and yet Roman visitors loved its marketplace, famous for its salted fish and beautifully dyed silks and woolens.
“I hear you can even buy pork at that market,” Jude said, glancing toward the watchtower that gave the city its name. “The sellers of Magdala have no regard for the Law.”
When I mentioned that I loved salted fish and colorful silks, Jude firmly shook his head. “I am sorry,” he said, “but we spent far too much time in Tiberias. We must keep walking if we are to reach Capernaum by day’s end.”
I sighed, knowing he was right. Joanna wisely remained neutral, voicing no opinion on either fish or fabrics, so we passed the city gates and kept walking. We soon came upon the city’s burial ground, and I shuddered at the desolate look of the place. A dead tree stood in the center of the walled graveyard, lifting skeletal arms to the sky. The near-constant wind had scrubbed the carving from ornamental bricks on the wall and several family sepulchers. I could not spot a single speck of green in the place, nor a living shrub or weed.
We had only gone about ten paces past the graveyard when the heavy silence surrounding the place shivered into fragments. I whirled around, terrified by the sound of a blood-chilling scream, and Jude reached for a stick he had strapped to the donkey’s back. Joanna jumped and fell against the startled beast, upsetting the pack saddle and scattering our belongings on the road.
Amid the confusion, a woman rose from behind the wall and ran through the gate, her arms upraised, her hands curled like the talons of an eagle. Her tangled dark hair rose in a wiry thundercloud from her head and shoulders, and her tunic, or what remained of it, fluttered in the fierceness of her attack. She launched herself at me, her piercing eyes boring into mine, and I could see nothing but those dark orbs. I threw up my hands to protect myself as my ears filled with the stream of undecipherable words spewing from her cracked and scabbed lips. Was I to die without ever seeing my brother again?
I did not die, because Jude sprang into the space between me and the madwoman. He held up his stick as a warning, which the woman did not seem to notice. She ran into him, spitting and snarling, and knocked him to the ground. With no room to wield the stick, Jude released it and caught the grasping hands that tore at his garments. In the dust they rolled and grappled, struggling in a frenzy of sound and fury. The quiet melancholy of the graveyard vanished, replaced by a flood of foul language, some of it in a guttural voice that seemed more suited to an animal than a creature created in HaShem’s image.
Stunned, I stared at the living tableau before me, idly wondering how an emaciated woman could have the strength to wrestle a strong young man. She seemed a part of the graveyard and must have been living off scraps tossed by passing strangers . . . unless she had been eating the vermin that frequented the tombs at night. A long, angry scar ran the length of the inside of her arm, and I wondered whether someone had cut her or if she had wounded herself.
Time seemed to slow as Jude and the woman continued to scuffle. Then from the corner of my eye, I sensed other movement. Joanna had picked up Jude’s stick and now held it with both hands, raised and ready. She approached the pair on the ground, hesitated, and finally brought the stick down on the woman’s head.
Joanna’s blow had little effect. The enraged woman did not stop fighting but turned from Jude to Joanna, her lips twisted in a snarl. Joanna whimpered as the woman sprang to her feet. But Jude stretched out his arm, caught the woman’s ankle, and brought her down again. Amid more curses, the woman twisted and reached for Jude, yet he managed to roll out of the way. She leapt onto all fours and lunged toward him, raking her ragged fingernails across his face just before I picked up the stick and hit her across the back, finally bringing her down.
As she lay at our feet, silent and still, the three of us looked at each other. Jude, slick with dust and blood and perspiration, slowly rose to his feet and wiped his face with his cloak. Joanna covered her mouth and backed away while I dropped the stick and stared, unable to believe I had struck another human being. Even though Thomas and I had played rough games over the years, I had never hit him.
We stood in silence, gasping and trembling, for none of us knew what to do. I then spotted blood trickling down the side of Jude’s face, and my stomach roiled in response.
Finally, Joanna spoke in a quavering voice. “Did we kill her? HaShem knows we didn’t intend to—”
“She lives.” Jude pointed to the woman’s chest, which rose and fell in a natural rhythm. “She breathes.”
“What—what was wrong with her?” I asked, feeling weak-kneed. I clung to the crumbling cemetery wall for support. “What made her act like that?”
“Madness,” Joanna said.
Jude lifted his chin. “Or an unclean spirit. She was probably forced out of her village and reduced to living here.”
“This is living?” I glanced around at the forlorn place. “No one lives in a graveyard.”
“No one in her right mind lives in such a place,” Joanna corrected. “This woman is not in her right mind.”
I ran my hand through my hair, trying desperately to think of a reasonable course of action, and came up with nothing. We couldn’t take her with us when she seemed intent on killing us. We couldn’t take her into a city, because they would immediately put her out, if we could even get her past the gate. If she had a home and family, we had no way of finding them . . .
Thomas would know what to do, but where was he when I needed him most?
“Let us move her back into the graveyard,” Joanna said. “At least she will not be in the road.”
Jude knelt and placed one of the woman’s arms around his shoulders. “Perhaps she will attack a pair of Roman soldiers. They will not hesitate to do whatever should be done.”
I shuddered, knowing what soldiers would do. T
hey’d probably take their pleasure with her and then end her life.
Jude carried the unconscious woman back to the burial ground, then closed the sagging gate and secured it with a leather strap. “There,” he said, tightening the strap. “Perhaps the next traveler will now have a moment to prepare for her attack.”
My hands were still trembling when we gathered our scattered belongings and continued on our way.
Still rattled by the madwoman’s attack, I fell into step beside Joanna, hoping that conversation would take our minds off our frightening ordeal. “So you want to help Yeshua,” I said, offering her a polite smile. “Do you believe he is our promised king?”
Her eyes lit with eagerness. “I hope he is. I only know what I saw the day we were at the river. I heard John proclaim Yeshua to be the Lamb of God, and I heard a voice from heaven when the Spirit lighted on Yeshua’s shoulder. Whoever he is, he was sent to us from Adonai. And if I can help him, I am willing to do it.”
“Your husband feels the same way?”
She nodded. “Chuza and I talked about following Yeshua together, but Chuza did not want to leave his work. Manaen agreed with him. Who knows? One day Yeshua might need a friend in Antipas’s palace. With Manaen and Chuza, he will have at least two.”
I studied the lady as she talked. She and her husband were older, probably in their early forties, and anyone could tell that neither of them had ever walked behind a plow. She spoke like an educated woman and could probably converse in Greek as well as Hebrew and Aramaic. She frequently gestured with her hands as she talked, and with one glance at those long manicured fingernails, I knew she had never chased a chicken or scrubbed clay pots. She lived an easy life . . . so why had she decided to follow Yeshua and serve his ragtag band of followers?
Perhaps by studying Joanna I could learn the secret to his charisma.
We were only a short distance from Capernaum when I heard an odd sound from the high grass at the roadside.
“Wait.” I stopped and peered into the grass. “I think I heard an animal. It sounded hurt.”