Magdalene

by Angela Hunt

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Atticus had been in Jerusalem during those days—he’d been sent there to guard Pilate, who, with the Lady Procula, stayed at Herod’s palace during major Jewish festivals.

  On the first day of the week, Atticus had reported on the run to tribune Claudius Lysias’s quarters at the Fortress Antonia. Gaius sat before the patronizing tribune, a patrician’s son with no patience for what he viewed as plebian incompetence.

  “We’ve heard rumors,” Claudius said, looking past Gaius to Atticus, “of potential trouble in Jerusalem this week. There’s a new messiah in town, and this one is causing more trouble than most. The governor does not want trouble.”

  Atticus glanced at Gaius, who sat with his back straight and his expression unruffled. Gaius had undoubtedly heard this already … so why had the tribune summoned him?

  He dipped his chin in a nod. “Understood, sir.”

  “They say,” the tribune drawled, the hint of a smile curving his mouth as he looked at Gaius, “this one raises the dead. One of the Jews in Bethany had been dead and buried four days, but this messiah called him out of the tomb with a word.”

  Atticus stiffened while Gaius laughed. “I wonder how much they paid the dead man to lie in his tomb and wait for his summons?”

  “Not nearly enough, I’d wager.” Claudius looked up at Atticus. “I hear you’re a good man. Gaius Cabilenus thinks you’d make a good centurion.”

  Atticus stared wordlessly at the tribune as his mouth went dry. Him, a centurion? He had hoped for such an honor, but the potential for earning a promotion seemed remote this far from Rome and imperial favor …

  “Handle this assignment well, Atticus Aurelius,” Claudius went on, shuffling through a package of parchments on his desk, “and you will be wearing a centurion’s helmet within months. Gaius Cabilenus will give you further orders. Dismissed.”

  Atticus saluted the tribune, then stepped out into the intense sunlight and leaned against the stone wall. A moment later, Gaius came out of the room and grinned up at him. “Caught you by surprise, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a natural leader, Atticus. And if you handle this week to Rome’s satisfaction, you will deserve a promotion.”

  Atticus fell into step beside his centurion. “What do you want me to do?”

  “The governor is worried about these Jews, of course. They are an unruly lot, as you know, and passions run unnaturally high during their Passover festival. This messiah of theirs complicates things. Some of the religious leaders have already been to the governor with their concerns—they’re afraid the mob will try to crown him king.”

  As they walked past a fountain in the courtyard, Atticus raised his voice to be heard above the sound of splashing water. “Shouldn’t this be a problem more for Herod than Pilate? Herod’s their king.”

  “The Jews hate Herod—and they like this messiah. Rumor has it that he can raise the dead and feed thousands with one loaf of bread. The religious leaders think he could overturn Herod in a heartbeat, and most of them wouldn’t care if he did. It’s Rome they’re worried about. According to some of their prophecies, this messiah they’ve been waiting for isn’t going to be content with Judea—the man intends to rule the world.”

  “Ah.” Atticus nodded. “I’m beginning to understand.”

  “Good.” Gaius’s mouth twisted into a cynical smile. “The Jews have a temple guard, but I wouldn’t place any confidence in them. I want you to take five contubernia and place them around the temple mount. Keep them out of the way, but advise them to be ready. If at any point this week you see signs of a riot, take this messiah and his followers into custody.”

  Atticus bowed and saluted. “It shall be done.”

  * * *

  Later that night, he stretched out on his mattress and looked across at Flavius, who had already closed his eyes. “You asleep?”

  The other soldier grunted. “Not yet.”

  “What have you heard about this new messiah for the Jews?”

  Flavius opened one eye. “Why do you think I’ve heard anything?”

  “Because I know you visit the Greek farmer’s daughter in the market … and that farmer hears everything.”

  Flavius laughed, conceding the point. “He doesn’t hear everything, but he has heard about this Jew. They call him Yeshua.”

  Atticus took a sharp breath. Yeshua … the healer. The gentle Galilean who had lifted Quinn into the air and restored the boy’s hearing with a word. He looked across the aisle. “Is this Yeshua supposed to be dangerous?”

  “Not to my way of thinking. He’s a storyteller, mostly. Goes about the country talking about the Jewish God and doing good.”

  “Then why do they hate him?”

  Flavius pushed himself up on his elbows as a warning cloud settled on his features. “Maybe he keeps them up at night. Maybe he pesters them with questions when they’re trying to sleep.”

  Atticus snorted, then folded his arms and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t know much about the Jews’ God, but he had been impressed by Yeshua. The things he’d said on the hillside that day … his words rang with truth and honor. And his actions had illustrated compassion, a quality desperately lacking in those who worshipped Mithras.

  He sat up and blew out the lamp. He hoped Yeshua and his followers behaved themselves during the festival. He owed Yeshua a great debt, and he didn’t want to repay it by arresting the man.

  * * *

  The next morning, Atticus quietly pointed his men to positions around the outer courts of the Jews’ temple. Though the Jewish temple guards were a motley crew according to Roman standards, they did take one rule seriously: no Gentile, not even a Roman soldier, could venture past the Court of the Gentiles.

  When he was confident that his men controlled every major entrance and exit, Atticus positioned himself near the widest court and rested his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Shouts filled the air, jubilant cries, and he heard people calling to one another: “It’s Yeshua, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

  Atticus walked along the top of the steps and finally spied the man and his disciples. The disciples were all smiles, greeting and waving at those who welcomed their teacher, but in the months since Quinn’s healing, lines of heartsickness and weariness had etched Yeshua’s face. He climbed the steps leading into the Court of the Gentiles, then cast a glance of well-mannered dislike at the tables of money changers.

  Atticus had once asked about those tables. A resident of Jerusalem had explained that since the Jews despised coinage with engraved images, any pilgrim to Jerusalem had to exchange the hated Roman coins for Tyrian. The money changers charged an exorbitant fee for exchanging coins, and the sellers of sacrificial animals often cheated the people as well.

  Atticus moved to conceal himself behind a pillar as Yeshua stood in silence. The crowd around the prophet continued to stir, probably hoping for some sort of miracle, but Yeshua said nothing.

  One of the money changers, a greasy-haired man with an unkempt beard, stood and tapped the prophet on the shoulder … and Yeshua whirled with a wordless shriek of fury.

  Without warning, the gentle prophet from Galilee picked up the money changer’s table and flipped it, then he moved to the next. “The Scriptures declare,” he shouted, his voice ragged with anger, “‘My temple will be called a place of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”

  Moving down the row, he upended tables and upset the benches of pigeon dealers. He stopped a man with a basket of pigeons and broke the basket open; then he spilled a leather purse of Roman coins, sending quadrans, sesterces, and denarii rolling over the floor.

  Atticus stared in stupefied amazement as the prophet overturned the last table, then glared at the astounded money changers. Behind him, a row of priests stood with their mouths agape, and Atticus realized that they were helpless to protest. Whatever the man had done, he had justified his a
ction with words they could not refute.

  Across the court, Atticus caught Flavius’s eye. He had moved forward, his hand at his sword, but Atticus stopped him with a gesture. Whatever this was, it wasn’t a riot. Yeshua had been the only man to act, and now an almost unnatural paralysis lay over the court.

  Into this silence the prophet walked to a lame man who sat on a mat beneath one of the arched openings. Without saying a word, Yeshua bent and took the man’s hand, then smiled as the lame man stood and straightened, at once perfectly whole. As the healed man shouted and leapt with glee, others surged toward Yeshua, who opened his arms and welcomed all who came to him—the blind, the deaf, the lame.

  Atticus leaned against the pillar and watched in wonder as even little children joined those who were shouting Yeshua’s praises.

  He started when Flavius dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Thought you were going to see a bit of action there.”

  Atticus snorted. “So did I. But I’m glad … I’m glad we didn’t.”

  A muscle flicked at Flavius’s jaw. “Might do all of us good to lock a few hundred Jews away for the week.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Atticus answered. “And I’m beginning to wonder if you could lock up that prophet. He has power, Flavius. I’ve seen it.”

  “You’ve seen tricks. Clever magic stunts.”

  Atticus shook his head. “Nothing I’ve seen in a temple of Mithras comes close to what I’ve witnessed here today.”

  Chapter Forty

  A thrill of anticipation touched my spine when the Festival of Unleavened Bread arrived, the time when the priests sacrificed the Pesach lambs.

  We had been staying at Lazarus’s house in Bethany. Yeshua called Peter and John, and while they ambled toward us, he gestured to me and Hadassah, too. “Today,” he told the men when we reached him, “I want you to go and prepare the Passover meal so we can eat it together.”

  Peter frowned. “Where do you want us to go?”

  “As soon as you enter Jerusalem,” Yeshua explained, “you will see a man carrying a pitcher of water. Follow him. At the house he enters, say to the owner, ‘The Teacher asks, where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will take you upstairs to a large room already set up. Go prepare our supper there.”

  Peter and John promptly set off. Knowing that those two would have no idea how to properly prepare a meal, Hadassah and I followed a discreet distance behind.

  Everything happened just as Yeshua predicted. I had been surprised when he mentioned a man carrying a pitcher of water—water-carrying was women’s work—but we hadn’t gone twenty paces before we saw a young man with a jug on his shoulder. Peter and John stopped him. I don’t know if they recognized the young man, but I did. His name was John Mark and he was the son of another Miryam, a wealthy widow who owned a large inn on Crooked Street. John Mark had often mingled among Yeshua’s followers when we visited Jerusalem.

  Without hesitation, John Mark led Peter and John to the inn. Peter asked Miryam for a simple room, but she told her son to take Peter upstairs to the best chamber in the house.

  Peter came down a moment later, a satisfied expression on his face. Seeing me, he lifted his voice so I would hear as well. “The room is ready, already furnished with couches and a table. All we need to prepare is the Pesach lamb.”

  I chuckled and shook my head. How like a man, to assume the room would come furnished with everything necessary to prepare a festival supper! Did Peter not see the things his wife did every year to make ready for Pesach?

  Hadassah and I ran over a list of items the master and his disciples would need: wine for the four cups, cakes of unleavened bread, the bitter herbs. They would also need a cup and the sacrificial lamb, which, because it was small, would in no way feed the master and his disciples. And we had to think of the chagigah, which we’d consume with celebration on the afternoon following the Seder …

  We pulled our veils over our faces as a camel lumbered by, emitting a cloud of dander and dust. Judas should have given Peter and John money to purchase the lamb at the temple; had he given them enough to buy a chagigah, too?

  Hadassah and I followed Peter and John as they ascended the temple mount in a dense crowd of singing pilgrims. Worshippers from all over Eretz-Yisrael crowded the porches of the holy site. We had made it as far the Court of the Gentiles when we heard the blasts from the priests’ trumpets indicating that the Passover sacrifices were being slain.

  While men of Isra’el brought their spotless lambs to the altar, the Levites chanted the Hallel and the children of Isra’el responded, “ADONAI, please save us! ADONAI, please prosper us! Blessed is he who comes in the name of ADONAI!

  As we listened, I couldn’t help remembering Yeshua’s entry into Jerusalem only a few days before. The crowds had shouted his name and sung those same words. Since then I had seen Yeshua cleanse the temple like Josiah, Hezekiah, and Judas Maccabaeus, other kings of Isra’el. He had acted like a king, freely wielding authority and power.

  Why, then, did he seem so somber and preoccupied?

  * * *

  Perhaps it had been Miryam of Bethany’s act of anointing Yeshua, or perhaps I wanted to lift my rabboni’s solemn mood. No matter what my motivation, I caught him as he, James, and Andrew arrived at the inn. “Rabboni,” I said, feeling my face heat as I pulled a package from behind my back, “I have a gift for you. It’s a small thing, but I wanted to give you something for the festival … something to thank you for all you’ve done for me. For Isra’el.”

  His eyes softened as he accepted the package in my arms. “They apportion my garments to themselves … and for my clothing they cause a lot to fall.”

  I crinkled my brow, not understanding why my gift should cause him to quote a psalm, but he spoke so cryptically in those days …

  He unpeeled the linen wrapping, then shook out the tunic I’d taken great pains to select and purchase. The garment, composed of the softest linen I could find, had been woven in one piece, so it should wear well and last for years. The man who provided the garment had perfected his art weaving tunics to the demanding standards of the temple’s high priests. This wasn’t exactly a king’s garment—I doubted Yeshua would wear anything made of silk or purple—but it was something he could wear with pride when he met with religious leaders and other dignitaries.

  He held the tunic up, then his eyes moved into mine. “You too, Miryam?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling. “You have planned well.”

  * * *

  As the master and his disciples prepared to eat the Passover together, I sent the other women away. Miryam, Yeshua’s mother, went to eat the feast with her sister, Salome. The other Miryams—Zebedee’s wife and the wife of Cleophas—went to enjoy Pesach with friends.

  Hadassah and I went to John Mark’s inn, where the young man’s mother, another Miryam, welcomed Hadassah to their festival feast. Hadassah, I noticed, seemed thrilled by the invitation, for her eyes had been following John Mark all afternoon.

  While the young man’s mother entertained my young friend downstairs, I remained with our rabboni. I knew he would need a woman to light the lamps, and I wanted to remain close in case he needed anything else.

  One by one, the disciples joined Yeshua in the upstairs room. Judas was the last to arrive; he came through the doorway breathless and with a flushed face.

  Judas’s intent expression sent a ripple of alarm through me. I knew that he and Shimon had been in touch with zealots in Galilee—had he contacted revolutionaries in Jerusalem, too? Were they planning some sort of action on Yeshua’s behalf? Or had we walked into a trap by coming to Jerusalem for the festival?

  I lingered in the doorway at the top of the stairs and tried to decide how I could best help my rabboni. I had decided to go downstairs and ask John Mark to post a lookout at the gate, but when I turned to gesture my intent to Shimon, I saw Yeshua on his knees, his new tunic ex
changed for a linen towel around his waist. He wore the clothing of a servant—no, a slave—and he held a wash basin filled with water. Obviously, he intended to begin the Seder by washing his disciples’ feet, but Peter would have none of it.

  “What are you doing?” Peter lifted his legs from the floor. “This is not your job. We will ask John Mark to send a servant—”

  Yeshua gripped one of Peter’s ankles and gently pried off the leather sandal. “You don’t understand now why I am doing it, but someday you will.”

  “No,” Peter protested, “you will never wash my feet!”

  Yeshua looked at the outspoken disciple with a smile hidden in his eyes. “If I don’t wash you, you won’t belong to me.”

  I hid a smirk behind my hand as the meaning of the master’s word took hold and Peter blustered, “Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!”

  Yeshua splashed water over Peter’s dusty ankles. “A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash to be entirely clean. And you are clean … but that isn’t true of everyone here.”

  Yeshua proceeded to wash all the disciples’ feet, but a chill ran down my spine as I looked around the circle. The men had taken their places on the low couches, leaving one couch empty for our teacher. What, exactly, did he mean? Who among them wasn’t clean?

  My rabboni stood and moved to the place where he’d left his new tunic; without speaking, he pulled it on, then let the wet towel fall to the floor. Looking up, he caught sight of me in the doorway and nodded.

  My cue—time for a woman to light the lamps, to symbolically bring the light of God into the world.

  As I filled my vessel with oil, I heard Yeshua speak to the men who had traveled and worked with him for over three years: “When I sent you out to preach the good news and you did not have money, a traveler’s bag, or extra clothing, did you lack anything?”

  A dozen voices murmured no.

  “But now,” he said, “take your money and a traveler’s bag. And if you don’t have a sword, sell your clothes and buy one. For the time has come for this prophecy about me to be fulfilled: ‘He was counted among those who were rebels.’ Yes, everything written about me by the prophets will come true.”