Magdalene

by Angela Hunt

  Atticus exchanged a subtle look of amusement with Quinn, then smoothed his face into confident lines. “The highway to Caesarea is safe. It is regularly patrolled by our legionnaires.”

  “Regular patrols will not suffice.” The merchant’s face screwed into the look of a petulant child. “I must have extra protection, and I am willing to pay for it.”

  “What, may I ask, are you transporting?”

  Longinus opened his eyes, glanced left and right, then lowered his voice. “Jewels and pearls, purple cloth, silks and linens, scented woods, ivory, cinnamon, incense, wine, oil—”

  “Those goods, while valuable, are not unusual.”

  “—and slaves.” The merchant lifted a fat finger. “Nearly a dozen of the finest artisans I could procure. The slaves, you see, are why I need an extra guard. I must not only take care to be sure I am not robbed, but the slaves must not be allowed to run away.”

  Atticus drew in his breath, then picked up his goblet and slowly swirled the wine at the bottom of the cup. He had little interest in slaves, but Longinus was a Roman citizen who deserved to have his property protected.

  “My friend,” he said, offering the merchant a smile, “while I cannot promise an entire century, I can promise this—when my visit in Jerusalem has concluded, I will personally escort your caravan to Caesarea. If the ship is loaded in a timely manner, I may be able to travel with you all the way to Rome—”

  “The gods be praised!” Longinus sat up so suddenly the bulk of his toga slipped from his shoulder, but he scarcely noticed as he lifted a pitcher. “Let me pour you more wine to celebrate our agreement.”

  Atticus blew out his cheeks, then looked across the table at his grinning son. Before lifting his cup to be refilled as well, Quinn mouthed a message to his father: Now you’ve done it.

  Indeed he had. If Longinus Priscus didn’t talk Atticus to death tonight, he would surely do it before they reached Rome.

  * * *

  Night had spread her velvet robe over the ancient city by the time Atticus and Quintus walked back to the Fortress Antonia. With a shiver of vivid recollection, Atticus found himself walking on the ancient street leading from Herod’s palace to the garrison. How many years had it been since he last crossed these flagstones? He would have stopped to count, but both he and Quinn were feeling sluggish from the merchant’s rich food and wine.

  Quinn, Atticus noted, had handled himself admirably in what could have been an awkward social situation. An officer in the Roman army ought not to take bribes, but a centurion could do a reasonable favor for a citizen without violating his conscience.

  Atticus tossed a grin at his son. “What did you think of my friend Longinus?”

  Quinn laughed. “He’s an odd one. He sits in his house and mocks the Jewish people, but his words tell me he hasn’t spent much time in their company.”

  “You’re right. He’s content to ridicule and fleece them, but I believe he’s actually terrified of what he doesn’t understand. That’s the real reason he wants a guard.”

  They stopped talking long enough to proceed single-file through a noisy row of booths, then Quinn pointed to a dark and narrow alley. “This way’s clear.”

  Atticus followed. He turned to his son, about to ask another question, but a sudden stench tightened his nerves—the sharp smell of terrified sweat. He turned, but before he could call out a warning, brigands leapt from the shadows. Atticus’s mind went blank with shock; only fools would attack Roman soldiers within a few yards of the fortress.

  He counted at least a half-dozen men, though in the confusion he could scarcely keep track of their shadowy forms. A silver dagger flew at him from the right; he pulled his sword and lopped off a man’s hand without thinking. He thought he called Quinn’s name, but he could hear nothing specific through the haze of violence that enveloped them. The air went thick with curses and knots of men who pushed and shoved, punched and stumbled in their attempt to—what?

  He thought of the purse tucked inside his belt. Did they want his money? If so, Jerusalem’s bandits had fallen to a new level of thick-headedness. You didn’t have to kill a man to take his purse; you only had to hold a knife to his throat.

  The alley rang with the clash of iron on iron, then he whirled to see Quinn’s sword knock a dagger from an opponent’s hand. Another fiend launched himself at Quinn’s back, pointing his blade toward the vulnerable spot beneath a soldier’s arm yet above the leather bands of armor—

  “Quintus!”

  His son’s name ended in a gurgle as a hand closed around Atticus’s throat. He brought his wrists up between his attacker’s arms and knocked the man away, then he spun and elbowed his assailant in the face. The man flew back and landed so heavily Atticus heard bones crackle like dry twigs.

  He turned. Quinn faced a single opponent, his sword drawn and ready. Both men seemed to swell, sizing each other up, then the bearded assailant lunged forward. Quinn thrust with his sword in what would have been a fatal hit if he hadn’t hesitated at the last instant.

  Atticus stared in horror as the smaller man’s dagger slipped between the bands of Quinn’s armor and penetrated flesh. For an instant the two of them stood motionless, the attacker grinning like a maniacal fiend, then Atticus drew back his sword and struck with all the passion in his anguished heart.

  His ears registered the hollow thump of the man’s head falling to the flagstones, but his thoughts centered on Quinn. His son’s eyelids had closed, but as Atticus reached for the dagger, Quinn squinted at him through one eye. “I didn’t want to kill him—”

  “Don’t talk, Son.”

  Atticus caught him as Quinn’s knees buckled. All caution and reason fled as the centurion grappled with his inert son and hoarsely called for help.

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Scripture tells us that after Ahithophel gave Absalom advice on how to defeat David, the old man saddled his donkey, went home, set his affairs in order, and hanged himself.

  I had no donkey to saddle and Jerusalem had become my home. To set my affairs in order, I wrote a long letter thanking Miryam for her many kindnesses and asked her to distribute my few possessions. Then I placed the letter beneath my mattress and waited to hear that my plan had succeeded.

  I would not hang myself. At the right time I would turn myself over to the Romans, because Atticus Aurelius had to know the reason he’d been attacked. He had to know that he had paid for his sin, as I would pay for mine.

  I was scrubbing the floor in the upstairs room when news of the assault reached us. I heard Miryam shriek and Rhoda wail; by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, the Galilean guest who had brought the news was smiling at the dire effects of his report.

  I comforted my grief-stricken friends and asked the Nazarene to repeat himself. After composing his face into serious lines, he told me that three days earlier, the infamous Barabbas and a gang of brigands had set upon two Roman legionnaires, one a centurion. Barabbas lost his head in the struggle, and the younger man, Quintus Aurelius, suffered a fatal wound. “The centurion,” he finished, “has gone back to Rome.”

  Miryam wept aloud, rubbing her arms as she rocked back and forth. I embraced her and Rhoda, then retired to my room, where I sat on the edge of my bed and shivered as a skein of remorse unwound in my chest.

  What had I done?

  Until that moment, revenge had been an idea that fluttered ahead of my fingertips, always out of reach. Even when I’d gone to see Barabbas, something in me couldn’t believe that the fool on that grimy mattress would actually complete the task I’d given him.

  But he had. My idea had become a deed, and my deed a sin I would carry for the rest of my life.

  Atticus Aurelius would suffer. He would never see a curly haired youth without thinking of his lost son; he would never don his uniform without thinking of the soldier who had died in his arms.

  He would suffer … and so would I.

  I had thought the act of retribution would bring me satisfa
ction, that revenge would restore order to my world, but Barabbas’s violence only made my heart knot in sorrow. I was not sorry Barabbas had died—he deserved his fate. And Atticus the Roman had murdered my family, so he deserved to suffer the worst grief life could offer.

  But Quinn … the lamb I had kept at arms’ length had done nothing to warrant the evil I’d instigated.

  Instead of satisfaction, loneliness seeped through my chamber like a fog. The burning rock in the pit of my belly wasn’t going anywhere, so I needed to be away from this blessed place.

  I stood and pulled the square of blue wool, Quintus’s gift, from a peg on the wall and settled it over my hair. Like the scapegoat who carried our sins into the wilderness at Yom Kippur, I would wear it to the fort as a symbol of my guilt.

  I paused at the inn’s threshold and looked behind me one last time. My hand trembled as I latched the gate, but I could not weep.

  Later, the others would weep for me. They would ask why I had done this terrible thing; they would not understand.

  Let them remember the prophet Jeremiah’s words: “The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”

  God knows. And so do I.

  In that moment, I finally grasped the truth: Yeshua did not come to save us from the Romans, but from our sinful selves.

  * * *

  The grizzled guard at the Fortress Antonia blinked when I said I wanted to confess. “Confess what, woman?”

  “Murder.”

  He glanced at his companion, who smirked at me. “And whose murder would you be confessing to?”

  “Quintus Aurelius. I hired the assassin Barabbas to attack him and the centurion.”

  The older man’s mouth curled and rolled like he wanted to spit. The younger man sank to a stool.

  “It’s all right.” I folded my hands at my waist so they could see I carried no weapon and meant no further harm. “I’ll sit on this bench and wait until you decide what should be done with me.”

  The grizzled guard chewed a stalk of straw, but the younger soldier ran out of the room, his sandals slapping the pavement as he rushed away.

  I lowered my gaze as a single drop of sweat traced the course of my spine. Would they execute me immediately? I wasn’t sure how the Romans killed women. I’d never seen them crucify a woman, but one never knew what to expect with these people …

  I didn’t want to die in front of my friends. Bad enough that they would hear what I’d done; I didn’t want them to weep for me as they had wept for Yeshua and James and Stephen. Those men had been blameless; I was guilty.

  Let them run me through with a sword and toss my body into a pauper’s grave. I deserved nothing better.

  The younger soldier returned, breathless and wide-eyed. “She’s to be taken to Caesarea,” he told the other. “Then to Rome.”

  I took a wincing breath. “Rome?”

  “That’s where he’s gone.” The older soldier fixed me in a steely eyed stare. “You don’t deserve a trial, but Atticus Aurelius has the right to confront you before you die. So as a favor to the centurion, we’re sending you to him.”

  Chapter Sixty-two

  I shift beneath the wide-eyed gaze of Flavius Gemellus, the Roman centurion who has listened to my story. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

  At his desk, the scribe stops scribbling and eyes me as if I were a bad smell. “How can you hold your head up in the same room as a fine man like Atticus Aurelius?”

  Even now, my temper flares. “He is not guiltless in this! I had grievances; my family was murdered!”

  The scribe rolls his eyes, signaling that I am beneath his contempt. He is such a Roman.

  “I regret I am not a better woman.” I lift my chin and realize that stores of pride still surge within me. “And I would have Atticus Aurelius know I regret striking his son. God will forgive my sin and Rome will take my life. When I breathe my last breath, I will consider my debts settled.”

  “Miryam.” The soldier on the bench speaks, his voice gruff with emotion. “Do you not recognize me?”

  I turn to face Atticus Aurelius and am startled to see the sheen of tears in his eyes. How could he expect me to recognize him? I ransack my memories of Roman soldiers, but cannot find his face among so many tattered images.

  “I stood with you on Golgotha the day they crucified the Nazarene.”

  I stare at him, my heart pounding. My hated enemy at the crucifixion? Impossible. The Romans at the site paid little attention to Yeshua as the day wore on; they gambled and laughed and taunted our rabboni.

  “You cannot—” I halt as a memory knifes my heart.

  Not all the Romans scorned us that awful day. One centurion looked at the untimely dark and recognized the work of the Almighty. And another soldier, a big man, brought Yeshua down from the cross.

  “Lead the way,” he’d said, nodding to me. “I’ll carry him for you.”

  I’d heard the sound of grief in his voice, but I’d been so focused on my task that I’d scarcely noticed.

  “I am Atticus Aurelius,” the big man says now, “and I served in a century under Gaius Cabilenus. I remember the night we raided your house in Magdala. I remember … and I know you suffered a great loss.”

  He stands and nods at the scribe. “Antonius, this has nothing to do with you. You may go.”

  The scribe hesitates, then glances toward the centurion at the desk. “Most irregular, sir. All words from the prisoner should be recorded—”

  “Her history has been taken down.” The centurion clasps his hands. “If Atticus Aurelius wishes to speak privately with the woman who wronged him, it is his right. His words will make no difference in the outcome of this trial.”

  The scribe nods stiffly, then stands and shuffles out of the hall.

  Left with the man whose son I conspired to murder, my heart congeals into a lump of terror. Will he strangle me with his bare hands while his comrade looks on with approval?

  Atticus Aurelius waits until the scribe’s footsteps fade from our hearing, then he lifts his gaze from the floor and looks at me. “The men in my contubernium obeyed Gaius the night we went to Magdala. But I have never been the sort to obey blindly. I came away from your house with a secret—a secret I have kept for years.”

  I feel a sudden coldness in my belly. What could he have done in my house? Did he torture my husband and son before killing them? Did he take his pleasure from Rachel?

  He sinks back to the bench and props his elbows on his knees, then folds his hands. “As I cleared the house, I found your baby … and carried him safely away.”

  My heart stops dead at his words. For an instant I gape at him, unable to believe, but something in his eyes assures me he is telling the truth.

  “You took Binyamin?”

  “I did not know about you. I saw a dead woman and assumed she was the child’s mother. I had to smuggle the baby out of the city to avoid Gaius’s displeasure and I couldn’t hide him forever in the camp … so I gave him to a girl who raised him in Caesarea. Cyrilla noticed he was deaf … and she accompanied me when we went in search of Yeshua the healer.”

  An icy memory chills the chain of my spine. My father met Yeshua once. I was born deaf, you see.

  No.

  “Yeshua healed him. The boy grew tall and strong, as bright a lad as any you could meet. My cohort was attached to Pilate’s household, so he learned how to read and write. He became quite skilled.”

  My heart is beating heavily; I can feel each thump like a blow to my chest. “Please, say no more.”

  “The year Yeshua was crucified, my century was dispatched to Jerusalem to help control the Passover crowds. My centurion and I witnessed the events on Golgotha, and we knew Yeshua was no ordinary man. When I saw you, Miryam, I couldn’t believe such strength could exist in a woman. Everyone around you crumpled with grief, but you stood unbowed and unbroken at the foot of the cross.”

  I can’t speak. The Roman probably
means to compliment me in some way, but in his words I hear an indictment of my fierce anger and pride. I hadn’t bowed because I cherished suffering; I hadn’t broken because I focused on revenge. Even as my beloved rabboni died, I wept knowing that I would count this death as another offense the Romans had committed against me.

  “When we heard that Yeshua had risen from the dead,” the centurion continues, “we believed the story. We have believed in his power since those early days—Cyrilla, myself … and my son.”

  A scream rises in my throat and I choke it off. Impossible.

  “I had mixed feelings when my son decided to join the army. I was proud he wanted to serve Rome, but I despaired of him traveling such a great distance. I found consolation, however, in knowing he’d be serving in Jerusalem, where I knew he would find a community of believers.”

  My tears, which are barely dammed, well up and overflow.

  “As I’d hoped, my son found a community that loved him. His letters brimmed with praise and affection for the congregation in Jerusalem, for they took him into their fellowship and welcomed him as a brother. He spoke with special fondness of two women, both called Miryam, who had helped provide for Yeshua during his ministry.”

  Oh God of mercy, kill me now.

  “You, Miryam, know the joy of my life and the son of your womb as Quintus Aurelius.”

  The words, once he gets them out, strike through my heart, sharp and sudden as a thrown dagger. I cover my face with trembling hands and give vent to the agony of bitter realization.

  I have murdered my son . . . not only have I killed him, but I have fervently desired his death, I have plotted, I have planned, I have taken joy in the destruction of the vulnerable boy I loved most—