So sometime before nightfall one of the crew would take a hammer and break their legs. They would die quick enough after that and, except for a small guard, everyone could go back to barracks.
The crosses weren’t high. If a prisoner could somehow have gotten a foot free, he probably could have touched the ground with his toe. Raetius would look each of them straight in the face, just to see how they reacted. Then he would know.
The young bandit just whispered, “Please, please, please,” over and over. He seemed to be out of his head—that happened sometimes. The older bandit was conscious, but little more. Raetius thought that one wouldn’t last very long.
Joshua was another matter. When Raetius spoke to him, Joshua licked his lips, which were caked with blood, and said, in Greek, “I forgive you.”
Raetius smiled.
“Don’t forgive me yet,” he replied, his face no more than a span from Joshua’s. “See how you feel about it in three or four hours.”
Joshua used his arms to push himself up and fill his lungs. A little cry of pain escaped him as his nailed wrists and feet took the weight. From now until he died, every breath would be agony.
“I forgive you,” he repeated. “I will pray for you.”
Raetius only shook his head and walked away. That one was strong, he thought to himself. In Caesarea, where the thing would have been done right, that one would last for days.
* * *
Noah came within sight of Golgotha just in time to see Joshua dragging himself up the little hill, carrying a large piece of lumber across his shoulders. At least he thought it was Joshua. The man was taller than the other two prisoners, but it was difficult to know for certain. He was covered in blood, even his face. At the sight, Noah could feel his eyes filling with tears. The Lord Eleazar had warned him, but it was still a shock.
Noah stopped and leaned against the city wall, struggling to recover himself. He could be of no use to Joshua if he could not mask his feelings.
In truth, he did not know if he could be of use—if he could bring himself to do the one thing that would spare Joshua from the full extremity of his suffering.
Tied to his belt was a small leather water pouch, which the Lord Eleazar had given him.
“I have mixed something in,” he had said. “It is slow to take hold, but it will ease the pain and, eventually, after a few hours, end his life. It is common for a man to die suddenly on the cross. The Romans will have no idea that you drugged him.”
“Thou shalt not kill,” said the commandment. It was not wrong to kill in war or in defense of one’s own life, but would it be wrong to kill Joshua to end his ordeal?
May God guide me to the right choice, he thought.
The consciousness of his dilemma helped to sober him. It was like ice in his heart.
Noah had had few dealings with Romans, and none with Roman soldiers. But he assumed that they were like other men—hardened, no doubt, by the brutal discipline of military life, a life inseparable from cruelty and death, but still subject to the customary human weaknesses.
So Noah, as a practical man, realized that he would have to appeal to those weaknesses. He would have to befriend these murderers and wheedle favors from them.
He began with the guard posted at the bottom of the little trail leading up to the execution ground.
“You can’t go up there.”
The soldier scrambled to his feet. He was about sixteen, with copper-colored skin, tall and slender as a reed. From the way he barred the path, planting the butt of his spear in the dirt and holding it out at arm’s length in front of him, he gave the impression that he thought he was protecting the whole Roman Empire.
“Why can’t I?” Noah asked, careful to keep any hint of a challenge out of his voice. He spoke in Greek, since the boy’s Latin was as imperfect as his own.
He thought he detected the hint of a smile, before Caesar’s legionnaire remembered his dignity.
“You just can’t.” The answer was also in Greek. “They don’t allow anybody up there until they’ve finished.”
“Finished what?”
“The crucifixion. It takes a while. Once the prisoners are in place, then maybe.”
In place. It was an interesting way to put it.
“Then I’ll have to wait,” Noah said. He sat down. He had been carrying a large jar, which he placed ostentatiously before him on the ground.
After a minute, the guard sat down too. He couldn’t take his eyes off the jar.
“What’s inside?” he asked finally.
“Wine. Would you like some?”
Noah had supplied himself with a dipper. Without waiting for a response, he broke the seal on the wine jar, lowered the dipper inside, and then offered it to the guard.
They drank to the accompaniment of inhuman screaming from the top of the hill. Noah fought hard to appear not to notice.
“They squeal like pigs, don’t they,” the guard said, grinning. One could see that it affected him, but he was a soldier, and very young, and he wanted to appear callous.
“One of them is my cousin,” Noah answered, as if stating a neutral fact. He offered the guard another dipperful of wine. “Where are you from?”
“Alexandria.” The guard seemed grateful for the change of subject. He drained the wine and then added, “That’s in Egypt.”
“I know. I’ve never been there, but I hear it’s a beautiful city.”
“Not the part of it I come from.” He kept glancing up the trail. The top of the hill was not visible, but the screams of the condemned were an immediate presence.
“I wish they’d finish,” he said, almost desperately.
Finally they did, and there was silence again.
They waited another half hour. The guard drank all the wine that was offered to him, but hardly a word passed between them.
Finally, Noah reached into his purse and took out five silver coins.
“Perhaps you could go up and have a look,” he said, putting the coins in the guard’s hand. “Just see if they’re finished. I’ll wait here.”
Sober, the guard might have said no. But he was drunk enough to have forgotten his orders, and he obliged willingly enough.
He came back down the trail a minute later.
“Yes, they’re done.” There was a haunted look in his eyes. And then, as if suddenly aware of his lapse in courtesy, he said, “My name is Anubis. I’m sorry about your cousin.”
“I know you are, my son.”
Noah rose to his feet, picked up his wine jar, and started walking slowly up the path, his heart like lead.
When he reached the top he tried not to look at the three crosses. He tried to make himself believe that these Roman soldiers, lounging about on the ground, were not responsible for Joshua’s fate but were merely its instruments.
He had almost managed to convince himself when one of them, presumably an officer, from his attitude of command, rose up and approached him.
“How did you get up here?” he demanded.
“The trail,” Noah replied. He smiled, to indicate he was jesting.
“The guard should have stopped you.”
“He’s a good boy and thought you might be thirsty.”
The officer had been glancing speculatively at Noah’s wine jar almost from the first, but he was suspicious.
“Have you tasted it?”
“Oh yes.” Noah set the jar down and then held up the dipper, full to the brim, as an offering. “Your good health, sir.”
“You taste it first.”
Noah drank, and then smiled with what he hoped would appear to be satisfaction. In truth, the wine reminded him of blood.
“Please.” He held out the dipper. “It’s from Crete, and less than two years old.”
The officer consented to taste it.
“It’s not bad,” he admitted. “I prefer Falernian, but you can’t get it out here.”
“I apologize, sir.”
“It’s all right.”
“A gift for you and your men.”
The officer looked around him. He was a large, broad man with long blond hair and a scarred face. He picked up the jar and held it against his breastplate with one hand.
“Good thing for you the escort has returned to barracks.” He laughed shortly, and then immediately stopped. “What do you want here?”
“One of the prisoners is a relative.”
“Well, you can’t save him. His punishment was decreed by the prefect.”
“I know. It’s just … We grew up together.”
“Umm. Well, just don’t interfere.”
“I won’t. May I speak to him?”
The officer made a gesture with his free hand, expressing his indifference.
It was only then that Noah turned and really looked at the three crosses. Simply by his size, he instantly recognized the man in the center as Joshua. Then he found himself wondering how, otherwise, he could have known. All he saw was blood. All three men had been scourged until they were covered with wounds.
Noah recognized that it was cowardly of him, and he reproached himself for it, but he could not immediately bring himself to face his cousin. He could not bear to be confronted with Joshua’s suffering, not in that first instant, so he turned his attention to the other two.
What had they done to bring them here? Did it matter? One, the older, seemed already to be sinking into death, but the younger had eyes filled with fear and the longing to live.
Suddenly Noah realized that the younger one was Samson.
So this was the end of his “kindness.” He felt like a murderer.
It is too much, he thought. It is past bearing. And then he reproached himself as a weakling and a coward. These three are suffering through a slow and painful death and, because I happen to know two of them, I think my own pain beyond endurance.
He forced himself to turn to his cousin.
“Joshua.”
They were face-to-face, and yet, at first, Joshua seemed unable to focus enough to recognize who it was.
Then he smiled.
“I was wondering when you would get here,” he said, in hardly more than a whisper. The effort of that one sentence seemed to exhaust him.
“Are you in terrible pain?” Noah asked him.
“Yes, but it was worse before.”
Joshua pushed himself up to take a breath, and the sound that came from him was like the squeak of an ungreased wheel. It was a long moment before he could speak again.
“God will deliver me,” he said, “even from this. You will be a witness.”
Noah could see it in his eyes, that flicker of doubt. The first worm had entered his heart.
“Yes.”
Noah wanted to touch him, to let him feel that he was not deserted, but he was afraid of inflicting yet more pain.
“I will sit at the right hand of God.”
“Yes.”
Joshua nodded. He was worn down and exhausted, yet he still had many hours left to suffer.
How can men do this to one another? Noah found himself wondering. How can they do this and still be men?
But all he said was, “Can I do anything?”
He received no answer. Joshua had drifted away into some terrible world of his own. He did not even seem to know that Noah was there.
Noah waited awhile for him to come back, but he did not.
“Come away.”
There was a hand on his shoulder, and it belonged to the Roman officer.
“They go in and out. It is the only mercy the gods allow them. Come away and drink a little of your own wine, before it is all gone.”
They sat down together, and the officer, who had his own little bronze cup, filled it from the jug and then offered the dipper to Noah. He was trying, it was obvious, to be kind.
“My name is Gaius Raetius,” he said. “At least, that was the name I was given when I joined the legions. I’ve almost forgotten the name I was born with.”
“I am Noah bar Barachel.”
“And Joshua is your relation?”
“Our grandfathers were brothers.”
“Tell me, for I am curious, was he ever a soldier?”
“No. He is a carpenter.”
“Well, he could have been a soldier,” Raetius said, not attempting to disguise his admiration. “He’s tough.”
Noah took a tentative sip of his wine, even though it smelled like death.
“What will happen to him when he is dead?” he asked.
Raetius looked at Noah as if he thought him mad.
“He will be thrown into the pit, with all the others,” he answered, calmly. “The crows will get him.”
“I would like to buy back his body for proper burial,” Noah said, raising his eyes to the man’s face, almost making a challenge of it. “I am prepared to pay a great deal of money.”
The Roman officer sighed, perhaps thinking of all he could have done with Noah’s money.
“You aren’t rich enough,” he said finally. “Your cousin Joshua goes into the pit and he rots. If I gave you his body, I and every one of my men would get twenty stripes. Under another prefect, maybe. But Pilatus means every condemned man to suffer the last measure of his punishment. No exceptions.”
As he listened, Noah’s resolve hardened. Coming here, he had not known if he could bring himself to use the Lord Eleazar’s gift, but now there were no more doubts.
“Then at least can I give him a drink of water?”
* * *
The price was twenty pieces of silver. Gaius Raetius was not fool enough to let such an opportunity pass. Noah counted out the coins for him, and even pretended to be grateful.
“Are you thirsty?” he murmured, his face close to Joshua’s. “Do you want some water?”
At first there was no response. Joshua knew he was there, but he did not seem to know what the words meant. Then Noah put his hand on Joshua’s face to support his head. His touch seemed to cause no pain, but it brought Joshua back to himself.
“Do you want some water?” Noah repeated.
“Yes.”
The one desiccated syllable was a sound like someone scraping inside a dried gourd. Joshua opened his mouth, and his tongue looked gray.
“Here, drink.”
Noah gave him the water, a sip at a time, careful not to waste any. When he had drunk about half, Joshua seemed to recover.
“That’s enough,” he said. “Will you stay with me?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Until the end?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I didn’t want to die among strangers.”
“You won’t. I will stay with you.”
Noah wanted to say so much more, but his voice failed him. He was afraid even to have Joshua see his face, sorrow and despair had so robbed him of all disguise.
After a long time Joshua managed a rusty laugh. “I will miss the Passover,” he said.
“I think we both will.”
“Deborah will be angry.”
“No, she won’t.”
Noah had sat down on the ground to make it easier for Joshua to see him. Joshua was having trouble keeping his head up.
“The Baptist died, I will die. It will still come.”
For an instant Noah couldn’t grasp what he was talking about, and then he remembered.
“The kingdom of God?”
“Yes.”
“We will share the Passover feast, then.” Noah’s eyes felt as if they were burning.
“Yes.”
Joshua pushed himself up with his arms, filling his lungs. This time he did not cry out.
For a long time neither of them spoke. For much of it, Noah could not even be sure that Joshua was conscious.
“Let me have some more water,” Joshua said finally. Noah got up and gave him what was left.
“I can get more if you want it.”
But Joshua shook his head. “No. Don’t leave me. Stay with me.”
“Of
course.”
It was nearly an hour before Joshua spoke again.
“I don’t feel the pain anymore,” he said, almost as if he missed it. “I mean, it’s there, but it’s like the buzzing of flies. I feel almost as if I can wave it away whenever I like. Do you think that means that I’m dying?”
“I don’t know.”
Then, for a long time, Joshua seemed to drift away. Sometimes his eyes would come to rest on Noah’s face, and he might smile, but for the rest he seemed far off.
“I will never see the Kingdom.”
Noah’s head snapped up, and he realized that he had fallen into a doze.
“What? What did you say?”
“I will never see the Kingdom.” Joshua’s face was a mask of agony. “I will die and I will never see it. It is God’s judgment upon me—upon my failure. I will never see Rachel’s face.”
“Yes you will. You will see it. You have not failed. You will be with Rachel again.”
Noah had no idea if he believed what he was saying. Some things were more important than the truth.
But Joshua might not even have heard him. He forced himself up again to fill his lungs, twisting his head so that he could see the sky.
“My God, my God,” he shouted, with a power one would not have thought in him. “Why have You forsaken me?”
And then he slumped down. After that he hardly stirred, and he never spoke again.
About an hour before sundown, Noah felt a hand on his shoulder.
“He’s dead,” Raetius told him. “Quite a while, from the look of him.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, we have to start taking them down now. Just the young one’s alive, but we’ll soon fix that.”
“What will you do?”
“Break his legs. He won’t last long after that.”
Noah scrambled to his feet and took out his purse of silver. He put it in Raetius’s hands.
“Take it all,” he said. “But don’t break his legs.”
“He has to die,” Raetius said. He felt the purse with his fingers and shook his head. “It’s the law.”
“Then kill him quickly, so that he doesn’t suffer. You’re a soldier, so you must know how.”
The Ironsmith Page 43
