by Jamie Buxton
“And so he can, or is this yet another one of your secrets?” Yesh sounded sharp. “No secrets, Jude. Too late for that. If young Flea has come to do you a favor, the least we can do is feed him for his troubles and let him rest.”
“I’m fine,” Flea said. “Honestly, I’m fine. I just wanted…”
Jude mouthed the word later, and stepped back.
Yesh smiled. “Come closer. You’re our guest. I’ve done my best to cheer up this lot but it’s been heavy going. So join us. Please. I beg you. You’d be doing me a favor. These sour-faced old busybodies want to stop me from having fun. Yohan, bring the boy some food and a little bit of wine, I think, mixed with water. That’s it. Now then, you look as if you’ve been through it today. Life on the street’s tough, isn’t it?”
“We got into a bit of trouble and had to hide … you know,” Flea told him. “We’re sorry. That’s why I came. To say I was sorry for not being around to thank you for having us to that dinner.” Like bitter fat, the half-truth slipped greasily between his lips.
“Sorry? Thanks? That’s very formal, Flea. What’s up?”
Someone’s betrayed you and you’re going to die, but I don’t know how to tell you, was what went through Flea’s thoughts. “Just that I heard you’d be off after the holiday. That things have gotten a bit hot for you in the city,” was what he said.
“Hm. Ha. Yes. And of course you’re right. But I bet you’re hungry, too, and thought a bite to eat was worth crossing the city for? Good. I knew you’d come around.” He appealed to his followers. “Didn’t I say it? Didn’t I say, That Flea’s the hardest one to catch but he’ll come around? And now he has and we’re all the happier.”
Flea was appalled, not just by Yesh’s wrongness but by the chasm between his wrongness and the truth.
Yesh carried on. “I was thinking very hard about you boys and wanted to pass something on: my magic. All brother Jude’s idea—did you know that? When I was just a simple preacher it was his idea to pull the crowds in with a few tricks. It wasn’t long before they started saying it was more than that.”
“In your hands, Lord, tricks become something else.” Mat spoke gruffly. He was older than the others and tonight the flesh on his face seemed as though it was sagging. His gray hair grew up like a wiry crown.
“Hmmph.” Yesh cleared his throat and said, “Yes. That is what we believe, but sometimes I yearn to do a few of the old routines again, just for the fun of it. Life was simple in those days, but we have to accept that it can get a bit more complicated.”
“Life’s never been simple for me,” Flea said. “Just staying alive is hard enough.” He tried to load the words with meaning.
Yesh looked at him sharply, then crinkled his eyes. “All the more reason for some fun, then!”
He clicked his fingers, leaned across to Yohan and pulled a coin from his mouth, then pressed it into his left ear and pulled it out of his right. Yohan continued to smile dreamily.
“You could show him your best trick,” Jude said. “As a reward for coming to see us.”
That was almost too much for Flea. He shook his head. “I don’t deserve it,” he said. “I didn’t do—”
“Show him, Master,” Jude said. “Show him how to hunt the king.” He locked eyes with Yesh, who was the first to look away and snap out another smile.
“Yes. Jude’s right. You should know how to hunt the king. It should be passed on.” He looked around the room. “What? No one wants me to have fun? I tell you, I feel a bit let down tonight. Almost betrayed.”
An intake of breath and shocked murmurs. Let down? Betrayed? No.
Flea stared hard at Shim, but he was looking down so his face was hidden. Yesh smiled. “Good. Someone empty that bread off the tray and hand it over to me. Finish your wine, Flea. You too, Yohan. And I’ll get rid of mine.” He drank it in one gulp, then put the beaker upside down on the tray and gestured for Yohan and Flea to do the same.
“You know this trick, don’t you, Flea? You’ve seen it done on every street corner. But some people don’t get it. Shim, for example, has never understood. Want to play, Shim?”
“My Lord, is this the time?” Mat began. “Shouldn’t we be getting ready to move—”
“Yes! This is the time. This is my time! Or had you forgotten?”
Mat flinched as if he had been struck. “No, Lord,” he whispered.
“Then this night, this night of all nights, we play hunt the king,” Yeshua said in a quieter voice. “I need three cups. So. I put them in a row, so, and I hide the coin under one of them, so. Then I move them around to the left and the right and the right and the left and all Shim has to do is keep his eye on the cup that he thinks is hiding the coin. Do you understand me, Flea?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because it’s not just a game, it’s a lesson about life. And now we begin. Sit in front of me, Shim.”
Reluctantly, Shim shuffled up and sat in front of Yesh, who slid a coin under one of the cups and moved them in a complicated pattern, talking all the time in a trickster’s patter. “Hunt the king to the left to the right to the middle to the left to the left or was it right to middle or what? Place your bets now. Loser pays double. We’re good for that, aren’t we, Jude?”
Jude hefted his money bag and pursed his lips. “Just don’t lose too much,” he said.
Yesh nodded. “I hear you. Brother Shim, hunt the king.”
Reluctantly Shim opened his purse, put a coin down, and tapped a beaker.
“Are you sure?” Yesh asked.
Shim nodded.
Yesh lifted the beaker and there was the coin. “Pay you double,” he said.
“Again.”
Four times Yesh lost, until there were sixteen coins in front of Shim, paid from Jude’s purse.
“That’s the treasury cleaned out,” Jude said.
“One last time,” Yesh said. “Loser pays double and here we go. Hunt the king to left to the right to the left to the left to the right or is it left or was it right or was it the middle?”
Maybe the magician was getting tired, perhaps he had had too much to drink, but his movements seemed clumsier and when he stopped, Shim said, “But it’s so clear, Lord.”
He patted the center cup. But when Yeshua turned it up, there was no coin.
“Sorry, Shim,” he said with a cruel smile. “Loser pays double. Now you owe me thirty-two silver coins.”
“Thirty-two? Lord, I…”
“What? Not good for your debts? Isn’t that one of the sins that cries up to heaven for vengeance? For your own good, Shim, you’ve got to cough up.” Yesh fixed him with a stare.
“I don’t have that sort of money. I don’t have a mite. I…”
“So how are you going to pay me?”
Shim screwed his eyes up. Then his face relaxed. “This is a joke, right? Just a joke?”
“I’m not laughing. Borrow the money,” Yesh said flatly.
Shim turned. The followers reached into purses and pockets, fumbled for change, held out what they had. Shim counted it out and handed the coins to Jude with a sour expression.
“Fourteen there,” he said.
“What’s in the purse now?” Yesh asked. “Thirty pieces of silver?” He closed his eyes and murmured, “‘So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter.’ Which holy prophet said that?”
“Zechariah, Lord,” Mat said.
“And thirty pieces of silver is a suitable price for a slave,” Yesh said, his face suddenly sour.
“A slave, Lord?” Mat rose to his feet.
“Or anyone else that has no say in his destiny,” Yesh said, then suddenly brightened. He slapped his hands together. “Still, no use complaining. Now it is time to go.”
When he stood, they all stood too and cleared a path to the door for him. Two or three seemed to be holding back tears. At the door he turned and looked down at Flea.
“Now, Flea, it’s your turn to make a decision. Should Jud
e give you the money I made, or should I teach you the trick?”
“I don’t know,” Flea said. He’d gone beyond tiredness, gone beyond confusion, and simply felt empty. What had all that stuff about slaves meant? He knew he should be able to work it out, but the sense of it was beyond the limits of his understanding, dancing in the dark. “The truth is … the thing I’d like to know most of all is what’s happening to you. Where are you going?”
The words had leaped into his mouth before his brain had time to stop them. Shim closed his eyes and groaned. Jude’s eyes widened.
A coin appeared in Yesh’s hand. He kept his eyes on Flea as he rolled it between his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth.
“And you’d trade my trick, my brilliant trick, for knowing this simple thing?”
“I need to ask it,” Flea said. He looked desperately at Jude. “Something is making me.”
“Flea, Flea. You are the strangest child I ever met. It’s no secret. We’re going to the Pleasure Gardens, though it is a bit late, and the weather…”
“Surely, Lord, it is just what we need after that meal. A gentle walk, time to reflect,” Shim said.
“So that is the plan? I see,” Yeshua said. “Then this is where we say goodbye, young Flea.”
“I could come too,” Flea said.
“No, you could not. You have done what was needed. You have played your part. Now you must go.”
“But…”
“Goodbye.”
The group seemed to make no noise as they filed out, picking up their sandals one by one, and walking softly into the street. Flea waited until they had gone and then left himself.
Flea sat on the bottom step. A lamb bleated. The city rasped like an old man breathing but the overwhelming sense was that of quiet: a quiet that was big and smooth and pressed the breath from his chest. When he finally looked up, he saw the Results Man walking down the empty street toward him.
“The Pleasure Gardens,” Flea said.
The torturer smiled. “Thank you. The gardens are outside the city walls. It should make my job easier.”
“Can I go now?”
“Oh no. Your evening’s just started. Remember, the lives of all your friends are still in your hands.”
“I’m so tired,” Flea said, and put his head on his crossed arms.
The Results Man picked him up by the scruff of his neck. “You’re alive. That’s what counts. Come on. We’re going to follow them.”
“And what’s going to happen then?”
“A very big surprise, I can promise you that.” He looked up at the night sky, put out one hand, and smiled with delight. “Would you believe it? Snow. Or blossom? Or ash?”
Flakes darted and swooped like butterflies. One landed on Flea’s hand. It felt dry, then melted. It was snow in springtime. This was madness. The world really was about to end.
36
By the time they reached the bridge the wind was blowing hard and the moon was dodging between thick, fast-moving clouds—light and dark, dark and light. The Results Man strode ahead. Flea trailed behind, kicking palm fronds. They were followed by about twenty soldiers, not stamping the earth as Romans usually did, but walking softly.
On the bridge they met men and women who’d been driven back into the city by the weather. Flea tried to wish every shape into becoming Yesh, or Jude, even Shim—anything to suggest they’d given up and were coming back to the safety of the city. No such luck.
The road divided. Turn right to Bethany; turn left and a smaller track wound up the hillside to the Pleasure Gardens, a grove of old olive trees with a ruined oil mill in the middle of it. In the daytime it was popular with families who picnicked under the ancient, twisted branches; at night it was taken over by lonely men and women looking for love. Laws did not apply outside the city walls.
Flea tried to glue his broken thoughts into a plan. In bad weather the old oil mill offered shelter, and it would make sense for Yesh and his followers to be there, but would the Results Man know that? Unlikely. If he could get away, there was still a chance he might find Jude in the darkness and warn him without anyone noticing.
His moment came when the Results Man was approached by a soldier and dismissed Flea with a wave of the hand. Another soldier started to describe something up ahead.
Flea stepped away. No one noticed.
Another step. The Results Man was just a shape in the darkness, and his back was turned.
If anyone asks, Flea thought, I’ll tell them I didn’t want them to think I was listening and moved so far away I lost them.
He slipped behind a tree and then ran. He was at the back wall of the mill before he knew it, and could hear the low murmur of voices. He stepped away and crept around the ruin until he could see who was talking.
Dark figures huddled around a small fire, the light flickering over their faces. Those were the followers all right, but no sign of Yesh. And no sign of Jude.
The wind dropped and it began to snow properly, with big, fluffy flakes that lay like blossoms on the earth for a heartbeat before dissolving. Somewhere close by a nightingale started to sing, its liquid whistle sounding huge in the dark. Beyond that, up the hill, Flea heard the sound of retching and followed it.
In a glade, in the moonlight, Yesh was being sick. Jude was holding his long hair away from his face and rubbing his back. Flea hid in the shadows, watching, listening.
“I told you to get away,” Yesh said hoarsely. “I just need to be on my own.”
“No! I need you to listen to me, not as my Lord, not as my Master, but as my old friend. I know what the plan is and I can’t let you go through with it. I can’t believe the rest of them are letting you. You still have a chance. You can still get away. Yesh, you can live!”
“You still don’t see it, do you?” Yesh’s voice was bleak.
“No. I just see horror. I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”
“And is that why I was being sick? Because I haven’t thought this through? Because I lack imagination?” Yesh’s voice rose. “Believe me, Jude, I’ve thought this through, right down to my last scream.”
“I’m not going to let it happen,” Jude answered. “The way you’ve been going on, the Romans will have to arrest you. And then they’ll scourge you and then they’ll smash nails through your wrists—here—and your ankles—here—and hang you from a cross where you’ll—”
“It’s what I have to do.”
“No. You can’t. I cannot allow it.”
“The others have faith.”
“But no love. How can they say they love you and let this happen?”
“They love me enough to trust me. Have faith. If I die and you still do not believe, that would be the greatest betrayal of all.”
“If you die, it will kill me, Yesh. Don’t you see? Listen, the Temple doesn’t want trouble. Give yourself up and they’ll hold you until the feast is over. When the city’s calmed down they’ll let you go and we can go back to doing what we used to do: walking from village to village helping people. But let’s stop all this nonsense about being the Chosen One and changing the world. Provided we keep out of trouble, you’ll still be able to teach. You’ll still be able to heal…”
“Jude.”
“We can do magic together … Remember how much fun it was? Remember how much laughter? Remember on the lake when you saw a shoal of fishes coming and told the fishermen to chuck their nets over it and they thought you’d magicked up the whole lot? Remember when we smuggled the booze into that boring wedding and they thought we’d turned water into wine because we’d tried to hide it in a water jug? Remember when…”
“Jude! Stop it. Stop it, my friend.” Yesh held up a hand. “It’s not going to happen. The only people who are coming here tonight are the Romans. I’m on the verge of … becoming.”
“Becoming what?”
“Just becoming. And a new world is coming too.”
“And how much is your uncle helping? I know Yusuf a
rranged the donkey so you could ride into the city on it. I know he arranged a room in a city where there hasn’t been room for days…”
“He didn’t help. He’s part of the pattern. You are too. Even the Romans, even our hated oppressors. They’re part of the plan. That is our victory.”
Jude gestured angrily. “How can letting them get their filthy hands on you help anything?”
“Because I have to suffer. And the more I suffer, the more value there is in my death. My life has been about taking the teachings and getting to the heart of them, making them clear. Think of the great woolly tangle of Temple law. I take that and I work it and I stretch it and I spin and in the end I have thread that can pass through the eye of a needle, but which is strong and is useful and can mean something to the people. To my people. Now—”
“Don’t try your stories on me!” Jude interrupted angrily.
But Yesh, whose voice had been getting stronger and stronger, overrode him. “Now I’m taking my life and I’m passing it through this eye of agony, but when I’m through, Jude, when I’m through, you’ll see the beauty of this wonderful thing I’ve woven. And in it you’ll find me and you and the Temple and the Romans…”
All the time he was listening, Flea had felt like a baby chasing chickens, unable to pin down the sense of what Yesh was saying. When he finally understood, when he saw what Yesh was trying to do and Jude was trying to stop, anger exploded in him like a clap of thunder. Before he knew it, he had burst into the clearing and was shouting.
“You knew? You knew! I made it halfway across the city to warn you that Shim had sold you out to the Romans and it was part of your plan?”
The two men whirled round.
“Flea, what are you doing here?” Jude snapped.
“What am I doing? What’s he doing?” Flea tried to stare Yesh down.
“Keep out of this!” Jude took Flea by the arm, as if to protect Yesh from his fury. “Go back to the city. You have no idea what you’re mixed up in.”
“Neither do you! I thought Shim was betraying Yesh to the Romans, but Yesh is betraying himself!” He pulled free and gripped his head. It felt like it was falling to pieces. “But why? You know they want to kill you!”
