by Ann Swinfen
‘Yeshûa told you to leave at once,’ he said.
‘I must know what is happening.’
‘You must do as he says.’
I did not reply. For the first and last time in my life, I would disobey my brother.
Yehûdâ perhaps took my silence for consent.
‘Listen, Mariam. Here is money for you.’
He handed me a small purse and, astonished, I tucked into the neck of my tunic.
‘Where did you get this?’
‘Earlier today, when I came to arrange the meal, I visited a friend of my father’s to borrow money. It’s not much, but it will help you. You must go to Caesarea Maritima. Do you think you can find your way?’
‘I suppose so. It’s on the seacoast of Samaria, just to the south of the border with the Galilee.’
‘Yes. There you must go to the house of Amos, ship-builder and trader, another of my father’s merchant friends. He will arrange a passage for you—the money I have given you should be enough. Go west as far as you can. To Italia. Or even Gallia or Hispania. Get away from here, to where you will be safe.’
‘But can we not go together? Surely we could go together?’ I was horrified.
‘No. You heard what Yeshûa said. He knows my future. He knows the path I must tread, for paying him my debt. He would not condemn you to that, nor will I allow it. I will be reviled forever. I am a condemned man. If you go with me, you too will be tainted, spurned, cast out.’
‘I do not care!’ I cried. I was losing everything in one night: my brother, my betrothed. ‘I am already an outcast. I will come with you. Don’t you wish it?’
At that he kissed me, crushing me so hard in his arms that I thought he would break my ribs. His kiss was as fierce as a blow, and I could feel his tears falling on my face and mingling with mine.
‘That is how much I wish it!’ he gasped. ‘But this is your bitter cup and mine. Yeshûa has brought the whole house crashing down about our ears.’
He fumbled for something else, and I heard the rustle of parchment.
‘Here, you will need this.’
He thrust it down the neck of my tunic, and laid his hand for a moment tenderly on my breast.
‘O thou fairest among women! Thy breasts are like to clusters of grapes.’
I clung to him. I could not let him leave me.
‘A bundle of myrrh is my wellbeloved unto me,’ I said, ‘he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.’
He gave a low moan, then held me away from him.
‘We cannot. It is never to be. Everything is destroyed.’
‘What is this you have given me?’ I asked. I was breathless and shaking.
‘It is a document of gêt. I had that drawn up also, while I was in the city.’
‘You want to divorce me?’
‘Do you think I want it?’ He sounded almost angry. ‘It’s the only way I can set you free. You will be able to marry. To find a new life. Forget me.’
‘How can I forget you? Love is strong as death.’
With my fingertip, I touched his bracelet, with our plaited hairs.
‘You will remember your promise?’ I said.
‘Forever. Now go. Be safe, my beloved. Be happy.’
Then he was gone.
When not even his shadow was left in the moonlight, I whispered for the last time, ‘I love you. I love you.’
Why did I not run after him? Why? I was still so young, so accustomed to respect the judgement of Yehûdâ and Yeshûa. I was terrified, exhausted, confused, numbed by all that had happened. But I know now that if I had run after Yehûdâ, as I had run after him from the village, he would not have sent me away. I do not know where he went or what became of him. And I have regretted it all the rest of my life.
Chapter Eighteen
Blinded with grief and cold with shock, I stumbled down the hill after the other women, who drew me in and comforted me, for they were my friends, my sisters. And if any of them had seen me with Yehûdâ, they did not mention it.
We followed the soldiers to the house of Ananus, father-in-law of Caiaphas the high priest.
‘Why,’ I wondered, ‘have they brought Yeshûa here and not to Caiaphas?’
Yoanna, from her knowledge of these men and their ways gained during her previous life at court, suggested a reason.
‘Ananus, of course, used to be the high priest himself, and wields enormous power still, but behind closed doors these days. That’s why they call him “Ananus the Great”.’ Her mouth twisted ironically. ‘I expect they have gone there to confer in private, to decide what charge they can bring against our master.’
‘It will be the disturbance in the Temple,’ said Susanna, with certainty.
‘No,’ said the Magdalene. She clutched her mantle beneath her chin, and her knuckles gleamed white in the moonlight, like naked bones against the dark blue cloth.
‘It will be because people hailed him as a king, that first day, when he rode in on the donkey.’
‘It will be,’ I said, dull with despair, ‘because they see the threat to their power. The people love him and Yahweh has appointed him to his great mission, to proclaim the new kingdom. The priests and the Sanhedrin will never tolerate that.’
We waited outside the house of Ananus for several hours. Then they brought Yeshûa out, still bound, and escorted him to the house of Caiaphas. His face was more bloody and bruised than before. I felt a cry of pain rising in my throat, as though I had been beaten myself, and pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle any sound. I wanted to call out to him, I am here, Yeshûa! We haven’t deserted you! But knew we must not to draw attention to ourselves, lest we should be driven away.
Once again we waited, as more and more men arrived at the high priest’s house, men of substance and dignity, members of the Sanhedrin. It was just becoming light when they were on the move yet again, this time the short distance to the palace where the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, resided when he was in Jerusalem.
I found myself clutching the Magdalene’s hand.
‘The Romans,’ I whispered, through chattering teeth. The chill spring night had drained all the warmth from my blood. ‘They’re taking him to the Romans. The Romans have the power of execution.’
She put her arm around me.
‘Don’t be afraid, Mariam. He has broken no Roman law. Why should they execute him?’
But I knew, in my heart. Despite this absurd parody of justice being played out before us, staged on the streets of Jerusalem, somehow my brother was going to find his own death, and lay himself like a lamb of sacrifice under the knife.
This time, only the soldiers went inside with Yeshûa, the priests and other notables remaining outside. And I remembered suddenly—for I was very tired with lack of sleep and agony of mind—that today was the eve of Pesah. Celebrants must remain ritually pure, therefore no Israelite could cross the threshold of one of the gôyîm. We stayed some distance away, for we were afraid to go too near the Roman prefect’s palace, but after a time we saw an imposing figure in a white toga come out and speak briefly to the priests. The prefect, if that was who it was, returned indoors. The priests seemed to be arguing amongst themselves, then the troop of soldiers led Yeshûa off again.
‘Where are they going now?’ asked Susanna in despair. ‘Are they going to visit the house of every great man in Jerusalem?’
We followed behind the stumbling figure of my brother, surrounded by his guards, but they did not go far. Downhill a little way lay the other palace, which was built by the Hasmonaean kings, in the days before Rome occupied our country.
‘Herod Antipas must have come to Jerusalem for Pesah,’ I said. ‘He’ll be lodging there. Perhaps the Romans have decided to hand my brother over to the tetrarch of Galilee.’
I thought of how we had fled from Herod Antipas to Tyre, and stayed there in exile for six months after he had murdered our cousin. And our long winter in the cave on Mount Hermon. The tetrarch had beheaded Yôhânân the Baptiser at
the whim of a lascivious girl. In his guilt and superstitious dread, he believed my brother was Yôhânân risen from the dead. I began to weep again, a dry hopeless sobbing. After all our efforts, Yeshûa had fallen into the hands of Antipas.
Yet here too, the stay was brief. My brother was being passed from hand to hand as if each of these powerful men was afraid he might burn his fingers on the prophet from the Galilee. On we trudged, uphill to the Praetorium before the Tower of Antonia, the imposing seat of the Roman garrison, where we sank down in the dust at the edge of this great public court, paved with blocks of dressed stone. I do not think we could have walked any further. I was so numb with exhaustion, the very well-spring of my tears seemed to have dried up.
Pontius Pilate was here before us and took Yeshûa inside, I suppose for further questioning, and while they were inside, a crowd began to gather. Or rather I should say that a crowd began to be herded into the public court. I could not see any of my brother’s followers amongst them. The only familiar faces I saw were some of the traders who had been in the midst of the fracas in the Temple. There were men in the garb of Temple servants, and Temple guards. There were also some ragged people who went up to one of the guards who was shepherding the crowd in, and were handed something small, which might have been a coin. Soon the courtyard was quite full, and Temple guards took up positions blocking the entrances.
The Roman prefect re-emerged, followed by my brother in the grip of two soldiers. Pilate held up his hand for silence.
‘I find no fault in this man,’ he said.
Caiaphas and the other priests, who were standing close to him, conferred hastily, then the chief priest said something to him.
‘Speak up, man,’ the prefect said, regarding him with distaste, ‘you must make your accusations loud enough for all to hear.’
‘He has blasphemed against the Temple and the holy religion of Israel,’ the priest said loudly.
‘Then it is for you to try him and to judge him.’
I could see that each of parties was trying to force the other to make the judgement.
Caiaphas cleared his throat.
‘He has also proclaimed himself king of the Jews,’ he said slyly. ‘That is treason against the Emperor. It calls for the death penalty, which only you can enforce.’
It was a lie! Yeshûa had never called himself ‘king of the Jews’, but the Roman prefect must act now, or be seen to be committing treason himself against the Emperor. For a long time Pilate locked eyes with Caiaphas. It was Rome and the military authority in combat with Caiaphas and the priestly authority. In the end, Pilate shrugged. Perhaps he did not think my brother worth a serious struggle with the priestly caste.
‘So be it.’
He called for a basin of water and made an elaborate show of washing his hands.
‘I wash my hands clean,’ he said, ‘of this innocent man’s blood.’
He dried his hands on a towel and eyed my brother thoughtfully. I think perhaps he really had no taste for this. He turned again to address the crowd.
‘As is the custom at your feast of Passover,’ he said, ‘I will release to you one man condemned to death. Shall it be this innocent man, Yeshûa the Galilean? Or shall it be the insurrectionist and murderer, Barabas?’
At once the crowd began to chant, ‘Barabas! Barabas! Release Barabas! Crucify the Galilean!’
And so that was why these people had been packed into the courtyard, and carefully taught what they were to shout.
I saw the smug look of triumph on Caiaphas’s face as the Roman swept back indoors. I bowed my head between my knees and wept.
The next hours remain a blurred nightmare. They have haunted me all my life, but I remember them only in broken fragments. I remember we toiled after the crowds on blistered feet, seeing somewhere up ahead a man, not Yeshûa, carrying a cross.
‘Is he also to be crucified?’ I asked, but no one answered.
I remember that the crowds parted briefly after we passed through the city gate, and I caught a glimpse of my brother. They had pinned a tawdry cloak around his shoulders and put a kind of crown on his head, woven from briar thorns, and the blood ran down his head and shoulders. The soldiers were shouting at him, mocking, calling him ‘King of the Jews’. Then they stripped off the cloak and scourged him. The thongs of the scourge were threaded through sharp pieces of metal and bone, and every time the thongs lashed down, a gasping cry broke from him, and rivulets of blood ran down his back, and strips of his skin hung down like ribbons, like the strips of leather that might hold two lengths of wood together.
Somehow we must have reached the place of execution that they call Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. I remember falling to my knees from exhaustion and calling out—silently or aloud I do not know—that Yahweh should put an end to this. Was my brother not His dearly beloved, His chosen one? How could He allow this to happen? How could He command it to happen? I begged, grovelled, pleaded for my brother’s life, from that unspeakable god who had betrayed him. I remembered how, last night, Yeshûa had asked Yehûdâ to act quickly. If that cruel deity would not spare my brother’s life, I begged at least for the end to come quickly. I knew that a man on a cross can take days to die.
The place was filled with blood and dirt and flies, and the stench of defecation and rotting flesh, and the screams of the three men the soldiers were now nailing to the crosses where they lay on the ground. Then, grunting with the effort, the soldiers heaved up the crosses and dropped them into the sockets cut into the rock. The pain, as the men’s weight was suddenly taken by their pierced hands and feet, must have been excruciating, unthinkable. I heard my brother scream, and I covered my ears and wailed.
After a while, some people began to drift away. Idle bystanders, Israelites, they had come to relish the spectacle of hideous suffering, but they had taken care to stay well back from the three men, to avoid impurity. The Roman soldiers were indifferent—they seemed to have no sense of the impiety of their actions, to crucify men on the eve of Pesah. A dark cloud had come over the sun and I suppose most of the Israelites were anxious to hurry back to the Temple to sacrifice their lambs and make ready to enjoy their feasts for the evening. Life, after all, must go on! We sat in a little huddle together, we women who had not deserted Yeshûa, and we waited. As the crowd thinned out, I saw that Shim’ôn Kêphas was standing a little way from us. I went over to him.
‘So you did not run away,’ I said, ‘with the others.’
He shifted his feet and would not look at me.
‘I did at first,’ he said wretchedly. ‘Then I did worse.’
‘Worse?’
‘Aye, I denied that I was his friend. People realised that I was a Galilean and asked if I was his friend. Three times I denied it, denied him, in the city there, even before cockcrow. And he foretold it, last night as we dined together. I swore I would never do such a wicked thing. Oh, Yeshûa! My beloved friend and lord! He told me that I was to be the Rock on which his church should be built. I was to take over leadership of his mission. But I am worthless. As foul as that dung-beetle, there by your foot. At the first test of my faith, I failed him. And I betrayed him as surely as that devil, Yehûdâ of Keriyoth.’
‘Yehûdâ did not betray him,’ I cried. ‘My brother ordered him to fetch the soldiers to Gethsemane. He wanted to be taken.’
Shim’ôn shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said dully. ‘And even if I did, Yehûdâ should not have done it.’
‘It was,’ I said bitterly, ‘an act of love.’
I walked away from him. I knew he would spread the word of what Yehûdâ had done, even if he also admitted his own guilt. And if he did not vilify Yehûdâ, then Yôhânân would.
They will write me out of their histories, their ‘testaments’, for I am an outcast of History itself, because I was the betrothed of Yehûdâ, whom they call the Betrayer. And because I fled from the Land of Judah and would not join their Christ cult. It will be as if Yeshûa never had a sister
Mariam. Yet I knew him better than any did.
It seemed grotesque, but there were men selling food and drink here at the place of execution. I saw the families of the two robbers who were crucified with Yeshûa buying from the food stalls. The soldiers sat around on the ground, bored and playing dice, and arguing over who should have the condemned men’s clothes, for they had been stripped down to their loincloths before being nailed to the crosses. I could not think why they would want the filthy, bloodstained garments, but it seemed this was a privilege granted to the men for carrying out their loathsome task.
There was a centurion in charge, a middle-aged man, greying at the temples, patient and somehow more respectful than the common soldiers. He was such a man as Petradix would have been, when he served the Romans as a centurion. Nervously, I went up to him.
‘I am the sister of Yeshûa,’ I said in Latin, ‘the man you have nailed to the middle cross.’
‘Best go away, woman,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘There is nothing here for you but sorrow.’
‘How long will it last?’
‘Not beyond nightfall. Because of your custom of burial before sunset, and it being your Sabbath tomorrow, we have to make sure they are all dead before then.’
I swallowed hard. There was a taste like gall in my mouth.
‘How . . . ?’
‘Generally, we break their legs.’ He said it quite calmly, as if he were talking about slaughtering a beast. ‘Then they can’t take their weight on the footrest, see? The body drags down and compresses the lungs, so they suffocate. It’s quite quick, really.’
He must have seen the expression on my face.
‘Don’t worry. That middle one, the one with the sign saying “King of the Jews”, I don’t think he’ll last that long anyway. He isn’t such a sturdy bugger as the other two.’
‘They are selling drinks over there.’ I pointed to the makeshift stalls. ‘Is it possible to give my brother something to drink?’
