Wayward Son

by Tom Pollack

  “Wha…what are you doing here aboard my ship?” Cain stammered.

  “I came to see you, Cain.”

  Cain flinched. It was the first time anyone since Tanith had addressed him by his given name.

  “I thought you were dead. I saw you on the cross!”

  “Yes, I was dead. But now I am alive again.”

  “How is this possible?”

  “You made your own inquiries through Demetrius and came to believe I was the Son of God. You have lived in my creation longer than any other human being. Do you not believe that with God all things are possible?”

  “I suppose I do now,” he acquiesced after a moment’s reflection.

  “And so you understand that my Father has raised me from the dead,” Jesus continued.

  Nodding less than confidently, Cain asked, “So, why have you come to see me?”

  “I wish to continue our conversation,” Jesus said in a reassuring tone.

  “Will this remain between us, or will your Father come to know about it, too?”

  “If you have seen me you have also seen my Father. I and my Father are one.”

  Cain paused. Although he could scarcely grasp the full implications, there was only one conclusion he could draw from Jesus’s statement. He was standing in the presence of God.

  “Let me ask you something,” said Jesus gently. “Why were you in such a rush to find me in Jerusalem?”

  “I wanted to thank you for healing Quintus. But, most of all, I needed to talk about my cursed life,” he added.

  “The moment was not right then. I was busy laying the cornerstone for that house I am building. But now, please tell me what has troubled you.”

  After catching his breath, Cain plunged in. “Your cure of Quintus was a miracle, but my daily regeneration has been a curse. I merely asked you for protection against those who might slay me, and I ended up fated to linger on and on through these thousands of years.”

  “My child, what you saw as a curse, I meant as a blessing. Have you considered that I marked you not only for protection, but also to give you the time you needed to journey home to me?”

  Cain pondered Jesus’s answer to the great question of his life. It seemed as though Jesus was suggesting that all along, it was in his own hands to return to God, yet he continued to wander away. He was instantly filled with remorse, and countless confusing thoughts about his past flooded his mind, but at length Cain could only permit himself to respond, “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

  “Cain, though you may be the oldest, you are by no means my only wayward son,” Jesus said warmly. “Now, tell me. Do you have any other regrets?”

  Sensing where the conversation was headed, but still hesitant, Cain responded, “Well, I cannot believe I actually offered you a carpentry job!”

  Jesus chuckled. “I was flattered, but I meant now that you know who I really am.”

  “Of course,” Cain glanced downward. “About Abel. I am truly sorry for what I did that day.”

  “I am glad to hear that, but you must understand that your sin did not consist just in Abel’s killing,” Jesus said pointedly. “It actually began the moment you yielded to anger with your brother. I warned you that such rage is fertile soil in which the devil cultivates all sorts of evil in your life.”

  Cain hung his head as Jesus continued. “Consider his work against you from the beginning. He stirred your anger first against your brother, then me. From that day forward, he twisted your thinking to keep you away from me. But his attempts to convince you that I was angry and had abandoned you were all lies. I have nothing but love for you, Cain.”

  “But how can you love me? I am guilty of hundreds of sins.”

  Jesus raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat.

  Realizing the foolishness of his comment, Cain admitted, “Okay, so many that I have lost count. My guilt and regret are bottomless.”

  Jesus smiled. “I created you, and all of humanity, out of love. I desire nothing from people other than to be in loving relationship with them. Yes, you sin. Out of anger, out of fear, out of selfishness. And then the devil declares that you are unworthy. But this is false, because my love for you is not based on how you act or feel. It is the essence of who I am. This is why I came into the world!”

  “So why did you allow them to kill you?”

  “My death was planned from the beginning. I took all the sins of humankind upon myself, and I bore the punishment of death so that people would not have to bear it themselves. And I have risen from the dead to give all who come to me the gift of eternal life.”

  “The gift of eternal life?” Cain exclaimed incredulously. “I have tasted this bitter fate. For me, death would be more welcome.”

  Jesus replied, “I know that you, of all people, are tired of living, but I am not talking about the life of your flesh. I am talking about the life of your spirit, your soul. If your soul dies, you and I will be separated for eternity. I love you too much to have that happen, which is why I died in your place.”

  Cain reflected on these words and realized anew the depth of the master of spirits’ lies to him.

  Jesus continued, “You said you would welcome death, as though your life has been only a burden. Have you not had times of great joy?”

  “Yes, of course. I particularly remember my happiness with Tanith long ago. Our love made me constantly content.”

  “Yet you had so little back then,” Jesus reminded him.

  “You mean our simple circumstances? As I think about that time, it was then that I felt more freedom than at any other point in my life.”

  “When else have you been happy, Cain?”

  Cain thought for a moment. “When I was working on the reconstruction of the Library of Alexandria. During that time, I felt a freedom from my curse of wandering, and after making an offering of my efforts to you, for the first time ever, I thought I was gaining your favor.” Cain hesitated and then continued more solemnly. “I know that in the time of Abel my offering of surplus wheat was contemptible, but I hope that this second gift of my best labor is acceptable.”

  “I respect your offering very much. As you began to surmise in China, this is one of the special purposes for which I created you. But let me explain something else. You will truly return to me only if you offer your whole heart. You have named your ship Nostos well. Once you make your journey home, you will be in my house forever.”

  “How do I do this?” Cain asked.

  “Understand that it is your sin that separates us. Accept my gift of forgiveness for all your sins. And in your heart, try living every day for me instead of for yourself.”

  “Thank you for your gift, Lord. I am certainly ready now for a different way of life.”

  As Jesus embraced him, Cain implored, “Can I share my story with others?”

  “Leave that to me,” Jesus reassured him. “Your story will be told at the right time. I promise.”

  “Jesus, I also want to know if Abel is in your house,” pressed Cain.

  “Yes, he is, and you need have no fear of the day when you see your brother. Despite your brilliance, Cain, not even you can understand the full measure of heaven. It is a place of eternal joy and peace. Abel knows this peace now. And you too, one day, will live at peace with him and all who are there.”

  “Is Tanith there?”

  “Concerning Tanith, you may rest assured that I am a righteous judge.”

  As Jesus spoke these words, predawn light began to illuminate the ship’s surroundings. Cain glanced for a moment over the prow and registered a terrifying sight. Sailing before a scudding wind at nearly twenty knots, the Nostos was on a direct collision course with a partially submerged reef from which the roar of crashing waves could already be heard. Jesus, glancing at the crew, cried in a loud voice, “Come out!” Behind Cain, the demons immediately departed from the sailors and flowed into the group of squid on the deck. The sea animals writhed and lurched spasmodically.

  As the bow o
f the Nostos dug into another huge wave, water soaked both Cain and Jesus and flushed the large squids overboard through the drainage holes on the side of the deck’s railing. Cain momentarily took his eyes off Jesus and looked astern to see what was happening. Captain Felix, no longer possessed by a demon, saw the reef ahead and shouted orders at his crewmen. Cain felt the ship swerve sharply under his feet as the crew managed to skirt the deadly reef just in time. His surge of relief merged gratefully with the receding sounds of the pounding surf as his ship left the obstacle behind. He looked back toward Jesus but found he had vanished. On the starboard side, a blinding sunrise flooded the water with light. The storm had abated, and the sea was calming.

  Cain ran back to the stern. “Did you see that?” he breathlessly asked Felix.

  “Yes sir, I did. Thank the gods for the sunrise, sir, or we would have run right into that submerged reef. I shall mark it on our chart. The strong winds brought us to the hazardous area sooner than I could have anticipated. I apologize for my inattention, sir.”

  Of all the crew members within earshot, Cain inquired, “Did anyone see me up at the bow?” Greeted with silence, he realized that his conversation with Jesus had been entirely private.

  Cain pressed the captain’s hand to reassure the man of his confidence in him. “Yes, indeed, Felix. Thank God!”

  As he drew his own hand away, Felix saw the blood and pointed to it. Cain looked down at the palm of his right hand where the nail on the deck had pierced it. He realized that, despite a new day’s dawn, the minor injury to his hand had not healed.

  “Shall I summon the ship’s doctor, sir?” Felix asked.

  “Yes, Felix. It appears that I need him.”

  The captain was puzzled to see the broad smile on his master’s face.

  Cain drew in a huge breath of fresh morning air, and he was filled with excitement over the events of the last few minutes. Before Felix went below, Cain wrapped his arms about his loyal ship captain and shouted to the wind, “Nostos! Nostos!”

  CHAPTER 68

  Herculaneum, AD 64

  ON A BRILLIANT SUMMER day, Cain found himself in one of his favorite spots in all Herculaneum: the fruit and vegetable garden that adjoined his villa. Even the mid-July heat could not temper his enthusiasm for planting, irrigating, pruning, and all the other activities which, over time, had converted his garden into a peaceful retreat. On practically every day of the growing season, he worked alongside the gardeners and servants who helped him tend the plants, eagerly soliciting their ideas on ways to make the garden more bountiful.

  On this particular morning, he was helping his head kitchen chef, a portly woman in her fifties. They were sorting the fruits of the latest harvest.

  “Let us put all the unblemished fruit in that box, and also the finest grain,” Cain said.

  “Will those be for the party, sir?” The chef referred to the sixtieth-birthday celebration that was planned that evening for Felix, his longtime sea captain.

  “No, Helvia. You know we always have plenty for our needs. We will be loading all this food on the wagons headed for Pompeii. The drivers will distribute it to the poor and the hungry.”

  The chef shook her head as he glanced away. Although she had been through this routine with him for many decades now, her professional pride always bristled at having to prepare meals with anything but the highest quality ingredients.

  Cain left her and strolled to the arboretum, where the shrubs and trees surrounding the oblong pool were in full flower. He glanced at his own reflection in the water. With flowing, salt-and-pepper hair, he had grown visibly older, but his chest and stomach, although hefting a few extra pounds, were still in outstanding shape. He doubted, however, that Felix shared any of his own relief at the passage of the years.

  That evening, the party was in full tilt when Helvia’s husband approached Cain. The man was in charge of the villa’s boathouses, maintaining a number of vessels for recreational use on the Bay of Naples.

  “Sir, may I speak with you in private?” asked Secundus quietly.

  Cain enjoyed a relatively informal relationship with all his servants, founded on mutual respect. He knew that Secundus would interrupt the festivities only for an important reason, so he gestured to the tablinum, his office on one side of the atrium, and the two men stepped into the small room, opulently appointed with colorful frescoes.

  “Sir, I regret the intrusion, but I felt you should be informed immediately. A Roman fishing vessel reached port this evening in Herculaneum. One of my cousins serves on the ship’s crew. Just now he sent me an urgent message from the villa boathouses.”

  “What was this message?” Cain asked. Secundus’s anxiety was palpable.

  “All of Rome is on fire, sir! A great conflagration has swept through the city for the past two days. Before he left Rome, my cousin heard that someone had started the fire in the wooden shops around the Circus Maximus. But strong winds spread the flames so that they quickly ran the length of the Circus and then rose to the hills. Only four of the fourteen regions of the city have escaped damage!”

  “The blaze has reached the Palatine, then?” Cain asked urgently.

  “Yes, sir. It is said that even Nero’s own palace has been destroyed.”

  “Where is the emperor? Is he in Rome?”

  “That is not known, sir. Some say he is connected to the fire. Others swear he was not in Rome when it started, but rather in Antium.”

  Cain was familiar with Nero’s luxurious villa at Antium, thirty-five miles south of Rome, having visited there several times for ceremonial occasions at the emperor’s invitation.

  Nero’s whereabouts were not his chief concern, however. As he listened to Secundus, he realized that if the fire had reached the Palatine, his own estate might be threatened. And, most important of all, his son might lie in harm’s way. Quintus had lived in Rome since coming of age, and Cain had given him an estate, adjacent to his own, as a wedding gift twenty years earlier. For more than a decade now, his entrepreneurial son had run a thriving business, supplying Arabian horses to all the Circus Maximus chariot-racing factions.

  Cain decided to sail to Rome as soon as possible, but he would wait until the celebration was over that evening to inform Felix. Instead, he summoned the first officer and ordered him to ready the Nostos for a voyage to Rome the following morning.

  CHAPTER 69

  The Palatine, Rome, AD 64

  ON THE PALATINE HILL overlooking central Rome, the devastation was heartbreaking. By some miracle, Cain’s estate had largely survived the blaze, with only a few outlying buildings reduced to ruins. Most of the other residences in Rome’s most exclusive neighborhood, however, had been gutted by the fire.

  Including his son’s.

  Cain, Captain Felix, and the ship’s crew sorted through the charred remains of what had been Quintus’s dwelling. Grotesquely delicate, foul-smelling wisps of smoke still swirled above the rubble. A sickening feeling gripped Cain as he dug deeper into the blackened ruins of his son’s home.

  He led the team to the area that had been the family’s sleeping quarters. The stench was overwhelming, and the search party pressed moistened cloths to their faces. In what had been Quintus’s bedroom, they found four skeletons huddled together. An engraved iron arm bracelet on one of the charred bodies confirmed Cain’s worst fears. Quintus had worn it since he was a teenager.

  Cain watched through soggy eyes as his crewmen gently placed the remains of his family on wagons for the return journey to the Tiber and then to the harbor at Ostia. Anger such as he had not experienced since ancient times swirled in him as he burned to avenge the death of his beloved Quintus. But against whom could he direct his rage?

  As the crewmen’s mournful task continued, Cain stepped outside the smoldering remains for a breath of fresh air. A well-dressed, pudgy-faced young man on a white horse promptly accosted him.

  “Don’t worry, my dear Marcus. I will find the ones responsible for this crime. They may
hide, but they will never escape!” exclaimed the horseback rider.

  Cain recognized Nero, whom he had known from the emperor’s childhood as a racing fan at the Circus Maximus. The emperor was widely reported to roam the city without an escort at all hours of the day and night.

  “Nero, the fire has claimed my son and his family. All are dead!” Cain tearfully cried aloud. “Who would do this?”

  As the emperor formulated his response, Cain remembered the rumor circulating about Nero’s involvement in the fire, and his hand found its way to the hilt of his sword.

  “Your loss will be a gain to the state,” replied Nero grimly, without a hint of condolence. “The Christians have done this, Marcus. For their pains, they will be exterminated. The slime from Judaea must not be allowed to spread. They are barbarians, pure and simple. Cannibals! Do you know that they eat the body and blood of their so-called Messiah? Any missing child in Rome is said to have been sacrificed by these lunatics!”

  Cain was crushed. Within minutes, he had to endure the loss of his loved ones and then the blasphemy of this arrogant despot. Fortunately, Nero was too caught up in his tirade to notice Cain gently easing his sword back into its scabbard after hearing his explanation. Nero never knew how close he was to tasting Cain’s sword.

  “I will hunt them down, Marcus,” continued Nero. “Every last Christian in Rome and the provinces. They will provide us with novel, dare I say delicious, entertainments! And not only in the arena as meals for wild beasts. I have already put some of them into thorn baskets and made them human torches to serve as street lighting. You will see. Have patience, you will see!”

  With a roar of maniacal laughter and a crack of the whip, the emperor wheeled his mount and galloped away toward the Circus Maximus.

  Cain could not wait to get underway from Ostia back to Herculaneum, but the scene at the port was chaotic. The Great Fire of Rome had been brought under control after nearly six days. What was not controlled, however, was the Roman populace, many of whom were both homeless and hungry. The grain supply to the city had been disrupted, and tens of thousands of angry residents had streamed into Ostia to board any ship they could. Desperate refugees clogged the docks, begging, screaming, and shoving for space aboard departing ships. Small children were being thrown into the arms of crewmen as a tool for their parents to board behind them.