Stone of Help (Annals of Lystra)

by Robin Hardy

  “Who has believed what we have heard?

  And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

  For he grew up before him like a young plant,

  and like a root out of dry ground;

  he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him,

  and no beauty that we should desire him.

  He was despised and rejected by men;

  a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

  and as one from whom men hide their faces

  he was despised, and we esteemed him not—”

  “Why would the prophet bother about someone who was despised?” Deirdre interrupted, frowning.

  “Because only sorrow and affliction can teach true wisdom, Deirdre,” Josef patiently explained. “You do not understand the limitations of our humanity until you feel it here, and here, and here—” touching his head, his stomach and his ankles. In spite of the dimness of the cell, she saw what he meant. “Most people think as you do: that anyone who suffers somehow brings it on himself. But the prophet makes clear that the Righteous One did not suffer because of anything he did, but because of what we did:

  “Surely he has borne our griefs

  and carried our sorrows;

  yet we esteemed him stricken,

  smitten by God, and afflicted.

  But he was wounded for our transgressions,

  he was bruised for our iniquities;

  upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,

  and with his stripes we are healed.

  All we like sheep have gone astray;

  we have turned every one to his own way;

  and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

  “That’s not fair!” Deirdre said indignantly. “It’s not fair nor right to punish someone for something another person does!” The memory of Roman’s whipping was fresh as ever on her mind.

  “Who considers what is fair when the life of your beloved is at stake?” Josef demanded, and Deirdre startled, wondering how he could have known about Roman. “This is why he is called ‘righteous,’ because he laid down his life willingly for us! For us, Deirdre! And God is not so unjust that He didn’t notice, for the prophet further says:

  Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him;

  he has put him to grief;

  When he makes himself an offering for sin,

  he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days;

  the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand;

  he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied;

  by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

  make many to be accounted righteous.”

  This time Deirdre was silent. He went on, “Then I read Josephus and discovered there had lived a Galilean prophet who some believed was the fulfillment of this prophecy. I obtained the Gospels, and the writings of Paul and the apostles. And I read of a life which, detail by detail, enacted the prophecies of old. Yet still I did not see, did not understand.” He began to tremble.

  “Then late one terrible night, after days of struggling to piece together the knowledge before me, I read from the Apostle Peter: ‘Because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to Him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.’

  “This remembrance of the prophecy came from a disciple who saw his Master beaten, spat upon, crucified—and resurrected. When I read those words, the wisdom of the Septuagint and the prophecies of the seers came together and stood before me unveiled as what I had feared more than anything to surmise—a Person of the Godhead, the Word of truth made alive, the Master who frees the slaves, Jesus Christ. I was overwhelmed by the tide of knowledge that washed over me.

  “With this revelation, I had no choice but to teach the truth I knew. I began to read Scripture to my pupils. Artemeus, reaching the age of insolence, reported this to Savin. He warned me to stop, and when I did not, he stripped me of my position and made me the lowest of the slaves.”

  “Josef,” she murmured in dismay.

  “Don’t pity me, Deirdre,” he insisted. “I have lost nothing I could keep, and gained riches I can never lose. Read now, child, while we have any light left.”

  She set down her bowl and wiped her mouth, digging out the pages from the straw. Holding them up to the faint light from the window, she found where they had left off the night before and began to read out loud: “‘Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall all be changed—’” She slapped the pages down in frustration. “Josef, what does that mean? What trumpet? A battle trumpet? And how shall we be changed?”

  He smiled patiently and motioned for her to settle down. “He is referring to the time when our resurrected Lord Jesus will return to the world a conquering warrior to claim His own. Those believers who have died before then will be raised to new life, and those who are alive will be changed to be like them, and like Him.”

  “How will they be changed?”

  “I don’t know exactly, child. But we will all be given new and glorious bodies which do not sicken or grow old. Read on—uh—” he stuttered and began to gasp. His eyes widened in pain as he clutched his ragged shirt.

  “Josef!” She fell across the floor to seize his arms. His hands were cold. “Josef, what’s wrong?” He tried to speak but could not.

  She dropped his hands and rushed to pound on the door. A guard opened it. “Please get Sevter!” she cried. “Josef is very sick!” He motioned her back to her place as he moved off, and she hurriedly kicked the strewn pages under the straw.

  “Josef.” She returned to him helplessly. “Sevter is coming . . . what? I can’t understand you . . . what?”

  With a last effort he swallowed and gasped out, “Brightness . . . the glory . . . shekinah. . . .”

  In a moment the door banged open as Sevter entered. He halted with an exclamation at Deirdre’s side, and they watched Old Josef fall limply back into the straw. Then he was still. His friends stood transfixed.

  Sevter put out a tentative hand to feel Josef’s chest and face. He pressed both hands to the thin, grizzled neck. Then he looked toward Deirdre.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head in refusal.

  “He’s dead,” Sevter said, standing.

  “No!” she cried. “What will I do without him? How can I face this without him to help me?”

  Sevter shook his head at her. “He said his service here was to end soon. . . . It has ended. I’m glad, and you should be also.”

  “But what will I do without him?” she moaned.

  “What we all will do, girl! Carry on! Carry on!” His face was ruddier than ever.

  She turned petulantly from him toward Josef’s body. Seeing it, she sucked in her breath and grabbed Sevter’s arm. He followed her eyes and blanched at the sight. Then they both inched closer to look at him.

  They should have seen the wasted, cast-off shell of an old man. But they saw a sleeping god. The firm, muscled body stretched almost seven feet, extending over both ends of his straw bed. The skin had a smooth, translucent beauty. Lush golden hair covered the graceful head, and an aura of strength and peace surrounded the form.

  Sevter suddenly peered into the face and swore. “It’s Josef!” he whispered. “I recognize him!”

  In disbelief, Deirdre touched the body. It was real, though dead. Sevter stepped back, wiping his face, and uttered a low laugh. “All this time, I see he was right. What is this but vindication of his life an
d his hope?”

  Deirdre was still watching the body, almost expecting him to rise up. She hardly noticed Sevter’s leaving the room. “Josef,” she murmured.

  We shall all be changed.

  Deirdre gasped, recalling the words with ringing clarity. Was this what they meant? Was this a hint, a foretaste of what awaited Josef, herself, and all believers at the coming of their Lord?

  Sevter returned with two guards and motioned toward the body. “Bury him in the western field.”

  On seeing the body, they jumped back a pace. “Who in blazes is that, Lord Sevter?” whispered one.

  “That is Josef,” Sevter answered, watching their faces. “Old Josef. And he’s not in blazes. He has entered heaven—now bury his remains.”

  The guards gingerly picked up the corpse—it required both of them—and carried it out. Deirdre and Sevter stood watching them in tense awe. Then he blinked in sudden recollection and said, “I had news for you. I was just now given permission by Lord Troyce to sleep you and the babe in the kitchen for the winter. Starting tonight.”

  “Oh, Sevter,” she stammered, “thank you.”

  “You will not be chained there. You’ll have free run of the courtyard, too. But don’t venture beyond the stables. You mustn’t go into the fields,” he said.

  She nodded as she wrapped Arund in the quilts with trembling hands. “But may I still use the stream bordering the fields?”

  “Yes. But that’s as far as you go. Now come to the kitchen.” He seemed anxious to be gone from that room.

  “Yes, Sevter.” She carried Arund out, then stopped short. “Wait! I forgot—” She returned to the straw bed and dug the pages out from their hasty hiding place. Then she concealed them in Arund’s quilts. “Now I’m ready.”

  The empty kitchen was warm and quiet. She made a bed for herself and Arund before the low-burning fireplace and snuggled down in the quilts. Wonderingly, she mulled over Josef’s death. Carry on? Yes, certainly. . . .

  As Arund slept, she picked up the pages to find where she had left off reading. By the firelight she read, “But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?’”

  At those words, a thrill ran down her spine. She had witnessed victory, seen it, touched it. In quiet awe, sensing the immortal and imponderable all around her, she huddled close by the child to sleep.

  Chapter 12

  In the morning Deirdre was awakened by a gentle prodding. “Goldie. Goldie! What are you doing here?” She opened her eyes to see a fuzzy Bettina.

  “Sevter got us permission to winter here,” she yawned, then roused alert. “Bettina, Josef died last night.”

  “Oh. Poor old man,” she muttered sympathetically, stoking the fire.

  “No, Bettina, it was good,” Deirdre earnestly explained. “He was a believer, and God just took him to a better place. And his body was changed, like the Scriptures said it would be, only later when Christ comes again—but Josef looked like a beautiful warrior, only he was dead.” She stopped, feeling it was not all coming out quite right, and Bettina glanced her way with a puzzled frown.

  “We have to pack the fruit today,” Bettina said carefully, lining up stone jars on the table. “Will you bring a bushel from the storerooms, Goldie?”

  Deirdre nodded and sighed. I’ll never be able to explain it to anyone. I’d best just keep it quiet. She went out of the kitchen and down the corridor to a nearby storeroom. Emerging with a bushel, she paused, startled by sudden nasty laughter.

  She wheeled to look, but there was no one. Silence followed—was that a whimper?—and the laughter broke out again. Men’s voices. She realized it came from a nearby storeroom. Setting the bushel down with a thump, she strode to the door without a thought and looked in.

  Four soldiers stood around a very young, very frightened girl, teasing her, handling her, pushing her from man to man. “Stop it!” Deirdre demanded.

  They did, looking at Deirdre with great surprise. The girl wilted to the floor. Emboldened by the events of last night, Deirdre announced, “The Lord Jesus does not like what you’re doing.”

  Three of the men looked suddenly uneasy, but the fourth stepped toward Deirdre with eyes of seething malice. “Wait until he sees what I do with you, then.”

  “You can’t do anything to me,” she said. “Now get out of this room!”

  He hesitated with widened eyes, then blew from the room like dry straw in the wind. The others followed hastily, crowding themselves to get past Deirdre without touching her.

  Deirdre went over to the girl and lifted her, telling her, “Don’t be afraid. Hide in God, and no evil here can touch you.” Then she retrieved her bushel and carried it to the kitchen door, where she dropped it.

  “What did I just do?” she gasped. “Did I do that?” Thinking of what she had said to the girl, Deirdre muttered, “Those words were meant for me. Oh, what am I in for here?” Apprehensively, she took up the bushel again.

  When she came back into the kitchen, Bettina said, “Here. I forgot to give you this,” and handed her a small bowl of tallow. “Smear it on Arund’s bottom. It should ease his rash.”

  “Thank you, Bettina,” Deirdre murmured, recalling in astonishment her half-hearted prayer about it. She knelt beside the baby, scooping up tallow with shaky fingers.

  Later, after Deirdre had given Arund his midday feeding, she gathered his most soiled wrappings to wash. Briskly, she carried them out to her usual washing place at the stream.

  As she plunged them into the warm water and began to scrub, she curiously noted a pile of large rocks on the opposite bank of the stream, only six feet away. Her washing was arrested when she saw a field slave carrying a heavy stone.

  He wore more chains than clothes—chains extending from his neck ring to cuffs on his wrists and more cuffs on his ankles. Only a loin girdle covered his body. Straining, he dropped the stone on the pile with the others, then collapsed beside the stream and plunged his face into the water.

  Horrified, Deirdre yanked the cloths from the stream. She watched in disgust as he drank, then scooped water over his face and chest. His hands were bleeding. He lifted his head and looked straight at her. Expressionless, he just looked at her.

  Startled, she first thought he was the same man who had ridden with her in the cart—black hair, brown skin, husky build . . . but no, his face was different.

  Then Deirdre saw another slave approach, drop a stone on the pile, and shuffle off, the chain on his neck ring clanging. Black hair, brown skin . . . like Roman. . . . In a burst of stunning insight, she made the connection. Druds—the slave race—they all looked like Roman because he was one of them. Worse—a half breed.

  At this moment a guard walked up to her and said, “I see you often washing those filthy rags here in the stream. Why are you doing that? Don’t you realize everyone draws water from this stream? Boil those blasted things over the fire! Don’t foul your own drinking water!”

  In a crying fit, Deirdre seized the sodden cloths and ran for the kitchen. Mercifully, at this time of the afternoon it was empty. She threw herself in her corner, quivering, trying to think.

  Roman’s mother must have been one of the Polonti women who came down from their country and set up brothels. Roman, raised in the army, had escaped any threat from slave traders. How providential Galapos had found him before they! But these—all these field slaves—how many were there? Hundreds, she was sure. They were his kindred. They were her kindred, now. At that turn of thought, Deirdre stopped trembling and began thinking cogently.

  Moments later, when the head cook came into the kitchen, Deirdre raised her face and brazenly asked, “Mistress, rather than foul the stream, may I boil my baby’s wraps over this fire?”

  The mistress glanced in her direction. “Yes.”

  “Then may I go draw wate
r, mistress?”

  “Go.”

  Deirdre ran to the stream opposite the rock pile, but the slave was gone. She focused across the field and saw in the distance a long, low wooden structure. That must be where they were housed. She drew the water, deep in thought. As she turned from the stream with her pail full, she was so preoccupied that she almost spilled her water on Caranoe before seeing him.

  “Goldie.” He reached out to her and she jumped back, sloshing water. His face was different than she had ever seen it. Smooth, open, beseeching—as she wondered at it, he said, “You’re wrong about me. I’m not the villain you seem to think.”

  “Why would I think you a villain?” she asked cautiously, drawing away.

  “Sevter seems to have filled Lord Troyce’s ear with all kinds of nonsense about how I might mistreat you,” he said with reproach. “Why should you be afraid of me?”

  Deirdre was so relieved to hear of Sevter making good his word that she admitted, “I’ve seen how you treat the servants, and I’ve heard how you treat the slaves.”

  “Only because they won’t work otherwise,” he said earnestly. “But those who trouble to make friends with me find me most kind and generous.”

  She studied him silently, and the thought occurred to her that perhaps Josef was wrong to regard him as an adversary. Perhaps, with tact and patience, he could be changed. Roman had accomplished that with her. Could that be one reason she was here?

  She relaxed and smiled slightly at him. “I suppose I haven’t given you much of a chance.”

  His face lifted. “I have one, now?”

  “Well . . .” she hedged.

  “Come,” Caranoe said eagerly, taking her hand. “Put your bucket down.”

  “I can’t—” she began, thinking of Arund.

  “Just for a moment, to show you something,” he urged. “Come.”

  She hesitantly set the bucket down and let him lead her by the hand. First, he took her to the kitchen and stuck his head in the door. “I want pastry for Goldie!” he demanded.