I can wait no longer.
Yeshu and his tormentors have reached the Gihon Spring Gate. In moments, they will have disappeared inside the city walls. There is much that I must do. I am up and running back down to the garden gate I have so lately fled. There is no one here. If any have fallen at Yeshu’s arrest, they have crept away, or been taken. Like unmelted snow, my mantle lies where it was thrown, but I cannot bear to touch it.
Above the rooftops, the sun is moments old. And I am on the steep and narrow street that climbs past Father’s north wall and up to the Upper Market. It goes also to Herod’s palace where Yeshu will soon stand before Pilate. But I have no time to think of that now. Here is Father’s side door; the very one I hid behind as Josephus forbade Salome and Ananias to ever again enter his house. In moments, Josephus of the Sanhedrin will be called to his last special session, and before that happens, I must speak to him. As planned. It is left to me to persuade my father to do what only he can do—or we fail. But as I open this small door, the door that Father seldom used, I am stopped by a strong grip on my shoulder and I whirl in place. Though not before I have the knife of Simeon in my hand.
It is Jude. He has come!
He says nothing. There is a madness deep in his eyes, and though I am wholly afraid, I reach inside and find his center holds. But only because he, like me, must do what is planned. Or he must try to. Without word, we enter the house of Josephus.
At sight of Jude, Father would call his Germans to seize him. He would drive him from his house. But as Simeon the Zealot did for me, I do for Jude. I step between them, crying, “No, Father! Hear me!”
“Daughter, I have accepted much from you. This I will not accept!”
Behind me, Jude makes no sound or movement, but I am desperate in mine.
“Father, you must hear me! We have no time to argue or to reason! As you love me, hear me! As you love me, as you love Yehoshua, know what I will tell you is true. All that Jude has done has been done for his brother. Can you think for one moment, this could not be true?”
“Not be true? I have had word of it. His own wife has told me!”
“Father! If you drive him away, you will kill Yeshu.”
“Kill Yehoshua? Me? It is this one, this—”
“Listen to me! Yeshu will be crucified this very morning.”
“You think I do not know this? I am summoned to the council. Caiaphas examines your Yeshu as we speak.”
“Yes. And he will send him on to Pilate, and Pilate will do as Caiaphas wants and Yeshu wills: he will order him crucified. This will all be done in as much secrecy as can be managed, so that the people will not hear of it and, in hearing, come for him.”
“You know this? And yet you do not fill your mouth with ashes?”
“I know this, Father, for it is what Yeshu intends. He intends to hang on their cross. He intends to be seen to die on it.”
“You are insane. You are making me insane.”
Would that Yeshu had told him beforehand, but for Josephus to know was to risk his worry and his hindering, and perhaps his undoing with the Sanhedrin. Josephus must hear me, and he must understand me! It was planned that someone of standing and wealth come for Yeshu’s body so that it might not be thrown into a ditch for the dogs, as is the fate of most who are crucified. For all that Megas is wealthy, for all that I am rich in my own right, it could never be any who is female. All along, Josephus has been in the mind of Yeshu. Josephus of Arimathaea must go to Pontius Pilate and beg to have the body, and he must succeed in his petition and be granted it! My father must make all the arrangements to have it taken to our tomb in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jude was to have gone here and there in Jerusalem, to warn of Yeshu’s trial and dying so that it might not be the secret the authorities hope it will be. He cannot now do these things, for who will heed a betrayer? Therefore, he will do what I would do—he will gather the medicines to tend to his brother and he will wait for him in my mother’s tomb. And I will alert those who will alert others.
It takes time, perhaps too much time, but in the end Father hears me. And when he does, he looks long and hard at Jude Thomas. Father shakes his head at the wonder of it. Who knows another such man?
And there is one last thing I must do: follow Yeshu on his way to Golgotha and to stand beneath him so that when his time comes, I will be ready.
What I need do is done. I have gathered the witnesses.
What Yeshu does, is almost done. And now it is gone the second hour. As has been agreed, I stand near the Hasmonaean palace, the bulk of which looms at my back, shading me from a sun grown fat with the day. Near to hand is the Gennath Gate, that which is closest to the palace of the Great Herod and I wait. Yeshu shall pass by here, this is certain, for it is the surest and fastest route from where Pilate this day governs, to Golgotha, the Place of Skulls where Timaeus hangs as he has hung since this time yesterday, slowly dying on his cross. With me are the women, every one of them. With these women, I too am a woman. I am Mariamne Magdal-eder, and I dress as becomes a Jewish woman of the Law, and I comport myself as becomes a Jewish woman of the Law. My head is covered, as is my face, and my eyes do not flash with understanding. No male stands near me. The males who have followed Yehoshua the Nazorean have fled the city. It seems they hide themselves in the hills beyond. I have nothing to say about this. I think nothing. I stand with the women, and every part of me is intent on what I must do. If the men have fled, they have fled. What they would do so soon as Yeshu was taken was never our concern. I have only one concern, and it consumes the whole of me: Yeshu is coming. And I will be his rock.
There is a disturbance to the west. The gates of Herod’s palace open. As it has already begun for Yeshu, it begins for me.
Comes now Yehoshua and comes those who surround him, at the very first sight of which Mary sways against me, her breath gone shallow and ragged. Behind me, Miryam would choke on the sobs that convulse her. Megas stumbles into the road, and would fall but for Maacah. Around me are sent up the wails of the children and the keening of the women. But I do not wail and I do not keen. Mariamne Magdal-eder does not weep and she does not cover her eyes and she does not cry out to God in her anguish. She does nothing but watch Yeshu. Before him and behind him march Pilate’s soldiers, but they are only six in number, which can only mean that another thing is as Yeshu said it would be. Neither the prefect nor the Sanhedrin mean to make a show of this killing, nor do they expect most to notice, and Pilate will not give them cause by sending out more than six men. But I am here and the women are here, and more come now, and also comes now men of the city appearing in the doors of the houses, from out of the side streets. Some stand on their roofs. Others throw open their shutters for all inside to see out. There come more and more of them, from all over Jerusalem.
There will be those who see this.
He who is dearly beloved of me has been scourged. He has been spat on. The white of his linen tunic is splashed with the blood of his body, redder than his hair is red. My beloved is bent double by the weight of the patibulum he carries, which is the crossbeam they will hang him from, and around his neck he wears a sign on which has been crudely written KING OF THE JEWS. Yeshu cannot see for the blood in his eyes. I think about his eyes. I think about his sight. I think about what he has seen and what he has felt since last I saw him. He breaks my heart. I cannot watch. And for one moment and only one moment, I turn my face away, and in this moment there is a quick intake of breath behind me, and I am jostled by someone who pushes past.
Veronica has run out into the road. She pulls the cloth from her head, the one she must wear by Law. She exposes her beautiful black hair. Jude’s wife hurries to her brother-in-law’s side so that she might cleanse his face with the soft blue head cloth, so that she might wipe away the blood and the sweat and perhaps even the pain. And I know, as all the women know, Veronica carries within her body another child by Jude, and I know too that she carries within her soul the burden of his betrayal.
My beloved lifts up his face as he feels her touch, and I see him smile. He cannot see her through the swelling and the blood, but he smiles. Then, abruptly, a soldier nearest shoves Yeshu with the hard flat palm of his hand so that my beloved falls forward to his knees, and another rips the blue head cloth from Veronica’s hand, and yet another grips Veronica’s hair and by it propels her away from Yeshu, so that she stumbles on the cobblestones and would also fall, but she does not. She does not fall, for now, from out of the gathering shocked and silent crowd comes a big man with a rage as black as a Cyrenian, his white teeth set on edge.
Yehoshua’s cousin Simeon has not run away.
He has not hidden himself in the wilderness. He is here, and he catches Veronica before she would hit the stones, and when she is once more safely away from the soldiers who surround Yeshu, he lifts the hundredweight of crossbar from Yeshu’s back and places it on his own. And when a soldier would stop him, Simeon the Zealot says, “Let me be about my business.”
I have followed every cubit of the way. Every step Yeshu has taken I have been witness to. Every movement of his body, of his head, of his hands. Simeon carries his crossbeam but speaks not. Here and there someone from the crowd would call out the name of Yehoshua but is hushed. Now and again someone offers Yeshu drink. He does not take it. He does not look around. He does not speak. Our last walk is made in this strange silence. Only the leather of our sandals sounds, the loose rock underfoot, the breath of so many on the chill morning air. Only the crows cawing on Golgotha, what care they what men do? And though Yeshu is beaten so that he might be weakened and, by weakening, die quicker on the cross, he is yet strong enough to do this thing. I see that he is strong. By the act of Simeon, he is spared using the strength he will need to endure what he must soon endure. I bless Simeon as I bless Veronica as I bless Jude.
And I follow.
Out from the Gennath Gate, the road leads west past the limestone quarry from where the great stones were cut for the Temple Mount. The earth is raw here, it is wounded. But we take this road only until it comes on a rutted path that wends its way to the top of a rise above the quarry, and on this rise Timaeus awaits us. As do all others crucified with him. Every moment we have walked, I have felt them above us, and now that we climb the slight rise to meet them, I feel them more palpably still. Their presence hangs in my mind as their bodies hang slumped on the crossbeams.
At the last moment, something has moved Pilate to be merciful to Yehoshua the Nazorean. A man he is told is a rebel, a pretender to the throne of David, a seditionist, and a nuisance who has caused him to be rousted from his bed early on the morning of a feast, is granted what mercy is left a man who would condemn others to their deaths. Pilate has decreed this latest messiah be crucified with nails—as Yeshu knew might happen. My friend has all along steeled himself for nails instead of ropes knowing his death will be hastened by them, that the pain will be that much more, the trial that much harder, and the risk that much greater. For me, it means I must not take my eyes from him or my hands from Tata’s leather purse at my waist. When the signal comes, I must be ready.
We come to the crest above the quarry; we come now to stand under the Tau crosses of the crucified men. I have no heart to count them. And here, to my increasing horror, I see that one of these is Saul of Ephraim. Saul is also pinned like sacrifice on a cruel altar of rough worked wood. Above his head is nailed a titulus that says BRIG-AND. Above the head of Timaeus is nailed also BRIGAND. Timaeus seems almost gone from this place, but Saul is yet fully with us. The flies have found all these. They feed from their blooded mouths and their salted eyes, and from the waste they cannot help passing. They creep along the stiffened, stretched, and broken limbs. I look away. So they might not be shamed, I look away.
From among the many upright stipes, no more than poles, one is chosen. Bluntly, Simeon is ordered back into the crowd where he comes to stand by me, and the crossbeam he has carried full half the way is laid on the ground. Quickly now, so that it might be over and done with, the soldiers rip the blooded tunic from Yeshu’s body; they require him to lay himself on the ground and to stretch out his arms against the length of the crossbeam. He must hold his arms firm so that first one wrist is fastened to the wood by a nail, cruel in its thickness and length, and then the other. The man who would hold the nail against Yeshu’s flesh chooses that place between the two bones of his arm above the wrist, and even here Yeshu does not cry out as the nail is driven home, though he closes his eyes and turns his pale face from the crowd to seek what small privacy is left him. Yeshu has known pain; there is always more pain.
Mariamne, who has seldom known pain of the body, knows now searing pain of the heart and dizzying pain of the mind. She would drop to the earth with it, lie on her belly and howl with it. She would grind dirt into her hair and into her face. But John the Less must not move—he must watch and he must remember. And Mariamne must comfort Mary. Yet there is more mettle in the mother of Yeshu and of Jude than ever there has seemed. Mary, the second wife of Joseph, is quiet by my side. It is her hand that steadies my shoulder.
It takes all six soldiers to pull up and place Yeshu’s crossbeam in the notch at the top of the stipes, to fasten it so that it does not tip or tilt or fall, and to nail upon it the sign Yeshu has worn since leaving the hall in which Pilate gave out his decree: KING OF THE JEWS. It takes two to drive the tremendous nail through his heels. Even Yehoshua cannot bear this without sound. His shriek of agony fills my mind with terror. It takes all that I have not to scream. And to scream.
It is just gone the third hour of the day.
There comes the slightest touch against my back. Who would take my attention from Yeshu? I turn my head only far enough and no farther, for I cannot cease my witnessing. It is Jude! Jude has come up behind me. His head and half his face are covered so that none see the telltale red hair and beard. Jude Thomas stands at my back, his eyes fixed on Yeshu. I should have known Jude could no more wait alone all these hours in my mother’s tomb than I could. I allow myself one look round. All eyes are on Yeshu. None concern themselves with this stranger among us. I allow myself one small movement against him so that he might know I know.
The hours pass. And I, who the whole of my life have thought this and thought that, questioned all I might hear and then questioned my questions, think nothing.
And now that Yehoshua dies before them as all their messiahs die, some others drift away, first one and then another; then a small group, and then another. I remain without movement. Jude remains without movement. The soldiers who have done this thing sit nearby playing at dice, but I do not sit. Neither sits his mother Mary nor his sweet sister Miryam, who stand closest to me and to Yeshu. Nor does the sister, Maacah, or Megas of Ephesus or the unnamed woman of Ephraim. And though she is with child, Veronica stands as we all stand; even Martha and the widow Salome stand. We are a small group of women who witness that Yeshu dies so that others might know Life.
Aside from the soldiers, only two men stand with us: Simeon the Zealot and Jude. It is not impossible that Simeon knows the man who keeps the whole of his head covered, but if he does, he says nothing, does nothing. Jude is as still as the death all around him.
I stand and I listen to the horrid song of the flies and I wait.
Is it now? Does Yeshu call me? I start from my place, gripping Salome’s vial, the one given her by the ancient Sabaz who once tended to the children of Mark Antony and of the seventh Cleopatra, only to find that Yeshu is not speaking to me. He has turned his head to Saul who is crucified on his left hand.
None who hang can easily breathe; it is this loss of breath that slowly kills them, and as for speaking, it is almost impossible, yet Yeshu would speak to Saul. I reach out to know what he would say and find I know this: It was not meant for any but Yeshu to feel the fatal grip of Rome. No other was to be crucified. Yeshu grieves for Saul and would atone, but Saul stops him before his words can come. By gesture only, for Saul has hung so much longer and is s
o much closer to death, he forgives Yeshu who I know cannot forgive himself. The price he pays for what he does is more costly than even the King of Lydia could summon, but to know that others pay as well, by Isis, what a thing is done this day. With great effort, Yeshu says, “This very day you shall know the Kingdom.”
Shadows stretch across the stony ground, each shaped as a thin black cross and on each cross: black flesh, black blood, black pity. The sun is lowering itself into the west; by this we know the Sabbath nears. Yeshu must die by the Sabbath. If he does not die, then the soldiers will kill him as they will kill all the others. There will be no bodies on crosses to defile the Passover Sabbath; it is certain that Pilate will not cross the Jews in this. Even now the soldiers make ready to break the legs of those who have hung here much longer than Yeshu. If their legs are broken, they cannot push themselves up against the small block of wood placed at their feet and thereby suck air into their agonized lungs. Without this moment of blessed breath, they must now die quickly.
I move closer to the foot of Yeshu’s cross. I cannot call out. I can do nothing but stare up at him and, by the strength of my need, somehow touch him. Yeshu! Yeshu! The time comes! Call out. Tell me I must do what I must do. My own breath comes quickly; my own heart beats without rhythm. I have feared this, always. Beforehand, Yeshu could not know what it would be truly like; he could not account for everything. Months ago, Salome warned me on the mountain of the Carmelites that anything might happen to a man who was hung on a cross. All die if they are not taken down, and few are ever taken down once they are condemned. But some die quickly, as little as two days. And some die slowly, as long as the whole of a week. And some, before dying, go mad. What if Yeshu has lost himself? More terrible than all else on this terrible day, is this thought: what if he has forgotten what he intends?
Before I see it, I feel Yeshu gather himself, and then he opens his eyes.