Poisoned Honey: A Story of Mary Magdalene (19 page)

The next morning, I woke up to hear Silas saying his daily prayers. He recited them in a comfortable, sturdy drone, and the meaning of the words didn’t penetrate my mind until he was in the middle of chanting a psalm:

The Lord’s plan for me … I tried to grasp the thought, but it slipped out of my mind like a small fish through a net.

Only a dull sorrow, as if I’d lost something precious, was left. In a short while, that was gone, too.

With the exception of that fleeting qualm, I was in high spirits for the next few weeks. Protected by my invisible allies, I felt sure that no one could harm me. I was safe from the council of elders, safe from even Herod Antipas and his army if they took a notion to come after me! Herod himself in his walled palace couldn’t feel any more secure than I did.

Then, early one morning, another messenger came to the gate. It was Yael, my family’s serving woman. She brought the news that my grandmother had died.

Once more tearing my clothing to show grief, I left with my cousin for my brother’s house. Susannah tried to comfort me on the way: “Our Safta was a dear woman, and I know how much she loved you especially.” Putting her arm in mine, she patted me. “But maybe this is for the best, Mari. She was confused in her mind; she was unhappy. She’d become such a worry to your mother.”

What Susannah said was true, but she didn’t know what really troubled me: my healing spell for my grandmother had not worked after all. What did that mean?

It means that you can work magic for dark purposes, but not for good
, brayed a voice. It sounded like Eleazar trying to talk on his last day, except that somehow I understood the words.

“No!” I screamed. “That’s horrible!” I clapped my hands over my ears, as if I could shut off the voice that way.

Susannah drew back from me, looking hurt. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was only trying … I’m sad, too.”

My cousin had thought I was screaming at her. I couldn’t explain, so I hugged her wordlessly. Susannah was one person who truly cared about me.

But she wouldn’t, if she knew your secrets
, brayed the hateful voice.
Remember Safta’s story about Miryam’s Well? You have a gift for finding the opposite kind of well: one that poisons all who drink from it
.

I would have screamed again and run blindly through the alleys, except that Phomelei’s cool voice broke in.
Silence, Zaphaunt! No one asked you. Lady Mariamne, pay no attention to the donkey-headed one. He has his uses but no manners
.

During our period of mourning for our grandmother, Susannah gently suggested that I should think about getting married again. “You can start over, as if the last year hasn’t happened.”

But it had happened, I thought with a pang. I could never be the same young girl who’d thought she was offered a life of blessings. And beyond that … My mind groped to remember something further that was missing, something even deeper…. It was gone.

However, Susannah’s advice was sensible. After the time of mourning, I approached Alexandros and explained that I wished to remarry.

My brother looked down on me. “I’m very busy these days,” he said. “I don’t see how I can do anything for you right now. Uncle Reuben has to mourn a full year for Safta, his mother, of course, and I can’t make any important decisions without him.”

“But you’re arranging Chloe’s betrothal,” I said. “She told me.”

“Ah … yes, I am negotiating a match for Chloe,” he admitted. “That’s why I don’t have time to look for a new husband for you.”

“You don’t want to help me, do you?” I said.
He wants to make you grovel
, said Phomelei.

Alexandros stroked his beard, not so straggly anymore, before answering, “Frankly, I wish I could help you. But I have to consider my position as Elder Thomas’s son-in-law. Everyone knows that you were called up before the council and reprimanded—naturally that makes people wonder if you’d be an obedient wife.”

I wonder if you’ll be an obedient son
, Phomelei shot back. I spoke her words, and added, “Didn’t Abba make you promise, on his deathbed, to take care of your sisters?”

Alexandros flinched at that, but he recovered quickly. “I
tried to bring you home, but you refused my protection,” he said piously. “Uncle Reuben says you’re really Silas’s responsibility now.”

Fury rose in me, and Zaphaunt’s bray formed in the back of my throat. But Aiandictor quickly put smooth words in my mouth: “You’re right; I apologize for troubling you about this matter. Silas will make a better match for me than you could have, anyway.” It was gratifying to see Alexandros’s offended look, but I also thought what I’d said was true. Silas listened to Susannah, and my cousin would advise him about the kind of man I would be happy with.

When I asked Silas to negotiate for me instead of my brother, he seemed reluctant at first. Susannah, too, looked troubled. But Silas agreed: he would investigate the husband prospects among men of our class in Magdala.

Meanwhile, the real world grew less vivid to me as I spent more and more time with my invisible allies. “I wish
you
could arrange a new marriage for me!” I exclaimed to them one night. “Can’t you? Let Silas think he’s doing it.”

Leave it to me, my lady
, said Aiandictor with a sly smile.
I’ll use my connections to find you a prince
.

Phomelei gave a scornful laugh.
Connections! Don’t listen to Aiandictor, my lady. First of all, you need an ordinary husband, and we don’t arrange ordinary matters. Let Silas find you
a match for your humdrum life. Then—her
red lips trembled with amusement—
I’ll present you to your real consort. Yes, a prince
.

Aiandictor contradicted her indignantly, and other voices chimed in, including a brassy female voice and a braying male voice. They all argued at once, until I had to order them to be silent. But I was filled with almost unbearable excitement. One way or another, I would have a prince. How could I wait?

In fact, I waited for more than a month before I asked Susannah if Silas had made any progress in finding a husband for me. My cousin shrugged and murmured something vague. She added, “Silas wondered if you might consider taking a husband in another town.”

“Perhaps, if it was a nearby town, and if I could visit here,” I said. “Which town does he have in mind?”

“Oh yes, it’s nearby,” said Susannah. “Matthew—the man Silas has in mind—lives outside Bethsaida-Julias, not far from Capernaum. And his father lives in Magdala, so you’d come here often.” She didn’t seem to know much more about this Matthew, except that he was young and prosperous. “Silas will see if he can arrange a first meeting, then.”

Managing the tollgate month after month, Matthew stopped feeling anything about the travelers streaming under the stone arch. Most of them came to seem like walking money pouches, not human beings. His only interest in them was transferring coins from the pouches into his collection box. His feelings were not exactly tough, like his father’s, but numb, like a foot sat on for too long. Matthew’s occasional smile, when he recognized one of his few acquaintances approaching the tollgate, stretched his face in an unaccustomed way.

After the harvest season, Alphaeus made a visit to Matthew’s new home. Alphaeus hadn’t actually seen the house he’d found for Matthew, and he was pleased. “Just
what I was told, a comfortable villa. You don’t have any trouble paying the rent, do you? No? Good.”

As Matthew showed him around the house and garden, his father mentioned that he’d found a promising prospect for a wife for his son. “I don’t suppose you’d object to a young widow, eh? I’ve heard of someone in Magdala—good family, and she has some money of her own.”

“I wouldn’t mind a young widow at all,” said Matthew, his heart leaping hopefully. He’d feared that no respectable Jewish family would even discuss marriage with the tax collector’s son.

“Apparently she’s a
little
peculiar.” Alphaeus waved his hand as if it was nothing to worry about. “And there were some rumors about her keeping Gentile amulets, but you could put a stop to that. I’ll arrange a first meeting, then.”

Leading his father on through the house to the dining hall, Matthew imagined this young widow very close to him. He would feel her warmth, breathe in her perfume. There would be a pink flush on the curve of her cheek as they sipped from the betrothal cup….

“Even a dining hall, eh?” said Alphaeus. “You must have fancy dinners here!”

His father’s comment jerked Matthew out of his daydream. The large, airy room was ideal for fancy dinners: open
on one side, with a view of the lake through the pillars. Matthew didn’t tell his father that he had trouble filling his fine dining hall with guests. In Capernaum itself, there were only two kinds of Jews who might accept an invitation from the toll collector: his colleagues, the harbor-tax and house-tax collectors; and the brothel owner and his prostitutes. Not such a fancy dinner party.

At the tollgate, Matthew met some interesting travelers, some of them wealthy, important people. But most of them were Greeks, or Phoenicians, or Syrians, or Chaldeans—in other words, Gentiles. Matthew was determined to keep at least the Jewish law against eating with Gentiles. When Quintus Bucco, his supervisor, came by to collect the chest of tolls, Matthew offered him refreshments, as his father did. He sat politely with the Roman while he ate and drank. But after the Roman left, Matthew made sure the servants threw all his dishes (now unclean) on the trash heap.

If it hadn’t been for the few Jewish travelers he’d gotten to know, Matthew would have been miserably lonely. Travelers tended to have a more liberal attitude about associating with tax collectors, especially when they were away from home. Such was the case with Philip the salt trader, a short, genial man and Matthew’s favorite of these acquaintances. He was well-known around Lake Gennesaret, where he
traveled in a slow circle through Galilee on the west side of the lake, Gaulanitis on the northeast, and the independent cities of the Decapolis in the southeast.

Philip had a talent for gathering the latest news from each place and turning it into dramatic stories for the next town. He loved dinner parties, with their natural audience for his storytelling. Matthew looked forward to Philip’s visits, not only for his own company but also because the trader attracted other guests. No one wanted to miss such an evening’s entertainment.

On the salt merchant’s recent visit, he’d told a story about a wandering preacher named Yeshua. The story began as the preacher arrived on the other side of the lake, in some Gentile town above the cliffs. Rabbi Yeshua discovered a poor lost soul, infested with demons, howling naked in the cemetery. The man’s family had tried to keep him at home by chaining him, but he’d broken loose and escaped to live among the tombs.

The townspeople warned the rabbi not to go near the wild man. His demons made him bash himself, and anyone else nearby, with stones. But Yeshua went right up to the possessed man and began giving commands to the demons.

Matthew, listening to the story, thought of the rabbi who’d taught him and his brother to read and write. He had
a meek manner except when he saw any wrongdoing, such as the older boys bullying the younger ones.

Philip continued with his story. “It was a terrifying scene.” He described the townspeople watching from behind the tombs, fearful but fascinated. Confronted by Rabbi Yeshua, the demons threw the possessed man on the ground. He writhed and foamed at the mouth as the unclean spirits spoke through him: “What have you to do with us, Yeshua of Nazareth?”

The rabbi demanded to know the demons’ names. They cried out, “We are legion!”

At this point in his story, Philip winked at Matthew and looked around the dining room, making sure everyone got the joke. “‘Legion’—meaning ‘many,’ but also meaning a legion of the Roman army, see?”

The guests snickered at the suggestion that Roman soldiers were demons. Matthew smiled, too. Any joke on those self-appointed masters of the world was a good joke.

The story continued: The demons bargained with Yeshua. They’d leave the possessed man quietly if only the rabbi wouldn’t banish them to the pit of everlasting fire.

But where else could they go? asked Yeshua. They couldn’t expect him to allow them to possess someone else.

Desperate, the demons noticed a herd of pigs on the
hillside. “Let us possess the pigs!” they begged. So the rabbi gave permission, and instantly the legion entered the pigs.

Philip paused again, savoring the roars of laughter. A legion of Romans as not only demons but also a herd of unclean animals!

“And now the pigs were as wild as that poor fellow used to be, and they rushed down the cliff and drowned in the lake,” continued the storyteller. “Meanwhile, the man freed from demons put on his clothes and told everyone he knew, in a perfectly sane voice, how he’d been saved.” Philip looked around the room with a little smile, signaling a final joke. “And then, you’d think, they all flocked to this rabbi, this holy man of great power, for healings and blessings?”