The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (29 page)

Joseph had looked away at the beginning of the dance when he realized that Mary was clothed only in the diaphanous swath of transparent bombyx. He knew what she was doing and why she was doing it, but he could not bear to watch her. Now, noticing that the soldiers had left the prisoners unguarded, he moved to the nearest one and said quietly, “Move out through the door there while the guards are not looking. Rouse the Jews everywhere and arm yourselves, then barricade the stoutest buildings.”

With the large Jewish population of Alexandria, Joseph knew there would not be enough troops in the city to take them, once they were armed and behind barricades. Stirring up a crowd to kill during a riot was one thing, but ordering soldiers against innocent people who had broken no laws was quite another. The governor of Alexandria, even if he usually did the bidding of Plotinus, was not likely to go that far. Nor would Gaius Flaccus take such a chance either, when it meant probably incurring the displeasure of the emperor Tiberius, who prided himself upon being a man of peace.

As the whispered order passed along the line of prisoners, they began to file off the orchestra. It was quite dark now, and only the small portion of the stage where Mary danced was lit by the torches. But if it had been full daylight, the crowd would hardly have noticed the departing Jews, for every eye was held by the lovely figure there on the stage.

Now she was spinning like the torch for which she was named, her hair a cloud of fire about the gleaming column of her body. She had calculated shrewdly just how to hold the attention of the crowd.

A hand touched Joseph’s arm, and he looked around to see only Philo standing where a file of prisoners had been a few moments before. The Jewish leader beckoned him to follow, but Joseph shook his head. Even with the crowd spellbound by the dance, Plotinus might still be able to turn their anger upon Mary. And since she had risked her life to come there, placing herself in the hands of the angry
gymnasiarch
and Gaius Flaccus, Joseph knew he could do no less than stay with her.

Quickly now the dance progressed, and as the last drapery spun away from her body, Mary poised, Aphrodite indeed come to life. Then as the applause rocked the theater once more, she sank to the floor with her arms extended, and the flame of her hair enveloped her like a protecting cloak. From the wings where she had been waiting unobserved, Albina ran out with a long white cloak and wrapped it about Mary’s body.

When she rose to her feet wrapped in the cloak, the applause was still roaring through the building, but Mary did not stay to acknowledge it. Instead she ran down across the stage to where Joseph stood alone, ignoring Plotinus and the others upon the platform, and threw herself into his arms. Clinging to him while she caught her breath, she told how she had awakened in the catacombs and learned that he had gone to the theater in the futile hope of saving Philo and the others from the wrath of Plotinus, and how she and Albina had arrived at the theater just as Joseph was thrust upon the stage by the guards. “It was the only way to save you and the others,” she whispered.

He kissed her, careless of who might see. With her slender, beautiful body wrapped in the white cloak and her hair tumbled about her shoulders, she was inexpressibly lovely. Too lovely to die, he thought, for that might well be the price they must both pay for saving Philo and the other Jews.

“Flamen! Flamen!” the crowd roared again and again. Nor would they quiet down until Mary went to the edge of the stage and bowed acknowledgment, throwing kisses to them with her fingers. Plotinus seemed stunned by this sudden change in events, but Gaius Flaccus was devouring her with his eyes.

When the applause finally began to die away, Plotinus turned savagely to where the captive Jews had stood on the platform. When he saw that they were gone, his mouth gaped with surprise. “Where are they?” he shouted to the guards, and as they, too, looked stupidly for the men who were no longer there, the crowd started laughing again. “You!” he wheeled upon Joseph. “Where have they gone?”

“To their homes to rouse all the Jews in Alexandria,” Joseph said. “And Philo is demanding protection from the governor now in the name of the emperor. You forget that many Jews in Alexandria are Roman citizens.”

If anything, the sallow countenance of the
gymnasiarch
became paler at this threat. “Then you two will die!” he snarled. “And by my own hand.” Suddenly he jerked a sword from the belt of the nearest soldier and lunged at Mary and Joseph with the blade upraised to cut them down. Defenseless and unarmed, they had no chance, of course, but Joseph did manage to throw his body across Mary’s so that the knife would strike him first.

Help came fortuitously from another source. A strong hand gripped Plotinus’s wrist before the sword could strike through their unprotected bodies. “Fool!” Gaius Flaccus snapped, holding the
gymnasiarch’s
wrist. “The people will tear us to pieces if you attack her now.”

A great roar of anger had come from the crowd at the first threat toward Mary, and even as the blow was stayed, men were starting to climb upon the stage, ready to attack Plotinus with their bare hands. “Kill the leech here, if you must have blood,” Gaius Flaccus urged in a low voice. “The people will not care about him.”

Slowly the crazed look went out of the Roman’s eyes. “Were you responsible for the trick that made her seem dead?” he demanded of Joseph.

“I was,” Joseph admitted. There was no use in involving Bana Jivaka, and the scheme had really been his. “She was under my spell when she tried to kill Gaius Flaccus,” he added, hoping through the lie to turn their anger from Mary.

“That is not true,” Mary protested. “The fault is mine. I wanted revenge for something he did to me.”

Plotinus turned to Gaius Flaccus. “Is what this man said yesterday true?” he demanded. “Did you ravish her once?”

“It was a long time ago,” the tribune said lamely. “I—I had forgotten it.”

“I take no other man’s leavings,” the
gymnasiarch
said contemptuously. “The woman is yours to do with as you wish.”

“What will you do with Joseph?” Mary asked quickly.

“He must die,” Plotinus said flatly, “for helping the Jews to get away.”

“But it was I who gave them time to escape,” Mary protested. “The fault is mine.”

“Kneel, leech!” Plotinus ordered. “Your head will roll here and now, by my own hand!”

When Joseph stood proudly, refusing to kneel, Plotinus snapped an order, and two of the soldiers seized him roughly and forced him to his knees. Realizing that she could not influence Plotinus, Mary turned in desperation to Gaius Flaccus. “Save Joseph’s life and I will be your slave,” she pleaded. “If he dies, I will kill myself.”

Gaius Flaccus hesitated. His rank was not so great as that of Plotinus, but he knew Mary well enough to be sure that she would carry out her threat. Seeing his hesitation, Mary added, “I am rich. You and Plotinus can divide my wealth if Joseph is spared.”

Plotinus had been listening. It was no secret in Alexandria that he was always in debt. At the mention of Mary’s wealth his eyes began to gleam, and he lowered the sword slowly to his side. “How much are you worth?” he demanded.

“A hundred Attic talents of silver. Perhaps more.”

Plotinus swore under his breath, and the light of greed in his eyes glowed brighter. A hundred Attic talents was more than most rich men saw in a lifetime.

“Don’t do it, Mary,” Joseph begged. “I would rather let them take my life than for you to be a slave to Gaius Flaccus.”

“The guilt for all this is mine alone,” she said in a low voice. “You must not suffer for me, Joseph. What do you say?” she demanded, turning to Plotinus.

Plotinus handed the sword he was holding to the soldier from whose scabbard he had taken it. “It is agreed then,” he said, obviously anxious to gain control of the money. “Flamen will be your slave, Gaius Flaccus, for so long as you shall live. And her possessions will be divided between us. Lift him up,” he told the soldiers who were holding Joseph. “Take him to the waterfront and put him on the next ship bound for Judea. And tell the captain that I will hold him personally responsible if the leech is not guarded until the ship leaves the harbor.”

“Come along, Jew,” the soldier ordered, jerking Joseph to his feet. He had no choice but to obey and no opportunity to speak to Mary again. His last memory of his beloved was as she stood between the two Romans with tears streaming down her face, her arms outstretched to him in farewell. She had sold herself into slavery as a price for his life.

Fall had come again to Jerusalem. Upon the craggy hills, gray and bare in the chill breeze from the northeast, trees clung precariously to the thin soil, their limbs bare of foliage. Dawn was breaking, and the great white city slowly emerged from the shadows of the night. On the hilltops, the rising sun had already begun to gild the dome of the temple. And across the narrow Vale of Kedron the fortress of Antonia, grim reminder that Rome ruled even here in the Holy City of the Jews, towered like a threat above the sleeping city. On just such a morning as this several years before, the populace had awakened to find that Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, had carried out his threat to display the eagles of Rome in Jerusalem, bringing them in under armed guard during the night and placing them upon the fortress.

Pilate had been clever enough not to come to Jerusalem himself then. And since only he could order the standards taken down, a great crowd had been forced to march over the mountains and through the narrow valleys, making the two-day journey to Caesarea by foot, to plead with him. For four days the Jews had waited patiently in the square at Caesarea before the palace of the procurator, bemoaning this degradation put upon them in the name of Rome, since it was against the ancient laws handed down to Moses for “any graven image” to be raised in Jerusalem. Perhaps Pilate, in one of the black angry moods that assailed him at times, had expected the Jews to resist. Then he could have ordered the soldiers to cut the people down, as he had done on more than one occasion. But the resistance this time was only passive. Finally, unable to deal with people who only stood and mourned to their God for the affront that had been done to Him, Pilate had ordered the standards lowered.

Now, as the sun crept past the corners of the great fortress and into the courtyard, the eagles of Rome no longer flaunted themselves before the people, reminding them of their conquered state. But the ceremonial vestments of the high priest and his assistants were still kept locked in chests in the fortress of Antonia. And before every religious holiday the priests were obliged to march to the Roman headquarters and beg the authorities for permission to use them.

The Mount of Zion was first to emerge into full sunlight, for it rose above the other five hills upon which the city was built, its slopes studded with palaces and villas of the rich. The low ground to the northward, where the shacks and hovels of the poor clustered, was still dark, but people were stirring there, for a man needed all of the daylight hours to earn enough bread for his family, if he were lucky enough to have work, or to beg for it in the streets if he were not.

From the temple came the clash of steel upon steel, the tread of marching feet, and the sound of a sharp-voiced command as the Roman guard made the last tour of inspection for the night before marching across to the Antonia, where they were garrisoned. By night and by day the swords of the conquerors were drawn before the gates of the shrine of the Jews, lest they forget for a moment that, although their God ruled above the outer terraces, it was Rome who held the power of life and death outside the nineteen steps leading to the upper levels.

Slowly, as the sunlight penetrated the narrow streets, the city came awake. Yawning and stretching, men went to raise shutters and fold away screens which had hidden the open doorways of the shops during the night. Women appeared in the smaller courtyards where open pipes dispensed to all the water brought from distant springs through the aqueduct built by Pontius Pilate and paid for by the “temple tribute,” another act of wanton ruthlessness for which the Jews would always hate the Roman procurator. Filling their jars, they hurried homeward before the men could start to wash and find that their wives had been so improvident as not to bring water the previous night for the morning ablutions which no devout Jew dared omit.

A street vendor, followed by his mule, walked through the narrow streets, stumbling a little now and then, for the cobblestones were wet with the dew of the night. He cried his olive oil, bread, and packages of figs and dates, so that no one who had failed to lay up a supply of food the day before need go without a crust of bread dipped in oil, a few figs or dates, or a cup of goat’s milk from the bulbous skin attached to the mule’s back.

In the shops, the artisans were already setting out the tools of their respective trades and the materials upon which they worked during the day: hammers and punches, small anvils, awls for punching leather, waxed thread and sharp needles of Damascus steel for sewing, looms for weaving, and pots of rich dye. The scribes arranged on their tables wax tablets and papyrus scrolls for preparing letters and legal documents, small cups of ink, and metal styli for writing on wax. Everywhere the bustle of activity characterizing the day was beginning, and anyone listening from the mountaintop of Zion could have heard the voice of the city rising to him, muted still by the dregs of sleep, but steadily gaining in volume and pitch with the passing minutes as shown by the water clocks.

As soon as they awakened, the Jews of Jerusalem began moving toward the temple, which was the center of the city’s life, the very heartbeat of its existence. On the lower of the three terraces, the outer Court of the Gentiles with its signs in many languages warning unbelievers not to climb the forbidden steps to the next level, a tinkling of coins filled the air as the money-changers began to set up their tables. There any pilgrim might exchange Roman gold, forbidden for use in the sacrifice because it carried the graven image of the emperor, for an acceptable Jewish mintage, the “temple shekel.” That he usually got sharply cheated in the bargain was casually accepted by all, for was it not true that part of the profits found their way into the temple coffers and thus also became an offering to Jehovah?

Built in a square five hundred ells to the side, the great temple would shortly be thronged by people of every nation, most of them Jews making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem that every devout worshiper of Jehovah made three times each year. In the spring, they came for the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover; in early summer, they came for Pentecost; in the fall, they came for the Feast of Tabernacles. That was the feast happening now, and so many worshipers were arriving in the city for the celebration. Not a few of the visitors were tourists, however, for Jerusalem was well placed on the caravan routes to Egypt and also on the great Central Highway traversing the highlands of Judea on its way northward.

Above the second level of the temple, restricted to Jews alone, was the third and uppermost height, where only the priests might go. By the time the sun began to warm the priestly terrace, the ones selected to officiate had completed the ritual washings and put on the spotless white robes of their office. The first sacrifice lay upon the altar, and the torch for kindling the burnt offering flamed in its socket. A prophet in Israel had once spoken against this rigid ceremony, often so detailed that its purpose was forgotten. His name was Micah and he had cried:

“With what shall I come before the L
ORD
, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the L
ORD
be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the L
ORD
require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

But the power of the Pharisees, who put great store on form in the worship of the Most High, was great in Jerusalem. And the Sadducees of the priestly class recognized the love of the people for fowl and ritual, so the solemn trappery of the temple went on every day.

Now the trumpets sounded a blast loud and clear from the upper level, the notes floating out over the city in the chill morning air. The great gates were opened just as the ritual knife in the hand of a priest descended unerringly to slash the throat of the sacrificial lamb. Blood gushed forth, and a sigh went up from the onlookers gathered to witness this beginning of the day’s worship.

The music of harps and zithers and the clear high notes of trumpets poured down upon the awakening city from the eminence of the temple. Devout Jews bowed their heads, while those watching from the lower level prostrated themselves. The torch set the burnt offering aflame, and the smoke of incense rose skyward in the still morning air, while the Levites clashed their metal disks and a chorus chanted a poem of adoration to the Most High.

A new day had begun in Jerusalem, the Holy City of the Jews.

The rays of the rising sun crept gently through Joseph’s garden in Jerusalem. Fall had come, but the garden was still beautiful, for the oranges and lemons did not shed their leaves, nor did the olive trees, and much fruit still hung upon the branches. Bees hummed through the leaves, and the fragrance of spice wood filled the air. Although he was rich by the standards of the city and the time, Joseph did not live on the Mount of Zion in the Upper City, where the palaces of the very rich dotted the hillside. When he first came to Jerusalem, he had purchased a plot of ground on the sun-warmed slope of the western hill of the Upper City from his uncle and namesake, Joseph of Arimathea. The old merchant was in poor health and had even gone so far as to have his tomb hollowed out of a massive granite outcropping at the corner of his garden.

Joseph knew that he owed much of his success as a physician to the fact that his uncle had recommended him to Pontius Pilate and had also helped obtain for him the position of
medicus viscerus
in the temple. And so he had been happy when Joseph of Arimathea had offered to sell him a portion of his own estate in Jerusalem, so the young physician would always be conveniently close when the merchant suffered one of the attacks of pain and difficult breathing which sometimes threatened his life.

This morning Joseph was in the garden early, walking along the dew-wet paths between the trees and the grape arbors, talking to the old man who was his gardener. Since the death of his mother a few years before, he lived alone, and he loved especially these few moments in the morning, enjoying the trees and flowers and the waking songs of the birds that flocked here because they were fed daily. Another reason why he loved the garden was because it reminded him of another overlooking the Sea of Galilee from Magdala. One thing remained to make the scene complete, however—the voice of a girl lifted in song, a girl whose hair was as red as the pomegranates that grew here in their season.

It seemed longer than six and a half months, Joseph thought now, since he had been torn from Mary’s arms on the great stage of the theater in Alexandria and hurried away to the harbor under guard. But the memory of her standing there, her lovely body wrapped in a white robe and her hair lying on her shoulders like a coppery cloud, would always be with him. Actually, she was much nearer to him now, for Gaius Flaccus had been sent to Sepphoris, the capital of Herod Antipas in Galilee, as commander of all Roman troops in the area, just as he had predicted. Sepphoris lay hardly three days’ journey away by mule, and two by fast camel, but Joseph had not tried to see her, knowing that to do so would only open old wounds and create new unhappiness.

There was much going back and forth between the court of Herod and Jerusalem, however, so it was inevitable that he should hear of Mary from time to time. She was living, he had heard, as a mistress or common-law wife to Gaius Flaccus, a position hardly better than the slavery for which she had offered herself in return for Joseph’s life and the lives of the Jews of Alexandria. The Galileans, he had been told, called her a concubine and accused her of adultery, since she was neither married to the man with whom she lived nor actually a slave.

From the reports Joseph received, Gaius Flaccus treated Mary badly, showing her off to his visitors not as a wife, but as a mistress, and never failing to remind her of her actual status in his household. Knowing Mary’s proud spirit, Joseph sometimes wondered how long she could stand such treatment. At times, when his yearning for her seemed beyond bearing, he thought of going to Sepphoris and stealing her away from the palace of Gaius Flaccus. But such a gesture would have been foolhardy, for the power of Rome reached into the life of every person in this conquered country, and his rash act could easily result in death for both of them.

As Joseph was finishing his instructions to the gardener, the freedman Rufus who looked after his household came out into the garden. “The noble Nicodemus sent word that he would breakfast with you, sir,” he said. “I have ordered two places set at the table on the terrace.”

Nicodemus was already coming through the gate leading to the next estate, and Joseph hurried to embrace him. Older than Joseph by ten years, he was a brilliant student of the law and a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews. His work with the law took Nicodemus to all parts of Judea, Galilee, Perea, and even as far as Antioch, the capital of the entire province, for he was respected by Jew and Roman alike. He was tall and commanding in appearance, his hair graying at the temples. Like Joseph, Nicodemus might have seemed overly reserved until he smiled, but then the warmth of his eyes showed the depth of his character and his understanding.