‘No, pairé, I cannot go, not yet. I must stay for my mother’s sake,’ she said, looking at me with those azure eyes.
‘Your mother? Who is she? I promise that I will see to her if you go. Will you not consider it?’
She shook her head, ‘But it is my mother who wishes me to stay, pairé, so that we can continue, for there is little time and much to tell. Shall I begin?’
I sighed, crestfallen and downhearted. I did not wish to face the pyre with Lea beside me, but I was defeated by her determination and the look in her eyes and so I said to her, ‘as you wish, Lea, please, begin again.’
She smiled then, and so sad and noble and beautiful was it that I had to look away, afraid lest I dissolve her beauty with my clumsy observation.
‘Pick up your quill now pairé, for I will tell you about the Roman woman…Claudia Procula. She is sleeping when Christ Jesus is taken from the Garden to the palace of Ananias. Now her dream comes again and she sees herself walking among a great field of people. The world above and below is the colour of blood and storm cloud, and into this world she walks like a statue dressed in white. Her arms hold a ream of the finest cotton cloth, some of which is let loose behind her to be taken up by a gentle breeze. But this dream is different, now the crowds part before her like a great black sea and she sees what she has not seen before. Revealed by the crowd’s mysterious gesture is the figure of Christ Jesus, lying on the ground, his body broken and battered and bloodied. She realises that the blood that has made red heaven and earth in her dream is not her defiled blood – it is His blood!’
‡
She woke with a start, and sat up in bed full with fear and covered in perspiration. Her first impulse was not to wake her husband but to gather an outer garment over her shoulders and to run barefoot through the meagre lit halls with her heart in her throat and the shadows of dread all around her.
She came to her maid’s quarters. Susannah was also a follower of Christ Jesus. She said to her, ‘Quickly! Go to the fortress of Antonia, to the Centurion Gaius Cassius. Tell him these words: Our master is in danger! Go…run…!’
She watched the girl dress and stood in the halls observing her shadow disappear into other shadows with the cold spring wind penetrating her to the very bones.
This night would see the unmasking of her faith and of her secret journeys with Gaius Cassius to see Jesus who was Christ. This night the world might end! For all things seemed to her to be standing upon a knife’s edge. Fear for it made her unable to move. She could not yet will her legs to turn around and take her back to her rooms and so she stood, without a further thought on what she would tell her husband.
61
WE ARE NOT ALONE!
Even before Lazarus-John had arrived to tell them the news, Mariam had known it. For she had heard the howling of the wolf and she had come awake and remembered! Dear God! This was her dream come to life! The dream she had dreamt over and over on her way to Egypt those many years ago. She did not open her eyes but lay there as the agony came into her heart, a longing to be with her son, and something more! A suffering that echoed a thousand times in the stillness, for it was not only her own suffering and grief that concerned her, but also the anguish felt through her by heaven itself!
When finally she opened her eyes she was in that room full of women in the house at Ophel owned by Veronica. In a moment came Lazarus-John’s whisper in her ear.
‘It begins!’ he said.
Then it was into the night for all of them: Magdalena and her sister-in-law on either side, with Salome and the others, Joanna Chuza, Martha and Lea, trailing behind them.
On her mind were his last words to her after the Pascha before he left to take his disciples to Olivet.
‘Be consoled, the Holy Spirit is always with you…I will go now and when you see me again, you will sorrow exceedingly, but as the Father is with me, so must my Mother be with me to the very end. Follow me, find me, stay with me. Be the eyes of heaven!’
Her benumbed and tired eyes filled now with tears to think on it and as she stumbled and was caught by Magdalena, and she told her from afar, as if she were not upon the ground but upon a mountain, ‘Where is he, Magdalena? We must find him!’
With difficulty they made their way through the crowds, for all had come out into the streets of Ophel having heard the noise of the many guards and the uproar of the soldiers. Her son’s disciples, Andrew and the sons of Zebedee now joined them, and some way off she could see Philip and Bartholomew looking on. Soon Simon-Peter was at her side and falling at her feet.
‘Mother! They have him! They have our Lord!’