Mary of Nazareth Page 6

  He was shouting now, the veins standing out on his forehead, his cheeks flushed with anger. Everyone pressed behind him, facing Miriam. Obadiah pushed his way through to the front.

  “I never forget my objective, Miriam of Nazareth!” Barabbas cried, beating his chest. “Never! Not even when I’m asleep. To bring down Herod and drive the Romans out of Israel, that’s what I want. And to kick the asses of those bastards in the Sanhedrin who get fat off the people’s misery.”

  Unimpressed by the ferocity of his words, Miriam shook her head. “And how do you plan to bring down Herod, if you can’t even get my father out of the fortress of Tarichea?”

  Barabbas slapped his thighs, his eyes screwed up with anger. “You’re only a girl, you don’t understand anything about war! I don’t care if I die. But these people follow me because they know I wouldn’t drag them into any futile adventures. The fortress of Tarichea is guarded by two Roman cohorts. Five hundred legionnaires. Plus a hundred mercenaries. How many of us are there? We’ll never get to your father. What use would our deaths be? The only person who’d benefit would be Herod!”

  Pale-faced, her hands shaking, Miriam nodded. “Yes. Of course you’re right. I was mistaken. I thought you were stronger than you are.”

  Barabbas let out a cry that echoed across the pool and throbbed between the columns. Miriam was already heading for the exit, but he gripped her arm.

  “You’re mad, raving mad! You don’t understand, do you? Even if he could get out of the fortress, your father will be like us for the rest of his life. A fugitive. He can never go back to his workshop. The mercenaries will destroy your house. You and your mother will have to hide in Galilee all your lives….”

  Miriam pulled herself free. “And what you don’t understand is that it’s better to die fighting! Better to die confronting Herod’s mercenaries than to be humiliated on the cross! Herod is winning, Herod is stronger than the people of Israel, because all we do is bow our heads when he tortures our loved ones in front of our eyes.”

  These words were followed by a stunned silence.

  Obadiah was the first to break it. He went up to Miriam and Barabbas. “She’s right. I’m going with her. I’ll hide, and at night I’ll go and take down her father from the cross.”

  “You keep quiet or I’ll kick your backside!” Barabbas began, testily. Suddenly, he broke off, and he turned to his companions with a gleam in his eyes. “You know something? The little monkey’s right! It’s stupid to get ourselves slaughtered trying to enter the fortress. But once Joachim’s on the cross, that’s another story!”

  “THEY won’t let your father rot for too long in jail,” Barabbas explained eagerly. “Their jail’s too full. Once they’ve sentenced you, they can’t wait to crucify you. That’s when we’ll be able to save him. Taking him down from that damned cross. Obadiah’s right. We’ll do it at night. On the quiet, if we can. I’ve been dreaming of pulling off a stunt like this for a long time. With a little luck, we’ll even be able to save a few others with him. But we’ll have to be like foxes: get in there quickly, take them by surprise, and get away even more quickly!”

  His anger had passed. He was laughing like a child now, delighted to have thought up the trick he was going to play on the mercenaries of the Tarichea garrison.

  “Rescuing people from the field of crosses in Tarichea! By God, if he exists, this is going to cause a stir. Herod will eat his beard! There’ll be hell to pay for the mercenaries!”

  They all laughed, already imagining their success.

  Miriam was worried. Wouldn’t it be too late? Before they tied him to the cross, her father could be beaten, badly wounded, even killed. People were often hung on the cross already dead.

  “That only happens to the lucky ones. Those who’ve been granted a special favor to shorten their suffering. But in the case of your father, they’ll want to see him suffer as long as possible. He’ll hold out. They’ll hit him, insult him, starve him, that’s for sure. But he’ll grit his teeth and survive. And we’ll get him down off the cross on the first night.”

  Barabbas turned to his companions and informed them of what awaited them. “They won’t like us saving people from the cross. The mercenaries won’t leave us in peace after this. We won’t be able to come back here, it won’t be safe anymore, and in any case we won’t be able to show our faces around town again. Once we’ve pulled this off, we’ll have to separate for a few months and live on what we have—”

  One of the older ones interrupted him, raising his knife. “Don’t waste your spit, Barabbas! We know what’s in store for us, and we don’t mind. Anything that hurts Herod is fine by us!”

  They all cheered. In an instant, Herod’s former pool became the scene of intense activity, as Barabbas cried out orders and everyone prepared to depart.

  Obadiah pulled Barabbas impatiently by the sleeve. “I have to go and tell the others. We’ll leave without waiting for you, as usual, right?”

  “But bring the mules and donkeys first. We’ll need the carts.”

  Obadiah nodded. He walked away, turned after a few steps, pointed at Miriam, and smiled, showing his bad teeth. “I was telling the truth earlier, you know. Even if you hadn’t wanted to, I’d have gone with her.”

  Barabbas laughed and wagged a finger at him. “You’d have obeyed me, or I’d have tanned your hide.”

  “Hey, don’t forget I’m the one who had the idea about how to save her father, not you! You’re not my leader anymore. We’re partners now.” His strange face lit up with pride, and for a moment it looked strangely beautiful. He added, cheekily, “And you’ll see, she won’t love you after this, she’ll love me!”

  And he strode off, his laugh echoing between the ruined walls of the baths. Out of the corner of her eye, Miriam noticed that Barabbas was blushing.

  AT nightfall, a caravan, no different than all the others that circulated on the roads of Galilee on the days of the great markets in Capernaum, Tarichea, Jerusalem, or Caesarea, left Sepphoris.

  There were ten carts loaded with bales of wool, hemp, and sheepskins and sacks of grain, and drawn by beasts as poor in appearance as their owners. Each of the carts had a double bottom, in which Barabbas and his companions had concealed a fine collection of swords, knives, combat axes, and even a few Roman spears stolen from the storehouses.

  CHAPTER 3

  SURROUNDED by a dozen similar boats, the small fishing boat swayed on the gentle swell of the Lake of Gennesaret. The red and blue sails had been taken down. Since morning, the fishermen had been casting their nets two leagues from the shore, just as on any other day. But today each boat was carrying four of Barabbas’s companions, ready for combat. For the moment, they were enjoying helping the fishermen.

  Huddled on the rough planks in the stern of the boat, Miriam watched impatiently as the sun slowly went down over Tarichea. There, beyond the horrible forest of crosses next to the fortress, her father was suffering, unaware that she was so close to him. Unaware that, when night came and if God Almighty allowed it, she would free him.

  Sitting behind her on the handrail, Barabbas sensed her apprehension. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It won’t be long now,” he said when she looked up at him. “You only need to be patient a little while longer.”

  His face was drawn with exhaustion, but his voice was still gently teasing.

  Miriam would have liked to smile at him, touch his hand, tell him that she trusted him. But she could not do it. Her muscles were so taut, she had to make an effort to stop herself shaking. There was a lump in her throat, and she could hardly breathe. The previous night, overcome with anxiety, she had slept very little.

  As for Barabbas, he had had hardly any rest at all, and Miriam had been amazed by his skill and efficiency.

  AFTER leaving Sepphoris, Barabbas and his band had walked all night, stopping only to let the donkeys and mules forage. By early morning, they were in the hills overlooking the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret. Tarichea was at their
feet. The fortress, with its walls of hewn stones, its towers and crenellated ramparts, looked more impenetrable than ever.

  In spite of the distance, Miriam immediately made out the terrible field of crosses. Situated to the right of the fortress, it extended along the shore of the lake for almost a quarter of a league. There were hundreds of crosses, like some monstrous growth of vegetation.

  Indeed, nothing else grew there. There was nothing like the orchards and gardens surrounding the white walls of the town with its multitude of little alleys, which huddled cautiously on the other side of the fortress. Seen from above, the field of crosses was a long brown strip lined with a threatening black stockade, a blemish on the natural beauty of the lakeside.

  Miriam bit her lips. She would have liked to rush in and make sure that her father was not yet among the black figures on the irregular crosses, although not seeing him there would have been no comfort: Might he not already have been murdered inside the fortress?

  Without wasting time, Barabbas organized his troops. They were to remain in the shelter of the forest while he, Obadiah, and a few trusted companions would reconnoiter around Tarichea.

  They came back grim-faced. Obadiah immediately went up to Miriam and jutted his chin toward the field of crosses. “Your father isn’t there. I’m sure he isn’t there.”

  Miriam closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm her beating heart. Obadiah collapsed on the ground. His hollow, dirty cheeks seemed more drawn, his features more abnormally aged, than ever. The others had come closer to hear him.

  “I went right up to the place, as Barabbas asked. There are lots of guards, but they’re not too suspicious of kids. The stockade around the field of crosses has nails at the top. Anyone who tries to get across will be cut to shreds. There are two places where you can see inside. And what you see is no laughing matter, I can tell you.”

  Obadiah paused for a moment, as if he could still see these horrors in front of his eyes.

  “There are dozens and dozens of them. You can’t count them all. Some of them have been there so long, they’re nothing but bones in bits of cloth. Others haven’t been there long enough to die. You can hear them mumbling to themselves. Sometimes, some of them cry out in this weird kind of voice. As if they were already among the angels.”

  A long, uncontrollable shudder went through Miriam’s shoulders. “If there are so many of them,” she said in a hoarse, barely audible voice, “how do you know my father isn’t there?”

  A crafty look came back into Obadiah’s eyes, and he almost smiled. “I had a chat with an old mercenary. When old-timers like him see a kid, they turn softer than a rabbi’s wife. I told him my big brother was going to be crucified. First of all, he laughed and said it didn’t surprise him, and I’d probably be keeping him company. So I pretended to cry, and he told me not to worry, they wouldn’t do it straightaway. Then he asked me how long my ‘brother’ had been in the fortress, because they hadn’t put anyone up on the cross in the last four days.” Obadiah raised his hand, spreading the fingers. “You just have to count. Your father got to the fortress the day before yesterday….”

  As everyone watched, Miriam nodded and took Obadiah’s hand in hers. But it was shaking so much, she let go of it after a few moments.

  Addressing the company, Barabbas told them, in a haughty voice, that they should not count on getting into the field of crosses through the main gate. “It’s only wide enough for a mule, and it’s permanently guarded by a dozen mercenaries. If they give the alarm, it’s bolted with iron bars.”

  “And it’s closed all night, from what I’ve heard,” one of his companions said.

  In addition, the town was swarming with legionnaires—spies, too, probably. It was out of the question to find shelter there. If they walked through it in a group, they would attract far too much attention, even disguised as poor merchants, as they were. The guards were vigilant, and it was not worth taking the risk.

  Everyone looked worried. “Don’t make those faces,” Barabbas said, mocking them. “It’s going to be easier than we thought. The stockade stops at the lake. There’s nothing on the shore, not even guards.”

  There were loud protests. How many of them could swim? No more than three or four. Apart from that, swimming with the wretches they would have just taken down from the crosses, and being shot at by Roman archers…It was suicide. They needed boats. And boats were something they didn’t have. “And even if we had them, we wouldn’t know how to use them!”

  Barabbas scoffed at their pessimism. “You’re not thinking any farther than your snotty noses. We don’t have boats. But on the shores of the lake, there are fishermen with all the boats we need. We have grain, wool, skins, and even a few fine silver objects. Enough to persuade them to help us.”

  BY nightfall, the deal was done. The fishermen from the villages near Tarichea hated living so close to the fortress and its field of crosses. The reputation of Barabbas’s band and the goods taken off the carts had done the rest.

  That night, the houses on the shores of the lake had stayed open. The next day, while Obadiah and his comrades again lurked near the fortress, Barabbas had finalized his strategy, in agreement with the fishermen.

  As for Miriam, she had endured hours of nightmares before Obadiah had drawn her from her restless sleep two hours after sunrise.

  “I’ve seen your father. Don’t worry: He was still walking. Not all the others were. They put fifteen men up on the cross in one go. He was one of them.”

  A little while later, he spoke to Barabbas. “The old mercenary’s become my friend. He let me look as much as I wanted. I spotted Joachim right away because of his bald head and carpenter’s tunic. I kept my eyes on him all the time. I know exactly where he is. I’d find him even in the dead of night.”

  Now they were waiting for darkness, their exhaustion forgotten amid the tension. Before leaving the shore, Barabbas had carefully gone over his plan and had made sure that they all knew what they had to do. Anxious as she was, Miriam had no doubt about their determination.

  The sun was almost touching the hills above Tarichea. Standing out in the fading light, the fortress was a twisted mass of black. One by one, the green meadows and orchards turned gray. A strange, dull, bluish light hung in the still air, like a cloud. Soon, the field of crosses itself would disappear. From Tarichea came noises that echoed across the surface of the lake, and the last reflections of the dying sun scattered in a thousand gleams of light.

  Miriam dug her nails into her palms, thinking so hard about the despair her father must be feeling that it seemed to her she could see him, praying to Yahweh with his usual gentleness. After the burning heat of the day, the cold of the coming night engulfed her.

  Helped by Barabbas, the fisherman who was sailing their boat folded his net at the foot of the mast. Then he pointed to the shore. “As soon as the sun touches the crest of the hills, the wind will rise,” he said. “It’ll be easier to maneuver then.”

  Barabbas nodded. “There’ll be a little moonlight. Just what we need.”

  While the fisherman pulled on a rope to raise the sail, Barabbas came back and sat down next to Miriam.

  “Take this,” he said gently. “You may need it.” In his open palm was a small dagger with a red leather handle and a very thin blade. Miriam stared at it in astonishment.

  “Take it,” Barabbas insisted. “Use it if you have you. Don’t hesitate. I want to free your father, but I also want to bring you back safe and sound.”

  He winked at her, then immediately turned away to help the fisherman with the raising of the sail.

  All around them, on the other boats, the same silent activity was taking place. One by one, with solemn slowness, the triangular sails rose, glistening in the last light of day.

  The sun set over the already dark forest, turning the surface of the lake an oily bloodred so dazzling that they had to shield their eyes.

  As the fisherman had predicted, wind stirred the sail. He grabbed
the helm and gave it a sudden push. The sail tipped and swelled, as if it had been punched. The boat creaked, and the stem cut through the water. Now the other boats turned. One after another, the sails flapped, the masts and ribs squeaked, and off they went across the torn surface of the lake.

  Barabbas was standing beneath the sail, holding on to the mast. The stem of the boat pointed toward a vast inlet to the east of Tarichea. “For as long as they can still see us,” the fisherman said to Miriam with a smile, “we’ll pretend we’re on our way home.”

  UNTIL it was completely dark, they had sailed southward, lowering the sail little by little in order not to be taken too far from the fortress. There was a little moonlight, but all they could make out were the nearest boats, nothing more. The lights of the palaces of Tarichea and the torches on the parapets of the fortress shone on the shore.

  They sailed in silence, but the boats were so close together that the sound of the water against the hulls, the flapping of the sails, and the creaking of the masts seemed to make an almighty din that must surely have been audible from the shore.

  The wind was steady, and the fishermen knew their boats as a rider knows his horse. But Miriam could sense how nervous Barabbas was. He kept looking up to make sure the sails were still swelling, clearly finding it hard to gauge their speed, fearing they would reach the fortress either too early or too late.

  Suddenly, they were so close to the huge towering mass that the mercenaries could clearly be seen by the light of the torches. Almost immediately, a whistle was heard, to be answered by another. Barabbas held out his arm. “There!” he exclaimed with relief.