“No,” I said. “He and the others are on their way here. Through Ben Hinnon, so it will be a few hours. But I have a plan.” I pulled the ying-yang amulet that Joy had given me out of my tunic and waved it before them.
“Your plan is to bribe Joshua with ugly jewelry?” asked Martha.
I pointed to the tiny stoppers on either side of the amulet. “No, my plan is to poison him.”
I explained how the poison worked to Mary and Martha and then we waited, counting the time in our imaginations, watching in our mind’s eyes as the apostles made their way through Jerusalem, out the Essene gate, into the steep valley of Ben Hinnon, where thousands of tombs had been carved into the rock, and where once a river had run, but now was only sage and cypress and thistles clinging to the crevices in the limestone. After several hours we went outside to wait in the street, then when the moon started down and the night made way into early morning, we saw a single figure coming from the west, not the south as we had expected. As he got closer I could tell from heavy shoulders and the moon shining on his bald pate that it was John.
“They took him,” he said. “At Gethsemane. Annas and Caiphais came themselves, with Temple guards, and they took him.”
Maggie ran into my arms and buried her face in my chest. I reached out and pulled Martha close as well.
“What was he doing at Gethsemane?” I said. “You were supposed to be coming here through Ben Hinnon.”
“He only told you that.”
“That bastard lied to me. So they arrested everyone?”
“No, the others are hiding not far from here. Peter tried to fight the guards, but Joshua stopped him. Joshua negotiated with the priests to let us go. Joseph came too, he helped talk them into letting the rest of us go.”
“Joseph? Joseph betrayed him?”
“I don’t know,” said John. “Judas was the one that led them to Gethsemane. He pointed Joshua out to the guards. Joseph came later, when they were about to arrest the rest of us.”
“Where did they take him?”
“To the palace of the high priest. That’s all I know, Biff. I promise.”
He sat down hard in the middle of the street and began to weep. Martha went to him and cradled his head to her breast.
Maggie looked up at me. “He knew you would fight. That’s why he sent you here.”
“The plan doesn’t change,” I said. “We just have to get him back so we can poison him.”
John looked up from Martha’s embrace. “Did you change sides when I wasn’t here?”
Wednesday
At first light Maggie and I were pounding on Joseph’s door. A servant let us in. When Joseph came out from his bedchamber I had to hold Maggie back to keep her from attacking him.
“You betrayed him!”
“I did not,” said Joseph.
“John said you were with the priests,” I said.
“I was. I followed them up to keep them from killing Joshua for trying to escape, or in self-defense, right there at Gethsemane.”
“What do you mean, ‘in self-defense’?”
“They want him dead, Maggie,” Joseph said. “They want him dead, but they don’t have the authority to execute him, don’t you understand that? If I hadn’t been there they could have murdered him and said that he’d attacked them first. The Romans are the only ones who have the authority to have someone killed.”
“Herod had John the Baptist killed,” I said. “There were no Romans involved in that.”
“Jakan and his thugs stone people all of the time,” Maggie said. “Without Roman approval.”
“Think, you two. This is Passover week. The city is crawling with Romans watching for rebellious Jews. The entire Sixth Legion is here, plus all of Pilate’s personal guard from Caesarea. Normally there’d only be a handful. The high priests, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisee council, even Herod will think twice before they do anything outside the letter of Roman law. Don’t panic. There hasn’t even been a trial in the Sanhedrin yet.”
“When will there be a trial?”
“This afternoon, probably. They have to bring everyone in. The prosecution is gathering witnesses against Joshua.”
“What about witnesses for him?” I asked.
“That’s not how it works,” said Joseph. “I’ll speak for him, and so will my friend Nicodemus, but other than that Joshua will have to defend himself.”
“Swell,” Maggie said.
“Who is prosecuting him?”
“I thought you’d know,” Joseph said, cringing slightly. “The one who started the Sanhedrin plots against Joshua the other two times, Jakan bar Iban.”
Maggie whirled around and glared at me. “You should have killed him.”
“Me? You had seventeen years to push the guy down the steps or something.”
“There’s still time,” she said.
“That won’t help Joshua now,” said Joseph. “Just hope that the Romans won’t hear his case.”
“You sound as if he’s already convicted,” I said.
“I’ll do my best.” Joseph didn’t sound very confident.
“Get us in to see him.”
“And let them arrest the two of you? I don’t think so. You stay here. You can have the upper rooms to yourselves. I’ll come back or send word as soon as anything happens.”
Joseph hugged Maggie and kissed her on the top of the head, then left the room to get dressed.
“Do you trust him?” Maggie said.
“He warned Joshua before when they wanted to kill him.”
“I don’t trust him.”
Maggie and I waited all day in the upper room, jumping to our feet every time we heard footsteps going by in the street, until we were exhausted and shaking from worry. I asked one of Joseph’s servant girls to go down to the palace of the high priest to see what was going on. She returned a short time later to report that the trial was still going on.
Maggie and I made a nest of the cushions under the wide arched window in the front, so we could hear the slightest noise coming from the street, but as night started to fall, the footsteps became fewer and farther between, the distant singing from the Temple faded, and we settled into each other’s arms, a single lump of low, agonizing grief. Sometime after dark we made love together for the first time since the night before Joshua and I left for the Orient. All those years had passed, and yet it seemed familiar. That first time, so long ago, making love was a desperate way to share the grief we felt because we were each about to lose someone we loved. This time we were losing the same person. This time, we slept afterward.
Joseph of Arimathea didn’t come home.
Thursday
It was Simon and Andrew who stormed up the steps to wake us Thursday morning. I threw my tunic over Maggie and jumped to my feet in just a loincloth. As soon as I saw Simon I felt the heat rise in my face.
“You treacherous bastard!” I was too angry to hit him. I just stood there screaming at him. “You coward!”
“It wasn’t him,” screamed Andrew in my ear.
“It wasn’t me,” said Simon. “I tried to fight the guards when they came to get Joshua. Peter and I both did.”
“Judas was your friend. You and your Zealot bullshit!”
“He was your friend too.”
Andrew pushed me away. “Enough! It wasn’t Simon. I saw him face two guards with spears. Leave him be. We don’t have time for your tantrum, Biff. Joshua is being flogged at the high priest’s palace.”
“Where’s Joseph?” Maggie said. She’d dressed while I had been railing at Simon.
“He’s gone on to the praetorium that Pilate set up at the Antonia Palace by the Temple.”
“What the hell’s he doing there if Joshua is being beaten at the palace in this end of the city?”
“That’s where they’ll take Joshua next. He was convicted of blasphemy, Biff. They want a death sentence. Pontius Pilate is the ruling authority in Judea. Joseph knows him, he’s going to ask for Joshua’s release.”