I understood a corn king myth when I heard it, even though I wasn’t used to one being attached to the Greek and Jewish derived beliefs then prevalent in Palestine. So I accepted that the wrapped vessel Joseph carried was seed and that he would use his ceremonial hoe (the long thing all bound up in red cloth) to plant the first year’s barley or whatever it was and get his little group started. There was plenty of room in those days, especially over near the East Coast where few local tribes had established towns on account of the awful climate. But Joseph of Arimathea, as it turned out, was more interested in heading west. I advised him to keep the ship handy and wait until my friends got back, since they would be returning up the coast any day now. He seemed grateful for my recommendation and suggested that on the following Saturday (his Sabbath) I join them in prayer and so forth, but I politely told him that Moloch, with all his faults, was good enough for me, along with the variety of household gods I carried in my purse or had stuck up on a little shelf in my digs, only a short distance from the inn. I wasn’t deeply religious, still aren’t, but, in common with most of the people I knew and did business with, thought it best to stay on the safe side. Joseph, however, was distinctly dependent, one of those old-fashioned Jews you still ran across in Palestine where religion was enjoying a revival, as so frequently happens amongst conquered peoples who can’t raise much in the way of an army. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times. He started preaching at me, in the way they do, and I nodded and smiled and said I’d think about it but that Saturday was my busiest period, when all the Brits came in from the outlying farms to sell their cereals and livestock.
And that would have been it if Jessie, the afore-mentioned young wife, hadn’t taken a fancy to me and asked me out of Joseph’s hearing if there was a chance I might change my mind, in which case where would she be able to find me.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the appearance of the average lantern-jawed British lady of the period, but let’s just say they weren’t my type whereas Jessie, all dark, smouldering eyes and black curly hair, was. I told her where I was staying. A house we had built, because we came and went so frequently, which was looked after by a displaced German, an ex-legionnaire and a reliable bloke whom we paid well. You could see it from the inn, because it was built above the flood zone, had two substantial storeys and a tiled roof of the Roman type. A lot of people actually thought it was a Roman’s house and we were pretty proud of it, though it had no central heating and could get horribly smoky in winter, it didn’t smell much since the privy was served by a pipe going directly into a small river they called the Flid and would become, of course, the Fleet.
I wasn’t surprised, after I’d been in bed for about half-an-hour and the German was snoring his head off downstairs, to hear a tap on the door. Against my better instincts I threw on an old bit of toga and padded down to inch it open. It was her, sure enough. I checked what I could of the outside and let her in. “I’ve left him,” she said. “I’m sick and tired of his raving on about this bloody cup and this bloody spear.” She had brought them with her. I hadn’t expected an actual runaway, just a quick roll on my palliasse until dawn, when I thought they’d be back on their boat and heading for Cornwall and Market Zion.
“No, love,” I said. “I’m not helping you pinch his worldly goods, especially since he means to start a farm with them. We have Roman law here. I know what value these farmers place on that stuff.”
“He’s not a farmer,” she said. “He’s barmy. He’s a Jesusite. He’s brought a bit of the cross as well, but I couldn’t see much use for that. He’s awaiting what he calls the Rapture, due a hundred years after his prophet’s death, and he wants to found a religious colony so he can be ready for the prophet when he turns up again. He married me under completely false pretences shortly after he left Arimathea. Described himself as a wine merchant. All for my dowry. He was on his uppers. Honest, I’m not loose. I just want to get back home to Palestine. I’m not totally sure he doesn’t plan to kill me. Human sacrifices and so on. Some of those loonies have already crucified themselves in what they call ‘Imitation of the Kristos’. I can see you’re surprised, but, yes, they’re Greeks, or as good as.”
“Greeks are generally so rational!” I was shocked. Then I shrugged. “Well, he’ll get on all right in Cornwall if he plans a few human sacrifices. They all do it down there, especially when the harvest’s been poor. So what’s this, some sort of Sun god?”
“He’s a Jesusite, I told you.”
That was actually the first I’d heard of the Christians, though apparently they were already making enough trouble in Palestine and nearby places for the Romans to outlaw them. A lot had been rounded up. The Romans called them ‘donkeys’, which I gather was some sort of obscure pun. That was why Joseph of Arimathea and his little band had come here, so they could practise, as he said, without being persecuted. The hoe wasn’t a hoe, as you know, but a spear. It had religious significance. It was supposed to be the one which had pierced Jesus’s side on the cross and still had his blood encrusted on it. The cup, which was a very expensive looking item of gold, encrusted with jewels, was the one in which, for some reason known best to themselves, they had caught his blood. Apparently they were only a shade away from human sacrifice and cannibalism, because they drank human blood in their ceremonies. I was now doubly glad I hadn’t accepted their invitation.
Anyway, the long and the short of it was that she’d had enough. She thought she was marrying a well-to-do bloke with a nice place in Arimathea. The house proved to be mortgaged to the hilt to pay scribes to turn out all his pamphlets, and before she knew it they were sailing across the Med into the Atlantic and beating up the Thames looking for a new Promised Land. He thought he was some sort of Moses. She had been seasick all the way. She thought she could buy my protection with the stolen gear. She had plenty of heavy currency as far as I was concerned. I was soft, I know, but I felt sorry for her. “Take the stuff back, love,” I said, “and I’ll look after you. Then we can go back to Palestine together and you can decide what you want to do there.”
“You’re Jewish, are you?” she said. “You don’t look Jewish.”
“I’ve lived in Carthage most of my adult life. My mum and dad died in a riot and my brother took me there. It’s pretty peaceful now. Mostly modern, of course.”
She liked the sound of Carthage and I liked the feel of her buxom, soft and definitely sensuous body. She said she’d get the spear and the cup back in the morning. He’d never know they’d gone. Meanwhile, we went to bed.
I was weak, I know it. I should have insisted on her returning the gear first, but my libido was already taking charge and I wasn’t the first to find myself doing something very foolish because the pink lodestone couldn’t help pointing north and dragging me with it. She was a very passionate young lady who hadn’t experienced much fun with old Joseph. We had a lovely time. You’d think I wouldn’t remember after some 2,000 years, but I do. Anyway, Jessie was special. She knew the whole Etruscan range, as we called it then. Very talented. I found it hard to believe that she had picked up everything from a middle-aged Jewish merchant, but she insisted she had. That and she had a vivid, creative imagination.