"You have returned, my dear friend."
"Yes, my lord, and now you will be healed."
At the door of the chamber, the king's guard stood in the way of curious courtiers pushing forward to witness the reunion of the king and his best friend.
Josar helped Abgar sit up and he laid in his hands the cloth, which the king held tightly to his breast, though he knew not what it was.
"This is Jesus, and if you believe, you shall be healed. He told me that you would be made whole again, and he has sent me to you with this shroud."
The firmness of Josar's words, his deep conviction, gave hope to Abgar, who held the cloth yet more tightly against his body.
"I do believe," said the king.
And his heart was true. And then the miracle happened. Color returned to the king's face, and the traces of the disease faded. Abgar felt the strength returning to his blood and a sense of peace invading his spirit.
The queen wept silently, overcome by the miracle, while the soldiers and courtiers knew not how to explain the king's sudden recovery.
'Abgar, Jesus has healed you, as he promised. This is the shroud in which his body was laid, for you must know, my lord, that Pilate, with the complicity of the Jewish priests, ordered that Jesus be tortured and crucified. But be not of heavy heart, for he has returned to his Father, and from his place on high he shall help us and help all mankind until the end of time."
News of the miracle of the king's healing spread quickly through the city and throughout the surrounding countryside. Abgar asked Josar to speak of Jesus, to continue the teachings of the Nazarene. He and the queen and all their subjects, he pledged, would take the religion of Jesus, and he ordered that the temples to the old gods be pulled down and that Josar preach to him and his people and make them followers of the Christ.
"What shall we do with the shroud, Josar?" Abgar asked his friend one day.
"My king, you must find a safe place for it. Jesus sent it to you that it might heal you, and we must preserve it from all harm. Many of your subjects have asked me to let them touch the cloth, and I tell you, it has worked yet further miracles."
"I shall have a temple built, Josar."
"Yes, my lord."
Each day, as the sun rose in the east, Josar rose and began to write. His intention was to leave a written testament of the wonders done by Jesus, both those he had witnessed and those recounted to him by the companions of the master while he had lived in Jerusalem. That done, Josar would go to the palace and speak with Abgar, the queen, and many others of what he had learned of the teachings of the Nazarene.
He would see the wonder in their faces when he preached that one should not hate one's neighbors or wish one's enemies ill. Jesus had taught his followers to turn the other cheek.
Josar was supported in his desire to plant the seed of the teachings of Jesus not just by the king but also by the queen. And in a short time, Edessa was a Christian city, and Josar sent epistles to some of the companions of Jesus, those who, like him, took the good news to other towns and peoples.
When Josar had completed his history of the Nazarene, Abgar ordered his scribes to make copies, so that men might never forget the life and teachings of the extraordinary Jew who, even after his death, had healed a king.
7
AS HE PARKED HIS CAR OUTSIDE THE JAIL, Marco thought he was probably wasting his time. Two years earlier, he hadn't been able to get anything out of the tongueless man, or "the mute," as he always called him. He'd brought in a doctor, a specialist, who examined the man and assured Marco that his hearing was perfect, that there was no physical reason he couldn't hear. Yet the mute had remained so tightly locked within himself that it was hard to know whether he could really hear or, if he could, whether he had any understanding of what was being said to him. It was more than likely that the same thing would happen now, but Marco felt compelled to see him nevertheless.
The warden was not in, but he'd left orders that Marco was to be allowed to do whatever he asked. What he asked was to be left alone with the prisoner.
"No problem," said the head jailer. "He's a real quiet guy. He never makes any trouble-in fact, he's kind of mystical, you know? He'd rather be in the chapel than out in the yard with the others. He hasn't got much time left on his sentence; they let him off easy, three years. So another year and he's on the street. If he'd had a lawyer he could've asked for early out on good behavior, but he didn't. No lawyer, no visitors, nothing…"
"Does he understand when people talk to him?"
"Huh! Now, that's a mystery! Sometimes you think so, sometimes not. Depends."
"That clears that up."
"It's that the guy's strange, you know? I mean, I'd never take him for a thief; he sure doesn't act like one. He spends all his time looking straight ahead or sitting in the chapel."
"Does he ever read or write? He's never put in a request for books, a newspaper, anything?"
"No, never. He never watches television-he's not even interested in the World Cup. He's never gotten mail, and he doesn't write to anybody."
When the mute entered the interview room where Marco was waiting for him, his eyes showed no surprise-just indifference. He remained standing near the door, his eyes lowered slightly, his posture expectant but unfearing.
Marco gestured for him to sit down, but the man remained on his feet.
"I don't know whether you understand me or not, but I suspect you do."
The mute raised his eyes off the floor slighdy, in a gesture that would be imperceptible to anyone not a professional in human behavior-but Marco was a professional.
"Your friends have broken into the cathedral again. This time they set a fire. Fortunately, the shroud was unharmed."
The man betrayed not the slightest reaction. His features remained unmoving, seemingly without any effort on his part. Yet Marco had the impression that his probes, his flailings in the dark, were hitting something. Perhaps, after two years in prison, the mute was more vulnerable than when he'd been arrested.
"I suppose it makes a man desperate, being in here. I won't waste your time, because I don't want to waste mine either. You had a year left, and I say 'had' because we've reopened your case in the course of our investigation of this fire in the cathedral a few days ago. A man was burned to death-a man without a tongue, like you. So you may have a long wait in jail while we proceed, tie up all the loose ends-two, three, four years, it's hard to say. Which brings me to why I'm here. If you let me know who you are and who your friends are, we might be able to reach an agreement. I'd try to convince the authorities to let you out early, and if you're afraid of your friends, you could go into our witness protection program. That means a new identity, and that means that your friends could never find you. Think about it. It could take me a week or it could take me ten years to close this case, but as long as it's open, you'll be sitting in this prison, rotting."