Fifth Gospel (22 page)

Jesus penetrated him with eyes
like rainbows. ‘I am not come to prune the garden, Judas, but to make it lush. You have been with me long and still you do not understand me! The kingdom comes to this world through me. It is not of this world, but it comes to save the world, it comes to save even the weeds…I have not come to rule Israel, but to serve all of humanity!’

Judas
’ blood grew hot and gall was stuck like a rock in his throat. He walked away from Jesus with sparks flying from his muscles and sinews and marched full of fury and impatience into the streets of Akra.

He
was thinking his wild thoughts when an old dog launched itself from an archway at him, growling and snarling for all it was worth. Before the animal could blink Judas had already felled it with a kick to the side of the head, and was leaning over to look at one eye, full of blood and surprise.

He whispered
to it, ‘I will speak plain, one beast to another, next time, don’t growl before you bite!’

He looked to see
if the animal had taken it in before walking off towards Jerusalem.

MACHAREUS

O
ur aggressors had
constructed a
gatta
, a siege tower, which day after day crawled a few feet closer to the summit. Now that the French were so close, our fortress was battered day and night without pause. Our walls were strongly built but Hugh of Arcis was persistent and I knew it was only a matter of time before his shots found a breach.

Skirmish after skirmish had left many wounded, and these were taken to rooms set apart for them.
My fellow perfects and I gave those who desired it the
convenenza
, which unlike the
consolamentum
could be administered even to those who could no longer speak. I worked long hours without rest, and yet I did not feel weary.

In truth,
of late I had discovered in myself a boundless vigour. Even Raymon, my socio, God bless him, had seen it, and had been puzzled at the spring in my step, at the lilt in my voice and my ability to climb to the end of the spiral stairs, without being seized by breathlessness.

He told me he had seen the light in the room at the top of the keep, and asked,
‘How can you be so full awake in the day, when you seem to spend night after night without sleep,
pairé
?’

I wanted to tell him I was becoming full to the brim with knowledge and that it surged through my blood. I wanted to tell him this knowledge caused me to feel a peculiar love and warmth for everything and everyone. I wanted to say
that I might appear an old man in the autumn of my days, but that in my soul I was renewed–reborn and that it was all due to a beautiful apparition, or girl, or whatever she was!

But
I did not tell him any of these things.

Christmas came and went without fighting on either side. We, like the Catholics, celebrated the rituals of our faith; we blessed
the bread and sang our songs and joined together in a communal meal. But when I looked around at my fellow perfects, bishops and the deacons of our faith, I knew that not one of them had a true understanding of the birth of Jesus, nor of the man, Jesus of Nazareth. They still saw him like a stone, over which one might step to find the Christ.

It was a cheerless existence, to be so alone and yet surrounded by so many. I knew now what Lea had meant when
she said that to know a person one must first love him. How many here truly knew me? I felt like a forgery and so whenever the
credentes
fell to their knees to kiss my hand, I did not feel worthy of their veneration and I told Lea how I felt when next I saw her.

She was looking at the fire and did not respond or even turn her face to me. I felt I should say something else, ‘I know now what you meant that first night we met, when I told you I was a
perfect
. How I could have dared to call myself that, I do not know!’

She looked at me evenly
. ‘These men who stop you and fall at your feet, they do not see your soul,
pairé
, they see the spirit. The spirit is always perfect, do you see?’

I did not know what to say and she did not wait to for me to find my words, sh
e began to tell her Gospel again. This time she spoke of the fortress of Machareus.

She said the name was Greek and that it meant sword. She said it was named thus by the H
asmonean King, Alexander Jannai because it occupied a narrow, craggy ridge that had once been thrown upwards, like a sword of bile, from out of the belly of the Moabite mountain range.

I could see that fortress
with my mind’s eye, a giant of stone sitting upon the shoulders of cliffs and screes. It was situated, she told me, at the extreme southern end of Herod’s tetrarchy of Perea, and defended his borders with his Arabian counterparts. I wondered if it might not have been a little like ours, with walls that reached dizzying heights. I asked her if its storehouses and arsenals were large enough to stockpile weaponry and food to outlast long, protracted sieges.

‘
Machareus was not a fortress like yours,
pairé.
To onlookers, it was an evil hound looking out a devil’s terrain: boulders and splintered rocks, ancient grottos and hot and cold sulphurous springs. From it one could see the cloud-topped summit where the Archangel Michael battled with Satan, and in the valleys below it, giant trees grew, whose fruits were used for casting spells and whose roots when powdered and drunk, were said to bestow power over the souls of men. Around about, caves penetrated deep, some to the centre of the earth itself, from whence had bubbled those terrible forces that so long ago had caused the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Such a place,’ she said, ‘was well suited as the primary home of Herod Antipas, and his demonic wife.’

‡

Herod had moved here after his illegal marriage, leaving his beloved palace at Tiberias for fear of war with his ex-wife’s father, Aretas. But he did not much like Machareus, for it was cold and dry and subject to violent winds and storms. Herodias, on the other hand, thoroughly approved of the stronghold, inspiring the vapours of death, blown upwards by the restless winds, as if these were the freshest breezes.

It had now been some time since Herod’s return from Jerusalem and his meeting with the Roman procurator. T
hree days earlier a sizeable portion of his army had returned from the river Jordan with John the Baptiser in chains and irons. Since then Herodias would not come out from her chamber, angered that Herod would not execute the man immediately. But Herod was obstinate. He would not be bullied and browbeaten and intimidated by a woman, and summoned up a stubborn will over which even Herodias was powerless. No, he was not about to do anything on a whim, at least not until he could discern what was more to
his
advantage: to have this upstart put to death, once and for all or to keep the man alive until he agreed to baptise him and cure him of the bondage of the wings of death. Even now, they hovered over him as he walked the halls of the fortress to his prisons. He could hear them flapping, suspended by the wind that rasped a song of lament over the edges of the mountains. He looked up and saw only the forlorn sky streaked with clouds, and he hurried his step.

The dungeons were meagrely lit and cavernous, and as he neared John’s cell, he saw him only as a shadow. A shadow restrained by shackles. A harml
ess shadow, he assured himself.

He had a guard light a torch a
nd place it on a bracket nearby and ordered him to unlock and open the rusted iron gates that barred the cell. The cell was illumined and the way in unobstructed but he hesitated before the damp threshold. In this pause, occasioned by fear or excitement or both, he fell to observing the man.

He did not seem like a magician, he was sleeping in his filth
like a dog, and yet, he was more than that, yes, more than that. The light played around him in a peculiar way, and Herod of a sudden sensed something unseen in it, but what? Not the shadow of a curse that made a man seem small, but rather, something uplifting that made him larger than he was!

There was certainly more to the man than met the eye, and this certainty frightened
Herod and he was close to turning his heels when the Baptist groaned and changed position. The light, having fallen away from him, made all things seem different. No! Herod told himself with some relief, just a man after all – a trick of the torch. And yet the man was a prophet, he knew that much, at the very least.

He entered the cel
l.

The Baptiser raised his head, his beard and hair were matted
and his skin was broken. In his eyes there was a flash of recognition.

‘Husband of the devil! Why come you here?’
his words flew out of his mouth like lashes from a whip and caused Herod to make a little backward jump to get away from them, and he nearly slipped on the oily grime at his feet. His more immediate impulse was to call for the guard, but his practical nature stepped in to prevent his anger from getting the better of his needs.

‘Well, well, well…I see that the
re is fire left in you yet!’ he said, pulling himself together.

There was no answer.

‘I trust your stay has been unpleasant and damp, though I should think not as unpleasant and as damp as what you are used to!’

A moment of awkwardness passed
. The stupid man had missed his sarcasm. ‘Have you nothing to say to your judge and jailer?’

The man’s eyes did not falter but were steady upon Herod. ‘You are not my judge! You have no power over me, for only God is my judge. And as to my jailer, while my body touches the floor of this cell, my spirit soars to heights
you shall never know!’

Herod felt a ripple, a little thrill
of darkness swoop over his head and he ducked from habit. When he straightened himself again his voice was rattled. ‘John bar Zacharias, I demand that you cleanse my soul so that I too, might see the Kingdom of God! I shall have my guards bring a little Jordan water that you can pour over my head, and we can get it over with.’

To the man on the floor, his need seemed of no moment.
‘To loosen the soul a man must near drown, Herod. Besides, I cannot loosen what is bound to the earth like a snake. The Kingdom is too high; it cannot be reached by one so low as you. Leave me in my misery. You are set apart for wickedness, and to wickedness you shall bend to play your part.’

Herod did not allow this to vex him. He crossed his arms and dug his heels in. ‘And you profess to know my part?’

The Baptiser’s eyes were lustrous with righteous venom. ‘To kill me…that is your part!’ he shouted.

Herod
stood stock-still, having come by a sudden perception. This man was no prophet! Otherwise he would have known that he feared the curse of madness too much to kill him…but wait! Killing him had indeed featured in his plan! No, no! He was now more certain than ever! He may not manage to bend him to his will by means of his torturers, but he would break his spirit by passing on the contagion of his madness – by giving this pompous upstart, something to ponder while he sat rotting in his stinking cell!

‘If I were to kill you, what should become of your followers? To whom shall they turn? To that
simple man from Nazareth called Jesus?’

The caged ferocity was so immediate
that Herod clutched himself for safety,

‘You Impudent! He is a light brighter than mine! He has come to flood the darkness of the land. My followers shall go to Him and they shall leave you in your pit, for He is the Messiah!’

Ah! There it was! The sound of doubt sang in his ears. He had managed, finally, to throw a stone into the workings of that self-righteous mind! He sharpened his tongue. ‘How do you know that this man you speak of
is
the Messiah? How do you know it for
certain
?’

‘My angel has seen it!’

Herod laughed, marvellously pleased. ‘Your angel? If your angel is so great as to recognise the Messiah, why does he not help you now? Why does he not remove your chains, and free you from this hell-hole and take you to your heaven?’

The man’s eyes flared. ‘Because, you spawn of iniquity, it is not my time!’

‘Perhaps you cannot die yet, because you have not found the true Messiah!’

The man squinted and open
ed his mouth, but nothing came.

‘Did you ask
him, this man you say is the Messiah, if he is the one? Has he said so himself? Perhaps you were clouded in your judgement? If he is not the awaited one, you have lived a counterfeit life! All your efforts have come to nothing! What will the world tell of it, I wonder? Will they say you missed your boat! That you mistook a simple man, called Jesus, for the Messiah and died in a dungeon like a rat?’

He waited to hear the sound of the crack in his mettle.

‘Well, you will never know I suppose. But if you baptise me, in return I can send a message to your followers with a question from you to this man. That way you can die in peace – or not, as the case may be!’

‘I ask nothing of you!’ the Baptist said. ‘You only w
ish to know the answer yourself so that in your jealousy you can persecute him as you are persecuting me! But mark well, husband of the devil, he shall be even more loved than I am among the people! Even after you and I are food for worms, shall he be known throughout the world! Go to him, ask him for forgiveness. Throw your sorry soul at his feet. Only he can rid you of what is in you!’

Herod was caught short. ‘What is
in
me? What do you mean?’

‘It is perfectly visible
– the Devil’s wings and Satan’s breath!’

Herod’s composure collapsed. This revelation now made his mockery fade away to nothing and he looked up, hoping to see those wings over his head, but he did not see them. Oh dear!  There were two creatures not one? Had he swallowed the Devil, so that it was now living in his guts, flapping about in his heart and creeping through his veins?
Could he feel it feasting on his bones? Could he smell the odour of Satan’s decaying breath coming from his mouth? Yes…perhaps he could!