Mary of Nazareth (7 page)

CHAPTER 3

S
URROUNDED
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.

         

A
FTER
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.”

B
Y
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.”

         

U
NTIL
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.

Miriam peered at the shore without seeing anything unusual. All at once, at the foot of the wall, a fire sprang up, so intensely that it could only have been started by a torch or an oil lamp. With each passing second, the flames grew. The fire was spreading. Cries rang out on the rampart walk, and the guards quickly left their posts.

“This is it!” Barabbas roared in delight. “They did it!”

“They” were a dozen members of his band. Their mission had been to light fires in the guards' camp and grain stores close to the market adjoining to the fortress, on the opposite side from the field of crosses. The carts they had brought from Sepphoris had been left there during the day, laden with old wood and innocent-looking fodder. The false bottoms, emptied of weapons, had been filled with pots of bitumen and jars of terebinth oil, making the vehicles highly inflammable. Barabbas's men had been ordered to set fire to them at a specific time and then escape from the town.

Clearly, they had succeeded. As if to confirm this, a muted roar echoed across the lake, and the walls of the fortress were lit up by the flames. Some distance from the first fire, more flames suddenly shot up. This second fire would confuse the mercenaries and send the villagers running from their houses.

Cries of joy rose from the boats. The flames, ever more intense, were reflected in the waters of the harbor. At last, trumpets sounded, calling the legionnaires and mercenaries to the rescue.