The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (33 page)

From where he stood well above all this Joseph could see that a large crowd filled the cove, even spilling over into the boats of the fishermen that floated, their colorful sails furled, close to the shore. At this height the fishing boats looked like toys and the people of the crowd hardly larger than ants.

“Jesus is teaching today in the cove,” Hadja explained. “It is one of His favorite spots, for everyone can hear Him there.”

“That is the largest crowd I ever saw in Galilee,” Joseph observed. “Does He always draw so many people?”

“The sick follow Him everywhere,” Hadja explained, “for He heals many.”

“Have you seen this with your own eyes, Hadja?”

The tall musician nodded. “Once Jesus healed a man who was let down to Him through the roof because a crowd filled the house. And at Gadara He cast out devils and drove them into swine, so they rushed into the lake and were drowned.”

“Why do you follow Him, Hadja?” Joseph asked as they guided their camels down the narrow road. “After, all, you are not a Jew.”

“In my country the nobles oppress the poor,” the Nabatean explained, “just as they do everywhere in the world that I have been. The Teacher of Nazareth tells me all men are equal in the sight of God. And since I know in my heart that this a good thing, I believe what He teaches.”

“Does He plan to remove the oppressors from power by force?”

“I do not hear that in the things that He tells me.”

“Then how will He free men from those who hold them in bondage?”

Hadja smiled. “If everyone could be as good and kind in his heart as you and the Living Flame are, Joseph, there would be no injustice between a man and his brother. Jesus wants to change the hearts of men and set up in them the kingdom of God of which He speaks. Then all men will be free.”

Pontius Pilate was in a summerhouse overlooking the lake, in the garden between his villa and the water, reading from a small scroll. He looked up and smiled when the
nomenclator
ushered Joseph into the garden.

“Peace be upon you, Joseph of Galilee,” he said courteously and held up the scroll he was reading. “Have you read the poems of Virgil?”

Joseph shook his head. “Treating the sick leaves me little time for anything else.”

“In Rome physicians are often philosophers. I heard a very learned one say that more of man’s ills come from his soul than from his body.”

“The Greeks taught a similar doctrine,” Joseph admitted.

“And you?”

“I would not deny that a melancholy spirit is often followed by distemper,” Joseph admitted.

“I have proved that for myself,” Pilate agreed. “It is no easy task to rule a contentious people like the Jews, Joseph. In Caesarea, where the burdens of my office are heavy, my gout is always more painful. And it is still worse in Jerusalem.”

“It could be the climate.”

Pilate shook his head. “The chill of winter is already in the air here, yet I feel hardly a twinge in my gouty toe. You must have noticed how much more peaceful it is here in Galilee beside the lake than in Jerusalem and Judea. A man can think here without having to listen to idle chatter from people seeking power.” He picked up the scroll. “Listen to these verses; they were written of Italy, but describe Galilee just as well:

But fruitful vines and the fat olive’s freight,

And harvests heavy with their fruitful weight,

Adorn our fields; and on the cheerful green,

The grazing flocks and lowing herds are seen. . . .

Perpetual spring our happy climate sees,

Twice breed the cattle and twice bear the trees,

And summer suns recede by slow degrees.

Pilate rolled up the scroll and turned back to Joseph. “You find me moody indeed today, Joseph,” he said with a sigh, “but I have cares even here in Tiberias.” He stood up and shaded his eyes against the afternoon sun. “I wonder where the fishing boats are this afternoon. They usually return with their catch about now.”

“A great crowd has gathered at the other end of the lake,” Joseph explained. “I saw many boats up there when we came down the road from Magdala.”

Pilate’s face took on a sober look. “When the Galileans come together in crowds, it brooks no good, Joseph. What were they doing? Shouting against Rome?”

“Hadja says they were listening to the Teacher called Jesus of Nazareth.”

“The one who claims to heal?”

“Yes. But many have made that claim in the past.”

“I know,” Pilate agreed. “Herod is trying to convince me that this man is stirring up the people to rebellion, but I must always seek two meanings in everything he says. Do you think I should take Pila to Jesus?” he asked abruptly.

Taken aback by the question, Joseph fumbled for an answer. But before he could speak Pilate said, “Never mind. You are honest enough to disagree with me if you felt that you should. And then I might be angry with you. I am resigned to the fact that my son will always be a cripple, Joseph. It is a part of the unjust fate that isolated me in Judea when I might have had a high place in the empire. And—” He stopped and did not speak for a moment. “Did you hear that Jesus raises people from the dead?”

“I was told of the miracle,” Joseph admitted. “If it really was one.”

“Then you doubt it, too?”

“I have seen many people die, but none come to life again. If the girl was really dead, as they claim, and was raised, I would believe it a miracle.”

“That is just why I sent for you,” Pilate told him. “I want you to talk with this man Jairus in Capernaum and find out the truth. And while you are about it, you might listen to Jesus of Nazareth and tell me if He teaches anything against Rome. . . . No . . . ,” he amended. “It would not be right to make you spy on one of your own race. I have ways of finding out those things myself. Just look into the raising of the child.”

The funeral of Gaius Flaccus was held on the third day following his death. Long before it was to begin, the city was filled with the carriages and chairs of Roman officers and civil officials. The dead tribune’s rank in the equestrian order and his office as commander of all Roman troops in this region had given Pontius Pilate an opportunity to make an impressive show of Roman military might, both to discourage the Galileans in any thoughts they might have had of rebellion and to remind Herod Antipas that Pontius Pilate, as the highest Roman official in this region except the Legate of Syria himself, still controlled considerable power.

Well before the hour for the start of the procession the
dissignator,
as the Roman official who acted as master of ceremonies was called, took his place before the house and began to arrange the order of the march. Beside him were his lictors with their fasces, the universal emblem of Roman civil justice. The body of the dead commander was laid out upon the sumptuously upholstered bier in the atrium, with candles in tall golden candelabra casting flickering shadows upon wreaths of palms and flowers and ribbons lying on and about the body.

At the appointed time the trumpets of Gaius Flaccus’s own personal troops sounded, and the pallbearers, officers of his own command, marched in and lifted the open bier to their shoulders. Outside waited the tribune’s chariot, drawn by the four swift horses he had loved to drive at breakneck speed through villages and towns, often leaving crushed and maimed bodies lying in his wake. A frame had been built on the richly ornamented vehicle to hold the shallow bier, which was now placed carefully on the chariot and lashed down by the handles, lest the spirited horses shake it loose as the conveyance bumped over the stone-paved streets.

Leading the procession was the chariot of the
dissignator
with six uniformed trumpeters marching before him to clear the way. Next came a double file of lictors and, behind them, the professional mourners, robed in white and chanting monotonously the solemn words of a dirge. Oddly in contrast to the mourners, many of whose faces were painted white and who beat their breasts in synthetic sorrow, were the dancers and pantomimists who followed. Some played on flutes while others portrayed in pantomime the triumphs of the deceased on the battlefield and in political life.

Next in the line was the elaborate chariot of Pontius Pilate himself. The procurator stood erect, cold and haughty in his uniform and medals, looking neither to left nor right as the vehicle rumbled over the stone paving. In a funeral conducted in the deceased’s home city, a long line of men would have followed in the uniforms of the deceased’s illustrious ancestors, each wearing one of the
imagines,
the death masks that reposed betweentimes in the
alae
opening off the atrium of his house. Thus the dead man would move to his funeral pyre preceded by a long line of his ancestors in effigy. But since the
imagines
of Gaius Flaccus’s line were in Rome, small placards bearing the names and more important accomplishments of his famous ancestors were carried by a number of officers behind the chariot of Pontius Pilate. After them the Lady Claudia Procula rode in Pilate’s own chair with the curtains partially drawn.

The elaborate sedan chair bearing the eagles of Rome was followed by Gaius Flaccus’s favorite stallion, resplendent in golden trappings with an empty saddle on his back, led by the commander’s equerry. A column of soldiers marched behind the battle charger, bearing the dead man’s insignia and memorials of his trophies and his feats of arms in battle. And after the parade of the insignia strode fifty additional lictors, their fasces pointing downward, followed by another group bearing flaming torches, although it was daytime—relics of the old Roman custom of burying at night.

Next rumbled the funeral chariot itself, carrying the open bier. The embalmers had been skilled in their craft. Lying there, resplendent in full military uniform of the rich purple color favored by high officers, Gaius Flaccus might have been merely asleep.

Mary had chosen to walk with the other slaves who had become freedmen, as was customary, by the will of their dead master. She wore black and her hair was covered completely, but such was her beauty that she stood out among the others like a precious jewel in a pile of glass baubles. Joseph did not walk in the procession but followed along beside the slaves at the edge of the crowd.

The people of Galilee had not loved Gaius Flaccus, and so there was no mourning as the procession passed. Had there been less show of military might, some might have dared to jeer, but all were silent until the slaves and Mary came along. Then, to Joseph’s surprise, a murmur of resentment ran along through the crowd, like a ripple in a pool. And as Mary passed, one woman spat out a word he had heard first applied to her years ago on the streets of Tiberias,
“Meretrix!”

“Why do you call her that?” he asked the woman, a shrewish-looking housewife. “She is a slave like the others.”

The woman looked at him suspiciously. “Are you a stranger in this region?”

“I am a physician from Jerusalem,” he said truthfully enough.

“The woman in black there is called Mary of Magdala,” his informant explained. “But she is no slave. She is a Jewess, a former dancer who chose to follow the Roman instead of living with her own people.”

“How do you know this?”

“All Galilee knows it. Did not the tribune Gaius Flaccus boast in the drinking houses because he knew the Jews would be ashamed to know that one of them is an adulteress?”

“But she walks with the slaves,” Joseph protested.

“It is only to hide her sin now that the man she lusted after is dead. Mary of Magdala should be stoned like any other wanton.”

Mary had gone on while Joseph was talking to the woman and the Roman troops were passing in review now, the thunder of their leather-shod feet upon the stones drowning out any further conversation. Century after century passed in full military equipment led by the centurions, captains of a hundred. And after them rode the cavalry with pikes upraised and colorful pennons fluttering from their points. Last of all creaked the siege trains, massive machines called
ballistae
that could hurl a stone ball of half a man’s weight an eighth of a mile, the onager and the
catapulta,
giant bows that hurled great blazing arrows for long distances, and other equally formidable machines.

It was indeed an impressive spectacle, but Joseph was too concerned by what the woman had said about Mary to appreciate it. Had she come safely to freedom through the death of Gaius Flaccus, he wondered, only to have more trouble because the people whose very relatives she had probably saved in Alexandria still thought evil of her? It was a disquieting thought.

At the cemetery outside the city gates, a great funeral pyre had been erected. Here the body of the dead man would be consumed by the flames and his ashes gathered and returned in state to Rome to rest in the
columbarium
housing the remains of his ancestors. As the funeral party reached the cemetery, it deployed according to the directions of the
dissignator
before a platform erected in front of the pyre. From this platform Pontius Pilate gave a lengthy oration of praise for the dead man, shrewdly adding a warning that the might of Rome thus displayed could also be used to bring the Jews to heel if they chose to rebel against Roman authority. The lesson was all the more pointed because, directly visible across from the cemetery, was the slope where Judas the Gaulonite had been crucified with two thousand Jews within the memory of many who watched and listened.

When the oration was finished, the elaborate bier was carried to the top of the pyre and set in place. At a command from the
dissignator
the chair of the Lady Claudia Procula was borne away, followed by the women of Gaius Flaccus’s household. Pontius Pilate himself cast a flaming torch into the tinder prepared at the bottom of the pyre. It caught at once, and the flames raced through the dry wood, turning it into a fiery holocaust in a matter of seconds.

Joseph did not stay for the end of the ceremony, but hurried back to the city in the wake of the chair bearing Claudia Procula and the slaves who followed it. The press of the crowd was still great and he made slow progress, so that by the time he reached the villa Mary had gone to rest in the partly enclosed garden that was a prominent part of the houses in this pleasant climate. Dark shadows lay under her eyes and weariness showed in her face when he found her, for it had been a long hard day. But the smile she gave him as he came into the garden quickened his heartbeat. When she held out her hands to him, he knelt and carried them to his lips. “You are free, Mary,” he cried. “Free at last.”