The Last Disciple (54 page)

The door opened, and Chayim saw the light of dozens of candles.

“Hurry.” A man’s arm reached out and pulled him inside.

Chayim stumbled through the entrance. As he blinked and tried to make sense of the room, another person shut the door behind him. “Welcome, brother,” said the man who had pulled him in. “Welcome in the name of Christ.”

It was a small room and smelled of fish. The small windows had been covered completely with dark blankets for privacy. The candles were perched on tables and ledges, revealing about a dozen men and women. A meal had been prepared and filled the top of the biggest table, centered among them.

“Thank you,” Chayim said.

He saw with satisfaction that on another table several scrolls had been set aside. If the letter he needed was among them, his troubles were over tonight!

Movement from the corner of his eye.

A woman had stepped forward. She took both his hands in greeting. “Rikka cannot be here tonight, as she is too badly injured. But she told me of you and how you saved her. I, in turn, have told the others. We all rejoice to have you among us.”

The gentleness in her voice hit him with the impact of a falling mountain, and because of it, the woman’s words of greeting barely registered in Chayim’s conscious thoughts. For the first time he could remember, he was at a loss for a reply of any kind.

It wasn’t that the woman was exceptionally beautiful, although there was no doubt that any man would have given her a second and third look as she moved through a marketplace. No, Chayim had never feared a woman’s beauty and knew how to use it against her, for he believed that all women had insecurities that could be leveraged by a man with the insight to find them.

But in this moment, as her eyes met his, Chayim felt a savage hunger to possess this woman.

Lust.

Later he would reflect again and again on this moment, enjoying and marveling at it as if it were a precious stone throwing exquisite light in different ways from different angles every time he looked at it anew. His hunger for her overwhelmed any other hungers he’d had in his life, and he vowed he would do what it took to satisfy it.

“Come, come! Introductions all around!” This came from Corbulo, the rough-handed fisherman who’d first opened the door for Chayim.

Still, silence.

Had the others understood his immediate reaction of lust? Was his intent to take her and possess her in any and all manners so obvious to all that they shared a silent horror?

Chayim wrenched his own stare away from her and forced composure upon himself. The rest were now looking at him expectantly.

Before arranging to seem like a hero to Rikka by intervening in her beating, he’d decided a false identity was the only way to ensure safety in a group of Christians who might be arrested for treason at any moment. The story he would give them now must be the same story he’d given to Rikka. He almost stammered as he gave all of them what he had so carefully prepared earlier.

“There is not much to say about myself,” Chayim said. “My name is Chayim. I am a Greek from the city of Agrigentum in Sicily. My father has sent me here to pursue contracts for his shipping fleet.”

Chayim pretended a modest shrug. “It is my father’s work and wisdom that built the family fortune. I cannot claim then a true ownership of whatever wealth allows me to stay in Rome, nor should I get undue credit for helping Rikka today.”

“A Greek?” one man asked. “Chayim sounds Jewish.”

Chayim had also prepared himself for this. The alternative, he’d decided, was a false Greek name, but the danger in that was his unfamiliarity with it. If someone addressed him by the Greek name and he didn’t respond, it would raise greater suspicion than the innocent question that had just been asked.

“It is Jewish,” Chayim said with a practiced chuckle. “But please don’t ask for the complicated story behind it. For my family was touched with scandal, and I prefer to let that sleeping dog lie. Especially here in Rome, where those who meet me are not prejudiced by the local gossip on the island.”

By the nods of the people, Chayim believed this falsehood had served its purpose. Cloaked him in mystery and deflected further questions. And it would make him look like a hero to the woman he wanted so badly to possess.

He dared another glance at her. Her eyes were on his face. He wanted to take her right here, hold her, drag her away, and he didn’t care whether or not she shared those feelings.

Chayim set his face into a mask of patience as one by one the others told him their names and their backgrounds. He wasn’t listening. He was counting them down until the woman who had greeted him had a chance to speak.

“Leah,” she said. She was the final person in the group. “My brother was among those who died in the Tribulation that began after the Great Fire in Rome. I am not a believer, but I seek the faith, so I am here tonight.”

Leah.

As she spoke, Chayim memorized her every feature. The long dark hair parted in a way that framed her high cheekbones. Her slender fingers, motionless as her hands rested gracefully on her lap. The unadorned dress. And her lips with a slight pout.

The fire within him grew. In his mind he could already taste her kiss. He tingled, thinking that she might protest, and that added to his sense of hunger.

“Leah,” he repeated aloud. He’d repeated all the other names, giving the illusion that he was attempting to remember each of them. But it was only Leah that mattered.

Chayim was about to move toward her, hoping to sit nearby as the group began the meeting. But Corbulo took him by the elbow and sat him opposite Leah. Chayim tried to hide his stare in her direction as the group sang a hymn unfamiliar to him.

They shared a meal, breaking bread and drinking wine in honor of the flesh and blood of Christ, a ritual that made little sense to Chayim. He pretended to match their reverence and joy, but his mind—and eyes—turned to Leah again and again.

Where did she live? How could he meet her again after what he knew would happen tonight?

As he speculated, the group continued with the meal. More hymns.

Chayim tried to plot a way he could have her. He felt as if he were in a pan of water slowly coming to boil. He knew what he had wanted before entering this room. Yet it had all changed from the moment Leah took his hands.

And soon everything would change again, because of events he’d started in motion earlier. Perhaps now was the time to warn them all to flee.

But if he did, they’d know he was responsible. And that knowledge would most certainly drive Leah from him, before he’d taken his chance with her.

Chayim’s heart rate increased with dread and anticipation. How could he protect Leah without her discovering the betrayal he planned? How could—?

The door suddenly burst open.

And six armed Roman soldiers marched into the room.

“You look exhausted, my friend,” John said to Ruso. “Did you have visitors late into the night?”

“I did,” Ruso answered. “Military men consulting with me on Senate matters.” He was lying to his friend. The two visitors were highly ranked in the military, but nothing about the Senate had been discussed. If John knew how little sleep Ruso had had the night before or the reason for the long hours with those men, John would begin to suspect too much.

Ruso wanted them to move to a safer subject. “As you know,” he said, “I, like all the other believers, have taken great comfort in the eyewitness accounts about Jesus written for us by you and Matthew and John Mark and Luke.”

John stopped walking and faced Ruso. He smiled an invitation for Ruso to continue, as if he sensed Ruso was leading to a question.

They were returning from the hours spent together visiting families of men in prison for refusing to renounce their faith in Jesus. Ruso’s role was one of silence as John spoke quietly to each family. Ruso was simply glad that he had the resources to help them with money and food. But it was John whom the men and women leaned on for much more than material gifts. He answered their questions, absorbed their fears, and spoke of Jesus with such certainty that in each household hope replaced despair.

Ruso knew that such effort exhausted John, and usually their trips through the streets back to the peace of the hillside were completed in companionable silence.

It was unusual, then, for Ruso to interrupt John’s thoughts during the walk. “I’ve never asked you,” Ruso continued quickly, “but . . .” He hesitated, conscious of his reluctance to press on their friendship. John, although he shrugged it off, was often elevated by their fellow believers because of the special relationship he’d had with Jesus. Ruso avoided taking advantage of his friendship with John to ask about Jesus in a way that seemed he was only interested in the celebrity aspect of John’s reputation. In general, John seemed relaxed with Ruso, often glad for the reprieve from the demands placed on him by other believers.

Yet . . .

Of any time that Ruso wanted John distracted, it was now. And Ruso had genuine questions that he doubted he’d ever get a chance to ask John again.

“But . . . ?” John echoed to encourage him.

They had stopped. Passersby flowed around them. They were in the shadows of apartments that lined a crowded street. A marketplace square was behind them and ahead was the Via Sacra, the main thoroughfare they usually took out of the center of Rome toward the household of Ruso.

“Let me put it this way,” Ruso said. “In Matthew’s account of the time Jesus spent on the Mount of Olives, he tells his readers that Jesus prophesied the abomination that causes desecration in the temple. Yet Luke’s account makes no mention of it. We know that’s because Matthew was writing to a Jewish audience who would immediately understand the importance of Jesus speaking those words. And Luke wrote to the Gentiles, who would find much less meaning in that. So the accounts differ.”

“Of course,” John said.

“And will you agree with me that the truth behind any event can be presented in as many ways as there are witnesses to it? For example, a great battle. The generals will report it differently than the soldiers, and the soldiers differently than the cooks at the supply wagons, and the defeated enemies yet again from another perspective.”

John smiled. “Such is human nature.”

“Yet none of the accounts would be false. And blended together, they would give a far greater view of the truth of the event than any one account. Just as the different accounts of Jesus give us a more complete perspective. Differences. Not contradictions.”

John nodded. “I cannot disagree with you. Why do you ask?”

“Judas,” Ruso said. Inwardly, he winced to say the name. “The betrayer. I’ve always wondered about your account of that night.”

John’s face clouded briefly. “Yes,” he said slowly. “What about Judas?”

“On your Passover evening with Jesus,” Ruso said, “Judas was allowed to depart from your last supper with Him. Yet Jesus had told all of you that one would betray Him. Didn’t any of you wonder when Judas slipped out?”

John sighed. “He was the keeper of the purse. Jesus spoke in a low voice to him. It appeared to us that he was sent out to purchase bread or something else that our Master needed. He was the most zealous of us all. We never dreamed he was the betrayer. Although . . .”

John had begun to walk again.

Ruso took his elbow and gently slowed him. Ahead and too soon, the slave Cornelius would be waiting with Damian, the famed slave hunter. Too soon, Ruso would never see John again.

John was deep in memory and didn’t seem to notice that Ruso had slowed their pace. “I remember,” John said, “that before Judas left, Simon Peter leaned toward Jesus from his cushion beside the Passover table and asked, ‘Lord, who is it?’ And Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I give the bread dipped in the sauce.’ Jesus then dipped the bread and gave it to Judas.”

“It wasn’t plain then that Judas was the betrayer?”

“Not plain at all. Peter and I exchanged glances but didn’t see the significance of it. Judas was fiercely proud and had taken the seat of honor. It was expected that Jesus would hand him the bread first.”

Ruso understood. A trusting man is easily deceived. He did not have to look any further than John’s trust for him to know that.

“That proves my point about the truth behind an event,” Ruso said. “Matthew was there in the room yet does not record the conversation between Peter and Jesus.”

“He didn’t hear it. Only Peter and I were close enough to Jesus.” John shook his head. “And Judas of course. That poor, poor man.”

“You speak of him with such compassion.” Inwardly, Ruso winced again, thinking about betrayal. He hoped in the days ahead that John would speak of him, too, in such a gentle manner.

“I cannot be sure,” John continued, “but I believe Judas turned Jesus over to the authorities to force Jesus to act against them. Think about it. We had spent three years with Jesus, witnessed His miracles, seen Him calm a storm, watched Him walk on water. Judas, as a Zealot, burned for Jesus to overthrow the temple authorities, for they worked closely with the Romans. And most of all, as a Zealot, Judas wanted the Romans gone. All of us disciples believed that if Jesus so desired, an army of angels would have appeared to do His bidding. Judas, I am almost certain, thought that if Jesus was captured, He would have no choice but to fight.”