The Thief (36 page)

Longinus closed his eyes and pulled in a breath. The tang of blood pervaded the air. Groans from the thieves and the mocking voices of the crowd pressed down on him. The legionaries moved to the bottom of the cross, pulling Jesus’ legs straight and positioning his feet over the block of wood that would hold the nail. They looked up to Longinus.

Longinus’s chest squeezed tight, too tight to pull in a breath. He backed away from the cross.
No. I can’t do it.

Jesus’ head lolled to one side. He opened his eyes and fixed them on Longinus.

Longinus wrenched off his helmet, dropped it on the ground, and swiped a hand across his wet eyes. He kneeled and laid his hand on the feet that had walked the roads of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem.

The legionary pushed down hard on Jesus’ feet, flattening the arches against the wooden block, stretching the tendons of his ankles until Jesus let out a low moan.

Longinus positioned the point of the nail. He raised the mallet, and it fell. The nail pierced the soft flesh, and blood poured from it, over his hands. Another strong, square blow sent the nail through bone and into the wood. It was done.

Jesus lay on the cross, his muscles standing out in tension, the tendons of his neck tight and defined. The shadows deepened, as though night were falling in the middle of the day.

Longinus dropped the mallet, his heart straining against his chest. He bent double, coughing and spitting bile from his empty stomach. He wiped his face with his blood-covered hands. He had feared for Jesus in the garden last night. He had felt the presence of death, and now he knew why. He was the instrument of that death. Surely the god of the Jews would strike him down.
I hope he does.

His men looped rope around the cross and raised it between the thieves.

Men and women gathered. Some shouted insults and threw stones; others watched silently. In front, in the shadow of the cross, stood a group of women and the young disciple who had been in the garden.

Longinus longed to go to them, to beg their forgiveness.
I am their enemy.

Nissa lay crumpled at the foot of Dismas’s cross. The blood of innocent men was on both their hands, a crime that could never be forgiven.

Footsteps shuffled, and donkeys’ hooves struck stone. A group of Jews—Pharisees, priests, the ones who had gathered in the front during the trial—approached the cross. One pointed to the sign affixed above Jesus’ head. “It should say, ‘This man claimed to be King of the Jews.’ ”

Another spit at the foot of the cross. “Let him come down now, and we will believe in him.”

Anger surged through Longinus. Hadn’t they done enough? Must they now mock him during his agony? He struggled to his feet, clutching his vitis. He’d make them regret their harsh words. At least he could do that for the man on the cross.

He approached them with his vitis raised, but Jesus strained forward, pushing his feet against the block of wood and taking a deep breath. His voice rang out. “Abba, forgive them.” He battled for another breath. “They know not what they do.”

The Jews gasped. “How dare he!”

Longinus froze.
How could he?
Forgive the men who had falsely accused him, betrayed him, given Pilate no choice but to execute him? A new thought cut through his disbelief, and the vitis dropped from his slack fingers.
Abba, forgive them.
Did he . . . Could he mean all of them? Even the man who had brought him to Golgotha and pounded the nails into his hands and feet?

He turned his gaze to the bleeding man on the cross. No.
Forgiveness should bring peace. The peace he’d seen in Stephen. He had a knot of guilt in his gut. He held out his hands, covered in the blood of an innocent man. No, Jesus didn’t mean him. He wasn’t a Jew, one of the Chosen People. He wasn’t even a good man, like Stephen or the thief who had given his life for Nissa. He was a Roman centurion. A killer. There would be no forgiveness—and no peace—for him.

Chapter 33

N
ISSA OPENED HER
eyes, the sky and land still spinning around her. Her head rested on the wood of the cross; her arms were wrapped around the base. The sky was the color of soot, as though night were falling.

From the center cross, words scraped through the air. “Abba, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

Forgive them? Just as he had forgiven the woman that day so long ago. How could he?

She raised her face to Dismas. He was struggling to get his breath, his eyes on Jesus. “Listen to him, Nissa. Have you ever heard such words?”

Longinus stood beside Jesus’ cross, his blood-covered hands outstretched. His helmet lay on the ground, and a smear of blood covered his face. His mouth was pulled tight as if to keep it from trembling.

She sank down into the dirt. There was no forgiveness here in this place of pain and despair. Only regret for what couldn’t change.

Two women—she’d seem them last night, the mother of Jesus and the beautiful one—and a young man inched closer to Jesus. Longinus moved away from Jesus—reluctantly, it seemed. The women rushed forward and threw themselves at the foot of the cross. Just like Nissa, they huddled there, but their tears flowed freely, while hers were locked deep inside her.

A man spit at the base of the cross. “He saved others. Why can’t he save himself?”

Gestas, on the other side of Jesus with no mourners at his feet, struggled to take a breath, then croaked, “Yes, save yourself and us, King of the Jews.”

Dismas jerked up with a groan of agony, raising himself enough to take a rasping breath. “Gestas, don’t you fear God?”

Nissa’s heart cramped in her chest.

Dismas gulped in another breath. “We . . . we deserve our punishment.” He pulled himself higher on the cross and looked toward Jesus. “But this man is no criminal.”

Dismas’s voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Jesus.” He bowed his head as Jesus turned to look at him. “I am a sinful man.” Dismas pushed his feet against the block of wood, his legs trembling with effort. “But I beg you, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Nissa looked at Jesus—covered in blood, pinned to a cross, almost dead.
What can Dismas see that I do not?

Jesus answered like a king. “Amen, I say to you,” he croaked, as though the words tore at his throat. “This day, you will be with me in Paradise.”

The scribes scoffed, and the legionaries laughed. Gestas threw another curse before groaning and slumping down. But Dismas looked at Nissa, his eyes cleared for a moment of the agony that had clouded them. “Did you hear him? Today, Nissa, I will be in Paradise.”

A lump in her throat choked off Nissa’s breath. She rested her cheek on the damp wood. If only she could believe it. She’d thought yesterday that this man could save Dismas, but he couldn’t save anyone.

A Pharisee spit in the direction of the cross. “The world is rid of two fools today. One who says he is the son of God, and one who believes him!”

I wish I could believe it.
If Dismas went to Paradise today, the Lord was, indeed, merciful.

You know better,
the voice whispered from a lightless place that threatened to swallow her.

Jesus raised his head. His words rang out over the windswept hillside and echoed the despair in Nissa’s heart. “My God . . . my God . . . why have you abandoned me?”

LONGINUS STOOD BESIDE
the cross and looked up at the sky. The sun was hidden, as though a storm approached, but no smell of rain or cool wind freshened the air. Instead, a hot, fetid wind blew, and the smell of death surrounded him—blood, fear, and the heavy sweetness of incense from the temple.

A group of legionaries played dice and drank wine. The others stood guard, their faces stoic, but Longinus knew they were hoping the men would die quickly so they could get back to their tents and have their dinner. He’d been in their position plenty of times.

He, too, hoped for quick death. Jesus’ tortured breaths were like a knife cutting into his soul. He could do nothing for this man but stand beside him. Was he the son of God, as Stephen had claimed?
I don’t know who he is.
But he’d seen him defeat the specter of death in the garden. And Longinus knew this cross, this suffering and death—for some reason known only to Jesus—was willingly borne. And it was done at the will of the god of Israel, the Abba that Jesus had prayed to in the garden.

He would stay until the end, until Jesus took his final breath. Then Silvanus would come, and Pilate would have no mercy.

A legionary, one of Silvanus’s lackeys, labored up the hill, his cloak blowing wildly in the wind. The man stopped in front of Longinus. “You are to report to Pilate immediately.”

Silvanus hadn’t wasted any time. Longinus’s hands itched to strike out at the centurion’s messenger. “After he’s dead.”

“Immediately.”

Longinus let out a long breath. Whatever they did to him, it
couldn’t be worse than what Jesus was suffering. A Roman citizen couldn’t be crucified, but there were many ways to die.

“You’ve done your duty. Go back and tell Pilate I’ll be there when I get there.” He returned to his position beside the cross. Everyone—except these women and a disciple hardly more than a boy—had left Jesus. He wouldn’t.

Jesus hung limply, his head bowed, his breath quick and shallow. He opened his eyes as Longinus approached, looking at him alone. Longinus dropped his gaze to his bloody hands. Did Jesus despise him? Hate him for pounding the nails, for inflicting this torture?
If I could do something to ease his suffering, I would.

“I thirst.” The words left Jesus’ lips like a sigh.

Longinus jerked to attention. He ran to the legionaries, grabbed a hyssop branch, and speared it through a sponge floating in a jar of sour wine.

He carried the dripping sponge to Jesus and raised it to his cracked and bleeding lips.

Jesus put his mouth to the sponge and swallowed. Jesus’ eyes met his for a moment. The peace he saw in them stretched to eternity. Longinus pulled the sponge away, his heart pounding. How could this man—dying on a cross—have such peace?

Jesus pushed his feet hard on the block at the base of the cross and took a short breath. His gaze went to the younger woman and the lone disciple. Finally, he looked at the older woman.

His mouth formed words, hardly more than whispers. “It is finished.”

The shofar blew from the temple mount, signaling the sacrifice of the lambs for Passover was complete. Jesus’ head fell to the side. His straining legs and arms relaxed, and his body sank low on the cross. As the last echo of the horn faded, Longinus bowed his head and closed his eyes. It was over. Death had triumphed, victorious even over this man who had worked miracles.

A deep tremble shot through his legs. He opened his eyes.
The ground shook. The wind howled like a pack of wild dogs. Men and women shouted and grabbed one another to steady themselves.

Where was Nissa? There, still wrapped around the base of Dismas’s cross.

The legionaries standing in formation broke ranks but didn’t run. Marcellus stumbled toward Longinus. “What is it?”

Longinus shook his head. The wrath of God? Or the wrath of the underworld?

The trembling intensified, and the sky continued to darken into a night without stars or moon. What was next? Hail? Lightning bolts? His men called out to their gods and looked at the sky. He needed to get them out of here.

One of the scribes approached through the gloom. His face was white and his chest heaved, but he motioned to the crosses and raised his voice over the wind. “They can’t stay up there. It’s Passover.”

Longinus’s hands tightened into fists.
The wrath of God descends, and these scrupulous cowards worry about Passover?
He pushed the scribe aside and nodded to Marcellus. “Get the mallet. Break their legs.” At least he’d be able to shorten Dismas’s suffering.

Marcellus picked up the iron mallet and slammed it into Gestas’s shin. Gestas screamed. The next blow broke his other leg. Gestas’s body slumped, unable to support him. His screams turned to gasps for air as Marcellus moved on to Dismas.

The earth shuddered and groaned. Stones tumbled from the side of the hill down into the ravine below. The hot wind increased, spinning coils of dust over the hill.

Nissa threw her body against Dismas’s cross. She pressed her cheek against his feet, her hands covering his lower legs. If Marcellus swung the mallet, surely he’d hit her.

Longinus looked up at the Greek, dying for Nissa’s crime. Jesus forgave the men who had sentenced him to death. His heart hardened.
But I can’t forgive Nissa.
She didn’t deserve
forgiveness any more than he did. He staggered toward Dismas’s cross as another tremor shook the earth. He’d make sure Marcellus could do his job.

The scribe intercepted him. “Wait. What about him?” He jutted his chin toward Jesus.

Jesus? Longinus stepped between the scribe and the center cross. “He’s already dead.”

“I have to make sure.” He glanced around, his eyes wild with fear. “Now. Break his legs, too.”