At first the rumbling behind me sounded like exotic drumming. Caravans are filled with foreign music. But the sound grew louder and moved closer until I realized it was the noise of the crowd. People were stampeding behind a man with spindle legs who tottered through the alley. He was old, but he moved like a baby taking his first steps. I had seen him before;it took me a moment to place him. The crippled beggar, we had passed him at the city gate. Somehow, he was walking toward me. A mob crushed around him. Zorah is cured! they shrieked. The healer from Nazareth saved him.
Octavia broke through the crowd and pulled me away from the stalls.
Where are we going? I asked, but I could not hear above the roar. Past the tiny yellow flowers that framed the main road, Octavia led and I followed. When we reached a grassy hillside, I looked down at the crowd shambling onto the slope below us like wounded animals. The stronger carried the maimed on their backs. It was as if half the world were coming there to die.
I recognized one woman. She had recently been healed, Id been told. We all know one anothers business in the Galilee. For eight years this woman was possessed by demons. She often lapsed into fits and fell on the ground, her body rigid as a corpse.
She wore a fine woolen cloak colored by the most expensive shellfish dye. Our paths rarely crossed. She was a devout Jew. Good woman, she called to me. Jesus can help you, he helped me.
I looked into her eyes and saw no pain in them. She was cured of her illness. I could tell by the way she walked, upright and strong rather than bent in anticipation. She pointed my way down the hill toward the healer. We approached him, and he turned as if he heard someone calling his name. He looked directly at me.
From a distance all I could see was his dark hair and his long, narrow features. There was such compassion in his manner that I could not take my eyes from him.
I went a few steps closer for a better view. His hair curled as gently as a babys. His lips were longer than any Id ever noticed. His eyes were as dark as the pool where Narcissus first discovered his own beauty. I knew that this man would listen to me and understand.
Something held me back. It was too suddenI was not sure what might happen if I got close to him. What if he refused me in front of all those people? What if I was the unlucky one who got worse, not better, because of him?
Pulling away, I rushed toward the road, shouting for my manservant, Phineas. He found me quickly and led me to my litter. I hid there with the curtains drawn shut and ordered Octavia to walk very close by until we were well outside the city. He would have healed me that very day, I am certain. If only I had trusted him. The heart is a timid hunter when it does not yet know what it seeks.
I was so disturbed by my near encounter in Sepphoris that I looked forward to returning to Tiberias. Chuza and I left for the capital several days after my ordeal. One of our first nights, my husband and I attended a birthday party for Herod Antipas. It was an effort to get dressed, knowing what a show of false gaiety the evening would require. I tossed aside six pairs of earrings before settling on gold hoops. They looked as ostentatious as the others, but time demanded that I make a choice.
Are you ready? Chuza called from the atrium. I could picture him, rapping his fingers against the wall. A quick glance in my mirror restored my confidence. I smiled at my rolling brown hair that was wrapped, just so, around a headband as slim as a new moon.
Coming, I answered in a pretended rush.
He smiled as I walked toward him with a swish of frothy drapery. My dress was copied after the statute of Venus in Antipass garden. Chuzas attentions lifted the clouds that had settled above me.
We walked the stone pathway to Antipass palace. It was a lesson in the labors that support a royal life. Eight solid gold lanterns shaped like papyrus blossoms lit our way. Egyptian imports, I could tell by the blocky shapes. A team of craftsmen had taken at least six weeks to complete the set. Crossing the mosaic carpet of blue-tipped pheasants in the reception area, I guessed the number of workers needed to install the floor; one to engineer it, as many as nine to lay it in, for a period of not less than two months.
On the way through the house a servant who knew us well allowed us a side trip to the dining room. Antipas had flamboyant tastes and liked his guests to compliment him. I wanted to be prepared.
The room was transformed under a gauzy tent that fluttered from the ceiling. Trapeze bars hovered above the dining couches, hinting at the nights entertainment. I felt my skin tingle in revolt. I could already guess what had been planned.
Chuza led me away, tripping over a dancing monkey as we left the room. The chattering creature screamed at us and chased us down the hall past murals of Bacchus and his tipsy friends, their faces buried in their goblets. My husband kept a protective arm around me, sensing, as I had, what the tent and decor implied. Romes most famous transvestite, Flavia, was to be the special guest of the evening. My husband did not approve of parties meant for the officers club. Not when women were present.
In the garden, Antipas stood beside his wife, Herodias, who leaned possessively against him. My eyes went directly to the imperial ring he wore, the one he used for sealing Roman documents. It seemed an intentional show of his authority. His thinning brown hair was crowned with a laurel wreath. Id never seen him act a closer imitation of a Caesar. Ambition rose off him like an unattractive odor. He was fiftysix years old that night and noticeably eager to secure a higher position in Caesars inner circle.
Joanna, youre here at last, he said, a bit too familiar. Chuza ignored it. He was accustomed to Antipass awkward attempts as a ladies man.
My Lord Tetrarch. I gave him an inflated title.
He embraced Chuza like a favorite brother. Antipas had so few real friends that he made more of trusted colleagues than was appropriate.
I listened quietly, until he chose to speak to me. Tell me the news of my kingdom, he said, leaning toward me. I know everything about how to rule Galilee but never enough about the people I govern. He moved slightly away from his wife to suggest that I was at liberty to be frank. Shes not interested in such matters, he said, casting a glance toward her.
Their marriage was a complicated arrangement. Her grandfather was Antipass father, Herod the Great. She abandoned her first husband for Antipas and he put aside a perfectly acceptable wife. It was a messy display, ripe for gossip. Herodias wanted a more powerful husband than the one she had. Antipas simply wanted everything that he did not already own. His incestuous marriage to Herodias infuriated the Hebrews in his court, although he was one of them in name at least. The fact is, his family converted. He would never be fully a Hebrew, as his mother was a Samaritan woman. He had ignored the marriage laws just as he did all the others that got in his way.
I took a small silver rabbit from my pocket, a lucky charm from my afternoon shopping, and showed it to Antipas. He and I had one thing in common. Magic excited us. It was a faithless womans answer to divine intervention.
There is a new man in Galilee, I said. Everyone is talking about him.
His name, tell me his name.
Jesus, from Nazareth.
Who? His voice cracked. Competition made him wild.
He is the center of attention.