A Stray Drop of Blood (37 page)

“
Not well, Lord. Some hours, she is peaceful and her fever lets up, others she tosses in delirium and burns to the touch. The doctor who has already come says it is her mind causing the affliction, and that treating her body is useless. I fear he is right.”

Drusus sighed, raking a hand through his gray hair. He looked weary. “Let us pray if it is the case, we can find a way to treat her soul.” They walked a few steps in silence. “And Jason’s wife? How is she and the child?”

Andrew listened carefully to the tone of voice and found no fault in his concern. “Both are healthy as far as we can tell. Abigail has been very tired throughout these months, and the worry of our mistress has only made it worse this past fortnight. She should deliver soon.”

Drusus nodded. “Let us pray it is a son. Cleopas deserves an heir. I have none, and if the estates were to come to me, they would also end with me. I do not want the Visibullis name to perish along with this generation.”

Andrew nodded in understanding, pleased that the man realized it was more a matter of family than self.

They were near the house, then, and entered quickly, with no ado. Drusus insisted that he be shown to Ester at once.

He sat with her for ten minutes; she was in one of her incoherent phases of delirium. Andrew stood with Simon and Dinah outside in the hallway while he questioned her, felt the pulse in her wrist, and tested her forehead with a knowing hand. Then he was silent and still, obviously contemplating. At last, he stood and moved into the hall.

“
I dare to agree with the other physician,” he told them. “She is troubled and sick of heart. We need to get her away from this house for a while. Every time she opens her eyes, she sees what Cleopas gave her, the room she delivered her son in. Simon, make arrangements to leave here. The sooner the better. I would like to start today, before the Sabbath. I have a friend with an inn outside the city. It is pleasant and quiet, and very peaceful. I think it would be a good place for her to go for a while.”

No one objected. In fact, they all sprang into action. Simon headed out to make the travel arrangements, Dinah set about getting food for the short trip and otherwise closing the kitchen, and Andrew began to pack for Ester, since Abigail had not yet returned.

“
Where is her daughter?” Drusus asked after a half an hour had gone by. Andrew had finished his self-assigned task and was ready to head to his own chamber to pack for himself.

He sighed and shook his head. “She was going to watch the trial of the teacher we heard while visiting you in Ephraim. She would not listen when we told her it was unwise. But she should be returning soon.”

“
Good. We need to leave soon. I do not like the look of that storm moving in. It will only take us an hour to reach the inn, but the clouds say that may be barely enough time.” He turned to Ester once more, and his brows flew up. “Who is that?”

Andrew turned to see Samuel had joined Ester on the bed and was caressing her temple with a small hand. He smiled. “Abigail’s servant, Samuel. Though he is more her son now. The young master purchased him not long before the uprising. He has been an amazing comfort to us all.”

Drusus smiled for the first time, erasing some of the tension in his visage. “He appears to have a gift for soothing. Ester has quieted.” He chuckled. “A future physician if ever I saw one.”

Andrew surveyed the peaceful scene for a moment, then began to worry once more. Abigail had been gone too long already.

~*~

Titus awoke that morning hungry for revenge. It was not sated because of the command of a fickle crowd. It only shifted in its focus. When Barabbas was set free, when he was given the order to see the man outside, he knew he would still have his lust fulfilled, even if he had to track him down like a deer and kill him himself. And then he would see that Pilate, that Herod, that the religious leaders, that Jerusalem itself felt the force of his rage. When he returned to Rome, he would play in politics as his father wished, and he would set the entire force of the empire on the proud little nation that thought it just to crucify a teacher who taught lessons they did not like.

Had the fools never read Plato? Did they think they were the first to execute a man for saying things that offended the elect? What did it do to Socrates but make him a martyr, a symbol for centuries to come? If they wanted a man to be forgotten, they should not deal with him publicly. The fact that these rulers of the synagogue could not figure that out did not speak well of them to Titus.

But he released Barabbas because to do otherwise would result in punishment. He went back in to see to the one who took his place. But inside, he wanted nothing to do with the man they called King of the Jews.

It was his job to lead the man to the Praetorium. He did so hollowly, his face never portraying any emotion. But when the rest of the garrison gathered around and mocked the man, forcing a twisted crown of thorns into his head until the blood dripped down into sorrowful eyes, Titus averted his gaze. It was not the sight of blood that bothered him. It was the sight of blood that should have been Barabbas’s.

“
Hail, King of the Jews!” One of the soldiers beside him laughed at the ridiculous form the prisoner made, wearing one of the general’s scarlet robes that would forever be ruined by the crimson blood. A centurion spat on him, another took up a reed and struck him on the head. Titus listened to the crack of the crown and knew that the blow would have driven the thorns even deeper into the man’s head. But the captive only groaned, never fighting back or lashing out like most of the prisoners would have.

“
Enough!” Titus stepped forward, hand held up. “Get those off him,” he ordered, motioning toward the scarlet robes, “and put his clothes back on. We have a crucifixion to see to.”

The men jumped to carry out his words. One soldier pulled off the red cloth, another threw on his original garment. Everyone else prepared for the procession to Golgotha. Within minutes, they were on their way. Outside the Praetorium, they thrust the crosses at the three prisoners being led to execution. Only the third had been so beaten that he could not manage his own cross.

“
You.” Titus grabbed a man as he walked by. The citizen looked terrified when he looked up into his face, but Titus just tossed him in the general direction of the third cross. “Bear the cross for your king.”

The man looked timidly around him, then his gaze rested on Jesus. Instead of uttering a protest, he shouldered the burden and fell into the line. Titus watched with a hint of amazement. He knew it was not his authority that made the man offer no objection. Perhaps he had just taken pity on the creature doubled up in pain.

“
March!” The drums began to beat their cadence.

They were just outside the city when the Nazarene stumbled and fell, unable to get up no matter how many prodded him with unmerciful feet.

“
Stop it!” Titus roared when one of his men kicked him in the ribs. “He will die on his own soon enough. Pick him up.”

But the soldier hesitated. Titus did not give the order again. He merely glared at his comrade and reached down himself to haul the abused man to his feet.

“
Forgive him.”

Titus froze when he heard the whisper. He looked into the face of his prisoner. One eye was swollen closed, the other bruised but open. The iris that looked at him was a deep brown, filled with improbable compassion. “What?” Titus sucked in a quick breath, unable to believe the man would dare to speak and say something so absurd.

“
He knows not what he did.” Jesus’s words obviously took effort. His lips were broken open.

Titus turned from the face because he could not stand to see the mercy within it. What place did mercy have in this world, where good men were killed while criminals ran free? Why should this condemned teacher tell him to forgive his soldier for something that was not even worth forgiving?

“
Forgive him,” Jesus whispered again. “He did not wish to be set free.”

Titus lifted the man, put an arm around him to support him, and fell back into line. Barabbas–he spoke of Barabbas. But such an order was impossible. And how would he even know to make it? Had he spoken to Barabbas while they were being held? Had the murderer told the teacher that Titus had been the one to drag him into custody?

No. He had been there the whole time. The two had not spoken, though their gazes had held for a long moment. Was it possible. . . ? No. No man read minds. This one must have just been very perceptive. He must have seen how Titus felt toward Barabbas, how angry he had been to have to release him.

Titus felt a burning on his hand, the one that gripped his prisoner. Looking over in mixed irritation and alarm, he wondered what could be causing it. What he saw was a trickle of the man’s blood running over his own flesh. Strange. He did not feel the tickle of the fluid, or the bodily heat. No, what he felt was an intense sensation that began at the point of contact and slowly coursed through him. He began to shake.

Jesus looked over at him. They were climbing the hill to Golgotha now, approaching the final scene of his life. He knew it. His one good eye said clearly that he knew it, that there was no escape. But still, those split and broken lips turned up into an expression too pained to be called a smile but nevertheless meant to give comfort.

“
It is as they say,” he whispered.

Titus did not have to ask what it was they said. The thought had crossed his mind a heartbeat before the man spoke.

~*~

Abigail watched the first to pass by. Soldiers, those who would stand guard to be sure the masses did not swarm forward during the execution. They were followed by one of the prisoners. He staggered under the load of the cross that was on his shoulder, but the soldiers that followed had no mercy. The whip lashed out, and curses were hurled in Greek and Latin. The crowd roared out a chorus of derogatory epithets in Hebrew and Greek.

“
A thief,” Jairus said to Abigail. “He was caught stealing from the tax money bound for Rome.”

Abigail nodded, absently rubbing at the ache forming in her lower back. She watched the second group of Romans march by, then the second criminal. He stumbled before them under the burden. One centurion kicked him, another grabbed the cross long enough for the man to stand, then put it back on his shoulders.

Jairus nodded. “One of the rebels caught in the uprising. Caught, I might add, with a considerable amount of gold stolen from a wealthy citizen I know.”

“
Barabbas would have been in his regular company.” Her eyes moved down the row of people marching by in search of the one who had taken his place.

“
Indeed. And Jesus, too, though very differently. He spoke to the wretched to give them hope. Now he will die as though one of them.”

The third cross came into view, but the man carrying it was obviously not the convicted. He wore clean garments, and he bore the burden with strength. His face, however, betrayed his turmoil. The reason for it soon became clear. Before him staggered the Nazarene, so beaten that he could not walk under his own power, so weakened he would have dropped under the weight of the cross. Abigail could not tear her gaze from the pitiful man. His hair was tangled and matted with dried blood, fresh life oozing from wounds on his face. From the side, Abigail could see that his lips were cracked, his nose bleeding, his eyes swollen. Nausea burst in her stomach, but still she could not look away.

She had never seen the man in person before, certainly never so close. The stories she had heard, the image she had drawn was a far cry from this reality before her. What she saw was a man broken, battered, abused. What she had expected was someone with shoulders thrown back in strength, laughing in the face of the world. From what she could see as he stumbled nearer to her, he was weak–but still, a breath at the back of her neck told her there was more than merely what she could see. Even as he was half dragged along, there was a power in him. A strength that she saw in his silence, something that went deeper than anything she had within herself.

He was close now, only a step away, and Abigail had a horrible fear that he would look at her. Quite suddenly, that thought struck her as unbearable. She knew, knew with every portion of her being, that if he looked at her, he would see her in her completeness. He would see how black her soul had become with sin and hatred and bitterness. He would see all she had done and thought to do and wished herself capable of. He would see that though she wished him spared, it was only so that another could die in his place.

Something within her drew back the closer he got, pulled at her until she wanted to turn and flee to escape his approaching presence. But Jairus was still at her side, gazing silently now at the man before him.

Jesus stumbled on a rock and would have fallen if it had not been for the centurion holding him up. All of her focus, all of her concentration was on the man who was falling toward his knees. Then an arm caught him, and he jerked against gravity. Jesus’ head flew back, his eyes turning to heaven and his mouth opening as if to speak.

The action broke open one of his wounds, and his crimson life dripped onto the ground. He was pulled to his feet, and his head was once again jarred. A stray drop of blood arched through the air and landed on the round of Abigail’s stomach.

Immediately, she felt a burning on the flesh beneath her garment. It was so quick, so debilitating that she could not even respond. A fire spread through her, devouring her, leaving in its wake a relief that brought tears to her eyes. She looked down at the stain on her clothes in disbelief. It was so small, so insignificant. One little drop of red, a perfect starburst against the faded blue of her woolen tunic.