The Last Disciple (56 page)

As the irons bit into his wrist, Chayim made another plea. “Give those of us who are faithful to Caesar a chance to declare their allegiance now. How can Caesar find injustice in that? And perhaps those who are true to Caesar will show you gratitude for that chance at freedom.”

This was the brilliance of Chayim’s plan. To force these Christians to choose between Nero and their faith. Those who did not choose Nero would be taken away by half the soldiers. After that, those who did choose Nero would be threatened with further punishment unless they helped Chayim. After all, Chayim had judged, these people would also be likely to further betray their cause and divulge whatever Chayim needed to find out about the treasonous letter circulating among the Christians.

At the same time, by remaining behind with those who chose Nero, Chayim could also renounce any belief in the Christ of Nazareth and clear himself of any danger with Nero, especially if Chayim delivered those who did not renounce the Christ to the authorities for death in the arenas.

With the scrolls so near on the table, Chayim should have been very pleased about his decision to infiltrate the meeting and instruct soldiers to arrive when they did. The plan had been brilliant and was working to perfection.

Except now there was Leah. And the hunger that must be satisfied.

“At least consider what I am asking,” Chayim said to Gavrus. “Give those who choose Nero their freedom. And you will have their gratitude.”

“Gratitude at the chance for freedom,” Gavrus repeated. The big soldier made a show of studying Chayim and of considering how to respond. “How much gratitude?” Gavrus finally asked.

“I suspect you can name your price,” Chayim said, “especially since those who choose the Christos are guilty of treason and will face death in the arena.”

Gavrus pretended to consider that as he paced back and forth in front of the small group.

Chayim stared at his feet, feeling a flush of hatred for the soldier. Earlier in the day, this arrangement had seemed like a perfect solution to the task that Helius had placed upon him. Now, Gavrus and what they had planned stood between Chayim and Leah.

“Fine,” Gavrus said. “Let’s find out who wants to escape the arena. As for payment, whatever gold or silver or jewelry we find among the group should be enough. Those who are going to die will have no need of it, and those who live will find it a small price to pay.”

Gavrus pointed a sword at an old man whose hands were folded in prayer. “You. Tell me that Nero is god and you will continue to live as a loyal subject of Rome.”

The old man’s eyes were shiny with tears. He did not hesitate. “I follow the Christ, and I am happy to give my life for Him as He gave His for me.”

“Shackle him,” Gavrus said in a flat voice. He pointed at the next, obviously the son of the older man. “And you. Tell me that Nero is god, that you will no longer believe in the superstitious nonsense about a man risen from the dead. Save yourself from the lions and gladiators.”

Silence. The silence of agony.

“My father’s faith is my faith,” the son said, barely above a whisper. “I go to the arena with him.”

“Shackle him too.” Gavrus moved to stand in front of a middle-aged woman, who had a peaceful smile on her face. “Do you serve Nero? Or do you choose death?”

By the expression on her face, Chayim had no doubt what she would answer.

“Death for Christ gives me life,” she said. Her voice grew in strength. “Nero is the Beast that John warned us about in his revelation. I reject his mark.”

“Shackle her.”

“Nero is the Beast that John warned us about in his revelation.”

Before Chayim could puzzle over that remark, Gavrus faced Corbulo. “Will you serve Nero?” Gavrus asked the fisherman. “Will you bow before his image in the temples?”

“Yes,” Corbulo said. He glanced around the room defiantly. “I have a family to feed. Children who depend on me. Should I condemn them, too?”

No one made a sound but Gavrus. “Step over to the side of the room.”

Corbulo was stony-faced as he took trembling steps to stand alone.

“Peter betrayed the Master too,” a woman whispered to Corbulo. “And he was forgiven.”

“Silence!” Gavrus struck the woman’s head with an open hand.

She fell sideways. With great effort, she shifted to a sitting position. “I choose my Master,” she said. “His Spirit fills this room and gives us comfort.”

At the woman’s words, Chayim became aware of a supernatural presence so strong that even Gavrus hesitated before moving to the next person. And the next. Both refused to call Nero god. Both were shackled.

A young woman and a man who held her hand rose wordlessly before Gavrus could face them and joined Corbulo where he stood.

Leah was the last. Of all before her, only three had renounced their faith. The others had chosen arrest and the certain tortured death in the arena before thousands of spectators.

“You!” Gavrus said to Leah. “Will you throw your life away too?”

In conversation with John, Ruso began to walk again, leading John toward a small alley off the Via Sacra.

“So . . . ,” Ruso said as casually as he could, doing his best to mask the emotions storming inside him, wanting John to remain distracted by questions, “that is why you added your voice to the accounts of Matthew and John Mark and Luke? To give a more complete account of the time Jesus spent on earth?”

John put a companionable arm across Ruso’s shoulder. They separated again as a peddler led a loaded donkey between them, and then resumed the conversation at a comfortable walking pace.

“Jesus is the true God and eternal life; He is my Lord and King,” John said emphatically. “It was my calling and sacred trust to record the events and describe them for others.”

Ruso nodded. “It is important for the world to know what He did.”

“Yet all of us with Him could not have told everything. As you might remember—” John smiled, as if showing Ruso that he was quoting from his own letter now circulating among the believers—“‘if all the other things that Jesus did were written down, the whole world could not contain the books.’”

“I wish I could have been there,” Ruso said, “as you were.”

Ruso had turned into the alley. Afternoon shadows engulfed them. As did the odor of rotting garbage. They were alone, and even though they were only a few paces from the main street, it was much quieter.

“This is odd,” John said. “Usually we choose a different way to—”

“There is someone I want you to meet,” Ruso said. “It is important.” He began to walk quicker, so that John wouldn’t change his mind and retreat to the broader and busier street.

Once he was confident that John would stay with him, Ruso turned to him. “Of anything you might remember about me, it is that I have always considered you my friend. A brother.”

“You speak as if these are our last moments together,” John said.

Ruso was grim. He noticed that four large men stepped out of a nook in the alley and quickly approached from behind John. “These
are
our last moments together,” Ruso said.

John blinked. Before he could speak, the largest of the men threw a dark hood over John’s head. The other three were on him instantly, binding him with rope.

John did not struggle in the slightest. “Ruso,” he said, his voice muffled by the hood, “are you there? Have they hurt you?”

Ruso was too overwhelmed by guilt and regret and sorrow to answer.

John didn’t speak as the men bound his legs and arms. It was, without doubt, dawning on him that Ruso had not been attacked, and that meant Ruso had betrayed him to this capture.

“You are loved,” John finally said, voice still muffled. “If these are our last moments together, that is what I want you to remember of me. God will never turn away from you if you reach out to Him. I wish Judas would have understood that.”

Ruso still could not find his voice. He motioned for the four men to take John away.

They did, lifting him from the ground and carrying him as if he were nothing more than a log. Farther down the alley, they stopped to get a large piece of woven tapestry they’d kept there in preparation.

They rolled John into the tapestry, completely engulfing him. Nobody watching them walk down the street would have guessed they carried a man inside. They looked like workmen delivering a tapestry from a local shop.

Ruso watched the men until they were out of the alley, his eyes blurred with tears.

It is done,
he thought.
There is no turning back.

“What is your answer?” the soldier had demanded.

I choose Nero
, Leah thought.

She was not a believer. She wanted to tell the soldier the truth, that she was only at this gathering of believers because she was seeking answers.

Why had her brother Nathan given up everything—including his life—for this Jesus? Why had he turned his back on what he’d been taught since childhood about the Jewish religion, knowing how much it would hurt his father and the rest of the family? How had he managed to believe with his whole heart that Jesus was truly the promised Messiah?

These questions had haunted Leah so much that she, too, had betrayed her own father. He was desolate with grief that he’d lost Nathan to the lions in the arena and Caleb to the soldiers of the emperor because of Nathan’s faith. He would be insane with fury if he found out that she had risked her life to meet with people who had the same faith that had destroyed their family.

But she’d had no choice if she wanted to find the answers.

At first, she’d read the letters that she’d promised Nathan she would keep until someone showed up at their household to take them from her safekeeping. Letters from friends of Jesus. The one from Matthew told about the few years of Jesus’ teaching. Another from John Mark. And the letter of Revelation from John that described his incredible vision of awe and wonder and horror and hope.

But reading those letters again and again in secret had only raised more questions. So finally, Leah had started joining these believers at their meetings, hoping to learn from them about the mystery of their faith and peace throughout the tribulations they faced. She’d even found a way to speak to John himself.

That’s the truth she wanted to tell the soldier.

Indeed, the fear that overwhelmed her screamed at her to deny Jesus and proclaim Nero as divine.

Images filled her mind. Of men and women hanging from lampposts by their wrists, wearing tunics covered in tar through the heat of the day until finally at sunset soldiers lit them on fire with their torches. Of her brother, crowded into a cell with other desperate men and women. Of the children, desperately crying as they were led away from their parents to be sold into slavery. Of the massive lions, snarling and fighting as they tore apart those same men and women in the arena, of the terrible snapping of bones that she hadn’t been able to block from her hearing as she wept in the arena on the day of her brother’s death.

As all of this flashed through her mind, Leah could not help but turn her eyes on the stranger who had brought the soldiers and this death into their midst.

Chayim.

The presence of the soldiers was almost as great a shock as the fact that he had betrayed them by leading the soldiers here. For Corbulo was most certainly right. Who else but Chayim could have been the informer?

When he’d first walked into the room, she’d felt a sensation that was strange to her, of her heart seeming to leap out of her chest at the astonishment of what had happened when their eyes first met. This man had such an effect on her that she was scarcely able to look at him. Was it love? or a physical hunger that she should deny?

And now that she knew he was the betrayer, she had to look at him to confirm her disbelief of the situation, as if she really didn’t expect his face to have the same mystery and charisma that had drawn her so instantly to him.

Yet even now, there was something in the intensity of the way he regarded her, and she felt disloyal to all her friends for not hating him far more than she had first been attracted to him.

“What is it, woman?” Gavrus snapped. “I haven’t all night.”