Messiah: The First Judgement (Chronicles of Brothers) (31 page)

The strong fragrance of Indian spikenard still pervaded the room. Its alabaster flask lay on the floor, completely drained of its costly ointment, next to a living, breathing Lazarus, who was being pulled and prodded by the constant stream of clamouring friends neighbours and curious strangers who were still lining up outside the house to see for themselves this notorious miracle that had occurred right here in Bethany – and to gaze on the handsome young prophet from Nazareth.

Judas continued in his incessant pacing up and down behind Jesus and Lazarus. Tonight, his rage had reached its threshold. Normally he prided himself on being the epitome of political correctness, but even his carefully controlled temper had its limits.

He clutched the purse tightly in his hands.

Jesus looked up from Mary, studying Judas slowly, gazing down for a long while at his hands grasping the purse so tightly until Judas flushed a dull red that spread from his ears down through his neck to his chest. Jesus met his gaze, His expression unusually hard.

‘Let her alone, Judas.’ His words were slow and measured.

‘Why are you bothering her?’ He clasped Judas’ arm firmly. ‘She has done a beautiful thing.’ Finally Judas could contain his frustration no longer.

‘This oil could have been sold for three hundred denarii and given to the destitute!’ he exclaimed.

Jesus lowered His gaze to Mary’s. ‘The poor are always with us, Judas,’ He said softly. ‘Whenever you wish, you can do good to them; but you will not always have Me.’

He placed His hand over Mary’s head protectively. ‘Mary has done what she could. She came beforehand to anoint My body for the burial. And wherever the good news of Yehovah’s kingdom is preached throughout the world, what she has done tonight will indeed be told in memory of her.’

Judas stared directly into Jesus’ stern gaze, his own black eyes burning with a wild intensity. He stood a full minute in complete silence, then kicked aside the empty flask in rage and strode past Lazarus, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

Zahi lay on the pallet in the guest quarters of Joanna’s house, listening for sounds from the upper chambers. Over two hours ago Judas had stormed into the house, incensed, up the stairs, and slammed his door. Zahi hadn’t heard him stir until now. Judas closed his room door and carefully locked it. Zahi could hear his footsteps on the stairs; then the outer door to Joanna’s house slammed. Looking out of the window, he glimpsed Judas walking hastily down the narrow street. His hair glistened, freshly washed, and his face was bathed. He clutched the common purse and a larger bag tightly to him. No doubt off on another of his frequent trips to Jerusalem.

Zahi reflected once more on the evening’s events. Judas had been indignant, mortally offended. Zahi could still hear his stinging words, ‘That was a whole year’s salary!’ he had cried, ‘It could have been given to the poor!’

Judas’ family had scrimped and scraped all their lives just to give him an education.

To him it was an act of unrestrained sacrilege. To Jesus, it was an act of lavish devotion. To Judas it was a year’s wages; to Jesus, who regaled them with stories of the First Heaven’s gold streets and Rubied Doors, it was a drop in the ocean.

Zahi reflected. To the household of Aretas, it was not even the cost of one ruby from the immense coffers that filled his father’s treasuries. The Hebrew thought like a king. How deeply he understood Jesus’ discernment on matters of wealth. Money was merely a tool. To be used, not worshipped.

What was it the Hebrew had said? ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be.’ Zahi pondered over many of the Hebrew’s sayings which seemed mysterious and indefinable, and yet here he was, totally healed from leprosy. Since walking with the Hebrew, he had seen blind eyes open and the lame walk. Zahi had walked with warriors and with eastern kings since he was an infant, but never – no, never had he walked with such a King as this.

He was in a dilemma. For many months now he had felt an uneasiness about Judas’s handling of the treasury purse, and had taken it upon himself when Judas was away on one of his increasingly frequent trips to Jerusalem, to conduct his own private audit into Judas’s dealings with the common purse. It had taken two whole nights, from dusk till dawn, but his findings had confirmed his deepest apprehensions. Money was missing. Consistently. The amounts were never large enough to attract suspicion; indeed, only someone with mathematical training would notice them at all. But Aretas had been a stickler when it had come to Zahi’s education. Both he and Jotapa had been educated in every aspect of the palace’s extensive trading rituals since they were old enough to read and write. Zahi’s mornings had been filled with endless lettering and ciphering, auditing the royal financial records under Mahmoud’s meticulous eye, and there was no room for error. By the time Zahi was twelve, he had progressed from reviewing Aretas’ local royal accounts and was now auditing the great stacks of records that arrived each dawn from the Nabatean trading routes. Much to Aretas’ elation, Zahi’s red lettering grew swiftly to be the scourge of the shrewd Chinese, Persian and Indian traders who conducted business with the palace. Every inflated sale of spices, incense or silks the eagle-eyed boy underlined, meticulously recording each missing amount until he had traced the fraud to its author. Aretas had revelled in the knowledge that the young crown prince had single-handedly put a stop to the of some of the wiliest traders in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Zahi tossed and turned restlessly. He had scrupulously checked and rechecked his findings. There was no doubt. Small steady amounts were missing from the purse. And Judas must be growing more confident, for in the past three months several much larger sums had disappeared. Until last week.

Judas must have become suspicious, because his treasury papers were now hidden on his person at all times, and he clutched the common purse to himself even when he retired at night. Zahi wondered if Jesus knew of the petty pilfering that was going on under His nose. Earlier tonight he had watched Jesus observing Judas and the common purse more closely than usual. Perhaps Jesus had done His own investigating. And where was Judas tonight? Zahi would have to tell Jesus of his discovery.

And it was while thinking on all these things, that Zahi finally fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Thirty-two

The Trophy

Michael stood on the pearl sands of the First Heaven, gazing out at the pale moons setting behind the copper-hued cliffs of Zamar. A soft warm zephyr blew his flaxen locks; then the scents of frangipani and myrrh from the orangeries filled his nostrils.

He stared up past the looming crystal orangeries of the Palace of Archangels up to the derelict west wing of Lucifer’s palace – to the huge carved pearl balcony where his elder brother had so relished watching him and Gabriel thundering through the shallows on their white stallions.

A sudden icy chill blew up. A thousand amethyst linnets suddenly took to the air in a flurry away from the Gardens of Fragrance. Michael frowned. He watched as they flew, their wings fluttering furiously, winging their way over the Crystal Sea. He wrapped his cloak around him, strangely uneasy.

The fragrance of frankincense suddenly permeated the sands.

‘Lucifer.’ Michael turned. Fierce. No one was there. ‘Desist your sorceries...’

A moment passed; then Lucifer appeared in front of him, his head covered by a large grey hood, his ravaged features hidden.

He gazed up past Michael, to the balcony.

‘Brothers...,’ he whispered, a great pain fleetingly crossed his face, ‘for Eternity.’ Lucifer murmured. They stood in silence for a few moments.

‘Those days are long gone, Lucifer.’ Michael turned his blazing gaze onto him. ‘By your own hand, you ensured their demise.’

Slowly Lucifer removed his hood, revealing his marred ravaged features.

Michael breathed sharply inward, then lowered his gaze, sickened.

‘The ravages of sin,’ Lucifer murmured with a wry smile. ‘They leave their mark.’

‘You appear only in your fallen state when unprotected by Eternal Law. I therefore take it that you come unsolicited,’ Michael observed dryly.

‘Quite so,’ Lucifer murmured. ‘I am here uninvited...’ He bent down and ran his fingers through the pearl sands, closing his eyes in rapture. ‘The sensations of the First Heaven...’ He raised his gaze far in the distance, beyond the translucent Crystal Palace to the colossal ruby-encrusted doorway encircled by the shimmering rainbow. He shielded his eyes from the fierce rubied rays.

‘Sweet agony,’ he whispered.

‘You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you.’

Lucifer turned in the direction of the familiar voice. There, standing beneath the orangeries, his face half hidden behind the fragrant white frangipani, was Jether. Lucifer’s expression grew hard.

‘You were on the holy mount of God...’ Jether walked down the gilded steps towards him. ‘You walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created...’ Jether stopped directly in front of Lucifer, ‘till iniquity was found in you.’

They stood regarding one another across the pearl sands.

‘Jether, my old mentor. My physical demise – a small price to pay for my greatest triumph.’ They held each other’s gaze in silence.

‘So you will kill Him,’ Jether said softly.

‘You are too much the seer,’ Lucifer replied.

Michael and Jether stood facing him. Sombre.

‘Yes, His slaughter is imminent in the Race of Men.’ A small, evil smile played on Lucifer’s mouth. ‘As He breathes His last breath, my dark scribes will verify the Nazarene’s death in the courts of Perdition.’ He walked away from them, down the sands. ‘Then we escort Him to hell.’

Lucifer raised his arms to the shifting lilac skies. ‘The Nazarene – my prize for eternity.’

Michael and Jether watched him in silence.

‘The Pupil supercedes his mentor,’ Lucifer spat. He glared at Jether with unconcealed loathing. ‘You have lost, old man.’ Then he vanished.

Michael and Jether looked out at the frothing surf on the celestial lilac sea. ‘He plays into our hands,’ said Michael.

‘He is to soon be caught in his own tangled web,’ Jether replied, his piercing eyes vigilant. ‘The day of the First Judgement hastens. It is now just a matter of time.’

Charged by Darsoc’s Grey Magi, Judas Iscariot stood in the council room in the palace of the high priest Caiaphas, before the chief priests of Jerusalem, and sold his soul for thirty pieces of silver.

And from that moment he looked out for a convenient opportunity to betray Jesus of Nazareth.

Chapter Thirty-three

Gethsemane

The fierce winds of the Kidron Valley blew through the ancient olive groves of Gethsemane. Jesus knelt under one of the spreading gnarled olive trees, His face fallen on His chest. Heavy welts of blood, mingled with sweat, dripped from His forehead and down His cheeks, onto the damp grass beneath Him.

Then, inexplicably, an exquisite aroma of spikenard and frangipani permeated the olive grove – the perfumes of the Gardens of Fragrance of the First Heaven. A soft, diffuse light settled, shimmering in front of where Jesus lay unmoving. Gradually His eyelids flickered in vague recognition as the exquisite aromas pervaded His senses. With intense effort, He moved His matted head towards the soft, healing balm of brilliance and opened His bloodshot eyes. A tall, shadowed figure slowly became visible.

There facing Him, looking down on Him with exquisite tenderness, stood an imperial form, its face shrouded by a luminous white cloak. Behind the figure, in a semicircle, stood the entire council of twenty-four heavenly kings, attired in dazzling ceremonial white robes of the First Heaven. A circlet of gold rested on each white head. Jesus recognized Lamaliel, then Methuselah and Xacheriel, His trusted heavenly elders, the stewards of Yehovah’s heavenly mysteries.

Slowly, Jether removed his hood, kneeling down next to Jesus on the grass. ‘Hark back to the world beyond the Rubied Door,’ he whispered, his voice infinitely tender. ‘Before You were encased in the dust and clay of the Race of Men, Christos.’

‘I am trapped in this mire and clay, Jether,’ Jesus uttered, His voice wavering. ‘I cannot heed Him...’