The Expected One (37 page)

It was late the next afternoon when Mary decided to venture into the garden for some air. She had been in bed most of the day, nursing her bruises. The garden was private, enclosed by walls, so there was no chance of anyone seeing the marks of disgrace that covered her face. Or so she thought.

Mary heard a rustling in the bushes that caused her heart to stop. What was it? Who was it? “Hello?” she called out haltingly.

“Mary?” a female voice whispered, followed by more rustling. Suddenly a figure emerged from behind a row of hedges near the garden wall.

“Salome! What are you doing here?” Mary ran to embrace her friend, a Herodian princess who was sneaking around like a common thief.

Salome couldn’t answer immediately. She was struck motionless, staring at Mary’s battered face.

Mary turned her head. “Is it so bad?” she asked in a whisper.

Salome spat on the ground. “My mother is right. The Baptizer is an animal. How dare he treat you like this! You are a noblewoman.”

Mary started to defend John but realized she didn’t have the energy. She was suddenly exhausted, worn-out by the events of recent days and by the growing toll that pregnancy was taking on her petite frame. She sat on a stone bench and was joined by her friend.

“I brought this for you.” Salome handed Mary a silken pouch. “There’s a healing unguent in the jar. It will soothe your bruises.”

“How did you know?” Mary asked. It had suddenly occurred to her that Salome knew something that only Martha and Lazarus had witnessed.

Salome shrugged. “
He
saw it.” There could only be one “he.” “He didn’t tell me what happened. He just said, ‘Take your finest healing cream to your sister Mary. She will be in need of it immediately.’ And then he said to be sure no one else saw me come here because of John.”

Mary tried to smile at the revelation of Easa’s vision, but the cut lip made her wince instead. Salome’s lovely face darkened with anger as she watched her friend in pain. “Why did he do it?” Salome demanded.

“I disobeyed him.”

“How?”

“By attending the Nazarene meeting.”

The dawn of understanding crept up on Salome. “Ah, so we are the enemy now as far as the Baptizer is concerned. I wonder when he will publicly denounce Easa? That is sure to happen next.”

Mary gasped. “They are kin, and John announced Easa publicly at his baptism. He wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“No? I’m not so sure, sister.” Salome was thinking. “My mother says that John is as cunning as a serpent. Think about it. He married you to legitimize his kingship, and now you’re pregnant with his heir. He denounces my mother as an adulteress and uses the fact that she’s a Nazarene against her, and as a weapon over the rest of us. What’s the next step? To publicly withdraw his support of Easa based on what John believes is our Nazarene disregard for the law. He won’t be satisfied until he destroys The Way.”

“I don’t think John would do that, Salome.”

“Don’t you?” The girl laughed, a hard sound from someone so young. “You haven’t spent as much time around the Herods as I have. What men will do to advance their position is astonishing.”

Mary sighed and shook her head. “I know this is hard for you to believe, but John is a good man and a true prophet. I would not have married him if I did not believe that to be so, nor would my brother have agreed to it. John is different from Easa, and he is harsh and rough, but he believes in the kingdom of God. He lives only to help men find God through repentance and the law.”

“Yes, he believes in helping
men.
As for women, John would sooner drown us all in his precious river than offer us salvation.” Salome made a face to show her disdain. “And he has become a puppet of the Pharisees, if for no other reason than because he has no social or political skills of his own. He goes where they direct him. And I guarantee that he will be directed to question Easa’s legitimacy even further if he is not stopped.”

Mary looked at her friend. Something about the way Salome was speaking made her nervous, yet it was a fear mixed with respect. Her childhood friend had developed a savvy understanding of politics from her time in the Herods’ palaces.

“What do you propose?”

As Mary looked up, a beam of sunlight illuminated her face, showing off the florid purple and black marring of bruises. The Herodian princess shuddered at the sight of Mary’s beautiful, fine-boned face with such marks. When Salome spoke, it was with a soft determination. “I will make John the Baptizer pay for his deeds — against you, against Easa, and against my mother. One way or another.”

A shudder wracked Mary’s body at those words. Despite the heat of a midday sun, she suddenly felt very, very cold.

The swiftness of John’s arrest was staggering. Mary was to find out much later that Salome had hastened to the tetrarch’s winter palace near the Dead Sea, where a celebration was under way for the birthday of Herod Antipas. Herod had requested that Salome dance for him and his guests — the girl’s grace and beauty were legendary, and travelers had come a great distance to pay tribute to Herod. The tetrarch felt it would be a gesture of goodwill to show off his exquisite stepdaughter.

Salome entered the room where the celebration was in full Roman swing. She was dressed in glittering silks and golden chains that had been bestowed by her doting stepfather. As she arrived in the room, she caused a stir among the guests, who craned their necks for a better look at the stunning princess.

“You are the most priceless jewel in my kingdom, Salome,” her stepfather announced. “Come, dance for us. It will be a great thrill for these guests to see your grace.”

Salome approached Herod’s throne, from which he ruled over the banquet. She was a picture of pretty petulance. “I don’t know if I can dance, Stepfather. My heart is so heavy with what I have endured while I traveled that I do not believe I have the spirit to dance.”

Herodias, perched on a cushion beside her husband, straightened. “What happened that has had such an effect on you, child?”

Salome told them a tearful story, about the horrible man who was called the Baptizer and how his words haunted her and seemed to follow wherever she went.

“Who is this man, this Baptizer?” A visiting Roman nobleman asked the question.

Herod made a dismissive gesture. “Nobody. One of several fashionable messiahs this year. He is a troublemaker, but not an important one.”

At this Salome burst into tears and threw herself at her mother’s feet. She cried about the terrible names that this man the Baptizer called Herodias. She was frightened because this prophet called for Herod to be displaced and predicted the palace would fall with all of them in it. He incited hatred of the Herods among the people, so much so that Salome could no longer travel safely with the Nazarenes unless she was well disguised.

“He sounds more like an insurgent than a prophet,” the Roman noble observed. “It’s best to deal with his kind quickly.”

Herod was in no mood for politics but could not allow himself to appear weak before a Roman envoy. He called for his guards and issued the order.

“Arrest this man, this Baptizer, and bring him here. I would see if he has the courage to say such things to me in person.”

The assembled guests applauded this decision and followed the Roman nobleman’s lead by raising glasses to their host. Salome wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled sweetly at Herod Antipas.

“Which dance would you like to see tonight, Stepfather?”

John the Baptizer was a troubling prisoner. Herod Antipas had not anticipated the strength of John’s following, which had grown to extraordinary proportions. Petitioners flooded the palace each day, demanding the release of their prophet. They appealed to Herod as a Jew, begging his sympathy as one of their own. Because the winter palace was in the vicinity of Qumran, the Essene community sent envoys daily to ask for the freedom of this righteous prisoner. This was not a simple, regional prophet to be chastised and silenced with ease. John the Baptizer was a phenomenon.

Herod took it upon himself to interview John, and sent for the ascetic preacher to be brought before him. He questioned John personally, expecting self-righteous answers and the wild ravings that often came from these wilderness preachers and self-styled messiahs. This was a type of sport for Herod, and he was particularly looking forward to baiting the man who had so troubled his wife and stepdaughter. After he had had the chance to toy with the prisoner for a time, he would decide what final sentence to pass.

The interview did not go as the tetrarch planned. While this man John was oddly dressed and had an uncivilized appearance, there was nothing of the raving wild man in his words. Herod found him disturbingly intelligent, perhaps even wise. John spoke severely of sinners and of the need for repentance, and did not hesitate to look in Herod’s eyes when he warned that someone with the tetrarch’s sins would be denied the kingdom of God. But there was still time for redemption, if Herod would put aside his adulteress wife and repent for his many transgressions.

By the end of the interview Herod was deeply troubled by John’s incarceration. He wished to release John, but could not do so without appearing weak and ineffective before Rome. Hadn’t a Roman envoy been present during the orders for John’s arrest? To release the man now would make Herod appear inconsistent and perhaps even incompetent to deal with Jewish insurgents. No, he didn’t dare release the Baptizer, at least not yet. Instead, he lessened the strictness of his incarceration and allowed John to have visitors from among his followers and the local Essenes.

When she heard of this policy, Mary of Magdala sent a messenger to the palace, asking if her husband would like to see her or have word of the child she carried. John ignored the message completely. The only words that Mary heard from John during his incarceration were ones of condemnation. She heard through his closest followers that John continued to question the paternity of her child and referred to her in the most derogatory terms. He blamed his young wife for his arrest, and the more fanatic of his followers had even sent threats to her family. Finally, Mary convinced her brother and Martha to take her back to Galilee, as far away from the Baptizer and his followers as possible. She did not understand how one night of innocent disobedience had translated into a tarnished reputation as a harlot, but that was the reality she now faced. Mary preferred to face it in the sanctuary of her home at the foot of Mount Arbel, closer to the Nazarenes and their sympathizers.

John continued his ministry from prison, where his legend and his influence grew in the southern region. But the ministry of his cousin, the charismatic Nazarene, blossomed with increased vigor in the area north of Jordan and into Galilee. John’s followers brought word to him in prison of Easa’s great works and of the miraculous healings that were attributed to him. But they also told of the Nazarene’s continued leniency toward Gentiles and the unclean. He had even stopped an adulterous woman from being justly stoned! Clearly, John’s cousin had lost all grasp of the law. It was time for John to take a stand.

At John’s instruction, the followers of the Baptizer set out to attend a large gathering of Nazarenes. When Easa stood before the gathered multitude to begin his preaching, two of the ascetic ambassadors came forward. The first spoke, addressing Easa and then the rest of the crowd.

“We come from the cell of John the Baptizer. He begs that we deliver this message unto you all. He says to you, Yeshua the Nazarene, that he questions you. That where he once believed you were the messiah sent by God, he cannot believe that your acceptance of the unclean is within the law. Therefore he asks of you, are you the one who was awaited? Or should these good people wait for another?”

The crowd grew restless at these words. John’s baptism of Easa had been the defining moment for some of the newer Nazarene disciples. The magical day on the banks of the Jordan, when John had announced his cousin as the chosen one and when God had showed his favor in the form of a dove, had transformed many into followers of The Way. Now John the Baptizer was in essence withdrawing his support by publicly questioning his cousin.