I took up the words as I knew them.
" 'To give His people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,' " I said. " 'Because of the tender mercy of our Lord.' "
He stared down at me astonished.
I continued, " 'Through which the daybreak from on high will visit us . . . to shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.' "
He drew back, his face blank.
" 'Into the path of peace,' Jason," I said. " 'Into the path of peace.' "
"But where is he, your cousin!" he demanded. "Where is John who is to be the prophet? Pontius Pilate's soldiers are outside Jerusalem tonight. The fires told us so at sunset. What will you do?"
I folded my arms and looked at him, the picture he made in his fervor and his fury. He drank the rest of his wine and set the cup on the bench. It fell off the bench and broke. I stared at it - at the broken pieces. He didn't even see them. He hadn't heard the cup break.
He drew close to me and crouched down again so that his face was fully in the light.
"Do you yourself believe these stories?" he asked. "Tell me; tell me before I go out of my mind."
I didn't answer.
"Yeshua," he pleaded.
"Yes, I believe in them," I said.
He stared expectantly at me for the longest time, but I did nothing.
He put his hands to his head. "Oh, I shouldn't have told you these things. I promised your cousin John I would never reveal these things. I don't know why I did this. I thought . . . I thought . . ."
"This is a bitter time," I said. "Yitra and the Orphan are dead. The sky is the color of the dust. Each day breaks our backs and hurts our hearts."
He looked at me. He wanted so much to understand.
"And we wait on the Lord's tender mercy," I said. "We wait on the Lord's time."
"You're not afraid it's all lies? Yeshua, are you ever afraid that it's all lies?"
"You know the stories that I know," I said.
"Not afraid of what's about to happen in Judea?" he demanded.
I shook my head.
"I love you, Yeshua," he said.
"And I love you, my brother," I said.
"No, don't love me. Your cousin would not forgive me if he knew I talked about these secrets."
"And who is my cousin John that he should live his whole life without ever confiding to a friend?" I asked.
"A bad friend, a restless friend," he replied.
"A friend with much on his mind," I said. "You must have been noisy among the Essenes."
"Noisy!" He laughed. "They threw me out."
"I know," I said. I laughed. Jason loved to tell the story of how the Essenes asked him to leave. It was almost always the first thing he told a new acquaintance, that the Essenes had asked him to go.