At that same moment, Skepsis and Diodora entered the courtyard. “Theano has died,” Skepsis announced. “Diodora and I have just finished preparing his body—”
“Has something happened?” Diodora interrupted, noticing my reddened eyes. Or perhaps it was the taut, menacing air.
I picked up Judas’s letter and read it to them, then tried my best to elucidate Judas’s plan. Diodora, who knew nothing of Jewish messiahs and radical Zealots, seemed utterly mystified. She enfolded me in her arms. “I’m happy you will see your husband, but I am sad you will leave us.” She turned to her mother. “Will you go, too?” she asked in an unassuming way, but her face betrayed her fear.
“I’ll remain here,” Yaltha said, looking past Diodora to me. “Having found Diodora, I cannot leave her again. I’m getting too old to make the journey anyway, and Egypt is my home. I’m content here among the Therapeutae. It will grieve me to be separated from you, Ana, but I cannot leave.”
I felt a crumpling inside, but I refused to let my disappointment show. I said, “I understand, Aunt. Your decision is as it should be.”
Shadows had begun to darken the edges of the courtyard, and Diodora went into the house for a lamp, though I had the feeling she left out of kindness, not wanting me to see her joy.
She returned with a look of confusion on her face. “The woman sleeping inside—she’s the servant in Haran’s house who showed me to your quarters.”
“Yes, Pamphile,” Yaltha said. “She delivered the letter from Judas. She was weary. I helped her with some chamomile.”
We settled around the glowing circle of lamplight and I posed the question that loomed over everything. “How will I get past the soldiers?” I looked at their faces—I had no answer. They stared back—they had no answer either.
“Is there no way to leave here except by the road where the soldiers stand guard?” Diodora asked. “Is there a footpath that skirts around them?”
Skepsis shook her head. “We are hemmed in by the cliffs. The road is our only way of leaving, and the soldiers are positioned too close to the gatehouse to miss anyone who comes and goes from here.”
“Could you disguise yourself somehow?” Diodora asked. “As an old woman? You could cover your head and use a crutch.”
“I doubt they’d be fooled by that,” said Yaltha. “It’s far too risky. But . . .”
I prodded her. “What is it? We must consider everything.”
“Pamphile will leave tomorrow. The wagon she arrived in is large enough for you to hide in the back.” She glanced at Skepsis, shrugging uncertainly. “What if we concealed her beneath the sacks that store the vegetable seed?”
“The soldiers always search the carts that bring flour and salt,” Skepsis said. “They would search Pamphile’s wagon, too.”
They grew quiet. A thin, gray hopelessness crept into the air. I didn’t want them to give up. It was true I no longer believed in the God of rescue, only the God of presence, but I believed in Sophia, who whispered bravery and wisdom in my ear day and night, if I would only listen, and I tried now to do that, to listen.
What I heard was hammering. Faint, but so clear I thought for a moment Pamphile had wakened and was rapping on the door from inside the house. The realization that the sound resounding in my head was actually a memory startled me. I knew instantly what that memory was. I’d heard it that morning while watering the animals. It was the hammering from the woodworking shop as Theano’s coffin was being built.
The sound formed into an idea. I said, “There is one way for me to leave here safely, and that’s inside Theano’s coffin.”
They sat there with blank faces.
“I would not be inside the coffin long, only until Pamphile drives the cart an ample distance past the soldiers. I will take any risk to reach Jesus, but this one puts me in the least peril. The soldiers would never think to open the coffin.”
“That is true,” Diodora said. “Violating the dead is a serious offense. One can be put to death