When Jesus Wept - By Bodie Page 0,34

the sins he is guilty of! Does he merely add adultery to murder, or is it the other way around? The sword of judgment hangs over his head as surely as it fell on King Ahab of old and his Jezebel!”

What happened next was sudden and violent, and the reason for the taunting became clear. In the crowd were a half dozen Herodian soldiers, their uniforms hidden beneath nondescript robes.

As John was goaded into his rash comments, they threw off their disguises. Three of them rushed at the prophet in a body. Another three drew short swords and flung themselves at the crowd.

The audience and John’s followers scattered … except for Porthos. The Grecian Jew stood his ground, even as a stocky mercenary bore down on him, stabbing blade lifted high and glinting in the sunlight.

Then Porthos did the bravest thing I had ever seen: he ran toward the soldier, ducking beneath the descending dagger so that it missed his shoulder by a whisker.

Seizing the Herodian guard with both hands, he lifted the man fully off the ground and flung him into the other pair of attackers. They tumbled together in a heap of short swords and curses.

Still Porthos did not flee. Instead, he roared at the men surrounding the Baptizer and charged them as well.

The latter trio had not even drawn their weapons, believing no one would resist them. Startled by Porthos’s sudden onslaught, one tripped on a rock in the pond and disappeared beneath the surface in unwilling submission to the Baptizer’s message.

With Patrick at my side, I darted forward. The three guardsmen overthrown by Porthos blocked our intervention with whirling blades. “Back off,” one of them snarled.

Porthos managed to land a fist on the jaw of one of the soldiers, then stopped fighting suddenly when the captain of the squad put the point of his dagger against the Baptizer’s throat. “Stop now, or he dies,” the man bellowed.

Porthos dropped his clenched fists and stood helplessly, shaking with barely suppressed rage.

That was the moment when the soldier who had been ducked in the pool emerged sputtering … and stabbed Porthos in the back. The Greek dropped face forward into the water and lay unmoving.

Two of Herod’s assassins kept us at bay while the rest quickly bound John’s arms behind his back. Dragging him bodily out of the creek, they soon disappeared in the direction of Aenon.

Even before they were out of sight, Patrick and I hauled Porthos, streaming blood from a gash in his back, out of the stream. We laid him on a mossy bank and turned him over. As the sunlight hit his face, he coughed weakly and his eyelids fluttered. He was not dead, then!

Patting his face, I said, “Porthos, brother, I’ll get you some help. Don’t worry.”

His eyes opened, and he struggled to focus on my features. “Ah, David,” he said, then was racked by a cough that brought scarlet foam to his lips. “Did you think … you had to repay me? I told you … I’m not … not a brave …”

And he died.

We located Pleasant the donkey tied in a grove of trees near what had been the Baptizer’s camp. I used her to take Porthos’s body home with me and buried him in my family cemetery, near the tomb that held my wife and child.

Chapter 13

Mary had traveled back to Galilee, transformed. With many other women, including Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, Mary became a devoted follower and supporter of Jesus.

I was still unsure about the motives and true identity of Jesus. I wanted to know, yet I suspected him.

After Hanukkah the winter months were dark and cold and the vines dormant. This was the time of pruning. I set my workers to the task of cutting off the dead branches, gathering the dead wood, and torching the piles at the ends of the rows. Unless the dead wood was cut back, new growth would be stunted, struggling to compete with the tangle of old growth.

I was supervising in the field when Martha and the women servants came out to feed the laborers.

Martha’s cheeks were ruddy with the cold. Her breath rose in steam as she puffed up the path toward me. “Brother!” she hailed me, but when she came near, she lowered her voice. “There’s a rumor … about our sister Mary.”

I imagined that, in spite of Jesus’ admonition not to sin again, Mary had already fallen and was back to her old ways. “Well?”

“Madness,” Martha whispered. “If