Jerusalem's Hope by Brock Thoene Page A

of the way to detour through Bethany on the way from Caesarea to Jerusalem. Marcus Longi nus, acutely aware that Miryam lived nearby with her brother and spinster sister, slowed Pavor’s pace as he approached the town.
    The market square was bustling with activity. Mistresses of households, with children and servants following behind, moved from stall to stall.
    Was she among them?
    The aroma of baking bread surrounded him. It was a tangible thing, awakening his senses and making him hungry.
    In the same way, he sensed her nearness. This was the street where she walked as a child. There, beyond the well, was the synagogue where her family had doubtless prayed. Behind the withered faces of merchants lurked memories of her girlhood, of her father, her mother, the scandal of a life taken by madness at the edge of the water.
    What if he stepped from Pavor, his fiery black horse, and bought a bunch of figs to eat from that old woman under the striped awning? What if he asked her as he held out the coins, “Do you know Miryam? Sister of El’azar? What sort of young girl was she before her mother killed herself ?”
    Just to hear someone else describe her as she was, as she had been known! That would be like fresh hot bread to Marcus’ famished soul.
    Her soul was a flower before the stone fell on her.
    And somehow, in an instant, Yeshua had made her bloom again. Then suddenly, without grief or guilt or bitterness to weigh her down, she had drifted away from Marcus forever. He stood tottering between the reality of his occupation and the hope that someone like Yeshua could change the world for the better.
    Marcus, afflicted by duty and doubt, gladly afflicted others. He would not be good for Miryam since she had let go of her past. He wanted everything, wanted her as he had known her, though he loved her better now that she was someone else. After she met Yeshua, she wanted what she had only so she could give it away. Marcus would drag her down, weigh her down like stones, if she were to love him still.
    He knew she didn’t cling to even one shred of anger.
    But he carried anger like a sword in its scabbard, waiting to be drawn and used.
    If only he could see her . . .
    He scanned the faces of the market crowd in search of her. He would know her walk, the way she held her head and reached out her hand to examine an orange.
    She was not there.
    He listened for the familiar laughter. He would follow the sound of it the way a weary man follows the path to a cool spring.
    She was not there.
    On impulse he stopped at the baker’s stall and purchased a warm loaf. Holding it up to inhale the aroma he asked the baker, “The house of Master El’azar of Bethany? You know where it is?” Marcus felt clever that he hadn’t let on he was really asking where Miryam the notorious sister lived.
    The fellow eyed him with suspicion. Why would a centurion want to know such a thing? He raised a flour-dusted hand and pointed beyond the boundaries of the town toward a fig orchard and the red tiled roof of an enormous villa. “There.” He might have added, And what makes you think you’d be welcome?
    Marcus paid him a penny and bought a jug of cider to wash down his breakfast. He stood in the street for a while and stared at the red roof floating like an island on the green sea of the orchard.
    As he rode past the lane that led to Miryam’s home he imagined what she would be doing at this hour of the morning. Perhaps she would walk out? Stroll with her sister into the village, see him riding by on Pavor, greet him and gaze at him the way she used to?
    But the lane remained empty.
    Still, he wondered if she was somehow aware of his passing by so near her this morning.

    The journey south from Galilee had been long and dusty. Nakdimon’s three youthful companions on the back of the donkey had finally lapsed into the silence of exhaustion. Forward progress along the highway slowed as they