Eden Read online

  At the base of the hill she was surprised to find Samson waiting with the littlest of the lambs by a deserted crossroads. Why did you leave the safety of the garden? she almost growled.

  But the growl died on her tongue as she saw what the two animals were looking at. A withered, wretched tree with a man hanging by his neck, a common enough sight this close to the city walls, and the soldiers marched their master past without a second glance.

  But Eden knew whose legs dangled dead off the ground. She knew that sandal, fallen from his foot. How could she not have known Judas was dead? She should have missed his living mind. She should have known if only because she knew the man.

  A long thread of sweat had rolled down his leg and clung to his bare heel.

  “We found him this morning,” Samson told her. “The littlest one told me there was a lost lamb down below, and we came in search of it. Not a lamb, a man. We would have brought Judas back with us to the garden. We might have helped him. But we came too late. Too late.”

  Eden didn’t know what to say. She never thought the one named Judas a bad man, but the troubles of his mind devoured him and now this was all that remained. Perhaps the littlest lamb and the donkey were right; perhaps Judas was like a lost lamb. In the gray light of morning his body did not cast even a shadow. She sniffed the sandal on the ground, but all she smelled on it was grit and dust and sorrow. Eden noticed a threadbare pouch lying at the base of the tree. A few silver coins spilled from the purse’s mouth and beside the coins two pebbles, a black pebble and a white one, lying on the ground. The Hollow Man had done his work well, taking the human being, the earthly Judas, and leaving only the purse behind.

  But even as Eden stared at the abandoned purse a beggar pushed Eden aside, stooped to the ground and snatched the coins. The wretched creature clutched the purse to his chest, and hurried after the Romans approaching the city. He threw a grin over his shoulder as he ran toward the city walls. And Eden recognized him again. Who else? The Hollow Man.

  The soldiers were crossing the threshold of the city now, marching under the gate.

  “Samson!” Eden cried. “We’re too late for this poor man, we can do nothing here. But there goes our master. We can’t let him get away.”

  “I’m afraid,” said the littlest lamb. But both her guardians herded her close.

  “You’re with us,” Eden said.

  “And even though this is no day to travel alone,” Samson told her, “no harm will come to you.”

  “Come, little one,” Eden told the littlest lamb, “our day is not done. If there is someone to be saved, we must see to it.” Suddenly they realized the soldiers had disappeared into the city. Samson hesitated, for he could not see very far ahead.

  “Follow me,” Eden told the other two. “I’ll know where he goes. I’ll know our master’s scent even if he’s on the other side of the world.”

  The three animals followed the soldiers’ footsteps over the hard paving stones. The streets ran off in every direction, bewildering the eye, but Eden kept them true.

  There seemed to be no end of the poor and wretched in this city. They gathered in every alley, in every street. No end to beggars, to thieves, to all the angry unfortunates gathered in one cramped place. Some reached out to grab the animals, the littlest lamb especially, but Samson’s great girth shoved the hungry ones off and Eden only had to raise her lip to keep the famished and the truly desperate away.

  At a cross street the unruly crowd had pinned a woman against a wall, and she struggled to keep from being crushed, crying, “Stop! Stop please, stop!”

  Maryam!

  The woman who once spoke to flies recognized her animal friends at once, desperately reaching out before being shoved against the wall again. But the three creatures wouldn’t stand for this any longer. Samson planted himself against the mob while Eden stood underneath him, raising her lip again and again, keeping the worst ones away. The littlest lamb pressed herself to Maryam’s side, nuzzling the woman with her soft muzzle.

  After a few moments the crowd backed off. And the people muttered among themselves to see such a strange thing, dumb beasts protecting this lost soul huddled in the street. Maryam petted the littlest lamb, stroked Eden’s strong neck and patted Samson’s wide flank.

  “Oh it’s so good to see you all! Eden, I was afraid I’d never see you again. Oh Samson, how strong you are! And little lamb, never leave my side and I’ll never leave yours.”

  The animals nestled close to Maryam, protecting her. And the woman took Eden’s face in her hands. “Do you know where they took him? Can you lead us there?”

  As Samson couldn’t speak to people, he just nodded his big gray head. Eden knows, she knows. And Maryam understood. Looking fearfully over the donkey’s back she saw the crowd had calmed at the sight of the animals’ strange behavior, at this strange sight of a dog, a donkey, a woman and a lamb huddled as one.

  At last they moved—dog, donkey, woman and lamb cautiously leaving the safety of the wall. People gaped at this strange procession. Word of them rippled ahead on a thousand whispers and people backed away, the crowd parting as Eden’s nose led them on.

  The soldiers had brought their master round a corner, down a back alley and to the rear of the garrison. Eden seemed to know this place, like an old memory hiding in her bones. The garrison had a familiar smell, though she had never been here before. Yet somehow she knew it as a place where dogs guarded the men who guarded other men. Not a good place, but a place where many came to die.

  Suddenly Samson shivered down to his hooves. “Oh, let us get away from here,” he said. “Let us get away. This is where my own master died. This is where they brought the River Man before the end.”

  But Eden couldn’t leave. Not yet. And Maryam, unafraid, knelt against the prison wall, placing her hands upon the stone, her face against the mortar. The great stones of the garrison were black. Smudged from endless traffic, from smoky oil lamps, rubbed dark by desperate prayers, countless vigils and blackened from within by a thousand years of cruelty harder than the hardest heart.

  Maryam shifted her hands to a cleaner spot, a paler stone, bleached white from the sun, and pressed the stone with all her might. Then lovingly stroked the block, making it speak to her. Cocking her head, she listened.

  “I can hear inside,” she told the animals. “They have him there. Shall I tell you what they say?” She listened to the great blocks of stone in the wall. Her lips moved, and she spoke, telling all of what she heard:

  “These men do not care whether he lives or dies. They have brought him for questions because the priests are afraid of the people they serve. But the priests in the temple mistake fear of their people as fear of God.” She took a deep breath and pressed her hands to the stone. “Now they put the question. Is he the son of man or the son of God—or both?”

  She held her breath, listening to the stone.

  “Well, what does he say?” asked the littlest lamb.

  For some time Maryam said nothing.

  Then quietly:

  “I can barely hear …” Her hands rubbed and rubbed the pale stone. “Wait!” She strained to hear. “He answers. You say I am. You say it.”

  “The Governor of this garrison is sitting in judgment. I can feel the Roman thinking … this man is the son of no one. If he were my son, I’d have taken him from his mother and sent him into the Legions long ago. He’s as harmless as a fly. And these priests are old women, afraid of their own shadows.

  “Ah … the Governor is speaking now. Someone else is to decide.” Maryam took her face from the wall and looked at the animals. “They’re taking him to Herod.”

  “Who’s Herod?” asked the littlest of the lambs.

  “One of the men who rules this terrible land,” the woman answered.

  “Did he put me on the chain?” asked the littlest lamb.

  “No,” Maryam told her. “But he wouldn’t have cared if you died there.”

  She sagged from the stone, exh
austed.

  The pale stone she had been rubbing with her hands had shown its insides. The white dust rubbed away now showed its beneath, and its beneath was black. Maryam touched her face to brush away sweat. The black from the stone smudged her forehead, the black from the stone blackening her hands.

  “Stand back,” she told the animals. “Don’t let them notice us. They’re coming.”

  Maryam and the animals followed the Roman soldiers at a safe distance. The Legionaries didn’t seem to care about them, just the man in their midst as he stumbled along. He tripped once, making his guards bump into him, and one of them struck out with the flat of his sword to get him moving again.

  Eden and Samson and the littlest lamb felt the clouds overhead frowning in anger, as though kneaded by great hands, torn and knotted together again. Maryam glanced fearfully up at the sky, but it glowered down and she shielded her head with her scarf.

  After a few turns and down an empty street they reached a palace not far from the garrison. They could tell it was a palace because of the brightly tiled walls and the lush, green plants hanging from every terrace. The walls glistened where servants had overwatered the flowers and vines in streams running down the bright tiles, as if the palace wept.

  Even at this morning hour sounds of music and carousing reached the animals’ ears, the continuation of a great party that had been going on all night. Thus now at dawn, the water streaks on the palace walls looked like tears of laughter. As the soldiers entered the hanging gardens, the music faltered and died. Suddenly servants thrust open the palace doors.

  Maryam became quietly afraid. She crouched by the outer wall and peered into the courtyard, the animals crowded beside her. Samson guarded her back, the littlest lamb at her feet, and Eden planted herself at the woman’s side so no one might approach her.

  The revelers emerged from the inner rooms. A gaggle of palace courtiers lurched drunkenly through the doors followed by musicians carrying their drums and flutes, women clutching any man they could find. The nobles and retainers stood about, amused, expectant. The elders of the temple had also joined everyone that morning and stood in a line like crows on a wall, dourly looking on, sour and sober. No, none of them had been drinking all night. The Romans in their red cloaks pushed the man out from among them and he stood in the cold light of dawn, silent and alone.

  Finally the Prince of the palace emerged from the inner doors. His wine-soaked eyes looked from face to face innocently, pretending he did not know whom the soldiers brought before him.

  At the palace wall, Maryam knelt and clutched Eden to her breast. The dog could feel the woman’s heart pounding and the woman’s terrible fear, even her thoughts. If the priests in their grand house could not decide what to do, how could this king with his sodden courtiers and tipsy ladies know?

  “Why does that prince want to talk to our master?” asked the littlest lamb.

  Eden could smell the perfumed drunkard from the shadow of the courtyard wall. And just as with Maryam, the dog felt the drunkard’s mind consumed with a fire of questions. The Prince was a trivial man, cowering inside his kingly robes, afraid like everyone else. Yet Eden saw deeper. His greedy, purple-stained lips hungered for legitimacy.

  Virtue.

  And this besotted Prince in his kingly robes had none.

  Yet here was some obscure fellow the mob called a king, a lowly man who stood before a true prince in that noble’s own palace garden.

  Had this preaching fool no palace to call his own?

  “Who is the King they bring to me?” the wine-faced Prince asked. “Is this the King foretold?” The bejeweled Prince peered at the man standing before them, then stared conspicuously about the palace garden as if to find another king in their midst. He smiled knowingly at the elders of the temple, daring them to speak.

  The Prince’s eyes gravely returned to the man at hand.

  Mocking:

  “This man? This is the one my father feared?”

  The elders of the temple all began to talk at once, angry voices accusing the man of every vice, every sin, every crime—but the Prince held up a hand for silence. He approached cautiously and touched the frayed sleeve of the man’s ragged shirt, then quietly asked, “Did you know my father?”

  He waited for an answer but when none came, the Prince spoke again:

  “They say you were born in Bethlehem. My father knew the children of Bethlehem. In my father’s day some old wanderers called it the Town of the Star for a child they sought. A Usurper. So my father cleansed the town of all like you. Today the children of Bethlehem may be older or younger, but none of your age. Are you this Usurper? If you survived the Cleansing of Bethlehem, then truly a miracle you stand here today.”

  Maryam clutched Eden’s neck, and the dog could feel the woman: Just speak, say something, do anything. Show them. They’ll bow down now. If you just show them the slightest sign. Please. Now. Do it now.

  Nothing happened. Their master stood silently in the tiled courtyard surrounded by the leering courtiers, the loose women and the dour priests ruffling their robes like a row of fussy crows. Then the Prince searched the elegant sash about his waist and drew from the folds a threadbare purse. He showed the purse to the crowd gathered in the garden. The coins inside clinked faintly.

  “Silver,” the Prince chuckled. “One of my retainers found this purse not far from the city walls. Silver coins at the feet of a dead man hanging in a tree.”

  No one spoke. The silence pressed down on the courtyard. Eden saw a familiar face again, standing among the others. No longer a beggar, the Hollow Man wore the embroidered cloak of a courtier.

  At last the Prince addressed their master:

  “Your young friend took the silver in exchange for you. Then took his life. He even tried to return this silver, but no one seems to want it back.”

  The ragged man made no reply.

  “Let the Priests decide what to do with their silver.” The Prince tossed the purse towards the line of dour men. The dark birds ruffled their feathers and let it fall. The purse spilt coins, the line of men trembled at the sight of the silver—but no one stooped to pick it up. Better to wait when no one would see.

  But the young Prince of this palace garden was not yet through.

  He needed to know more.

  “But what of the other tales we’ve heard?” he asked. “Surely you can show us something.”

  Again their master spoke no word.

  For a moment Eden feared the wine-soaked Prince would anger, but he only scoffed. Just as with the purse, the Prince showed his guests what he held in the palm of his hand. The Prince gazed wistfully at the ragged man standing in the courtyard, then offered him the two stones:

  “They say you carried these two stones, and that by holding these two stones a man can know every human heart. Is that true?”

  Eden felt Maryam grip tightly around her neck, say something, anything.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to tell what’s in my heart,” the Prince said softly.

  “Can you tell?” he asked.

  But when their master remained silent the Prince sighed and shook his head. The line of temple elders scowled and began to caw. The Prince glared them to silence and snorted in contempt:

  “You’re afraid of him?”

  The dour line of black-robed men drew their cloaks about them and fell to whispers.

  Finally there was nothing more to say, nothing more to do. The worldly Prince had come with questions and none were answered. Now he tired of the game. He shrugged.

  “So be it.”

  The Prince let the two stones drop from his hand. From their place at the gate neither the animals nor the woman could tell whether the insides were white or black. For when they fell, the two stones broke to pieces, no black, no white, nothing but fragments on the courtyard tiles.

  “At least do not depart my house the beggar you appeared,” the Prince told Eden’s master. “We can find you a robe, I imagine.” He took a w
orn robe from one of his guards and draped it about the man’s shoulders.

  “Perhaps someone else will find you a crown.”

  To the temple elders he said:

  “Behold, your King.”

  And then to the gathered company:

  “Pilate is in charge of the prison. Let the Romans decide.”

  Again, the animals and Maryam followed at a distance. With each step onlookers seemed to spring from the very street, until a mob crowded the pavement stones. Maryam and Samson were elbowed aside, while underfoot Eden and the littlest lamb were stepped on. Eden kept seeing the Hollow Man slipping in and out of the crowd. For a moment beside a beggar, then beside a merchant, then hiding behind the skirts of a housemaid, never in one place for long, but traveling along with everyone like the shadows on their feet.

  Eden nudged Maryam to warn her of the dark man’s presence, but the woman didn’t need to be told. “I see him,” she said.

  “I see him too,” said Samson.

  “And me as well,” said the littlest lamb. “Don’t lose me.”

  The Roman soldiers marched their prisoner back toward the Governor’s court of law, not inside the garrison but to a narrow paved plaza under high stone walls. The mob gathered at an iron gate and shouted over each other’s heads. A sea of angry faces: angry at the Romans, angry at the leaden sky, angry at each other. Scattered drops of rain fell.

  A few cool drops, but not enough to calm fevered heads.

  And this angered them even more.

  The three animals and the woman shrank into a corner—they could see and hear but get no closer than the rabble. As before, Samson the donkey shielded Maryam and the smaller ones from heedless feet with his broad flanks. The woman clutched the old donkey’s neck as angry men approached with ropes to drag him off, but Samson brayed and Eden bared her teeth and the men dared come no closer.

  “Why are they here? What are they doing?” bleated the littlest lamb.

  “Why are these people so angry?” she asked.