Telamon and Ruth turned to face these.
The guardsmen surrounded them. The intruders’ numbers were six, then eight, then ten. They were armed with drawn bows and quarterstaffs. The leader indicated the pair before him.
“Disarm them,” he commanded the others. “Bring them now.”
− 45 −
SIMON OF THE HARBOR
DESPITE THEIR ADVANTAGE OF STRENGTH and numbers, the guardsmen could seize neither Telamon’s gladius nor Ruth’s dagger, so fiercely did the man and girl resist. Instead the shomrim beat the two with the butts of their eight-foot staffs. They bowled them off their feet with blows to shins and ankles.
The youths drove Telamon and Ruth downslope beneath a barrage of cuffs and wallops.
Down, down, down the path the pair found themselves driven, until they tumbled at last into the clear at the foot of the slope. A congress of three score or more—Nazarenes of both factions, as well as locals of the valley compounds—had formed up beneath torches in the beaten flat before the springhouse. Others swelled the throng, hastening up in twos and threes. Telamon and Ruth were shoved forward before Simon and Miriam.
In moments the Virgin materialized as well, reinforced by a chorus of her adherents.
The flat had become a ring of faces and bodies, penning the man-at-arms and the girl. The guardsman leader shoved both roughly forward.
Telamon spun and struck the fellow in the face.
Blows of staffs and cudgels rained upon the mercenary. He would not go down. Despite all that had immediately befallen them, child and man still held their weapons. The pair faced off against the mob that surrounded them.
At last the man-at-arms spoke.
“We have the letter of the Apostle! We have carried it for you from Jerusalem!”
Ruth pressed the scroll into Telamon’s free hand. He held it out to the ring of Nazarenes.
The epistle was spurned by all.
“What is lacking?” Telamon cried. “Is this not what you have waited for? Is this letter not in fact the cause of all this night’s bloodshed? We have lost three lives to bring it to you! Is this not what you seek?”
Telamon held the scroll out in offering.
Simon stepped forward, elevating a torch.
In the light could be seen clearly, despite the dirt and blood upon the mercenary’s forearm, the military tattoo
LEGIO X
A murmur of fury swept through the mob.
Simon dashed the scroll from Telamon’s grasp.
“How stupid do you think we are, Roman?”
“Kill him!” someone cried.
Ruth stared about. Half a hundred countenances devoid of pity ringed her and Telamon.
The mercenary yet clutched his gladius.
Yet all could see he stood at the limits of his strength.
“He’s finished!” another shouted, gesturing to the youngbloods to attack. “Take him down!”
Before any could advance a step, the Virgin strode into the torchlight. Taking station before Telamon, she turned and confronted her compatriots.
“Will you crucify this one too?”
Cries of outrage greeted this. Men, and no few women, shouted the lady down.
“Get quit!”
“Step from the way!”
Simon of the Harbor strode up before the Virgin. His sister Miriam advanced beside him. The Christian leader indicated Telamon and the child.
“These are impostors sent by Rome,” he declared for all. “As others who have played us for fools before.” To Telamon he said, “Four families we have lost—wives and children as well—gulled by frauds like you. Let me tell you: These other actors were better than you. More convincing.”
Miriam spoke. “How many more of our brothers and sisters must die, taken in by such treachery, before we stand up to these cowards?”
More shouts of “Kill them!” ascended.
Some intrepid soul dared speak in opposition. This voice cried that the prisoner before them had slain the Roman commander. And the girl struck that villain a blow in the face. “All have seen this!” the fellow shouted. “Can these be frauds, to perform such feats against Rome?”
“I saw nothing of the sort,” responded Simon without hesitation, “but a staged spectacle, enacted with fake blood and sham theatrics, meant to play us for fools. We saw the Roman commander borne from the field to ovations from his men. Who among us will take an oath that Severus breathes no more? Not I, I tell you!”
The Christian pointed back down the road upon which the community had fled to this point.
“For all we know, Severus or others in his name ride now upon our heels, led to us by these pretenders!”
Guardsmen made a sudden rush. Blows of their eight-footers hammered Telamon to his knees. In moments the attackers had stripped him of his sword and Ruth of her dagger.
Miriam loomed over the man-at-arms. She clutched a stone the size of a brick.
“Who sent you? Answer me!”
Telamon glanced to Ruth. The child reached toward the scroll on the earth. Miriam swatted this back into the dirt.
“How close behind us are the Romans?”
“There are no Romans.”
Miriam smashed Telamon full in the face.
Ruth sprang at the woman.
Telamon, despite the blow, held the child back.
“How close are they? Speak, you bloody betrayer!”
The Virgin caught at Miriam’s arm. Others of her party cried out in indignation. The women grappled. Passionate words flew, in Greek and some fashion of harbor dialect.
The Virgin declared, in a voice so forceful it carried easily to the farthest reaches of the company, that Simon and Miriam’s actions this night, and especially in this hour, had broken her heart.
“How can we . . . how can any of us stand before our Savior, having given blood for blood—and taken satisfaction in it?”
The young woman proclaimed of Simon and Miriam that the hatred they had shown this night, even toward these “spies”—she indicated Telamon and the child Ruth—had made her regret every word she had spoken and every act she had taken in the name of faith and love.
“Who are we, sisters and brothers? Look at us. What have we become?”
Someone in the throng shouted, “Then take the letter!”
The Virgin responded without hesitation: “I would not have the letter, even were it real, acquired in this fashion—by bloodshed and by the willful abrogation of every tenet of faith and aspiration to which we have sworn.”
With her foot the Virgin flattened the epistle and ground it beneath her heel.
This act produced, for the moment, a stunned and unnerved silence.
“And what should we have done, Parthenos?” demanded Miriam. “Let ourselves be driven down beneath Roman steel like our brothers and sisters of Antioch and Cyrrhus and Epidaurus?”
“Yes!” responded the Virgin. “I would sooner that than betray the faith we have sworn to uphold and for which we have given everything.”
Telamon reached to the letter.
Blows of cudgels and staffs propelled him back.
Guardsmen drew Miriam and the Virgin apart from the fracas.
“Kill him!” voices cried.
Telamon rose again, shielding Ruth with his body.
Guardsmen battered him to his knees. Others pinned his arms.