The Tale of the Thirteenth Spirit - Part 1 of a million
This was my NaNo novel, but my research for this slowed me down too much. Now it's just another of my daft works-in-progress. This is the first sort of chapter-bit. I felt I needed to post it to keep it from going stale while I try to finish it off.
Title: The Tale of the Thirteenth Spirit
Chapter: 1/∞
Rating: R for this chapter, I suspect.
Pairing: Judas/John
Warnings: Heretical as hell!
The sun had not yet risen, but the night was already retreating westwards over the Galilee. It was a beautiful, gentle land: a greener paradise in a dry country, transformed by the fresh waters of its lakes and streams into a region of vines and trees, all succoured by its kind climate. The golden hills were shedding the shade of night, and the Sea of Galilee, also known as Lake Tiberias or Lake Genesara, was reflecting the wan light that was growing in the east. And beautiful and still as the Galilee lay in the dawning light, it was not a peaceful, isolated paradise.
It was a land traced with trade routes, with goods carried in from the Greek towns on the coast into the Galilee, and thence along the Roman roads to Egypt, and Damascus, or off into the Far East. To the west lay the Mediterranean Sea and the cities of the Phoenicians, the great mariners and traders, and to the south was the city of Jerusalem in Judea by the Dead Sea. And with their land all criss-crossed with bright and colourful caravans bearing exotic goods, the people of the Galilee only held more fiercely to their own identity: a Jewish people, made all the more aware of their subjugated status as Romans, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Arabs, and all manner of foreigners passed through. It was a crossroad of the empires, and they knew their place in it.
Certain superstitions may have permeated their culture, but they were more zealous in following the laws of Torah than the average Jew in the busy city of Jerusalem, which housed the great Temple of Jerusalem within its walls. The Galileans were proud of their land, and proud of their strict adherence to the laws - you were more likely to be stoned to death in the Galilee than in the streets of the Temple city in the south. It was a region famed for its beauty, and for its fierce people.
Under a circle of dark-leaved trees in this often neglected land, a man was on his back, watching the stars fade against the lightening sky. He was black-haired, like many Israelites, and his skin was tanned to a darker shade of olive than was considered attractive. His clothing was simple but of better quality than most: he wore a full-length tunic of dyed black cotton, over which he usually wore a rich red robe, though he happened to be using that as a blanket at the moment. The edges had been bound with bright, contrasting colours, though these were now rather faded. But it was a sign that he was reasonably well-off, or had been so. The man carried a short knife in his belt in a battered scabbard. The hard form of his body and the pale lines of scars that marked his skin were testament to fights in his recent past.
That knife, and the scars which came with it, told the history of the man who wore them. He was not of the Galilee, but from Judea and the city of Jerusalem itself. The Jewish people had suffered for more than 400 years under the domination of one foreign power or another - from Babylonians, to Persians, to Greeks, to Egyptians, to Syrians, and now the Romans - but Jerusalem bore the brunt of Roman imperialism. Nearly a century ago, the Roman general, Pompey, had led his victorious troops into the beaten, war-routed city of Jerusalem, and the first thing he had done was to strut on into the Jewish Temple, straight into the second court, which no gentile was to enter, and on into the Holy of Holies. Where none but the high priest was allowed to tread, the Roman general had stood and laughed at the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jacob.
From then on, the Romans had ruled from Jerusalem: with taxes, and graven images that affronted the very laws of God, and a brutal death for any who disobeyed their laws. In that time, many men turned to their God to save them. Most hoped that the messiah would come - the man whom God would anoint as his chosen one, and who would save the Jews from their oppressors at last. Others found men who claimed the messiahship, or prophesised the glad news that their messiah was coming. Some followed the Essenes and retreated to the deserts in search of purity, and others followed the Pharisees to finds purity in the laws of Torah.
Yet others did not trust to wait for the messiah: they were still God’s chosen people, and if they fought the Romans, then God would fight with them. These men were the zealots: called terrorists and bandits by those who hated them, and were named heroes and fighters for the freedom liberation of their land by those who loved them. They would raid from the hills and strike against the Romans, sometimes sharing tax money among the poor. The zealots were not one organised movement, however, but clusters of different rebel groups all trying to fight as well as they could against a powerful enemy.
The man who lay on the grass in the morning dew was such a man. He was one of the sicarii - the dagger men - who could wield their knives as assassins against Romans and Roman supporters alike. Often and anon, a man would move through the crowd towards a well-dressed man - a Jew, perhaps, who had prospered under the Roman occupation. A short knife would glint briefly as it flashed out from the folds of the sicarriot’s robes, and the chosen man would drop in the midst of the moving throng of the city. Then assassin would melt away into the busy streets and twisting alleys of the city, their message clear: God’s retribution would come swift and deadly to those who betrayed their God and their people.
Such a man was Judas Sicariiot. He was not a particularly handsome man, but Judas was striking; you might see him in a crowd without noticing him, but the memory of his face would come to you later for no reason at all. It probably had something to do with his eyes. Those eyes burned like black coals from under the curtain of his raven hair, as though those dark lamps took their light from the very fire that drove his soul and heart. Those fires weren’t burning too brightly right now, however.
Judas grumbled and cursed, struggling to pull his mantle up higher over his shoulders against the morning chill. It wasn’t fair, he reasoned, that morning birds should begin their incessant chirping before morning was properly begun. It also wasn’t fair that the root of the olive tree he was sheltered under had seen fit to bore a hole into his back as he had slept. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to roughing it, but it didn’t make it any more pleasant. He squirmed, trying to find a position of maximum comfort in a situation that offered little. The movement elicited a whine of protest from the area of his navel. Judas smiled, and reached down to smooth the rumpled hair of the man whose head rested upon his stomach.
He looks like a boy when he sleeps, Judas thought tenderly, Then again, where’s your beard to prove you aren’t one, John?
All in all, though, Judas felt he liked the both James and John, the two sons of Zebedee. They might only be fishermen from the sticks of the Galilee, but they were as devoted to the cause as any could wish, and both good company on the road. Especially John.
After Judas had joined the Nazarene’s followers, young John had started following Judas around like a puppy. At first Judas thought it was form of hero worship. He knew that he struck a dashing picture: lean, fit, and dark from his long weeks with his comrades in the mountains, nimble on his feet, strong of arm, and quick with his blade against any Roman or Roman sympathiser. And so of course Judas had taken the young man under his wing; he’d been quite flattered by the rural fisherman’s unfeigned interest in his tales of raids from the hills and fights with Roman centurions.
Judas wasn’t blind, of course. John was a handsome lad; he had beautiful brown hair and eyes, an inclination to gentleness, though with an ember of youthful enthusiasm that could burst into flame at any moment. When John walked down the street, heads turned: women’s and men’s, married or no. But Judas was a man of principle and priority: they were brothers in the cause, and cause came first. Little had he known, of course, that John had shared his… proclivities. Little had he known that the young Galilean’s skin was as soft as milk and his lips as sweet as honey. Little had he known that John’s soft and bashful touch could burn away to an embrace so needy and lustful that it left Judas’ back marked with little half-moon cuts for weeks at a time.
Judas grinned again; who would’ve guessed that such a meek little dove could turn be such an eagle in bed? He had thought his time with the Nazarene’s followers would be all work and no play, but provided he was discreet, he and this youngest son of Zebedee might have many a pleasant night together.
Judas shifted again as the vengeful tree root began to gnaw a new hole in his spine, trying not to wake John. He sighed. It wasn’t easy to have such inclinations towards other men: “abomination” was the term. It was this stain on his soul, among other reasons that had led Judas to seek purification in the cleansing blood of the Romans. It was a form of penance to fight against the occupying gentile force. Their very presence in Israel was surely a greater abomination in itself than he, a man alone, could ever be. For the past four odd years, he had spent his time in the hill country, making raids with his fellows and fighting the oppressors. It was during those intense years that he had first come to terms with his taste in lovers. Actually, it had been Eran who’d helped him there - never a dull moment with that man, whether you were fighting or making love.
Eran had been their leader: a brilliant man, alert and cunning as a cat. It was in no part due to Eran’s cleverness that their small band had survived so long, and it had been his authority, no doubt, that had protected him and Judas. They were breaking the laws of Torah even as they fought to restore holiness to their homeland; but their comrades hadn’t ostracised them, and Judas had been the happiest that he could be. He knew he wasn’t following God’s laws as he should, but hadn’t God helped his ancestors in their wars against their enemies, while at the same time commanding his people not to kill? But he was no rabbi, which was why he looked to his rabbi for guidance. The rabbi: Joshua bar Joseph.
When Eran had been killed, spitted on a Roman’s pike, Judas had gone mad. He’d hacked that Roman with his blade in a blind, berserk rage until the corpse was barely recognisable as human, but it had been too little, too late. When he finally came to himself, stained up to his elbows in dark strings of congealing blood, he had run to where Eran was propped up. The pike upon which he was gored had caught between two rocks and was holding him up from the ground like a fish on a spit. By then, there was nothing Judas could do but try to ease his lover’s passing. Judas had pulled Eran free of the rocks and held him, smoothing the hair on his leader’s head and weeping for his loss and Eran’s pain. But if his leader had recognised him, he gave no sign: a ghastly rattling had escaped his throat, bursting a crimson bubble of blood on his lips, and with one final, terrible spasm, Eran had gone.
Eran’s death had been the death of their band of sicarii, too. They splintered into two factions: those loyal to Eran’s memory, and those who had, apparently, always held that their group had not been properly led. Judas had had enough, however. They had never achieved their ultimate victory before, so what chance did they have now that Eran was gone? What was the point of continuing?
Mourning and heart empty of all but pain, Judas had left the zealots and had been planning to return home to Judea and his home city of Jerusalem when strange rumours reached his ears. It seemed that a new leader had arisen who was rumoured to be the messiah, the one who would lead them all against the Romans with the power of their God behind him. He had heard other tales of a man named John - John “the Baptiser” - who had been predicting that the day of reckoning and the messiah were coming, but he had just dismissed it at the time as another religious lunatic. But this man, this Joshua had rekindled a flame in Judas’ soul that he had thought burnt out forever.
This was a man with an energy and drive the like of which Judas had never seen before. His powers were real, that was for certain, but there were many miracle-men in the region, not all of them frauds. Joshua’s miracles weren’t even that impressive, though Judas suspected the man could do more when the time came. But no, whatever it was that made Joshua of Nazareth so magnetic was beyond words - some part of that aura of power he carried behind his gentle words. At first, Judas had thought he looked a little too gentle: the man was strong, no doubt about it, young and fit from his carpentry, but he was a peasant, not a soldier. Yet was it not written that the messiah would be a man who brought peace? He had already brought healing to the sick, bringing joy and gladness to the people: these were the signs the prophets had recorded. But more than that, something in his words, even those riddles he told, made people pay attention. This was the kind of man they needed to lead the people up against the Romans. This man had the power to lead men, to carry their spirits with him to the final victory, to establish a kingdom in which his people would rule be ruled by Joshua, the new King David, from whom Joshua could claim descent.
“A man who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is also far from the kingdom”.
And with every new follower he gains, the fire spreads and grows, Judas thought. The people are dry tinder - all they need is their leader to light the flames of war that burn in their hearts.
And such a leader they had in Joshua. Judas smiled. Who could not be moved by such words? He bound men together: “love your brother like your soul, guard him like the pupil of your eye”. If only he’d guarded Eran so well.
Snap! A twig cracked in the crisp morning air, followed by the sound of walking feet, and Judas was shocked out of his reverie. The stars had fled by now, and the woods were filled with a pale morning light, but it was too early for innocent travellers to be about yet. He tensed, ears straining to gauge whether the feet were approaching or simply passing by. At the same time, he reached down to grab his short-bladed knife. His heart was thudding in his chest: what if it was bandits? Or another zealot faction, even? Romans? He gently moved John’s head off his chest, and leapt to his feet, drawing his knife. He listened, standing barefooted in his shift: the feet drew closer and closer, and Judas’ grip tightened around the hilt of his knife. Closer, and closer - what if the man had a bow? He should get some cover and ambush the intruder.
The feet sounded like they were coming from the east, so Judas crept swiftly across the clearing and took shelter behind the trunk of a stout olive, his back to the bark. He waited. The feet approached. Then his opponent was standing on the other side of the tree, walking closer and closer, suddenly taking care to be quiet as, Judas guessed, the man saw John sleeping. That was it. Judas swung round the back of the tree and leapt on the man’s back.
The man was shorter than Judas was, and he obviously hadn’t been expecting attack. With a cry, the intruder fell to the grassy ground with Judas holding him tight. He grabbed the man’s hair and shoved his head down.
“All right, you bastard! Whaddaya want and…”
“Judas?” said the man, voice muffled.
Judas felt sick. Only one man had a voice like that.
“Master?”
“Judas, kindly get off me.”
Judas leapt up as if he’d been bitten, sheathing his knife, and helping the Master off the ground, frantically brushing leaves off the man’s mantle and out of his dark hair.
“I’m sorry master, I thought you were going to attack us, and it was instinct! I’m sorry! Oh, I’m so sorry master, I didn’t hurt you? It was just so early in the morning I didn’t think…” He was babbling.
Oh God oh God ohGodohGod…
The master looked a little cross as he wiped the dust from his face, and Judas’ heart sank, if possible, further.
“Once a zealot always a zealot, eh Judas?” the master said with a sigh.
“Yes, master” Judas said miserably, not looking at the man’s face and desperately trying to remove a twig from his rabbi’s mantle.
Then Joshua laughed. Judas loved his laugh: he thought it sounded like sunshine.
“Oh Judas, Judas; one day you’re going to kill someone, you know that?”
Judas ventured a smile, still not looking up, “That’s the idea.”
“Idiot,” Joshua said fondly.
Judas glanced up at that, deciding that Joshua really wasn’t angry with him. Far from it, Joshua bar Joseph was smiling that funny smile of his - the one where you felt sure that you were a part of a joke that only he understood. The thing was, you couldn’t ever resent him for it because he was never laughing at you; it was as if he was somehow laughing for you. It was puzzling, but Joshua was a puzzling person.
Joshua pulled one last leaf out of his sienna-brown hair. Judas seemed to have removed the rest, but the master’s navy mantle now had a lighter tone of dust-brown to it. Judas sighed. The master wore simple clothing, good enough for a carpenter, not quite dashing enough for a leader of men, in Judas’ opinion. It didn’t help that the man seemed to have no regard for the way the grime of the road gathered on his clothes. Judas had tried to hint to the master that appearance did matter, but Joshua had always laughed and insisted that it didn’t.
Well, at least he doesn’t dress like John the Baptiser. I suppose it runs in the family.
And there would be finer clothes when they came in triumph to Jerusalem. Gold ornaments and silken robes of purple! He liked the idea of Joshua in silks, somehow.
“Master Joshua- ”
“No need to be all formal, Judas. It’s ‘Joshua’, just ‘Joshua’.”
“But you’re our leader, our master…”
Sometimes Judas felt as if he’d never understand this man.
“Haven’t I said that whatever man aids me in the working the will of God is my brother?” the master embraced him, kissing both cheeks, “You’re my brother Judas, and I yours. Call me Joshua.”
And for all Judas felt that he’d never understand this man, he knew he could follow him to the edge of the world. Judas smiled.
“Joshua, then,” he put his arm around the man’s shoulder and looked out as the sun began to peek out from over the hills eastwards, “So what do you need of me, Josh?”
“I said ‘Joshua’, not ‘Josh’!” Joshua exclaimed in mock offence, cheerfully mussing Judas’ hair, then resting his arm around the other man’s shoulder in a comradely fashion, “That’s what my mother calls me, for all love! I said you were my brother, not my mother!”
“Aren’t we all one family under God?” Judas said, slyly quoting the master against himself.
“Are you sure you’re not from Galilee?” Joshua said, giving him a piercing look, “You’re certainly argumentative enough to be.” Judas felt vaguely proud and offended at the same time.
“Anyway,” Joshua continued, “I just came out here to see where my two stray sheep had got to.”
Judas shifted uncomfortably as the memory of John’s hot mouth rose unbidden in his mind.
“We just wanted to… get some sleep in actual peace and quiet,” Judas said, shrugging, “You all seemed more interested in talking than sleeping when we left, so we assumed no one would miss us…”
“A shepherd always misses his sheep, Judas,” Joshua said enigmatically.
Judas didn’t really know what to say to that. The man was rather given to speaking in metaphors, similes, parables, and the like. It could make casual conversation a little bewildering.
“And don’t worry about lying to me. I do know what you and John have been up to,” he added casually, though his eyes were fixed on Judas.
“What?” Judas should’ve been more subtle, but damnit if this man couldn’t burn away guile like the sun burnt away mist. He was undone, and so was John. Joshua was anointed by God, after all, so why would he tolerate men like them?
Yet Judas wasn’t sure what to do in this situation: his instincts told him to run for the hills again, but he wanted to make certain that Joshua meant what he said, and to be certain of what the master’s planned course of action was.
“I. Know,” Joshua continued in a measured, neutral tone. “You don’t have to hide it from me: I won’t judge you. Though I imagine James would do more than judge if he knew.”
“How do you know?” If Joshua wasn’t going to condemn him as an abomination against man and God at the moment, Judas could formulate a plan for escape - or something. Joshua didn’t seem like the kind of man who would put a man to death on the spot for disobeying the laws of Torah. But John and Judas had thought they were being careful, and that no one suspected them of anything other than close friendship. But if Joshua could tell that they were engaged in a burgeoning relationship which the laws clearly denounced, then they also had to fear that neither of them were as adept at secrecy as they had believed. And for men in their position, Judas and John needed to be adept at covert love.
Joshua grinned at the zealot, clearly unperturbed by his disciple’s agitation.
“I can cure sickness and heal the maimed, so I’m obviously not blind, Judas! And don’t worry; there are worse sins in this mad world than loving.”
“But-”
“Just don’t let James catch you. He likes you, but I don’t think he’d appreciate your ‘encouraging’ his brother’s unfortunate lack of interest in taking a wife.”
“But… but-”
“Shut up, Judas. You look like a fish.”
Judas shut up, but continued to gape at him.
Joshua sighed and took his arm off Judas’ shoulder, sitting down the damp grass.
“Sit with me, Judas.”
Judas looked at his master: this crazy, crazy messiah, and sat.
He waited for Joshua to talk. The man was staring out at the dawn over the softly rolling, green-daubed hills of Galilee. Well, it certainly was strange and wonderful that his new leader should be tolerant of his deviant ways like - well, not quite like - Eran. Poor Eran. It was his knife that Judas carried now, with the aim of avenging its former owner by wetting its blade with the blood of as many Romans as he could. And Joshua, this curiously gentle rebel, was going to make it all possible.
“Judas, what is your experience with mankind?” Joshua asked quietly.
Judas thought. He didn’t want to sound like an idiot to the messiah, and he was also wary of where this conversation was headed. What did mankind in general have to do with his sins? But he soldiered on in the direction Joshua had indicated.
“We’re complicated,” he began slowly, “We don’t know what we need, but we get it confused with what we want. That’s why so many people sell out to the Romans,” he continued, warming to a familiar topic, “like Matthew. He knew he wanted something, but he thought it was money and the kind of safe, comfortable life he could get collecting taxes. So he turned traitor to his own people. I mean no offence, but that’s what he did.
“The problem is that once people start thinking that the Roman way is the best way, they keep on it, even if they’re not happy where they are, they keep trying to climb up because they… because I suppose they think they’ll find what they need higher up. They sell themselves to the Roman way, trying to get more money and power, but that isn’t what they need.”
Joshua wasn’t saying anything, but he didn’t look like he thought Judas was an idiot, so Judas kept going.
“They need to remember that their hearts aren’t really longing for Rome, but for Israel. They need to remember that they’re Jews, and that this land is ours, and that God gave it to us. And we have a duty to it and to God, first and foremost, no matter what Caesar does.”
“Give Caesar what is due Caesar, and give God what is due God.” Joshua said softly.
“Exactly.”
Silence descended between them again. The birds were twittering madly in the branches of the oaks and wild olives, and the sun had begun to warm the hills. Judas looked at the mountains, then down at his sandals in the grass, then back up at the mountains.
“Um, Joshua,” he began slowly, “So why is it that my abomination doesn’t bother you?”
“Because you’re a child of God.” Joshua answered simply.
What a lovely answer, Judas thought, so pretty, and so magnificently unhelpful.
“I beg your pardon, but I don’t understand.”
Joshua looked at Judas with thoughtful eyes.
“No, I suppose you don’t. Very well. Let me try to explain: what makes you you?”
Judas pondered this question.
“I don’t know… my body? My mind?”
“If the answer is your body, what would happen when you die?”
“I see what you mean. My mind, then,” Judas answered quickly, trying to get to the point.
“Not quite,” Joshua said, raising his palm as if to slow Judas down, “Your soul.”
“I follow you thus far.”
“Good. I’m glad to know you aren’t just a man of action. Now tell me: does a soul have gender?”
“What? No. I don’t think so.”
“And what are our bodies made of?”
Judas shrugged, “Clay, originally.”
“And if you mould clay in the shape of a man, does that make it different from clay moulded in the shape of a woman?”
“No. Clay doesn’t… oh,” revelation dawned on Judas, and he decided once and for all that this man was mad and that he liked him for it, “So, what you’re saying is that gender is just different shapes of pottery? That it doesn’t matter who I love because what counts is our souls, which have no gender?” Well that certainly wasn’t a part of traditional doctrine.
Joshua just smiled that funny smile again. But Judas was troubled; this exchange was surely one of the most liberating exchanges of his entire life, but it went against everything in the Laws of Moses. And much as what he said made sense in Judas’ heart, his mind told him that such a stance on love between men might not be kindly received by the religious authorities. Or anyone else, really, with the possible exception of the gentiles.
“Joshua, have you tried explaining this to any of the others?” he asked tentatively, “I mean, you said James wouldn’t take kindly… and I know he wouldn’t… but have you tried? What do they think?”
“Ah, Judas, my fierce Judean, the star that leads the way to the kingdom of God will be your star, but you have much to learn.”
“What? Stop talking in riddles! Why do you always do that? Can’t you just speak plainly like a normal person?” Judas exclaimed this last a little louder than was necessary.
Joshua just smiled smugly. Behind them, John made a funny snuffling noise and muttered something about lizards, obviously still asleep.
“See to your lover, Judas. You woke him up. We probably won’t be breaking our fast for an hour yet.” Joshua stood up smoothly and looked down at Judas with an indescribable look on his face. “God be with you, Judas.”
And with that, his messiah strode out of the clearing.
What was all that about? Judas wondered, far from pleased. He rose and kicked off his sandals, crawling back under his mantle with John - he’d forgotten he wasn’t wearing it, cold as the morning air was. Joshua tended to have that effect on people.
Just my luck to be wandering around utterly naked in my shift in front of the messiah, Judas thought unhappily. Still, that Joshua was a wonderful man. What he had said about Judas’ proclivities - and John’s, Judas thought, as the young man rolled closer to him and snuggled against him - was one of the kinder things any man had said to him. Even if Joshua didn’t really believe it, it was still a kind thing to say.
I’ll have to tell John about what the Master said…
One of John’s hands began to trace its way lazily up Judas’ chest.
…later.
Title: The Tale of the Thirteenth Spirit
Chapter: 1/∞
Rating: R for this chapter, I suspect.
Pairing: Judas/John
Warnings: Heretical as hell!
The sun had not yet risen, but the night was already retreating westwards over the Galilee. It was a beautiful, gentle land: a greener paradise in a dry country, transformed by the fresh waters of its lakes and streams into a region of vines and trees, all succoured by its kind climate. The golden hills were shedding the shade of night, and the Sea of Galilee, also known as Lake Tiberias or Lake Genesara, was reflecting the wan light that was growing in the east. And beautiful and still as the Galilee lay in the dawning light, it was not a peaceful, isolated paradise.
It was a land traced with trade routes, with goods carried in from the Greek towns on the coast into the Galilee, and thence along the Roman roads to Egypt, and Damascus, or off into the Far East. To the west lay the Mediterranean Sea and the cities of the Phoenicians, the great mariners and traders, and to the south was the city of Jerusalem in Judea by the Dead Sea. And with their land all criss-crossed with bright and colourful caravans bearing exotic goods, the people of the Galilee only held more fiercely to their own identity: a Jewish people, made all the more aware of their subjugated status as Romans, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Arabs, and all manner of foreigners passed through. It was a crossroad of the empires, and they knew their place in it.
Certain superstitions may have permeated their culture, but they were more zealous in following the laws of Torah than the average Jew in the busy city of Jerusalem, which housed the great Temple of Jerusalem within its walls. The Galileans were proud of their land, and proud of their strict adherence to the laws - you were more likely to be stoned to death in the Galilee than in the streets of the Temple city in the south. It was a region famed for its beauty, and for its fierce people.
Under a circle of dark-leaved trees in this often neglected land, a man was on his back, watching the stars fade against the lightening sky. He was black-haired, like many Israelites, and his skin was tanned to a darker shade of olive than was considered attractive. His clothing was simple but of better quality than most: he wore a full-length tunic of dyed black cotton, over which he usually wore a rich red robe, though he happened to be using that as a blanket at the moment. The edges had been bound with bright, contrasting colours, though these were now rather faded. But it was a sign that he was reasonably well-off, or had been so. The man carried a short knife in his belt in a battered scabbard. The hard form of his body and the pale lines of scars that marked his skin were testament to fights in his recent past.
That knife, and the scars which came with it, told the history of the man who wore them. He was not of the Galilee, but from Judea and the city of Jerusalem itself. The Jewish people had suffered for more than 400 years under the domination of one foreign power or another - from Babylonians, to Persians, to Greeks, to Egyptians, to Syrians, and now the Romans - but Jerusalem bore the brunt of Roman imperialism. Nearly a century ago, the Roman general, Pompey, had led his victorious troops into the beaten, war-routed city of Jerusalem, and the first thing he had done was to strut on into the Jewish Temple, straight into the second court, which no gentile was to enter, and on into the Holy of Holies. Where none but the high priest was allowed to tread, the Roman general had stood and laughed at the God of Abraham, Moses, and Jacob.
From then on, the Romans had ruled from Jerusalem: with taxes, and graven images that affronted the very laws of God, and a brutal death for any who disobeyed their laws. In that time, many men turned to their God to save them. Most hoped that the messiah would come - the man whom God would anoint as his chosen one, and who would save the Jews from their oppressors at last. Others found men who claimed the messiahship, or prophesised the glad news that their messiah was coming. Some followed the Essenes and retreated to the deserts in search of purity, and others followed the Pharisees to finds purity in the laws of Torah.
Yet others did not trust to wait for the messiah: they were still God’s chosen people, and if they fought the Romans, then God would fight with them. These men were the zealots: called terrorists and bandits by those who hated them, and were named heroes and fighters for the freedom liberation of their land by those who loved them. They would raid from the hills and strike against the Romans, sometimes sharing tax money among the poor. The zealots were not one organised movement, however, but clusters of different rebel groups all trying to fight as well as they could against a powerful enemy.
The man who lay on the grass in the morning dew was such a man. He was one of the sicarii - the dagger men - who could wield their knives as assassins against Romans and Roman supporters alike. Often and anon, a man would move through the crowd towards a well-dressed man - a Jew, perhaps, who had prospered under the Roman occupation. A short knife would glint briefly as it flashed out from the folds of the sicarriot’s robes, and the chosen man would drop in the midst of the moving throng of the city. Then assassin would melt away into the busy streets and twisting alleys of the city, their message clear: God’s retribution would come swift and deadly to those who betrayed their God and their people.
Such a man was Judas Sicariiot. He was not a particularly handsome man, but Judas was striking; you might see him in a crowd without noticing him, but the memory of his face would come to you later for no reason at all. It probably had something to do with his eyes. Those eyes burned like black coals from under the curtain of his raven hair, as though those dark lamps took their light from the very fire that drove his soul and heart. Those fires weren’t burning too brightly right now, however.
Judas grumbled and cursed, struggling to pull his mantle up higher over his shoulders against the morning chill. It wasn’t fair, he reasoned, that morning birds should begin their incessant chirping before morning was properly begun. It also wasn’t fair that the root of the olive tree he was sheltered under had seen fit to bore a hole into his back as he had slept. It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to roughing it, but it didn’t make it any more pleasant. He squirmed, trying to find a position of maximum comfort in a situation that offered little. The movement elicited a whine of protest from the area of his navel. Judas smiled, and reached down to smooth the rumpled hair of the man whose head rested upon his stomach.
He looks like a boy when he sleeps, Judas thought tenderly, Then again, where’s your beard to prove you aren’t one, John?
All in all, though, Judas felt he liked the both James and John, the two sons of Zebedee. They might only be fishermen from the sticks of the Galilee, but they were as devoted to the cause as any could wish, and both good company on the road. Especially John.
After Judas had joined the Nazarene’s followers, young John had started following Judas around like a puppy. At first Judas thought it was form of hero worship. He knew that he struck a dashing picture: lean, fit, and dark from his long weeks with his comrades in the mountains, nimble on his feet, strong of arm, and quick with his blade against any Roman or Roman sympathiser. And so of course Judas had taken the young man under his wing; he’d been quite flattered by the rural fisherman’s unfeigned interest in his tales of raids from the hills and fights with Roman centurions.
Judas wasn’t blind, of course. John was a handsome lad; he had beautiful brown hair and eyes, an inclination to gentleness, though with an ember of youthful enthusiasm that could burst into flame at any moment. When John walked down the street, heads turned: women’s and men’s, married or no. But Judas was a man of principle and priority: they were brothers in the cause, and cause came first. Little had he known, of course, that John had shared his… proclivities. Little had he known that the young Galilean’s skin was as soft as milk and his lips as sweet as honey. Little had he known that John’s soft and bashful touch could burn away to an embrace so needy and lustful that it left Judas’ back marked with little half-moon cuts for weeks at a time.
Judas grinned again; who would’ve guessed that such a meek little dove could turn be such an eagle in bed? He had thought his time with the Nazarene’s followers would be all work and no play, but provided he was discreet, he and this youngest son of Zebedee might have many a pleasant night together.
Judas shifted again as the vengeful tree root began to gnaw a new hole in his spine, trying not to wake John. He sighed. It wasn’t easy to have such inclinations towards other men: “abomination” was the term. It was this stain on his soul, among other reasons that had led Judas to seek purification in the cleansing blood of the Romans. It was a form of penance to fight against the occupying gentile force. Their very presence in Israel was surely a greater abomination in itself than he, a man alone, could ever be. For the past four odd years, he had spent his time in the hill country, making raids with his fellows and fighting the oppressors. It was during those intense years that he had first come to terms with his taste in lovers. Actually, it had been Eran who’d helped him there - never a dull moment with that man, whether you were fighting or making love.
Eran had been their leader: a brilliant man, alert and cunning as a cat. It was in no part due to Eran’s cleverness that their small band had survived so long, and it had been his authority, no doubt, that had protected him and Judas. They were breaking the laws of Torah even as they fought to restore holiness to their homeland; but their comrades hadn’t ostracised them, and Judas had been the happiest that he could be. He knew he wasn’t following God’s laws as he should, but hadn’t God helped his ancestors in their wars against their enemies, while at the same time commanding his people not to kill? But he was no rabbi, which was why he looked to his rabbi for guidance. The rabbi: Joshua bar Joseph.
When Eran had been killed, spitted on a Roman’s pike, Judas had gone mad. He’d hacked that Roman with his blade in a blind, berserk rage until the corpse was barely recognisable as human, but it had been too little, too late. When he finally came to himself, stained up to his elbows in dark strings of congealing blood, he had run to where Eran was propped up. The pike upon which he was gored had caught between two rocks and was holding him up from the ground like a fish on a spit. By then, there was nothing Judas could do but try to ease his lover’s passing. Judas had pulled Eran free of the rocks and held him, smoothing the hair on his leader’s head and weeping for his loss and Eran’s pain. But if his leader had recognised him, he gave no sign: a ghastly rattling had escaped his throat, bursting a crimson bubble of blood on his lips, and with one final, terrible spasm, Eran had gone.
Eran’s death had been the death of their band of sicarii, too. They splintered into two factions: those loyal to Eran’s memory, and those who had, apparently, always held that their group had not been properly led. Judas had had enough, however. They had never achieved their ultimate victory before, so what chance did they have now that Eran was gone? What was the point of continuing?
Mourning and heart empty of all but pain, Judas had left the zealots and had been planning to return home to Judea and his home city of Jerusalem when strange rumours reached his ears. It seemed that a new leader had arisen who was rumoured to be the messiah, the one who would lead them all against the Romans with the power of their God behind him. He had heard other tales of a man named John - John “the Baptiser” - who had been predicting that the day of reckoning and the messiah were coming, but he had just dismissed it at the time as another religious lunatic. But this man, this Joshua had rekindled a flame in Judas’ soul that he had thought burnt out forever.
This was a man with an energy and drive the like of which Judas had never seen before. His powers were real, that was for certain, but there were many miracle-men in the region, not all of them frauds. Joshua’s miracles weren’t even that impressive, though Judas suspected the man could do more when the time came. But no, whatever it was that made Joshua of Nazareth so magnetic was beyond words - some part of that aura of power he carried behind his gentle words. At first, Judas had thought he looked a little too gentle: the man was strong, no doubt about it, young and fit from his carpentry, but he was a peasant, not a soldier. Yet was it not written that the messiah would be a man who brought peace? He had already brought healing to the sick, bringing joy and gladness to the people: these were the signs the prophets had recorded. But more than that, something in his words, even those riddles he told, made people pay attention. This was the kind of man they needed to lead the people up against the Romans. This man had the power to lead men, to carry their spirits with him to the final victory, to establish a kingdom in which his people would rule be ruled by Joshua, the new King David, from whom Joshua could claim descent.
“A man who is near me is near the fire, and he who is far from me is also far from the kingdom”.
And with every new follower he gains, the fire spreads and grows, Judas thought. The people are dry tinder - all they need is their leader to light the flames of war that burn in their hearts.
And such a leader they had in Joshua. Judas smiled. Who could not be moved by such words? He bound men together: “love your brother like your soul, guard him like the pupil of your eye”. If only he’d guarded Eran so well.
Snap! A twig cracked in the crisp morning air, followed by the sound of walking feet, and Judas was shocked out of his reverie. The stars had fled by now, and the woods were filled with a pale morning light, but it was too early for innocent travellers to be about yet. He tensed, ears straining to gauge whether the feet were approaching or simply passing by. At the same time, he reached down to grab his short-bladed knife. His heart was thudding in his chest: what if it was bandits? Or another zealot faction, even? Romans? He gently moved John’s head off his chest, and leapt to his feet, drawing his knife. He listened, standing barefooted in his shift: the feet drew closer and closer, and Judas’ grip tightened around the hilt of his knife. Closer, and closer - what if the man had a bow? He should get some cover and ambush the intruder.
The feet sounded like they were coming from the east, so Judas crept swiftly across the clearing and took shelter behind the trunk of a stout olive, his back to the bark. He waited. The feet approached. Then his opponent was standing on the other side of the tree, walking closer and closer, suddenly taking care to be quiet as, Judas guessed, the man saw John sleeping. That was it. Judas swung round the back of the tree and leapt on the man’s back.
The man was shorter than Judas was, and he obviously hadn’t been expecting attack. With a cry, the intruder fell to the grassy ground with Judas holding him tight. He grabbed the man’s hair and shoved his head down.
“All right, you bastard! Whaddaya want and…”
“Judas?” said the man, voice muffled.
Judas felt sick. Only one man had a voice like that.
“Master?”
“Judas, kindly get off me.”
Judas leapt up as if he’d been bitten, sheathing his knife, and helping the Master off the ground, frantically brushing leaves off the man’s mantle and out of his dark hair.
“I’m sorry master, I thought you were going to attack us, and it was instinct! I’m sorry! Oh, I’m so sorry master, I didn’t hurt you? It was just so early in the morning I didn’t think…” He was babbling.
Oh God oh God ohGodohGod…
The master looked a little cross as he wiped the dust from his face, and Judas’ heart sank, if possible, further.
“Once a zealot always a zealot, eh Judas?” the master said with a sigh.
“Yes, master” Judas said miserably, not looking at the man’s face and desperately trying to remove a twig from his rabbi’s mantle.
Then Joshua laughed. Judas loved his laugh: he thought it sounded like sunshine.
“Oh Judas, Judas; one day you’re going to kill someone, you know that?”
Judas ventured a smile, still not looking up, “That’s the idea.”
“Idiot,” Joshua said fondly.
Judas glanced up at that, deciding that Joshua really wasn’t angry with him. Far from it, Joshua bar Joseph was smiling that funny smile of his - the one where you felt sure that you were a part of a joke that only he understood. The thing was, you couldn’t ever resent him for it because he was never laughing at you; it was as if he was somehow laughing for you. It was puzzling, but Joshua was a puzzling person.
Joshua pulled one last leaf out of his sienna-brown hair. Judas seemed to have removed the rest, but the master’s navy mantle now had a lighter tone of dust-brown to it. Judas sighed. The master wore simple clothing, good enough for a carpenter, not quite dashing enough for a leader of men, in Judas’ opinion. It didn’t help that the man seemed to have no regard for the way the grime of the road gathered on his clothes. Judas had tried to hint to the master that appearance did matter, but Joshua had always laughed and insisted that it didn’t.
Well, at least he doesn’t dress like John the Baptiser. I suppose it runs in the family.
And there would be finer clothes when they came in triumph to Jerusalem. Gold ornaments and silken robes of purple! He liked the idea of Joshua in silks, somehow.
“Master Joshua- ”
“No need to be all formal, Judas. It’s ‘Joshua’, just ‘Joshua’.”
“But you’re our leader, our master…”
Sometimes Judas felt as if he’d never understand this man.
“Haven’t I said that whatever man aids me in the working the will of God is my brother?” the master embraced him, kissing both cheeks, “You’re my brother Judas, and I yours. Call me Joshua.”
And for all Judas felt that he’d never understand this man, he knew he could follow him to the edge of the world. Judas smiled.
“Joshua, then,” he put his arm around the man’s shoulder and looked out as the sun began to peek out from over the hills eastwards, “So what do you need of me, Josh?”
“I said ‘Joshua’, not ‘Josh’!” Joshua exclaimed in mock offence, cheerfully mussing Judas’ hair, then resting his arm around the other man’s shoulder in a comradely fashion, “That’s what my mother calls me, for all love! I said you were my brother, not my mother!”
“Aren’t we all one family under God?” Judas said, slyly quoting the master against himself.
“Are you sure you’re not from Galilee?” Joshua said, giving him a piercing look, “You’re certainly argumentative enough to be.” Judas felt vaguely proud and offended at the same time.
“Anyway,” Joshua continued, “I just came out here to see where my two stray sheep had got to.”
Judas shifted uncomfortably as the memory of John’s hot mouth rose unbidden in his mind.
“We just wanted to… get some sleep in actual peace and quiet,” Judas said, shrugging, “You all seemed more interested in talking than sleeping when we left, so we assumed no one would miss us…”
“A shepherd always misses his sheep, Judas,” Joshua said enigmatically.
Judas didn’t really know what to say to that. The man was rather given to speaking in metaphors, similes, parables, and the like. It could make casual conversation a little bewildering.
“And don’t worry about lying to me. I do know what you and John have been up to,” he added casually, though his eyes were fixed on Judas.
“What?” Judas should’ve been more subtle, but damnit if this man couldn’t burn away guile like the sun burnt away mist. He was undone, and so was John. Joshua was anointed by God, after all, so why would he tolerate men like them?
Yet Judas wasn’t sure what to do in this situation: his instincts told him to run for the hills again, but he wanted to make certain that Joshua meant what he said, and to be certain of what the master’s planned course of action was.
“I. Know,” Joshua continued in a measured, neutral tone. “You don’t have to hide it from me: I won’t judge you. Though I imagine James would do more than judge if he knew.”
“How do you know?” If Joshua wasn’t going to condemn him as an abomination against man and God at the moment, Judas could formulate a plan for escape - or something. Joshua didn’t seem like the kind of man who would put a man to death on the spot for disobeying the laws of Torah. But John and Judas had thought they were being careful, and that no one suspected them of anything other than close friendship. But if Joshua could tell that they were engaged in a burgeoning relationship which the laws clearly denounced, then they also had to fear that neither of them were as adept at secrecy as they had believed. And for men in their position, Judas and John needed to be adept at covert love.
Joshua grinned at the zealot, clearly unperturbed by his disciple’s agitation.
“I can cure sickness and heal the maimed, so I’m obviously not blind, Judas! And don’t worry; there are worse sins in this mad world than loving.”
“But-”
“Just don’t let James catch you. He likes you, but I don’t think he’d appreciate your ‘encouraging’ his brother’s unfortunate lack of interest in taking a wife.”
“But… but-”
“Shut up, Judas. You look like a fish.”
Judas shut up, but continued to gape at him.
Joshua sighed and took his arm off Judas’ shoulder, sitting down the damp grass.
“Sit with me, Judas.”
Judas looked at his master: this crazy, crazy messiah, and sat.
He waited for Joshua to talk. The man was staring out at the dawn over the softly rolling, green-daubed hills of Galilee. Well, it certainly was strange and wonderful that his new leader should be tolerant of his deviant ways like - well, not quite like - Eran. Poor Eran. It was his knife that Judas carried now, with the aim of avenging its former owner by wetting its blade with the blood of as many Romans as he could. And Joshua, this curiously gentle rebel, was going to make it all possible.
“Judas, what is your experience with mankind?” Joshua asked quietly.
Judas thought. He didn’t want to sound like an idiot to the messiah, and he was also wary of where this conversation was headed. What did mankind in general have to do with his sins? But he soldiered on in the direction Joshua had indicated.
“We’re complicated,” he began slowly, “We don’t know what we need, but we get it confused with what we want. That’s why so many people sell out to the Romans,” he continued, warming to a familiar topic, “like Matthew. He knew he wanted something, but he thought it was money and the kind of safe, comfortable life he could get collecting taxes. So he turned traitor to his own people. I mean no offence, but that’s what he did.
“The problem is that once people start thinking that the Roman way is the best way, they keep on it, even if they’re not happy where they are, they keep trying to climb up because they… because I suppose they think they’ll find what they need higher up. They sell themselves to the Roman way, trying to get more money and power, but that isn’t what they need.”
Joshua wasn’t saying anything, but he didn’t look like he thought Judas was an idiot, so Judas kept going.
“They need to remember that their hearts aren’t really longing for Rome, but for Israel. They need to remember that they’re Jews, and that this land is ours, and that God gave it to us. And we have a duty to it and to God, first and foremost, no matter what Caesar does.”
“Give Caesar what is due Caesar, and give God what is due God.” Joshua said softly.
“Exactly.”
Silence descended between them again. The birds were twittering madly in the branches of the oaks and wild olives, and the sun had begun to warm the hills. Judas looked at the mountains, then down at his sandals in the grass, then back up at the mountains.
“Um, Joshua,” he began slowly, “So why is it that my abomination doesn’t bother you?”
“Because you’re a child of God.” Joshua answered simply.
What a lovely answer, Judas thought, so pretty, and so magnificently unhelpful.
“I beg your pardon, but I don’t understand.”
Joshua looked at Judas with thoughtful eyes.
“No, I suppose you don’t. Very well. Let me try to explain: what makes you you?”
Judas pondered this question.
“I don’t know… my body? My mind?”
“If the answer is your body, what would happen when you die?”
“I see what you mean. My mind, then,” Judas answered quickly, trying to get to the point.
“Not quite,” Joshua said, raising his palm as if to slow Judas down, “Your soul.”
“I follow you thus far.”
“Good. I’m glad to know you aren’t just a man of action. Now tell me: does a soul have gender?”
“What? No. I don’t think so.”
“And what are our bodies made of?”
Judas shrugged, “Clay, originally.”
“And if you mould clay in the shape of a man, does that make it different from clay moulded in the shape of a woman?”
“No. Clay doesn’t… oh,” revelation dawned on Judas, and he decided once and for all that this man was mad and that he liked him for it, “So, what you’re saying is that gender is just different shapes of pottery? That it doesn’t matter who I love because what counts is our souls, which have no gender?” Well that certainly wasn’t a part of traditional doctrine.
Joshua just smiled that funny smile again. But Judas was troubled; this exchange was surely one of the most liberating exchanges of his entire life, but it went against everything in the Laws of Moses. And much as what he said made sense in Judas’ heart, his mind told him that such a stance on love between men might not be kindly received by the religious authorities. Or anyone else, really, with the possible exception of the gentiles.
“Joshua, have you tried explaining this to any of the others?” he asked tentatively, “I mean, you said James wouldn’t take kindly… and I know he wouldn’t… but have you tried? What do they think?”
“Ah, Judas, my fierce Judean, the star that leads the way to the kingdom of God will be your star, but you have much to learn.”
“What? Stop talking in riddles! Why do you always do that? Can’t you just speak plainly like a normal person?” Judas exclaimed this last a little louder than was necessary.
Joshua just smiled smugly. Behind them, John made a funny snuffling noise and muttered something about lizards, obviously still asleep.
“See to your lover, Judas. You woke him up. We probably won’t be breaking our fast for an hour yet.” Joshua stood up smoothly and looked down at Judas with an indescribable look on his face. “God be with you, Judas.”
And with that, his messiah strode out of the clearing.
What was all that about? Judas wondered, far from pleased. He rose and kicked off his sandals, crawling back under his mantle with John - he’d forgotten he wasn’t wearing it, cold as the morning air was. Joshua tended to have that effect on people.
Just my luck to be wandering around utterly naked in my shift in front of the messiah, Judas thought unhappily. Still, that Joshua was a wonderful man. What he had said about Judas’ proclivities - and John’s, Judas thought, as the young man rolled closer to him and snuggled against him - was one of the kinder things any man had said to him. Even if Joshua didn’t really believe it, it was still a kind thing to say.
I’ll have to tell John about what the Master said…
One of John’s hands began to trace its way lazily up Judas’ chest.
…later.