The Jesus Germ Read online

  Brett Williams lives in Perth, Western Australia.

  [email protected]

  From darkness comes light and ne’er the reverse.

  Walter B Limits.

  Adams County,

  Pennsylvania.

  July 3rd 1863.

  Hank Guthrie knew of things past and of things yet to pass. Killed on the fields of Gettysburg, he was found clutching a small silver crucifix. Tucked inside his Confederate jacket was a weathered diary filled with insights of the world that was and the world to come. And it was written…

  1

  Israel, 33 AD.

  The centurion and the thief raced below rolling thunder. Simon stumbled and fell, spilling his basket of stolen fish into a black puddle. He lay winded, the pounding in his skull a death-march drum. Then, as the storm flickered above the clouds, he cowered in fear as the hood of his cloak was wrenched from his head.

  ‘Do not move, worm of the earth,’ Romanis said, pointing his sword at Simon’s throat.

  A snap of lightning lit the scene, and Romanis dropped his sword in fright, staggering backwards in the drenching rain.

  ‘Take your weapon and this basket of food you were so desperate to retrieve.’ Simon said. ‘Tell your commander I escaped in the night,

  Romanis eyed the sword his father had gifted him, with its bronze blade and golden hilt inlaid with precious stones.

  As the storm grew, Romanis snatched up the weapon, raising it high to smite the leper. A thunderbolt shook the heavens, charging the sword with electricity, knocking Romanis to the ground where he lay still as death, the hilt welded firmly in his fists.

  Simon tried to stand but also fell, striking his head against a sharp stone.

  Clouds swept the dawn sky. Simon stirred, his bones ached. A fat bruise swelled an eye and one ear was badly torn. He steeled himself and crawled toward the centurion.

  The storm had passed.

  Romanis’ face was grey, his lips blue. On his forehead blazed the red tattoo of a spider. Simon smelled burnt flesh.

  Romanis’ eyes opened suddenly. ‘Get away from me,’ he tried to scream but his voice was broken.

  ‘You will die without help,’ Simon said, scooping water from a puddle with his hand and dribbling it into the giant centurion’s mouth.

  ‘It’s too late,’ Romanis said.

  Simon stood slowly, untied the cord at his waist, shook the muddied cloak from his shoulders and tore a thin strip from it to bind his own torn ear against his skull. Romanis stared at the leper’s lumpy torso.

  ‘I will return by nightfall,’ Simon said, throwing his cloak over Romanis to shield him from the climbing sun.

  Months prior, unusual growths had sprouted on Simon’s face and quickly spread along his limbs. Banished from Herod’s court to the wilderness to rot with other lepers, survival occupied his every waking moment.

  Romanis bore the mark of his father, Hector, a general who’d won gallant battles for the Roman Empire. The spider tattooed on his forehead symbolized stealth and cunning. Simon once loved Hector like a brother, and had doted on his two sons since the day they were born.

  Now Simon worried for Romanis. He’d once gutted a horse struck by lightning to find its liver and intestines reduced to jelly. He reached the edge of the plain, a smoke haze paling the blue sky over Tiberius as black specks circled ominously above the forest of towering firs.

  Under a brightening sun, Romanis endured relentless agony, unable to move. There came a rhythmic bat of hooves. Three horses galloped toward him, withering to a stop, breathing hard, flanks silvered with sweat. Their riders dismounted in unison.

  ‘Be careful,’ Seth said, approaching Romanis cautiously, wary of a trap, slowly dragging away the cloak covering him.

  Romanis was mute.

  Brutus joined the search for valuables. ‘What a fine sword,’ he said.

  The third man, Paul, knelt beside Romanis. ‘An unfortunate place to take your rest,’ he said, tearing at the centurion’s tunic, exposing deep burns.

  Brutus gripped the centurion’s sword by its blade, trying to tug it free. ‘He will not give it up,’ he said.

  ‘Stand aside,’ Seth said.

  He stretched the centurion’s arms backwards till the burnt skin across his chest split apart, oozing fluid. Romanis trembled, erupting in a furious sweat.

  Seth nodded to Brutus and Paul.

  Romanis’ breathing turned frantic.

  ‘Pin his arms,’ Seth said.

  Simon trod the soft pine needles through the forest to the base of the mountain. Tired and drained, he thought of Romanis and pushed on. The sun warmed his back and sweat stung his sores, as he climbed the gruelling slope plugged with boulders as tall as a man.

  Halfway up the mountain he stopped, surveyed the vast carpet of trees below him then glanced at the summit. The wind pushed away the last storm clouds. He followed a path to a lone conifer marking the leper colony where a rope dangled from a branch, its frayed end playing in the breeze.

  The centurion, Altus the Torturer, once hung there by his ankles, head heavy with blood until his throat was slit. He swelled with sun and flies, then cut down and fed to the ants. With his bones picked clean, he was dressed resplendently in his uniform and bound to a stake in the middle of the plain as a ghastly warning to those Roman soldiers who might think nothing of slaughtering another leper child.

  The large block of stone outside the cave entrance was flat-topped. One end held rain in a shallow depression. At the other end sat a neat circle of stones where Simon built his cooking fires. He glimpsed his reflection in the water. Blood had dried down his neck, with one side of his face swollen beyond the misshapen contours of his diseased head.

  Simon entered the cave, walking to where the ceiling curved down to meet the floor. Unlit candles perched in chiselled clefts along the walls. A solitary bat flashed past him out into the sunlight. Seven wooden boxes rested on a narrow ledge and he removed the lid of one, sneezing from the disturbed dust.

  The box held linen bandages and herbal concoctions salvaged from Herod’s palace. He packed them into a sack along with a skin of water, put on a dark cloak and headed down the mountain into a threatening sunset.

  Paul and Brutus shuffled forward on their knees, straddling Romanis’ elbows. The centurion’s jaw hardened, snapping a tooth that cut his tongue. He spat blood in Paul’s face and Brutus retaliated with a handful of mud into Romanis’ mouth so he coughed desperately and lay gagging. Seth withdrew a block of wood from his saddlebag, wedged it under Romanis’ wrists, and holding a sharp axe he faced the breeze and the sinking sun.

  The axe head cleaved through Romanis’ wrists with a crack and he passed out. Seth kicked away the hands that still gripped the sword and levered the axe out of the wood. Romanis’ shortened arms swung down by his sides, pulsing blood into the earth. The three rogues watched dispassionately and felt no mercy toward him.

  As Paul bent to pick up the sword an arrow flew out of the sun, spearing through his head.

  Brutus dashed to his horse, fleeing at a gallop, hanging off a flank to shield himself from further attack. But the stallion threw its head, buckling with an arrow in its chest, crushing Brutus as it fell.

  Seth sent Paul’s horse off with a slap and arrows rained after it. He plucked the sword from the mud, swung up onto his own mount and drove hard in the opposite direction.

  The riderless horse caught an arrow in its eye then the attackers took aim at Seth fleeing to the east. When an arrow pierced his shoulder, causing him to drop the sword, he rode on into the sanctuary of the forest, stopping behind a stand of trees from where he groggily watched the sun melt into the lifeless plain.

  With the arrow stuck deeply, Seth struggled to breath
e. He fell from the saddle, blood trickling from his mouth into his black beard. A bright red wren danced along the arrow shaft then flitted away.

  Simon left the forest, walking onto the plain at dusk. Approaching Romanis he saw an arrow jutting from his mouth but on closer inspection it was not the centurion. Nearby, in the drying mud, were a bloodied axe and dark stains. Chariot tracks traced to an isolated cluster of boulders from where hoof prints led away in every direction.

  When Simon investigated the strange black lumps in the distance, he found a pair of dead stallions and a man crushed to death. He searched the saddlebags, pilfered a pouch of dates and inspected the giant boulders from where the hoof prints and chariot tracks continued on toward Tiberius.

  Romanis was gone.

  An enormous moon lifted into the sky, casting crisp shadows. Jackals circled at a distance as vultures hopped and skulked, waiting impatiently to tear at the horses and the dead men.

  A glint caught Simon’s eye. Poking from the mud was Romanis’ sword, bloody fists still clamped around the hilt. He lifted it by the blade and carried it to his cave up the mountain.

  Simon woke as the first fingers of sunlight ran across the ground. The sword lay in the dirt outside the cave and Romanis’ hands were smothered with ants.

  He lit a fire on the cooking rock, warmed himself against the flames and devoured a small loaf of bread as he pondered the upcoming marriage of his niece in Cana which he planned to secretly attend.

  Early on the first day of the Jewish festive season, Simon descended the mountain, and drawn by a chorus of agitated birds, found a cloaked figure propped against a tree on the edge of the forest. Crows pecked and fought over the dead man’s face, dispersing in a black cloud as Simon approached. The body toppled into the leaf litter as an elegant horse walked into the clearing, letting Simon take the reins hanging from its neck. He stuffed the empty saddle bags with his belongings, mounted up and nudged the stallion into the unobstructed light of the plain.

  A soft breeze rippled across the brown landscape. Near the end of a day’s ride, Simon followed a goat track up a hill behind a farmhouse, and led the stallion into a barn as night came. He stretched out on a bed of hay next to the horse and glimpsed a spray of stars through a gap in the roof before falling asleep.

  Later, woken by voices, he peered through a crack in the barn wall as seven men filed past carrying lanterns, chatting excitedly as they neared the farmhouse. A shout rang out in the night. The seven were joined by a group of women and together they commenced the return walk to Cana. Simon watched them go then went back to sleep.

  The sun was an hour old when he rose.

  He left the barn, following a dusty road till late in the afternoon, finally dismounting in the woods behind a stone house. Below it, a field sloped away to a narrow creek.

  In the middle of the field were eight long tables dressed in white linen and framed with wooden bench-seats. A crowd of people were gathered in a courtyard, speaking in hushed tones that erupted into cheers when a couple emerged from the wedding chamber into the sunlight. They converged on the field as servants brought food, and wine in stone jars from the kitchen, to spread upon the tables.

  Night came quickly. Servants lit clay buckets packed with firewood, washing field and faces in orange light. The wedding feast melded a riot of colour and music that flowed long into the evening. Near midnight, as the festivities subsided, the couple retired and the wedding guests drifted from the field.

  As the moon poked above the hills, one man remained - a beardless guest in a dark-green tunic tied at the waist with a leather belt, and wearing sandals. Simon observed him earlier, engaged in a measured but earnest conversation with an older woman in the courtyard beyond the kitchen. The large jars used for storing water were the focus of attention amidst some confusion when they were found to be brimming with wine. Now, the man held a glass ornament against the glow of a fire bucket, turning it slowly in his hands to examine, kissing it then replacing it reverently on a table next to two others. He glanced fleetingly at the house then walked away, dissolving in the darkness past the creek at the bottom of the field.

  When the fire buckets dimmed, a large owl swooped in, lifting a chicken carcass into the tall branches of a fir tree. Simon crept down to the field to gorge on the leftover food scraps and to pour himself some wine.

  Centred on a table were the three glass ornaments. Trapped in each were bright gold frogs painted with red dorsal crosses, white underbellies and brilliant blue feet. The Crucifix frogs, once common in the waterways around Galilee and Judea, were now inexplicably in sharp decline. Joshua of Tiberius was the only man with the skills to create these magnificent ornaments, and as such, Herod had commissioned him to supply numerous pieces for his personal collection.

  Simon decided to have them. He wrapped the ornaments in a square of cloth, tucked them into his sack and rode out of Cana with the wind at his back.

  Dawn lit a dusty trail on the horizon. Nine horse-drawn chariots, in vee formation, rattled and bounced along at moderate speed. Simon edged the stallion into a field of high corn to spy their approach.

  The stallion stuttered nervously, backing deeper into the corn, rearing up, tearing at the air. It bucked wildly through the ripened heads, throwing Simon, slamming onto its side, convulsing then laying still.

  A large black cobra, thick as a man’s wrist, rose out of the dirt, hood flared, jaw agape, baring its bone-white fangs. It arched backwards and spat its load of venom. Simon snapped his head to one side so the poison struck his neck and trickled harmlessly onto his shoulder. With a kink in its tail, where the panicked stallion pinched it with a hoof, the cobra withdrew, slithering away across the furrowed ground.

  Unhurt, Simon removed the saddle bags from the dead horse, calmed himself and ran through the corn toward Nazareth away from the looming chariots.

  The market bustled with people and livestock. Simon pulled the hood of his cloak around his face so only his eyes were visible. At a stall, he bought strips of coal-roasted lamb and ate them with bread from his sack.

  Simon spotted the last man to leave the wedding feast, again with the woman, smelling a small pot of sandalwood perfume. She placed a coin into a toothless merchant’s eager palm and they continued on. Simon trailed them at a distance.

  The man and woman climbed a narrow road to the top of a hill on which sat a weathered brick house. As they disappeared inside, Simon scaled a nearby tree, hiding amongst the leaves to wait for them. Soon they re-emerged, stopping briefly beneath him in the shadow of a branch.

  When they’d descended the road, and were out of sight he dropped to the ground, crossing through a gap in a wall into a courtyard dusted with white sand and shaded by an olive tree laden with black fruit. He listened intently before entering a house comprising a hearth and two rooms furnished with sheepskin-covered beds. The floors were swept clean but the small yard outside was littered with wood shavings and timber off-cuts.

  On a shelf with other perfume jars sat the small clay pot the woman had bought at the market. Next to it was an inkwell and a wooden cube whose six surfaces were carved with tiny fish. It fit comfortably in the palm of his hand. He heard a noise and instinctively stuffed the cube into his sack. The man and woman reappeared, blocking his escape. He turned and ran back through the house, out the other side and down a grassy hill, not stopping until he’d lost himself in the thick of the market. With the sun at its zenith he then made for the field to retrieve his hidden saddle bags.

  A curtain of rain poured across the mouth of the cave. By candlelight, Simon examined the slashed sack. He’d been relieved of the ornaments somewhere in the hustle of the market but the wooden cube had somehow stayed put.

  He turned the cube in his hands, counting two hundred and forty-six tiny fish; forty-one on each face, intricately carved with visible scales into the raw fragrant wood. He felt movement under his thumb. He prodded the fish with a blunt stick until one sunk with a click, splitting the c
ube in half, revealing the previously invisible seam.

  The cube was smooth inside with a thin pine floor in one half that tilted as Simon touched it, enabling him to pinch an edge and pull it free, exposing two small papyrus scrolls.

  The rain eased and sunlight rolled into the cave on a sharp wind. Simon unfurled one scroll and read the neat Aramaic script, his chest tightening in horror. He fell down, shaking. The writings on the second scroll were more frightening still and he stumbled from the cave, slumping to his knees, sitting in silence until night came and an exhausted, dreamless sleep finally overtook him.

  Intakab the thief, waited in a stone ruin at the bottom of the valley. Spread in front of him, on a bright red cloth, were silver rings, coins, blue gemstones, a gold bracelet and three transparent glass ornaments filled with colourful frogs.

  Intakab heard a low whistle.

  Mustafa, a large man dressed in a royal purple robe, entered the roofless room. The two men embraced and sat down together. Mustafa perused the objects on the cloth.

  ‘A rewarding day’s work,’ he said.

  ‘In the crowded market, I slipped easily among the sea of people,’ Intakab said.

  Mustafa picked up each piece, testing weight and quality, closely examining the ornaments.

  ‘These are beautiful, Intakab. I will buy everything.’

  Intakab tied the corners of the bright red cloth together, offering it to Mustafa who produced a leather pouch from inside his robe in exchange. Together they walked from the ruin under a leaden sky. Mustafa rested his hands on Intakab’s shoulders and broke into a wide grin.

  Two cloaked men snuck from behind a crumbling wall, one clamping a hand over Intakab’s mouth. He struggled to break free and lost consciousness. The second man helped lower him to the ground. Mustafa nodded and tossed a small purse onto the sand. Smiling, he walked back through the ruin and out the other side.