Let Bar Abbas go?

That was Livy’s first thought. It tumbled quickly through her mind as Quintus struggled to keep his head above water. Bar Abbas free? So his plan really worked! And that means . . .

“Couldja help me out of here, Livy?” sputtered Quintus, flailing an arm in her direction.

It means I’ve got to find him somehow!

“Livy!” Quintus cried.

Her second thought was more disturbing. Crucify Jesus? The gentle, humble teacher? The man with the piercing eyes? It can’t be! There was a sudden, empty ache in the space beneath her heart.

“Please, Livy! I can’t swim!” The desperation in Quintus’s voice finally caught her attention.

She knelt and gave Quintus her hand. “Crucify?” she said, pulling him to a sitting position on the edge of the bridge. “But why? What did he do? Bar Abbas tried to lead an armed revolt! He killed people! Jesus didn’t do anything like that!”

Quintus sat there shivering and pushing his dripping locks out of his eyes. Kalb scrambled out of the water beside him and shook his black body from head to tail, soaking both children with a shower of spray.

“As far as I could tell,” said the boy, reaching up to scratch the top of his head, “the only thing they had against him was that he’s some kind of king. King of the Jews. I didn’t know it was a crime to be a king.”

A king! Livy remembered the words she’d heard Jesus speak as he stood before Pilate at the place of judgment: “My kingdom is not of this world . . .” Of what world, then? Could he be King of the Otherworld? Wouldn’t that make him some kind of god? Of course! That would explain what she’d seen in the garden!

“I don’t understand it,” Quintus was saying. “I mean, nobody punishes me for being a slave. Master’s the governor, and that’s all right for him. If Jesus is a king, then let him be king. What’s wrong with that?”

But Livy wasn’t listening. Her thoughts were on a scene she’d passed a few times during the last few years but wanted to forget: upright wooden posts in the rocky ground, gaunt, still, black, and silent in the moonlight outside the city gate. The Skull Place! That must be where they’ve gone, she thought.

Suddenly it struck her: She’d helped Bar Abbas’s friends obtain his release. And because Bar Abbas had gone free, Jesus, the King of the Otherworld, was going to the Skull Place to die! She felt sick to her stomach.

“Come on, Quintus!” she said, grabbing him by the sleeve of his soggy tunic. “We’ve got to follow them! We’ve got to stop them somehow —or at least try!”

With a single yank she hauled her bewildered companion to his feet and pulled him along after her. Then the two of them, followed by the great black dog, tore across the bridge, through the inner gate, down the echoing corridors of the fortress, and out the main entrance. When the guard challenged her, Livy simply flashed him the note her mistress had given her the night before. It was enough to keep him from asking any more questions.

From the fortress they followed the winding city streets that led across Jerusalem to Golgotha, the Place of the Skull —the Romans’ place of execution. They could see that a large crowd had recently passed that way; bits of broken pottery, a head scarf, a leather pouch, lay scattered across the ground. They must have been dropped by onlookers, Livy thought —people following prisoners who carried their own crosses.

She saw spots of blood on the uneven paving stones —probably blood from the backs of the condemned, who would have been beaten with whips before being led to the place of crucifixion. A few stragglers were hanging behind, talking in hushed tones about the executions Pilate had ordered for the eve of Passover Sabbath. Convinced she was on the right track, Livy pushed on.

She followed the trail over the cobbled, narrow streets, beneath dark arches, through the shadows of the crowding houses. The sky had grown dark —strangely dark, she thought —darker than she’d ever seen it in the middle of the day. Kalb and Quintus stepped closely at her heels as she turned left and right and left again, the three of them panting with the effort, until the wall and the Western Gate appeared before them.

Through the gate Livy could see the gathered crowd. In spite of the darkness, dull light glinted from the helmets of soldiers assigned to the execution detail. She heard the chatter of the casual observers, the rough laughter of the rabble, the harsh shouts of the officers. Here and there arose the cry of a child or a woman’s muffled groan.

Above the crowd, atop a rise of rocky ground, she saw three upright posts. To the posts had been attached three heavy wooden crossbeams. Hanging from the crossbeams were the unmoving forms of three dying men.

Livy sucked in her breath and put her hand to her mouth. At this distance it was impossible to see the faces clearly, but somehow she knew. The one in the middle was Jesus of Nazareth.

She turned to Quintus, who stood beside her, pale and dripping with sweat. “We can’t stop here,” she said. “Let’s see if we can get any closer.”

“Why is it so dark?” said Quintus as they passed beneath the arched gate and began to climb the rocky hill of Golgotha. Through the dusky air Livy could see the terror in his eyes. “Cook said no good would come of this! What do you think is happening?”

“I don’t know,” she answered softly. She tried to remember the old stories her mother used to tell her back in Gaul. Could the King of the Otherworld —a god himself —possibly die? And if he did, would everything else die with him? Was that the reason for the darkness? Was the whole world coming to an end?

“We shouldn’t have come, Livy,” Quintus was moaning. “What’re we gonna do now?”

“I think I might be able to suggest something,” said a deep voice at their side. Startled, Livy turned to face the speaker.

In the half-light Livy saw a row of white teeth in the midst of a black beard. A closely cropped head took shape against the sky. Kalb let out a happy bark and leaped toward the dark, stocky figure. A thrill of hope, mixed with fear and doubt, seemed to jump within Livy.

“Bar Abbas!” she said.

The zealot reached into his belt, pulled something from it, and held it out to her. “I believe this belongs to you,” he said. “I no longer need it.”

“The parchment!” she gasped. She snatched it from his hand and quickly shoved it into her belt. “Th-then it’s true!” she stammered. “You’ve been set free!”

“Yes. And I’ve come to free you too!” he said.

“But where are you going?” asked Livy.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, waving his hand carelessly. “Far away from here for the time being —to Damascus, maybe. With my friends. Long enough for things to settle down. We’ll take you along if you like. From Damascus you can get passage to Asia Minor, and then to Greece, Macedonia, and Gaul. What do you say?”

Slowly Livy drew the piece of parchment out of her belt and peered at it through the gloom. The words scrawled on its surface struck her now as harsh, mocking questions —Bar Abbas? Freedom fighters? Messiah? Liberator? King? She still hadn’t found any good answers.

A chill came over her. This was the moment she’d been waiting for, wasn’t it? Freedom. It lay within her grasp at last! So why didn’t she feel happy? Why wasn’t she excited? Why this anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach?

“I don’t know, Bar Abbas,” she said, looking up at him. “I —”

She stopped. There was a hand on her shoulder. A hand with a firm, pinching grip. A narrow, long-fingered hand.

“So!” said a calm, smug voice behind her. “Still consorting with criminals, I see. Is the Lady Procula aware of your choice of friends?”

“Let go of me, Melanus!” said Livy, wrenching herself from his grasp.

Bar Abbas stepped forward and planted a finger on the steward’s chest. “Correction,” he said with a sneer. “A pardoned criminal.”

Melanus looked up with a sour smile and pushed the zealot’s hand away with the back of his wrist. “Apparently so,” he said with a tone of distaste. “But your good fortune has little bearing upon my responsibility as head steward of the governor’s household. And at the moment my responsibility is to return these two escaped slaves to their master. If you will excuse me.”

Bar Abbas looked at Livy. Livy looked at Quintus. Quintus closed his eyes. Kalb bared his teeth and growled.

Suddenly a loud volley of thunder set both earth and sky trembling. The ground began to shake violently. A cry of dismay went up from the crowd. Some of the people turned and started running back to the city.

Quintus groaned. “We’re all gonna die!” he said.

Then came a rumble like the sound of stampeding elephants as, without warning, a deep crack opened in the earth at their feet. Melanus leaped backward with a shriek, narrowly avoiding a fatal tumble into the widening trench. “The day is accursed!” he shouted. Then he took to his heels as more large cracks opened in the ground around them. Rocks and boulders came rolling down the hillside, scattering the frightened spectators in every direction.

Quintus stared, wide-eyed. Kalb barked, then howled. Livy put a hand to her forehead and swallowed hard.

“Let’s go!” shouted Bar Abbas, taking Livy by the hand. “I don’t know what’s happening, but we’ll never get another chance like this!”

But Livy pulled away. She set her jaw and looked him in the eye. “No!” she shouted.

Bar Abbas’s forehead wrinkled. “What do you mean, no?” he said. “We’re going! Leaving! Escaping! You’re on your way to freedom! Isn’t that what you want?”

Slowly the quaking of the earth weakened and stopped. A chilling rain began to fall. Livy sat down on a rock and put her head in her hands. She felt hot tears welling up in her eyes. “I did want it,” she said, glancing up at the zealot. “But now I’m not so sure.”

“Not sure?” said Bar Abbas, his face turning red. “Why not? What are you talking about?”

Livy stared straight into his eyes. “It’s all wrong!” she said. “I can’t leave now. Not until I know what’s going to happen to him.” Through the rain and the scattering crowd, she pointed to the top of the rocky hill, where the Nazarene and two other men hung dying on Roman crosses.

“Him?” said the exasperated Bar Abbas. “I can tell you what’s going to happen to him! He’s going to die . . . If he’s not dead already! Now, are you coming or not?”

“No,” Livy said in a trembling voice. “Don’t you see? It’s because of me he’s hanging there! It’s because I helped you gain your release instead of him! And I was wrong! It should never have happened this way! But now that it has, I . . . have to know whether he’s really . . .” She buried her face in her arms.

Sighing, Bar Abbas pulled his gray hood over his head. “Have it your way, then,” he said. He whistled to his dog. Kalb whined and licked Quintus’s hand.

“I won’t forget what you’ve done for me,” added Bar Abbas. Then, without another word, he turned on his heel and strode into the pouring rain.

It was a long time before Livy realized the rain had stopped —hours, maybe. She felt empty, eerily quiet inside —like the night sky after a violent storm has passed. When she looked up at last, she saw that Quintus was sitting on the ground beside her. He shrugged but said nothing.

Livy turned her eyes toward the top of the hill. Everyone had gone home. The crosses were empty. Ragged clouds were drifting off to the east. The late-afternoon sun was sinking toward the sea.

“We’d better get back, Quintus,” she said, getting to her feet. “Domina will be wondering what’s become of us.”