No one knew what to make of Melanus’s disappearance. Though Pilate’s men searched the city for two days and asked questions in the surrounding villages, no trace of the steward was ever found.

The servants, of course, had their pet theories. Livy’s was that he had fallen into one of the huge cracks that opened in the earth during the quake on the afternoon of the crucifixion. Quintus thought sheer terror must have driven him crazy and caused him to run away. Cook believed heaven had struck him because of his proud and disrespectful statements about the Messiah.

But on the third day —the first day of the week —there was something else to talk about.

It all began at breakfast. The threat of further rebellion being past, the governor’s household had moved back to the old Herodian palace, and the servants had gathered in the kitchen for a share of Cook’s broth and bread. Hatshup, the Egyptian gardener, was squatting in his accustomed spot near the oven, hunched over a bowl of broth, chewing his bread with gusto and enthusiastically nodding his old gray head.

“I’d gone down there very early to dig up a few lilies and anemones,” he was saying. “Master Joseph’s gardener had promised me some —for that bed out near the fountain. It needs a bit of brightening up. The crocuses were a disappointment this year, and —”

“We don’t care about your crocuses!” Cook cut in, turning fiercely from her pot. Her upper arm jiggled as she shook her ladle in his face. “We want to know exactly what you saw!”

“Yes, Hatshup,” said Livy. “Please tell us.” She drew her stylus and parchment from her belt, ready to catch anything that might be worth jotting down.

Hatshup’s bony frame shook with silent laughter. “I wish you could have seen the looks on those guards’ faces!” he said with a grin. “Like they’d seen a ghost! Maybe they were expecting to see one —or something even more terrible —at any minute. I don’t know. But I do know that the stone had been rolled away. I saw that much myself! And they had no idea how it happened! Doesn’t take much to put one over on them, I guess!”

“Wait a minute!” said Livy, looking up from her parchment. “You’re saying that the big stone had been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb? Why? Did somebody try to steal the body?”

“Don’t know,” said Hatshup, and swallowed the last of his bread. “Couldn’t stay to find out. Had to get those lilies transplanted before they started to wilt.”

Quintus whistled. “But it would take at least ten men to budge a stone that size!”

Hatshup raised his eyebrows, nodded, and then slurped his broth noisily from a wooden spoon.

Livy bent over her parchment, pushed her red hair away from her face, and wrote: Sunday morning. The tomb of Jesus. Stone rolled away. Don’t know why.

She couldn’t wait to tell her mistress. Once her own breakfast was finished, she quickly prepared Procula’s and hurried with it up to the lady’s room. But no sooner had she stepped inside the door than Procula began pouring forth some exciting news of her own.

“I’ve had another dream, Livia! Please come in —set the tray down. Another dream! But so different this time! I don’t know when I’ve slept so well or so deeply. And in the deepest part of my sleep I saw myself on a hillside covered with flowers. The colors were brighter, more intense, more real than anything I’ve ever known! Not dreamlike at all. It was as if the world had been created all over again.

“Jesus of Nazareth was there, coming down the slope toward me. He was dressed all in white, with the golden circlet on his head. And behind him came a great crowd of people from every nation on earth —like the crowd we saw that day in the Court of the Gentiles! He came to me and took my hand. Then I joined the others, and together we walked toward the sunrise.” She paused, her eyebrows compressed in thought. “Since Jesus of Nazareth is dead, what can it mean?”

“I’m not sure,” said Livy, setting the tray of food on a carved and polished table of acacia wood beside the lady’s bed. “But I’ve got something to tell you too! Old Hatshup was in that garden early this morning —the garden near the tomb where they laid his body —and . . .”

There was a knock at the door, and Quintus came bursting in. “Livy! Mistress Procula!” he said. “I thought you’d want to know! I was serving at Master’s table when some soldiers came to see him. They looked really worried. They said that the garden tomb wasn’t just open. It was empty!”

Livy and Procula looked at each other. “And what do they take it to mean, Quintus?” the lady asked.

“They don’t know,” said Quintus, hitching up his tunic. “But I heard that some of his followers —Jesus’ followers, I mean —are already saying that he’s alive again! Risen from the dead! One of them says she saw him walking around in the garden!”

Procula turned to Livy, a hopeful light shining from her eyes. “What do you think?” she said.

Livy chewed her lip. “I think,” she answered slowly, “that if the King of the Otherworld could die, he would only do it if he knew it would help the rest of us somehow. And I think that, when it was all over, he’d have to come back . . . like the morning sun and the flowers in spring.

“My mother told me a story like that once, when I was very little. It was about a king who went on a journey to the land of the dead, suffered many things for his people, and then returned to them again. I also think,” Livy continued, “that if he could defeat death and if he did come back, then maybe he’d —well, find a way for us to live forever too!”

Procula said nothing but simply watched the girl with a curious look of anticipation on her face.

“Most of all,” Livy added, “I think we’d better go and find out if all this is true.”

“My feelings exactly,” agreed her mistress, reaching for her cloak and throwing it over her shoulders. Then she glanced from Livy to Quintus and frowned. “But how?”

“We could try to find some of his followers and ask them,” suggested Quintus.

“Good idea,” Procula said. “But do you know where to look?”

“Yes!” said Livy, a tingle of excitement running down her spine. “I do know! The house down the street! The red-stone house with the fishing mosaic in front. The one with the upper room! Maybe they’re still staying there!”

“All right, then,” said Procula. “Let’s not waste another minute.”

“I’ll lead the way!” said Quintus, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to get out the door.

Livy was about to follow him over the threshold when Procula laid a hand on her arm.

“Just a moment, Livia,” she said. Then she bent her head and took off the fine gold chain she always wore around her neck. “I want you to have this.”

“Me?” Livy looked up into the lady’s eyes, a warm but confused feeling growing in that small space beneath her heart. “But why, Domina?”

“As a token of my gratitude. For helping me find what I believe will be the path to a new life,” said Procula. She smiled and then added, “And as a symbol of your newfound freedom.”

Livy blinked. “My . . . freedom?”

“Yes.”

Livy shook herself. “You mean when I come of age, right?”

“No. I mean today. Right now. As of this very minute. And if you’re willing —if you freely choose it —I’d also like to make you my daughter. I will ask Pilate to help me arrange the adoption as soon as we return. What do you say to that?”

For a moment Livy didn’t know what to say. It seemed her heart had jumped into her throat. Procula saw her hesitating and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I understand if you’d rather not give me your answer right away,” she said. “I know how you’ve always hoped to find your real parents again someday. If you’d rather think it over and . . .”

“No,” said Livy, looking up into her face. “It’s not like that. There’s a place in my heart where I’ve always felt that . . . that I’d never see them again until we all get to the Otherworld. That maybe they didn’t survive the raid and the battle after all. I don’t know. What I do know is that you’ve been like a mother to me all these years, and . . . well, I don’t think they’d blame me for loving you too. Do you think they would?”

There were tears in Procula’s eyes. “Of course not,” she said. “And what’s to stop us from searching for them together?”

“Nothing!” said Livy with a sudden burst of joyous energy. She hugged her mistress and buried her face in the folds of her long white stola. At last she blurted, “In that case, I don’t need to think it over. My answer is yes!”

Then, hand in hand, they went out together —the slender, graceful woman and the tall, red-haired girl. For Livy, it was the end and the beginning. The end of a life of slavery. The beginning of the freedom she’d fought so hard to gain.

There were still a lot of questions, but at least now she knew where to look for answers. They’d start by finding out where Jesus was now, and what it might mean to follow . . . Him.

But I never thought it would happen this way, Livy thought as they stepped into the bright April day. Not even in my wildest dreams!