Chapter 2: The Plan
"Wake up," said a small voice. A sweet voice. Maria!
He opened his eyes and there she was, standing on a stool to reach his face, wiping it with a damp cloth.
He tried to smile at her. "Finally," he wheezed. She smiled softly back, but she looked troubled.
"It was difficult," she said, as she soothed him. "By the time we were able to get away and come up here, you'd made it all dark. The ground rumbled."
"Yes," he agreed. "Dark. Was angry. Save me?"
She looked away. "You mother is here."
Her face moved away, and a few seconds later, there was his mother's face instead.
"Mother?"
"I'm here, son," she said, and held up a battered tin cup of water to his lips. The liquid soothed his mouth, and let him talk.
"Mother, look at me," he said to her. "I'm dying. How?"
"We all die, even magicians. I will die. Your father died."
"My father. Who was he? Not the carpenter, I know that."
Mariam shook her head, refusing to the end to tell him of her shame, refusing to be shamed by it. "A magician, like us. He's dead. It doesn't matter."
"Save me!"
"No. We can't." She lifted the cup to his mouth again.
"What?" He couldn't believe this. His fury flared again, and he swung his head at her, knocking the cup from her hand with his chin. The clouds above roiled.
"Son, you've drawn too much attention to yourself. We will keep working for your goals, but you are beyond saving now."
He slumped, not acting now. They would let him die? Fools. Fools! He was the only one who could lead them. He had fulfilled so many archaic prophecies, studied them so he could fulfill them, and the people would only follow him!
His mother touched his chest with a hidden length of wood she kept under her sleeve, and whispered words, ancient and powerful.
He knew nothing else.
~o~
"He's dead," said the old woman to the nearby guard, stepping down from the stool. "I'm his mother."
Maria turned away, blinking. She'd agreed, at last, to let him go, but her heart ached, and she wrapped her arms around herself. So much she'd wanted for him, with him, but he had thrown it away for power and, in the end, gained so little for them all.
A man stepped forward from the crowd of supporters. "Miriam," he said, gesturing at a rock outcropping, "My name is Joseph. I have a tomb, just there. It is his now. I've made the arrangements with the authorities."
She nodded. This was all pre-planned, but certain forms must be followed, and it was best not to give them impression that they were still a group. The Romans were still wary of them. A small group of magicians living amongst the Hebrews, causing trouble for the Empire, was not something that could be ignored. He had insisted on rocking the boat, doing miracles for the masses and the Romans had found them out. This was why they had to sacrifice him. Alive, he was too dangerous.
Joseph climbed onto the stool. He pulled out a knife and sawed away at the ropes, freeing one of the dead man's arms. A few of the followers stepped forward and held the body while he sawed at the other ropes. When he as freed, they bore him away.
As he started after them, Joseph stopped to pick up the discarded cup, looking at it. It was one of his, manufactured from tin mined in faraway lands. He and the dead man had traveled there, in happier times. He looked at it, astonished. The battered tin gleamed golden, but the shape and design was the same.
He placed it in his bag, and then hurried toward the tomb.
~o~
In the tomb, Mariam and Maria had tended him, worked spells and treated his wounds. He wasn't actually dead, Maria had explained to Joseph, but he wasn't going to survive long.
"Just one more prophecy to fulfill," she'd said. He nodded and stirred the small cauldron with a length of hawthorn, as he helped make the potion to keep his lord going just a few more days. They'd pour a small amount down his throat every few hours to keep him alive. On the appointed day, they'd bring him back to consciousness, and he'd fulfill the last of the prophecies, and then he'd be allowed his final slumber.
Three days later, on a mixture of potions, spells, and furious will-power, he'd spoken to his followers one more time. They never saw him again, but his work was done.
~o~
"Go back to your tin works," Maria had told Joseph later. "Spread our word northward." And he had gone, and with him, his hawthorn staff and the now golden cup.
Notes:
Christian mythology sometimes maintains that Joseph of Aramathea (not the be confused with the carpenter Joseph, Jesus' mother's husband) was a rich merchant who had traveled with Jesus to England during the years where nothing much is known about Jesus' whereabouts. Blake's "Jerusalem," poem is a reference to this. Even assuming Jesus was real, this probably didn't really happen.
Assuming the Gospels are at all right about anything, Joseph of Aramathea did in fact donate his brand new tomb to Jesus, which was not a common thing. It was actually a big risk because it suggested he was in a sense adopting Jesus into his family, and Pilate had had to approve the use of the tomb for Jesus, hence the "forms that must be followed."
The darkness from the 6th hour to the 9th (noon to 3pm) is in some of the gospels, too, as is an earthquake. Accidental magic of an angry, dying wizard?
