"Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy;
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow."
Jeremiah 31:13
"The man came forth out of the tomb," Thoösa reported, staring Claudia dead in the eyes. "His sisters had him back."
Sitting on her bed, Claudia's hand rested against her neck and a racing pulse. Another brought back from the dead? "You talked to someone who witnessed this?"
"Not this one," Thoösa admitted, face falling. "But the story is prominent among the ones told of him."
Claudia ran her eyes over the roughened papyrus in her hand, a precious resource and a small scrap she had saved for a time of need; now it contained notes on every bit of information Thoösa had been able to gather about Iesus the Nazarene.
Claudia reread the list, reviewing all they had learned. The man had primarily been a miracle worker, or at least these were the stories that Thoösa heard the most and some of them even from alleged witnesses. Iesus had healed those blind and lame and suffering maladies none else could explain. He rescued a man supposedly caught in the grip of supernatural forces, vanquishing the evil by sending it into a herd of pigs that promptly drowned. He multiplied a few fish and loaves of bread for a multitude of people to feast on. There were even some mutterings of control of nature, of an ability to still winds and calm waters. But the most miraculous of all were the claims of dead that had been brought back to the land of the living—a widow's son and now a man that had rotted in a tomb for four days.
The pulse in Claudia's neck thumped harder. If only she had met this man before her son died!
But Iesus the Nazarene had also been a Jew. There were other claims that had nothing to do with miracles, things he had taught and said. Much of these she didn't understand, not being a Jew herself. Thoösa puzzled out more than her. Apparently, Iesus often taught in stories and Thoösa sometimes caught their meaning, like the story about the tenants that killed those the landlord sent to collect his share of the crop. Thoösa understood that Iesus was chastising the Jewish religious leaders and implying that the Jewish God would remove their leadership and give it to others, even if they were not Jews. No wonder Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin had felt threatened enough to seek Iesus' execution.
Claudia lowered the list into her lap. Beyond allegorical stories, the man had focused more than anything on a Jewish concept. He did, indeed, claim to be a king, a Messiah, in the language of the Jews. From what Claudia had gathered, the Messiah was a figure found in Jewish scripture, a man who was prophesied to rescue all Israel. But from what? Thoösa said most of the Jews she spoke to were disillusioned; they had assumed Iesus as Messiah would rise up and free their people from Roman tyranny.
Claudia stood to her feet, gripping the papyrus in one hand as she paced to the window, now staid without a breeze. Iesus was dead and Rome still ruled Judea. Claudia glanced at the papyrus. Thoösa hadn't reported anyone at all who claimed Iesus said he would rebel. There was no direct teaching of overthrowing Rome, though there was an oft repeated declaration that the kingdom of God was near. The Kingdom of the Jewish God.
But the Jewish God had let this self-proclaimed Messiah die.
Claudia glanced at the horizon colored orange and pink as the sun slowly ascended. Her chest rose and fell in quick rhythmic patterns. There was one witness she had not yet ordered Thoösa to speak to, a witness whose questioning should come from her alone. She turned, clutching the papyrus close to her breast.
"Is Pilatus awake?"
"In his atrium," Thoösa said.
Claudia headed to the door, but Thoösa stepped in her path. "He has not come to you these last two days."
Claudia smiled grimly at the concerned woman. "Then it is more than time I went to him." She patted the old servant's arm as she passed into palatial halls.
The praetorium was vast with rooms upon rooms. Many were occupied with soldiers and officials, a few with acquaintances. Pilatus often escaped them all by sequestering himself in what he'd termed his atrium. It was more an approximation of an atrium than a true one—a small, thin strip of a room, though it boasted a pond with fish and greenery grown in terra cotta.
Claudia descended to the main floor in silence, avoiding meeting anyone along the way. She was glad for it. She didn't think she could have maintained her resolve otherwise. She reached the threshold of Pilatus' atrium, steeled herself, and poked her head inside. Soft morning light filtered upon him from the open ceiling above. He lay on his side on a couch, next to the pool, arm over his eyes, wine goblet in his hand. Claudia steadied herself with a deep breath, then plunged ahead.
She walked quickly, but almost silently, a habit she had developed as a young child. You learned more when people didn't think you were around. When she reached the couch, she slowly knelt near his husband's head. Pilatus stirred, lifting his arm and frowning. His eyes took a moment to focus, and then he jumped when he caught sight of her. He huffed and covered his eyes again.
"You always do that," he mumbled.
Claudia couldn't help a small smile. She had appeared where he least expected more than once over the years.
"You're going to spill your wine," she spoke softly.
"Perhaps," he replied, but he did not move the cup from the hand where it dangled precariously.
"I wanted to speak to you. To ask you something."
Pilatus grunted a guttural ascent.
"What did Iesus the Nazarene say to you?"
A heaving sigh left Pilatus' lips. "I knew you would ask this. The question was when." He dropped his arm from his eyes and pushed up onto one elbow, taking a large swig out of the goblet. "There!" he declared, setting it down with a clank on the stone floor. "Empty. You need not fear for it anymore."
"What did he say?"
Pilatus directed his gaze to the pool when he answered. "What does it matter?"
"I want to know."
"He was just a Jew."
"Please tell me."
Pilatus pinched his lips together, and she thought he might refuse her request, but then he relented. "He said he was a king."
Claudia already knew this. She leaned forward, closing more of the gap between them. "Nothing else?"
"He said his kingdom was not of this world, and that if it were, his servants would fight for him."
Claudia tightened her grip on the papyrus. The kingdom that was near, but not here. Not yet.
"He said I didn't really have authority over him. Only because it was given me from above."
The papyrus crunched in Claudia's hand. The Messiah. The man sent by the Jewish God.
Pilatus' voice grew soft, barely audible. "He said he was born to testify to the truth, that everyone who belonged to truth listened to him."
Claudia's heart beat like a bird's swift wings.
Pilatus' eyes shot to hers. "It was madness!" He stood up, faltering a few steps away from her to stare at a wall covered in creeping vines.
"You don't think so," Claudia spoke calmly as she rose to her feet.
Pilatus rubbed at his eyes and his jaw clenched and unclenched. "He must have been a madman," he insisted, though she could tell he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. "Why else would he agree to the charge? He knew it meant death."
Claudia stepped closer to Pilatus. "But he did not appear mad."
Pilatus drew a fist up to his chest. She knew he answered in the affirmative without speaking a word.
Claudia moved to Pilatus' side. She held up the papyrus, straightening it, then pressing it into his fist. Pilatus glanced at her in confusion, but took the list. She watched his eyes pass over it, watched them grow darker and stormier the more he read. "What is this?" he asked lowly.
"I wanted to know about him. These are things he has done and things he has said."
"Stories," Pilatus murmured. "Simply stories."
"Thoösa has spoken to witnesses. She—"
Pilatus turned wide, fierce eyes on her. "He couldn't have brought Lucius back from the dead!"
"I…I didn't say—"
"You didn't have to!" Pilatus spat, leaving her alone by the wall to pace back to the pool. "You cling to a false hope! No one can bring Lucius back. Not him…" He speared her with his eyes again. "And not me."
They stared at one another, a vein in Pilatus' neck visibly throbbing and Claudia feeling like the breath in her chest had fled. She knew she had hurt him—badly. She had spoken aloud the words she had thought for so long in her own head, the blame she cast at his feet for taking her son from her and bringing him back ill. She wanted to tell him she was sorry, but the words wouldn't form. As much as her words had hurt him, she had meant every one.
Pilatus broke their stare first, crouching down to retrieve his cup. "I need more wine," he muttered, turning to leave his atrium. She meant to follow him, but her feet had locked in place. He crossed the threshold and she heard another voice address him just outside.
"Dominus." A soldier's address.
"What now?" she heard Pilatus' shoot back irritably.
"The Jewish criminal's tomb—"
"That again?" Pilatus cried out. "Haven't I done what Caiaphas wanted? Tell him I've posted enough guards. He doesn't need anymore!"
"But, Dominus…The tomb. The body is gone. It's been stolen."
Claudia's heart stuttered and she waited with bated breath for Pilatus' response. She hadn't expected scathing laughter.
"You must be joking. Tell me you jest."
"N-no, Dominus."
Claudia heard a clang and several pings against a marble floor. "Will I never be free of this man's trouble?" He must have thrown his goblet in frustration.
"What are your orders?"
"I want to see Marcus. Call in the guards. We'll get to the bottom of this." Pilatus' voice faded as he moved down the hall.
Claudia weakly lowered herself to the couch. She focused on the flashing scales of the fish in the pool. They weren't the colorful fish of the Mediterranean, but their movements were as mesmerizing. She traced their patterns, fearful to even think on what this newest development might mean. She heard Thoösa's latest report in her mind—The man came forth out of the tomb. His sisters had him back. Could it be possible? Could a man filled with divine power…could he…raise himself?
Claudia lay back on the couch. She closed her eyes, mind whirling. Two days ago, she had thought she understood the world as far as able except for the one piece that eluded her—the death of her son. Now she felt she had hardly scratched the surface.
Her mind drifted, overtaxed and overwhelmed. She had arisen early that morning and could barely keep her eyes open. The chirping of birds filtering through the open ceiling and the soft lapping of the fish swimming in the pool dulled her senses. She concentrated on the innocuous sounds, not desiring to think, to consider what could be true…
She dreamed once more, but this dream did not harbor terror. It began with a laugh she knew so well. She didn't sight Lucius at once. She saw him through a blur, like waves obscured her vision. He was playing on the sand near the sea, and someone was sitting next to him. He laughed and dug into the sand, pulling it up by the fistfuls. The image became clearer. Lucius squealed when the sandy hill he'd been piling collapsed. The person sitting next to him dug into the sand and let the grains fall, beginning the hill anew. Lucius scooted closer to the other figure, looked up, and smiled. Then he turned his eyes directly at Claudia, and his smile broadened. The other figure looked her direction as well, smiling as widely as her son.
Claudia jerked awake, slapping a hand to her galloping chest. Her hands shook; her body trembled. She struggled to her feet and left the atrium, practically running down the halls. She had to find Thoösa. Now.
The old servant had remained in her room, probably ready to deal with whatever fallout came from seeking out Pilatus.
"We're going out," Claudia announced. "But secretly."
"Agapoula, it isn't safe. You need security and—"
Claudia met Thoösa's anxious gaze, her chin stuck out. "I order it, Thoösa. Find me common clothes. A cloak. Quickly." She clapped her hands at the old woman.
Thoösa bowed her head and exited as fast as her old legs could creak.
Claudia sat down on the bed, a hand brushing her forehead. The man sitting next to her son, playing with him, living with him, who had looked straight at her. She had to know the truth. Who was Iesus the Nazarene? And what had truly become of him?
Thoösa's arm caught Claudia's tightly, motherly misgivings evident in her eyes. Her loyal servant had mumbled only once or twice under her breath, but Claudia could guess at her thoughts. Hardly ever had the governor's wife wandered city streets alone; there were always copious servants and at least a contingent of guards. And she chose to do so here as a Roman surrounded by foreigners and Jews, and as a woman as well!
"This way," Thoösa urged, directing Claudia to a side street, hurrying her along.
Claudia pulled her yellow palla farther forward to obscure her face. She might have demanded this escapade, but there was no need to court danger. Thoösa had insisted she be the one to make the inquiries concerning the people they sought. Only one person, really, but Claudia figured it was easier to ask after an entire group than a single person.
They passed through the side street; someone must have made it their dump heap. Claudia held her breath against the stench of rotting waste and a wave of nausea. When they emerged into another street, she breathed deeply, grateful for the fresh air even if it didn't belong to Caesarea.
"Must be there," Thoösa muttered. "They said Iron Street. Red curtains in the upper room."
They headed down the street, but Claudia almost hesitated. What had she been thinking? Surely Iesus the Nazarene's followers would balk at a Roman woman daring to show her face in their presence. What if they recognized the wife of the man who ordered their leader killed? She had never met them as far as she knew, but it was possible they might have seen her at some point.
And even more unbelievable, how could a woman who had lost a son in such a gruesome act of torture suffer the Roman governor's wife? Claudia opened her mouth to tell Thoösa they were going home, but was arrested by the servant's eager declaration.
"There!" Thoösa exclaimed, pointing at a nondescript, two level home. Claudia had only a moment to wonder about her enthusiasm when the old servant was thumping on the door.
No one answered for a time, and Claudia had to bite her tongue from ordering Thoösa to leave, to head back to the palace, but there was the dream and the eyes of her son and Iesus the Nazarene, who had seemed to call out to her without speaking a word.
The door finally creaked open at Thoösa's insistent third knock. Thoösa began to speak in Greek, her native tongue tumbling forth with more precision and speed than Claudia's ever did. The door widened a tiny bit more and a man scrutinized her with narrowed eyes. He asked them to wait and closed the door.
Claudia clasped her hands, locking and interlocking her fingers with nervous energy. This was folly! an inner voice shouted. How could you even consider the Jewish point of view? They were a backwater people, for Jove's sake!
The door opened, another man with a dark beard and hair peering out warily, though there was something else in his manner that didn't fit the situation, an excitement of sorts. "Who are you seeking?" he asked in an urgent fashion, as if he didn't have time to deal with them.
Claudia answered, stepping past Thoösa, no matter her Greek wouldn't sound as natural. "The mother of Yeshoshua Nazarenos."
"Why do you seek her?"
Claudia meant to reply, but she couldn't find the words. She hadn't expected such a question and didn't see how she could explain that she'd seen Iesus the Nazarene's mother in a dream, and that she had to see her, to know if what Thoösa had reported were true and to…to…
"Yohanan, let her in."
The bearded man glanced behind his back.
"He told me to expect someone," an elderly feminine voice explained. "To welcome her and speak with her."
The bearded man drew back, opening the door wider. Claudia stepped through and her breath caught in her chest. Standing in a small, but clean courtyard was the woman she had seen clutching the body of her son, a petite Jewish woman already wrinkled round the mouth and eyes, but oh what eyes! There was compassion and wisdom and empathy in them such as Claudia had never seen in any of her own courtly friends.
The woman smiled at the bearded man and nodded an assurance. "Come with me," she beckoned Claudia. Claudia followed the woman into what must have served as an area for food preparation as evidenced by the various terra cotta jars, but it was so primitive and humble. Claudia briefly wondered how people even managed to survive like this, but of course, they did. She had always known she lived a vastly different life than most people in the Roman Empire, but there was something about seeing it up close for the first time that brought the truth into stark reality.
The older Jewish woman pulled a stool close to a domed oven emanating heat. Claudia accepted the seat, her back to the courtyard doorway. Thoösa stood to her right side and just behind her, a motherly guard. As the Jewish woman pulled up her own stool close to Claudia, she nodded at Thoösa, acknowledging her presence, and Claudia caught a small hum as Thoösa must have nodded back.
Claudia took a breath, considering how to explain to this woman why she had come, but the woman spoke first.
"My name is Maryam, but perhaps it is easier for you to call me Maria."
"I will. I am Claudia. I'm…" Her voice faltered, and she suddenly wanted to be anywhere but in this warm, common kitchen.
The woman leaned closer to study her face. "You are the Roman governor's wife."
Claudia wrung her hands in her lap. "You have seen me before."
Maria shook her head and did not speak, but she smiled as if harboring a great secret.
"I…I know my presence must be difficult for you, considering the death of your son."
"Not anymore," Maria replied cryptically.
Claudia frowned. "I don't understand."
"Why did you come here?"
"I have been gathering information concerning your son. I have heard many things. I wanted to know if…" If my dreams are true! Claudia shouted in her head, but said instead, "if what I have heard is accurate."
"Tell me what you have heard."
Pilatus had kept her papyrus when he had left his private atrium, but Claudia could recite the list. She summarized what Thoösa had discovered from witnesses and stories.
"What you have heard," Maria said when she had finished, "is all true."
Claudia could barely keep her hands in her lap from trembling. "He…was a king?"
"He is the highest king."
The Jewish Messiah, as she recalled. A figure from their scriptures come to rescue them. But he had died.
Claudia clasped her hands tightly and met Maria's eyes. "I…I tried to stop my husband. I told him your son was innocent."
"She dreamed of him," Thoösa's Greek accented voice declared from behind Claudia.
Claudia turned her head to send the woman an unhappy glare. She hadn't meant to say such so directly, maybe not at all.
"What did you dream?" Maria asked, intense curiosity in her tone.
Claudia turned back to her. "My own son, well, I have been dreaming of him and…" Once started, Claudia found she could not hold back. She poured forth the histories of her own dreams, each that she had had of her son who had died and then the ones where Maria's dead son had appeared. She paused when describing how she saw the Jewish woman holding her son's body; Maria's eyes had gone rheumy with tears. "I'm sorry."
Maria shook her head and reached out to her with an open hand. Claudia allowed herself to take hold of the woman's hand, rough and weathered. "You know what it is to lose a child. You do not mean to cause me pain."
A sudden catch in Claudia's heart moved up her throat, and tears sprang from the corners of her eyes.
"After your dream, you told the governor Yeshua was innocent."
Claudia's voice shook. "I told him to have nothing to do with him."
"Then you did what you could."
"But he still was killed."
"He was," Maria said simply, and pulled back her hand. She tilted her head as if studying Claudia intently. "He meant to be killed."
Claudia's brows came together. "He…what?"
"Let me tell you my story," Maria said. And she went back years. She told of an angel's announcement of the forming of God's son in the womb of a woman, of a heralded birth, of a boy growing up in wisdom and the knowledge that he was only hers for a time, of his leaving her and his ministry in the wilds of Judea, and of his message that he had come to save men, not from Rome, but from themselves, from the very depths of the wickedness that dwelt in every human heart. He had saved them by his death, a sacrifice, as Maria explained it.
Claudia didn't understand all of it. She wasn't well versed in much of anything when it came to the Jewish faith, but she understood that Iesus the Nazarene had claimed to be much more than a man and that he called for followers willing to give up themselves to obey his truths. And the sacrifice of his life, Romans themselves sacrificed animals at times as the Jews to please the gods or curry favor, and the sacrifice of a man would be the dearest of all. But a Jewish man sacrificing himself on a Roman cross? An innocent man? And to scrub clean the hearts of men?
"But," Claudia hesitated when Maria had finished, "even so, he is still...dead."
It shocked Claudia to see the older woman's face brighten, as if shining with an inner light. "Has your husband not been informed?" she asked. "My son's tomb has been emptied."
"Yes, the body stolen. I know that, but—"
Maria drew in a sharp breath, sitting suddenly straighter, her hand going to her mouth and her eyes filling with tears.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"
Thoösa gasped sharply behind her and gave a low cry.
"Thoösa, what are you—" Claudia began, turning on the stool, but her voice gave way when her heart stopped beating. All time stopped. The kitchen faded away. There was only a Jewish woman whose son had died, a loyal, motherly, Greek servant, and a Roman woman who suddenly perceived how unworthy she had always been.
A man stood just inside the kitchen's doorway, a man with a dark beard and even darker hair resting along his shoulders. He seemed to shine as the sun his raiment was so white and Claudia didn't dare attempt to breathe.
"My God!" Thoösa exclaimed, and Claudia watched the old woman she had known her entire life throw herself at the feet of Iesus the Nazarene.
Iesus knelt down, grasping the now weeping Thoösa at the shoulders. "I know what you have spoken in the dark and the questions you have asked. You have found what you have been seeking." He lifted her to her knees and Thoösa let him embrace her. Eventually, he stood. He nodded at Maria. "Mother." And then he walked slowly, deliberately, until he stood above Claudia, and she gazed up at him unable to speak.
"I know you testified to Pilatus. You told him what you saw. You did what was right."
A lump formed in Claudia's throat; her eyes blurred with tears.
"I know you grieve for Lucius."
At the naming of her son, Claudia's tears slipped down her cheeks.
"If you believe in me, you will walk with him again." The man reached out with a hand, a hand attached to a deeply scarred wrist, and placed it on her shoulder.
Claudia wept, she wept and grasped the smooth hand with the ugly scarred wrist, and pulled it into her cheek, letting every sorrow that had been bundled up within her soul find release and freedom.
The man's other hand gently cupped her chin, raising her head so he could look her directly in the eyes. "You will suffer nightmares no longer. Your mourning has come to an end."
The palace was dark when Claudia and Thoösa returned. What they had experienced could not yet be formed into words, as fresh as it was. But the women returned not just hand in hand, but soul in soul, and although one was still a Roman noble and the other a Greek servant, there was an equality of truth between them that would never be quenched.
Claudia left Thoösa in her own room, pressing the old woman to sleep, and crept silently down halls, avoiding rooms where people still laughed and talked and idled their time away in naïve and hollow pursuits.
She stopped outside the doorway to Pilatus' room, gathered her courage, and stepped inside. He was laying on his bed and he turned his head when he heard someone at the door.
"What a day I have had," he muttered irritably.
She walked across the room, perching on the edge of his bed as he complained about guards and Caiaphas' lame explanations for an empty tomb and the lies that he couldn't quite expose and the belief that a conspiracy had been enacted to make him look bad and how much he loathed Jerusalem in every measure. When he stopped and gave her a chance to respond, she gently took his hand and looked him in the eye.
"Lucius is safe," she whispered.
Confusion etched itself on Pilatus' brow.
"He is safe in his hands." In hands and wrists marked by sacrifice that had borne the burdens of the world and bought its salvation.
Pilatus stared at her for another moment, then shook his head, and blew out a low breath. "Claudia, about the things I said—"
She stopped him with a finger to his lips. "I understand. His death hurt you, too. You did not mean for it to happen."
Rare moisture passed across Pilatus' eyes until he quickly regained control.
"There is no need to talk of what happened anymore," Claudia assured. "Lucius is safe."
"How can you know?" Pilatus asked softly.
"I know."
"Another dream?"
Better than a dream. Far more than a dream. She didn't answer. She only smiled, leaned forward to tenderly kiss him along the lips, then rose from the bed. She left Pilatus' room. Today was not the day to challenge him with truth. In fact, she didn't know if he would ever understand and believe even when she explained it to him. She might have brought Iesus the Nazarene to him if she could, but soon after she had seen him, he had simply disappeared. And she knew with certainty he wasn't one to be manipulated and cajoled into following the desires of the will of men. He wasn't a Roman god. He was true God.
Claudia reached her room. She glanced at Thoösa sleeping on her bed with a slight and content smile on her face, then paced to the window, drawing back the curtains once more. The heavy breeze of night in the wilderness passed across her face, and she didn't mind.
When she finally did find the words to tell Pilatus the truth, whatever his response, she knew and believed. And she would follow the truth all the way to her grave…and someday walk with Iesus the Nazarene and Lucius her son in the glorious land of the true God.
Author's Note: Thank you for reading my Easter story for this year! I hope this imagining of what Pilate's wife and her circumstances might have been like has been a blessing and encouragement to you as much as it has been to me personally. For a few years now I have written a story every Easter, uploading one chapter on Good Friday and the second on Easter Sunday. If you would like to read any of the other Easter stories, you can find them on my story page. Look for stories about Peter, the thief on the cross, and Nicodemus. Happy Resurrection Sunday! He has risen!
