Disclaimer: not only do I not own this, it is fiction. I doubt Barabbas and his companions acted or thought like this, so this is a work of imagination. Inspired when a pastor pointed out the third cross had probably been made for Barabbas. I'm not quite sure why I wrote it, except it wouldn't let me go.
REMINDER: THE NARNIAN CHALLENGE BEGINS NEXT MONTH!
Barabbas could hear Simeon trying not to cry again. The snuffles irritated him, coming from a grown man. A man who had stolen and even killed.
Dan was a better cell-mate. He at least would argue back, instead of snuffling. He was man enough to follow, sword out, when the insurrection started, and not stand over a man he'd killed as if a Roman legion stood before him.
Barabbas snorted. The insurrection hadn't accomplished a single thing—other than their imprisonment.
And tomorrow, their crucifixion.
"The curses of the temple on these Romans," Dan growled. Even without looking up, Barabbas heard the man's clothing rustle as he got to his feet and began pacing his cell. "Why does it take so long? At least Jews stone you the same day they discover your crime!"
"Used to," Barabbas growled. "Now we're not even allowed that. No matter what thievery or murder, we have to give all the criminals over to the festering Roma—"
"Shhh!" hissed Simion. "Unless you want to be flogged twice before we're killed? They've already made our three crosses!"
"At least then you'd have a reason to weep, reason that wouldn't shame a warrior."
"Because a slow suffocation in shame and dishonour isn't sufficient reason? Cursed is every man who is hanged on a tree!"
"Jews have been cursed for generations now," Dan broke in. "And weeping hasn't ever helped them."
"Our swords didn't help them any more than weeping does!"
Barabbas spit, trying to clear his mouth, but the sour taste of Simeon's words lingered. Still, the pause in conversation left a stillness, and he frowned. The sound outside had changed.
"If Barabbas hadn't led us on a fool's errand—"
"Hush, both of you," Barabbas commanded, cutting off Simeon's complaint. "I'm trying to hear."
"Hear what?" The rustling of Dan's clothing stopped as he, too, stood still and listened. "It's a crowd," he said, after a moment.
"They're chanting something," Simeon added. "It must be a large crowd, for the sound to reach down here."
All three men stayed still, breathing, listening, and in their stillness a single word became clear, chanted by at least a hundred voices.
Barabbas.
Barabbas leaped to his feet. The Romans would never soil their throats with such chanting of a prisoner's name. No, this had to be his men, the ones still left alive.
"They have no chance," Simeon breathed, realising the same thing.
"Barabbas, they'll be killed!" Dan echoed, turning to look at his leader.
"Then perhaps they'll take some of the Romans with them," Barabbas answered, grim.
"Barabbas!" Simeon's shocked tones bounced off of Barabbas and fell into nothing on the cell floor.
"If they kill enough Romans, Rome will send more soldiers. And then, finally, perhaps the Jews will rise up and kill every last Roman, every last foreigner in our land!" Two hands grabbed Barabbas' throat, shaking him, cutting off his words.
"Do our lives mean nothing to you?" Simeon shouted, hands tightening; Barabbas couldn't breathe. Two other hands entered his narrowing sightline, grabbing one of Simeon's wrists and pulling that hand off. Barabbas batted away the other, gasping.
"Sit down, you son of a dog, and don't ever touch me again!" he snarled at Simeon. Dan pushed himself in between the two men.
"If you fight each other, the ones who win are the Romans!" he shouted at both of them.
"Simeon would kill me faster than the Romans—if he had the courage to finish what he started," Barabbas retorted. But a part of him winced at the statement. The crowd outside, yelling his name—he'd done something. He'd done a lot of things, his sense of humour pointed out dryly, but that hadn't been what he meant. He'd done something. He'd accomplished something.
"You deserve crucifixion. The whole world can burn, for all I care!" But Simeon sat, Barabbas could see his shoulder and arm going lower beyond Dan.
"The world isn't burning, it's slowly decaying," Dan answered tiredly, after a few seconds had passed. "It will rot to nothing under the Romans." He sat as well. "No holiness, no justice, just the ones with citizenship standing on the shoulders of those without."
Barabbas snorted again. Dan had courage, but also a tiresome bent to philosophy. Simeon was, at least, easier to manage.
Footsteps—shod, so definitely soldiers—approached. Barabbas stood; so did Dan and Simeon. They were, at least, united before the enemy. Barabbas would not go to his death fighting against his own, in front of what men might remain. He'd be a martyr, an example, proof that as long as you fought hard, fought ruthlessly, you could go to death with dignity.
Though there wouldn't be much dignity on the cross. But he still stood firm as the four soldiers opened the tiny cell's door.
"Insurrectionist Barabbas?" came from the captain.
"Here, you Roman dog!" It came out a snarl, but at least Simeon didn't whimper in the background.
"You have been released."
"What?" That could not be right. The Romans never let criminals go, not unless they received money for it. Everything Barabbas stole was gone, so how?
"All of us?" Simeon asked, his tone rising in hope. "All of us?"
"Just Barabbas."
"The Passover feast," Dan breathed. "The Roman tradition…"
Releasing one prisoner. "But why was I the choice for that?" Barabbas couldn't help asking. If the Romans thought they could destroy his dignity by giving him hope and taking it away—they would never have offered him as a choice.
"If you don't want your freedom, I can run you through right here," the captain said softly, menacingly. "Rome does not offer mercy twice."
Or even once.
Stunned, Barabbas walked through the door, after two of the soldiers. Behind him he heard Simeon wail, stricken, "You promised you would go with us! You promised you would lead us!" But Barabbas did not look back, or even pause.
Simeons were always easy to find.
The soldiers led him through the halls, the courtyard, under the trees there, stopping at the door to the street. Barabbas, coming out of his numbness, heard a large crowd outside. "What are they doing?"
"Go and find out." One of the soldiers pushed him through the doorway and slammed it behind him.
"Crucify him! Crucify him!" The shouting crowd, the mob, crowded the street so thickly Barabbas could barely stand. But he'd run in mobs before; he let himself be pushed to near a tree, shimmied up the trunk, and stood, looking for people he knew.
There, a group of them. They didn't even have head coverings on to hide their faces! Just the little caps. Working his way down the tree and through the people took several minutes, but when he arrived, they clapped him on the back, shalom'd, and welcomed him back like a messiah.
"How'd you get me out?"
"The temple folk! They have a man they want to kill—some prophet or other."
"Or blasphemer, to hear them speak! Anyway, they wanted him dead, and got us to rouse the crowd to ask for you, and it worked! Pilate couldn't back down! You're out!"
"Head for the hills?"
Barabbas nodded, then hesitated. "Simeon and Dan are still being crucified."
"You're staying to watch."
Barabbas shrugged. "I should."
"Good man! I knew you cared for us!" A hand on his shoulder—he couldn't tell whose—and they were pushing through the crowd. "They should lead them out in a couple of hours!" someone shouted in his ear.
After days in a tiny cell, with only Simeon and Dan, there was something welcoming about the mob. Pushed, shoved, anonymous, protected—it made Barabbas' freedom real. Within an hour he was planning—and lifting a few pouches from pockets while he was at it. There were several wealthy priests in the crowd, and they didn't mix enough with mobs to watch their wallets. Plus, the Romans were all busy, with a flogging, from the sound of it, when Barabbas got close.
Then came the time for crucifixion. The prophet who'd been put in Barabbas' place staggered out, blood all over his back and sides, and, for some reason, a circlet of long, piercing thorns on his head. Simeon and Dan, further back, didn't look like they'd had too hard a time.
"Who's the man?" Barabbas shouted at one of his companions.
"A poor fool named Jesus, claiming to be the Messiah!" one of them shouted back. "Doesn't look like one now, does he?"
"Poor madman," Barabbas said, baring his teeth in a grin. He and the others followed, but not too close, as the crosses were shoved on the prisoners' shoulders. They followed with the crowd, but Barabbas slowed when they reached the execution hill.
Until a few hours ago, he'd thought he'd be the one climbing it with wood on his back. He watched the three men. Simeon raged at the crowd, at the guards who occasionally kicked him, at anyone he saw. Dan, panting, cursed more quietly, his mouth barely moving.
The messiah-man didn't say a word. Indeed, he didn't seem to be carrying his cross anymore. Barabbas' cross. He must have fallen when Barabbas wasn't watching.
Barabbas turned away when the three were affixed to the crosses and the crosses raised. He'd thought he'd had the stomach for it, but…he'd thought it would be him.
He turned back once he heard the sound of wood thudding into earth. Simeon still raged on, cursing even the man beside him. Poor, fearful fool. Fear made every man an enemy. But Dan—Dan was looking at the messiah. Dan liked to go hear the prophets; perhaps he'd heard this one once.
That's when Barabbas noticed the sign above the man's head. King of the Jews. Scowling, fists clenched, Barabbas felt all his fire come back. As if a true Jewish king would be so weak! The familiar taste of shame turned into the even more familiar taste of hate. The Romans would pay, pay for every insult, for every life they'd taken. Someday! Someday, Barabbas would stir them into revolution again!
But that was for a future time. Barabbas stayed till he was sure Dan and Simeon couldn't recognise anyone beneath them anymore. Lack of air did that. And then he slipped away.
There were more Simeons and Dans to find. Perhaps, with enough skill, even prophet-like men like the middle one would rally to his cause someday.
In the meantime, they could always die for him.
For those who care, this is what I had to work with for facts:
Matthew 27:15 Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. 16 And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.
38 Then two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left.
44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. (ESV)
Mark 15:7 And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.
27 And with him they crucified two robbers, one on his right and one on his left. [32] "Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe." Those who were crucified with him also reviled him. (ESV)
Luke 23:18 But they all cried out together, "Away with this man, and release to us Barabbas"— 19 a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder.
32 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." 42 And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 43 And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise."
John 18:40 They cried out again, "Not this man, but Barabbas!" Now Barabbas was a robber. (ESV)
John 19:31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. [32] So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. (ESV)