Before Judas was forced to answer, Andrew took up the call. "We go to the Holy City to announce Jesus' claim to the throne of heaven. The high priests will cast their gaze far and wide to find reason to spurn his claim. Why would you not counsel Jesus to leave you behind?"
When Magdalene's eyes rose, they flashed with anger. "Perhaps I do not feel that I should judge the wisdom of Jesus. Where he wishes my feet to tread, I shall walk."
While every word in her retort was a stinging rebuke of the men, they could not argue against Magdalene without admitting the pride within their own words. The younger Mary had learned much from the Virgin when it came to quieting men's tongues.
So again they turned to Judas. Paul the most exasperated. "Tell her, Judas. Tell Magdalene that Jesus' eyes are clouded. That it is we, we the Twelve who have sworn to protect Christ, who must decide such things."
"Why debate Jerusalem at all? Do we not have the luxury to ponder such delicate matters?" Judas asked, rather than answering Paul.
Thomas seemed taken aback. "Have you not heard?"
"Of what?"
Andrew's voice cracked as he spoke. "John the Baptist is dead."
Judas shook his head, not willing to accept such dire news. "He is but imprisoned."
"Herod had him beheaded upon the insistence of his wife and stepdaughter. John's head is now upon a spike above the fortress. Levy saw the sight with his own eyes. He is with Jesus now to tell him the all," Paul explained when Andrew was unable to finish.
The Baptist was dead. Whatever tenuous thread that had been holding Jesus back was now severed. There was no doubt they would leave, perhaps by nightfall and would be in Jerusalem well ahead of Passover.
It seemed that fate was not one to be denied.
Paul turned back to Magdalene, but Peter rushed in. "Jesus has asked us to gather." Mary went to join them, but his words were pointed. "Only the Twelve."
With a sigh, she sat down as the other men fled the hut as if it were on fire. Judas more gingerly turned to leave when he heard a strangled sob. Magdalene tried to hide tears, but the pain had a life of its own.
Awkward, Judas did not wish to intrude, but nor could he just leave her in such a state. "Do not invest so much in their words, Mary."
"But is that not what everyone thinks? That I seek to force a union with Jesus, or worse, that I am a whore?"
He was taken aback by her forceful words, but he could not argue their merit. Judas had heard similar proclamations and even worse from the Twelve, but he paid them no heed. Such talk revealed more of the men's hearts than Mary's honor.
"Tell me again how they cannot hurt me," she said, locking his gaze.
"Does Jesus love you?" Judas asked, without thinking.
Mary seemed taken off-guard. Suspicion was sharp in her eyes. "Yes."
"Then do not fret. They are only jealous because you are not of the Twelve."
Magdalene tilted her head, clearly not understanding his meaning.
"We all are but members of the Twelve, none above the other, but you, singly, are the Thirteenth, Magdalene, and that grates against many."
Tears drying, she still shook her head. "So I am to suffer their looks? Their words of rebuke?"
"Do you think me immune to such rough treatment?" he asked. When she could not argue, Judas continued, "What else shall we do, Magdalene? Will you refuse his call? Will you stay in the village stitching a pillow while Jesus goes to face his lot?" With a shake of her head, Judas had his answer. "Then I shall gather with the rest while you seek out Mary and console her, for news of the Baptist's harsh death will sorely test her resolve."
He turned toward the door, but Magdalene caught his arm. "I would do anything to keep Jesus safe from harm. From Jerusalem. I would die to keep him from this Passover if I could."
"As would I," Judas answered not certain where the determination in her grip and her words had come from.
"If I am the Thirteenth, then you are the First, Judas. You are his dearest of friends." With that, Magdalene retired.
Despite her kind words, he was left with a heavy heart. Over the past while, Judas had come to hope John's words would carry on the winds of time, scattering as each week passed, making them less and less potent. But the Baptist was dead. Jesus headed to Jerusalem, and Judas feared his own devotion would be as unsteady as his damaged leg.
CHAPTER 25.
Island in the Sea of Marmara Slowly roused by the murmur of the sea, Rebecca found herself warm but not too warm. Even though it was hard stone beneath her, she felt perfectly comfortable. Through slit eyes, she found the room darkened except for a single shaft of moonlight that imparted a silvery glow.
Memories tried to awaken her more harshly, but they felt distant and fuzzy, unattainable. How could anything be wrong when she felt this good?
"That's right," a voice said as hands helped her into a sitting position. "Open your eyes."
Reluctant to comply, Rebecca shook her head. After all that had happened, sleep was blissful. After all that had happened...
Startling awake, she jerked upright and pushed away the hands.
"Do not fight. Allow the antidote to do its work." Ignoring the advice, Rebecca turned to find Petir translating for Tok. "Dr. Monroe, just relax and answer our questions."
Scrambling away, her back hit a stone pedestal. Could it be the tablet that Magdalene had been upon? But that made no sense. The last she remembered, the chamber had been destroyed. "Where's Brandt?"
Tok coaxed her away from the table. "Please, do not make this more painful for either of us."
Rebecca struggled, trying to ask the bastard some hard questions, but her brain betrayed her. It simply didn't want to argue. Whatever drug they gave her made her compliant. Yielding. Fighting the effect, Rebecca pictured the last time she saw Brandt. Not only was he alive, he was also firing. The sergeant had survived everything else this asshole had thrown at him, and he could survive the poison gas.
Getting her bearings, Rebecca stood, taking a quick survey of the room, which was more of a subterranean library than a chamber. While the walls had clearly been hewn from rock, they had a polished surface that glowed in the low light. Along each wall stood heavy oak bookcases filled with ancient parchments. So that's what gave the room its soothing musty smell. But the single most important item in the room was the silver-engraved pedestal with a single skeleton encased in glass.
"Where am I?"
"Beneath the Knot's enclave. Now I have answered two of your questions, might you grace me a turn?"
With Tok seeming so polite, and combined with the drug's mellowing influence, Rebecca might have been lured into a sense of safety. But she noticed the parrot feather necklace hanging around Tok's neck.
Rage boiled away any lingering effects of the drug as she hissed, "That's the chief's!"
With a smile like a puppeteer whose strings had just been revealed, Tok rose to his feet. "In his culture, to the victor go the spoils."
The true horror of what that meant hit her. "You killed the tribe. You killed them all!"
"Because they did not tell me what I wanted to know." Any conciliatory effort vanished, replaced with cold observation.
"Neither will I," Rebecca growled.
Shaking his head, Tok signaled to his translator. "You make me resort to such tawdry measures."
Petir dragged a semiconscious Lochum into the center of the room.
"We have not yet given your professor the antidote to the inhalant gas. Hold your tongue, and he might never return to consciousness."
Lochum's head lolled to the side, his tongue partially protruding. A bit of saliva dripped down his shirt. To see her once-energetic professor in such a state rattled her. Worse, Brandt might be in the same state or dead.
"Is glory worth more to you than this man's life?" Tok asked.
The sergeant would never tell this bastard what he wanted. Hell, Lochum wouldn't even tell Tok. Rebecca would be no different.
Attempting to crawl, the professor tried to say something, but slack-jawed, the words died before they could be spoken. Her own head buzzed, and the drug's insidious suggestions begged her to comply.
"I don't negotiate with murderers."
Tok's lips curled down, and the translator's voice became impassioned. "And how many would die if you found the last set of bones? Did you consider the wars and the countries in ruin? What are a handful of lives to avoid such global tumult?"
Rebecca braced herself against the glass case, trying to appear strong when really her legs felt ready to buckle. "Whatever."
"You say that with such ease, but look beneath your hand."
Despite herself, Rebecca glanced to the skeleton that lay under the glass, but once you'd seen a couple of proto-Christian skeletons you'd seen them all. Upon brief inspection the bones had belonged to someone mature in years. There was mild spondylosis along the spine. The pelvis confirmed it to be a woman who had birthed at least one child.
Breath caught in her throat as she snatched her hand back from the glass case. This wasn't just any skeleton. "It's... It can't be."
"But it is," Petir answered. "There lies Mary, mother of Jesus. The Blessed Virgin."
Pulling her hand back, Rebecca had forgotten Tok's assertion that his sect held Christ's mother, and now he suggested Mary lay beneath her fingers?
"If you doubt, simply look at the inscriptions. If you trust me in nothing else, trust that the body is Mary's."
Even on cursory glance, Rebecca found at least three separate passages that applied to the Virgin.
Tok wasn't lying.
As much as Rebecca braced herself against it, seeing the Virgin did stir something within her heart. A welling of awe. Not trusting her voice to hide the wave of emotions, Rebecca remained silent.
"Mary is the Knot's founder. It was she who emboldened our forefathers to take whatever measures were necessary to protect what is most sacred to us. I am but a humble servant of hers."
She refused to believe such a thing, and it must have shown, for the translator began reading from the bones: "In all His glory we must keep this most sacred secret. I, Mary daughter of Anne, wife of Joseph, and mother of Jesus, do so seal it until God himself hath opened it."
Petir turned to her, his voice transforming into Tok's words. "Do you hold yourself equal to God, Dr. Monroe? Or even Mary?" Tok walked closer, scrutinizing her face. "Oh, but I have forgotten. You don't believe in such things. You only want the bones to prove there is no God. Is that not true?"
Rebecca refused to meet the man's eyes.
"After all that you have seen, you still think random electrons control man's fate?"
"I'd rather have radiation than any God who would empower the likes of you," she sneered.
"For all you scientists strive to disprove the Almighty, you only serve to validate His existence." Tok knelt beside Mary, putting his hand to the glass. "The universe spirals toward entropy, Dr. Monroe. Balance and harmony are but brief respites to the relentless forces of nature that aim to disperse, to devolve. Is that not what your science teaches us?"
"There are opposing forces that maintain a dynamic equilibrium."
To this, Tok smiled. "What you call opposing force is what I call God. What you call 'good radiation' is simply His hand at work. This gene you search for isn't a 'smart' gene. It is the 'God' gene."
Her scathing retort died as Lochum went into a grand mal seizure.
"He has minutes. No more."
How she wished Brandt were here. He would have some scheme, some plan, to transform her helplessness into an advantage.
Rebecca spoke without thinking. "For every answer I give you, you will do something for me."
"Such as?" Petir asked, for Tok.
"Awaken Lochum. I'm going to need him."
Despite the toxins in his bloodstream and the spasms of his body, the professor still felt the sharp needle penetrate his chest cavity, then his heart. He felt every milliliter of antidote pumped into his ventricle. Within a few beats, his fit subsided and his lungs took in full breaths.
Lochum's eyes rolled back in his head as the drug brought on a sense of euphoria. All his cares washed away on a gentle tide.
"I thought you said he would wake right up?" Rebecca asked anxiously from his side. The girl really needed to learn how to relax.
Lolling his head onto her shoulder, Lochum tried to say, "I'm fine," but the words came out cracked and garbled.
"Drink," his student said, as she brought a glass of water to his lips.
After a sip, the professor cleared his throat. "Truly, I am recovering."
Tok stepped forward. "Then it is time to compensate us for your first boon, Dr. Monroe."
"I need all the bones you have in your possession," Rebecca demanded as if she had any influence here.
Tok inclined his head gracefully. "But of course."
As he glanced around, Lochum realized just how many remains the Knot had recovered.
The Virgin was protected within a case, but three alcoves had been hurriedly carved in the stone wall and housed the newly discovered remains.
Gaining his feet with only a little nausea, Lochum found the Baptist-intact. Even the femur bone he had lost in the Budapest caves had been recovered. The next recess held James, but only half of the skeleton was intact. Lastly, Magdalene. They had so little of her left. This familiar of Christ had her skull crushed during the cave-in back in Istanbul, and only her right arm and the upper half of her spine had survived.
So little.