Poisoned Honey Read online

  And then somehow—it seemed to happen very slowly—Kanarit squirmed out of my grasp. For an instant, she clung to me by my hair, but her weight pulled the strands out by the roots. Tumbling backward off the wall, she crashed onto the kitchen awning, slid to the edge, grabbed a handful of thatch and hung from it for a moment, then thumped onto the pile of flax in the courtyard.

  TWENTY-ONE

  A GOOD BROTHER

  I guess she can’t fly after all, brayed an idiotic voice in my head. Other voices chuckled.

  I pounded down the steps; Susannah was already kneeling by her daughter. “Little girl, my heart, Kanarit, speak,” she pleaded. The child lay still, eyes closed, one hand still clutching the lock of my hair and the other hand a wisp of thatch.

  As I dropped to my knees beside them, Susannah turned on me. “You killed my child!” she screamed. “Are you possessed?”

  Then—Kanarit must have been only stunned—she blinked, drew in breath, and let out a howl. From the basket against the wall, the baby gave an answering wail. A neighbor shouted from the nearest rooftop, “What’s the matter? We’re coming!” The racket almost drowned out the voices in my head.

  Susannah began to feel Kanarit’s arms and legs for broken bones. I reached out, trying to soothe the child. “Kanarit, dear—”

  My cousin hit me away with the back of her hand. “Go!” she snarled. “Leave!”

  “Cousin, I don’t blame you for being upset,” said Phomelei through my mouth, “but she wasn’t in danger until you screamed. You frightened her, making her lose—”

  “Go!”

  It’s no use trying to talk to her until they all calm down, Phomelei told me in a concerned tone. Leave for a while and let it blow over.

  I wasn’t sure it would blow over, but I didn’t know what else to do. Holding my sore scalp, I retreated to my apartment.

  I wasn’t alone there because the invisible beings swirled around, discussing me and arguing. The sparrow chirped primly, Your advisors are very disappointed in you, and I can’t say that I blame them.

  Voices darted in like stinging wasps:

  She doesn’t have the courage to follow through.

  If you ask me, she’s not gifted at all.

  She fancies herself as Queen Mariamne!

  Queen of the dung heap is more like it, sneered Odjit’s raw, hideous voice. It spoke directly to me. Here, you! Yes, you with the bald patch—I’m talking to you. Why don’t you go into business as a prostitute? At least that way, you’d be performing a valuable service.

  Or, even better—a new voice, as cold and hard as stone—walk into the lake tonight and don’t come back.

  Walk into the lake? I thought bleakly. Yes, that might be the best idea.

  I realized dimly that someone, a real person, was in the doorway. It was my cousin. I struggled to focus on her. “Susannah … my dear friend from childhood … Forgive me for frightening you so badly. I wasn’t myself … I didn’t mean …”

  “Here,” she said, holding out a handful of silver coins. “Here is the rent you paid us. You are no longer my cousin. Leave this house.”

  “But where could we go?” Aiandictor made me plead.

  “Get out! Go! Get out!”

  Silas appeared behind Susannah and, behind him, the neighbor who’d gone to fetch him. “Hush,” Silas told his wife. “Kanarit is safe now. We’ll take your cousin to the council. They’ll know what to do.”

  Gripping my arms, the two men hustled me out the gate. The voices continued to speak through me. Phomelei protested, “This is simply outrageous.” Aiandictor tried to explain: “Can’t we be reasonable about this? It was an accident, it could have happened to anyone, but then Susannah became hysterical and blamed us.” Dionesiona leaned against Silas and asked in a husky voice, “Did you know it was your wife who got me involved with magic?” She gave a low, seductive chuckle. “What a good joke—Susannah, the model Jewish wife, as a channel to the dark powers!”

  The neighbor threw Silas a fearful glance. Silas nodded grimly. “That’s them speaking. Don’t listen.” The men pulled me through the alley to the avenue.

  They’re going to chain you up in the hills like the wild boy! warned my advisors in a chorus. Zaphaunt bucked and brayed, but the men only gripped me tighter. As we struggled down the avenue, I was dimly aware of onlookers gathering, horrified but fascinated.

  The cloud of spirits swarmed around us, almost choking me as they shrieked, snarled, and cajoled: “I must insist that you unhand me at once.” “Good people, have pity on a poor woman unjustly accused!” “Stone these men! Beat them!”

  At the synagogue, Elder Thomas came out on the porch accompanied by a scribe. Silas called up the steps, “Revered elder, my wife’s cousin is demon-ridden.”

  “Demon-ridden!” brayed Zaphaunt. “Not that!”

  “Stay there,” the elder told Silas, looking alarmed. “You must not bring the unclean woman into the house of prayer.”

  It hurt my feelings that Elder Thomas called me unclean, and I thought I would burst into tears. Instead, with Odjit’s monstrous strength I wrenched free of the men’s grasp. Odjit’s voice grated, “You’re afraid of us, aren’t you, revered elder? Better run inside! Quick, or we might touch you!” Stomping up the steps, Odjit reached out his claws. “We’re coming to get you! Hawr, hawr, hawr!”

  Silas and his neighbor lunged after me and dragged me back down the steps. Panting with the effort, Silas explained to Elder Thomas that I’d tried to make his little girl fly off the roof. “What should be done with my wife’s cousin, Elder?” he asked. “Could she be kept in the hospitality rooms next to the synagogue?”

  As the elder put up a horrified hand to fend off that idea, the scribe spoke to him. “Isn’t this young woman Mariamne, daughter of Tobias, widow of Eleazar—and sister of your son-in-law, Alexandros?”

  Elder Thomas squinted at me. Phomelei spoke up in her most imperious tone. “Yes, I am your cousin’s widow and your son-in-law’s sister. Surely you will not allow these ruffians to malign and manhandle me.”

  “Revered elder,” said Silas, “I bring this woman to you only because her brother and uncle have washed their hands of her.”

  Elder Thomas sighed heavily. “This is not right.” He nodded to the scribe. “Send to the docks for Alexandros bar Tobias and his uncle Reuben.”

  A servant was sent, but it took some time for Alexandros to appear. Meanwhile, my advisors and I hit out and cursed and made lewd suggestions. “I’m Artemis of Ephesus, you know,” Dionesiona told the men. “Let me show you my many breasts.”

  The men covered their ears. When Dionesiona began to tear off my clothes, Silas took off his belt and bound my hands. Just as he finished tying the knot, my brother hurried around the corner with the messenger. Uncle Reuben was close behind him.

  Alexandros stared at me, aghast. “Mari?” Zaphaunt brayed, thinking it was a good joke that my appearance frightened Alexandros.

  Uncle Reuben said, “Peace, Elder Thomas,” and my brother added, “Peace, Father-in-law.” But they looked the opposite of peaceful.

  “This woman is your niece and your sister, is she not?” asked the elder. “I am deeply disappointed to be allied with a family so lacking in responsibility for its members.” He went on at some length, sprinkling his lecture with quotations from the Law.

  As Alexandros visibly struggled to gather his wits, Uncle Reuben was the first to speak: “With all due respect, Elder, isn’t it harsh to say that my nephew has abandoned his responsibility? My niece has always been difficult—willful and selfish.”

  “She herself asked to live under Silas’s roof, rather than mine,” Alexandros finally put in. “I have my widowed mother, my wife, and now a child to take care of. Business is bad.”

  “No matter how many excuses you give,” said Elder Thomas sharply, “you must now take charge of your sister. This is our way, as people of the Law. We are not beasts or Gentiles, to cast off our kin when they inconvenience
us.”

  “But what can I do with her, Father-in-law?” pleaded Alexandros. “Surely you wouldn’t want your daughter Sarah and your little grandson exposed to unclean spirits?”

  “No one could expect us to keep her in our house,” said Uncle Reuben.

  “That house is not yours, uncle!” Zaphaunt mocked him.

  Elder Thomas fingered his silver belt buckle and frowned. He opened his mouth as if to make a pronouncement, then shut it again. My brother’s argument about Sarah and the baby must have hit home.

  “Revered elder,” the scribe spoke up, “if I might suggest … Perhaps your son-in-law could take the woman to an exorcist.”

  Elder Thomas’s eyebrows lifted thoughtfully, and he nodded several times. “Yes, an excellent idea. Don’t they say there’s a new exorcist in Capernaum? Take her to Capernaum.”

  Alexandros began to protest that he was much too busy to leave his business for the day, and Uncle Reuben added that they couldn’t afford to pay an exorcist. But I could barely hear them because my spirit advisors were also protesting, all trying to speak at once. They shouted threats: they would mutilate Alexandros’s manly organs, send a pack of unclean dogs to swim in the mikvah, destroy the coming harvest with hail.

  Undoing a pouch from his belt, Elder Thomas tossed it to Alexandros. “See, now you have the exorcist’s fee. Depart without delay.” Dismissing us with a wave, he disappeared into the synagogue.

  Silas also seemed to think he’d done all anyone could expect of him. “It might be wise to tie her hands before I take back my belt,” he suggested to Alexandros. So my brother was forced to untie his own belt and bind me with that. Silas then nodded to Alexandros, as if to wish him good luck, and hurried off with his neighbor, tying his belt back around his waist.

  Uncle Reuben said grimly to Alexandros, “Elder Thomas may be a wise and important man, but he doesn’t have to take a harridan into his house. Listen, nephew.” He dropped his voice and continued in an urgent tone. “Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to take one of our fishing boats and sail north toward Capernaum. If the madwoman throws herself out of the boat before we get there … no one could blame us for such an accident.”

  My attendants, all but one, screamed a chorus of curses and insults. But Panhasaziel and I approved of my uncle’s plan. Panhasaziel showed me the water closing over my head, and I agreed that would be a great relief.

  My brother hesitated, looking from me, to the clinking pouch in his hand, to our uncle, and back to me again. To my surprise, he said slowly, “No.”

  “What?” exclaimed Uncle Reuben. “Are you also possessed? To speak frankly, your father-in-law has misjudged the case. You bear no further responsibility to this woman. One might even say she is no longer your sister.”

  “No,” Alexandros repeated with a heavy sigh. “I promised Abba I would take care of my sisters. I cannot break my promise.”

  Our uncle sputtered, “You stubborn, foolish …” Then he threw up his hands and said, “As you wish. I know my responsibility: to put in a day’s work at the packinghouse.”

  Uncle Reuben left, and Alexandros stood uncertainly in front of the synagogue. A few onlookers, curious but keeping their distance from my demons, peered from alleyways. “Good people,” whined Aiandictor, “see how this man mistreats me! Have pity on me—do not let him take me away!” They didn’t answer. Some stared and pointed; some whispered to one another.

  Rousing himself, Alexandros took a firmer grip on my arm and headed for the waterfront. At first, when he approached the boats, several fishermen were eager to earn the fare to Capernaum. “Just you and the lady, sir?” asked one man as he dropped the net he was mending.

  Alexandros opened his mouth to reply, but Phomelei’s queenly voice announced first, “Not at all. My entire court will attend me. Hear their names.”

  My brother tried to clap his hand over my mouth, but I squirmed away. My attendants spoke in voice after distinct voice: “Dionesiona.” “Odjit.” “Zaphaunt.” “Aiandictor.” “Phomelei.” “Panhasaziel.”

  The fishermen made the sign against the evil eye, and some of them threw pebbles at me. The one who’d offered to take us backed away, shouting, “I wouldn’t let her in my boat for all the gold in the Temple!”

  Alexandros hastily pulled me away from the shore. “All right,” he said, gritting his teeth. “The journey by boat would be only half as long, but we’ll take the road instead. I’ll hire donkeys.”

  Sometime later, we rode north out of Magdala. My hands were still tied, and Alexandros’s unbelted robe hung loose. “Four times the going rate for donkeys I had to pay!” he muttered, trying to keep the hem of his robe from dragging in the dirt. “You’d think they didn’t know whose son-in-law I am.”

  We chortled and cackled and guffawed, “Hawr, hawr!”

  As soon as we were outside the walls, Odjit seized his chance. He kicked the donkey; he pounded on its neck; he roared in its ears and bit them. The donkey bucked, throwing me against Alexandros’s donkey and knocking my brother off.

  Alexandros managed to hold on to his donkey’s rope, but the animal wrenched its head free and bolted after my donkey into the hills. Alexandros and I sprawled in the dusty road.

  “Now you’ve done it!” My brother scrambled to his feet and started to dash after the donkeys, then realized they were gone. He looked down at me, and Phomelei looked up at him with a smug smile.

  Alexandros glared at me, sighed deeply, and raised his arms to the sky. “Oh Lord, what sin have I committed, that you burdened me with such a sister?” Then, dropping the donkey’s rope around my neck, he led me like a beast up the road toward Capernaum.

  TWENTY-TWO

  CLEAN

  Alexandros and I struggled along the lakeshore road all day. “From Magdala to Capernaum should take only half a day, even on foot,” moaned my brother. “Even though we left late in the morning, even if we paused at Gennesaret for a midday meal and rest. But not Alexandros bar Tobias and his demented sister, oh no! For us, it’s two steps forward, one step back.”

  Indeed, to me it seemed that I traveled the same short stretch of road over and over, like a donkey plodding around an olive press. Moving as if through a mist, I hardly saw the blue lake on one side or the fresh green fields on the other. The demons jostled around me and through me, muttering and bickering among themselves.

  “If only she had behaved like a lady of distinction and kept her head scarf on,” hissed Phomelei, “we would be treated as befits our dignity.”

  “I’ve always maintained that discretion is the key,” said Aiandictor. “Smile, speak softly, slip the dagger into the ribs.” Zaphaunt chanted a stupid song over and over, guffawing after every chorus.

  I looked for the sparrow, thinking to send him for help, but he was nowhere to be seen. It occurred to me that slavering Odjit might have eaten him. I couldn’t see Panhasaziel, but I sensed he was behind me, breathing out dread at every step.

  From time to time, other travelers appeared through the mist. I heard a man tell his companion, “Step aside until they pass! Look how her loose hair hangs over her face—look how his robe flaps open. See how they rant at the empty air.”

  Alexandros was offended. “I am not possessed, you fools!” he called out to them. “I’m going to great expense and trouble to take my sister to an exorcist, and if you think it’s easy, you should try it yourselves.” He gave a yank on my halter.

  The travelers, pointing and shaking their heads, watched us pass from a distance. My brother trudged forward, grim-faced, and I staggered over the pavement behind him. Dionesiona called over my shoulder to the travelers, “Come see me at my temple in Sepphoris!” and Zaphaunt laughed long and senselessly.

  Time passed. I heard Aiandictor plotting something with Odjit, but the others were bickering too loudly for me to make it out. I didn’t know what they intended until Aiandictor exclaimed, “Now!” We leaped on Alexandros’s back and hooked my bound arms under his chin
, choking him. Falling together, my brother and I rolled around on the dusty paving stones. Odjit managed to jab my knee into the small of Alexandros’s back before he wrenched himself free.

  The demons came through the struggle unscathed although I was badly bruised and scraped. My brother ordered me to walk in front of him. “You won’t pull that trick again,” he snarled.

  “We’ll try another trick, then,” said Zaphaunt, laughing at his own wit.

  And in fact, just as Alexandros remarked, “We’ve reached Gennesaret, at least,” they caught him in an unguarded moment. Whirling on him, we kicked the end of the bridle from my brother’s hand, then dashed off the road into the brush.

  Alexandros followed, shouting curses at me and at his loose robes, which kept catching on thorns and branches. I ran awkwardly with my hands tied, but the deadly, cold voice of Panhasaziel drove me on past endurance until I fell, gasping for breath.

  My brother dragged me back to the road, and we struggled on. Alexandros muttered as he walked, his voice fading in and out of the demons’ babble. Sometimes he complained to my father, sometimes to the Lord. He said the same things over and over, always ending by reminding Abba (or the Lord) that once he got me to the exorcist, his obligations were over.

  Time passed. “What’s this?” my brother said suddenly. “There must be hundreds of people—yes, several hundred, on the grass over there.” He pulled me onward. “Oh … they’re listening to a preacher.”

  The demons stiffened to attention. The mist around me cleared a bit, and I saw that we were at the edge of a great crowd. They sat on a hillside that sloped down to the water. In front of them, at the water’s edge, a man stood in a fishing boat.

  “Not just a preacher, stranger,” said a man at the edge of the crowd. “That’s Yeshua of Nazareth.”