“Woman, where are your accusers?” he asked the amazed poor creature, from whom in the swift moment of his answer had fled all trace of defiant insolence. “Does no man remain to condemn you?”
She lifted her tear-streaked face to him. “No man, Lord.”
“Neither do I condemn you. Go now, and sin no more.”
Claudia could not understand the woman’s murmured reply, but on her face clearly discernible was a look of radiance as she bowed to the Galilean and, turning, slipped away out of the crowd. At the same time the Procurator’s wife noticed a large, bushy-bearded fellow, wide of shoulders and heavily muscled, pushing through the throng from the direction of the Gate Shalleketh. He walked up to Jesus, who had stood up as the woman was leaving. “Master, you have been here a long while; you must be weary. Let us go over to Bethany to rest a spell.”
“That’s the fisherman I saw one day at Tiberias,” whispered Tullia. “He is of the Galilean’s company; his name, I think, is Simon.”
The crowd now began to disperse, for Jesus and the big fisherman were moving off toward the Gate Shushan. They came past the two women, so close to them that Claudia could have reached out and touched the tall Galilean. Their eyes met; he smiled and passed on. She stood rooted, watching the two until they had passed out of sight down the slope toward the Brook Kidron. “He seemed to recognize me,” she said to herself, as suddenly a fanciful thought crossed her mind. “But of course he didn’t; he’s never in all his life seen me before.”
With the two men’s disappearance, however, the spell was broken. Claudia caught her maid’s arm. “We’d better be going now,” she said. But she was still lost in her own thoughts; they had rounded the corner of the Soreg and were nearing the North Gate of Asuppim before she spoke again. “By the gods, what a man! What a marvelous, strange Jew. And he didn’t do any feats of magic either. Little one, I’m so glad you brought me down here.”
“Mistress, now that you’ve seen him and heard his discourse, even though for but a few minutes, what is your opinion of him? Do you think that perhaps he really is the Messiah of Israel?”
“I know nothing of the Messiah of Israel ... and care nothing. And this idea of a man’s being a god, even though we Romans are supposed to believe that the gods come to earth in the form of men, is just as incomprehensible to me as it is to Longinus. Maybe that’s because I don’t believe in the gods in the first place.” They were going through the great North Gate of Asuppim when Claudia stopped and caught Tullia’s arm. “Nevertheless, little one—and you asked me my opinion of him—there is something tremendously different about that man. I’m sure I have never encountered another like him. He’s a quick thinker and able to out-wit his enemies, and he’s evidently a good and just man. But there’s something else”—she paused, her forehead creased in a frown—“something to me, at any rate, mystifying. The way he looked at me, Tullia....” Her solemn expression relaxed into a quick, warming smile. “Perhaps he is your Messiah of the Jews, little one, whatever that means!”