Chapter 16
The first hundred paces weren't so difficult. Antiope walked by my side carrying a bundle of things we would need along the way - the money that Publius had left, some sheets, a change of clothes, that sort of thing - and I walked slowly but steadily out of the house and down the street. By the time I reached the end of the street I was feeling tired and I put out my hand to support myself on Antiope's shoulder but it was no good. Just round the corner I had to sit down, panting for breath and feeling as if I was going to die.
"Are you all right, Madam?" Antiope asked.
"Of course I'm not, you silly girl," I gasped.
Antiope stood there looking at me with a worried expression on her face and several urchin children stopped to stare, but I couldn't help it. After a while I pushed myself up and Antiope leaped forward to help drag me to my feet.
"Thanks," I said. "Let's go on."
I made it half-way along the next street before I had to sit down again, but at least I had enough energy to look about me. It was ages since I had last been this far and there had been changes.
"Isn't that ben Juda's place?" I asked, pointing to one of the houses.
"Yes, Madam," Antiope replied.
"Look! He's had the place painted," I said. "It was white before."
"Yes, Madam," Antiope said. "Madam, how far are you going to go with this foolishness? You can't ..."
"All the way to Capernaum," I told her. "All the way to Capernaum. Come on, give me your hand again."
I had to rest at least five more times before we got to the agora - it's a forum now that Herod has come and made the place more Roman than Rome itself - and the rush and bustle exhausted me just looking at it. All those shops and stalls and traders, the pack animals laden with goods or materials, the hurrying crowds of shoppers and their slaves, and, of course, the pilgrims trudging past on their way to one shrine or another.
"Is it always busy like this?" I asked.
"Why yes, Madam." Antiope looked surprised. "In the evening it's even busier."
I gazed about with interest as I plodded through the agora, ignoring the shopkeepers who called to me. None of them recognised me: not only was it years since I had been down here but my appearance must have changed greatly since those happy days.
The excitement of the agora kept me going so that I almost felt that the fresh air and new scenes were doing me good, but it didn't last. Halfway down the next street I suddenly felt so utterly exhausted that my legs first trembled violently and then gave way so that I more or less fell.
"Madam!" Antiope cried, grabbing me round the waist and at least keeping me from striking my head on the paving stones.
"I'm all right," I assured her through the blackness that surrounded me. "I'm all right. Just let me lie here a while."
And there was me, Secunda, the wife of a centurion, lying in the street like a common drunk, but oh, it felt so good to feel solid Mother Earth bearing me up and the warm sun beating down on me.
I don't know how long I lay there but eventually I came to myself enough to sit up. I found to my surprise that Antiope had taken my head and was cradling it in her lap.
"How long have I been here?" I asked her.
"A while," she told me. "You've been asleep, Madam."
"Have I?" I held out my hands. "Here, help me up. We've got to keep moving. One step at a time."
"Oh Madam!" Antiope burst into tears. "Madam! You can't. You mustn't."
"I must and I can," I snapped. "Come on, you silly girl. Help me instead of crying."
And so the day wore on. By noon we had reached the city gate and I sat down opposite Herod's splendid new palace for a rest. There was a handsome soldier on duty outside the entrance and he wasn't long in coming over to chat to Antiope - there was a time when handsome soldiers would have been eager to chat to me - and when he learned what we were planning he insisted on stopping one of the farmer's carts passing out of the gates and getting the peasant to take us as far as he was going. The man very kindly spread out a few sacks in the back to make a sort of bed for me and we jolted our way down the hill and into the valley before he had to turn off.
"Thank you, my friend," I told him as he helped me down from the cart. "May the gods reward you."
"Thank you, mother," he said. "I wish you well in your journey. You're going to seek healing, I believe?"
"That's right," I said. "I'm looking for Rabbi Joshua of Capernaum."
"May the Lord help you," he said - by which I knew that he was a Jew. "I've heard good things of him."
Antiope and I walked and rested, walked and rested all the afternoon and just before nightfall a peasant woman riding a donkey laden with forage came by and stopped to exchange gossip. Antiope was quick to tell her my story and the woman immediately got down from her donkey and insisted that I take her place. It took the two of them to hoist me up and I felt most precarious, perched up there on top of all that greenery, but we went further in that short ride than I had managed to walk all afternoon - and the woman insisted that we turn aside into her home for the night.
By the gods, that was a revelation. I never realised that there was such poverty. One sees these peasants labouring in the fields or striding about hither and thither, and never stops to think about how they live or what their homes are like. There were six children and an older woman who could have been an aunt or something, all gathered round a pot of boiled vegetables and a few pieces of bread. They generously served Antiope and me first and I was so tired I just picked at my portion and only ate about half of it before I just had to go and lie down. I saw the children's eyes gazing at my uneaten food and their mother hushing them as she carried the platter outside.
It wasn't until I woke in the middle of the night that I suddenly realised that they had gone without to feed me - and also realised that they had thrown away the uneaten food because of their religion. I felt terrible and nearly choked when, in the morning, they insisted on giving me another generous portion of food.
"Please," I begged as I forced down every last mouthful, "please take some reward for your kindness."
The man was almost brusque in his refusal and I couldn't understand it until the mother whispered to me as she passed, "We do have our pride, lady."
At that I fell silent, for I had no wish to offend, but when it came time to leave I begged permission to give something to the children and so, instead of the drachma I had intended I ended up giving half a drachma to each, but I was amply rewarded, for the mother then insisted on getting out the donkey and taking me as far as the next town. Truly there are some kind people in the world and to think that I never realised it. Mind you, Antiope is another one of those kind people, for she fussed around me every step I took that long, weary day. The mother took us right to the other side of the town, sparing me the walk along its dusty streets with all the crowds of people and animals.
"May your God reward you," I said when we finally parted. "You have been most kind."
The woman smiled at me. "Thank Rab Yeshua," she told me. "One of his disciples visited us last year and told us in his name that we should go the extra mile."
She left us then and I was thinking too much about the next stage of the journey to ask what she meant, but I have often wondered since what the "extra mile" signified.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of weariness as I walked for a hundred paces or so and then sat down in the dirt for a rest while Antiope fanned me or held the water skin to my lips. She was more like a mother to me than a slave and I don't know what I would have done without her. In the afternoon I slept for several hours, lying in the dirt by the roadside, my head in Antiope's lap while she fanned my face and brushed the flies out of my eyes.
I can't remember where we slept that night - I was too exhausted to care - or much about the next couple of days. There were endless miles of weary trudging, some rides in carts or on donkeys, more kind people who took us into their homes. I remember sleeping in a stable in one place and out in the open air on one occasion, but for the most part we stayed with peasants.
It was curious, for though we sometimes passed - or rather, were passed by - people of my own class in comfortable litters or carriages, none of them ever bothered to stop and help me or even enquire after my condition, yet it was rare that a farmer or craftsman passed without exchanging greetings or offering some form of help. Later, when I learned the teaching of Rabbi Yeshua that the kingdom of heaven belonged to the poor, the hungry and the weak, I remembered this experience and understood what he meant.
