The Shepherd

Chapter ONE

The sun had suddenly turned into a red spot in the blue sky covering the East Side of Jerusalem.  Many people had seen it and they had run into their house, to pray or to hide.   Nymph, wife of Pons Pilate the Roman Governor of Judee, in Jerusalem with her husband for the week of Jewish festivities, saw it too, and she had buffered a scream.  She had taken a few steps back from the window she was leaning on, since a good while.  She slowly kneeled, as far away noises were letting her know that, definitely, there was a highly uncommon event troubling the universe.   The red spot in the sun blurred.  Darkness took over the space, but she, as well as all people knew it was still the afternoon!

  Nymph had come here, in that solitary room of the palace, to rethink of what seemed to have been a dream she had, and it was so strange!  She had also cried so terribly, when she had heard that her husband, Pons Pilate, had sentenced the prisoner to death. The prisoner.  So the crowd had been calling him since they had arrested him, in a garden, where he was praying or giving instructions to the group of men and women usually with him or following him. The man from Nazareth!  The Nazarean.  She had warned Pons Pilate, her husband. During the very time of the judgement, she had sent for him and told him again, not to interfere with this man’s judgement by his brothers of Israel. 

“This man is innocent of all what they are accusing him, my love, she had told him.  This man is holy!  Believe your wife! Think of it, Consulate, as much as you would not want to lay hand on Caesar, don’t touch this man.  I did not only hear, I know this man is holy!

“Have you forgotten my roman wife that only Caesar is God?

“May Caesar be god, my love, there must be other Gods for other nations, other men who are holy.  The Roman Empire does respect other people’s religion.  We do intertwine our administration with the Jewish Sanhedrin.  Oh my love, I don’t want an argument with you in the accomplishment of your duties, but please, be very cautious!  You are a good man, my love, you will feel it, and the accused is the innocence!  Let the Jewish take care of their Jewish brother.  Legally, they cannot kill him without your sentencing him to death!

I will be cautious, he had answered and he had returned to the court site, outside the ancient front wall of the palace, on top of the fabulous stairs in pink marble Herod had just added to the beauty of the edifice. More than troubled, Nymph had returned to her bedroom and had fallen in a deep sleep.

In the midst of a marvelous dream, loud clamors had filled the room as if part of the dream, but they were not.  One of her servants had run to her room, throwing herself at the feet of the bed.  She had awakened up too suddenly.  She was at the end of a strange journey, in that dream.

She looked at the maid, crushed in pain, still kneeled on the floor, pulling hard on her hair.  And Nymph guessed what had happened!  The prisoner had been sentenced to death!

The Governor has tried, Mistress, he has proposed an exchange of prisoners, between Barabas and Jesus, they have freed Barabas!  And the Just has been sentenced. The consulate has washed his hands of that horrible crime! Oh, mistress, they will kill him before he reaches the place of crucifixion.  They are beating him, they are…

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