He buried his head in the palms of both hands and said, “Yes.”

“And you had to come all the way home naked.”

“To my eternal shame.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“No.”

“Even to this day?”

“No, but now that you—”

“Your secret is safe with us, Mark, providing you are willing to tell me all you know about another important matter.”

I hated myself. There were tears in his eyes, and I’ve never been able to deal with the tears of others without coming apart myself.

“Anything … anything you want to know,” he sobbed.

“Sometime after you returned from the garden and went to bed you must have been awakened again, am I correct?”

His mouth fell open. I explained. “Your Uncle Peter has already told me how he lost consciousness in the courtyard of Caiaphas and was brought here by John and Shem, Joseph’s protector. Since Peter was placed in your bed, where did you sleep?”

“Outside, on the terrace.”

“Wasn’t it cold out there? Peter said there had been fires burning in the yard of the high priest. Why didn’t you sleep in here?”

“I have slept out there many times, in all seasons. It is good to lie back under your warm blankets and look up at the stars and feel the breeze on your face.”

“Will you show me exactly where you slept that night, if you remember?”

Joseph groaned impatiently but said nothing. We followed Mark outside and around the corner of the upper terrace facing toward the southwest. Directly below us was the road that led to the palace of Caiaphas and Joseph’s place, higher on the hill. To my left I could look down on the traffic entering the city gate from Bethlehem, and to my right, northward, I could see Herod’s palace. I pointed north. “That hill, outside the city’s wall, far beyond Herod’s old place, is that Golgotha where Jesus was crucified?”

“Yes.”

“And the dirt road, outside this nearby gate, does it go all the way to Golgotha?”

“And beyond,” Mark replied.

“Now, Jesus was crucified on the day after you tried to save him from being arrested in the garden. Did you sleep out here on that night?”

“Yes. Peter was still sick with fever and John was with him.”

Another alibi confirmation for Peter and John, as if they needed it. “The following day was your Sabbath. Where did you sleep that night, do you recall?”

“Peter had still not stirred from my cot. I slept out here again.”

“Tell me, Mark”—I smiled—“was it your habit to sit here often, in the dark, and watch the people pass below you as well as look at the lights of the city? I imagine any boy of fourteen would enjoy doing that.”

He nodded. “I did it many times when I was younger, even when I was not sleeping out here.”

“And you do recall doing it on that night after your Sabbath ended?”