Joseph of Arimathea, bless him, made it easy for me. After introducing us, he told James of my mission and explained that Matthew had already been of great help in my search for the truth about Jesus. Then he went directly to the question he thought I would probably ask first.

“James,” the old man said, “recalling that terrible night here, when they arrested Jesus, where did you go when you ran off into the darkness after alerting the others that Jesus had been taken prisoner?”

James scowled angrily at Joseph, clenching and unclenching his fists.

The old man raised his hand and said reassuringly, “There is no danger in your telling Matthias. He is my friend. Ignore his purple stripe and instead look on him only as a possible recruit to our cause. Have we not heard the Lord’s brother, in the courtyard, telling the people many times that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death?”

Joseph’s words didn’t thrill me too much, but they had their desired effect on James. The big man ran his thick stubby fingers nervously through his long black hair and said, “You want to know where I, the coward, escaped to on that night we abandoned the Lord?”

“Yes,” the old man said gently.

“I—I went through the woods and over the mount to the house of Martha and Mary, running as if Satan himself pursued me.”

At last I found my voice and asked, “Were you the first to arriver?”

“No,” he replied, still eyeing me suspiciously. “Andrew and Simon had preceded me. But long before dawn all the others had placed their timid knuckles on the sisters’ door.”

“All nine of you were there? Are you positive?”

James avoided my eyes. “How could I ever forget?”

“And what did all of you do after you came together?”

“We went out into the woods, behind the house, and lay in the weeds like the worms we were.”

“And how long did you remain there?”

“For more than two days. Until John brought us the news that Jesus had been crucified and buried but that the tomb where he had been laid was now empty. He was trying to convince us that our Lord had risen from the dead.”

I moved closer to James until he could not avoid my eyes. “No one left your group, even for a short time, during those two days and nights in the woods?”

“No one!”

The “son of thunder” never blinked.

seven

THE HARSH SUN BLINDED US momentarily when we made our exit from Gethsemane’s cool green canopy of leaves and vines. Shem was already waiting with the carriage, near the garden entrance, but before we climbed aboard, Joseph moved closer to me and said quietly, “Try not to be obvious, but look directly across the road and tell me what you see.”