“Ship? I’ve never heard of that place. Is it part of the Roman March?”

“Ship is far away. Far away.”

What were they doing up on that hill? Some of the soldiers had taken the piece of tree and stretched it on the ground. She glimpsed the activity through the crowd.

“Then how can Yaisuah say that you know God’s will?” Foul-breath demanded.

This caught her attention. Yaisuah? Ship had said that name. It was the name Ship said had become Geezus and then Hesoos. Jesus. She hesitated, stared at her inquisitor.

“You call that one Yaisuah?” she asked.

“You know him by some other name?”

He gripped her arm hard. There was no mistaking the avaricious cunning in his voice and manner.

Ship intruded on her then. This one is a Roman spy, an informer who works for those who torture Yaisuah.

“Do you know him?” Foul-breath demanded. He gave her arm a painful shake.

“I think this . . . Yaisuah is related to Ship,” she said.

“Related to . . . How can someone be related to a place?”

“Isn’t he related to You, Ship?” She spoke the question aloud without thinking.

Yes.

“Ship says that’s true,” she said.

Foul-breath dropped her arm and stepped back two paces. An angry scowl twisted his mouth.

“Crazy! You’re nothing but a crazy old woman! You’re just as crazy as that one!” He gestured up the hill where the armored men had taken Yaisuah. “See what happens to crazies?”

She looked where he had pointed.

The two men already hanging there were roped to the cross-pieces and she realized they were being left to die. That was going to happen to Yaisuah!

As the full realization hit her, Hali began to weep.

Ship spoke within her mind: Tears do little to improve acuity. You must observe.

She wiped her eyes on a comer of her robe, observing that Foul-breath had moved up into the crowd. She forced herself to climb up with him, pressing in among the people.

I must observe!

The armored ones were stripping the robe from Yaisuah. This exposed his wounds—cuts and bruises all over his body. He stood with a stolid watchfulness through all this, not even responding to the gasp which went up when the mob saw his wounds. There was an unguarded vulnerability to this moment, as though everyone here was participating in his own personal death.

Someone off to the left shouted: “He’s a carpenter! Don’t tie him on!”

Several large, crudely wrought nails were pressed up through that part of the crowd and thrust into the hands of an armored young man.

Others took up the cry: “Nail him on! Nail him on!”