Anna stumbled into the chamber, out of breath, and laid Mother Susana on her mat. Sister Ruth leapt to the door. She yanked on a leather strap and a huge stone that had sat motionless for years rolled across the door, dropping with a thud into a deep groove. With their location secured, Ruth lifted a flint from her tunic and lit the torch alongside the door. Bringing the light, she knelt quickly next to Anna. Looking down, they considered Mother Susana with concern. The gash on her head had swelled and was bleeding badly. Her skin had turned the color of ash.

Without a word between them, the women burst into a flurry of activity. Ruth pulled a pouch of herbs from inside Mother Susana’s robes and pressed two seeds under the old woman’s tongue. Anna tore a strip of material off the bottom of her tunic. She gave the fabric to Sister Ruth, who slathered it with a poultice of bay laurel mixed with olive oil. She gently pressed the dressing onto Susana’s wound. Anna then lifted Susana’s head and Ruth laid a pillow beneath it.

In their urgency, neither woman noticed how seamlessly they worked—almost as if of one mind.

Then the first scream hit their ears. A woman’s scream. One of the Sisters.

More terrifying sounds snuck through cracks in the walls. Men’s crazed laughter. Bloodcurdling wails. The clashing of rock and metal and flesh.

Anna cringed at the horrid sounds. Ruth pressed a finger to her mouth, signaling that they should keep silent. Another scream. More laughter. Then moans and cries. And pleading. Anna pressed her hands to her ears. She could not stand the madness anymore.

Ruth took Anna into her arms when two men started shouting outside the door and grunting in their efforts to roll back the stone. The women heard the crack of metal on rock and more yelling. They clung to each other as the men sniffed around the doorway, hurling taunts and threats through every seam.

Anna winced as the sounds of torture and devastation continued to echo down the corridors. Clutching Ruth, her mind turned toward Sister Shereen. Joan had returned without her. And that could only mean that Shereen, the great Sister of the Way, the woman of knowledge and infinite golden eyes, was dead.

As if she had read this dreadful thought, Mother Susana twitched beneath them.

The men strained a second time against the stone but could not move it.

As they waited in horror, a thought suddenly occurred to Anna: If the men could not roll the stone to get in, how would the Sisters ever roll the stone to get out?

CHAPTER 28

Somewhere in the desert outside ancient Palestine—33 A.D.

Anna jerked up with a start.

Had she fallen asleep?

How much time had passed?

She lifted herself from the floor. Her head fuzzy. Her lips dry.