Judas Read Online Free PDF Page B

here.
    Flies buzzed around the Greek. I shooed them away. I clenched my teeth and touched the body. I do not know what I expected. I thought it would be soft but instead it lay rigid, like the statue next to it. I opened his embroidered vest. The blood made it as stiff as tenting. I felt along his belt until I found his leather purse. It was heavy and clinked, filled with many coins, the commission paid for the statue. I wanted to run, just run, and never stop.
    “We cannot stay here,” I said.
    Mother looked at me, brow furrowed. Horns sounded in the harbor. Boats were sailing. We scrambled about the house grabbing anything we could carry—the rest of our money, some clothing, Mother’s paints and ointments and herbs. Dinah stood in the door watching without seeing. We dashed into the street and headed for the harbor. No words were spoken—none were needed.
    Dinah could not keep up.
    “Here,” Mother said. “Take the bundles. I will carry Dinah.” She hoisted her up on her hip and we raced on.
    The street swarmed with people, a blessing. It gave us some cover. I saw the dark man, Snake Eyes, before he saw us. We ducked down behind a fruit vendor’s stall until he and a cadre of soldiers trotted past us and out of sight. The horns sounded their last warning. We raced to the quay.
    Only three boats remained when we arrived. We boarded the only one that would take us. I stood in the aft and watched Caesarea slip away. Dark clouds slowly swallowed the sun over the mountains to the east, a new day, a gray day. The ship tacked neatly through the gap in the northern jetty and turned westward.
    “Where are we headed?” I asked.
    “Corinth,” the captain shouted, “The cloaca of the empire. That’s where, Sonny.”
    The ship tossed in the chop as we cleared the harbor mouth. I turned my back on Caesarea and the land of my birth. I stood in the stern of that little coastal trader and contemplated the madness that now controlled our lives. I clenched my fists and swore to whatever gods there were, someday, some way, I would return and I would have my revenge. I would do whatever I must to bring those swaggering hypocrites, those arrogant purveyors of Roman justice who debauched women and children, into account.
    Hatred is a hard thing to control. Like an alchemist’s acid, which corrodes the hardest iron, hate eats at a person’s soul. Though I struggled daily to contain it, in the end, it slowly and silently directed my feet into a path that would one day lead to tragedy.

Chapter Seven
     
    “This is where you get off,” the ship’s captain growled. With that, our baggage was scooped up and thrown off, disappearing into the night high above our heads. The ship, which had carried us away from Caesarea, rocked and bumped against wooden bolsters beside a high, stone wall.
    “Off, off,” he said, waving his hands vaguely toward the wall.
    “Is this Corinth?” Mother asked.
    “It’s as close as you will get, woman. Now get off.”
    Off? All we could see was the wall that rose two or three cubits over our head. Stone outcroppings were set into it, which served as steps. We climbed up and onto a rough paved street. The night enfolded us, moonless, and except for a few torches guttering every hundred paces or so, pitch black.
    “Where are we?”
    “Cenchrea.” The captain had followed us up the steps and moved off to speak to a man I took to be the harbor master.
    “You said Corinth. We paid for passage to Corinth.”
    “Corinth is that way, inland.” He pointed into the night and added, “Woman, you are lucky I did not throw you and your brats overboard. I do not know what trouble you stirred up back there, but you brought it onto my ship. I am sure the authorities here would be more than happy to hold you until they found out why you left Caesarea in a hurry.”
    We gathered our bundles, shuffled a few steps into the darkness, and paused, hopeless and helpless, our few pitiful belongings at our feet. Dinah