The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

life goes on and reality is tossed like a saddle over the shoulders of us beasts of burden. She needs your reprimand.”

The Master held Martha away to look at her, and when he spoke it was with an urgency, a passionate intensity, that Joseph found positively dizzying.

“I love Miriam,” the Master told her sister in a tone that sounded more angry than loving. “I love her more than my mother, more than I love Joseph here, who raised me. I love her more than any of my brothers, even those who’ve been with me from the very beginning. There is a bond, a knot, that links the understanding of Miriam and myself, which must be strong enough to transcend anything—even death. Do you imagine that Miriam’s importance will be increased by helping you cook a meal, even if for a thousand, rather than by sitting at my feet for one more hour while you have me with you?”

Joseph was astounded at the Master’s cruelty. How could he upbraid a woman who’d just exalted him to the skies for saving her brother’s life, and who’d spent three days cooking for him, his disciples, and a hundred uninvited guests?

Joseph saw Martha’s chin tremble and her face begin to crumple. But as he started forward to intercede, the Master changed again. As Martha was trying to cover her teary face with her hands, the Master seized her wrists, bowed his head, and kissed her upturned palms, which were still covered with pastry dough and flour. Then, folding her once again into his arms, he kissed Martha’s head and rocked her gently, until she seemed to relax and the tears subsided. Then the Master held her away and looked at her.

“Miriam has chosen the right path, Martha,” he said softly. “Let each of us give according to our own capacity. Never ask that anyone be chastised for doing the Father’s will.” Then, before Joseph knew what was happening, the Master took him by the arm and slipped outside to the terrace.

Below in the walled gardens, the invited guests were milling about where tables, carpets, and other arrangements had been set up for them beneath the grape arbors that led to the orchard. Beyond the gardens were weathered stone walls upon which uninvited but welcome guests could dine in shade beside a small creek.

Beneath the grape bowers where the first vine shoots were just unfurling, Joseph saw the fishermen down from Galilee: Andrew and his brother Simon huddled whispering together with their partners, Johan and James Zebedee, whom he called “thunder and lightning” for their impetuous, stormy personalities. Nearby was young John Mark, who’d come out for today’s feast from his mother’s house at Jerusalem.

It frightened Joseph to see so many of the important disciples and their families gathered together in one place. Especially here in Judea, where they were now under Roman jurisdiction and within reach of Caiaphas. If they intended to stay longer, he must move them to his estate of Gethsemane, where he always had servants securing his property.

Shaking these thoughts aside, he stopped the Master and drew him within the shelter of the grape trellises before the others beneath could notice them.

“My beloved son,” said Joseph softly, “you’ve altered so in the one short year of my absence that I don’t know you anymore.”

The Master turned his gaze to Joseph. His opalescent eyes, that strange mixture of brown and green and gold, had always been unreal to Joseph. They were the eyes of one accustomed to other, fantastical worlds.

“I have not changed,” the Master said sadly, with a smile. “It is the world itself that’s changing, Joseph. In such times of change, though, we must all focus upon the one thing that’s unchanging and imperishable. The day is now dawning that has been foretold since the time of Enoch, Elijah, Jeremiah. And just as I helped bring young Lazarus from the grave, it’s now our task to deliver the world into this new age: that’s why I’m here. I hope you will join me, all of you. I hope you will stay with me. Though you needn’t all follow me to where I must go.”

Joseph didn’t understand this last remark, but he pressed on.

“We’re all concerned about you, Jesua. Please listen. My fellow Sanhedrin members told me of your coming down from Galilee during the festival last fall. Jesua, you know that the Sanhedrin is your strongest supporter. I thought it was all arranged when I departed last year, that they would anoint you at the festival this coming autumn. They planned to anoint you themselves as mashiah—as our chosen king and spiritual leader! Why have you changed it all? Why are you trying to overturn all that was planned by so many wise men for so long?”

The Master rubbed his hand across his eyes. “The Sanhedrin is not my strongest supporter, Joseph,” he said. His voice sounded weary. “My Father in heaven is my strongest supporter; I do His bidding alone. If His ideas happen to conflict with those of the Sanhedrin, I’m afraid they’ll have to take the matter up with Him.” Then he gave Joseph that same wry smile and added, “And as for what’s unchanging and imperishable—it’s a knotty problem.”

The Master liked to hide secrets in riddles, and Joseph had noticed his constant reference to knots. Joseph was about to pursue that topic when the veil of vine tendrils surrounding them parted and Miriam was there before them, smiling the warm, sensual smile that always made Joseph weak with emotion.

Her richly abundant hair, in a rainbow of colors, tumbled loose about her shoulders with the suggestion of wild wantonness that had driven the elders—and even many of the disciples—to consider her a politically costly and unnecessarily dangerous bauble within the Master’s entourage. Joseph thought there was something primal about her, like a force of nature. She was like that ancient Lilith whom the oldest of Hebrew texts called Adam’s first wife: a ripe fruit that spilled forth