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

“Everything has changed since you left Judea, James,” said the younger man. “Even our triumvirate no longer exists. Peter says that only one ‘rock’ can be a foundation stone, and that he was chosen by the Master. There’s factionalism, jealousy, resentment, friend against friend. If you’d stayed here in Jerusalem this past year, things might not have arrived at such a sorry state.”

“I’m distressed to hear that,” said James. “But surely things haven’t changed so much that they can’t be salvaged.”

He set his hands on his younger brother’s shoulders just as the Master used to do. Johan felt a pang of sorrow. How he missed the Master’s simplicity and strength!

“You don’t understand, James,” said Johan. “Miriam has become Peter’s particular thorn. She’s been sequestered with her family in Bethany these many months, and no one ever sees her. Peter resents her more than he ever did me, for her special closeness to the Master. He’s changed everything because of her: the women don’t preach or heal—or even go abroad on missions now, unless they’re accompanied by a male apostle. And they must cover their hair, for it’s said that the temptation of such openness and liberties as were permitted when the Master was alive is too great, and will turn most women to wantonness—”

“But—do you mean to tell me Simon Peter has created such rules by his own decision?” James interrupted.

“With the support of others—though I assure you I’m not among them! James, you must understand that while you and Joseph may want the truth, there are those who believe they already have it. A saga is being spun to explain the Master’s every word and deed, and often by those who never understood him or even knew him at all. These stories are confusing, contradictory, and sometimes totally baldfaced lies! It’s been suggested, for instance, that those ‘seven devils’ the Master cast out of Miriam were not merely sins of pride or vanity in her education or beauty, but something far worse—something venal—”

“But how can they say such things?” cried James. “How can Peter permit it? Doesn’t he fear the Master will shut him out of the kingdom altogether?”

“Please remember,” said Johan with a bitter little smile, “it is Simon Peter himself who holds the keys to that kingdom. They were given him by the Master, as he permits no one to overlook. As you see, my dear brother, you have returned not a moment too soon.”

Brigantium: Summer, A.D. 34

THE WORDS

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom … false Christs and false prophets shall rise … the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken

…

But the gospel must first be published among all nations … Heaven and earth shall pass away. But my words shall not pass away

.

Jesus of Nazareth

—Gospel of Mark 13:8–31

Joseph of Arimathea stood high on a cliff above the Bay of Brigantium, watching in the last waning western light as James Zebedee’s ship moved into the fog and slipped out to sea. Brigantium, once the center of worship of the great Celtic goddess Brighde, was the last Celtic seaport on the continent still in existence since ancient times. Most of Iberia had been in Roman hands for hundreds of years since the Punic Wars. But this remote northwestern section had been taken, in bitterness and bloodshed, only as recently as Augustus’s time, and the spirit of the natives was far from obliterated.

Whether they were called Celts, Keltoi, or Galtoi, Galicians, Galatians, Galli, or Gauls, these tribal pagans, as the Romans considered them, had left their mark on civilizations from here to far-flung Phrygia, indeed they themselves had founded many of these civilizations. Brilliant Celtic craftsmen still influenced artisans from Scandinavia to Mauretania; wild Celtic warriors had harried the continent with so many invasions over the years that, just to hold them back, the Romans had designed the system of legions that today controlled most of the world. And the lot of preserving their history and faith, keeping alive their words, fell to the Celtic druid—men like the one who at this moment stood beside Joseph on the cliff.

The ship below was swallowed into the bank of cold, dark fog that always encased this coast, even, as now, in summer. But from up here, Joseph could still make out the beach, its surface unmarred but for the lapping waves, each narrow silken line disappearing beneath the next—much like the Master’s words, he thought. Though the Master had always told them not to carve his words in stone but to hold them in their thoughts, perhaps those words had already vanished from the minds of men—because there was no drui, like his companion, who was trained to keep them alive in his heart.

If this were so, then the only remnants of the Master’s words might be those gathered by Miriam of Magdali over the past year, which now lay sealed within the clay amphorae here in the fishing net at his feet: the memories of those who’d seen and heard the Master in his final week on earth.

Joseph and the drui had climbed from the dark, dank summer fog below to this isolated lookout to watch the ship depart before discussing their own mission. Now for the first time Joseph turned to his companion.

In the slanted light of the setting sun, the drui’s rugged, angular face took on the hard cast of burnished copper. His red-gold hair was plaited into many complex knotted braids that tumbled over his broad shoulders and powerful chest. Though he wore the same loose Celtic tunic as Joseph wore himself, over one shoulder and held by a golden brooch was a throw made entirely of the soft, thick pelts of red foxes, the badge of a high official of the fox clan. His muscular neck and upper arms were encircled by the