Chapter 7

The somnolent village of Hammath had swollen to a city of five thousand and was adding to its population. Every grass-grown path was as a sleepy stream that had suddenly become a river at flood.

The huge crowd had congregated on a harvested field some distance north of the main highway. On the outskirts of the densely packed multitude, vendors pursued a busy trade with huge baskets of smoked fish, wheaten and barley rolls, sweetmeats and sun-cured figs swarming with flies, for which they found ready customers among the stragglers who were too far away from the point of interest to see what was happening.

The Prince and his party had ridden up close against the rear of the throng, apparently impatient at having been detained from proceeding through to the front where the Carpenter stood. The whole affair was a lark, a country circus, and the management should have been pleased to announce, ‘We are honoured to have with us today His Highness Joseph, the Prince of Arimathaea. Clear the way for His Highness and his retinue! We welcome you, sire!’

The Carpenter continued speaking in a quiet voice, inaudible at this distance. Laughing loudly, the princely party urged their horses forward until the foam from their champed bits flecked the shoulders of men and women who were cupping their ears to listen.

‘Make way!’ shouted the mounted guards. ‘Way—for the Prince of Arimathaea.’

The people turned their heads and scowled angrily, but did not budge.

‘Hi! You! Fisherman!’ yelled one of the Prince’s friends, as Simon moved into the pack. ‘Clear a road for the Prince!’ But Simon did not reply, nor did he turn about to face them. Finding it impossible to hear anything, he circled the throng and discovered a spot nearer to the front where an amazingly large colony of cots and carts bearing the sick awaited the end of the Carpenter’s address. A shaggy young farmer, standing by a bed on which an emaciated old woman lay shielding her sunken eyes against the sun with a bony hand, glanced up at Simon and grinned a rustic greeting.

‘Your mother, maybe?’ whispered Simon.

‘Grandmother,’ replied the young farmer.

‘Came to be healed?’

‘She hopes so.’

‘Do you think there’s anything in it?’

‘There’d better be!’ muttered the farmer truculently, pointing to the quarter-acre of sick and crippled. ‘If he’s a fake, he’ll be stoned!’

‘Has he been speaking long?’ asked Simon.

‘Long enough. Granny is tired waiting.’

‘What’s her trouble?’

The farmer guarded his voice as he replied, ‘Old age.’

‘Think the Carpenter can cure old age?’

‘No; but Granny does. She’s a little weak in the head.’