The Betrayal Read Online Free Page B

both resents and cherishes it.
    Yeshu says, “I think, in fact, that people are almost never present with God. They are thinking about the past or the future, worried about what their enemies are doing, or worse, what their friends are plotting. But rarely do they live truly Now. And that is where God lives.”
    You flap your arms in exasperation. “Very fascinating, but I don’t see what that has to do with the art of the sword.”
    He cuts the air with his hand, as though swinging an invisible sword. “The sword has a living heart. It beats. It listens. It strikes. But the blow is only lethal when the swordsman acts in an instant of utter awareness of the cause of life and death.”
    You glance around at the disciples. They look as mystified as you do. Poor Matya, his young face is screwed up in total confusion.
    â€œTruly,” you say, “I hate your parables. They are utter nonsense. I wish you would speak straightly.”
    He tilts his head, and smiles. “I mean that it is only when you are fully present with another that you can know him, or love him.”
    â€œOr ‘it’ in the case of a sword.”
    â€œYes. Very good, brother. I knew you would understand.”
    He smiles broadly, turns, and heads up the road again.
    The disciples fall into line behind him, their sandals kicking up puffs of tan dust. You, alone, remain standing, grimacing at his back.
    It takes several moments before you realize he means “ … or in the case of God.”
    You shake your head, annoyed that it was meant specifically for you, and run to catch up.

THREE
    MONASTERY OF SAINT STEPHEN THE MARTYR, EGYPT
    For the most part the pungent scents of decaying vegetation and damp soil filled the air. But on those occasions when the breeze shifted, the hot dusty breath of the desert could be felt. It was a reminder for the monks of Pachomius that their fertile fields edged a vast, arid waste.
    Brother Zarathan wiped his dirt-coated hands on his white robe and gazed out at the fishing boats. They bobbed with the current of the wide Nile River. From his vantage he could see seven of them, filled with men and boys, probably fathers and sons going about their day.
    He shifted to look across the fields of the monastery to the great walled city of Phoou where his own family lived. Heat waves rose from the warm stones, making the irregular circular wall seem somehow unreal. Beyond the city, to the north, the high cliff of Gebel et-Tarif was almost invisible, cloaked in a dusty haze.
    Zarathan sighed, wondering what his friends in the city would be doing today. Probably helping their families to prepare the fields, just as he was doing. Or, rather, as he was supposed to be doing.
    He was sixteen, with bright flaxen hair, clear blue eyes, and, as the girls in the village used to tell him, the face of a freshly circumcised cat. He’d never really understood that, though the insult might have referred to the
fact that he frequently felt a little stunned by life. Or maybe it was the thin fuzz of blond beard, the length of a cat’s hair, that whiskered his chin. Not that it had mattered much. Though his mother had wanted him to marry, Thaddeus—that had been his name three months ago—had been totally uninterested in matrimony. Even before he’d come here, he’d spent his nights in prayer, yearning with all his heart for one single glimpse of the heavenly kingdom. Sometimes, after he’d prayed until dawn, tiny tendrils of pure aching love had filtered through him, and he’d wept with the knowledge that he had, perhaps, touched the hem of his Lord, Iesous Christos.
    â€œThank you, brother,” Zarathan said as another in a long line of monks delivered an empty seed pot to his washing table beneath the palm tree.
    Zarathan sheepishly glanced at the other monks who tilled the soil, planted seeds, and carried water. Then he blinked at the row of clay pots before him. There