Christ the Lord - Anne Rice [84]
My mother touched her brother's shoulder. He rose at once. I saw them searching for me.
I stood in the courtyard in the very center of the house. I stood against the candles as I had for a long time.
My mother came to me, and put her hand on my arm. I saw panic in her eyes. She glanced at all the company round, the hundreds gathered under the roof and outdoors in the tents, at those who nudged each other and laughed and talked at the tables quite oblivious to the distant knot of servants, or the expression on my mother's face.
“Son,” she said. “The wine is running out.”
I looked at her. I saw the cause of it. She didn't have to tell me. The caravan carrying the wine south had been struck on the road by brigands. Cartloads of wine had been stolen, carried off into the hills. Word had only just reached the house, even as dozens of men and women still arrived for the banquet which would go on throughout all of the new day.
It was a disaster of unlikely and dreadful proportions.
I looked into her eyes. How urgently she implored me.
I bent down and laid my hand on the back of her neck. “Woman?” I asked gently. “What has this to do with you and me?” I shrugged. I whispered, “My hour hasn't come.”
She drew back very slowly. She looked up at me for a long moment with the most curious expression on her face, a combination of mock scolding and then placid trust. She turned and lifted her finger. She waited. Far across the courtyard and the main dining room, one of the servants saw her, caught her gaze and her gesture. She nodded, as he nodded to her. She beckoned. She opened her fingers. She beckoned for all of them to come.
Hananel was suddenly standing alone without his servants, watching them slip through the crowds and come towards us.
“Mother!” I whispered.
“Son!” she answered, gently mimicking my very tone.
She turned to Uncle Cleopas and put her hand gently on his shoulder, and gazing up at me out of the corner of her eye, she said to Cleopas, “Brother, tell my son the commandment. He has lately received the blessing of his father. Remind him. ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ Are those not the words?”
I smiled. I bent to kiss her forehead. She lifted her chin slightly, eyes soft, but withholding her smile.
The servants surrounded us. They waited. My new followers were gathering—John, James and Peter, Andrew and Philip. They'd never been very far from me the whole evening and now they drew in close.
“What is it, Rabbi?” John asked.
Far away, the small figure of Hananel stood with folded arms in the candlelight, staring at me, fascinated and perplexed.
My mother pointed to me, as she addressed the servants: “Do whatever he tells you to do.”
Now her face was gentle and natural and she looked up at me and she smiled as a child might smile.
The disciples were confused and concerned.
Cleopas laughed silently to himself. He covered his mouth with his left hand, and peered up at me mischievously. My mother walked away. She gave one sharp backward glance at me, her face sweet and trusting, and then she retreated to the door of the women's banquet room and there she waited, half hidden by the gathered curtains in the arch.
I looked at the six huge limestone jars in the courtyard, the jars for the water of the purification, the washing of hands.
I spoke to the servants. “Fill them to the brim.”
“My lord, they hold gallons. It will take all of us to take these to the well.”
“Then best to hurry,” I said. “And call the others to assist.”
At once they hoisted the first of the jars and carried it out, through the rear dining room into the night. Another flock of servants appeared for the second, and another group for the third, and so on it went rapidly, so that within minutes the six stood as before, completely filled.
Hananel watched all this carefully, but no one was watching him. People passed him, greeted him, thanked him, blessed him. But