He had come here to pray for the last time before he left.

19

‘Are you ready?’ Mora peered in at the door of Yeshua’s little house on the edge of the sanctuary. A patch of new wattle showed where he had been mending the wall. ‘It is time to go. I sent a message to Cynan and asked if he would meet us at moonrise with a boat. By dawn we will be halfway down the river.’

Yeshua was sitting staring down into the small circular hearth in the centre of the floor. He was deep in thought. She ducked in and came to sit beside him, settling gracefully on the matting and watching him in the flickering light. His eyes were closed in prayer. She studied the planes of his face, the long strong nose, the firm mouth, the high cheekbones, the straight eyebrows and felt herself aching to put her arms round him, to protect him, to draw him close. She looked away guiltily, biting her lip. ‘Yeshua?’ she whispered again. ‘It is time.’

He opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘My presence here has caused you nothing but unhappiness, Mora,’ he said softly. He reached out and took her hand.

She shook her head. ‘You have cured Petra. You have brought so much good and love and healing with you.’

‘I have brought death and destruction to those you love.’ His voice was suddenly anguished. ‘It is something I am going to do to my followers again and again!’

‘No.’ The denial was automatic but even as she said it she knew she was wrong and he was right.

They sat for a moment clasping hands, looking into each other’s eyes. He looked away first, back towards the fire. ‘Will you keep faith with me Mora?’

‘Of course.’ She gave a sad smile.

‘Even if I asked you to give up your gods for mine?’

She hesitated.

‘I need you to believe me, Mora. I need you to have faith in me.’ He looked anguished suddenly. ‘If you don’t, who will?’

She frowned. ‘You told me an angel foretold your birth. Your mother believes in you.’

‘My brothers don’t.’ He shook his head with a wry grin. ‘A prophet, as I am sure you know, is not without honour save in his own land and in his own house! And I have to convince the whole world as well as them.’

They were looking into one another’s faces. I have to remember him like this, she thought. After today he will be gone. I will never see him again. He smiled again, that melting, beautiful smile which went straight to her heart.

‘I believe in you,’ she whispered. ‘And I believe in your god.’

‘Bless you.’ He tightened his grip on her fingers.

‘We have to go.’

He nodded. Standing up suddenly he picked up the shovel by the fire and pushed the ashes over the flames. It was a symbolic gesture; without the light, the house grew dark.

Picking up his pack he led the way outside.

‘I’ll come with you, down to the boat,’ she whispered.

There was no-one there to say goodbye. His farewells had been made earlier to Fergus Mor and Addedomaros and his friends and fellow students. Only Mora followed him down the grassy path towards the water’s edge.

The mere was deserted. There was no sign yet of the boat. They stood side by side staring out across the dark water listening to its gentle lap amongst the reeds and sedge at their feet.

‘There is no moon yet,’ Mora said quietly. She stared out into the dark. A small kernel of worry had lodged somewhere deep in her chest. Cynan should be here. He was always early and he needed no moonlight to navigate across the peaceful waters of the mere. He could do it with his eyes shut. She could see the golden loom in the sky now behind the hills where the moon was climbing higher. Soon they would see it hanging over the black silhouette of the trees. ‘Where is he?’ she whispered.

Yeshua took a step forward to the water’s edge. Somewhere out there a duck quacked uneasily. They heard the splash as a fish jumped.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Mora murmured. She clutched his arm.

He grasped her hand and held it. They could see the tip of the moon now, the sharp crescent hauling itself higher into the sky, spilling pale gold light across the land. Waiting in silence, they watched the sickle turn from gold to silver as it climbed higher, and the light it spread across the summer country changed from warm to the cold of ice.

Mora shivered, clutching her cloak around her. ‘He’s not coming. Something has happened.’

Yeshua nodded. ‘The boy’s uncle?’

She dropped his hand and moved a few paces away, staring out, trying to listen. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. ‘We have to go. We’ll take a boat from the landing stage. We can paddle it ourselves.’ She was hurrying him now, leading the way along the edge of the island back towards the small bay which in summer was a grassy meadow. This year with the early rains it was an inlet teaming with fish. They took the first boat they came to, untying it from the post near the water’s edge, throwing in his bundle. Mora jumped in and freed the paddles from the place they were wedged beneath the polished oak thwart while Yeshua pushed the boat out into the water and hauled himself in. For a moment the narrow craft wobbled violently then, as he reached for the second paddle it steadied. In seconds they were both paddling, driving the boat away from the island, towards the river which wound inland from the sea. ‘He’s coming after you,’ Mora murmured, already out of breath. ‘I can sense it. We have to get out of sight, into the river before he realises where you have gone.’

‘And Cynan?’ Yeshua was driving the boat forward with powerful strokes of the paddle from the stern.

‘Cynan will buy us time,’ she said firmly. She paused for a moment, raising her hand. He stopped, watching her narrow shoulders in the moonlight as the dugout drifted slowly and silently along the channel nosing in amongst some tall reeds as it lost momentum. Nearby an owl screeched. She turned towards the sound. Neither of them spoke. Only the water dripping from their paddles into the black water broke the silence. Yeshua didn’t take his eyes off her. She like all her race understood the speech of the birds. The owl had told her something. He caught sight of the white flash of its wings as it flew on silent feathers past them and disappeared behind a stand of willow on a low island to the north.

Mora slumped over the paddle and he heard a faint sob. He leaned forward and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘What did it say?’

‘He’s not coming.’ She straightened and stared ahead of them up the narrow channel between the reeds. ‘We have to go on alone.’ She didn’t turn and he couldn’t see her face. ‘We must put as much distance as we can between ourselves and Ynys yr Afalon before it grows light.’

‘Flavius is following?’ he asked softly.

She nodded. ‘We can escape him. We are ahead.’

‘And Cynan?’

‘Cynan bought us time.’ She forced a smile as she glanced up at the moon but he didn’t see it. He already knew what must have happened. He heard her sniff, saw her brush her hand across her eyes, then she gripped the paddle again. The force of her first stroke slewed the dugout round and ran them back into the reeds. ‘Sorry.’ Her voice trembled slightly.

‘Mora.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and tightened his fingers. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘He will wait for me in the land of the ever young.’ She dug her paddle in again, and pulled straight this time. ‘We mustn’t let him have died in vain. I have to get you away.’

‘My father will reward him in heaven.’ His voice was unsteady. ‘You foretold this, Mora. You saw how many people will die for me. How can I bear it?’

This time when she stopped paddling she turned round and looked at him. Her face was intensely sad, her cheeks wet with tears. ‘You have to bear it. It is your destiny,’ she whispered. ‘But the people who die for you will be ever blessed.’

He nodded silently.

‘You are strong, Yeshua. Stronger than anyone I know,’ she said. She managed a smile. ‘You will be able to fulfil the prophecies. If your father is a god he will give you the strength.’

He nodded again. ‘You are right. Sometimes I feel so weak. I pray that this burden might be given to someone else.’

She shook her head. ‘This is what you were born for, my dearest. Now, let us get you back to your kinsman and allow him to take you home.’

They paddled all night and at dawn, as a skein of wild geese flew low overhead, sending their wild triumphant cries echoing across the sleeping countryside they pulled in under the shelter of some willow trees on the banks of the shallow winding river. They slept curled head to toe in the bottom of the dugout and when a herd of small fenland cattle wandered near them to drink at the river neither stirred. When they woke they resumed paddling, following the river as it merged with a larger swifter river which finally turned north towards the sea.

‘How far do you think?’ Yeshua rubbed his blistered hands on the cloth of his robe.

She shrugged. ‘I have never come this far by water. The sky tells me we are close. It reflects the sea.’ She gave an exhausted smile.

There were splashes of mud on her face and he leaned forward and wiped them off tenderly with a roughened forefinger. ‘We should stop to find food.’

She shook her head. ‘Not till we get there. Once you are on the ship you will be safe.’

‘You think he is still following us?’ He glanced behind them. She nodded. She could feel him; he had hired men to row him after them. To ride would take too long with the ground flooded as it was. He would be gaining on them all the time. She gave a rueful smile. This wonderful man with her was so special, so intuitive, so well educated and so holy and yet he could not read the signs. He could not hear the warnings the birds and animals brought them; he could not see the whipped white waves of the sea echoed in the storm-wracked clouds, he did not listen when the waters beneath their paddles murmured of the boat that followed them.