Free Lamb by Christopher Moore Page A

Maggie said, and we both turned to her with our mouths hanging open. “Probably,” she added quickly. “I’m only guessing. What do I know, I’m just a girl. Do you guys smell something?”
    We smelled the Roman before we heard him, heard him before we saw him. The Romans covered themselves with olive oil before they bathed, so if the wind was right or if it was an especially hot day you could smell a Roman coming at thirty paces. Between the olive oil they bathed with and the garlic and dried paste of anchovies they ate with their barley, when the legions marched into battle it must have smelled like an invasion of pizza people. If they’d had pizzas back then, which they didn’t.
    Joshua took a quick swipe with the mallet and the chisel slipped, neatly severing Apollo’s unit, which fell to the dirt with a dull thud.
    “Whoops,” said the Savior.
    “Shhhhhhhh,” I shushed.
    We heard the hobnails of the Roman’s boots scraping on stone. Joshua jumped down from the bucket and looked frantically for a place to hide. The walls of the Greek’s bathhouse were almost completed around the statue, so really, except for the entrance where the Roman was coming, there was no place to run.
    “Hey, what are you doing there?”
    We stood as still as the statue. I could see that it was the legionnaire that had been with Justus our first day in Sepphoris.
    “Sir, it’s us, Biff and Joshua. Remember? The kid from the bread?”
    The soldier moved closer, his hand on the haft of his half-drawn short sword. When he saw Joshua he relaxed a bit. “What are you doing here so early? No one is to be about at this hour.”
    Suddenly, the soldier was yanked backward off of his feet and a dark figure fell on him, thrusting a blade into his chest over and over. Maggie screamed and the figure turned to us. I started to run.
    “Stop,” the murderer hissed.
    I froze. Maggie threw her arms around me and hid her face in my shirt as I trembled. A gurgling sound came from the soldier, but he lay still. Joshua made to step toward the murderer and I threw an arm across his chest to stop him.
    “That was wrong,” Joshua said, almost in tears. “You are wrong to kill that man.”
    The murderer held his bloody blade up by his face and grinned at us. “Is it not written that Moses became a prophet only after killing an Egyptian slave driver? No master but God!”
    “Sicarii,” I said.
    “Yes boy, Sicarii. Only when the Romans are dead will the Messiah come to set us free. I serve God by killing this tyrant.”
    “You serve evil,” Joshua said. “The Messiah didn’t call for the blood of this Roman.”
    The assassin raised his blade and came at Joshua. Maggie and I leapt back, but Joshua stood his ground. The assassin grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him close. “What do you know of it, boy?”
    We could clearly see the murderer’s face in the moonlight. Maggie gasped, “Jeremiah.”
    His eyes went wide, with fear or recognition, I don’t know which. He released Joshua and made as if to grab Maggie. I pulled her away.
    “Mary?” The anger had left his voice. “Little Mary?”
    Maggie said nothing, but I could feel her shoulders heave as she began to sob.
    “Tell no one of this,” the murderer said, now talking as if he were in a trance. He backed away and stood beside the dead soldier. “No master but God,” he said, then he turned and ran into the night.
    Joshua put his hand on Maggie’s head and she immediately stopped crying.
    “Jeremiah is my father’s brother,” she said.
     
    Before I go on you should know about the Sicarii, and to know about them, you have to know about the Herods. So here you go.
    About the time that Joshua and I were meeting for the first time, King Herod the Great died after ruling Israel (under the Romans) for over forty years. It was, in fact, the death of Herod that prompted Joseph to bring his family back to Nazareth from Egypt, but that’s another story. Now you need to know