Free Lazarus is Dead by Richard Beard Page B

shoulder, then briefly at his face. His blue eyes mean nothing to her.
    â€˜How is your brother? I hear he’s not been well.’
    â€˜He is about to make a recovery, thank you.’
    â€˜It’s not catching, then, whatever he has?’
    â€˜Let me through, please. I have a long distance to travel.’
    â€˜To the Galilee, I expect. You’ll have heard the stories about Jesus and his two miracles.’
    Mary is better looking than Cassius expected, and she blushes nicely, though young women should learn not to clench their fists. ‘Do you believe either of these miracles is true?’
    She does. Cassius sees this straight away, because the Jesus believers have no talent for deception, as if concealing their belief were as bad as denying it. Her shoulders dip, and she picks up her skirts, as if she expects to have to run.
    â€˜I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,’ Cassius says consolingly. ‘Let alone my brother’s friend. Jesus of Nazareth sent by god. Imagine the responsibility.’
    Mary raises the bright and defiant eyes of a believer, and Cassius briefly thinks that she too may be ill. She believes in stories that grow more far-fetched at every step from Cana, and to a
speculatore
credulity looks like an illness. It needs stamping out.
    â€˜Now go back home. You will not be permitted to leave for the Galilee. Every soldier on every gate has orders that you and your sister belong with Lazarus in Bethany.’
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    Jesus is not the only healer in Palestine at this time. Yanav has travelled extensively, and he has a reputation.
    Lazarus welcomes him into the downstairs room, sits his back against the wall. Then he clutches his stomach, apologises and staggers to the latrine behind the house.
    Yanav has seen it all before. He accepts some modest hospitality. A glass of sweet tea, one of Martha’s honey cakes, and yes very kind perhaps just one more half of a honey cake. Thank you.
    Martha bustles about, checking the healer has everything he wants, then in the absence of Lazarus she asks him directly how much he charges. Her hand leaps to her throat, then settles on her racing heart. For that amount she’d expect him to work miracles.
    Lazarus returns, misses the entrance and smashes his eye socket against the door frame. Glaucoma. As well as pain in and around the eyeball, he is losing his peripheral vision. He crouches down, holding his head, cursing his eyes, hitting out at the door for being so narrow. Feels sick, stands up. He’s too hot or too cold, and hasn’t eaten for days.
    â€˜I’ll need most of my fee in advance. There may be additional expenses. Herbs, and so on.’
    â€˜We have the money,’ Martha says. ‘If you can make him well.’
    Lazarus has a coughing fit which leaves him panting and exhausted. He ends up on one knee on the floor, but refuses to lie down.
    Yanav leads him to the bench, helps him to sit upright. What­ever he was expecting, Lazarus is worse, especially as Yanav”s favourite healings involve diseases that no one can see. He likes sick people with active imaginations who thrive on close attention. They may well believe in peacock feathers and astrology, in which case Yanav is confident that he can help.
    With Lazarus there is the rash, the fever and the pinkness in the whites of the eyes. Yanav examines the welted tongue, the pustules in the mouth. He sucks his teeth. Lazarus is suffering from symptoms that Yanav has encountered before, many times, though never all at once in the same body.
    There is also a distinct, unpleasant smell, either from Lazarus or somewhere close. Yanav has never smelled anything like it. Courage, he tells himself, this is the friend of Jesus whom Jesus the upstart healer, for reasons of cowardice and inexperience, has neglected to attempt to heal.
    Yanav rests his hands on Lazarus’s shoulders. He squeezes, feeling for the density of flesh and bone,