Around the 9th hour she was idly watching a man make his way through the crowd toward John, another petitioner wanting to be made clean she surmised. He was on the tall side of average, muscular, a laborer of some description she guessed, his skin showed the leathery tan of someone who had spent much time in the out of doors, fairly plain features, nothing really that set him apart from any other man that she had meet. And yet she could not take her eyes off him, something about the way he carried himself, an assurance that most men, and women, lacked. It was if he wore the world lightly like a cloak rather than the other way around which was the habit of everybody else she knew. Curious she watched as he approached John, John seemed as startled by the man as she was, she glanced sideways, most people were too busy with their own business to notice just another man coming to be baptized. They were more interested in who was watching them, in displaying their own righteousness to the crowd than in the drama being played out on the lake shore.
And drama it was, John had fallen to his knees in front of the man, she was close enough to read their lips a useful skill she had acquired early on in her career.
“Master” John was saying, “Why do you come to me for baptism?” The stranger replied something she could not read as his back was slightly to her. “But Master, I am not worthy, I am just a foot soldier, announcing the way,” the stranger lent down placed his hand on John’s shoulder,
“John” he was turned towards her now, she could see his eyes they were approving, as if a king was commending a subject. That was it, his bearing, it was kingly, dignified, free, more so than any king or chieftain she had meet in her three years in the heart of the Quilkyn’s empire. He continued to speak “John, it is needed to fulfill prophecy, baptize me.”
And then the man walked placidly out into the water, John jumped up and followed him closely, putting his arms around the man he gently almost reverently lowered him into the water, and the water rose, lovingly it seemed to her, embracing the man, the last portion of him to disappear under the surface was his face and the water rushed in to cover it as if engulfing him in a kiss. she laughed at her whimsy and then sighed, as he came up out of the water again the clouds parted a shaft of sunlight speared the man making the beads of water in his hair glisten like a crown and she could have sworn a dove settled on him, but then it was gone and she could see no birds flying in the sky. What manner of man was this that nature paid homage too? She watched as he walked out of the water, he wended his way through the crowds, still oblivious to the drama played out below, and disappeared from her sight. She felt bereft as if she had lost something important but privileged also as if she had been witness to a coronation.
Glancing around she saw a few other people shake their heads. As if emerging from a trance, they were looking around with expressions on their faces that matched the lost feeling she felt. How in this great crowd, she wondered, could so few have realised that something special had been played out before them. John himself seemed stunned. He walked out of the water shook himself, rubbed his head and then lifting an arm, as if to hail the man, he shouted “behold the Lamb of the Great Lord that takes away the sin of the world.” She had no idea what he meant, yes she recognized the words they were from the Book of Shem, words traditionally shouted as a lamb was presented to the priests for sacrifice but that was a man, not a lamb. Forehead wrinkled she watched as John turned his back on the crowd and disappeared with his followers.
No comments:
Post a Comment