The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene Read Free

her voice, the liquid notes of the lyre, and the contact with the sublime that beautiful music can bring to those who love it. Others had forgotten the music in admiring the youth and loveliness of the singer. But in a few there burned only a fire of lust for the slender body of the girl, and the most noticeable of these was a Roman officer standing to one side. He wore the purple-dyed uniform of a tribune, and Joseph recognized him as Gaius Flaccus, favored nephew of Pontius Pilate and commander of the procurator’s personal troops. Already the whole region of Galilee buzzed with tales of the cruelty of this hated Roman to those who were unfortunate enough to come under his hands, his fondness for the wine-cup and women, and the saturnalian revels that were often held at the palace of his uncle.
    Gaius Flaccus was tall, with a superbly proportioned body and a classic beauty of features almost feminine in its perfection. He could be an incarnation of Apollo or Dionysos, Joseph thought, then hurriedly erased the idea from his mind, since it was a sacrilege for a devout Jew even to think of such hated pagan deities, still worshiped in Alexandria, Rome, Antioch, Ephesus, and many other cities of the empire, with orgies and revels said to be scandalous in their abandonment.
    The song ended and the musicians lifted their instruments. Then on a crashing chord from the leader’s cithara they began a wild barbaric dance of the mountains and deserts beyond the Jordan and the Dead Sea. The flute wailed in the strange melody of the desert people, while the strings and the cymbalist took up the rhythm, set to the throbbing beat of the scabella. Stamped by the cymbal player against the stones of the pavement, the resonant boards produced a booming sound like the beat of drums heard afar off. Above this heady rhythm came the clear, commanding call of the long trumpet.
    Mary of Magdala put down her lyre and stood erect upon her toes, poised with her arms uplifted, as if in adoration of something unseen. The music seemed to caress her body, creating in its lithe beauty a fluid rhythm in cadence with the clash of the cymbals, the throbbing beat of the scabella and the strings, and the wail of flute and trumpet. Slowly at first, then faster as the rhythm quickened, she began to move in a dance that, while not consciously provocative, set the onlookers to breathing hard with the grip of its allure. Like a musical instrument in itself, her body, slender and girlish yet already seductive, seemed to vibrate in a wild melody all its own.
    As she danced, the shawl about the girl’s head came loose and was tossed aside, letting the glorious mass of her hair stream about her shoulders, enveloping them in a cascade of coppery gold. She was like a spinning torch, a veritable pillar of flame, and a roar of approval came from the audience. With an effort of will Joseph tore his eyes from the girl and studied Gaius Flaccus. Naked lust and a calculating light were in the Roman’s eyes, and Joseph wondered if the girl had any conception of what her dancing could do to the souls of men, or of the dangers that might come to her because of it.
    Mary of Magdala laughed exultantly in the midst of her dancing and, deliberately provocative now, whirled before the tall tribune, her eyes mocking him. Faster the rhythm went as she moved about the open circle in the crowd, skillfully eluding those who tried to touch her. Coins began to fall in a shower upon the stones as the music rose to its climax, then ceased upon a crash of the cymbals. Standing on her toes, her lovely young breast rising and falling rapidly with the excitement of her triumph and the effort of her dancing, Mary of Magdala poised like a statue of Aphrodite herself, eyes shining, cheeks bright with color, while the crowd deepened the spontaneous thunder of its applause.
    Joseph was the first to see the rich color drain suddenly from her cheeks, leaving them marble pale. For an instant she was