When Jesus Wept

Chapter 20



I did not feel it was my place to speak alone with the daughter of Delilah and Samson. Nor did I feel the girl’s parents should be present to influence her. I had hardly ever noticed the presence of Adrianna. She was a plain little girl when we brought her home from the slave auction. Plump, with brown hair and wide-set brown eyes, she rarely uttered a sound in my presence. Now, at age sixteen, she had become the focus of all interest. I needed the help of my sisters to sort this out.

Mary, Martha, and I sat on the wide veranda with the girl. Mary knew much about the love of a woman for a man. Martha knew nothing. I only had the perspective of a man.

Mary, whose gentle eyes brimmed with compassion, leaned forward and took Adrianna’s hand. “Patrick has chosen you to be his wife.”

Adrianna clasped her hands together. “Yes, ma’am.”

When no other words came forth from the girl, Martha asked. “Well?”

One corner of Adrianna’s mouth curved in an almost-smile. “Well? What? Ma’am?”

Martha was impatient. “We brought you here so you could tell us what you think about it.”

Adrianna answered, “I don’t know. I never thought about it.”

Mary patted the girl’s arm. “Do you love him?”

Adrianna tucked her chin. A blush flowed up her cheeks. “I don’t know about that, ma’am. But my father often said what a good fellow he is. A hard worker. I find him pleasant enough. Almost handsome. I don’t mind the wooden leg. But …”

“But what?” I asked, unconsciously echoing the girl.

She looked startled at the sound of my voice. Her gaze shifted nervously from me to Martha and then settled on Mary. “But … he seems to wish to carry me far away. And though I am a free woman now, though I don’t know what being free means, I am to be taken away from my mother and father and this … my home. As if I am still a slave.”

I tugged my beard and considered my hasty pledge to offer the girl in marriage. If she was to be set free, what right did I have to give her to a man in payment for saving my vineyards? “You are not a slave.”

She held her gaze on Mary. “Then if I am free, why will I be married and taken away from my home and family?”

Martha asked, “Don’t you like the fellow?”

Adrianna replied, “Like. Yes. But if I am free …”

I interjected, “Even women who are born free have arranged marriages.”

Mary shot me a disapproving glance. “Brother, what do you know of a woman’s heart?”

Adrianna’s eyes filled with tears. “Then I am not free.”

Martha agreed with me. “What our brother says is correct.”

Adrianna dared to blurt again, “But if he takes me to Britannia—a place I do not even know, nor do I know how far it is from my home—then if I am taken there against my will I am not free. You see?”

Of course we all understood the concept of freedom. We understood that women were not truly free to do as they wished. Mary had rebelled against custom, and it had resulted in the ruin of her reputation. Yet my concern was for the overall happiness of my household. My cook would never smile again. My winemaker would weep salt tears into the barrels. My barrelmaker would simply be gone.

I thanked Adrianna and sent her back to her mother in the kitchen.

“Well,” I said to my sisters, “that was of no use to me. I have given my pledge to Patrick.”

“No use at all,” Martha concurred. “I came upon Delilah sobbing as she kneaded the bread this morning. Too much salt in her tears for the bread to bake joyfully.”

Mary’s pretty lips pressed tight, as if she was trying not to speak.

I asked her, “What do you want to say?”

“No one cares about the girl. All you care about is keeping your word to Patrick. A pledge that you gave upon the life and happiness of another human being. Upon the lives of several others, if you count your cook and your winemaker. And all the rest of us.”

I argued, “She might be very happy in Britannia.”

Mary tossed her hair. “I know something of that place. It is a land where none are free. And women are worth less than cattle. There is a custom among them that a wife or daughter may be taken away and used vilely at the will of the royalty and then, after the ravage, returned to her husband.”

Martha’s mouth twitched. She stared off at the vines. “A terrible revelation, sister. How could you know such a thing?”

“Does it matter?” Mary snapped. “Brother? Does it matter how I am aware of such a terrible practice among the pagans of the north? I tell you, you must find a better way. If you have given Adrianna freedom, then she must be free. If she loves him but does not want to be taken from her mother and father, then you must find another way to keep your promise.”



Patrick’s hair was the color of the red donkey. A matched pair, I thought, as we rode toward Jerusalem. Only the donkey was not stubborn. And for the first time I thought that Patrick was in need of a beating.

Patrick’s freedom had suddenly made him unmovable.

“I am a free man.” Patrick lifted his chin. “I will marry Adrianna. I asked, and you said if I saved the vineyard I could have her. A promise is a promise, sir.”

“But her parents. Samson is your friend. Delilah is … well … you cannot break the heart of such a good woman.”

“I will go where I will go. That is what being a free man means, does it not?”

“But to marry Adrianna and take her away to Britannia! To deny the girl’s parents the joy of raising grandchildren.”

Patrick set his eyes on the road ahead. Herod’s devastated vineyard was on our right. There was not one green sprig remaining. I remembered the sorrow Samson had expressed over what my grandfather had lost when his life was taken from him: he had lost the joy of knowing his grandchildren!

Sweeping my hand toward the ravaged vines, I said to Patrick, “Samson has been kind to you.”

“Like a father.”

“Then you would treat him thus? Stripping away his joy? To take his daughter and future grandchildren? To deny old Samson the joy of dandling grandchildren on his knee? Then you send the locusts to devour his finest dreams of happiness.”

Patrick frowned at my words, and for a moment I thought I was getting through to him. “And my family? In Verulamium. When I was conscripted to serve our Roman masters, I promised myself that I would return home one day. That if ever I was free, I would come home.”

“How many years ago?” I asked.

“I’ve counted twelve years. Half my life lived in slavery. I was a lad of twelve when the soldiers took me from my father’s shop.”

I was silent for a time, wondering about the family who had remained behind. “Have you ever heard from them?”

“What? As in … a letter, you mean?”

“Surely you could send them a letter on one of the great merchant ships. Pay someone to carry it for you. And pledge a coin to the bearer from your family when they received word from you.”

“A letter carrier receive coin from my father? To receive word from me?” He expelled a short, bitter laugh. “My father sold me for his debt. And besides, I do not read. Neither does he read or write. Not like you Jews who teach a toddler his numbers and letters. We have no time for such nonsense where I come from. So. To answer your question, I ask you … how could I hear from them? What would I hear? ”

“I will help you send a letter. Your father owned a cooperage in the city of Verulamium, you say.”

“Aye. That he does. He’s not an old man. When he could not pay taxes, the Roman centurion came to draft my father as a smith, making weapons for the wars against the Celts in the north. Father begged them to let him stay home. They then selected my older brother, skilled with shoeing horses. Thranal is accomplished at making iron shoes. But my father knew my older brother was too valuable to lose. What was the blacksmith business without him?”

“Did they conscript him?”

“No. Father offered me and my younger brother, Oren, instead. Two strong boys. Two for one. Boys. Extra mouths for my father to feed. Worthless to my father. We would have been apprenticed out that year anyway. So. The Romans got quite a bargain. Except that Oren died the first winter. I lived on … as you can see. If you can call what I lived through living.”

“So you will go home and comfort your father in his old age.”

Patrick snorted. “He never liked me anyway. Always said I would come to no good. A worthless boy except that he could beat me and sell me. No. I will come home and show him. How, in spite of him, the great God of Israel gave me freedom and prosperity and happiness … and a wife. He will regret what he did to me.”

“Your father’s regret will make you happy?” I fixed my gaze on Patrick’s bitter face. “Are you happy here?”

He nodded once. “For the first time in my life. Samson. And Delilah. Never two kinder … They have indeed treated me like a son …”

“Then why leave?”

He blinked as if it was the first time that question had ever entered his mind. “My dream to return. It kept me alive.”

“Your dream?” I urged him to speak of it.

His eyes hardened. “My vindication. A sort of revenge. Showing my father that he sold the wrong son into bondage. Justice. Showing them—”

I held my hands out, imploring. “Patrick? What are you thinking?”

“If I don’t go, my father will die never knowing how he consigned me to twelve years of misery.”

“Before Samson dies, he longs for grandchildren to love.”

“Until now. Until this place? I never knew a moment of happiness.”

“Happiness.” I weighed the concept in my right palm. “Or vindication.” I weighed his goal in my left.

He stared at me in disbelief. Could it be that happiness was more important than revenge?

My grandfather’s Bethphage vineyard was clearly destroyed. Vines he had planted. Desolate now and unyielding to the evil house of Herod the Great who had killed him to possess our heritage.

This was justice against the House of Herod, yet the sight of the devastation gave me no pleasure. I wondered as we rode past if there would ever be another vintage from my grandfather’s estate. I considered Bikri, alone and friendless. Thirty-eight years begging for mercy and none to help him. Vindication? Revenge? It was not sweet to my eyes.

So I knew that returning home to Britannia would not ever bring peace to Patrick. “And now you have won your freedom. You left Britannia as an unloved boy with two legs and a talent for making things. You will return to your father’s shop. You will show him that you have made your own life. Show him. A wife who loves you. A skill he did not teach you. Show him your worth?”

“That is my dream. My sunrise and sunset.”

“But the sun shines upon you … here. Today.”

“Then what will I do with all the dreams of revenge that I have cherished?”

“You can learn to cherish this day that the Lord has made. You cannot make sweet wine from bitter grapes.”

“I imagine my older brother. What he received from my father’s hand. Everything. While Oren died and I suffered at the hands of cruel masters.” He studied the devastation beside us. “When the locusts came, I imagined my brother’s life and wished such disaster on him. When I heard the news the locusts were coming, I hoped to help defeat the plague for you and win the hand of a wife and return home a free man.”

“And will knowing the fate of your brother make you happy? Will you be happy if his life is as desolate as this field? As happy in revenge as you are here in a good life among people who love you and work that prospers you?”

Patrick’s lower lip jutted out. His brow furrowed. “Ah, I see. I never thought of it. Aye. Different thought than I have had in these twelve years.”

“Could it be that God has a different plan for you? That he has given you a new father who longs for you to stay instead of go? A mother who will cherish you?”

He looked at me, and his lips curved in wonder. “And perhaps an elder brother?”

I nodded and stretched out my hand to him. “Come. I have something to show you.”

In silence, we rode up the slope that skirted my grandfather’s vineyard. A narrow path branched off from the main road and the knoll of a low hill. A crooked trail led to a ruined cottage surrounded by an overgrown tangle of briars and a block of age-blackened, untended vines. Even after the locust plague, the wild foliage appeared to be unharmed by the insects.

I explained, “This is where my mother was raised by her widowed mother. It was a caretaker’s cottage. Ten acres of vines and a few fig trees.”

I did not speak of the thousands of acres stolen from my grandfather’s estate. Perhaps Samson had already told the sad story to Patrick, for the young man’s eyes filled with sorrow as he surveyed the wreckage.

“Right next to Herod’s vineyard,” said Patrick. “And yet not devoured. Just … unloved. Neglected.”

I took a deep breath. “It was a house of joy, in spite of sorrow. I own the cottage and the vineyard, though it has been deserted and uncultivated for many years.”

“There is still life here.”

“Samson rode out and walked the vineyard. He says the vines can be brought back to vigor. Two seasons, he says, if they are loved.”

Patrick sat in silence. “And why have you abandoned this for so long?”

I shrugged. “It was a reminder of things long past. Though it is only a few minutes’ ride from my Bethany estate, I did not wish to travel through the vines claimed by Herod to get here. So it has lain fallow these many years. These vines are the most ancient in the land. Grown from cuttings that go back to the time of King David. In my grandfather’s day, the wines from this place were sacramental. Used for holy purposes. Perhaps that is why Herod the Great was afraid to touch them.”

I studied Patrick’s expression as he took it all in. I saw his thoughts race as he considered what a clever man could accomplish in such a place.

He did not speak. I clucked my tongue, urging my mount forward toward the house. Patrick’s donkey followed.

One great vine, gnarled and as large as the trunk of a man, stood sentinel beside the flagstone path leading to the front door. “From that vine, the cuttings for many vineyards were taken. It is the ancestor of the wine of Israel. King David and Solomon drank from its fruit.”

Patrick licked his lips. “I wish that I might … one day.”

“The caretaker was a prophet, they say. He was one killed by Herod the Great in the rebellion.”

“It is a beautiful cottage.” Patrick seemed to see past reality.

The roof was damaged, but the walls were strong stone blocks. The door hung askew on broken hinges. A barn and stone-walled sheep pens were intact. The well was covered by a stone.

I dismounted. “Samson says such a place would blossom under the care of a good tenant. One who would share eighteen percent of his crop with me on a ninety-nine-year lease … renewable on the same terms with future generations. Perhaps an arrangement with a bright young man … with a wife … and a flock of happy children.”

Patrick stepped off the donkey. “Do you know any such fellow?”

“The only one I thought of is determined to leave for the far north of the world and never more return.”

Patrick looked down at his hands. “Sir,” he said slowly, “I did not ever dare to dream of such a paradise as this.”

I surveyed the ruined dwelling place, the tangle of vines and briars. “Paradise.” I repeated the word.

“Yes,” he answered. “I say yes. If you will have me. I will stay. We will stay.”

“I will contribute workmen to help you restore the house and clear the vines. And then it will be up to you and Adrianna and God to build a life.”