Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

will think twice before they do anything outside the letter of Roman law. Don’t panic. There hasn’t even been a trial in the Sanhedrin yet.”
    “When will there be a trial?”
    “This afternoon, probably. They have to bring everyone in. The prosecution is gathering witnesses against Joshua.”
    “What about witnesses for him?” I asked.
    “That’s not how it works,” said Joseph. “I’ll speak for him, and so will my friend Nicodemus, but other than that Joshua will have to defend himself.”
    “Swell,” Maggie said.
    “Who is prosecuting him?”
    “I thought you’d know,” Joseph said, cringing slightly. “The one who started the Sanhedrin plots against Joshua the other two times, Jakan bar Iban.”
    Maggie whirled around and glared at me. “You should have killed him.”
    “Me? You had seventeen years to push the guy down the steps or something.”
    “There’s still time,” she said.
    “That won’t help Joshua now,” said Joseph. “Just hope that the Romans won’t hear his case.”
    “You sound as if he’s already convicted,” I said.
    “I’ll do my best.” Joseph didn’t sound very confident.
    “Get us in to see him.”
    “And let them arrest the two of you? I don’t think so. You stay here. You can have the upper rooms to yourselves. I’ll come back or send word as soon as anything happens.”
    Joseph hugged Maggie and kissed her on the top of the head, then left the room to get dressed.
    “Do you trust him?” Maggie said.
    “He warned Joshua before when they wanted to kill him.”
    “I don’t trust him.”

    Maggie and I waited all day in the upper room, jumping to our feet every time we heard footsteps going by in the street, until we were exhausted and shaking from worry. I asked one of Joseph’s servant girls to go down to the palace of the high priest to see what was going on. She returned a short time later to report that the trial was still going on.
    Maggie and I made a nest of the cushions under the wide arched window in the front, so we could hear the slightest noise coming from the street, but as night started to fall, the footsteps became fewer and farther between, the distant singing from the Temple faded, and we settled into each other’s arms, a single lump of low, agonizing grief. Sometime after dark we made love together for the first time since the night before Joshua and I left for the Orient. All those years had passed, and yet it seemed familiar. That first time, so long ago, making love was a desperate way to share the grief we felt because we were each about to lose someone we loved. This time we were losing the same person. This time, we slept afterward.

    Joseph of Arimathea didn’t come home.

T hursday
    It was Simon and Andrew who stormed up the steps to wake us Thursday morning. I threw my tunic over Maggie and jumped to my feet in just a loincloth. As soon as I saw Simon I felt the heat rise in my face.
    “You treacherous bastard!” I was too angry to hit him. I just stood there screaming at him. “You coward!”
    “It wasn’t him,” screamed Andrew in my ear.
    “It wasn’t me,” said Simon. “I tried to fight the guards when they came to get Joshua. Peter and I both did.”
    “Judas was your friend. You and your Zealot bullshit!”
    “He was your friend too.”
    Andrew pushed me away. “Enough! It wasn’t Simon. I saw him face two guards with spears. Leave him be. We don’t have time for your tantrum, Biff. Joshua is being flogged at the high priest’s palace.”
    “Where’s Joseph?” Maggie said. She’d dressed while I had been railing at Simon.
    “He’s gone on to the praetorium that Pilate set up at the Antonia Palace by the Temple.”
    “What the hell’s he doing there if Joshua is being beaten at the palace in this end of the city?”
    “That’s where they’ll take Joshua next. He was convicted of blasphemy, Biff. They want a death sentence. Pontius Pilate is the ruling authority in Judea. Joseph knows him, he’s going to ask for Joshua’s release.”
    “What do we do? What do we do?” I was starting to get hysterical. Since I could remember, my friendship with Joshua had been my anchor, my reason for being, my life; now it, he, was running toward destruction like a storm-driven ship to a reef, and I couldn’t think of a thing to do but panic. “What do we do? What do we do?” I panted, the breath refusing to fill my lungs. Maggie grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.
    “You have a plan,