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

who caught her by the hair and pulled her back. Someone else was helping restrain her, but he wore a shawl over his head so I couldn’t tell who it was. Probably Peter.
    Joseph dragged Maggie back to us and handed her over to me and Simon.
    “She’ll get herself killed.”
    Maggie looked up at me, a wildness in her eyes that I couldn’t read, either anger or madness. I wrapped my arms around her and held her so her arms were pinned to her sides as we walked along. The man with the hood walked along beside me, his hand on Maggie’s shoulder, steadying her. When he looked at me I could see it was Peter. The wiry fisherman seemed to have aged twenty years since I’d seen him Tuesday night.
    “They’re taking him to Antipas,” Peter said. “As soon as Pilate heard Joshua was from Galilee he said it wasn’t his jurisdiction and sent him to Herod.”
    “Maggie,” I said into her ear, “please stop being a madwoman. My plan just went to hell and I could use some critical thinking.”

    Once again we waited outside of one of the palaces built by Herod the Great, but this time, because it was a Jewish king in residence, the Pharisees were let in and Joseph of Arimathea went in with them. A few minutes later he was back outside again.
    “He’s trying to get Joshua to perform a miracle,” Joseph said. “He’ll let him go if Joshua performs a miracle for him.”
    “And if Joshua won’t do it?”
    “He won’t,” said Maggie.
    “If he won’t do it,” Joseph said, “we’re back where we started. It will be up to Pilate to order the Sanhedrin’s death sentence carried out or to release Joshua.”
    “Maggie, come with me,” I said, tugging at her dress as I backed away.
    “Why, where?”
    “The plan’s back on.” I ran back to the praetorium, with Maggie in tow. I pulled up by a pillar across from the Antonia Palace. “Maggie, can Peter really heal? Really?”
    “Yes, I told you.”
    “Wounds? Broken bones?”
    “Wounds, yes. I don’t know about bones.”
    “I hope so,” I said.
    I left her there while I went to the highest-ranking centurion stationed outside the gates.
    “I need to see your commander,” I said.
    “Go away, Jew.”
    “I’m a friend. Tell him it’s Levi from Nazareth.”
    “I’ll tell him nothing.”
    So I stepped up and took the centurion’s sword out of its scabbard, put the point under his chin for a split second, then replaced it in its scabbard. He reached for the sword and suddenly it was in my hand and under his chin again. Before he could call out the sword was back in its scabbard.
    “There,” I said, “you owe me your life twice. By the time you call to have me arrested I’ll have your sword again and you’ll not only be embarrassed but your head will be all wobbly from your throat being cut. Or, you can take me to see my friend Gaius Justus Gallicus, commander of the Sixth Legion.”
    Then I took a deep breath and waited. The centurion’s eyes darted to the soldiers closest to him, then back to me. “Think, Centurion,” I said. “If you arrest me, where will I end up anyway?” The logic of it seemed to strike him through his frustration.
    “Come with me,” he said.
    I signaled to Maggie to wait and followed the soldier into Pilate’s fortress.

    Justus seemed uncomfortable in the lush quarters they had assigned him at the palace. He’d had shields and spears placed around the room in different places, as if he needed to remind anyone who entered that a soldier lived here. I stood in the doorway while he paced, looking up at me occasionally as if he wanted to kill me. He wiped the sweat from his closely cropped gray hair and whipped it so it drew a stripe across the stone floor.
    “I can’t stop the sentence. No matter what I want.”
    “I just don’t want him hurt,” I said.
    “If Pilate crucifies him, he’ll be hurt, Biff. That’s sort of the point.”
    “Damaged, I mean. No broken bones, no cut sinew. Have them tie his arms to the cross.”
    “They have to use nails,” Justus said, his mouth shaping into a cruel frown. “Nails are iron. They’re inventoried. Each one is accounted for.”
    “You Romans are masters of supply.”
    “What do you want?”
    “Okay, tie him then, only nail through the web of his fingers and toes, and put a board on the cross so he can support his weight with his feet.”
    “That’s no kindness you’re doing him. He could linger a week that way.”
    “No he won’t,” I said. “I’m going to