“I hope Joshua can bring the kingdom down on their heads now,” Simon said. “Otherwise I may have to look for another prophet to pledge my sword to.”

I nearly choked on my wine, and handed him the wineskin as I fought for breath.

“Simon,” I said, “do you believe he’s the Son of God?”

“No.”

“You don’t, and you’re still following him?”

“I am not saying he’s not a great prophet, but the Christ? the Son of God? I don’t know.”

“You’ve traveled with him. Heard him speak. Seen his power over demons, over people. You’ve seen him heal people. Feed people. And what does he ask?”

“Nothing. A place to sleep. Some food. Some wine.”

“And if you could do those things, what would you have?”

Here Simon leaned back and looked into the stars, as he let his imagination unroll. “I would have villages full of women in my bed. I’d have a fine palace, and slaves to bathe me. I would have the finest food and wine and kings would travel from far away just to look at my gold. I would be glorious.”

“But Joshua has only his cloak and his sandals.”

Simon seemed to snap out of his reverie, and he wasn’t happy about it. “Just because I am weak does not make him the Christ.”

“That’s exactly what makes him the Christ.”

“Maybe he’s just naive.”

“Count on it,” I said. I stood and handed him the wineskin. “You can finish it. I’m going to sleep.”

Simon raised his eyebrows. “The Magdalene, she’s a luscious woman. A man could lose himself there.”

I took a deep breath and thought about defending Maggie’s honor, or even warning Simon about making advances on her, but then I thought better of it. The Zealot needed to learn a lesson that I wasn’t qualified to teach. But Maggie was.

“Good night, Simon,” I said.

In the morning I found Simon sitting by the cold ashes of the fire, cradling his head in his hands. “Simon?” I inquired.

He looked up at me and I saw a huge purple goose egg on his forehead, just below the bangs of his Roman haircut. A spot of blood seeped out of the middle. His right eye was nearly swollen shut.

“Ouch,” I said. “How did you do that?”

Just then Maggie came out from behind a bush. “He accidentally crawled into Susanna’s bedroll last night,” Maggie said. “I thought he was an attacker, so naturally, I brained him with a rock.”

“Naturally,” I said.

“I’m so sorry, Simon,” Maggie said. I could hear Susanna and Johanna giggling behind the bush.

“It was an honest mistake,” said Simon. I couldn’t tell whether he meant his or Maggie’s, but either way he was lying.

“Good thing you’re an apostle,” I said. “You’ll have that healed up by noon.”

We finished our loop of northern Galilee without incident, and indeed, Simon was nearly healed by the time we returned to the mountain above Bethsaida, where Joshua awaited us with over five thousand followers.

“I can’t get away from them long enough to find baskets,” Peter complained.

“Everywhere I go there are fifty people following me,” said Judas. “How do they expect us to bring them food if they won’t let us work?”

I had heard similar complaints from Matthew, James, and Andrew, and even Thomas was whining that people were stepping all over Thomas Two. Joshua had multiplied seven loaves into enough to feed the multitude, but no one could get to the food to distribute it. Maggie and I finally fought our way to the top of the mountain where we found Joshua preaching. He signaled the crowd that he was going to take a break, then came over to us.

“This is excellent,” he said. “So many of the faithful.”

“Uh, Josh…”

“I know,” he said. “You two go to Magdala. Get the big ship and bring it to Bethsaida. Once we feed the faithful I’ll send the disciples down to you. Go out into the lake and wait for me.”

We managed to pull John out of the crowd and took him with us to Magdala to help sail the ship back up the coast. Neither Maggie nor I felt confident enough to handle the big boat without one of the fishermen on board. A half-day later we docked in Bethsaida, where the other apostles were waiting for us.

“He’s led them to the other side of the mountain,” Peter said. “He’ll deliver a blessing then send them on their way. Hopefully they’ll go home and he can meet us.”

“Did you see any soldiers in the crowd?” I asked.

“Not yet, but we should have been out of Herod’s territory by now. The Pharisees are hanging on the edge of the crowd like they know something is going to happen.”

We assumed that he would be swimming or rowing out in one of the small boats, but when he finally came down to the shore the multitude was still following him, and he just kept walking, right across the surface of the water to the boat. The crowd stopped at the shore and cheered. Even we were astounded by this new miracle, and we sat in the boat with our mouths hanging open as Joshua approached.

“What?” he said. “What? What? What?”

“Master, you’re walking on the water,” said Peter.

“I just ate,” Joshua said. “You can’t go into the water for an hour after you eat. You could get a cramp. What, none of you guys have mothers?”

“It’s a miracle,” shouted Peter.

“It’s no big deal,” Joshua said, dismissing the miracle with the wave of a hand. “It’s easy. Really, Peter, you should try it.”

Peter stood up in the boat tentatively.

“Really, try it.”

Peter started to take off his tunic.

“Keep that on,” said Joshua. “And your sandals too.”

“But Lord, this is a new tunic.”

“Then keep it dry, Peter. Come to me. Step upon the water.”

Peter put one foot over the side and into the water.

“Trust your faith, Peter,” I yelled. “If you doubt you won’t be able to do it.”

Then Peter stepped with both feet onto the surface of the water, and for a split second he stood there. And we were all amazed. “Hey, I’m—” Then he sank like a stone. He came up sputtering. We were all doubled over giggling, and even Joshua had sunk up to his ankles, he was laughing so hard.

“I can’t believe you fell for that,” said Joshua. He ran across the water and helped us pull Peter into the boat. “Peter, you’re as dumb as a box of rocks. But what amazing faith you have. I’m going to build my church on this box of rocks.”

“You would have Peter build your church?” asked Philip. “Because he tried to walk on the water.”

“Would you have tried it?” asked Joshua.

“Of course not,” said Philip. “I can’t swim.”

“Then who has the greater faith?” Joshua climbed into the boat and shook the water off of his sandals, then tousled Peter’s wet hair. “Someone will have to carry on the church when I’m gone, and I’m going to be gone soon. In the spring we’ll go to Jerusalem for the Passover, and there I will be judged by the scribes and the priests, and there I will be tortured and put to death. But three days from the day of my death, I shall rise, and be with you again.”

As Joshua spoke Maggie had latched onto my arm. By the time he was finished speaking her nails had drawn blood from my biceps. A shadow of grief seemed to pass over the faces of the disciples. We looked not at each other, and neither at the ground, but at a place in space a few feet from our faces, where I suppose one looks for a clear answer to appear out of undefined shock.

“Well, that sucks,” someone said.

We landed at the town of Hippos, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, directly across the lake from Tiberius. Joshua had preached here before when we had come over to hide the first time, and there were people in the town who would receive the apostles into their homes until Joshua sent them out again.

We’d brought many baskets of the broken bread from Bethsaida, and Judas and Simon helped me unload them from the ship, wading in and out of the shallows where we anchored, as Hippos had no dock.