153. When He was gone I slumped back on to my haunches and felt the life go out of me. There was no longer any need to be strong for Him because He was now beyond any help. I had been in a state of constant weeping but now He was gone my tears withdrew and I emptied out completely. I thought I would quickly follow Him into death but after a short while something surged inwardly to fill me back up, something akin to grief but much more intense and fitting, encompassing resentment and outrage and burning even hotter than these things. I began to quake from the inside out as this feeling overtook me, I became incandescent with it and for once in my life I allowed myself to burn.

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154. This thing was called Fury. There is no other word to describe it. It was an insane urge for vengeance against everyone who had harmed Him, it burned with accusation against Her and His brother and every last servant of Rome. Fury burst within me and I raged against what they had destroyed, condemning the whole world that lusts for cruelty over kindness, accusing the present world but also the crazed worlds of the future where His suffering is feted and admired. I sought retribution for the destruction of my beloved and every other man who harboured such courage in His heart, for the violence the world promulgates and has the presumption to call Love.

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155. Fury engulfs me and curses me in my turn. I was the one who cut off His power, it was my hand driving the blade. And even then I could have used His stolen strength to spirit us away, I spent the last of His power to console Him on the cross when I should never have allowed that to happen. I also hear Him accused: for His insistence on valour when sometimes it is better to hide, for His willingness to compensate for errors that were never His to resolve. But I cannot tolerate any slander of His memory and so I press my accusations against the ones who killed Him, He was innocent of everything except bravery and decency and I will not slander His name.

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156. Fury seeks a way out and suddenly I see Her. Holding Her dead love in Her arms, comforted by a group of luminous women. He looks just like my beloved but death was gentle with him, there is a serene look on his face and no marks disfigure his body. The faithlessness of this transaction pierces me because my love was the innocent one. He died protecting His foolish brother who had dived so thoughtlessly into love. Without thinking or pausing I storm down the pathways She created when She looked so greedily within me. She feels me rush towards Her and then I burst into Her vision, Her Sisters cannot see me but they see Her stiffen and claw at the air because now I am the one gripping Her face in my hands, it is me staring into Her soul for my purposes alone.

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157. She is appalled from the moment I grab Her face and Her horror only intensifies. She knows what She has done, there is no injustice in this, She has killed two innocent men and I am determined to show Her the horror of it. Every blow that He suffered, every time His flesh was torn, every drop of sweat and blood and heartbreak that poured out of His poor body. I ram words into Her soul that speak of this obscenity, in hushed tones but also in screams of pain and fear and humiliation. I show Her every detail of His death and how the world cried out against it because these were the Two who could have redeemed everything, if they had remained in Trinity with Her, they could have overcome the Romans as though they were wooden pieces on a board. If some patience had been shown, if some real love had prevailed in Her heart and not the avarice that has brought everything crashing down.

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158. Finally I reflect Her own image back to Her. It is the first time She has ever seen Herself truly and She is completely horrified, to see Her arrogance and Her presumption and Her wild deep grief at the loss of Her mother. She goes to plead that loss but it only stokes my Fury. I lay out brutal images of my own mother and the manner of her death, I show Her my mother protecting me at the precise moment that I lost her. I match Her grief and I surpass it and I say to Her: this is no excuse for multiplying suffering as you have done. I rebuke Her as She rebuked others so often in my sight: how dare you think that your suffering is worth more than other people's. With what you have caused, how dare you plead your grief against what all of us must grieve?

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159. I hold Her face in my hands for a very long time. Long enough to feel Her consciousness fracture and Her vision fail. I continue to accuse Her until She is completely overcome, then one hand at a time I let go of Her face, withdrawing out of that shared vision space and coming back to my own senses. As I do that my Fury breaks and finally I can feel some pity, for the burden of Her shame and how young She really is. There is no doubt that She genuinely loved them both, although Her favours turned unequal, I see that same love condemning Her even though She cannot actually die of grief. She sinks like a widowed queen under the weight of Her shame, and although Her Sisters try to soothe Her there is nothing to be done for Her.

 

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160. My Fury continues to break until I am left with nothing but pity. For all of us marooned here in this transitory kingdom, for everyone yet to enter this world of denial and pain. I feel a mad wish to follow my beloved and seek Him under worlds, but there is work that will keep me here and I know it is crucial work. If I had the slightest choice about it I would follow Him wherever He went, hoping to retrieve His soul, but worlds do not work that way and even if I died I would not find my way to Him. I am condemned to linger here to pick up the pieces of whatever has not been lost, to gather any fragment of the People that has not been scattered to the winds.

 

161. Before I go I pause long enough to touch His feet. He would never ask anyone to wash His feet but I wipe them of the blood and the bloody grime left from His ordeal. His face is bowed but I can close my eyes and see Him as He once was beneath me, rather than dead and stiffening and hung as a warning to all. I see Him close to me and warm once again as I bend down to kiss him and these are visions I will never surrender. He will not hang lifeless in my dreams. He will come to me full of warmth and love and He will sigh as He did in those moments I was given to hold Him. Rising up towards the kisses of my mouth that I gave to Him so freely, kisses I wish that I had multiplied now that He slumps above me and is gone.

 

162. I press my lips to His feet and then I turn away, walking back down the hill with Rome's brutal carnage around me. I know that my suffering is not unique. So many other women have suffered the way that I do, and this particular brand of suffering brutalises every one of us. Restraining the endless streams of love that should be flooding into the world, turning hearts towards hostility and dragging us into contempt. This landscape of horror that joins infinitely with horror from the past and the future. We call it history but only so we retain the strength to bear it. With the human heart thwarted at every turn, until something breaks and we break through or we are broken down completely and this cruel world ends, as it is bound to do, one way or the other.