"He unmanned me."

Continuing Heather's dramatic reading for Easter morning, with Peter speaking now:

She'll remember. She'll remember, won't she? She promised. Come home a different way, split up, come home five different ways, visit anyone they can think of on the way; she promised. Not to lead them to us.

They won't arrest the women, not them. Women are no threat. It's us they want, it's us they're watching for. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter; he said it. He knew. That's what they want to know: if there are any shepherds left among us. If there are twelve of them maybe, or three. If they need to strike again.

They don't. The others are looking to me now.

And I wasn't even there.

In the garden—then I was there. When they came. I was there ready to draw the sword for him, against the soldiers of the high priest himself—those cowards with their swords and clubs and six times our number in the dead of night, with all of Rome on their side... was that worth nothing? I was willing to lay down my life, to save him.

They grabbed him by the arms and forced his hands behind him, like a common criminal, like a thief. I swung for the closest one, I went for the neck and he ducked and my sword caught his ear—and he—he—the Master told me to stop. He told me to stop!

And they took him.

Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. And who dies by the cross?

No, I wasn't there. I didn't watch. I didn't see him die. Do you think I needed to? I've seen men crucified. They hang there gasping for breath for hours. Before long there's blood and shit mixed together, running down the beam. Do you think I needed to see that? To hear my Master scream?

They'll tell you tales—they always do, they love them—tales of men who stood torture and never cried out, never twitched a muscle, never made a sound. Every word of those tales is a lie. Everyone wants to believe that there is someone they can't break. There isn't. Not even him.


I don't want to be broken.

I am a coward and I am a liar. What can I say? He unmanned me. That sword was the only weapon I had. I don't know his way—I never understood—turn the other cheek and love your torturers, I never understood it, I never could, but I followed him! He had the words of—of life... and I followed him... and I couldn't fight for him, he wouldn't let me fight for him, did he want me to throw down my sword and die with him, was that what he wanted? To let them break me too? How could he—how could I—no. No. Oh God... Oh God I hate myself.

He'll never forgive me.

Because he's gone.

continued...