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Paul: The Unstoppable (Intrepid Men of God) (Volume 2)

By Katheryn Maddox Haddad

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1 ~ The Fight

“He is a disgrace, over there fighting at the stadium like that,” Caiaphas says, pointing an arthritic finger at his daughter.
“It is his way of making a living, Father, and he earns what is necessary to continue his education.”
Mariamme crosses her arms and her mouth forms into a pouty bow.

Shaul draws first blood on his opponent. Sceva counters and Shaul catches it on his nose, then a sharp one over his right eye. Shaul’s feet are firmly planted, but Sceva closes in and throws Shaul to the ground, punching him with his left, then twisting Shaul’s right arm behind him.
Shaul pushes Sceva away with his big feet, smiles, and is up again, countering Sceva on his left eye.

Caiaphas tugs at his pre-maturely gray beard, then twitches. He looks up at the ceiling. “Most of the athletes are slaves. What is he doing lowering himself like that?” His back is now turned to his daughter.
“He thinks he can raise the standards,” Mariamme says, undeterred, her brows lowering as menacingly as she can make them.

Shaul dances back to buy time, then lets go of his left onto Sceva’s mouth. Shaul’s right arm swells and loses power; he keeps it down out of the way. Sceva lashes out with another crack on Shaul’s right cheek near his nearly swelled-closed eye.

Caiaphas swings around. “And what kind of men attend such sports as boxing? The lowest ruffians off the street, Roman soldiers, and gamblers.”
“Those gamblers, dear Father, are some of the richest men in Judea. I heard a couple of them are on the Sanhedrin.” She struggles to hold back a smirk.

Sceva lets go of his left viciously onto the bridge of Shaul’s nose, knocking him over. Shaul rolls over laughing. He snaps a straight one at Sceva’s nose. Sceva turns his back on Shaul and gets a right-hander on the back of his neck.
Sceva tumbles and Shaul jumps back grinning, jumping nimbly away from his opponent.

“And further disgracing himself performing naked.” Caiaphas continues, confident he has just had the last word in the whole matter.
Mariamme puts her hands on her hips. “You know, Father, that the arena in Jerusalem honors our Jewish traditions, and participants in all sports wear a loin cloth. Since women do not attend, you didn’t think I knew that, did you?”

Sceva scrutinizes his opponent, rubs his bare hands together, goes after Shaul, and lets fly his left. But Shaul jumps out of the way, grinning.
Shaul creeps in, pops Sceva one with his left then his right and walks off laughing.

Caiaphas picks up a scripture scroll on a nearby table and stares at it. “Shaul has better things to do. What about his studies at the temple?”
“You know good and well, Father, that he is Gamaliel’s most promising student and has been for years.” Mariamme has been through this before with her father and knows she will again.

Sceva retaliates on the bridge of Shaul’s already crooked nose. Shaul nails Sceva on the right cheek, then side steps him. Sceva tries to take the lead, but Shaul jumps back. Sceva moves in again and hits Shaul again on the nose.
Sceva continues to bore down on Shaul. Shaul drops, rises laughing, his nose now double in size.

“He can’t support you!” Caiaphas retaliates, banging his free hand down on the table.
“He gets a percent of what people pay to see him perform, and it is higher when he wins, which he always does. You know that, Father,” Mariamme continues undaunted.

Sceva tries to attack, but Shaul leaps out of his way. Sceva follows him and pops Shaul on the throat. Shaul counters with a pop on the nose, drawing blood. Sceva’s face is swelled and distorted.
Sceva jabs again with his right, but Shaul gaily ducks, it passes over his head, then Shaul counters.

Realizing he is losing, Caiaphas counters with a save. “He is going to have to change occupations.”
“I’m sure I can convince him. He has talked a lot about being a scribe some day,” Mariamme says, now smiling.
“What kind of work does his father do?” Caiaphas sits down on a gilded chair inlaid with mother of pearl.
“His father is a tent maker, and plans to run for mayor of Tarsus one day.”

Sceva catches Shaul on the jaw, then tries again, but Shaul jumps back.
Shaul comes at his opponent slowly and cheerfully. After catching a small one on the side of his face, Shaul pops his left onto Sceva’s nose, once more drawing blood.
After all his evasive maneuvers, Shaul feels rested and goes gaily after Sceva.

“Then why can’t Shaul be a tent maker?” Caiaphas asks, a vague hope in his voice.
“He says it is boring. He wants to spend his life doing something exciting.”
“Well, being a scribe is not what I call exciting,” Caiaphas says.
“He says it could be if he concentrated on transcribing matters of the Law.” Mariamme senses she is beginning to win. She thinks about sitting on her father’s lap, but decides it would be pushing fortune too far.

Sceva plants one on Shaul’s jaw with his right and Shaul staggers almost to the ground. Shaul shakes it off and the two smash each other on the face.
The two spar in order to rest a moment. Sceva’s eye is now quickly closing. They spar some more. Sceva takes a hot one on the left cheek which all but closes his other eye.

“Who does he know that’s in the Law? That is not the type people he associates with.”
“You’re wrong, Father. He has his eyes on transcribing for Tertullus. Gamaliel said he could recommend Shaul to him.“
Caiaphas looks down into his daughter’s eyes for the first time since their argument began.

Now close infighting between Shaul and Sceva until both fall. Sceva rises and Shaul withdraws. Sceva dashes viciously in and catches Shaul on the nose.
Shaul gaily retreats and Sceva follows, punching home on Shaul’s jaw with the right. Shaul turns and runs after Sceva.

Once again, Caiaphas shakes his crooked forefinger at his daughter. “I do not believe a word he says. He claims to change, but he never does and never will.”
“But, he will listen to me,” Mariamme says, her fleeting moment of hope ebbing away.
“He listens to no one. He is a headstrong young man from the Taurus Mountains in Anatolia and that is all he will ever be, despite his education at our temple. Can’t take the mountain out of that boy.”
Mariamme is nearly in tears, believing she is about to lose. “You know everyone in Tarsus is a Roman Citizen, and the city is known for its famous library,” she says out of desperation. She looks down at the floor and fights back tears.

Shaul grins and naps one on Sceva’s nose, then rushes in and catches him again on the nose.
Sceva catches Shaul around the neck, but the shorter Shaul slips through his arms. They part and Shaul gets Sceva again in the right eye which is now fast closing, his left being in complete darkness.

“I wouldn’t care if Tarsus had God’s holy temple in it,” Caiaphas counters. “No one would worship in it. They are all pagans up there.”
Mariamme stares at her father, her eyes glistening with a slight appearance of tears. “Not all. Shaul’s pious father sent him here for his Jewish education when he was twelve. He was even one of your students at one time. Don’t you remember? He is a good Jew, one of the best there is.”
“No! A hundred times, no. You will not marry that ruffian, Shaul. Never.”
“But, father, I love him.”

_____


A wild scramble follows and both fall. It ends in a draw after two hours. Most of the time, Shaul’s right arm has been dangling at his side useless.

A Roman centurion rises from his front-row seat at the stadium. “Shaul’s punishment has been terrible, but he has taken it round after round without flinching,” he tells his friend, “and almost always with a smile on his face.”
“Exciting brutality,” his friend adds.
Silas runs over to Shaul with a wet towel which he throws over Shaul’s back, and a smaller towel with which to cover his head. Shaul holds his long, hairy, but shattered right arm with his bloody left hand, and the two walk together back to the rooms under the stadium.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” they hear people in the bleachers say.
Shaul grins. “Always fight to win,” he says through bloody lips.
The two walk the few steps down into the underground rooms and work their way through a long hall toward the back.
They stop at a shallow pool and Shaul wades to the middle. Silas fills a nearby pail with water and pours it over Shaul. The water is cold, but Shaul does not flinch. He reaches up his one good arm to wipe the water out of swollen eyes.
A second showering of water gets most of the rest of the blood off Shaul, and the two walk a few more steps to the warm bath. Silas reaches over to help Shaul in, but Shaul breaks loose of his grasp and jumps in with a splash.
Silas smiles. He lowers himself into the water opposite his childhood friend.
“Well, old pal, you have done it again. The odds were against you after that fall on your arm, but you came out strong. Well, you came out alive.”
“You know what I always say,” Shaul replies.
“Yeah, yeah. Always fight to win. You know you’re getting a little old for this.”
“I am only twenty-seven. I have a few good years left in me.”
“You need to be thinking of something else to make a living.”
“Wait a minute. It’s time.”
“Sure, Shaul. Prayer time.”
The moment of regulated prayer time over, the friends remain silent awhile. Silas splashes some water onto his high forehead with strong arms, though not as strong, of course, as Shaul’s.
“Well, maybe I will quit fighting and get married.”
“To Mariamme?”
“Yes. She’s everything I ever wanted. She wouldn’t try to hold me back.”
“She can be a little imp sometimes, can she? You know, you’re playing with fire to get involved in that family.”
“A little fire never hurt. Destroys the weak, but makes the strong stronger, and I’m strong.”
“Some people claim Caiaphas became high priest only because of his father-in-law’s influence.”
“Well, that may have been the power behind getting him appointed, but he has been high priest eleven years so far, and most of them only last a couple years. I admire the man.”
“Even though he hates you and will never let you marry his daughter?”
“I will convince him. I will think of something and convince him. You have never seen me turn away from a challenge, have you?”
“Well, as I said, you’re playing with fire. How did you meet, anyway?”
“Oh, it was about ten years ago. She was only five then. She went to the temple with her father and apparently sneaked a ball in under her little robe. She was playing with it in the Gentile section of the temple courtyard, bouncing it as she skipped, but it got away from her.”
“If it had been anyone else’s daughter, she would have been thrown out as disrespectful to our holy place.”
“Anyway, I caught it and rolled it back to her. She put her hands on her hips and announced to me, ‘I’m a big girl and I can catch balls in the air.’ ”
The two men laugh.
“But that was ten years ago. What about since then? Caiaphas would not have allowed you, just a student, to associate socially with his family.”
“You know how I always go out in the desert for my morning run to keep in shape. I ran into her crossing the road to Bethany one morning. Well, not literally. Actually, she spotted me. I hadn’t changed much in the seven years since we met, but she sure had. Even at twelve, she was already becoming a rare beauty. Big black eyes, velvety white skin, a little peak of hairline on her heart-shaped face.”
“Heart shaped? You’ve got it bad, friend. So, that was still three years ago. What about since then?”
“She sent her lady in waiting on ahead of her and whispered to me to meet her at the perfumery in the market that afternoon after prayers.”
“And you’ve been doing it daily since then, I suppose,” Silas says, skimming his hands across the water and splashing Shaul’s face.”
“Well, not every day, but at least once a week. Sometimes one or the other of us couldn’t get away. But enough times that we knew.”
“So, you’re serious about Mariamme.”
“Indeed, yes. Father isn’t here to approach her father, so I’ll have to do it myself.”
“How is your father, anyway?”
“Since Mother died, he’s gotten harder to get along with.”
“That’s because you and he are just alike—both stubborn.”
“I can’t help it if he wanted me to be a tent maker like my brothers. It just wasn’t me. I plan to associate with a much higher quality than common laborers.”
“Didn’t you say he is running for mayor of Tarsus? That doesn’t sound so common to me.”
“Well, he did run, but he was not appointed. Anyway, if I ever give up fighting, I’m going into law. Not as a lawyer yet, but a scribe to start with. I love the law.”
“And Mariamme.”

_____

Caiaphas and his daughter are interrupted with a knock on the door, to the relief of both. Caiaphas answers it.
“Sir, your worshipful, there is a problem in Bethany.”
“Not again. My daughter was just leaving. Come in, Shlomo.”
The chief priest stands aside while Mariamme leaves, then enters. Caiaphas motions to the servant—the Levite who had been waiting in the hall—to come in and close the door behind him.
“What is it this time?”
“That Jesus. Selig keeps letting him speak on the Sabbath. He’s claiming to be the new king of the Jews.”
Caiaphas’ fists clench and he grits his teeth. “He has got to be stopped. It has gone too far already.”
Shlomo presses his lips together and nods his head. “What is your judgment on this matter, sir?”
Caiaphas looks out his window, making his inferior wait.
He turns, walks slowly across the room, stroking his graying beard. He takes his prayer shawl off a hook on the wall, lays it across his shoulders and covers his hair. He paces quietly, sometimes pausing to close his eyes reverently as if waiting for God to speak to him.
Shlomo waits still.
The high priest pauses and looks at his subordinate. “Selig must go.”
“Yes, your worshipfulness.”
Then comes the grin. “I know exactly who I will appoint to take his place.”
“Sir, before you make that austere decision, may I suggest my nephew? He is a Levite and knows the Law so well he will be able to outsmart that Jesus and discourage him from coming there ever again. Or, if he does come, to….”
“Stop right there, Selig. You are overstepping your bounds. I know who I am going to replace that weak-hearted rabbi with.”
“Yes, sir. May I ask who, sir?”
Caiaphas grins broadly and rocks on his heels. “Yes, I know exactly who I shall appoint: Shaul. My future son-in-Law. He dabbles in, well, being a scribe and is a superior student of the Law. I taught him myself.”
“Yes, your worshipful. Shall I inform Selig?”
“No, I shall let Shaul do it himself. I’d love to be a snake on the wall to watch the whole thing, but that is not possible. I am sure Shaul will give me a detailed description of Selig’s downfall.”
Caiaphas paces again, still grinning. “Ah, yes. Shaul will not only get control of the synagogue, but he will get control of that Jesus. Brilliant. Just brilliant.”

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