“There’s a line.”

A long line, too. Thirty people, maybe more.

Aaron cleared his throat and spat the result onto a rock. He could feel the desert heat rising up through the leather of his sandals. An unforgiving sun blew waves of heat into their faces.

“It seems to be moving.”

Aaron squinted at Rebekah, fat and grimy. The wrap around her head was soaked with sweat and clung to her scalp in dark patches. Her eyes were submissive, dim. A bruise yellowed on her left cheek.

Looking at her, Aaron felt the urge to blacken it again.

“I cannot believe I let you drag me here.”

“You promised.”

“A man should not have to keep the promises he makes to his wife. In another nation, you’d be property. Worth about three goats and a swine. Perhaps less, an ugly sow such as you.”

Rebekah turned away.

Aaron set his jaw. A proper wife did not turn her back on her husband. He clutched at Rebekah’s shoulder and spun her around.

“I could have you stoned for insolence, you worthless bitch.”

He raised his hand, saw the fear in her eyes.

Liked it.

But Rebekah did not finch this time, did not cower.

“I will tell my father.”

The words made Aaron’s ears redden. Her father was a land owner, known to the Roman court. A Citizen. On his passing, Aaron would inherit his holdings.

Aaron lowered his fist. He tried to smile, but his face would not comply.

“Tell your father—what? Any husband has the right to discipline his wife.”

“Shall I open my robe to show him the marks from your discipline?”

Aaron bit the inside of his cheek. This sow deserved all that and more.

“Our marriage is our business, no one else need intrude.”

“And that is why we are here, Husband. I will not tell Father because you consented to this. It is the only way.”

Aaron spat again, but his dry mouth yielded little. The line moved slowly, the sun baking their shadows onto the ground behind them.

As they approached the river, Aaron’s throat constricted from thirst.

But this river was not fit to drink. Shallow and murky, the surface a skein of filth.

“Perhaps I should tell your father that his daughter has been seduced by a cult.”

“My father knows. He was cleansed a fortnight past.”

“Your father?” Aaron could not believe it. Her father had clout and status. Why would he jeopardize that by fooling around with fanatics?

Aaron stared at the river, confused. Another person waded into the center. Unclean, smelling of work and sweat, someone’s servant.

The man known as the Baptist laid hands on the zealot’s shoulders and plunged him underneath the scummy waves.

Then the Baptist yelled in a cracked voice, about sin and rebirth and Jehovah. A few seconds later the servant was released, gasping for air.

“He has been saved,” Rebekah said. “John has cleansed his soul.”

Aaron frowned. The man did not look saved. He looked muddy and disoriented.

“You are a fool, Rebekah. This talk of souls and one god is illegal and dangerous.”

“It works, Aaron. I have heard the tales. Healing the lame. The sick. Purging anger and hatred from men’s hearts.”

“I will not let that fool dunk my head in that putrid water.”

“Good day, Father.”

Aaron followed her eye line, turned.

Rebekah’s father Mark smiled at Aaron, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“There is nothing to fear, Aaron. The stories are true. At my baptism, I felt as if released from bondage. I felt my soul shrug off the chains of sin and soar like a bird.”

Aaron stared into Mark’s twinkling, smiling eyes and calmed a bit.

“I am not afraid, Mark.”

“Good. You are next.”

Rebekah and her father stepped onto the bank with Aaron. The warm water lapped against his toes.

“Am I to go alone?”

“We are family,” Rebekah said. “We shall all go together.”

She took his hand, a gesture that she had not made since their wedding day. As a unit, they waded over to the man called John.

“Are you ready to cast aside sin and be reborn in the glorious love of your Father, Jehovah?”

Aaron looked at Rebekah’s father. The older man smiled, nodded.

“Yes,” Aaron said. A quick dunk and it would be over.

John put his hands upon Aaron’s shoulders and shoved him downward.

The water was hot, alive against his skin. Aaron’s shoulders were pressed down to the bottom and the muck parted to accept him.

He held his breath, straining to hear the words John would speak.

But John spoke nothing.

Aaron shifted, placing a hand on John’s thick wrist. He gave it small squeeze, a signal to begin.

The wrist did not yield.

Aaron felt another hand upon him, and then a weight against his chest.

He grasped at it.

A foot.

Alarm coursed through Aaron. Something was wrong. He opened his eyes, peered up through the murk.

John held him firm, Rebekah hunched beside him. Her eyes were venom, and it was her foot that pinned down Aaron’s chest.

Aaron tried to twist and thrash, but he had no leverage. A burst of precious air escaped his lungs, bubbling violently up through his field of vision in an endless stream.

This crazy cult was going to murder him.

He reached out his hand, grasping at Rebekah’s father. He could not allow this.

Mark caught his wrist, held it tight…and pushed Aaron deeper into the mud.

Aaron screamed, sucked in a breath. The water tasted sour and burned the inside his lungs as if they’d inhaled fire instead. He pried at John’s fingers with his free hand, and a moment of clarity flashed through the chaotic panic in his mind.

This was not John the Baptist. He’d seen this man before. He was a servant of Rebekah’s father.

The crowd by the river. They’d all been Mark’s servants.

And through the weighty distortion of the water, he could hear them cheering.