According to Mary Magdalene by Marianne Fredriksson Page A

began by flattering me. I was one of his best officers. He couldn't manage without me. My knowledge of the caravan routes through Syria was invaluable. When all the grand talk failed to have any effect, he took to power language, tore up my resignation application, and snapped that the expedition would begin within a week.
    “I went to Euphrosyne. But you must remember that moment yourself.”
    Yes, she remembered the invulnerable Leonidas sitting on a stool, crying like a child.
    “I won't tell you about being captured by those damned Bedouins who ambushed and killed my soldiers in the desert. I presume they were useful years. I had to learn what it meant to be a slave, despised and mocked, whipped when the gentlemen wanted some fun. I was no hero. I was feeble, wept, and begged for mercy, which only increased their pleasure. And I was a poor slave, unused to manual work. They kept me alive because one of them had recognized me as the son of a rich silk merchant in Antioch. The negotiations over the ransom went on for years, but at that time my miserly brother-in-law was head of the merchant house. Then fortunately he died and Livia took over. She almost ruined the firm, paid up, and got me released.”
    “Blessed Livia.”
    “Yes. But I've done my bit.”
    He laughed. “No one escapes his destiny. I became a silk merchant, just as Father had decided. As far as you're concerned…”
    The words hung in the air.
    “Not until I was going to tell Livia about my daughter in Galilee did it dawn on me that you were now adult. I had to change my words and tell her about a young woman I loved. But that was also true.”
    “But not as she believed.”
    “No. She wanted nephews and nieces, heirs descended down the family.”
    “We share the blame,” said Mary, but Leonidas groaned. She thought about how entangled in lies they were.
    “You know the rest,” said Leonidas in a thin voice. “I went to Rome and signed a very advantageous agreement. My years as a centurion came in useful, as well as my connections and my reputation as a hero. It was said that I had managed to escape from the Parthians, an enemy I had never even seen.
    “Yes, by all the gods. Shortly after the trip to Rome, I went back to Palestine, found Euphrosyne, who was on the point of leaving and going back to Corinth. And she told me the incredible story of Jesus of Nazareth.”
    The next day, Mary was working alone in the library. As she made a clean copy of her notes, she kept feeling something essential had been said. She looked through the notes and her memories, then stopped at the doll she did not remember, and found words she did not understand.
    The children who belonged in the kingdom of heaven, that spontaneous manifestation of life, the joy. Lilies of the field, flowers that praise God by growing and not worrying about the future. Something else Jesus had said the first time she had met him, that spring when the swallows were flying north over their heads, something about the complete trust birds had in the winds.
    He never said nature was beautiful.
    God is creating now, she thought, at this moment.
    That night she dreamt about Quintus, the Roman boy who had taught her at least one game.

A letter came from Leonidas, a cheerful, jolly missive assuring her he would soon be back in Tiberias, but already at first reading she knew he was lying, that he was not only deceiving himself, but also trying to deceive her.
    Then nothing.
    Euphrosyne went to the new tribune and was received with malicious friendliness and thanked for the orderly and sophisticated way in which she dealt with her activities. It was extremely important for the morale of the soldiers, he told her.
    An old man, tired and finished.
    Euphrosyne quickly told him about the child she had undertaken to care for on behalf of the centurion Leonidas. Now she wanted to know where Leonidas was.
    He looked troubled, called for his scribe, who took out the reports from the Roman expedition