My escort whispers in Latin to the astrologer and passes me on his way out. Following him with my eyes, I see that two stiff young soldiers with Roman daggers at their belts guard the door.
Augustus Sallustius picks up my scroll and summons me forward. I ease Ayin to the floor, approach my host and thank him for granting me an audience, though my voice – quavering – reveals my apprehension too clearly for my liking. When I am two paces from him, he holds up his hand.
If you do not speak like a man, then why would I heed what you have to say? he seems to be asking with his questioning eyes.
I begin to stutter further expressions of gratitude until he asks for silence in Greek.
I drop to my knees and press my brow to the floor for a count of eleven, which is the numerical value of the Hebrew word, ga’ah, to triumph. When I look up, the astrologer dangles his hand out for me to kiss. On his fingers I scent myrrh and some other sour-sweet fragrance I am unable to identify. Sumac? On his index finger he wears a golden band crowned by a cabochon sapphire the size of a cherry.
As I lean back from him, Augustus Sallustius’ eyes glow darkly with amusement, as if in response to a silent jest. A part of my spirit steps backs and observes, while another part – surprising me with its courage – rises up to meet him.
He seems a cat-like creature – regal and aloof. Is he drugged with poppy or some other soporific? Throughout our conversation, he closes his eyes at the most surprising moments, as though plunging in his thoughts towards a well-deserved sleep.
Now that I am kneeling close to him, I see the vulturine folds of skin on his neck, which tell me that he might be a good deal older than I first thought – even as old as sixty-five or seventy.
He addresses me in Latin, which forces me apologize for being an ignorant Ionian, unworthy of an audience with so formidable and influential an astrologer, but with an important tiding that I –
He cuts me short with a raised finger. ‘I knew you’d come,’ he says in Greek. ‘I’ve seen you in dreams.’
‘Great are the powers of Augustus Sallustius,’ I say, and, for the first time in my life, I feel the tingling, perverse pleasure of what it must be like to worship a Pharaoh or king – the baseness of it, the ceding of all control, the acceptance of our own inadequacy.
Footsteps reach us from somewhere below the floor. I hear muffled speech as well. Augustus Sallustius closes his eyes and leans his head forward to listen. Or perhaps to send an order for silence through channels unseen to me, for the voices soon fade.
If I survive this day, how shall I explain the depth of my disorientation to Yeshua? I think. I didn’t know if I was meant to stand back up or remain kneeling, I shall tell him, and together we shall ridicule the etiquette of tyrants.
Augustus Sallustius shuffles across the chamber, his hands joined behind his back. He sits on a throne of Egyptian design with a seat of shimmering scarlet, a golden back and arms inlaid with alternating stripes of lapis lazuli and turquoise.
He surrounds himself with colour, I think, like a blind man who has only recently gained back his vision.
Later, I shall speculate on whether his childhood of penury is the grey he is fleeing.
Here is what his cool and languid gaze tells me now: I never need to look beyond myself. I am enough.
When he squeezes his eyes closed, he speaks to himself in a language unfamiliar to me. I have been told that Mithras-worshippers make use of a personal spirit-guide, and perhaps Augustus Sallustius was then giving him orders.
While permitting myself a furtive look around the room, I realize – discomfited by my previous ignorance – that we are conversing in what is likely the top half of a sphere. In that case, the lower half would be below the floor. Might it be the Mithraeum?
The silence my host summons to the room soon closes in on me so tightly that I fear that he has uncovered my ruse through his mastery of the curious arts. Again I ask for Yeshua’s help, and, as I speak to him in my mind, a strange calm comes over me, and I sense that my own voice is the way forward and that it will see me to safety, so I start to tell my story to Augustus Sallustius, cautiously at first, and, since he does not interrupt, I allow it to tumble out of me with what I hope is a convincing urgency.
As I tell him of how I left for Yerushalayim four days before, his eyes open and he steps to the statue behind his desk – an emerald-eyed Apollo subduing the serpent who guards Delphi. He takes hold of the quiver fastened to the god’s back, which seems an indirect way of telling me something he cannot say with words, but, at the time, I do not know what it could be. All I notice is that Apollo’s face looks oddly familiar.
Am I too nervous to see his connection to Augustus Sallustius?
I speak to the astrologer of how I was walking with a friend the evening before, only an hour’s distance from Yerushalayim, and that, as soon as my companion mentioned having recently caught a glimpse of Pilatus near the Imperial Theatre, a blazing star slashed across the violet dusk directly ahead of us, crashing through a grove of pines. ‘We hurried after it,’ I say, ‘and found, to our astonishment, an owl whose wings had been broken by his fall, with an unusual silver ornament attached to one of his feet.’
I reach into my pouch and draw out the satyr given me by Lucius. He nods towards his throne, so I place it on the arm nearest him, and he studies it with arched eyebrows.
‘I give it to you as a token of my esteem and goodwill,’ I tell him.
He takes it in his fist, sits on his throne and gestures towards Ayin. ‘Is that the owl that fell from the sky?’
‘Yes.’
The astrologer summons one of his guards. ‘Bring me the owl,’ he orders.
I quickly snatch Ayin up and warn the guard away, since Augustus Sallustius likely intends to sacrifice him and read the future from his entrails.
Ought I to have given up Ayin up to help Yeshua? I see now that perhaps I made a fatal mistake by protecting him. But I also know that witnessing his slaughter would have shattered my composure – and made it impossible for me to maintain my assumed identity.
‘Forgive me, noble Augustus Sallustius,’ I say, ‘but I dare not part with so sacred a messenger. He has been entrusted to me by the goddess Minerva, and she obliged me to vow that I’d care for him. She told me that unspeakable misfortunes would befall the Romans of Judaea if he were ever taken from me.’
‘Why would Minerva speak to you?’ he questions, as if the very idea is absurd.
‘Because I have trained myself to hear the gods, even their murmurs and whispers – and I obey their commands.’
‘Which gods have you trained yourself to hear?’
‘All of them?’
‘Including gods of the Judaeans?’
‘They have but one.’
‘So I have heard, though I do not entirely believe it. And do you speak your prayers to this lonely immortal?’
‘Yes, my father was a Jew from the Galilee.’
He licks his lips as though he is about to use my revelation to trap me. But his keen interest in my story has excited my own potential for subterfuge and trickery. Indeed, living under a false identity seems a promising form of freedom. I’d have saved myself a hundred damaging quarrels had I worn a mask since childhood, I reason.
I am about to speak more of Minerva when asks me to tell him more about my mentor, Demosthenes. ‘I’ve heard of him, but we’ve never met,’ he adds.
‘He would rejoice to hear that word of his prowess has reached you here in Judaea, honourable Augustus Sallustius,’ I reply, and I go on to speak of his most celebrated divinations.
As I am building to my climax – his prediction of a volcanic eruption on Thira that saved thousands of lives – my host cuts me off. ‘And what demonstration can you give me of your own powers?’ he asks.
‘Demonstration? Here and now?’
‘Where else?’
Panic makes me gaze down, and I hear a voice, and it belongs to Lucius, and I do not know whether i
t is Yeshua’s intervention or my own reliable memory that rescues me, but my employer speaks the word insula, and, though it is one seemingly insignificant noun in a language that will never be mine, it is all I need to know.
I start towards the astrologer, and I do not stop when he signals for me to come no closer, since my impertinence will either impress or irritate him, and either reaction will make him easier to steer towards the destination I have in mind. ‘You’ve asked me give you proof, and I shall find it inside your own eyes!’ I declare to him.
‘I forbid you to come any closer!’ he snarls.
‘It won’t be necessary – I’ve already discovered all I need,’ I assure him.
Who can say exactly where my courage comes from? And how I am able to subdue my terror that I am running out of time to save Yeshua? I hold the augur’s gaze and speak in the confident, entranced voice of the oculomancer whose identity I have assumed. ‘I see a boy who has been cursed by the gods of Rome. He is unimposing in stature and unsure of his place in the world. His clothes are rags, and his belly is hollow, and he must climb …’ I close my eyes and grimace, as if interpreting what I saw in his dark irises is proving too difficult for me. ‘I see that there are seven hills inside this young man, and the gods have decreed that he must climb up and over each of them in order to reach his home on the eighth summit.’ I extend a trembling hand to reach out to the poor youth he once was. ‘He makes his bed there each night, in a high wilderness where neither plants nor trees can grow, and he dreams of escape, but he –’
‘Enough!’ Augustus Sallustius shouts.
He points a menacing finger at me. ‘Never speak of this boy or those hills again, or I’ll have your tongue cut out!’
‘Yes, noble Augustus Sallustius.’
He leans back in his throne. ‘Now tell me what Minerva told you. And be quick!’
‘She vouchsafed me a message for you. A man will be arrested and brought to this palace, but if he is killed his spectre will haunt its every corner, and no Roman working here will ever know a moment’s peace again.’
‘And who is this prisoner?’
‘A magician. Far greater than Shimon of Samaria. Divine Minerva told me he is the most powerful since Shelomoh.’ With my right hand, I make the abrupt slashing movement that indicates imminent catastrophe amongst the Ionians and other Greek-speaking peoples. ‘She also told me that he is sure to avenge himself against you for being imprisoned. He must be set free without delay.’
‘I have no fear of any man!’ he says with an imperious expression.
‘But this is no mere man,’ I improvise. ‘Minerva told me that he is the son of a god.’
‘The son of a god? Which one?’ He leans back, incredulous.
‘Picus. Apparently Mars sent him to earth to impregnate a Galilean maiden.’
How Picus enters my mind at that moment, I cannot say, though I have confessed to you my deep fascination for birds, and a god with wings must have seemed the perfect choice to the nameless and unseen part of me that always seeks to guarantee my safety.
One moment a man has no memory of the bird-god who swooped and soared through his youth, and the next that creature of feather, air and light is the lord of all his hopes.
Augustus Sallustius combs a tense hand back through his long grey hair, which leads me to believe that I have convinced him of the truth of my words.
‘What is the name of this son of Picus?’ he asks.
I would not wish to display too much knowledge of Yeshua, for that might give away my motive, so I tell him that the goddess refused to grant me his name. ‘All she would tell me is that he is a Jew from the Galilee. Apparently he is a sorcerer who has taken the guise of a woodworker – which is only to be expected, of course, since he is the son of Picus. I suspect that Minerva will honour only you, noble Augustus Sallustius, with his earthly name, which is why I rushed to you this morning. I beg you to heed the goddess’s warning and order this magician escorted far beyond the borders of Judaea, for, if he is wounded or killed, he or his spectre will avenge himself against you and the Imperial Prefect and all your descendants for seven generations.’
He gazes up at the constellations as though to search for the reply his gods would want of him. After his lips move over an incantation or prayer, he snatches up the silver charm from the arm of his throne, gazing at it as though he has only just now grasped its meaning. ‘What else can you tell me of this magician?’ he asks.
‘Nothing more. Minerva spoke to me as I gazed into the eyes of the owl she had sent me, but all too soon she withdrew into a silence so deep that I knew she had returned to Olympus, and I have failed since then to coax her back to me. Perhaps she will soon speak to you and give you the name she has withheld from me.’
‘Eliezer!’
After I emerge into the daylight, and while I am confirming that Yirmi has obeyed my orders and gone home, a man calls my name. To my astonishment, Loukas and Shimon are hailing me from fifty paces away.
My attendant notices my unease. ‘Do you know those men over there?’
‘No, I don’t recognize them,’ I say, and I gaze down and away, so that they will understand that I want to be left alone.
Unfortunately, my two friends stride towards me, and Shimon calls my name again. Does he not see that my hair has been dyed and that I am wearing a stranger’s clothing?
‘Eliezer, what’s happened?’ Loukas calls out.
The attendant, overly curious – perhaps sensing my masquerade – rushes off towards him and Shimon. I gaze around the square to see which way I shall run. If I can make it to the jewellers’ quarter, then …
‘Do you know that man?’ the attendant enquires, pointing back at me.
I dare not shake my head or make any other signal. Destiny has caught me, and I am paralysed by the irony of having my life menaced by well-meaning friends, here and now, in a place where I was certain I had rediscovered safety.
And this I decide: a sword shall set my soul free if Shimon unmasks me, for I shall charge the palace doors and curse the soldiers stationed there until one of them grants me a quick and merciful death. Need you ask why, Yaphiel? The torture of being nailed to a cross might very well make me denounce my most cherished friends and lament even my bond with Yeshua. What is more, my children are of a tender age, and I would not wish them to see me hanging from a cross or, even worse, turned to charred bones and ash by burning pitch.
But Loukas, who speaks Greek fluently, turns my destiny back towards life. ‘No, I’ve never seen him,’ he declares.
That single denial added at least another thirty years to my life, which is proof – if you needed it, Yaphiel – that each and every moment is a door.
Shimon is quick to catch on and adds an explanation. ‘I thought he was my cousin, but as you know, we Jews look very alike, and that man over there … I see now that he is a full palm too small.’
Only after I am out of sight of Herod’s Palace do I dare to pause. I am standing by a saddle-maker’s shop, and, after I ease Ayin to the ground, I drop down on to the street, breathing heavily, my tears flowing freely.
If angels see with their eyes what we feel in our hearts – as I have been told – then they will recognize the glowing shape of my gratitude to the Lord for having helped me escape with my life.
A drizzle has started to fall, so my reprieve becomes the sound of that rain and the moist glory of it refreshing my upraised hands and face.
Yirmi runs to me and throws his arms around me while I am considering whether I have the strength to climb to the Upper Town and report back to Lucius on my audience with Augustus Sallustius. A stern part of me wishes to chastise the boy for disobeying me, but what father could turn away a trembling son?
Yirmi has bad news, however: ‘Yeshua was led into the palace a little while after you entered. He was bound with ropes, just as Andreas described.’
‘Were Loukas and Shimon with him?’
‘No, he was alone.’
My son rests his hand on my shoulder. ‘Maybe we should move closer to the palace, so we can see who comes out.’
He squats with me while alternatives circle inside my head. Soon my thoughts are drawn to Augustus Sallustius and his statue of Apollo. It’s obvious now that they share the same hands and face – that’s what I failed to see before. The astrologer must have served as a model for the Roman deity.
Let Yeshua bow before a false god just this once, I pray, though I know he will not.
43
Yirmi and I find an ideal place to keep watch on the square fronting Herod’s Palace at the small marketplace on Jeweller’s Street. We squat on our heels between the stall of a fruit-seller and workbench of a basket-maker, where we can remain largely hidden while following the movements of people and animals through one of the entrances to the square, which lies about two hundred paces west.
Word has spread of Yeshua’s arrest, and hundreds of his followers have assembled in front of the palace over the last hours to await word of him. A phalanx of legionaries has crossed the square at least three times over the last hour, their swords drawn, ordering the crowd to disperse, which explains why we have occasionally witnessed waves of men and women fleeing into our street.
I question those who come down from the square to our marketplace, but no one has seen any prisoners released this day.
I ponder out what to do if Yeshua is not released by sundown and conclude that I shall visit his mother and brother Yaaqov, and we shall discuss the bribes we ought to pay. If they agree, I shall go to Lucius and prevail upon him to approach his friends amongst the Roman elite and tell him to promise my stocks of Parosian marble and Egyptian porphyry to the first of them who vows to intercede on our behalf. If more is required, I shall offer my scroll of In the Beginning and our silver candlesticks and all else of value that Mia and I possess.
The Gospel According to Lazarus Page 31