by Bodie Thoene
Dressed in a plain tunic, with his shaggy mop of dark auburn hair, Carta could go anywhere without arousing suspicion. Marcus had no problem using the boy as his eyes and ears.
Carta frowned with thought. “They say there is a new prophet out in the wilderness, near the Jordan River. Some say he preaches about right and wrong. God judging us, too.”
“So far he sounds like every rabbi in this country,” Marcus said.
“But some rich men . . . the ones who wear the leather things on their foreheads?”
“Pharisees? Yes, boy, go on.”
“They say the preacher better be careful.” Carta shivered. “He says Herod has married his brother’s wife, and God will smite him for that. They say Herod will call it treason.”
“Caesar would,” Quintus observed. He casually dragged his thumb across his neck.
Marcus countered, “The plot of every Greek tragedy. Who really cares about a crazy man out in the wild?”
Carta shuffled his feet. “His name is John. John the Baptizer. Very popular with common folk. But Herod hates him, and Herodias hates him even more.”
Catching Marcus’s eye, Quintus raised one brow in reminder of their conversation about Herod’s queen. In the month since their arrival in Judea, Marcus had worked hard to stay out of reach of the Herodian spider’s web . . . and her daughter’s.
Carta concluded, “The cheesemaker told the fig seller that Herod’s wife . . . she will have John killed one of these days.”
Marcus stiffened. With that much talk in the marketplace about a crazy preacher, perhaps he had been too quick in dismissing the threat this John the Baptizer posed to law and order. If the preacher had popular support and ended up dead via the hand of the vixen Herodias, there could be riots.
“Possible Jewish rebellion,” Quintus noted.
“Possible trouble anyway,” Marcus agreed. “Good work, Carta. Keep your ears open and your mouth shut.”
Carta nodded, his face beaming with joy at the praise.
“What do you say, Quintus?” Marcus asked. “Is a Jewish preacher worth riding into the wilderness to investigate? Whether he is prophet or traitor? Better to let the new governor know what he’s facing, eh?”
Chapter 12
A four-foot swell broke against the cutwater of the ship. Though named after the winged god Mercury, the galley was anything but swift. The hull balanced on each crest and then plunged into the following trough. Clean, bracing spray raced aft along the deck.
Seated with Claudia on crates lashed just behind the ship’s prow, Philo lifted his chin into the spindrift. The grinning boy relished the rise and fall of the ship’s motion. Seemingly endless days, nights, and weeks of ceaseless, monotonous rowing by three banks of oarsmen had been required to carry the merchant vessel from Rome and then into and out of Alexandria, Egypt, thus far.
While Jono and Pilate groaned in seasick misery below deck, Philo and Claudia enjoyed the ride. Starling chirped with joy as her cage swung from a peg of the mast. Hope!
Does the bird sense that each mile carries her closer to her flock? Claudia wondered.
On the last leg of the journey to Judea, it seemed their luck had finally changed. The pair of sails, one forward and one amidships, bulged with the force of the breeze, and the Mercury raced northward.
The favorable wind dismantled Claudia’s coil of hair, but she did not mind. Getting her son’s attention, Claudia directed his gaze to the carved winged helmet capping the swan’s-neck-shaped stern post. “It seems the patron god of this ship is finally showing us his ability.”
An elderly Jewish passenger emerged from the companionway leading belowdecks. Claudia recognized him as one who came aboard at the Egyptian port. As if an unseen hand tugged him toward the land of the Jews, his flowing white hair and beard preceded him as he joined them beside the rail.
“It seems we are the only passengers able to stand,” the old man noted to Philo. Then his eyes fell on the crooked bare foot of the boy.
“I cannot stand, sir. But today I am flying,” Philo said happily. “Like my bird will fly when her wing is mended.”
This reply pleased the elder. “And . . . what is your name, young sir, and where are you headed?”
Philo was polite but eager to share his joy. “Philo is my name.”
The newcomer tilted his head to one side so that the gale cleared the long strands from his eyes. He addressed a question to Claudia. “Philo? The name of a noble Jewish scholar in Alexandria. Golden eyes, like your little bird. A rare color. Golden eyes are a feature I have seen only among my people. Are you perhaps also Jewish?”
“My mother. And her mother was a Jewess from Alexandria. I never met her. My son and I are from Rome.”
“Ah? Well, then. In the words of the Almighty to Father Abraham, ‘Count the stars if you can.’ Because of your mother and grandmother, you and your son are children of Abraham.”
Brushing spray from her face, Claudia continued, “My mother died when I was just a child. A great beauty, yet a woman of great sorrow.” Claudia frowned, concerned she had been too open with this stranger. She shrugged. “But I know nothing more about her religion.”
“Well, young Philo,” the man said, smiling at the boy, “carry your name with pride. The philosopher with whom you share a name has written, ‘Be kind to all, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.’ ”
Claudia was pleased. “He sounds like a kind man, as well as a wise one, this Philo. And since we are to live in the land of the Jews, I’m very glad to hear what you say.”
The older man bowed deeply. “Pardon me for not introducing myself already. I am Josephus the Elder, scribe and teacher of Jewish law. Bound for Jerusalem, where”—he lifted a bony finger into the gale—“great change is in the wind.”
“We’re going to Jerusalem too,” Philo piped. “My father is taking us there.”
“Ah? This wind carries you far from Rome.”
Claudia explained, “I hope it isn’t an ill wind. My husband, Pontius Pilate, is appointed by Caesar to be the new governor of Judea.”
Raising his bushy eyebrows, Josephus scanned the deck for the Roman official or his guards.
Correctly interpreting the unspoken question, Claudia replied, “My husband is below. State business—”
“He’s sick,” Philo interjected. “Ever since the ship started going up and down. But I love it!”
Josephus nodded gravely. “I will bring his health before the Almighty in my prayers,” he promised. Then to Claudia he added, “And I will pray your husband governs your grandmother’s people, our people, with justice and mercy. That he will be every bit as just as you are beautiful.”
Claudia stiffened, and her face reddened with more than the wind’s kiss. “My husband is . . .”
Philo looked up sharply, attentive to what his mother was about to say.
Claudia relaxed her shoulders and concluded, “Is just a man, like any other man.”
Josephus put a hand on Philo’s shoulder and patted it gently. “Our Philo also teaches that the choices made by ordinary men and women can profoundly alter the course of history. If true, then all words spoken and deeds, done or not done, may be important.”
Claudia was grateful for the cooling mist. She nodded but said no more.
Despite Marcus’s vow to investigate the prophet named John the Baptizer, other matters had claimed his attention.
Bandits and rebels attacking caravans drew the Primus Pilus far from Jerusalem.
Day after dusty day, he brought order to the area, capturing the rabble-rousers. Cynica
l, hostile expressions of the common folk followed Marcus and his legionaries. Even at night, he didn’t relax his guard.
But every once in a while, he would dream of a beautiful red-haired woman. He would remember the feel of her in his arms, her heart beating next to his, like a fragile bird, safe in his nest. He would turn to kiss her and . . .
It was always at that moment he would awake with a deep ache to the reality of the hard ground of Judea under him, wishing their story had a different ending.
Chapter 13
When order had been restored to Judea, Marcus, accompanied by Carta, Quintus, and a cohort of legionaries, marched out of Jerusalem and down into the valley of the Jordan. They tramped over stones worn smooth by generations of pilgrims. The air was still filled with dust compounded of goat droppings and camel dung from the many who had traversed the path recently, seeking the preacher.
Stopping a traveler coming away from the river, Marcus asked, “Do you know where the man called ‘the Baptizer’ is preaching?”
The response was a fearful stare, a vacant shrug, and a violent shake of the head.
“John the Baptizer? Have you seen him?” Quintus inquired of a group at a crossroads. A Jewish mother snatched up her toddler, and her husband put a protective arm around them both. No one replied.
Marcus glimpsed pure hatred in the man’s eyes.
At a spot marked by the stump of an oak fully eight feet across, knots of people converged from both north and south. The buzz of eager conversation was squelched by the arrival of the Romans, but not before Marcus learned what he wanted. “This is the spot, right enough. The man called John is down at the river.”
The armed soldiers wheeled onto the smaller road. Many in the crowd turned back. Other onlookers parted sullenly, standing amid the clumps of willows and glaring silently as the Roman troops passed.
“Quintus,” Marcus said, “they think we’re coming to arrest him. I won’t learn anything if we scare him off. Leave the squad here. You, Carta, and I will go on alone.”
Carta was all eagerness. Marcus trusted that two men and a servant boy, even if sent by Rome, did not pose any threat.
John was heard long before he was seen.
The trail skirted a knoll covered in red anemones and golden poppies. The rising and falling cadence of a stridently piercing voice cascaded above the buzz of the crowd.1
“The time has come for you to change your hearts!” a stern, masculine voice declared. “Look inside. You know the truth about yourselves. Rend your hearts, and not your garments. The Almighty is giving you one last chance!”
Leaning toward the centurion, Quintus muttered, “Your pardon if I’m out of line, sir, but if this is a sample of his preaching, he’s no threat as a leader. People want to hear pleasant things, not harsh words.”
“True most places,” Marcus returned, “but these are Jews, remember? Perhaps only pointed speech like that penetrates their hard skulls.”
At the next turning of the trail they saw him—broadly built, like a laborer in a stone quarry, with a wild mop of coal-black hair hanging below his shoulders. He wore a simple tunic of camel skin, with a wide leather belt around his middle. His sable beard was long, parted, and braided, and his skin bronzed from the harsh Judean sun. He stood on a boulder a few yards out in the water, gripping a smooth wooden staff in his left hand.
Tugging Marcus’s elbow, Carta inquired fearfully, “Is he Cherusci? He looks like one of the wild men of the forest.”
Planting himself a little above and to the side of the crowd stretched along the riverbank, Marcus studied the audience while the prophet with dark, brooding eyes raved on.
“You steal and betray and cheat the people you are supposed to be leading. You sons of vipers!” Lifting an arm that displayed muscles like corded rope, John reached his right hand toward a knot of well-dressed onlookers. “How do you think you will escape the wrath of the Son of David when he comes?”
The crowd was made up of many different parts of Jewish life—wealthy and poor, powerful and humble, meek and menacingly hostile. Despite being elbow to elbow and jostling for a better view, these groups did not mingle but remained distinct from one another.
A barrel-chested man wearing the headgear that identified a member of the Pharisee sect objected to John’s words. “Watch how you speak. We are true sons of Abraham!”
John nodded gravely as if carefully considering the reply. Then, even louder than before and more scathing yet, he said, “And you comfort yourself with such words . . . while you conspire with foreigners to rob the true sons of Abraham.” Thrusting his staff aloft, he stamped it forcefully three times on the boulder with a sound of hammer blows. “Listen—the Almighty can make better sons of Abraham out of these stones. Because they are already washed clean while you remain wallowing in your filth!”
The members of the pious brotherhood of Pharisees scowled. The crowd laughed at their discomfort, and the Pharisees grimaced all the more.
Quintus remarked, “This fellow’s more abusive than a nagging wife!”
Shaking his head, Marcus turned away from the spectacle. “And so he is no one Rome or Herod Antipas need worry about. The common folk may laugh at his antics, but soon enough the Pharisees and the other rich Jews will kill him. Carta, come, boy. We’re leaving.”
“Prepare yourself. Turn from sin. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent of your sins and be baptized to show your change of heart,” John urged. A surge of poorly dressed onlookers splashed into the current to stand knee deep in the river around his stony pulpit.
John’s bellowing voice followed Marcus, Quintus, and Carta back up the draw almost as far as the main road. “Messiah is already at work among us and will soon be revealed. You will know the true master of God’s vineyard by his fruit. Come. Repent and come to the water. Let the mercy of the Almighty wash you clean!”
The squad of soldiers lounging in the shade leapt to their feet. Marcus told Quintus, “Prophets are ten for a penny in this cursed land. This John will have his moment of fame and then vanish like a straw floating down the Jordan.”
John the Baptizer was no threat to Rome, Marcus told himself again as he, Quintus, and Carta headed back to the Antonia. Still, he pondered the man known as a Jewish prophet. “Do you see anything mysterious about him?” he asked Quintus.
“Strange, yes; mysterious, no,” Quintus returned. “They say he refuses wine and lives with the wild beasts by choice!” The guard sergeant tapped his forehead. “Diviners in Rome live in fine houses and keep servants. Clearly, this mad fellow is failing at his trade.”
Marcus agreed there was nothing mysterious about the man, except perhaps how he managed to offend the powerful and still continue breathing.
Pavor, Marcus’s fiery black stallion whose name meant “terror,” snorted as a starling flew out of a clump of brambles.
John the Baptizer claimed no special access to the gods. He did not offer any miracles as proof of a divine appointment. He thundered against wrongdoing, but accusing the Temple authorities of greed only restated what all the common Jews already believed.
No, he was no threat. An annoyance, no doubt, but no threat. As soon as the weather turned rougher either with heat and scorching wind or with violent rain, John’s popularity would end, Marcus decided. The crowds would desert him for someone in more attractive surroundings.
“I have heard of Abraham,” Carta said suddenly. “The Jews talk about him. But who is the Son of David?”
Marcus knew little about the beliefs of the Jews, except what he had learned from a bit of reading and his own observations since arriving in Judea. Even so, this was a question he could answer. “The Jews have a stor
y . . . a legend, really,” he explained. “It’s in their holy books. It tells of a liberator called a messiah. The stories tell how he will appear and restore their nation to greatness, like it was in the age of a great Hebrew king named David. So, Son of David. It’s a myth. Nothing more.”
“Messiah,” Carta repeated.
Quintus growled, “Some men have claimed that title before.”
Marcus nodded. “Yes, and been imprisoned or executed for their claims.”
A band of high, lacework clouds raced past overhead, though no wind could be felt at ground level. Glancing up, Marcus had the sudden impression that the sky was holding steady and the earth moving very rapidly beneath it. Something evidently communicated this sense to Pavor too. The black warhorse stomped nervously. His hooves drummed on the hard earth.
“As soon as each was arrested, the mobs melted like gobs of fat on a blazing altar.” Marcus laughed. “The rabble may think they want a liberator, but they will not tolerate a loser. It’s been two hundred years since the last Jewish leader gathered an army that lasted more than a single summer.”
“Master,” Carta said, “I hear people talking in the market. They hate Herod.”
Marcus shrugged. “He’s fat and lazy and not a Jew.”
“They also hate their high priest,” Carta added. “Just like that man back there said.”
Now the wind from aloft reached the valley floor. A dusty spiral dashed toward the soldiers as if challenging them for the road. The vortex leapt aside right before reaching them. A sharp smell was carried by the breeze. It reminded Marcus of those nose-piercing unguents preferred by athletes for massages. It was not unpleasant but seemed out of place somehow.
“The high priest of the Jews is supposed to come from only one of their twelve tribes,” Marcus explained. “And it should be handed down, father to son. This man, Caiaphas, like his father-in-law before him, bought the office from Rome.”