The Testimonium

by Lewis Ben Smith

  The dinner was superb, both due to the excellent food and the fact that they had skipped lunch in their focus on the contents of the reliquary. The friendly Spanish restaurateur seemed to think that all of them were suffering from chronic malnutrition, and kept bringing out additional side dishes that they had not even ordered. When Dr. Rossini gently protested, she blushed and fled to the kitchen.

  Isabella looked at her mentor and grinned. “Something you are not telling me, Giuseppe?” she asked.

  “No!” he snapped. Then he arched his eyebrows ever so slightly. “Not yet, at least.”

  She threw her head back and laughed, and Josh joined in. She looked at him intently for a moment. What if both she and her old friend were finding a second chance at love at the same time? Josh suddenly glanced her way, and it was her turn to blush and avert her gaze. She was somewhat excited and angry with herself at the same time. How could she develop such strong feelings so quickly, about a man she barely even knew? She decided then and there that she wanted to find out more about this man before her heart ran away with her any further.

  They sat at the table for two hours, excitedly discussing the chamber and their discoveries. So intent were they on their conversation that they did not notice the man in the white suit, two tables down, who intently listened to their every word. They only saw him when he gave them a friendly nod and smile as they left.

  After supper, they walked back to Rossini’s house. He bade them a cheerful good night and headed up the Via Tiberio a short time later. Josh had paused on the way back to the house to buy a Coke at the gift shop he’d discovered the night before, and he arrived at the villa just as Rossini was leaving. He watched the older man go with affection. Rossini was intelligent, articulate, funny, and also wise. Josh imagined that he would be a wonderful grandfather, and that made him think of his own grandfather, some ten years gone now. But thinking of Granddad Parker made him think of the impulse purchase he had made with his sodas, and he walked into the villa as the others stood in the den talking.

  “Ladies, and most reverent Father MacDonald,” he said. “Our evening just got booked!”

  Three pairs of eyes regarded him quizzically as he reached into the sack from the souvenir shop, bringing out a box of double six dominoes. “I am going to introduce you to the true sport of kings—Forty-Two!”

  MacDonald raised an eyebrow. “Laddie,” he said, “I am a student of monarchies past and present, and I can honestly say that I have never heard of any crowned heads playing dominoes!”

  “Who said anything about crowned heads?” Josh asked. “Barney and Betty King were the couple who taught Dad and I how to play the game, so we have called it the ‘Sport of Kings’ ever since.”

  “I thought forty-two was the answer to the Ultimate Question about Life, the Universe, and Everything!” said Dr. Apriceno.

  Josh laughed at the Douglas Adams reference. This lady was sharp. “It is indeed,” he said. “But it’s also a wicked fun domino game! Now, let’s gravitate to the table and your education shall begin!”

  They all knew how to play Spades, a card game with similar rules, so making the shift was pretty easy. Within an hour, they were bidding, setting, trumping, and plunging with wild abandon. Josh and Isabella managed to beat out MacDonald and Apriceno two games out of three, and before they knew it, it was a quarter till midnight. At this point the older two excused themselves, leaving the young couple in possession of the kitchen table.

  At first they discussed the incredibly lucky series of hands that had let them come from behind to win the last game, but then Isabella looked at Josh curiously. “All right,” she said. “I have been thinking for some time about our last conversation. I was going to tell you a little about myself when we were interrupted. As I said, I was born on a small farm in Tuscany . . .”

  For the next hour and half they talked, and she told him more than she had related to anyone since her husband’s death about her life, her hopes, her dreams. She wept all over again as she described the accident that robbed her of her husband Marc. Without even thinking about it, Josh put his arm around her and gave her a hug until the spasm of grief passed. Then, to take her mind off her newly remembered loss, he began relating a series of stories about his own rural Baptist childhood, most of them humorous. Before long she was weeping again, but this time with laughter. “Water snakes in the Baptistry!” she exclaimed. “My village priest would have exorcised you!”

  Josh laughed. “That might have been preferable to the trip behind the woodshed I had with my father!” he said. He looked at the clock. It was one-thirty in the morning. “My Lord, Isabella, we need to go to sleep!”

  She looked at the clock and was astonished at the time. “I had no idea it was this late,” she said. “We have to be up at six thirty!”

  “Well, I enjoyed getting to know you,” he said.

  “You made me laugh more tonight than I have in . . . . well, longer than I can remember,” she said. “Thank you.” And leaning up, she kissed him on the cheek before turning and heading to the guest room. Josh stood rooted to the spot for a very long time before he turned toward the sofa he had spread his bedding on.

  The next morning they got up a solid half hour after the other two. Josh was exhausted, and his hair was doing funny circus tricks as he stumbled toward the bathroom sink, looking for his toothpaste and brush to banish the taste of the trolls who had apparently used his mouth as their latrine sometime during the night. Isabella was also looking a bit haggard when she came stumbling in and sucked down two straight cups of black coffee in less than five minutes.

  Josh stumbled into the kitchen after brushing his teeth and opened the fridge to get the Coke he hadn’t quite finished the night before. To his astonishment, he saw an ice cold 20 oz. Dr Pepper waiting for him! He held it up and pressed the cold surface to his cheek. “Is it just me, or is this bottle radiating a golden light and heavenly music?” he asked.

  Isabella laughed. “I completely forgot that I bought that for you in Naples day before yesterday,” she said. “I was looking for something in my purse last night before bed and found it, so I popped it in the fridge for you.”

  “You are an angel of heaven incarnate,” he said as he took a long drink.

  “I’ll admit I had one myself when I bought yours,” she said. “Not bad stuff, as soft drinks go. But I still prefer Madeira!”

  “One of these days,” said MacDonald, “you are going to have to tell me whatever stories or anecdotes you were telling her after we went to bed. I couldn’t hear what you were saying, but her laughter carried through three walls!”

  So, as they walked up the Via Tiberio, Josh began relating the old Grady Nutt story about the “Baptist Sunday Bulletin Balcony Bombardier Brigade.” While some of the religious references were lost on the three Catholics, enough of the humor got through that all four of them were chuckling as they reached the top of the trail and approached the lab. Dr. Rossini was waiting, leaning on his cane, his face wreathed in smiles. “How pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” he quoted the Scriptures as they walked up to him.

  “You forget, Signor Doctore, forty percent of this group is sisters,” said Dr. Apriceno.

  “Trust me, dear lady,” he said, “your feminine charms, and those of the fair Dr. Sforza, are such that I could NEVER forget your gender! I was using ‘brethren’ in a completely gender neutral context.”

  She jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, and he grasped his side and moaned in mock dismay as she scowled at him. Isabella let them go on a moment, then said, “All right, team, it is time to face the greatest challenge yet. I think we need to move the reliquary before we attempt to open the locked compartment. How can we best accomplish this?”

  Giuseppe spoke up. “I had anticipated that we would remove it at some point today,” he said. “I think the best way to do it would be with a furniture dolly, after carefully wrapping it in soft cotton blankets. That way we can keep it upright
, only leaning it slightly backward or forward, all the way from the chamber to the lab. We will need to enlarge the opening to do this, and I have already marked which bricks we will need to remove to get the width we need.”

  “Where are we going to get a furniture dolly?” asked Josh.

  Rossini grinned. “Chief Rosario should be delivering it within the hour,” he said. “So let’s start removing some bricks!”

  In short order the archeologists had removed some twenty-two bricks from the entrance of the chamber, leaving the door very close to its original dimensions. Rossini had already numbered each brick and photographed it original placement, so that the wall could be reconstructed at some point if need be. They had just finished neatly stacking the ancient masonry to one side when a hullo drew their attention. Chief Rosario was at the edge of the site, with two of the burly security men blocking his path.

  “Giuseppe!” he shouted. “I do your bidding and you sic your goons on me? Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

  “Let him through, men,” said Isabella. “Chief, thank you so much for all your cooperation and assistance in this project since we began work. Is there any way we can repay you for your kindness?”

  “Absolutely!” he said. “Just let me have a tiny peek at what you have found.”

  Isabella and Rossini looked at each other for a long moment. Josh, Duncan, and Simone looked on with curiosity. “You are the director of this dig, my dear,” said Rossini. “But I will tell you that this man can keep anything you tell him in the strictest confidence.”

  “All right,” she said. “Just the five-minute tour, though!” She turned to Rosario. “How would you like to see the sword of Julius Caesar himself?”

  It was more like a half an hour, but when Chief Rosario walked down the hill he had a dazed expression on his face. A military history buff, he had actually trembled at the sight of their finds, and had sworn on his mother’s grave to honor the confidence they had shown in him.

  After he left, they took the packing blankets, bungee cords, and dolly into the chamber. The cabinet sat mute in the corner, its doors closed once more at the end of the previous day’s labor. “How do we go about this?” Isabella said. “We always hired movers when we had to relocate!”

  Josh laughed. “I worked at a furniture store in Hugo, Oklahoma, for two summers in high school, and one semester as a docent in a historic home while I was in college,” he said. “If there is one thing I know how to do, it is how to move delicate antique furniture!”

  The others watched as he draped the packing blankets over the cabinet and used bungee cords to bind them around it. Then he ever so gently eased the front side of the cabinet back, sliding the tongue of the dolly underneath it. He pulled the reliquary toward him, settling its weight on the dolly, and asked Isabella to hold it steady while he used more bungee cords to gently lash it to the dolly. Then he grasped the handles firmly and very slowly rolled it back to the entrance of the chamber.

  “Now,” he said, “I want us to grasp the dolly itself—not the cabinet, just hold it steady on the dolly!—and lift the whole thing through the entrance.” They all held their breath, but in a moment the process was complete. Josh looked askance at the ancient flagstones between the entrance and the mobile lab. While they were worn smooth with age, they were still rough enough to guarantee a bumpy ride to his ancient cargo. Rossini looked at him thoughtfully, thinking the same thing.

  “Lucien! Ibrahim!” he called. The two security guards came over quickly. “Can you help us VERY gently lift this cabinet into the trailer?” he asked. “Keep it upright at all costs!”

  “Of course,” said the burly Italian. With al-Ghazi and Josh helping to bear the weight and steady the load, the reliquary was safely deposited in the lab within moments. The two guards looked curiously at the objects in the various rehydration tanks and trays across the lab. Lucien Rigatorre gave a low whistle of amazement at the gladius lying on the sanitary tray. “Mama Maria!” he said. “Is that thing real?”

  “It is indeed,” said Dr. Sforza. “Two thousand years old and still sharp enough to cleave a skull!” They both stared for a moment as she briefly explained what it was and asked for their silence on the subject. Then she thanked the guards again for their help, and hustled them out the door as quickly as she politely could.

  Dr. MacDonald retrieved the key from the drawer he had placed it in, and Josh carefully unwrapped the blankets and checked the cabinet for damage. Finding none, he gently raised the latch and opened the doors. All four archeologists watched intently as MacDonald gently placed the key inside the ancient lock and tried to turn it. Nothing moved. He gently twisted the key in the opposite direction. Nothing. He let out a long sigh. “I think the lock is frozen with rust,” he said.

  Josh thought for a moment. “I think I have just the thing,” he said, walking over to the locker where he had stowed some of his professional gear. He returned with a blue and yellow spray can.

  “What on earth is that?” said Rossini.

  “WD-40,” said Josh. “The greatest lubricant on earth. In the South we use it on everything from frozen lug nuts to arthritic elbows.”

  “Absolutely NOT!” said Isabella. “Who knows what damage it might do to whatever is inside if you spray it straight through the keyhole?”

  “That’s where this comes in,” said Josh, pulling the tape off of the side of the can. What they had taken for a thin red stripe on the side of the can was actually a very narrow plastic tube that had been taped to it, looking for all the world like a drinking straw for someone whose jaw was wired shut. “I can attach this, insert it into the lock, and target the spray specifically at the tumblers, letting none of it go through to the inside of the compartment.”

  She looked at him skeptically. “Do you want to see inside this thing today, or not?” he finally asked.

  “Very well, Dr. Parker,” she said in a very stern voice. “But I will hold you personally responsible for any damage to whatever lies inside this compartment!”

  Josh saw that she meant it, so he used the utmost care as he inserted the red tube into the lock. He angled it straight up and sprayed a very short burst of lubricant, then angled it straight down and did another. “Done!” he said when he finished. “Let’s give it five minutes, and try the key again. That should give me just enough time to tell you about the three Baptist deacons and the circus clown!”

  They listened, first in irritation, then with smiles, and finally with hearty laughter as he told the old joke, which actually involved three deacons, the clown, an ostrich, and a midget. By the time he hit the punch line—“What do you mean, I must be hatched again?” the five minutes had passed. The chuckles quickly faded as they watched MacDonald lift the horse head key to the hole. He slowly turned it to the left, and there was an audible click as the ancient tumblers moved. The door sprang open a few inches, and with his acid-free gloves he opened it all the way. Isabella was filming as Josh shone the light into the long-sealed cubbyhole.

  Only a faint film of dust lay over the two scrolls that were inside. Each was sealed with faded red wax, bearing the now familiar signet of Tiberius Caesar. The scrolls appeared completely intact, though faded with age to a light brown color. His voice slightly trembling, MacDonald said “Josh, get me the padded forceps and two covered trays.” Parker scrambled to get two trays and cover them with acid-free paper. He found his own hands trembling slightly as he held out the first tray. MacDonald carefully lifted the first scroll with the padded forceps and placed it on the tray. Josh carried it to the table, and they clustered around to look at it. The seal had obviously been made with the same ring they had found on the writing table, but the remnants of an older, long-broken seal were visible beside it. The now familiar spidery handwriting of Tiberius had recorded a short description on the outside of the scroll. “C. Iuli Caesaris Augusti testamento ultimum,” read Josh. “‘The last will and testament of Caesar Augustus.’” There were whoops of excitement fro
m the rest of the team.

  “Now the other one,” said Father MacDonald. He carefully took the forceps and lifted the second sealed scroll from its two-thousand-year-old resting place and gently laid it on the tray that Josh held waiting. It was likewise sealed and inscribed, and Josh carried it to the table before trying to decipher the elderly Emperor’s shaky Latin. He pulled the magnifying glass over the scroll once he got it situated, looked at the scroll, and then turned deathly pale. He staggered backwards two steps.

  “Josh!” Isabella said with great concern. “What on earth?”

  He could not speak. Somehow he was seated on the floor, although he had no memory of his legs giving out. He opened his mouth two or three times, and then gave up trying to get any words out. He simply pointed a trembling finger at the scroll lying on the tray. Father MacDonald looked through the magnifying glass and read the inscription. “Testimonium Pontii Pilati Procuratoris Iudaeae,” he read. “‘The Testimony of Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judea.’”

  Isabella paled. Rossini and Apriceno simply stared at each other in shock.

  “Holy Christ!” said Father MacDonald. It was not an expletive but a prayer.

  I was not pleased when my legionaries brought the Galilean back to me. As I had ordered, they had not killed him, but they had come very close. His back was scored to the bone in places, and they had placed an old purple robe over his shoulders and a crown of poisonous Galilean thorn branches upon his head. The soldiers hate the Jews, of course—this is not a choice posting for a hard-drinking, hard fighting Roman man—and given a chance to humiliate one of them, the men had taken full advantage of it, leaving the Nazarene a bloodied wreck. But, I thought, perhaps I could play Jesus’ pitiful condition to my own advantage. I led him back out onto the porch of the Praetorium and shoved him in front of me, giving the mob a good view. “Ecce homo!” I shouted. Some of the crowd cried out in pity, but the priests once again took up that hateful cry: “Crucify! Crucify!”