“You don’t have any idea what it means to live on the edge, do you?”
“I fought in Britannia.”
“But you didn’t serve because you wanted to test life to its fullest. You served because of loyalty to the empire.”
“What else is there?” Vitas asked.
Damian gave a crooked grin. He touched his nose. Showed his bent finger. Touched his nicked ear. “How about adventure?”
“Look for adventure in Rome; the ship is waiting.”
Damian paced back and forth. “I’ll go.”
“Excellent,” Vitas said.
“But not yet,” Damian said. “I’m having too much fun with a certain game I’ve been playing.” He pointed at the cage filled with swallows.
“Please,” Vitas said. “Your games always end in trouble. Leave now.”
“Leave Smyrna?” Damian asked. “The city of games? As a suddenly former gladiator? Think of the women ready to swoon at the mere sight of me. Especially now that I’m rich and I won’t actually have to fight to earn my reputation.”
“The ship is ready to sail,” Vitas said. “Please. You know that gambling gets you in trouble.”
“No,” Damian said. “It’s my craving for excitement that gets me in trouble. Gambling just happens to be one of the most convenient methods to find that excitement.”
“I have something else for you instead,” Vitas said quietly.
“Listen! This scheme is foolproof. These swallows are from Ephesus. I’ve made arrangements with certain gamblers down there who enjoy betting huge amounts of sesterces on the colors of the chariot races. Many of them bet on races here in Smyrna too, relying on couriers to bring them the results.”
Damian didn’t have to explain the colors, a longtime tradition in Rome. There were four racing factions: the blues, greens, whites, and reds—the colors worn by the charioteers. These factions led to great rivalries, and great rivalries led to large-scale gambling. Damian had been forced to take the gladiator vows because of the debts he had accumulated.
“Titus is on the ship too,” Vitas said. “Return to Rome. He and his father will vouch for you. Think of the political career ahead of you.”
“Respectability is boring,” Damian said. “Let me tell you about the swallows. My acquaintances in Ephesus also have a cage with swallows native to Smyrna. And we help each other.”
“Help?”
“As soon as I know which faction has won the day’s races,” Damian said, “I paint a swallow that color and release it. Long before the courier gets to Ephesus, the swallow has arrived at its nest there and alerted my acquaintances on the team to wager. They, of course, do the same for me. The only horses I’ve bet upon in the last week have been winners.” Damian grinned. “How else could I afford this villa?”
“Your scheme will eventually be discovered. No one bets correctly all the time.”
“I agree,” Damian said. “But by this time tomorrow I was either going to be dead or returned to Rome with the rest of the gladiators. In the meantime, I had Maglorius to protect me. So I spent everything as quickly as I could. Very enjoyably, I might add.”
“How long before you return to Rome?”
“Look how many swallows remain in the cage,” Damian answered.
Vitas sighed. He thought of the ship. Of Paulina and the baby whom he had made a vow to support. Of the Jewish slave who had beguiled him, whom he intended to court in the manner he would have courted a Roman woman of high social standing.
Vitas knew his brother would not be budged. And the others waited. “I’ve given your situation a lot of thought,” he said. “I know you almost as well as you know yourself.”
“You have my sympathy.” Damian grinned.
“A month ago,” Vitas said, “two slaves escaped Nero’s palace. It hasn’t been reported publicly, because they managed to leave with a substantial amount of jewelry. Apparently, Nero had been careless around those slaves.”
“Handsome young boys, I presume, if Nero had dangled baubles in front of them.”
“Hunt them down for me,” Vitas said. “I think you’ll find it as exciting as gambling, and it will give you an excuse to roam the slums that seem to draw you like a siren on a rock.”
“Not a bad idea,” Damian said. “Not bad at all. Ex-gladiator turned slave hunter.” Another crooked grin. “I can see how it would appeal to the sort of woman I find interesting.”
“You’ll do it then?”
Damian nodded. “I’ll join you in Rome in about a month.”
Vitas sighed. He walked to the birdcage. Lifted it. Moved it to a window. Ripped apart the bars of the cage. Held it at the window until all the birds had found their freedom.
He turned to see Damian calmly regarding him with arms crossed.
“I’ll find more swallows,” Damian said. “More for principle’s sake than anything. You know I hate to be told what to do.”
“You have two hours,” Vitas said. “The ship leaves then.”
As Vitas left the villa, he met three men walking toward him. Although they were not large, they were armed with pieces of wood and angry faces. They glanced at him but did nothing else as they passed.
Vitas turned and observed, without surprise, that they were entering the outer courtyard of the villa. What other business would they have at this hour of the morning?
Vitas shook his head and kept walking. Now that Damian owned half the family estate, he had enough money to pay them back. And a few bruises wouldn’t be a bad way to encourage him to follow the road to respectability.
Two minutes later, Vitas heard shouting from behind him.
“Vitas! Vitas!” It was Damian, at a full run. His toga flailed around him and his sandals were not laced. “Vitas! Wait! Tell me where I can find this ship of yours!”
“What?” Helius ordered the scribe to stop with the stylus.
“This is what has been declared by Jesus,” Zabad said. “‘Immediately after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on clouds of the sky with power and great glory.’”
Helius cast questioning eyes at Caleb. “Coming on the clouds? You think this Jesus is about to return?”
“Zabad quotes from the scrolls of Matthew.” Caleb gave a weary sigh. “If you were a Jew, you would be familiar with the imagery. Coming on the clouds is a familiar Jewish expression used by our prophets to communicate the majesty and sovereign power of God. His coming on clouds translates to judgment for those who resist Him and blessing for those who bow the knee.”
“You are certain of this?” Helius said.
“This is common knowledge. Isaiah, for example, used this very expression to describe God’s retribution on Egypt. When he prophesied that God would come in wrath and fierce anger to make the land of Babylon desolate, he said that ‘the rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.’ All these images are used frequently by our ancient prophets to describe God’s judgment and retribution.”
“Wrath and fierce anger?” Helius said to Zabad.
“From our prophet Daniel.” Zabad quoted: “‘In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.’”
“Enough!” Helius shouted.
If Nero heard that any god was about to deliver judgment on him, even as a rumor, the palace would be unbearable. Nero slept the uneasy sleep of a guilty man. He saw plots everywhere. “You’re saying this Jesus will return to judge this generation?”
Helius turned to Caleb. “I want an explanation.”
Caleb shook his head. “It does not mean a literal bodily return. It means God’s punishment would vindicate Jesus and His death.”
“Punishment?” Helius said. Nero was too paranoid as it was. This could not get out. “What kind of—?”
“If the temple does not fall—and it won’t for all the reasons I described— all the other prophecies have no credibility,” Caleb answered. “I’ve just established that.”
“Yes,” Zabad said, “if the temple doesn’t fall, Jesus is a failed prophet. But this generation is not yet over. The temple will fall as judgment at a day and an hour that only God knows. And someday Jesus Himself will truly return to judge the living and the dead.”
“I cannot bear this religious nonsense,” Helius said.
“You also have your warning,” Zabad told him. “A divine revelation as given by the last disciple.”
“The last disciple?” Helius turned to Caleb. “Who is this last disciple?”
Caleb shrugged.
“Nero began the Tribulation after the Great Fire, but his time will be cut short,” Zabad said. “He will be defeated by the Lamb. The Christ against the Antichrist.”
“The lamb?” Helius repeated. Any prediction of Nero’s defeat must not reach the emperor’s ears. His voice rose as his question to Caleb became more insistent. “Tell me who is this last disciple!”
“Nero is doomed,” Zabad said, as if Helius had not spoken. “And in his doom, so too will you find doom. Yet it is not too late to save your soul.”
There was a torch on the wall, unlit because it was daylight. Zabad took it. Using its sooty end like a brush, he wrote a single word in Greek in large letters on the wall.
Helius knew what the symbols would be before Zabad finished.
In Greek, it was the word that the Christians had been placing as graffiti all across the city. Unreasoning rage drove Helius to an act he would later regret again and again. Had he let Caleb live, he would have been able to find the Senate records that were such a threat. Had he let Zabad live, he would have been able to torture him to learn more about the revelation of the last disciple.
Instead, he yelled for the guards.
“Kill them!” Helius screamed as they rushed into the room. “Kill them all!”
As Caleb and the innocent scribe backed away in horrified incomprehension, Zabad smiled a strange smile of peace and waited for the swords.
He died moments later, beneath the very letters that he had inscribed on the palace wall. Letters that also served as numbers. Letters that added up to a single sum.
Six hundred and sixty-six.
Part III
Eighteen Months after the Beginning of the Tribulation
AD 66
Judea
Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy.
—Revelation 22:10-11
13 Av
The Third Hour
“Silence or death,” a voice whispered in her ear.
Queen Bernice woke in the Jerusalem palace to the voice and to the pressure of something sharp against her neck.
The flames of the lamps in her chamber had been snuffed. She was a restless sleeper and, because of her childlike fear of the night, made it a habit to burn several lamps filled with enough oil to last until dawn. Now, with the covering over the window as she always requested from her servants, it was nearly dark even though dawn had arrived hours earlier.
She could not see the intruder.
“As this knife proves,” the ragged whisper continued, “I am a desperate man. I care nothing for my own life. If you call for your guards, you die along with me.”
His breath tickled her ear, and the warmth of it washed over her face. The shock of this intimacy was as frightening as the knife. How had he made it through the labyrinth of corridors to one of the innermost chambers of the palace?
“On your side,” the voice commanded.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“I’ve never even struck a woman before,” he said. “But this morning I am prepared to kill. Do as I say.”
Slowly she rolled over. She slept in a silk gown, and it tangled against her legs.
Was this man an assassin? A Sicarii of the Zealots determined to punish one of the Herods for the family’s collaboration with Rome? Then why not kill her as she slept?
From where he knelt at the side of her bed, the intruder took her left arm and pulled it in front of her. His gentleness was alarming.
Queen Bernice felt something tighten against her wrist. The noose of a leather cord?
“Although my knife is no longer against your throat,” he whispered, “if you cry out I will kill you long before your guards arrive.”
He fumbled for her other arm, using just one hand. That told her his threat was not idle, that his knife was in his other hand.
Again, the tightness of a narrow band around her other wrist. He’d had the nooses prepared, planned this carefully, she realized. It was a realization that raised her fear, and a tremor shook her body.
He tightened that noose, then cinched it farther so her hands were only inches apart. “Now on your stomach,” he ordered.
She rolled over a quarter turn, her full weight on her bound hands, her knuckles pushing into the softness of her belly.
Silently, he bound her feet in the same way, with prepared nooses of leather cord.
“What do you want?” She felt her voice trembling as she whispered the question.
Without answering, he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.
Did he expect he could leave the palace with her? Guards swarmed the corridors. Yet, she reminded herself, somehow he had found his way this far into the palace. Perhaps he truly did intend to escape with her . . .
No.
He took several steps away from the bed, away from the entrance to her chamber. It seemed effortless for him, and his strength frightened her even more.
He moved her to the far wall of the chamber. He set her down, propping her in a sitting position, her back against the wall, her feet in front of her, arms in her lap. Small protrusions of the wall dug into her back.
“Are you comfortable?” he whispered. From the sound, she guessed he was squatting beside her.
“My back,” she said. “The wall hurts . . .”
“I will step across the room to get a pillow. But I say it again. If you call for help, I will kill you before the guards arrive. Understand?”
In the darkness, she nodded.
“I want to hear you say it,” he whispered. “Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
He rose. She felt the air move, a part of her mind amazed at her heightened senses. She heard the light clicking of the soles of his sandals. To the bed . . . and back.
“Lean forward,” he said.
She did.
One of his hands grasped her shoulder. The other slid the pillow behind her.
Who was this man, ready to kill her yet concerned about her comfort? Fear and morbid curiosity sent flushes of adrenaline through her body.
“I’m thirsty,” she pleaded. After years of facing the baser desires of men, she had the instinct of a seductress, an instinct that told her the more he aided her, the more sympathetic he would be toward her. “There is a small jug on a stand at my bed.”
“Your life depends on your silence,” he warned.
“You will have my silence.”
Again, the movement that was invisible but sensed. Again, the slapping of sandals. Again, his return.
In the darkness, he found her arm and slowly moved the jug down until it reached her hands.
Bernice drank. Her thirst had been very real, a thirst of fear.
She was tempted to hurl the
jug forward instead of setting it down, hoping the sound of it smashing against the far wall would bring a guard. The temptation passed quickly. Hands bound, feet bound, she was helpless. It would take only a heartbeat for him to find her throat in the darkness and slash it open.
“Who are you?” she asked as he took the jug from her. “What do you want?”
“We will have ample time to discuss what we need to discuss.”
Ample time.
This meant he was acquainted with her habits well enough to know that she daily remained in bed for hours after dawn, shrouded from daylight by the covers over her window, demanding total privacy until she first opened the door of her chamber and called for a servant.
Frightening as this was, because he had made no attempt to harm her, some of her royal composure returned.
“And what shall we discuss?” she asked.
“Judgment. Upon you.”
When Simeon Ben-Aryeh finally saw the man who walked with a staff marked by a red rag tied to its crook, the man’s slow, confident manner of movement added to the instinctive dislike of Romans that had been simmering inside Ben-Aryeh since Queen Bernice had first directed Ben-Aryeh to wait for this man.
Gallus Sergius Vitas.
Ben-Aryeh sat on a blanket within a stone’s throw of the arched outer entrance that guarded Herod’s fortress. He’d arrived in Sebaste halfway through the morning before, wondering how many days it would take for the Roman to arrive; there was no sure prediction of when his ship would dock in Caesarea, no way of knowing in Sebaste when Vitas would receive the message directing him to look for Ben-Aryeh.
During his long wait for Vitas the day before, Ben-Aryeh had been utterly silent, for he did not want his accent to give him away as a Jew, not here in the stronghold of Samaria. Ben-Aryeh had watched for the man hour after hour—as the sun heated the day, as it brought the dry air to the point where it parched a man’s lungs with every breath, as it fell again, leaving behind a chill that demanded another blanket for his old bones.
It had been enough, with the movement of the sun marking Ben-Aryeh’s solitude among the crowds, for Ben-Aryeh to frequently set aside the simmering dislike and resentment for the joy of recalling the majestic poetry of God’s questions to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much. Do you know how its dimensions were determined and who did the surveying? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Have you ever commanded the morning to appear and caused the dawn to rise in the east? Have you ever told the daylight to spread to the ends of the earth, to bring an end to the night’s wickedness?”
The Last Disciple Page 11