This sally brought as many appreciative chuckles as it did frowns of censure from the brothers’ immediate neighbours. James replied in a level voice, without inflection or special emphasis. “Why do you ask me again about Jesus the son of man? Have I not said on many occasions, that Jesus was the door of the sheepfold, the way to the Father?”
Like a rippling sea every head swung towards the Corinthian. What reply would the High Priest make?
With a gesture that embraced the whole assembly, Ananus replied, “Is not the law, given by God for His chosen people, the Way?”
This was the Law of Moses. The law God had uttered from the inferno of creation. For the sake of which, Jews believed the very world had been created. The law which Jesus himself had said he came not to destroy but to fulfil.
The fanatical descendants of that venerable race, stood with the ghosts of the prophets from their ancient past, waiting for James the Just to reply.
Before he answered, James turned from side to side as though to ensure that every tower, dome and pinnacle of the Holy City was bearing witness. “He who was the Christ, taught the law which God gave to his prophet Abraham - That there is one God for all the nations of the earth, Gentile and Jew. That the Way to God is love. To do unto others as you would be done by. For by this hangs the whole of the law”.
The crowd gasped for this was the heart of it. Judaism taught that the one God excluded all except his chosen people.
If what James had just said was true, the covenant given to Moses was broken. The covenant of Abraham proclaimed all men were brothers, under one God.
The High Priest let out a wild shriek and tore his robe, the stitching of which had, in anticipation of this moment, been weakened. In a spray of spittle, one word was hurled across the court. “Blasphemer!”
A great howl rose; a thousand throats producing a hideous animal sound. Ish –Maveth - A man of death. All the deadly poison of the religious fanatic was in that sound.
This was the signal to Eleazar and the four priests. They scrambled on to the tower and rushed James, who offered no resistance. They hurled him into the court, the crowd scattering as his body landed with a sickening thud on the stone paving. Unbelievably he wasn’t killed outright.
A circle formed around the sprawled body. One leg was twisted unnaturally beneath the torso. An arm had been shattered at the elbow. Blood dripped from chin to breast. The eyes were unfocused, eyelids fluttering wildly. With a deep groan James the Just used his one good arm to pull himself into a kneeling position.
“Stone him”.
The command came from the leader of the priests whom Ananus, with earlier orders, had sent to this part of the court. They had also shown a sense of anticipation in bringing with them a plentiful supply of fist sized rocks. The first of these struck the injured James full in the face and knocked out an eye. The ensuing fusillade smashed into his ribs, broke his other arm, tore a large piece of scalp from his head and snapped off most of his front teeth.
The crowd roared their self-righteous anger. Those nearest the front sought missiles of their own. In a brief interlude lasting no more than a few seconds the dying man, swaying on his knees, raised his bowed and bleeding head. In a voice which was surprisingly strong, he called out to his God, “I entreat thee, oh Lord God, forgive them as I forgive them”.
One of the police, the son of Rechab, suddenly sprang forward, trying to shield James with his own body. As he did so he cried out “Stop. What are we doing? The righteous one is praying for us”.
Startled by this unexpected intervention, arms that had been pulled back ready to hurl another deadly shower of projectiles, paused and the fusillade petered out.
But one of the Temple police, who was also a fuller, stepped out of the crowd. In his hands he carried the tool of his trade – a heavy club. With a savage head butt he knocked the son of Rechab aside. With the mob screaming its encouragement, the skull of James the Just was shattered with a single blow.
2
After the murder of James, Eleazar went to a villa he kept in the lower city. He not only wielded enormous power in Jewish society, he lived in considerable luxury, supported by a generous share of the immense profit skimmed off the Temple’s vast revenues.
As a secret nationalist, he controlled one of the many clandestine terrorist groups that were scattered around the country, some of which had hidden agendas that were mostly concerned with gathering wealth and power for themselves. Publicly they professed the common cause, whose manifesto was ‘Home rule for Israel’. This and ‘Romans out’ or ‘Roman pigs go home’, were scrawled on walls in towns and villages across the country, despite the fact that when caught the perpetrators were crucified.
Among the growing opposition to the Romans was a group of terrorists known as Zealots, who laid claim to be the true champions of the people. Unfortunately, the people had to put up with rival groups of nationalists who were as often at odds with each other, as they were with the Romans.
What they had in common was that they all battened on the people. From Galilee in the north, down through Samaria, Judea and Idumaea in the south, they forced the people to hide weapons, shelter and feed them.
The most feared of these terrorist organisations were the Sicarii, the dagger men, led by a self-styled ‘freedom fighter’ called Menahem. They got their name from the unusual dagger they carried, which had a thick straight central rib, supporting a wavy double-edged blade coming to a needle point. With these weapons hidden in their clothing, the Sicarii would join a crowd and single out their victims, attacking them with a sudden deadly thrust, then they would disappear from the immediate scene by mingling with the crowd.
While influential Jews were the Sicarii’s principle targets, they also assassinated members of rival groups and murdered citizens who refused to support their ‘cause’ which was financed by theft and extortion.
When Eleazar arrived at his villa he was on edge. The adrenalin rush from the action at the Temple still coursed through his body. The violence of James’ murder had left him excited and sexually aroused. He was a man with a large and catholic sexual appetite.
Eleazar kept his wife and children in a town house in Jerusalem’s upper city and Amal, his Egyptian mistress, in his villa in the lower city – an arrangement that protected his reputation and kept his wife in ignorance.
Amal had been expensively and carefully trained in Memphis. She had cost Eleazar a fortune but he had never regretted the cost. She knew his moods, his needs. She listened to plots and kept his secrets. She often advised him on a course of action, or counselled caution when he would have been reckless, or boldness when he would have held back. It was Amal who now greeted him on his arrival. She stood quietly while he rinsed his hands in the bowl held by a slave. He looked at her appraisingly from beneath drooping eyelids, eyes still bright from the morning’s drama. She smiled and held out her hand, leading him from the entrance hall to a comfortably furnished room where the wine steward and the housekeeper waited deferentially for instructions.
After signalling for wine to be poured, Amal dismissed them with orders to bring the midday meal. Eleazar grinned at her, lowering himself onto a couch, taking a long pull on his wine and rolling his head from side to side to loosen the muscles in his neck. Amal, kneeling behind him, began to massage his neck and shoulders with perfumed oils. Her mother had been a valued Egyptian slave, mistress of the governor of Egypt, Pompeius Planta.
When Amal was old enough to understand, her mother had told her “The blood of Idumaean kings flows in your veins, for I was bedded by Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee”. Amal knew there had never been any question of Antipas ever admitting paternity to any of his many bastard children, particularly a girl born of a slave, but that didn’t stop her from dreaming. She knew that being Antipas’ bastard made her cousin to Queen Berenice and her brother King Agrippa II, a client king the Romans had appointed to rule Upper Galilee and part of Jordan. He was also given oversight of the Te
mple with the authority to dismiss and appoint the High Priest of all Israel. In addition, the King was made custodian of the high priests’ vestments, without which they could not officiate at religious festivals.
Eleazar grunted with pleasure, closing his eyes and giving himself up to the woman’s probing fingers. When Amal judged him to be sufficiently relaxed, she removed his sandals and washed his feet. While she was doing this, slave girls carried in trays of food and set out an array of dishes on low tables. He stretched luxuriously and ran an appreciative hand across the buttocks of one of the serving girls.
Laughing, Amal dismissed them and leaning over Eleazar’s half naked figure, began to feed him. “He is dead?” Eleazar, his mouth busy with a breast of chicken nodded. “Will the Romans cause trouble?”
Eleazar frowned while he considered this. He swallowed enough food to make a reply. “Possibly, though the High Priest thinks not”.
Amal wiped his beard to which scraps of chicken were clinging. Eleazar was neither a tidy nor a silent eater. “And you?”
Eleazar shrugged and said dismissively, “The Romans have got too much on their hands at the moment to bother about another Jewish prophet”. Swallowing the last of the chicken, he took a gulp from his cup, careless of the wine he slopped down his front. “There is unrest”, he grated, “throughout the region. Every day the Romans are harried by the nationalists. Meanwhile Rome has an emperor gone mad”. He paused to take another mouthful of chicken, smacking his lips appreciatively, before continuing, “Gaul, Germania and the Spaniards, sensing Rome’s weakness, are growing increasingly restless”.
Amal, who was every bit as ambitious as her master and every bit as intelligent, didn’t reply. Eleazar had given her much to think about. Instead she continued to ply him with food, ensuring his wine cup was never empty.
Eventually, relaxed and replete, Eleazar was ready for a different feast, but first he would sleep. Sprawled across the brocaded couch, his head supported by a cushion, he began to doze. When he awoke it was lamplight. The windows were un-shaded and opened. He could see the stars of the night sky. Incense spiralled lazily, its fragrance mingling with the scent of garden flowers carried on the warm air.
Amal held out a wine cup. He drank greedily and struggled to his feet, farting loudly. The smell was appalling, but Amal ignored it. She knew that to Eleazar, she was simply a possession. Possessions don’t have feelings or sensibilities. Not that Eleazar ever bothered over much to consider others. It was only in the Temple that he behaved in a circumspect and respectful manner.
Eleazar headed for the bath house that he had had installed - an innovation that he had taken from the Romans. Not that he was concerned with cleanliness; matters of cleanliness were religious. Purity was a thing of the spirit, not the flesh. Such matters involved ritual; they had nothing to do with dirt, grease or sweat. He bathed because he enjoyed the relaxing heat of the perfumed water, followed by the expert attention of a skilled masseur whose probing fingers eased the knots and tensions of the day, stretched cramped muscles and eased aching joints.
He bathed alone. In Eleazar’s mind pleasures of the flesh were kept for the torture chamber or the bedroom, where he knew Amal would be waiting for him, with a body that took his breath away every time he saw it naked. Amal had sexual skills that no well-bred woman, Jewish or Roman, had ever heard of, let alone could practice.
When Eleazar entered the bedroom he was naked. She was waiting for him standing by an immense low bed wearing a filmy gown tied at the throat and loosely belted. She knew that Eleazar was as fascinated by the pale apricot of her skin as the firm abundance of her breasts. Amal was so slender he could almost encircle her waist with a double hand span.
He took one of her hands and placed it between his legs. She smiled and drew him to her, her perfumed chestnut hair against his face. She kissed him on the lips, the shoulders and the breast. Roused, he lay with her on the bed. One of his fingers sought her sex, gently stroking. He made no move to mount her, but continued to fondle her. Amal rolled over and straddled him, all the fluids of desire flowing down the golden shadows of her thighs.
She moved slowly, the violin shaped hips rising and falling, with the gentle soughing sound of a wave spending itself against a sandy shore. She felt his body begin to tremble, his mouth gaped redly in his dark beard, gasping for air. She stopped moving. Slowly his meaty fingers, like fiddler crabs, with their tufts of coarse black hair sprouting along their joints, began to patrol her body, seeking the places which pleased her.
As he became charged with desire, blood began to beat in Eleazar’s temples; he was breathing hard. Amal raised her legs, hooking them over his shoulders. The kneeling man drove himself into her, to hammer frenziedly against the hill of her rounded buttocks. Amal screamed with pleasure - a wild ululation, a primitive tribal sound from a desert past. She beat her fists in ecstasy against his bowed shoulders, her golden body convulsing with the force of her emotions. Eleazar’s body stiffened before he collapsed against her, spent, sobbing for breath. They lay entwined breathing heavily, their lips gently brushing.
The room darkened as the lamps burned low. They drifted off to sleep in a tumble of arms and legs, bodies pressed close, their breath mingling. When they awoke it was dark. Amal couldn’t see Eleazar’s face, but she knew he was awake.
He was lying on his back, one arm under her body round her shoulders, the other folded loosely, the palm of his hand on his chest. She could feel a tremor as his fingers absentmindedly drummed his breast bone. Amal burrowed into his side and gently nibbled the lobe of an ear, whispering “What are you thinking my love?”
The priest didn’t reply at once, but the movement of his fingers stilled. She waited patiently while he thought about replying. He often confided in her, but he wasn’t to be hurried. “Rebellion”.
The single word, dropped like a pebble down a well, caused her to draw her breath and hold it for a few seconds. The word echoed in her mind. Before she could say anything the man continued, “The whole country is in turmoil. It bubbles with dissatisfaction like a spring of hot mud. The Roman pig is pricked on every side. Troops ambushed, murdered, maimed; weapons and stores stolen. Taxes go uncollected”.
“But surely” Amal replied, “Rome will send more troops and crush those who dare challenge its authority?”
Eleazar chuckled, though there was no humour in the sound. “The dog’s breath of Babylon”, (this was an unflattering reference to Nero) “is an abomination to his own people as well as ours. Along every border of the empire, Rome’s enemies see this weakness. They’re plucking up the courage to test Rome’s strength. Troop reinforcement to Israel will become a low priority”.
Amal mulled this over before venturing, “Surely this is nothing more than border skirmishing. It goes on all the time. Not even the Gauls would dare mount a full scale rebellion”.
With a grunt Eleazar propped himself up. “Wine woman; you talk too much”.
Amal hastily swung her legs off the bed, gathering a robe loosely around her shoulders.
After relighting a lamp she poured some wine, and as she handed Eleazar a cup she persisted, “Who in Judaea would dare a mount an outright rebellion? More importantly, who would follow him?”
She would have continued, but he placed a finger across her lips. “There will never be a better opportunity. Rome is weak. She is also short of money, thanks to that dog’s vomit Nero. The legions are under strength. Many haven’t been paid for months. The nations she has conquered and forced to submit are growing increasingly restless. If Judaea rises now, it will be a signal to the others. Rome will be attacked from all sides”.
Amal shook her head in bewilderment. While it was true that the numbers of Roman troops garrisoned in Jerusalem and in strategic towns throughout the region were relatively small, they were well armed, well trained, and experienced fighters. They could also call for reinforcements from neighbouring Syria. And who, Amal thought to herself, would join the uprising? Wo
uld the High Priest of all Israel accept a field marshal’s baton and place himself at the head of an army? “Lord, I fear for you”, Amal murmured.
Eleazar eyed her across the rim of his cup. She was sitting on the huge bed cross legged, rouging her nipples. Her posture exposed her sex. He felt himself getting hard again.
“Nationalist groups throughout the country are under orders to step up their skirmishing. The Romans are going to have a guerrilla war on their hands. Working in small groups they will ambush and kill the Romans and those who support them; striking and slipping away. There will be no set piece battles until we are ready for them”.
Amal noticed the ‘we’ but kept her council. “How will”, she nearly said you but changed it to “they deal with this?”
Eleazar’s interest in the control and management of rebellious nationalists was waning as he became aware of the size of his erection. “Come here”, he growled, sitting with his back propped against the wall, his short thick hairy legs thrust straight out, his now furiously erect member grasped firmly in his left hand.
Amal crawled across the bed to face him and straddled his engorged penis. Sinking on to it Amal sighed with pleasure, as she slowly raised and lowered herself, rising almost to the point of withdrawal before lowering herself to grind fur against fur.
Eleazar’s meaty hands clasped her hips to catch the rhythm of that delicious cushioning. “They will be executed as traitors, their possessions confiscated” he suddenly and rather breathlessly blurted out. Amal almost missed a beat at this sudden outburst. For a moment she was utterly confused, until she remembered her earlier question. She now realised that the nationalists, whatever their political persuasion, had given themselves the authority to murder anybody if it suited their purposes. This would be done in the name of freedom and the cause of ‘home rule’.
To the Death Page 2