The Eighth Veil

by Frederick Ramsay

  “I am only speculating, Steward.”

  “Of course. I suppose anything is possible, but who would credit the gossip of a servant girl?”

  “Who indeed? But that works both ways, does it not?”

  “Sir?”

  “If she did in fact possess this sordid knowledge and were killed because of it, who, as you indicated in your own reaction to her death, would care? And then there would be an end of even the possibility of a threat to the throne.”

  “I see. Put that way, it is possible. That assumes there was such knowledge to be had and I do not think there was.”

  “Really? Very well, that brings us back to the royal couple and their marriage. Steward, I believe you are not a fool. Therefore, do not assume others are. It takes no perceptive skills to put the truth together in the matter of the king and queen and how they came to be married.”

  “Truth is sometimes difficult to discern.”

  “Nonsense. Balaam’s ass discerned the truth. Any person with his eyes open and his ears clear of wax can tell you the truth of the matter. No, Steward, truth is not difficult to discern. Falsehood, on the other hand, can be very confusing. So why are you attempting to confuse me?”

  “Rabban,” Chuzas fluttered, “I am not…you do not think that I—”

  “Enough. You have things to sort, it appears. Details you wish to present to me in a different light perhaps, after you have thought them through. I will end this interview and ask you to return here tomorrow. In the meantime, please send to me at intervals any and all of the serving staff, musicians, and so on, who might have been party to the events of last night beginning with the dining. I wish particularly to speak with anyone who may have ended their evening in this bath. When I am finished with them I will ask you to introduce me to the king, the queen, the Princess Salome, this Menahem person thought to be the king’s foster brother, and anyone else staying in the palace as the king’s guest.”

  “Yes, sir. Will there be anything else?”

  “No…yes, I want the dead girl’s things gathered together and placed in safekeeping until I have a chance to go through them.”

  “That may be difficult. They will have been rifled and expropriated by the other servants by now.”

  “Then you will take one or more of the palace guards and retrieve all of them. I must have everything as it was if I am to unravel this snarl.”

  Gamaliel sent Chuzas away and turned back to the physician.

  “What have you for me so far, Loukas?”

  “Ah, it is most interesting. Tell me, Honorable Sir, what is the left hand used for?”

  “The left hand? It is the dirty hand, of course. It is used for all those functions not fitting to be discussed or of an impure nature.”

  “Precisely. Whoever killed this young girl was sinistromanual, an unusual state in this day.”

  “My murderer was left-handed? That is most unusual, I agree. How do you come to that finding?”

  “Observe the cut. It has been made from the right to the left. A right-handed assassin would have slashed left to right.”

  “That is most interesting. You can tell this from the cut?”

  “I believe so, yes, from the depth and direction. Here is another question for you. If the killer felt what he was doing or touching qualified as impure or dirty—your words—would he not use his left hand to do it?”

  “That is very possible, and suggests other possibilities for our murderer. He is a low person who does not quibble about which hand is used for what and is naturally left-handed. He is scrupulous and deigns not to use his right hand in this dirty work. Or…”

  “Or?”

  “He wishes to leave us with a message.”

  “A message?”

  “Yes. It is most interesting, is it not? There is another possibility, of course, but I can hardly accept it.”

  “That being?”

  “Our killer is an Ehud.”

  “A what?”

  “Ehud, the son of Gara, and a left-handed man sent by the Lord to deliver the children of Israel from the Moabites. He killed Eglon, their king, by stabbing him with his left hand. One expects to see a weapon in a warrior’s right hand, not his left, you see? The king was taken unawares. So, an Ehud.”

  “You might wish to add one more. Your killer is an outsider, a barbarian who does not value or care about your laws or your traditions.”

  “A barbarian? I think not, Physician. Not in the king’s court and unknown to us,” He paused and thought a moment. “There was mention of a man called Graecus. Perhaps…This speculation assumes our killer faced the girl, but could he not have stood behind her when he drew the knife?”

  “No, I don’t think so. There are bruises on her right shoulder that suggest he held her facing him when he drew the knife. You see,” he pointed to a bluish mark on the girl’s upper arm, “this could very well be the mark made by his thumb. There are four similar, but smaller marks on the back of her arm that would be from his fingers. But more importantly, note the direction. If he faces her and slashes, the knife moves across and down. If he stands behind her, the knife moves across and up. Here is the next piece of your puzzle. Your victim was murdered in the pool.”

  “We know that. The water is discolored with her blood, you see.”

  “Yes, but that is not what I meant. She was held under the water, then had her throat slit. The cut is deep enough so that she would have died anyway, but she drowned because of it.”

  “Had our villain removed her from the bath and not cut her, she might have lived?”

  “Possibly.”

  “She drowned because she was slashed, or instead?”

  “Who can say whether the drowning was cause or effect? But it is another reason I think he did not stand behind her. He would need to hold her head underwater. One last thing for now, more detail can only come after I take her away and inspect her more closely in the privacy I require.” Gamaliel raised his eyebrows at that. He guessed, but did not wish to have confirmed what he would do to the girl’s body. He’d heard rumors about dissection and assumed this man knew them too.

  “That is?”

  “She was only just recently relieved of her virginity.”

  “She was still a maiden, forced, and then killed?”

  “So it would seem.”

  “Interesting.”

  “No, Rabban, sinister.”

  ***

  Gamaliel left the humidity of the bath and seated himself outside on a bench in the atrium. He wanted some time to think through what he’d learned thus far while he waited for the first of what would be a long string of servants, cup bearers, dancers, and slaves of indeterminate occupations, age, and race. Then there would be Chuzas’ staff, plus that devious little man himself once again.

  The task of interviewing the king’s entourage took the entire morning through the sixth hour. Gamaliel managed to refresh himself with a crust of bread and some broiled fish that he washed down with a cup of passable wine at midday. He resumed his interrogations on into the afternoon, ending them toward the tenth hour as the sun began its long descent to the west and his voice began to fail. The steward had outdone himself in ordering the interviews. He’d organized them by groups sharing the same or similar functions, dancers, servers, players of music and singers, cup bearers, table clearers, and some whose occupation he could not remember. The most difficult interviews were the concubines. Gamaliel thought of himself as moderately current in the ways of a world regrettably driven by a Greek culture and tempered by Roman proclivities, but the frankness, dress, and demeanor of this last group left him deeply disturbed. How could anyone sift through this household for the presence of a single evildoer, when it seems it lurked in every corridor and during every night in the persons of these women and the men or man who kept them?

  “But what of Solomon and his thousand?” his students would have asked him, to which he would reply “And what of David and Uriah the Hittite’s wife? ‘It is
a matter of intent. Unfortunately the Law does not spell that out, so we must.’” He knew, as everyone did, that there were political necessities that gathered wives to a king, and then there were the strictly lust-driven liaisons that kings also enjoyed. No one, he thought with some annoyance, should ever confuse the two.

  Before he made his weary way back to his quarters west of the Temple he called Chuzas to him.

  “Steward, aside from the royals, have I seen and interviewed all of the people I need to see?” Chuzas hesitated. Gamaliel knew in that moment that the steward would soon tell him a lie. He had not developed this ability to smell out mendacity just to vet potential students. “Again, Steward, what are you so reluctant to tell me? I must get to the bottom of this matter and I do not wish to waste any more time at it than absolutely necessary.”

  “On my—”

  “Do not swear an oath to me, Chuzas. You have enough to answer for without adding that to your list.”

  “I…” Chuzas obviously wrestled with the desire to deceive on the one hand and the realization he could not fool the Rabban. “There may be one or two others who were not available. He…that is to say, they were not available, they were away temporarily.”

  “He has a name, Chuzas?”

  The steward rolled his eyes in desperate search for a way out of his predicament. Finally he swallowed and blurted, “He is called, Graecus.”

  “The Greek? He is Greek.”

  “Yes. At least it is what he claims.”

  “But you are not sure?”

  “It is not my place, Excellency.”

  “Not your place? This man alone escapes your notice and responsibility? You are the king’s steward and you say ‘It is not my place?’ Very well. Then hear this, I will interview this man immediately on his return. See to it, Steward.”

  Gamaliel turned on his heel and stalked home. He arrived just as the third star appeared in the east. He signaled for his servant not to speak until he’d made his ritual cleansing in the mikvah and had some time to pray. After this day and the company he’d been forced to keep, he would need to spend more time in the living water than usual.

  Yom Shlishi

  Chapter VI

  The next morning he sent a simple message to Pilate informing him that he had nothing to report and that there was no sighting of the phantom, Archelaus. Furthermore, as he was convinced the man did not exist, at least not in Jerusalem, he had no intention in pursuing that line anymore. Finally, he guessed he would need much more time than either had supposed necessary to track down the girl’s killer.

  He also assumed that Pilate would not grant it.

  He dreaded the trip back to the palace. Murder, rape, and palace intrigue were as far from his normal life, the one he desperately wished he could return to, as the moon is from the sun. Were it not for Pilate’s reputation as an implacably brutal man who brooked no dissent, he would have folded the whole business up as an unsolvable mystery and returned to his scrolls, books, and students. As that did not appear to be a viable option, he trudged on to the palace, his timeline now reduced to seven days, one of which would be Shabbat when nothing of substance could be done. Barak met him at the gate and escorted him once again to the bath house.

  He had fulfilled his order; servants had been tasked to drain the bath. They had done so during the night. They had also been instructed to leave anything left in it undisturbed. Gamaliel stood at the bath’s edge and contemplated how best to proceed. The area was not deep and he would have no trouble entering or leaving, but there remained puddles of bloody water and all of the items in it, if any, would be similarly befouled. He sighed with resignation and lowered himself into the now empty but fetid space and began to scan the bottom. What appeared to be a scarf of some sort lay in one corner, still soggy and stained with blood. He used a stick to spread it out. The folds revealed nothing. He lifted it to the pool’s rim with the stick and resumed his search. He moved carefully across the width of the pool, back and forth, and at each transit moved one pace closer to the opposite end. He found a handful of coins of various origins and denominations which he placed in a leather pouch he wore beneath his cloak. Further along he found a ceramic medallion of foreign design. A cubit farther a cut leather thong still knotted at one point along its length lay like a soggy snake against the pool’s edge. In one corner he discovered a small cloth that served as some sort of undergarment, perhaps belonging to, and more likely lost by a woman, probably the dead girl although there was no certainty as to that. As it seemed unlikely the bathers and frolickers were segregated by gender, the Law’s proscription of sharing water with the opposite sexes had not applied to this bath, at least not on the night of the murder.

  At the far end lay what he hoped for but did not expect to find: a knife of foreign design glittered against the tiles. Judging by the gold inlay and semi-precious stones set in its handle he surmised it to be valuable and that caused him to frown as well. He lifted it carefully and set it on the ledge of the pool with the other items. It might or might not be the weapon used to finish the girl. It seemed unlikely a knife, any knife, would be left to corrode in the water on the one hand, and what sort of killer would leave the murder weapon at the scene of his crime? He also had to concede that he knew little or nothing about criminals, criminal behavior, or the likelihood one would or would not leave incriminating evidence behind. But it did seem unlikely.

  Barak announced the arrival of the steward. Gamaliel sighed again and climbed back to floor level.

  “Let us speak outside in the atrium, Steward. It is uncommonly hot and sticky in this place. Do you suppose we could have some incense burned in here until we are finished with this area?”

  Chuzas nodded and told Barak to see to it. He paused on the way out and stared at the knife. “Is that the weapon used to murder the girl?”

  “Possibly, I don’t know. Is it likely? I will not be able to say one way or the other until I have made certain tests on it.”

  In truth he had no idea how to determine if a knife, any knife, were the one that had slashed the girl’s throat. He rather hoped, but he guessed in vain, that Loukas, the clever physician, would know how to do that. In any event, he intended for the steward to believe him capable of accomplishing such a feat. The steward, he assumed would soon spread that belief among the servants, and thence throughout the palace. If the right person heard of it and believed such a test were possible, it could cause that someone to panic and make the move which in turn would relieve Gamaliel of the need to continue his detection.

  “Was there anything else in the pool that could help identify a murderer?” The steward looked hopeful.

  “A few bits and pieces only. A medallion, something I took to be a scarf but now realize must have been the girl’s headdress, some coins, and some discarded clothing. Tell me, Steward, is it the king’s practice to have women share his bath with men?”

  Chuzas reverted to hemming and hawing. He obviously knew the proscription in the law about such an arrangement. Gamaliel waited patiently for his answer. How would this conflicted man wiggle out of this one?

  “It is the king’s wish,” he began, hesitated, and shrugged. Gamaliel understood. The family of Herod, father and sons, descending from Idumean stock through multiple pairings, were Jewish only to the extent they needed to be. In reality, they were nearly as Latin as their overlords. Their princes were sent to Rome to serve as hostages against a possible attempted break with Rome, but at the same time to be schooled with the sons of Senators and Caesars. They took their names from Roman and pagan heroes. Brides were secured from other countries, other cultures, other faiths. How long the Lord would permit this apostate intrusion in the line of David remained a constant source of irritation and debate between Gamaliel, his students, and the nation as a whole. But it had been a long time since the line could be described as legitimate and the prospects for restoration any time soon grew less likely with every passing year.

  Chuzas shuffled his
feet and mopped his brow with a scrap of linen. “Perhaps if I were to view the items you found in the bath, I could identify them and that would help determine who might have…” The steward’s voice trailed off. Gamaliel wondered about that. Why this sudden shift in willingness to find the culprit from the man who earlier seemed anxious to see the whole business covered up? If he grew as old as Methuselah, he would never understand these royal sycophants.

  “Later possibly, Steward, now I wish you to tell me, with as much precision as you can, the events of the night before last. What happened, where, with whom, and finally, who and/or what went on in the bath.”

  The steward rambled on for nearly an hour providing details Gamaliel did not need and, he assumed, omitting those he did. The upshot of the discourse was Chuzas had nothing of substance to add to what Gamaliel, indeed everyone, already knew. The king allowed his court to consort openly in the bath with both sexes present and uncensored. It remained unclear if the king may have done so himself in private with the queen and/or his concubines. But the latter was of no immediate consequence, unless the matter of the king’s standing with the Lord was to be taken into account, and that was not part of Gamaliel’s immediate charge.

  He dismissed the steward with a caution and the request to arrange his interviews with the royals.

  Chapter VII

  Caiaphas, High Priest in the line of Aaron, Arbiter of Israel, and proud bearer of the symbols of high office when permitted access to them by the Prefect, owed his position to the beneficence of the emperor and the sufferance of Pilate. The former ruled far away in self-imposed exile from the Isle of Capri and even then as only the latest in an ever changing kaleidoscope of monarchs whose personae shifted, sometimes wildly, in attitude, temperament, and mental stability. Thus, Caiaphas lived in a perpetual state of malaise. He knew that at any moment and at the whim of either the Prefect or that distant sovereign, he could find himself relegated back to the ranks of the serving priests whose numbers were far too great to offer him much in the way of influence or precedence. His father-in-law, Annas, had suffered such degradation, and he, Caiaphas, determined he would avoid a similar fate whatever the cost.