Something in the abruptness of his tone warned Deucalion that Doras was lying, but he could think of no good reason to tell him so. Instead, he stared into the darkness that had absorbed the woman and wondered about the truth.
CHAPTER SIX
Deucalion left Doras’ house well after midnight, and his thoughts were like miniature ships tossed about upon a choppy sea of dandelion wine. Doras had shocked him with his revelation of the conspiracy between himself and Antipas. Yet, in spite of the significance of that piece of information, the Praetorian could not shake the vision of the incredibly stunning black-haired woman.
Who is she, really? he wondered.
He did not believe for a moment she was a slave. She was far too beautiful, too noble. Besides that, the look she gave him before Doras had commanded her to leave had not been the glance of a married servant. She was no timid wife stealing a glance at an unusual houseguest. Her eyes had shined. They radiated a lustrous, but soft light that seemed to push back the darkness. And in the few seconds of eye contact he had seen interest and excitement in those sparkling eyes. His curiosity had been roused to the point of distraction. Or maybe it was the dandelion wine.
Suddenly his head exploded in pain.
He was knocked to the ground, gasping for breath. In rapid succession he received several harsh kicks to his ribs. He tried to stand and fight, but was repeatedly knocked to the earth. The wine dulled his reactions and made him easy prey. He tried to focus on his attackers, but all he saw were four blurred figures. What he could see, however, caused him to gasp.
Centurions!
His mind raced. Why would members of the Legion attack him? What madness possessed them?
Once more he tried to stand and fight, but was again pushed off his feet. More humiliated than hurt, he rolled himself into a tight ball. He had to protect his head and ribs.
His attackers remained silent throughout the beating. Upon his submission to their punishment, the blows became less pronounced, even cursory.
As abruptly as it had started, the attack was over.
He lay in the dust, groaning. Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth. His right eye was swollen shut, and struggled to breath, as if he’d been kicked in the chest by a horse.
One of the attackers reached into his robe and pulled out a small purse of gold and silver coins, then threw the bundle into the dust near Deucalion’s face. The bag of money landed with a soft thud, sending a small puff of dust into the air.
Deucalion coughed and spit red saliva. One of his teeth was loose, and he fought the nausea constricting his stomach.
From the darkness to his right came a harsh voice. “You will take the money, Praetorian, and you will not make trouble.” A different voice, this one on the left, said, “All of us except you agreed to take the money and be silent. We do not want to hurt you further, but we will do what is necessary if you persist in challenging the inquest’s findings.” A third, muffled, voice came from behind him. “There was no resurrection. You saw nothing unusual at the tomb. The body was stolen by thieves, perhaps even by the stranger you encountered when you arrived at the tomb.”
The fourth assailant spoke, and his was the only voice that sounded vaguely familiar. “Enough! Remember, Praetorian, the investigation is concluded. You’ve been warned!”
With that, the four assailants disappeared into the night.
Deucalion sat up and vomited. So much for the lamb and dandelion wine, he thought. Rich food and fine wine are not for the likes of this soldier’s son.
The weak attempt at humor did not ease the pain coursing through his battered body. What hurt worse, however, was the humiliation. And he knew that was what his attackers had most wanted to accomplish.
Physical scarring was one of the hazards of soldiering and was taken in stride by all who were in the Legion. In fact, among some, it was a sign of status; the more scars, the more one had embraced death and lived to tell of the encounter. His assailants, however, had a more devious intent in mind. They wanted to scar him emotionally and thought they knew him well enough to accomplish such a purpose. The sting of the beating he had received lay in the lack of opportunity for him to defend himself with dignity, as befitted a member of Rome’s elite guard. Fighting one’s opponent in a fair match was even accorded to gladiators in the Coliseum, who were but slaves, trained to fight and die heroically for the pleasure of Caesar and the crowd.
Well, his attackers had seriously underestimated him. Oh, they might have known the man who had been ordered to make sure the Galilean was dead, the same man who was then sent out to guard his body. But what they could not know, because he’d only just begun to realize it himself, was that he was not the same man when he left the tomb three days later.
He’d gone to the tomb thinking only of accomplishing an important task assigned him by Pontius Pilate. Three days later he left the burial site thinking of nothing but the light he had seen when there should have been no light. Light that was brighter than fifty lanterns, yet soft and shimmering as well. Light that had wrapped itself around him like a fine mist, reminding him of the spray of water that surrounds a cascading waterfall.
And the sound! There had been music. Singing! It had enveloped him in a cocoon, blanketing out every sound but its own. The light was sound; the sound was light. He had felt as if he were hearing the light and seeing the sound.
At first he thought he had fallen asleep and was having a dream. Just as he was about to cry out to his men, a voice spoke to him out of the light. It was of the same character and quality as the music. Yet it was different. Something in the tone set it apart from the rest of the music and singing, almost as if sound itself had become a living entity.
“Rejoice, for the light is come. The glory of the lord is risen. The glory of the Lord is risen upon you.”
And then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the light was gone. . .The music ceased. . .The singing stopped.
There was nothing, save the eerie silence of dawn.
He blinked several times when he realized that the sun was only just starting to march upon the horizon. What then had been the light he had seen? He watched in a daze as the fibrous, yellow-red tendrils of daylight crept upward from the purple-black horizon, seeking out the fastenings of darkness, burning them loose and collapsing the curtain of night.
On that fateful morning, the evening play had come to an end twice.
When he regained his senses, he looked around at his men, curious as to whether they too had seen and heard. They had. He could tell, because they had the same look on their faces that he imagined he must have had on his own.
Some were rubbing their eyes. Others looked at their companions in amazement. One asked if the sun had risen early. Abruptly, Malkus had cried out in alarm. “Commander, over here. . .Come quickly.”
The small contingent of soldiers gathered as a group behind him and his second-in-command and stared at him with questioning eyes.
The seal was broken on the tomb!
The stone had been rolled away!
There were murmurs of fear. The penalty for falling asleep on guard duty such as this was death.
“Shall I check the body, Commander?” asked Malkus.
He nodded woodenly.
Malkus entered the sepulcher while the entire company of men stood transfixed, their eyes fastened on the gaping, black entrance.
Malkus reappeared, his face drawn, a look of surprise, or perhaps anger, was in his eyes. In his hands he held the bloodstained linen the Jews had used to wrap the body of Jesus. “The body is gone,” he said in a hushed, trembling voice. Then, realizing what he had said, he added, “A thief has stolen the body. Quickly. . .find him before he can escape. He can’t have gone far.”
They searched until noon and found nothing.
No thief. No body.
No, they don’t know me at all, thought Deucalion as he sat in the dusty street gazing at the stars and remembering. When it was all said and done, he was
not so sure he knew who he had once been. But one thing he did know: the thought of “fighting for dignity” made him want to laugh. What a contradiction in terms!
He broke out into hysterical, wonderful laughter. “Fighting for dignity, indeed,” he muttered, then laughed and laughed and laughed.
• • •
In the early morning hours of the first day of June, Joseph Caiaphas sat quietly and contemplatively in the Hall of Hewn Stones, the apartment of the national temple, the lishkath haggazith. Somewhere in the darkness outside, a cock crowed. The High Priest tilted his head and grunted, as if he had just received a long overdue message from within the depths of the Holy City.
Jerusalem, the city whose name meant “foundation of peace,” had been anything but peaceful for him lately—especially the past two weeks. He’d been preparing for tonight’s meeting of the Sanhedrin, the most difficult task of his long career.
He’d spent the time since his conversation with Simon gathering as much information about the man from Nazareth as was possible. Realizing that there were members of the council who would like nothing better than to see him disgraced and removed from office, he was determined to provide a thorough accounting for his actions.
To that end he had summoned Helcias, the keeper of the treasury of the Temple, the one who had given the informant, Judas, his payment of silver. He swore him to secrecy and charged him with the task of ferreting out as much reliable and provable evidence of Jesus’ guilt as was available.
Much to his surprise, he found that there were a great many unanswered questions about just who Jesus was, and not surprisingly, that there were several conflicting accounts of the circumstances surrounding His birth. One particularly odd story was that His mother, Mary, had been a virgin.
Nevertheless, the more information he had accumulated, the more he became convinced that he had acted properly. He was also certain now that Pontius Pilate, whom he detested, had not realized the true extent of the Nazarene’s influence.
He sighed heavily, listening to Jerusalem wake from her slumber.
Soon, he would find out if he was right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
June was being kinder to Pontius Pilate than May had been. And May was most certainly better than April. In fact, the single worst month of Pilate’s entire life had been April.
By the gods what a month, he thought as he looked out over Jerusalem spread out before him, below and around was the ostentatious palace Herod the Great had built.
From where he stood in the tower which Herod had named after Mark Antony, he could look down upon the Temple. It was claimed by the Jews to be the greatest and noblest of the despot’s achievements. Pilate had been told upon his arrival to Jerusalem that the Jews had a saying about the Temple: “He who has not seen the Temple of Herod has not seen a beautiful thing.”
“What unmitigated garbage,” he mumbled.
Antipas, the only Jew Pilate could bring himself to associate with on a regular basis, had confessed in one of his drunken moments that, although it was commonly rumored his “noble” father had rebuilt the Temple to in order to placate the people who despised the ruler they felt had sold them out to the Romans, it was not the case. No, Herod the Great was far too shrewd a man to have such a single-minded, benevolent purpose.
Pilate remembered the conversation well. He’d invited the tetrarch to partake of his private stock of fine Sicilian wine, hoping the man would reveal his secrets.
Antipas had not let him down.
“Why is it you Jews are so preoccupied with your place of worship?” he asked, genuinely interested. “Your father spent a good portion of his treasury, and the better part of his life, rebuilding a decaying monument to a God who has turned His back on His people.”
The aging tetrarch did not answer immediately. He stood on the porch, looking down at the splendor below him. When he finally replied, his eyes held a glint of cruelty and satisfaction, as if by revealing the truth of his father’s motive he was at once betraying a family secret and striking a continuous blow against a demon that had ridden his back far too long.
“My father’s intent,” he snarled, letting loose a resounding belch, “was to possess all of the public genealogies collected in the Temple. Especially those relating to the priestly families.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He intended to destroy the genealogy of the expected Messiah, to prevent Him from being born, and then to usurp His kingdom.”
Pilate arched his eyebrows at the mention of a Messiah, but said nothing.
“To accomplish his purpose he went to extreme lengths to make our people understand he was doing them a great kindness. He funded the massive project from money taken out of his own pockets—”
“Which had gotten fat by the taxes he exacted under the guise of Roman mandate,” interjected Pilate.
Antipas turned from the window revealing a malevolent smile accompanied by derisive laughter. “Oh, yes indeed. My father was truly beguiling. He convinced the people that his magnanimous appropriation of personal funds for such a holy purpose would be atonement for the very abuse that made the gesture possible.”
“And how did he accomplish such a fraud?” asked Pilate, impressed by the man’s audacity.
Antipas filled his goblet with more wine and shrugged. “He promised the priests he would not attempt to build a new Temple, but would merely restore the ancient magnificence of the one built by David’s son, Solomon. When the priests questioned him further as to his intentions, he told them that the restoration by Zerrubbabel, made upon the return of Israel from the Babylonian captivity, had fallen short in architectural measurement, according to Scripture, by some sixty cubits in height.”
“I see,” said Pilate, though in reality he was just beginning to understand. “And no doubt your father, being true to his title, promised to rectify that not insignificant oversight.”
“He pointed out that the entire structure evidenced substantial deterioration and compared it to rotting teeth, scarred with decay, then argued persuasively that a Temple whose purpose was to glorify God should not be allowed to remain in such a cursed state of disrepair. I believe his exact words were, ‘A man’s mouth feeds his body so that the flesh will not wither and die, and so it behooves him to keep his teeth in good condition that he may partake of all the good things his Father has provided for sustenance. Similarly, the Temple is the mouth of the priesthood, the tithes of the people being the food on which it survives.’”
“The priests agreed with his assessment, and the Temple was razed down to its original foundation. My father hired one thousand wagons to carry stones and ten thousand skilled workmen to teach the priests the art of stone cutting, carpentry, and metal-smithing. After eighteen months of nonstop labor the Temple proper was completed. Although the work still continues and although he did not gain possession of the public genealogies, my father believed he had accomplished his purpose.”
Pilate snapped out of his reverie as the six-week-old conversation died inside his head and looked out over the Temple grounds. The huge structure stood as a constant reminder of his calamitous and fateful appointment as Procurator of Judea.
The Temple proper, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, was one hundred twenty cubits in length and twenty in height. A great white dome, adorned with a pinnacle of solid gold, sat atop the building. The first time he saw it, while he was still some distance from the city, it had reminded him of the snow-capped peaks of Mount Hermon.
However, the view that commanded his attention of late was that of the avenue at the southwestern angle of the Temple. The bridge that spanned the intervening Valley of Tyropoeon was colossal. It was built upon huge arches, spanning twenty-seven and a half cubits; the spring stones measured sixteen cubits in length and were a third of a cubit thick.
He spent many a day during the last six weeks standing on this balcony, staring at the royal bridge. Below him, the city spread out like a map. Straggling subu
rbs, orchards, and seemingly ubiquitous gardens dotted the landscape. His gaze wandered to the horizon and became lost in the hazy outline of the distant mountains. Inevitably, however, his eyes were always drawn back to the bridge over which the Galilean had been led, in plain view of all Jerusalem, to and from the palace of the High Priest—the meeting place of the Sanhedrin. He shuddered with the memory.
“I wonder if Herod ever had an April as bad as I have had?” he muttered.
“Probably,” came the voice of Deucalion from behind him, startling him.
“What did you say?” he asked, turning his back on the Temple of God and straightening his sagging shoulders.
“You were talking to yourself again, Pontius.”
“Oh?”
“I said he has had much worse.”
“Worse?”
“Of course, Pontius. . .the man is dead!”
Pilate chuckled. “I was thinking of the son, not the father.”
Strange how one man’s death could bring so much peace, and so much pain, thought Deucalion, noting that his superior seemed to have aged considerably in the past month and a half. There had been rumors that even though the Procurator had sentenced Jesus to death, something profound had passed between the two men. However, what exactly had happened during the time Pilate was alone with the Jew remained a mystery.
He questioned Pilate about the events of the Passover, but the Procurator refused to discuss them. It was actually more like he could not speak about what happened; as if each word he spoke recalling the event cut into his spirit like the razor-sharp edge of a sword cuts flesh and bone.
“Antipas desires complete control of the Sanhedrin,” he said, pushing thoughts of the Nazarene from his mind. “Doras is merely his tool. The other activities he’s been engaged in recently are camouflage. As we expected, he is no longer satisfied with the meager portion left to him by his father.”
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