The Inquest

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  The questor and his party spent an hour in the area. Within a half mile radius of the execution site there were a number of Jewish tombs cut into the terraced rock. During the Revolt most had been damaged, some destroyed. One of these tombs would have been that of Josephus of Arimathea, the sepulchre used for the interment of Jesus, but there was no way of knowing which tomb it had been.

  Varro had dined with his officers and the prefects of the auxiliary units based at Jerusalem. Now, in the moonlight, he and Martius climbed the succession of wooden ladders which took them to the top of the tallest tower of the fortress. Called the Hippicus by the Jews, the tower was said to be twice as old as Rome. The standards of all the units currently at Jerusalem were displayed here, among them the blood red vexillum of the questor’s 4th Scythica Legion detachment and the white banner of his Vettonians.

  “Did you know, Julius, that no Roman standards were put on display here in the years before the rebellion, to appease the Jews?” said Martius disapprovingly when they reached the stone tower’s crenellated summit and looked out over the desolation below.

  “I have heard,” said Varro, gazing out to the Temple Mount glowing silver in the moonlight, “that when Pilatus first arrived at Jerusalem, at the beginning of his posting, he installed his standards up here. The Jews rioted, and followed him back to Caesarea in their thousands. They refused to budge until he relented, which he did in the end.”

  Martius shook his head. “We should not have given in to the Jews over the years the way we did. It only primed them for revolt. We gave them exemption from military service, we gave them coins without Caesar’s image, we allowed them to collect their Temple tax from their people across the Empire and to remit it to the priests here. Worst of all—preventing a legion from displaying its standards—that is going too far.”

  “Our procurator did steal from their treasury,” Varro returned. “That was what set off the Revolt, Marcus. If Cestius Gallus had punished Procurator Florus for his thievery and given the Jews back the gold he purloined, there would have been no uprising.”

  “If it had not been that, it would have been something else. The Jews would have found some pretext or other to rebel. It was our own fault. A handful of Caesars gave them concession after concession. We gave them a taste for freedoms, and in the end they could not be content with what they had. What a self-destructive people they are.”

  “They couldn’t have imagined, ten years ago, that it would come to this.” Varro’s eyes traversed the silent valley that was now the graveyard of a city. “Who could?”

  Martius was looking up at the moon. “Ten years ago, you would not have imagined yourself here today,” he mused. “And in these circumstances.”

  “I certainly would not. Ten years ago?” Varro stopped to reflect. “I was twenty-four, and commanding the 2nd Wing of the Pannonian Horse, on the Rhine. All the talk then was of the revolt of the Britons the year before. Nero was emperor.

  “And we loved him,” Martius chuckled. “No one then believed that he had murdered his own mother and was losing his mind.”

  “What of you, Marcus? Where were you, and your dreams, ten years ago?

  “Home, a thin-striper fresh from the 14th Gemina Martia Victrix in Britain.”

  “You served with General Paulinus during the revolt of Queen Boadicea? I was unaware of that.” Varro was impressed. “The 14th’s victory is the stuff of legend.”

  Martius nodded. “I never expected to survive, outnumbered twenty to one. We won that last battle more by Mars than Minerva, I can tell you.”

  “My manservant Hostilis was made a prisoner in Britain during that revolt.”

  “A Briton, is he? He looks too slight to have been a fighter. We made a great many Britons slaves after that revolt. The Britons don’t believe in slavery, you know. They killed their captives. No sense of commerce, those people. The Britons will never amount to anything.” He moved to the other side of the tower. Away to the south-east, the waters of the Dead Sea shimmered on the horizon. “After our victory I decided the gods must have chosen me for the soldiering life. I found my future on that battlefield.”

  Varro joined him. “The soldiering life is still your ambition?”

  “A general’s standard, famous victories, a consulship, and then a conquering expedition to some exotic land to expand the borders of the Empire—in that order. That should keep me occupied for the next ten years.”

  “You will make a fine general, Marcus. You command respect. The way you handled the men during the tremor, on the road from Lydda…I could never do that. I am no soldier. And I have no desire to be a soldier.”

  “What then does the future hold for you, Julius? Senator, pretor, and consul?”

  “That is the plan,” Varro said without enthusiasm. “My mother is relying on me. I am the man of the family; much is expected of me. But should the chance present itself, I would like to write. History.”

  “History? Any subject in particular?”

  “Historical mysteries have always interested me. The mystery of the murder of Germanicus Caesar, for example. Then there is the case involving his daughter and his grandson Nero, and the murder of his mother Agrippina. Mysteries of that nature intrigue me. The ability to ask questions is the one thing that sets us apart from the beasts, after all, Marcus. Without questions, mysteries will always remain unsolved.”

  “I like matters clear-cut.”

  Varro smiled. “The soldier’s way.”

  “Once we expose the Jew’s crucifixion plot and you deliver your damning report to Collega, the affair of the Nazarene’s death will be clear-cut, the mystery resolved.”

  “Possibly so.” Varro looked to the dark south. “The solution is perhaps down there, with Bassus. I must find the apothecary Ben Naum. His evidence will be crucial.”

  “We shall find him. Then you shall have the evidence you need. Mark my words, Julius, my friend—in ten years time no one will have even heard of Jesus of Nazareth.”

  XVIII

  THE ESCAPEE

  Roman Province of Judea. May, A.D. 71

  The hill town was fire-blackened and deserted. Bet Lehem, the Jews called it—the House of Bread. To the Romans it was Bethlehem. Centurion Titus Gallo and his eighty soldiers of the 4th Scythica moved in and out of the ruins of Bethlehem, poking here, nosing there.

  Questor Varro had decided not to wait for Artimedes to rejoin him from Caesarea with his report on Aristarchus’ background. He had pushed on, following the trail of General Bassus and his Jewish prisoners. The senior cavalry prefect stationed at Jerusalem had informed the questor that Bassus intended to secure Hebron twenty miles south of Jerusalem and then move east of the Dead Sea to take the rebel-held fortress of Macherus. Once that had been achieved he would wrap up his campaign by retaking the Masada fortress to the southwest. Telling the prefect to direct Artimedes to follow once he returned from Caesarea, Varro had marched the few miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. While his soldiers secured the silent ruins, Varro walked the dusty, sloping streets of the village with his retinue close behind.

  A hundred yards distant, a skeletal dog ran across the street and disappeared briefly into the rubble of a crumbled house, then emerged from behind it and bounded away down the rocky gradient where once the goats of the villagers had grazed. One of Gallo’s soldiers threw a javelin at the canine, but the animal dodged the missile, which lanced into the hard ground and bent behind the head, as it was designed to do.

  Centurion Gallo boomed a loud reprimand at the legionary for wasting a javelin.

  “But, centurion, it was a rebel Jewish dog,” the young soldier protested in his defense, bringing a laugh from his comrades.

  According to the Matthias document, Jesus had been born here at Bethlehem. It was also the birth place of Davidus, King of the Israelites, from whom the Nazarenes claimed Josephus, the Nazarene’s father, had descended. No good reason had been given for the Nazarene’s birth to take place here, although it was not un
common for a pregnant woman to be confined for a birth away from her home town. The Lucius letter also gave Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. It added that Josephus had come here to his home town with his pregnant wife Miriam to pay a new poll tax levied in Judea by Caesar Augustus that year, and Jesus’ mother had given birth while they were here. According to the Lucius Letter, the birth had taken place in a stable behind an inn in the town, because the inn was crowded with fellow taxpayers.

  Gray-bearded Pythagoras was walking at Varro’s shoulder as he roamed the village. “Questor, I cannot reconcile the Lucius Letter’s claim regarding the tax of Caesar Augustus with the records,” the chief secretary gravely advised. “According to the official records held at Caesarea, the year in which the new tax was introduced by Caesar Augustus was twenty-four years before the year in which the Nazarene was executed. That would make him twenty-four years of age at the time of his death. Yet, both the secret reports of the High Priests and the Lucius letter state he was in his thirties when he died.”

  Varro nodded. There was nothing to be found in the empty village. After a brief pause at Bethlehem, the questor ordered the column to resume its march.

  On the rocky Dead Sea shore, they made camp within the earthworks of a much larger marching camp built here several years before by Vespasian. The advance guard had reported no sign of General Bassus’ army at Hebron, so Varro guessed that Bassus had turned east and skirted the Dead Sea to the north, planning to cross the Jordan River and join the main north-south highway in the Perea region. That highway would take him down to Macherus, a fortress held by rebels since the first month of the Revolt. Varro had decided to follow an overland course to the Jordan. From there he would take the highway south to Macherus, where he should find General Bassus. Now, a day’s march east of Jerusalem, the expedition prepared to spend the night.

  While their infantrymen made camp and the cavalry stood guard, Varro and his officers and freedmen walked down to the water’s edge, where they were flanked by multicolored ridges of sandstone layered with chalk, clay, and gravel; yellow over white, then orange, with a top level of ochre red. Green was a color totally absent from the scene in the lifeless landscape.

  “The only thing that would grow around here,” said Callidus caustically as they made their way toward the lake, “is a man’s beard.”

  They had all heard of the Dead Sea. Every educated Roman knew of this lake. Fifty miles long and eleven miles wide, it was many hundreds of feet below sea level. Its main claim to fame rested on its content. Reputedly, the Dead Sea was so salty a man could easily float in it.

  “The story goes,” said Martius as they stood looking at the rippling waters with a breeze blowing into their faces from the south, “that when Caesar Vespasianus was here a few years ago with his army he had some Jewish prisoners trussed up and tossed in, to see whether or not they would float. Caesar was quite tickled when they bobbed around like apples in a water pot.”

  “The prisoners would have not been unhappy that they floated, either,” Varro suggested, generating laughter from his companions.

  Varro rose before dawn as usual. Seated on a stool, he was about to submit his face to Hostilis’ razor in the torchlight when Centurion Gallo burst into his tent.

  “The scribe Aristarchus has escaped from custody, questor!” Gallo reported.

  Leaving the shaving stool, Varro hurried through the darkened camp with the centurion, following a soldier bearing a spluttering torch. The first rays of dawn were beginning to brighten the horizon above the bare hills east of the lake when they reached the baggage carts. Soldiers of the watch stood around one cart with guilty looks on their faces. Philippus the Evangelist, still the questor’s ‘guest,’ sat with folded arms and closed eyes in the vehicle, partly covered by a blanket. Philippus was still proving useful, with Varro occasionally asking him new questions on their travels, such as recently when the questor had asked whether Josephus of Arimathea had been one of the Nazarene’s followers; Philippus had answered that he could not say, although he did state that Josephus had not participated in the disciples’ public gatherings. Philippus’ traveling companion since the expedition left Emmaus had been Aristarchus the scribe. The cart’s rail on one side, where Aristarchus’ chain had been fastened, had been broken away.

  “What possessed him to escape?” Varro pondered, before giving a command. “Sound Assembly.’ Search the camp. He must be in hiding here.”

  As the centurion hurried off bawling orders, Varro looked down at Philippus, whose eyes remained closed. “I know you are awake, Evangelist,” he said. “No one could sleep through all this commotion.”

  Philippus opened one eye. “Let a man sleep,” he croaked.

  “How long ago did Aristarchus make his escape, Philippus?”

  “I have been asleep,” Philippus replied. Opening the other eye now, he changed position, jangling the chain connecting his manacled left wrist to the side of the cart.

  “You must have heard the scribe break free,” Varro persisted.

  “I heard nothing. I saw nothing.” Philippus fixed Varro with a steely gaze. “I was blessed with a deep sleep.” The Evangelist, unhappy at being dragged along on the expedition, had apparently decided to be uncooperative.

  “That slyboots Aristarchus!” exclaimed Marcus Martius, arriving on the scene.

  “Philippus would have us believe that Aristarchus simply melted away.”

  “Another miracle!” Martius exclaimed with a wry smile in Philippus’ direction.

  Philippus rolled over, pulled the blanket up over him, and closed his eyes again.

  As a trumpet sounded Assembly’ nearby and the camp burst into life, Varro began to make his way back to his tent, and Martius fell in beside him. “Why would Artistarchus venture to escape, Marcus? Could it be that his credentials are false, that he was lying to us all along, and he bolted before Aristedes returned to denounce him?”

  “Either that,” the tribune replied, “or the mole-faced scribe could take no more of the Evangelist’s preaching.”

  Back at the pretorium, Varro resumed his seat and motioned for Hostilis to proceed with his shave, as, outside, the camp became a hive of activity. “It is perplexing, Hostilis,” the questor said, as the slave, standing behind him, dampened his skin. “Aristarchus the scribe, escaped. He must have lied about his past.”

  “Yes, master.” As Hostilis spoke, he applied the razor to his master’s throat.

  “It is possible that he was not in Prefect Pilatus’ service after all.”

  “No, master.”

  “Perhaps he merely repeated gossip about the Nazarene’s execution.”

  “That is possible, master.” The slave expertly slid the iron razor over his master’s tanned skin.

  “Do we discount his testimony altogether? The conspiracy between Josephus of Arimathea and Centurion Longinus; did Aristarchus concoct that story?”

  “It is difficult to know, master.”

  “What of the apothecary Matthias ben Naum? We only have Aristarchus’ word that Ben Naum provided Longinus with a drug to make it appear the Nazarene died on a cross. If Matthias ben Naum exists at all. This is very troubling, Hostilis.”

  “It is, master.”

  “Everything fitted together. The conspiracy between Pharisee and centurion. The apothecary. The drug. Not to mention the name of Naum, the name from my dream. If Aristarchus’ story is a complete fabrication, where does that leave us?”

  “Confused, master,” Hostilis succinctly remarked.

  By the time that Varro was coming to his feet with his tingling skin soothed by a balm of fragrant valerian lotion administered in the last stage of his shave, Centurion Gallo entered the pretorium once again. “It appears the scribe has escaped the camp, questor,” Gallo unhappily advised.

  Varro frowned. “How could he have managed that?”

  “You had best come take a look for yourself, my lord.”

  Gallo and his commander emerged into the new
day. Daylight now flooded the camp. Martius, Crispus, and Venerius fell in with Varro as the centurion led the way to the north-facing decuman gateway, where 4th Scythica sentries bearing embarrassed expressions quickly stood back out of their way. A pair of spindly wooden sentry towers flanked the gateway. Gallo pushed the gates open and led the officers outside. He pointed to the ditch running around the wall. A ladder stood in the ditch, propped against its outer wall. “Aristarchus must have waited until the sentries were distracted by the discovery of his disappearance,” the centurion explained, “then climbed the ladder, pulled it up after him, threw it over the wall, then followed it, and used it to negotiate the ditch.”

  Martius was appalled. “The sentries left their posts?”

  “The men heard the alarm raised and rushed to the baggage carts, tribune,” Gallo hurried to explain, “leaving the gate temporarily unattended. They are inexperienced…”

  “Half the remaining rebels in Judea could have entered the camp while the sentries were away from their posts, man!” Martius snarled.

  “The guilty men will be punished, tribune,” Gallo quickly responded. “They’ll feel my cudgel across their backs…”

  “No, no, no, that will not do,” Martius retorted. “Your recruits must learn that if they desert their posts, for whatever reason, they put the lives of their comrades at risk. In battle this is a capital offense. They would lose their heads, as you well know, Gallo.”

  “Yes, tribune,” the centurion returned grimly.

  “Have every man of the last watch, including the cavalry patrol on duty last night, report here to me,” Martius ordered. “They will draw lots. One man will be stripped, and each of the others will give him ten lashes. They will not leave their posts again. Go!”

  Furious, with his own men and at being countermanded by the tribune, Gallo strode away, yelling orders.

  Venerius watched him go. “That was telling him,” the junior tribune said with a leer, and loud enough for Gallo to hear. “He should also draw a lot. He shares their guilt.”