“You violate the neutrality of an ambassador!” Jacob angrily retorted as troopers grabbed his arms.
“You Jews have violated your word at every opportunity during this war,” Fabius bitterly replied. “More than once you have ignored the neutrality of Roman ambassadors. Like for like, Jew.”
“Wait!” Varro spoke up. “The man is right, Fabius. No matter what the other side does, we are Romans and we ought to observe the neutrality of envoys.”
The troopers who were in the process of hauling Jacob away looked uncertainly from questor to tribune.
Eyes blazing, Fabius swung on Varro. “These people have lost the right to civil treatment,” he snarled in the questor’s face. “Not that I need excuse myself to you, Varro. You have no standing here. General Bassus has only tolerated your presence out of the goodness of his heart. So, mind your business.” He turned to the cavalrymen. “Take the Jew away! Give him a slow cross.”
Annoyed by the tribunes attitude, Varro could have made an issue of it. Yet, he told himself, if he was to pick a fight with Bassus or his officers it would have to be a fight that he badly needed to win, because once he went down that road he might sour relations with the general and lose his valuable cooperation. So, as the hotheaded Jacob was dragged away yelling deprecations against Fabius and Romans in general, Varro kept silent. He watched from a distance as two lengths of wood were formed into a large ‘X’ by Fabius’ men. This was propped up on the camp rampart facing the forest. Jacob was then stripped and spread-eagled on the cross with his arms and legs tied in place. Varro was familiar with ‘slow’ cross. It was intended to draw out the agony of execution. The victim would die from a combination of starvation and exposure, lingering for many days before expiring. Varro had never personally consigned anyone to a slow cross, although such a punishment was within his power. He thought it enough that a prisoner paid with his life, it had never been in his nature to inflict unnecessary pain.
Fabius then sent several of his centurions riding to the edge of the forest where they called into the trees that Jacob would be freed alive if and when the remaining rebels gave themselves up. All the while, Jacob yelled at the top of his voice, warning his comrades in the forest not to trust these Romans who had violated his neutrality, and urging them not to surrender. Tribune Fabius soon tired of the prisoner s voice and ordered him gagged.
Now Pedius, Varro’slictor, came to the questor. With military operations pending, Varro had put Pedius in charge of the welfare of Miriam and Gemara. “Miriam is asking to see you, my lord,” Pedius advised worriedly. “A matter of urgency.”
Accompanied by Pedius and Martius, Varro strode to where the expedition’s baggage animals were tethered. The veiled Miriam had been sitting on the ground with Gemara. She quickly came to her feet when she saw the questor.
“Pedius said that you wished to see me,” Varro began.
“I think that the man who has been put on the cross on the wall is my brother,” she announced. There was a slight quaver in her voice. “Please, will you help him?”
It was the first time Varro had detected a hint of emotion from her. It was also the first time she had sought his aid. Yet, he did not entirely believe her. “How do you know he is your brother?” he asked, suspecting she was merely aiming to help a fellow Jew.
“I heard him crying out. I recognized his voice.”
He looked into her beautiful dark eyes, trying to read them. “You recognized his voice? From here? I find that hard to believe.”
“Would you not recognize the voice of your brother?” she countered.
“Both my brothers are dead.” His voice was a monotone, his impassive reaction conditioned by years of grief for his two brothers, killed in Rome’s recent civil war.
“Five years ago, my brother Jacob, a free man, went to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover,” Miriam went on, seemingly ignoring his comment. “He disappeared there, and I have not seen him since. I have thought him dead all this time.” Now she made her salient point. “Would you not recognize the voices of your dead brothers?”
Had he given her a direct answer, it would have been in the affirmative. His brothers’ voices lived eternally in his memory. Instead, he asked her a question. “How is it that your brother was free and you were not?”
“My father sold me into slavery.”
Varro was shocked. “Your father did that?”
“My brother was also in Queen Berenice’s service, but as a free man. The queen always permitted her free Jewish servants leave to take part in the Passover Festival. That last year, Jacob did not come back. I had always thought that he must have died in the war. Then, today, I heard his voice. To me, it was like a voice from Heaven.”
Varro looked questioningly to Martius, who nodded. Martius believed her.
“Come with me,” Varro instructed.
Leaving young Gemara with Pedius, Varro and Martius conducted the Jewish woman up onto the camp ramparts. Soldiers’ heads turned disapprovingly as she passed along the narrow boardwalk behind them. Varro knew that it was considered unlucky by Roman soldiers for a woman to mount a camp’s walls, but at this moment that was the least of his considerations. Seeing Antiochus among officials a little further along the wall Varro motioned for the Jewish magistrate to join them. When they reached the wooden cross and stood before the crucified man, Miriam suddenly burst into tears. Falling to her knees, she pulled aside her veil, and began to kiss the prisoner’s feet. Tears also began to form in Jacob’s eyes.
Varro did not need Miriam to tell him that this was indeed her brother. He ordered the nearest soldier to remove the gag from Jacob’s mouth. Once the gag had gone, Jacob began to converse rapidly with Miriam, and she with him, in Aramaic. Varro had anticipated this. He turned to Antiochus. “What are they saying?”
For a time, Antiochus listened to the emotion-charged exchange between brother and sister, before providing Varro with a commentary in Latin. “The girl reveals that she is a Nazarene,” he said, turning up his nose with distaste.
“Miriam is a Nazarene?” Varro remembered her interest in the house at Nazareth.
“Her brother is also a Nazarene,” Antiochus went on. He listened a little more. “No, he was a Nazarene, but he turned his back on the Nazarene’s doctrines, wise fellow. He tired of turning the other cheek, he says, and turned to armed rebellion against Rome instead. He was with Judas ben Jairus and his brother Simon during the fighting at Jerusalem—they were both leaders of one of the Jewish factions. He used tunnels beneath the city to escape with Judas in the last days of Titus’ siege.”
After a time, Miriam, on her knees still, turned and looked up at Varro with tear-stained cheeks. “Please, save him,” she implored. “You have the power.”
“He can save himself,” Varro replied, “if he will go back to Judas ben Jairus and convince him and all those with him to surrender.”
“I will not do that!” said Jacob vehemently.
“It would mean you will live, brother,” said Miriam slowly coming to her feet. “Save yourself. For me, and for our mother.”
Jacob shook his head back and forth “I cannot!”
“Why not?” She was angry now.
“Judas sent me to negotiate terms. He told me that if I came back without terms he would kill me. I may as well die here, now.”
Martius put a hand on Varro’s shoulder. “Julius, a private word.” Varro and Martius moved away. Once the pair was out of earshot of the others, Martius spoke confidentially. “Your primary concern in all this is finding the apothecary Matthias ben Naum, is it not? So, the last thing we want is Bassus’ troops killing all the Jews in the forest, because one of their victims could be our man Ben Naum. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“What if we were to send jolly Jacob there back to his unpleasant friend Judas, with the proposition that I go into the forest and negotiate terms with them, if they hand Ben Naum over to you for questioning? Then, even if the negotiations come t
o nothing, at least you have secured Ben Naum. If they refuse to produce Ben Naum, you can be reasonably certain that the elusive apothecary is not with them.”
Varro was shaking his head. “No, Marcus, I am not letting you venture in there alone. Besides, I doubt they would hand over one of their own. All the same, thank you for your original thought and your brave offer, my friend.” Then an original thought of his own occurred to Varro. “However, if I were to offer to go into the forest to negotiate with them, on condition that they allowed me to question Ben Naum, in there, in the forest, that might prove to be a workable proposition.”
“I am not letting you venture in there alone!” Martius countered.
Varro smiled. “Then we shall go together.”
“Done!” Martius returned, clapping his friend on the back.
They returned to the cross.
“Jacob, I will have you freed if you agree to go back and tell Ben Jairus that I will personally enter the forest and negotiate terms with him, on condition that he produces a man by the name of Matthias ben Naum, an apothecary of Jerusalem, and permits me to question him in the forest, on a matter dating back forty years.”
Jacob looked at the questor, uncertain about the trustworthiness of the offer.
“Agree!” Miriam urged her sibling. “Agree, brother, and live!”
Jacob looked away for a long moment, thinking hard, then turned back to Varro. “I am to tell Judas that you are prepared to come into the forest to negotiate terms?”
“On condition that I can question Matthias ben Naum,” Varro reiterated.
“Question him in the forest?”
“Yes, in the forest. I will venture in there with just a handful of companions, if Judas ben Jairus is prepared to give a guarantee of safe passage both into and out of the forest. Unlike some of my colleagues, I am prepared to trust the word of Jewish people.”
Jacob looked at his sister, searching her eyes for an answer.
“Agree, Jacob” she said, softly now, pleading now. “Please agree.” Jacob dropped his eyes. “Very well,” he said, almost inaudibly.
Tribune Quintus Fabius came clambering up onto the ramparts in a rage. “Who told you to free that man?” he yelled to the soldiers of the 4th Scythica Legion around the cross.
Jacob was standing free. His clothes had been returned, and he was flexing his arms, which had been burned and bruised by the ropes that had held him on the cross.
“I ordered him set free,” Varro declared, pushing through the legionaries.
“I warned you, Varro!” Fabius was close to screaming. His fists were clenched. “You have no power here. You cannot countermand my direct order!”
“Shall we see General Bassus about the matter?” Varro asked.
Fabius grinned. “Yes, let us do that.”
Following Fabius, Varro and Martius climbed down from the wall. As Fabius strutted toward Bassus’ pretorium, Varro called over Callidus and whispered in his ear. Callidus nodded, then hurried off toward the questor’s tent. Varro and Martius then continued on in Fabius’ footsteps. Bassus was resting on one elbow on a low campaign bed in his bare pavilion. As anxious servants hovered around, the general’s physician, Polycrates, a tall, elegant Greek with silver hair, stood mopping Bassus’ perspiring brow.
Tribune Fabius dropped to one knee beside the bed. “General, the questor has overreached himself,” he declared. “You must order him to obey me.”
“How are you feeling, general?” Varro asked, as he and Martius came to stand at the end of the bed.
“The pain comes and goes, Varro,” the white-faced Bassus weakly replied. “It comes and goes.” His clarity of mind seemed to have returned; for the moment at least. “What have you been doing to upset my tribune?”
“Varro countermanded my orders,” Fabius fumed.
“Is that true, Varro?”
“I am sending the Jewish envoy back into the forest with an offer to negotiate terms,” Varro informed the general.
Bassus shook his head. “No terms. Unconditional surrender, or the Jews die.”
Varro had made up his mind. “I am sorry, general, but I need all those Jews alive. One of them may be instrumental to the success of my investigation.”
“I cannot help that, Varro.” Bassus’ tone was harsher now. “I am under orders to speedily terminate the rebellion. And I have Ben Jairus’ Jews where I want them.”
“I understand your situation, general.” As Varro spoke, Callidus slipped into the tent. There was a small scroll in the freedman’s hand. “However, you must also understand my situation. I will do my best to convince the Jews to surrender themselves to you, but above all I must do everything possible to interview the man I seek.”
“I am senior here, Varro,” Bassus growled. “I won’t have it. The Jews surrender unconditionally, or I send my troops into the forest with orders to kill all who resist.”
“Yes, you are senior to me, general,” Varro acknowledged. He held out his hand to Callidus, who lay the scroll in it. “However, with respect, as Acting Governor of Syria and Judea, General Collega is senior to you. I have here an Authority from General Collega. My tribune will read it aloud.” He passed the document to Martius.
Martius unraveled the scroll and recited the contents for all to hear. “Gnaeus Cornelius Collega, Legate of Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, to all persons in the Province of Syria and the Sub Province of Judea. It is hereby certified that Julius Terentius Varro, Questor to the Propretor of Syria and Judea, has my Authority to require and command all things in my name.’” It was short, it was to the point, and it was incontrovertible. Collega was indisputably the more senior man; his appointment as a general of legatus rank predated that of Bassus by four years. With the departure of Titus, and in the absence of a governor of consular rank, Collega was the most senior representative of the emperor in Syria and Judea. Martius held the Authority out to the general, so that he might authenticate the seal as that of Collega.
Bassus waved the document away, a look of resignation on his face. “Very well, do as you will, Varro,” he sighed. “Just bear in mind, my ‘friend,’ if just one Jew escapes from that damned forest as a consequence of your actions I will haul you before Caesar once we both return to Rome, and you can answer to him. That is a promise!”
It was not a promise, or a threat, that worried Varro. He did not intend to let any rebels escape.
Nightfall would claim the forest in under two hours. General Bassus’ army was still in place, still encircling the Forest of Jardes. The eleven thousand soldiers continued to stand in their places as they had since the middle of the day, enduring the heat.
“There he is!” someone on the wall called.
All heads turned toward the trees as a lone rider emerged from the forest. An hour after he had been given back his horse and sent on his way, Jacob was returning.
“That’s a relief,” commented Martius beside Varro, on the ramparts. “I was beginning to think that Judas ben Jairus had slit the young envoy’s throat.”
“On the other hand, Jacob could be returning to tell us that Judas will not parley.”
“He would not be fool enough to come back if that were their answer.”
Outside the camp gate Varro and Martius mounted up. They and ugly Decurion Pompeius and ten of his troopers filed down through the stationary ranks of the 10th Legion. They met the envoy on the gentle slope halfway between trees and Roman lines.
“Well, Jacob?” Varro asked as the Roman horsemen encircled the Jew’s horse. “What does Judas ben Jairus have to say?”
“Judas agrees to your offer,” the young Jew replied with a stone face. “He promises safe passage in and out of the forest for you and four companions.”
“What of the apothecary Matthias ben Naum?” Varro asked. “Am I to have my interview with Ben Naum?”
“You may interview Ben Naum. In the forest.”
“Then, Ben Naum is in the forest with Judas and the others?”
“Yes, he is there.”
Varro was elated by the news, but he tried not to show it. “Very well. Four companions and myself.”
“At dawn tomorrow.”
Varro did not like the sound of that. The rebels might attempt to break out in the night. “There is time enough for a meeting before sunset,” he responded.
Jacob shook his head. “Tomorrow, at dawn, or not at all.” He went to turn away.
“Very well,” Varro called. “Tomorrow at dawn.”
“I will meet you here as the sun rises,” Jacob advised. With that, he pushed his way out of the circle of horsemen.
“Bassus will not be pleased with the delay,” said Martius as the Romans turned back toward their camp.
“Neither am I,” Varro returned. “It will be a long night.”
Returning to the camp, Varro and his deputy dismounted. They went directly to General Bassus’ pretorium. Fabius was there, looking like a child who had lost his favorite toy. Bassus was lying flat. He did not even turn his head as the two officers entered his tent. “Well, questor, to what have you committed us?” Bassus asked.
“My party will go into the forest at dawn tomorrow, General,” Varro answered.
“No, no, no!” Bassus painfully rocked his head back and forth. “The Jews are up to their old tricks, Varro. They will attempt to escape once darkness arrives.”
“To prevent that you will have rotate all your troops in three watches through the night, distributed evenly around the forest with burning torches.”
The questor’s plan for the night watches was subsequently adopted. Varro returned to his quarters, and he and his senior men dined apart from Bassus and his officers; the general no longer wished to mix with the questor or his subordinates. As Varro had anticipated, by exercising his Authority he had alienated himself from Bassus. He had done what he had to do, and could live with the consequences. Having traveled light, Varro and his colleagues dined on benches made from strips of turf laid one on another, around a table of similar construction. It was an uncomfortable experience, sitting to eat, as slaves did, rather than reclining. At least questor’s silver plate had found a place on several pack mules and could be used to add a touch of civility to the meal.
The Inquest Page 28