The Inquest
Page 43
All this time, one of the two badly injured legionaries, Rufus, had been groping around the ground. Now, he located his sword. With an effort he struggled onto his knees behind Pedius. “Protect the questor’s report,” he cried through his agony, repeating Centurion Gallo’s last order, as, summoning all his strength, he plunged the sword two-handed into the middle of Pedius’ back, falling forward to add impetus to the strike. The regularly-sharpened blade slid through Lictor Pedius’ body as if it were a sack of grain.
Pedius gasped with surprise, then, with a mystified expression, looked down, to see the bloodied, pointed tip of the sword emerge through the front of his tunic in the middle of his chest. Pedius opened his mouth, and let out a wild, animal-like cry as he realized what fate had befallen him. His eyes rolled up into his head, and Pedius sank to his knees, then toppled forward, brushing the brazier as he collapsed, to lay full length with the sword hilt jutting from his back. The report slipped from his dead grasp, and lay on the ground beside his body.
“What is it?” Varro called with frustration. “What’s happening now?”
“The traitor is dead, questor,” Legionary Rufus informed him from where he lay. “Your report is saved.”
“Dead? Pedius too? Can such carnage truly be God’s will?” Varro asked in confusion, trying to keep his balance. And then he felt a hand take his. A small hand.
“Come, master,” said a young voice.
“Gemara?” Varro responded. “Is that you?”
“I will show you the way,” the child replied.
She led him, stumbling, from the camp, to the lake. He was unaware of anyone else but her. “Where are we going?” he asked, as he heard waves breaking on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
The child did not answer. Gemara led him along beside the water, toward the rising sun.
It was now that Quintus Crispus came running into the camp from the direction of the town, where he had been searching unsuccessfully for the local Jewish physician. Crispus had heard the explosion of the lightning strike, and, open mouthed, he stood beside the brazier and surveyed the scene of devastation, as stunned soldiers began to join him from their tents. And then he saw the questor’s report lying on the ground at his feet. Quickly he stooped and picked it up. A quick inspection told him that the opening lines had been torn away, but essentially the Investigatio Nazarena and its conclusions remained intact. And then Crispus saw Julius Varro being led away by the child Gemara, following the lake. The cavalry prefect went to call out to Varro, but something stopped him. Somehow, he knew that the questor would not be returning. Again Crispus glanced at the report in his hand. Then he looked at the low fire in the brazier beside him. As Varro’s deputy, he should deliver the questor’s report to General Collega. Or did the report have another destiny? The young man who had several months before bathed in the Jordan River to wash away his sins, gazed into the fire.
As he was led by Gemara, Varro found his vision slowly returning. Indistinct, bleached images of the ground before him began to appear, and of the smiling child at his side. Then, more of a larger picture; hazy, washed out, but growing clearer with each passing minute in the bright light of the new day directly ahead, a light which was soon so bright it almost dazzled him anew. Putting a hand to his brow to shade his eyes, he stopped. His mind was filling with thoughts of where he had come from, and all that he had left behind. He went to turn around, to look back.
“Don’t look back,” said the child, tugging him forward.
He smiled, and nodded slowly, feeling himself surrounded by an all embracing faith in what lay ahead. He resumed his journey, feeling strangely, unusually, calm and at peace. Julius Varro never looked back.