The Third Day

by David Epperson

  The prefect considered this for a moment before turning his attention to Volusus.

  “Very well. I’d like you to prepare a full report concerning everything that has happened over the past few days. We’ll discuss it after my bath.”

  Chapter 38

  I could do nothing but wait. I cringed at each scream from the torture below, and relaxed only after I was certain that the victim had not spoken English. After a while, I even found myself hunting for some wine, to steady my nerves.

  At long last, just as dusk was beginning to settle over the courtyard, the gate opened and two familiar figures passed through. I breathed a sigh of relief as I whistled and waved them over.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I said.

  Lavon looked around the courtyard, his face lined with worry. “Did Ray make it back?”

  Both he and Bryson winced as a prisoner let out a loud wail that echoed through the fort.

  I dipped my head toward the paving stones at my feet. “He’s down there, with the others. Tell me what happened.”

  Lavon explained as best he could. Shortly after Markowitz entered the Temple, a disturbance had broken out. Unable to see the source of the trouble, Lavon and Bryson had scurried away as unobtrusively as they could and had hidden themselves in the midst of empty animal cages.

  That’s what I had heard earlier.

  They had waited for the chance to go back to the soreg and retrieve Markowitz, but the opportunity to do so in reasonable safety never came.

  “We figured he’d make his way back, eventually,” said Lavon. “I just never imagined that he would get caught up with the rioters.”

  “Do you have any idea how it happened?” asked Bryson.

  “No,” I replied. “The Romans dragged in a dozen or so batches of prisoners. Ray was in one of the latter groups. That’s all I know.”

  “Is he OK?” asked Bryson.

  “Other than being beaten to a pulp and facing slow torture, I’d say he’s fine.”

  My sarcasm eluded the Professor, though not Lavon.

  “Did you try to speak to him?” asked the archaeologist.

  I glanced over to a group of wounded soldiers. “Today hasn’t been a great day for the Romans, either. I figured I’d be just as likely to join him downstairs if I tried to speak out.”

  Lavon nodded in understanding.

  “By the way, you won’t believe who the mob’s leader is.” I said.

  I explained.

  “The Barabbas?” said Bryson.

  Lavon, though, didn’t seem surprised.

  Just then, we heard another long shriek.

  “We’ve got to get him out,” said Bryson. “Where’s that centurion friend of yours?”

  “In with the governor, I think,” I replied.

  “Let’s go talk to him,” said Bryson.

  I shook my head. Dozens of his men had been wounded earlier in the day, and at least four had died. At the moment, our fates were the least of his concerns.

  “You said ‘governor?’” Lavon asked. “Did you mean …”

  “Yeah, Pilate.”

  “What was he like?”

  I gave a brief description: height – about five-six, or roughly average for the region; age – late forties to early fifties; physical bearing – not muscular like the legionnaires, but reasonably trim and fit. The governor had limped a bit as he got off his horse, but other than that, I hadn’t noticed any obvious health issues.

  “What about his demeanor?” asked Lavon.

  I considered this for a moment. “Keep in mind that I only saw him for a few minutes.”

  “And?”

  “Businesslike,” I replied.

  Honestly, I couldn’t think of a better term. After all that happened, I still can’t.

  ***

  Just then, Lavon spotted Decius and called out to him. The Roman came over to us, but this time, he didn’t seem all that friendly.

  “What is it you want?” he asked.

  I couldn’t tell whether his gruff attitude was directed at us specifically, or whether he was simply weary after a long, troublesome day. We could only hope for the latter.

  “One of our party was caught in the midst of the disturbance today,” Lavon explained. “We need to see him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Some of your men took him downstairs, but he does not even know the bandits’ language. There must be some mistake.”

  “How did he get mixed up with them?”

  “I don’t know. We need to ask him that very question.”

  Decius hesitated for a moment; then motioned for us to follow. He led us down a dim torch-lit staircase and then along a narrow passageway leading to an iron grate. Upon seeing the optio, a sentry saluted, then reached for his keys and opened the lock.

  The light inside was even dimmer than on the stairs, though the most overpowering sensation was the stench – urine, feces, and the odor of burned entrails. Bryson turned to the side and threw up. The guard smiled, as did Decius. Neither of them made the slightest move to clean up the mess.

  Decius called for a torch and they scanned the faces of the bound prisoners. To the far left, curled into a ball in the corner on some filthy, rotten straw, lay Markowitz.

  I called him by name, but the English words didn’t register immediately.

  “Ray, it’s me: Bill.”

  A barely audible voice replied. “Is that you? Where are Henry, and Robert?”

  “We’re here, too,” they said. “What happened?”

  Markowitz sat up, staring into the light as if he couldn’t be entirely sure that his visitors weren’t mere apparitions.

  “I don’t really know,” he said. “I finished the sacrifice, but when I walked out of the Temple, you were gone. I looked around the courtyard for a few minutes, but I couldn’t see anyone.

  “I was about to go back inside when a group of these crazies came up and pushed me from behind. Two of them grabbed me and sort of herded me out the gate to the west, where maybe a hundred or so others were already waiting.”

  “Then what?”

  “They were yelling and shouting, though I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They spotted a troop of Romans and all started picking up rocks and throwing them. I didn’t want to, but one of them held a knife to my throat and handed me a paving stone. I didn’t have much choice.”

  “Did you hit anyone?” asked Bryson.

  “I have no idea. A few minutes later, I got struck by something and must have been knocked out. The next thing I knew, I was tied up with some others and pushed along the road until we got back here.”

  “So you’ve managed to make enemies on both sides,” I said. “Congratulations.”

  Markowitz glared, but I took this as a positive sign. Some of his strength was coming back.

  He looked down and didn’t say anything for a minute or two; then he stared back up at us with pitiful, plaintive eyes.

  “You’ve got to get me out of here. Do you know what they’re doing?”

  “We know,” said Lavon.

  The archaeologist explained to Decius what Markowitz had told him, emphasizing again that the prisoner did not speak the language of the bandits, and therefore could not have been part of their plotting.

  Decius nodded but said nothing.

  Lavon then reached over and started to help Markowitz to his feet. “May we take him back to our room?”

  “No,” said Decius.

  “They may torture him if he stays here,” said Lavon. “He must be moved to avoid a mistake.”

  Decius considered this for a moment; then called out to the sentry, who returned a few minutes later with two heavy chains.

  “I will keep him apart from the others,” the optio said, “but I have no authority to release him. Only the commander or the prefect may do that.”

  Decius barked another command and the sentry untied Markowitz and chained him around the neck and ankles.

  “What
’s happening?” asked Markowitz.

  “You’re going to solitary until the prefect can hear your case,” said Lavon.

  He then spoke a few words in Greek to Decius. The officer signaled to another soldier, who returned a few minutes later with a chunk of bread and a jug of water. We then left the squalid pen and walked about thirty feet to a tiny crawl space.

  The sentry opened the grate and motioned for Markowitz to go inside. The cell wasn’t much bigger than the entrance – about five feet long, three feet wide, and four high, with a cold stone floor. Worse, no light reached the interior.

  I shuddered as I considered that the ancients locked people in such spaces for months, if not years. Most – the lucky ones, really – would go mad in short order.

  Lavon spoke to the guard, who handed me a torch and explained that I would be allowed a brief time to tend his prisoner’s wounds.

  Fortunately, Markowitz still had all of his teeth and he didn’t appear to have any broken bones. I cleaned his face as best I could, given the circumstances, and then turned to leave. As I did so, Markowitz reached out to grab my arm.

  “Your friends will let me go, surely.”

  “If Decius thought you were a Zealot, you’d still be with the others,” I replied.

  Markowitz sighed with relief, but his voice still registered concern. “Robert, he’ll convince the commander, won’t he?”

  I pulled away. At the time, I felt like it would serve the kid right to squirm a bit.

  “I’m sure he will,” I said, “but just so you know, the governor arrived not long ago. You’ll be at the tender mercies of Pontius Pilate.”

  Markowitz didn’t respond, and just before the guard closed the door, Lavon reached inside and asked Ray to hand over his robe.

  To my surprise, he did so without protest, or even asking why.

  Once we returned to the courtyard, Lavon wadded the robe into a ball and threw it into the nearest charcoal brazier.

  “Why did you do that?” asked Bryson. “He’ll get cold.”

  “Better cold than dead.”

  “What?”

  “He must have switched robes inside the Temple,” said Lavon. “Jewish men wore tassels on the four corners of their garments. That’s what I tossed into the fire.”

  “But Ray is Jewish.”

  “We’re going to have enough trouble as it is. Let’s not remind the Romans of that if we can help it.”

  Chapter 39

  We trudged back up the twelve flights of stairs to our room. As we rounded the last corner, a dark-haired young man of about eighteen spotted us and leapt to his feet. He opened the door and motioned for us to enter.

  Evidently, the rest of us were still in the good graces of our hosts, for the servant had already lit an oil lamp and supplied us with two loaves of fresh bread and a jug of wine.

  Lavon spoke briefly and the kid hustled back downstairs.

  “I sent him for dinner. We’re going to need more than this.”

  Both he and Bryson hadn’t eaten since the baths earlier in the morning, so they tore into the bread. I, for one, needed more liquid refreshment. I filled my goblet halfway, quickly chugged that, and then poured full cups for us all.

  I leaned back in my chair and sighed. “A hell of a day,” I said.

  The other two did not argue. We just sat there, in silence, for some time.

  “What are we going to do?” Bryson finally asked.

  Lavon got up and walked over to a window. He stared at the Temple, watching the priests complete their evening rituals, while he attempted to work out a plan.

  “Our best bet will be to lay low for a few days,” he concluded.

  That sounded reasonable to me, as long as the Romans let us. I certainly didn’t have any better ideas.

  “We can’t just leave Ray in that cell,” said Bryson.

  “He’ll live,” said Lavon.

  “You can’t be serious! He doesn’t have water. For crying out loud, he doesn’t even have a bucket.”

  “I didn’t say he’d be comfortable. I said he’d live. If we’re lucky, they’ll forget about him. We can ask Volusus to let him go after Pilate has gone back to Caesarea.”

  “How can you be sure that will happen?” Bryson asked.

  “The Roman governors all hated this place,” Lavon replied. “Caesarea, by contrast, had been built along Roman lines from the beginning, with all the comforts of home. They came to Jerusalem only when they had to, for festivals and such.”

  “Or when they expected trouble,” I said.

  Lavon nodded. “That’s our second problem, although now it’s all starting to make sense.”

  “What is?” asked Bryson.

  “Why Pilate is here, in the Antonia,” he answered. “Some of my colleagues believe that Jesus was condemned in Herod’s palace instead of the fort, since Pilate, as a visiting Roman prefect, would naturally stay in the city’s equivalent of the Presidential Suite. Somebody even filmed a TV show about it a few years ago, supposedly ‘proving’ why the Via Dolorosa is in the wrong spot.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Except that he’s obviously staying here.”

  “Yes. I overheard a couple of soldiers speculating about this, since it’s so unusual. According to the rumors, some of the emperor’s advisors have questioned whether they appointed the right man to govern Judea. Pilate is taking no chances. He wants to be in a position to stomp on any trouble the instant it develops.”

  “All the more reason to keep Ray under wraps,” I said.

  “That’s what I’m trying to say. Let’s hope they forget about him. Pilate could just as easily decide to kill all of the prisoners and be done with it.”

  “We might have to stay here beyond Sunday, then?”

  Lavon nodded. “Do you recall if Ray still had a chip? I forgot to look.”

  In all the commotion, I had too.

  ***

  I didn’t want Sharon to think we had forgotten about her, so I reinserted my ear bud and called out.

  She whispered quietly. “I’ve been trying to reach you,” she chided.

  Lavon also inserted his earpiece. “Hello, Sharon,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “A dressing room, by the looks of it.”

  That, as it turned out, was a bit of a misnomer, since the women typically departed with considerably less apparel than they had on going in, but we found her description fascinating nonetheless.

  The room was about half the size of the dormitory. Along one side, a stone bench jutted out about three feet from the main wall, with a conduit of running water flowing down the middle from one end to the other. From what I could tell, the only things missing were the faucets.

  A wheel like the one in the sleeping quarters controlled similar heating vents. Oil lamps provided illumination, and in a far corner, musicians played soothing tunes.

  “They brought me here a few minutes ago. There’s not room for everyone to dress at the same time, so the others are getting ready in shifts.”

  “Have you seen where they are going?”

  “The banquet hall.”

  She paused.

  “Hold on. Rebekah’s coming for me.”

  Rebekah served as the madam – a former courtesan who ran her part of the operation with Roman-like efficiency and who was entirely devoid of sentiment regarding her charges’ assigned tasks.

  Rebekah led Sharon toward the banquet hall, following five girls whose clothing consisted of the merest snippets of fabric. Not that any of it stayed on very long.

  Sharon described the scene with more than a hint of disgust.

  As soon as they arrived, the five began to slink provocatively toward the head table and within a couple of minutes, all were completely naked. One, in fact, had almost immediately begun to have sex with the king’s favored guest.

  My kind of party, I could tell.

  “Do you still have your clothes?” Lavon asked.

  “For the moment. I think she’s just tr
ying to show me what I’m supposed to do tomorrow.”

  She paused.

  “You’ve got to get me out of here,” she said.

  “We’re working on it,” I replied.

  “Well, work harder!”

  “We are,” said Lavon, “but we have another problem.”

  He briefly explained what had happened to Markowitz.

  “We may have to cash in all of our chips to keep Ray in one piece,” I said.

  I didn’t need to explain what that might mean to her.

  “Oh.”

  There wasn’t anything else to say. In the lottery between ‘bad’ and ‘worse,’ she had drawn ‘bad.’ For now, she’d just have to live with it.

  ***

  That didn’t mean I was happy about it, though. I kicked over my chair and swore; then I cursed again for losing control of myself.

  I set my chair back upright, took a deep breath and another swig of wine, and then sat back down.

  “Well,” I said, “any ideas?”

  Lavon shook his head. Even if Ray hadn’t been languishing in that hellhole, the Romans were unlikely to assist a woman who wasn’t a Roman citizen. To make matters worse, according to the Gospels, Pilate and Herod didn’t care much for each other.

  “In the twenty-first century, we’d call it a turf battle,” he said. “Plus, the domains of local client kings weren’t fixed, so these little monarchs were constantly scheming to add to their territories. More land meant more tax revenue. I’m sure Pilate got tired of it after a while.”

  “What about the worms?” I asked.

  Both Lavon and Bryson looked at me blankly.

  “Sharon said something about Herod dying after being eaten by worms. Worst case, if she really has to sleep with him, do we need to worry about this?”

  Lavon laughed. “No, that was Herod Agrippa, the current king’s nephew. In a few years, he’ll conspire to have his uncle deposed and sent into exile.”

  “Serves him right,” said Bryson.

  “Serves both of them right,” said Lavon.

  I thought about calling Sharon back to let her know about this, but I didn’t think it would be much comfort, at least not now.

  Chapter 40