False God of Rome (2 page)

‘What has this man to do with Yeshua?’ Sabinus asked Paulus.

‘He is one of his followers,’ Paulus replied with ill-concealed dislike. ‘He was with him for the two years that Yeshua spent causing trouble up in Galilee. He claims that
after the Passover meal Yeshua will declare that the End of Days is at hand; he’ll proclaim himself the long awaited Messiah and lead a revolt against Rome and the Temple priests. Caiaphas is
asking for the prefect’s permission to arrest him for blasphemy and to try him before the Sanhedrin, the religious court; this man has said that he will lead us to him tonight.’

Sabinus turned back to the other man. ‘What’s your name, Jew?’

The man carried on staring at him for a few more moments before deigning to answer. ‘Yehudah,’ he said, drawing himself up.

‘I’m told that you are a Sicarius.’

‘It is an honour to serve God,’ Yehudah replied evenly in near perfect Greek.

‘So, Yehudah the Sicarius, what do you ask for in return for betraying the man whom you’ve followed for two years?’

‘It’s for reasons of my own that I do it, not for reward.’

Sabinus scoffed. ‘A man of principle, eh? Tell me why you do it so that I can believe that it’s not a trap.’

Yehudah stared blankly at Sabinus and then slowly looked away.

‘I could have it tortured out of you, Jew,’ Sabinus threatened, losing his patience with the man’s lack of deference for Roman authority.

‘You can’t, quaestor,’ Paulus said quickly, ‘you’ll offend Caiaphas and the priests, who’ve asked you for help in apprehending a renegade. With more than a
hundred thousand pilgrims here for the Passover, Rome needs the priests’ support to keep order; there has already been one riot in the past few days.’

Sabinus glared at the squat little Temple Guard, outraged. ‘How dare you tell me, a Roman quaestor, what I can or cannot do?’

‘He’s right though, sir,’ Longinus assured him, ‘and it won’t do to refuse a request for help from the priests; it ain’t how things are done here, especially
as we owe them a favour.’

‘What for?’

‘Straight after the riot that Yeshua caused they handed over the murderers of the three auxiliaries to us; one of them, another Yeshua, Yeshua bar Abbas, is almost as popular with the
people as his namesake. The prefect condemned all three upon his arrival yesterday; they’re due to be executed tomorrow.’

Sabinus realised that Longinus probably was correct: he had no choice but to acquiesce to Caiaphas’ request. He cursed Pilatus for having put him in this position by neglecting his duties
through drink; but then reflected that it was probably the intolerable situation in the province that had driven him to it.

‘Very well then,’ he growled, ‘tell Caiaphas you may proceed with the arrest.’

‘He requests a Roman officer to accompany us,’ Paulus replied. ‘Without one we will be lacking in authority.’

Sabinus glanced at Longinus who nodded his agreement to that assessment. ‘Very well, I’ll come with you. Where should we meet?’

Paulus looked at Yehudah. ‘Tell him.’

The Sicarius raised his head and looked disdainfully at Sabinus. ‘We will be eating the Passover meal in the upper city, there is only one staircase up to the room so it would be easy to
defend and was purposely chosen as such; but later we will be meeting new initiates outside the city walls. Meet me by the Sheep Gate at the start of the second watch; I will lead you to
him.’

‘Why not grab him in the street as he leaves the room?’

‘It will be quieter at Gethsemane.’

‘You let the Temple Guards take this rabble-rouser,’ Prefect Pilatus roared at Sabinus, slurring his words, ‘to be tried by his fellow Jews. Then you let his
armed followers wander off to cause whatever mayhem they feel like at a time when this filthy city is crammed full of the most militant religious bigots that anyone has ever had the misfortune to
conquer.’

‘The Temple Guards let them go once they’d secured Yeshua; their captain had had half of his right ear cut off and they didn’t have the stomach for a fight. I didn’t have
any other troops with me.’

‘Why not?’ Pilatus’ bloodshot eyes bulged with fury, his bulbous drinker’s nose glowed red like a branding iron; droplets of sweat rolled down his saggy cheeks.
Sabinus’ report on Yeshua’s arrest had, to say the least, disappointed him. His three dinner guests sipped their wine in silence as he slumped down on his dining couch and rubbed his
temples. He reached for his cup, drained it in one, slammed it back down onto the table, staring at Sabinus malevolently, and then turned to an elegant, middle-aged man reclining on the couch to
his left.

‘Herod Agrippa, I need your advice. The quaestor has let this rebel outmanoeuvre us.’

Herod Agrippa shook his head, swaying his hair that hung in oiled ringlets to just below his close-clipped beard, framing a thin, firm-jawed face that would have been handsome had it not been
for the large, hooked nose that protruded, like a hawk’s beak, from between his dark eyes. ‘You’re right, prefect,’ he said holding out his cup unsteadily to be filled by
the slave waiting on him, ‘the priests walked into Yeshua’s trap without…’ He stopped as the slave poured wine over his shaking hand. ‘Eutyches! You’re almost
as useless as this quaestor. Get out!’

Sabinus stood, staring straight ahead, scowling and making no attempt to conceal his dislike for Herod.

‘In our country a man would lose his eyes for the quaestor’s incompetence,’ the elder of the two men reclining on Pilatus’ right observed, stroking his long, curled
beard.

Herod threw his cup at the retreating slave. ‘Unfortunately, Sinnaces, they don’t have the same freedom here to mete out deserved punishment to idiots as you do in
Parthia.’

Sabinus shot Herod a venomous look. ‘I would remind you, Jew, that I am a senator, watch your tongue.’ He turned back to Pilatus. ‘The priests offered us the opportunity to
have this man arrested so I acted on my own initiative as you didn’t wish to deal with it, being…otherwise engaged.’

‘I was not “otherwise engaged”, I was drunk and now I’m even drunker; but even in this condition I would have known to bring that madman back here into Roman custody and
not let the Jews have him, no matter how many fucking priests I upset. Fuck ’em all, quaestor; do you hear me? Fuck ’em all.’

‘But the priests will try him and find him guilty; it’s in their interests to do so,’ Sabinus argued.

‘They’re already trying him and are keen to pass a death sentence on him; in fact, they’re so keen to condemn him that they’ve even broken their Passover Sabbath to try
him overnight. Caiaphas sent me a message asking me to come to the palace first thing in the morning to confirm their sentence before they stone him.’

Sabinus looked at his superior uncomprehendingly. ‘So what’s the problem, then?’

Pilatus sighed, exasperated; he closed his eyes and ran both hands through his hair, pulling his head back. ‘You’re new to this dump so I’ll try and explain it in simple
terms,’ he said with more than a degree of condescension. ‘By your own admission, in your report, Yeshua organised his own arrest; he sent Yehudah to deliver him up to the priests
because he wanted
them
to find him guilty, not
us
. Because of his popularity with the ordinary people he’s gambling that they will rise up against the priests and all the Temple
hierarchy for condemning him to death as well as against Rome for confirming the sentence. In one massively naive blunder you’ve enabled Yeshua to drive a wedge between the people and the
only power they respect: the priests, who owe their position to Rome and therefore have nothing to gain from a revolt.’

Sabinus suddenly saw the depth of his error of judgement. ‘Whereas if
we
condemned him the priests would be able to appeal for calm and expect to be listened to; and that, along
with a show of force by us, should be enough to stop an uprising.’

‘Exactly,’ Pilatus said mockingly, ‘you’ve finally got there. So, Herod, I’ve got to defuse this quickly before Yeshua’s followers start rousing the people.
What should I do?’

‘You must go to the palace first thing tomorrow.’

‘To overturn the sentence?’

‘No, you can’t let this man live now that you’ve finally got him. You’ve got to reunite the priests with the people so that they can control them.’

‘Yes, but how?’

‘By turning a Jewish stoning into a Roman crucifixion.’

‘This man must die,’ the High Priest Caiaphas hissed at Pilatus through his long, full grey beard. Regaled in his sumptuous robes and topped with a curious,
bejewelled domed hat made of silk, he looked, to Sabinus, much more like an eastern client king than a priest; but then, to judge by the size and splendour of the Jews’ Temple, Judaism was a
very wealthy religion and its priests could afford to be extravagant with the money that the poor, in the hope of being seen by their god as righteous, pumped their way.

‘And he will, priest,’ Pilatus replied; never normally in the best of moods for the first couple of hours after dawn, he was striving to keep his fragile temper. ‘But he will
die the Roman way, not the Jewish.’

Sabinus stood with Herod Agrippa watching the struggle between the two most powerful men in the province with interest. It had been an acrimonious meeting, especially after Pilatus had, with
great relish, pointed out the trap that Yeshua had set for Caiaphas and how he had been politically maladroit enough to fall into it.

‘To avoid an uprising,’ Pilatus continued, ‘which, judging from the reports I’ve had, Yeshua’s followers are already initiating, you must do as I’ve ordered
immediately.’

‘And how can I trust you to do what you’ve promised?’

‘Are you being deliberately obtuse?’ Pilatus snapped, his temper no longer able to take the strain of dealing with this self-serving priest. ‘Because in this instance we are
both on the same side. The preparations have been made and the orders given. Now go!’

Caiaphas turned and walked, with as much dignity as he could muster after being summarily dismissed, out of the magnificent, high-ceilinged audience chamber, the centrepiece of the late Herod
the Great’s palace on the west side of the upper city.

‘What do you think, Herod?’ Pilatus asked.

‘I think that he’ll play his part. Are the troops ready?’

‘Yes.’ Pilatus turned his bloodshot eyes to Sabinus. ‘Now’s your chance to redeem yourself, quaestor; just do as Herod has told you.’

The noise of a raucous mob grew as Sabinus and Herod approached the main entrance to the palace. Stepping out of the high, polished cedar-wood doors, they were confronted by a
huge crowd filling the whole of the agora before the palace and overflowing into the wide avenue at its far end that led up to the Temple and the Antonia Fortress.

The shadows were long and the air chill, it being only the first hour of the day. Glancing up to his left Sabinus could see, on the hill of Golgotha beyond the Old Gate in the city walls, a
cross that was always left standing between executions as a reminder to the populace of the fate that awaited them should they seek to oppose the power of Rome.

Caiaphas stood on the top of the palace steps with his arms raised in an attempt to quieten the crowd. He was surrounded by a dozen fellow priests; behind them, guarded by Paulus and a group of
Temple Guards, stood Yeshua with his hands bound and with a blood-stained bandage around his head.

Gradually the noise subsided and Caiaphas began his address.

‘What’s he saying?’ Sabinus asked Herod.

‘He’s appealed for calm and now he’s telling them that, because of his popularity with the common people, Yeshua is to be pardoned and released from Jewish custody in a gesture
of mercy at this time of Passover.’

A loud cheer went up from the crowd as Caiaphas stopped speaking. After a few moments the High Priest raised his arms, again asking for quiet before continuing.

‘He’s now asking them to return to their homes,’ Herod translated, ‘and he says that Yeshua will be freed immediately.’

Sabinus watched, knowing that his moment to act was imminent; Caiaphas turned and nodded at Paulus who reluctantly began to untie his prisoner’s hands.

‘Now!’ Herod hissed. ‘And try not to say anything stupid.’

‘That man is now a prisoner of the Senate of Rome,’ Sabinus bellowed, walking forward; behind him Longinus led a half-century of auxiliaries out of the palace, quickly surrounding
the Temple Guards and their erstwhile prisoner. From the direction of the Antonia Fortress a cohort of auxiliaries marched down the avenue and formed up behind the crowd, blocking the road and any
chance of escape.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ Caiaphas shouted at Sabinus, playing his part rather too theatrically.

‘The Senate requires that this man, Yeshua, be tried before Caesar’s representative, Prefect Pilatus,’ Sabinus replied in a high, loud voice that carried over the agora. Angry
shouts started to emanate from the crowd as those who could speak Greek translated Sabinus’ words for their fellows. As the noise of the crowd grew, the cohort behind it drew their swords and
began to beat them rhythmically on their shields.

Pilatus stepped out of the palace accompanied by a bedraggled and bruised Jew. He walked past Sabinus and, standing next to Caiaphas, signalled for silence; the shouting and the clashing of
weapons died down.

‘My hands are tied,’ he declaimed, crossing his wrists above his head. ‘Quaestor Titus Flavius Sabinus has demanded, on behalf of the Senate, that I try Yeshua for claiming to
be a king and inciting rebellion against Caesar; as a servant of Rome I cannot refuse such a demand. If he is found guilty it will be Rome that is sentencing him, not me, your prefect. I wash my
hands of his blood for this is not of my doing, it is the will of the Senate.’ He paused and brought the Jew who accompanied him forward. ‘However, in a spirit of goodwill and to show
the clemency of Rome I will, in honour of your Passover festival, release to you another Yeshua whom you hold dear: this man, Yeshua bar Abbas.’

To roars of approval Pilatus ushered the freed man down the palace steps to disappear into the joyous crowd.