Judas (23 page)
As on the previous day, the sun and Ehud arrived early. He had me taken to the courtyard. I received the same tasteless paste in the same wooden bowl. I washed and tended to my needs. Then, in less than an hour, Ehud and two guards led me away. Again we climbed upward toward the temple. It was the fifth day, Passover, as reckoned by everyone but the Essenes, and only a week since I had arrived in the city. It felt like a month.
A breeze carried the scent of burning flesh. The morning’s ritual sacrifices had begun. We climbed the temple Mount using the bridge at its southern end and walked northward through its vast courtyards which, even at that early hour, were filled with pilgrims. A few, heads covered with ritual shawls, foreheads studded with phylacteries, marked our passage, but most ignored us, their thoughts undoubtedly on more sublime matters than the passage of one murderer-traitor and his escort.
We passed by the porches. There could be no mistake this time. We headed straight to the Antonia Fortress. We climbed its long flight of steps. Massive cedar doors faced the floor of the mount. One had a smaller entry set in it. Ehud rapped. A moment later, a legionnaire peered out. Ehud signaled me to step in as the temple guards gave me one last shove. The legionnaire stepped out of the shadows, gave the temple guards a disdainful look, gestured for them to stand back, and slammed the door in their faces.
“Watch this man. He is a wanted criminal,” Ehud said, and disappeared down a dark corridor into the depths of the building. The legionnaire escorted me to a small side room. Soldiers, crouched in the corner, cast stones and cursed the gods for their bad luck. They scarcely glanced in my direction. I counted four of them, three playing the game and an older man at a table, his armor in a disorderly pile next to him. He wore his helmet shoved back on his head. His arm moved steadily up and down as he honed his sword. The sharpening stone sang against the iron. Occasionally, he tested the edge and then rubbed some more. I waited. The thought of escape never crossed my mind.
Ehud returned with two men. I heard their voices as they approached. They spoke alternately in Greek and, I think, Latin.
“Light!” one of them barked.
The soldiers kicked their game pieces under a bench and lighted a torch. The new arrivals wore the shorter toga preferred by Roman officials. The first was blonde and stocky, the second lean and tense, his face dark, dangerous, and pockmarked. Even while standing still, hands on his hips, he looked ready to leap into action. His eyes were hazel, golden. My heart pounded and I had to strain to breathe. I knew that face. I had seen him earlier in the week, as I stood in the street, a branch of fragrant balsam in hand, watching him ride into the city. I thought then that he looked familiar. But in that room, in the flickering torchlight, twenty years slipped away. The memory had seared my mind like a slave’s brand. I stared at the dark dangerous man who murdered Leonides, raped Mother, and destroyed Dinah.
He whirled around the room, spotted Ehud, and snapped, “Well. Where are they? I haven’t all day to waste on your nonsensical petty disputes. Where’s the idiot Caiaphas and his case?”
I thought, “Here, I’m here.” But even if I wanted to, I could not make a sound. My throat clamped shut. I only managed a squeak which went unheard. Just then the large doors swung open and Caiaphas stood outside, Jesus behind him, hands tied at his waist and a rope around his neck, like a sheep being led to slaughter. A clutch of functionaries, guards, and others who had some official position or who were simply curious, bunched up behind, craning their necks.
“Here is the high priest and the man we need you to judge,” Ehud said, and pointed to Jesus.
I shrank back against the wall and tried to be invisible.
“Honorable Pilate,” Caiaphas began. “I bring you a matter of great concern that requires your immediate attention. This man represents a clear and present danger to the peace and order of our city.”
“What has he done?” Pilate said, his foot tapping the floor.
“He threatened the temple, caused a riot, and—”
“Riot? I know of no riot. Centurion, have you heard of a riot?” Without looking at him, Pilate addressed a Roman soldier somewhere in the relative gloom behind me.
“In their temple, Prefect. Two days ago, this man started a riot in the area reserved for their moneychangers.”
“Oh, that.”
“Excellency, there is more—” Caiaphas began.
“Fine. As you wish,” Pilate said. “Guards, nail him up. Is that all?”
“Yes, Excellency, you understand my position? I would not, except under extreme circumstances, hand this man over to you. To do so is a serious breach of our custom and some of my more militant brothers might even say—”
“I understand perfectly. Your laws foolishly allow you to betray one another to each other, but you may not turn any of your people over to me. But now you need the power only I possess, and so here you are. Never fear, high priest, no one will ever know what we do here. We will accept these are ‘extreme circumstances’; or would you prefer you were never here at all? Guard, take this man out.”
“A moment.” The other man, Pilate’s companion, spoke.
“Rufus?”
“Pilate, I beg you, stay that order for a moment, at least until we can have a word.”
Pilate signaled the soldiers to wait, much to their apparent disappointment, and walked away with his colleague, away from the door, toward where I crouched in the shadows against the wall.
“Do not crucify this man,” the man called Rufus murmured. “I have important information I must share with you first.”
“Information? What sort of information is so critical I must delay the solution of one more pathetic little problem? This is of no consequence.” Pilate had difficulty keeping his voice down.
“You would crucify this man without a hearing?”
“I do it all the time. It’s not like these people are citizens or even civilized for that matter.”
“As a favor to me and because of our long-standing friendship, delay this for now.”
Pilate shrugged, sighed, and returned to the doorway.
“Caiaphas, what sort of man have we here? Why are you in such a hurry to see him put to death?”
“He is a Galilean who presents himself as a king, as a rival to Caesar.”
Pilate burst out laughing. The soldiers joined in.
“Does he indeed? What a novelty. But, if he is a Galilean, he is not in my jurisdiction. He belongs to Antipas. Take him to your little Herod. If that nitwit can’t help you, then bring him back to me.”
Caiaphas started to protest, but Pilate ordered the doors closed in his face.
Half light returned to the rooms as the great doors closed against the sun. Pilate passed by me and then stopped.
“Who’s this?”
“An important witness. He will testify to the riot yesterday and on other matters,” Ehud said.
“Very well. You…” The old soldier leapt to his feet.
“Prefect?”
“Watch this man. If he gets away, you, and not the Galilean king, will die.” And with the words trailing over his shoulders, he strode away, his colleague close on his heels. I was dumbfounded. What else could possibly happen? The old man was staring at me.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Is there a privy I can use?” I had an urgent need of one.
“
Latrina
? Go through that portal and down the steps. You can only get in and out through that door, son. Don’t be long,” he laughed.
The privy was a marvel. A long trough ran the length of the room. At one end, perhaps half of the full length, marble slabs had been laid over the trough to make a box-like enclosure. Slots were cut through the vertical face that joined those on the horizontal, which then opened into smooth holes that enabled one to sit. Water ran through the trough cleaning it constantly—a practical benefit of Pilate’s aqueduct.
I inspected the room carefully. Narrow horizontal windows pierced the walls where they met the ceiling. I stood on the lip of the trough and could just make out the walls of a building opposite and hear the noise from the street below. I could not squeeze through them if I wanted to. Smaller openings pierced the inner walls as well. They must have been designed to aid in circulating air. I walked the length of the room, inspecting the writing scratched on the wall. I could not decipher the Latin, but most of the Greek was readable—soldier’s humor—and crude drawings of men and women with impossible anatomies. At the far end, I heard voices. I moved closer to the source. Pilate and the other man, Rufus, must have been in a room just above me.
“These are all of the dispatches you have for me?” Pilate said.
“Yes, that’s all.”
“Not much here. They usually send me a camel’s load of these things. Nothing from the emperor for me?”
“No, nothing. He—”
“Very well, I certainly can live without more orders from your crowd, no offense, Rufus. Now, what of this other matter? What is so urgent I had to spoil my legionnaires’ fun?”
“Pilate, we have known each other for a long time.”
“Yes, a very long time…get on with it. It can’t be as bad as all that.”
“No, well, not bad, a warning only. There is talk in the senate, in the emperor’s councils…well, there is talk.”
“Talk? There is always talk. You people have nothing better to do than talk. You and your friends in the capitol should come out to places like this and try to hold the empire together for a change instead of nattering about estates, the price of wine, and whether that demented boy Caligula will succeed Tiberius. Come out here and try to rule for a month or so in my place. I should like very much to stand in the forum in a long toga and talk about the state of the nation.”
“Well, you may get your chance.”
“Meaning what?”
“You have developed a reputation. You are said to be needlessly harsh in your treatment of the people you rule. There is talk of recall.”
“Harsh? Do those soft, self-righteous ninnies have any idea what it takes to keep order in a place like this? Oh, they’re happy when we crush a rebellion threatening their borders or making sailing the Great Sea risky. ‘Thank you, Pontius Pilate, for ridding the seas of the pirates…Thank you for keeping the barbarians from our estates…Oh, but now, don’t upset us by being harsh with the Jews.’”
“You know I have served the empire as you. I know it is not always easy. But that doesn’t change what they are saying.”
“Yes, you know. But I tell you this, in all my postings, I have never run into a people like these Jews and their infernal god. Rebellion is everywhere. I think these people are born with it. They absolutely refuse to be civilized. You remember Sepphoris? We crushed that uprising by nailing up every male we could find and sold off the rest into slavery. There has been no trouble there since.”
“Yes, I know. It had to be done that way then, but now —”
“Do you know who was in charge of that rebellion? An old man. Not a general with a trained army—not a Jewish legion—just an old man. There could not have been more than a hundred men. They took on two of our hundreds and held out for three days. Three days! They are born to it, I tell you. The only way to keep order here is crush it as hard as you can, as often as you can.
“You saw that king person? He started a fracas in the temple. Do I care? Of course not, but do you know what? If I don’t make an example of him today, who knows how many more old men, presumptive kings, or their friends will think they can raid another armory tomorrow. By Jupiter, I keep order here. I do so by being harsh and by keeping these people divided. You saw the high priest, Caiaphas? There are those who wish him deposed. There are those who believe he is right for the times. There are parties of every stripe and color here. By keeping them at each other’s throats, they haven’t time to come at ours. So, I will do this Caiaphas a favor, and the other parties will know I did. It will make them hate him more. Division, Rufus, we rule the world because we have mastered the art of division.”
“My friend, I can only tell you what I hear. Recall is the word they use. If you do not want to be called back to Rome and put out to pasture in some out-of-the-way corner of the empire, you will find a way to keep order without the appearance of cruelty. That’s all I have to say.”
They moved away and I did not hear the rest. I went back to my guard. He sat at a low table eating his midday meal. He offered me a crust of bread, a piece of salt fish, and some wine. The wine, the cheap sort sold in the streets, had already turned. I added a generous splash of water to it and we ate. After a while he said, “You’re not one of them, are you?”
“No, I am not.” I guessed it must be true now. I was not anything anymore. “Why do you ask?”
“You aren’t wearing one of them boxy things on your head, now, are you? So why did the fat man bring you in?”
“They think I killed a man.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter. If they have a witness who’ll say you did, the Butcher—that’s what they call Pilate—will nail you up, anyway. Too bad the fat man wouldn’t take a bribe, huh? Peculiar people, these Jews—but the women…” He grinned and his eyes flickered with old memories.
“The women?” I asked. I do not know why, a simple grunt of assent would have taken the conversation elsewhere.
“Juicy,” he said. I did not want to know what “juicy” meant in soldier talk. I could guess.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” he said.
“No, I come from Corinth.”
“Never been there. Hear the women there are juicy, too.”
We were on a single track and I could not think how to get off, but I tried.
“How long have you been in this country?”
“Oh, twenty years, can’t always remember. I came out when Augustus was still Caesar. There was a lot of rebellion then. I was here no more than a week and off we went to Sepphoris. Big to-do up there—some old fool raided the armory or something. We went and sorted them all out. What a show. Must have nailed up seventy of those crazy people that night, took their women in turn, and then hauled off the young ones. I had one of them for a while. Kept her for about a year. Then we were called up north and that was that. Had a little bastard, we did. First of many little red-haired bastards I’ve seeded this land with.”
He slapped the table and cackled, his mouth open wide. Crumbs tumbled out onto his chin and onto the table. He took off his helmet to wipe his brow. I saw patches of red streaked in matted gray hair. I tried to collect my wits. My heart raced. I did not want to follow where my thoughts tried to take me.
“Are there many of you, of us,” I pointed to my hair, “in the service of Rome?”
“Us? Oh, I see. Ha. Us. That’s a good one. No, hardly any. We’d rather fight against Rome than fight for her.”
“Then, why—?”
“Well, you and me have something in common now, don’t we?”
My heart skipped another beat. “Do we?”
“Let’s just say there’s a dead man back where I come from and I can’t go back. So I take my chances with Rome.”
Something in common? If he only knew. I stared at his battered but familiar face and thought I would like to kill him.
Those thoughts were knocked aside by pounding on the great doors and the clatter of armor, footsteps, soldiers, and officials.
Caiaphas had returned from Herod’s palace.
