The Boudicca Parchments (30 page)

“Let’s see what other pearls of wisdom we can glean from her,” said Irene. Even when forced to admit that she was in the wrong, she could be sarcastic.

“You’re mixing your metaphors,” said Daniel, before turning back to the manuscript and Ted, to transliterate another block of text, which included the word
Masada
as well as some other names that he recognized. Ted scribbled enthusiastically while Daniel spoke and then looked down at his notes.

“So he robbed the rich and corrupt. But the priests in Yeru…”

“Yerushalayim, You can translate that as Jerusalem. Yerushalayim is what it’s called in Hebrew.”

“Okay let’s go on… the priests in Jerusalem who were friendly with the Romans sent out men to kill my husband and he knew that he was not safe… because even John of Giscala had… set his face against him for they were rivals for… leadership. So he fled to Masada and took refuge there. But when Hanan the son of Hanan was killed by the men of Yoch – John of Giscala… he came down from Masada and returned to fight against the Romans.”

Daniel was nodding approvingly. All of this was known history to him, albeit from Josephus, whom he regarded as self-serving and not altogether reliable. He scrolled up the image and transliterated another block of text for Ted to transcribe. Ted took a sip of water before proceeding.

“But in the eyes of John, my husband was not an ally but a bitter rival and so he would not let him into the city. So Simon attacked Idum who were the allies of John.”

Ted looked at Daniel, puzzled.

“The Edomites. They were a non-Jewish people, indigenous to a nearby region that straddled what is today the Israel-Jordan border. They were supporters of John of Giscala.”

Ted continued translating.

“Now John was afraid of my husband for he had a great army and with my counsel his wisdom in warfare was… immense. So John learned from the ways that Simon had used against the Romans and he attacked… by… I suppose the best way to translate it would be by speed and trickery.”

“An ambush?” asked Daniel.

“Or guerrilla warfare,” Ted replied. “Anyway, the next bit is quite interesting… at least if I understood it correctly. They captured me and my… now this is an interesting word. It could mean my friends, my extended family, my servants or my household.”

“Entourage?” suggested Daniel.

“Yes that’s a good one word translation. They captured me and my entourage. It doesn’t say anything about Simon himself.”

“They didn’t take him prisoner,” Daniel said.

“Oh. This is
known
history?”

“By and large yes – the battles and fighting I mean. But not the involvement of Boudicca’s daughter and her marriage to Simon Bar Giora.”

“Let’s do the next bit.”

It followed the familiar pattern of transliteration followed by translation.

“But the Judeans they spared and set free.”

Ted looked at Daniel.

“Is that meant to imply that she and her entourage were targeted
because
she and her people weren’t Jewish?”

Daniel thought about this.

“I suppose that inference
could
be drawn. Although the Idumeans – or Edomites – were also not Jewish. Go on. You haven’t translated all of it.”

Ted looked down to read the rest of what Daniel had rendered phonetically.

“But Simon became greatly angered and he unleashed great vengeance upon all that were guilty in his eyes and they set me free and my entourage free.”

The next few lines described the civil war between Bar Giora and the other factions and how – when the Romans were closing in – they tried to escape through the tunnels under the Temple Mount taking a supply of food and using stone cutters and how they ran out of food. But then they came to the interesting part.

“So Simon made me swear that I would stay hidden with the others and flee with my mother’s gold and silver jewels to Masada with Eleazer ben Yair, while he alone, dressed in the robes of a king appeared before the Romans.”

This time it was not Ted that Daniel looked at, but Irene. For they both knew the familiar story of Masada all too well. Eleazer ben Yair led the Judeans in their last stand at Masada when they allegedly committed suicide. But according to this manuscript, however, he had been right there in the tunnels with Bar Giora and Boudicca’s daughter, before escaping to the fortress by the Dead Sea.

But Ted had picked up on something else.

“What’s this about gold and silver jewels?”

Irene shook her head.

“As far as I know, nothing like that was ever found. I mean they found coins proclaiming the Redemption of Zion, which are believed to have been minted on the authority of Bar Giora. And they found costume jewellery made with beads and they found mother-of-pearl and ivory. But no precious stones. And apart from the coins, no precious metals.”

“The reason I ask is because we know Boudicca, and the Iceni in general, did have gold and silver jewellery,” said Ted.

To Daniel, this was no mystery.

“Well presumably if she
did
take it with her to Masada, that would explain why it hasn’t been found in the Temple Mount salvage project. And presumably if the Romans found it at Masada, they would have looted it.”

“Unless they hid it. But that leads me right back to the same question I asked regarding the Domus Aurea Parchment. Why was this left behind at the scene? Why not take the manuscript with her?”

“Presumably because they were so desperate to get out and they couldn’t take anything that wasn’t necessary. They probably had to lie in wait after Bar Giora made his appearance through the opening the stone masons had cut and play possum until the Roman’s left. Remember, even according to Josephus, Bar Giora hid in the tunnels with others. Yet it only records Bar Giora himself being captured. They presumably had find a way of sneaking out undetected. The manuscript would have been a useless liability.”

Irene remained sceptical.

“And yet they took the jewels! And if the events were so important as to transcribe, you’d think the manuscript would be as valuable to her as the jewels – if not more valuable.”

“Maybe her husband made her swear to leave it behind,” Daniel speculated. “Also, if they were captured by Romans, the jewels could be used to bribe their way out of it. A Roman who captured them with the jewels would have received a reward. But why settle for ten or twenty percent when you can have the whole thing?”

“There is another explanation.”

This was Ted.

“Just because Josephus doesn’t record the others being captured doesn’t mean they survived. Maybe they stayed and waited till it was safe but gave out to hunger. Or possibly the stronger fitter ones escaped and the others died there. I’m not saying that happened, but you can’t assume that because they
intended
to get out of there, that they succeeded. The manuscript doesn’t record the outcome.”

Daniel had a thought.

“Were any bones found amidst the rubble?”

He was looking at Irene.

“Interestingly, no. But that’s a good question. But one can’t even read too much into that because although the Muslims dug twelve metres down into the
southeastern
corner of the Temple Mount, it’s quite likely that the subterranean tunnels extended
throughout the whole site
. We know that there are hidden chambers there, but it’s doubtful that the
Waqf
will grant you or any other Jew access.”

But Daniel was remembering something he had been told during a recent encounter in Egypt… and he realized that once again he might be able to draw on his extensive network.

Chapter 70

The soldier was walking along by the side of the road. Officially, Israeli soldiers were no longer allowed to hitchhike, under standing orders designed to prevent kidnappings by Palestinian terrorists. Certain events had made the practice dangerous, even for male soldiers. To back up the rule and stamp out the dangerous practice, Israeli military police had resorted to staging fake kidnappings of soldiers caught hitchhiking, followed by swift military trials and fines.

But despite these measures and the obvious risks, some Israeli soldiers continued to hitchhike nevertheless, unofficially and inconspicuously. The army buses would normally take them as far as bus stops at major junctions and from there, they would make their way home using buses, on which they were allowed to travel free of charge.

So when Baruch Tikva saw the soldier walking along the road near the intercity junction, he knew that he was secretly hoping for a lift. He drove past at a slow speed and stopped just in front, opening the window and leaning towards the man on the asphalt pavement with a smile.

“Are you going to Mevasseret?”

He took a chance on getting it right. Naming a specific destination – a small township outside Jerusalem – would sound less suspicious than asking where he was going. If he got it wrong he could always loop around and try again with another soldier. But there was no need. Soldiers had been warned to watch out for tricks, like Arabs wearing Jewish-style skullcaps and playing Jewish religious music on the CD player. But you can’t beat appearance. Some Arabs can look like some Jews, and vice versa, but Baruch Tikva was pale-faced and so obviously of north European or north American ancestry that there was no way this soldier could doubt him.

“Yes.”

“Need a lift?”

“Yes… Thank you.”

Baruch pressed a lever to open the boot. The soldier threw his kit bag in the back and then got in the front seat, keeping his compact assault rifle. There were no doubts in the soldier’s mind when Baruch drove off in the promised direction. But within a few yards of where they had started, Bar-Tikva had whipped out a stun-gun, camouflaged as a mobile phone and given the soldier a ten second shock the torso that had left him barely conscious.

Realizing that a young fit soldier would probably not stay unconscious for long, Bar Tikva drove on, ignoring Mevasseret and looping back towards Motsa, a somewhat larger township outside Jerusalem. But instead of driving
into
Motsa, he stopped by the thick leafy trees by the entrance and finished off the job with a knife.

Then he got out, went round to the passenger side, hauled out the body and dumped it amidst the trees where it could not be seen from the road.

As he drove off and took the turning to Jerusalem, it was hard not to smile at how easy it had been. He would shed no tears over the dead soldier. Although the killing had been expedient rather than ideological, the fact was that the soldier had chosen to serve the evil Zionist entity. Even if he had been a conscript, he could still have refused. And he was obviously a Chiloni – a secular Jew and not a God-fearing one, with no commitment to
Hashem
and not in the least bit
yiras shamayim
.

The important thing to Bar Tikva was that he now had what he wanted: the assault rifle.

Chapter 71

“Okay, now remember,” said the Arab. “We must be careful… and
very
quiet. If anyone challenges us, let
me
do the talking.”

When Daniel and Ted had left Irene, she was full of excitement about what they had discovered. They had agreed to publish a joint paper which would combine Irene’s scientific analysis of the parchment, and the clay urn in which it was found, with the linguistic analysis of Daniel and Ted, as well as an historical overview.

But while Irene was excited enough about the translation and the link between the Temple Mount Parchment and the other discoveries at Arbury Banks and the Domus Aurea, Daniel and Ted were still not satisfied. Neither the magnitude of the discoveries, nor the contents thereof could explain why people were ready to go to such great lengths to silence them – especially earlier, when they did not have anything like as much information as they did now.

So Daniel had decided to take up Irene’s de facto challenge and try to gain access to the underground tunnels. Not the Jewish controlled tunnels outside the Temple Mount, dating to the seventh century CE, when the Arabs effectively raised parts of the Old City on arches and vaults to make access easier, but rather the tunnels built before the Arabs arrived, that extended from Solomon’s Stables under the Temple Mount itself.

As Irene had said, these tunnels and underground chambers were under the control of the
Waqf
– the Muslim trust that had control of the Temple Mount. And there was no way that they would let a Jewish historian venture into these tunnels. As far as the
Waqf
was concerned, anything that brought to light details of the pre-Islamic, Jewish association with the Old City of Jerusalem was something to be suppressed.

So Daniel had drawn on an old contact from his recent Egyptian adventure – a Nubian boatman on the Nile called Walid, who had a network of contacts even larger than Daniel’s quite formidable mental rolodex. When he first made the call, it was a long shot, but a long shot to nothing. Explaining what he wanted in Arabic, but holding out very little hope, he was pleasantly surprised when Walid confirmed that he could help and then put Daniel in contact with his fourth or fifth cousin once or twice removed.

So now here he was at night, on the Temple Mount, with Ted and a man called Salim who looked like he was in his eighties but was probably only in his seventies. The Levantine sun had tendency to age the skin and could make old people look older than they actually were in this neck of the woods.

The Temple Mount itself is the elevated area in the Old City of Jerusalem that houses the Dome of the Rock and the Aqsa Mosque, built in the seventh century of the common era by Muslim conquerors who had believed that the Prophet Mohamed had been here on account of a dream he had in which he ascended to heaven from the Temple Mount itself. Although purely a journey in his mind, some Muslims still insisted that the Prophet was there in person.

Jerusalem had played a fluctuating role in Islamic history. After the Jews of Medina – who had been there for five centuries – failed to accept Mohamed as a prophet of God, he turned on them and had them massacred under various pretexts of dubious probity. To signify his rejection of all things Jewish other than monotheism itself, he changed the direction Muslims faced when they prayed, from the Jewish capital of Jerusalem – with its sixteen centuries of association with the Jews – to the pagan shrine of the Kaba in Mecca. Thereafter, he concentrated his efforts on securing control of the Arabian Peninsula.