The Inquest (24 page)

Roman Province of Judea. May, A.D. 71

The hill town was fire-blackened and deserted. Bet Lehem, the Jews called it—the House of Bread. To the Romans it was Bethlehem. Centurion Titus Gallo and his eighty soldiers of the 4th Scythica moved in and out of the ruins of Bethlehem, poking here, nosing there.

Questor Varro had decided not to wait for Artimedes to rejoin him from Caesarea with his report on Aristarchus’ background. He had pushed on, following the trail of General Bassus and his Jewish prisoners. The senior cavalry prefect stationed at Jerusalem had informed the questor that Bassus intended to secure Hebron twenty miles south of Jerusalem and then move east of the Dead Sea to take the rebel-held fortress of Macherus. Once that had been achieved he would wrap up his campaign by retaking the Masada fortress to the southwest. Telling the prefect to direct Artimedes to follow once he returned from Caesarea, Varro had marched the few miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. While his soldiers secured the silent ruins, Varro walked the dusty, sloping streets of the village with his retinue close behind.

A hundred yards distant, a skeletal dog ran across the street and disappeared briefly into the rubble of a crumbled house, then emerged from behind it and bounded away down the rocky gradient where once the goats of the villagers had grazed. One of Gallo’s soldiers threw a javelin at the canine, but the animal dodged the missile, which lanced into the hard ground and bent behind the head, as it was designed to do.

Centurion Gallo boomed a loud reprimand at the legionary for wasting a javelin.

“But, centurion, it was a rebel Jewish dog,” the young soldier protested in his defense, bringing a laugh from his comrades.

According to the Matthias document, Jesus had been born here at Bethlehem. It was also the birth place of Davidus, King of the Israelites, from whom the Nazarenes claimed Josephus, the Nazarene’s father, had descended. No good reason had been given for the Nazarene’s birth to take place here, although it was not uncommon for a pregnant woman to be confined for a birth away from her home town. The Lucius letter also gave Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. It added that Josephus had come here to his home town with his pregnant wife Miriam to pay a new poll tax levied in Judea by Caesar Augustus that year, and Jesus’ mother had given birth while they were here. According to the Lucius Letter, the birth had taken place in a stable behind an inn in the town, because the inn was crowded with fellow taxpayers.

Gray-bearded Pythagoras was walking at Varro’s shoulder as he roamed the village. “Questor, I cannot reconcile the Lucius Letter’s claim regarding the tax of Caesar Augustus with the records,” the chief secretary gravely advised. “According to the official records held at Caesarea, the year in which the new tax was introduced by Caesar Augustus was twenty-four years before the year in which the Nazarene was executed. That would make him twenty-four years of age at the time of his death. Yet, both the secret reports of the High Priests and the Lucius letter state he was in his thirties when he died.”

Varro nodded. There was nothing to be found in the empty village. After a brief pause at Bethlehem, the questor ordered the column to resume its march.

On the rocky Dead Sea shore, they made camp within the earthworks of a much larger marching camp built here several years before by Vespasian. The advance guard had reported no sign of General Bassus’ army at Hebron, so Varro guessed that Bassus had turned east and skirted the Dead Sea to the north, planning to cross the Jordan River and join the main north-south highway in the Perea region. That highway would take him down to Macherus, a fortress held by rebels since the first month of the Revolt. Varro had decided to follow an overland course to the Jordan. From there he would take the highway south to Macherus, where he should find General Bassus. Now, a day’s march east of Jerusalem, the expedition prepared to spend the night.

While their infantrymen made camp and the cavalry stood guard, Varro and his officers and freedmen walked down to the water’s edge, where they were flanked by multicolored ridges of sandstone layered with chalk, clay, and gravel; yellow over white, then orange, with a top level of ochre red. Green was a color totally absent from the scene in the lifeless landscape.

“The only thing that would grow around here,” said Callidus caustically as they made their way toward the lake, “is a man’s beard.”

They had all heard of the Dead Sea. Every educated Roman knew of this lake. Fifty miles long and eleven miles wide, it was many hundreds of feet below sea level. Its main claim to fame rested on its content. Reputedly, the Dead Sea was so salty a man could easily float in it.

“The story goes,” said Martius as they stood looking at the rippling waters with a breeze blowing into their faces from the south, “that when Caesar Vespasianus was here a few years ago with his army he had some Jewish prisoners trussed up and tossed in, to see whether or not they would float. Caesar was quite tickled when they bobbed around like apples in a water pot.”

“The prisoners would have not been unhappy that they floated, either,” Varro suggested, generating laughter from his companions.

Varro rose before dawn as usual. Seated on a stool, he was about to submit his face to Hostilis’ razor in the torchlight when Centurion Gallo burst into his tent.

“The scribe Aristarchus has escaped from custody, questor!” Gallo reported.

Leaving the shaving stool, Varro hurried through the darkened camp with the centurion, following a soldier bearing a spluttering torch. The first rays of dawn were beginning to brighten the horizon above the bare hills east of the lake when they reached the baggage carts. Soldiers of the watch stood around one cart with guilty looks on their faces. Philippus the Evangelist, still the questor’s ‘guest,’ sat with folded arms and closed eyes in the vehicle, partly covered by a blanket. Philippus was still proving useful, with Varro occasionally asking him new questions on their travels, such as recently when the questor had asked whether Josephus of Arimathea had been one of the Nazarene’s followers; Philippus had answered that he could not say, although he did state that Josephus had not participated in the disciples’ public gatherings. Philippus’ traveling companion since the expedition left Emmaus had been Aristarchus the scribe. The cart’s rail on one side, where Aristarchus’ chain had been fastened, had been broken away.

“What possessed him to escape?” Varro pondered, before giving a command. “Sound Assembly.’ Search the camp. He must be in hiding here.”

As the centurion hurried off bawling orders, Varro looked down at Philippus, whose eyes remained closed. “I know you are awake, Evangelist,” he said. “No one could sleep through all this commotion.”

Philippus opened one eye. “Let a man sleep,” he croaked.

“How long ago did Aristarchus make his escape, Philippus?”

“I have been asleep,” Philippus replied. Opening the other eye now, he changed position, jangling the chain connecting his manacled left wrist to the side of the cart.

“You must have heard the scribe break free,” Varro persisted.

“I heard nothing. I saw nothing.” Philippus fixed Varro with a steely gaze. “I was blessed with a deep sleep.” The Evangelist, unhappy at being dragged along on the expedition, had apparently decided to be uncooperative.

“That slyboots Aristarchus!” exclaimed Marcus Martius, arriving on the scene.

“Philippus would have us believe that Aristarchus simply melted away.”

“Another miracle!” Martius exclaimed with a wry smile in Philippus’ direction.

Philippus rolled over, pulled the blanket up over him, and closed his eyes again.

As a trumpet sounded Assembly’ nearby and the camp burst into life, Varro began to make his way back to his tent, and Martius fell in beside him. “Why would Artistarchus venture to escape, Marcus? Could it be that his credentials are false, that he was lying to us all along, and he bolted before Aristedes returned to denounce him?”

“Either that,” the tribune replied, “or the mole-faced scribe could take no more of the Evangelist’s preaching.”

Back at the
pretorium
, Varro resumed his seat and motioned for Hostilis to proceed with his shave, as, outside, the camp became a hive of activity. “It is perplexing, Hostilis,” the questor said, as the slave, standing behind him, dampened his skin. “Aristarchus the scribe, escaped. He must have lied about his past.”

“Yes, master.” As Hostilis spoke, he applied the razor to his master’s throat.

“It is possible that he was not in Prefect Pilatus’ service after all.”

“No, master.”

“Perhaps he merely repeated gossip about the Nazarene’s execution.”

“That is possible, master.” The slave expertly slid the iron razor over his master’s tanned skin.

“Do we discount his testimony altogether? The conspiracy between Josephus of Arimathea and Centurion Longinus; did Aristarchus concoct that story?”

“It is difficult to know, master.”

“What of the apothecary Matthias ben Naum? We only have Aristarchus’ word that Ben Naum provided Longinus with a drug to make it appear the Nazarene died on a cross. If Matthias ben Naum exists at all. This is very troubling, Hostilis.”

“It is, master.”

“Everything fitted together. The conspiracy between Pharisee and centurion. The apothecary. The drug. Not to mention the name of Naum, the name from my dream. If Aristarchus’ story is a complete fabrication, where does that leave us?”

“Confused, master,” Hostilis succinctly remarked.

By the time that Varro was coming to his feet with his tingling skin soothed by a balm of fragrant valerian lotion administered in the last stage of his shave, Centurion Gallo entered the
pretorium
once again. “It appears the scribe has escaped the camp, questor,” Gallo unhappily advised.

Varro frowned. “How could he have managed that?”

“You had best come take a look for yourself, my lord.”

Gallo and his commander emerged into the new day. Daylight now flooded the camp. Martius, Crispus, and Venerius fell in with Varro as the centurion led the way to the north-facing
decuman
gateway, where 4th Scythica sentries bearing embarrassed expressions quickly stood back out of their way. A pair of spindly wooden sentry towers flanked the gateway. Gallo pushed the gates open and led the officers outside. He pointed to the ditch running around the wall. A ladder stood in the ditch, propped against its outer wall. “Aristarchus must have waited until the sentries were distracted by the discovery of his disappearance,” the centurion explained, “then climbed the ladder, pulled it up after him, threw it over the wall, then followed it, and used it to negotiate the ditch.”

Martius was appalled. “The sentries left their posts?”

“The men heard the alarm raised and rushed to the baggage carts, tribune,” Gallo hurried to explain, “leaving the gate temporarily unattended. They are inexperienced…”

“Half the remaining rebels in Judea could have entered the camp while the sentries were away from their posts, man!” Martius snarled.

“The guilty men will be punished, tribune,” Gallo quickly responded. “They’ll feel my cudgel across their backs…”

“No, no, no, that will not do,” Martius retorted. “Your recruits must learn that if they desert their posts, for whatever reason, they put the lives of their comrades at risk. In battle this is a capital offense. They would lose their heads, as you well know, Gallo.”

“Yes, tribune,” the centurion returned grimly.

“Have
every man
of the last watch, including the cavalry patrol on duty last night, report here to me,” Martius ordered. “They will draw lots. One man will be stripped, and each of the others will give him ten lashes. They will not leave their posts again. Go!”

Furious, with his own men and at being countermanded by the tribune, Gallo strode away, yelling orders.

Venerius watched him go. “That was telling him,” the junior tribune said with a leer, and loud enough for Gallo to hear. “He should also draw a lot. He shares their guilt.”

“Mind your business, thin-stripe,” Martius snapped. He looked over to Varro. “The scribe has a start, Julius, but we should be able to track him down.”

Varro nodded. He turned to Crispus. “Quintus, take your troopers and scour the district for Aristarchus. Venerius, you can make yourself useful; ride to the cavalry post at Qumran. Alert the commander there to be on the lookout for the scribe. If we have not secured Aristarchus by the time you return, you will take ten men and ride to the Jericho road and patrol it to east and west in search of our fugitive. Away you go, the pair of you. Remember, I want Aristarchus brought back alive!”

Macherus, Territory of Perea, Roman Province of Judea.
May, A.D. 71

Black smoke billowed above the walls and four square towers on the apex of the cone-shaped hill. The fortress of Macherus had been burning all day long. Part way down the chalky northern slope, the town of Macherus was also ablaze. On the flat below, a stone wall ten feet high ran for two encircling miles. Punctuating this wall every so often on rises and ridges were busy Roman camps, and, in the depressions, guard posts. Within the ring of stone and steel, and just to the west of the hill, a huge pile of stones rose up, the beginnings of an assault ramp which was to have run all the way to the summit of the hill. The ramp had not been needed. Lying on the ground in grotesque death poses, between the encircling wall and the hill, sometimes in piles, sometimes singly, were the bodies of seventeen hundred Jewish men. The siege of Macherus was at an end.

“Ten days we were ahead of you, Varro.” The speaker was General Sextius Lucilius Bassus, commander of the 10th Legion for the past two months. Bassus was thirty years of age, tall, pale, and gaunt. There was a redness about his eyes, as if he suffered from a lack of sleep. “Ten days we spent building the siege works, and then, last night, the townspeople tried to break out. But we knew to expect it from an informant, and we were ready for them.”

Varro stood with the general on the tribunal in the bustling main 10th Legion camp within the siege works, looking up at the smoking hill.

“No survivors, general?” said the questor with a worried frown.

“Too many damned survivors, Varro,” Bassus cursed. “We think at least nine hundred slipped past us in the dark. But even they will fall into our clutches before long.”

“Nine hundred?” Varro brightened. There was still a possibility that Jews with information might be located. “Where do you think they went?”

“South. To join the rebel leader Judas ben Jairus. Without a doubt.”

“At Masada?”

“No, Ben Jairus is at odds with the Daggermen at Masada. The damned fool Jews have spent more time fighting themselves than the Roman army during this damned war.”

“Where is Ben Jairus? Do you know?”

“My scouts have spotted some of his people down in the Negev Valley. We will be marching for the Negev tomorrow, once we are finished here.”

“General, if I cannot find what I looking for here, would you object if my party and myself were to join you for the march to the Negev?”

“If you must.” Bassus looked at him from the corner of his eye. “As long as you and your people keep out of my way.”

“We will do our utmost not to inconvenience you, I assure you. How many Jews does Ben Jairus have with him?”

“Hard to tell. The few who escaped with him from Jerusalem, the nine hundred from last night, and the three thousand or so I allowed to leave the fortress of Mecharus.”

Varro looked at him with astonishment. “You allowed them to leave? Why?”

“I had my reasons.” Bassus swung around and stepped down from the tribunal, then began to walk back toward the
pretorium
of the 10th Legion, forcing Varro to jump down and then trot to
catch him up.

Varro drew level with the general. “Can you share those reasons with me?

“I…” Bassus suddenly gasped and stopped in his tracks. Then, draping his left over Varro’s shoulders, he put his weight on the questor. His right hand he put to his own belly, pressing hard.

The surprised questor looked into Bassus’ face. It was contorted with pain. “What ails you, general? Is there something I can do?”

Bassus failed to reply for several long moments, and then the pain seemed to pass. His face relaxed, but the pallor of his cheeks was now gray. “Something you can do, Varro? Not unless you can prevent me from shitting fire and blood daily!”

Varro was horrified. “That sounds vile. You must see a physician.”

“I have seen a physician!” the general irritably returned. “I see the fussing fool of a legion physician every morning and every night, and I am sick to death of his damned purgatives and potions. The cure is worse than the ailment, Varro.” He started forward again, slowly, gingerly, and still with an arm around Varro for support. “It will pass,” he said. “A change of diet, a change of air. As soon as I have rounded up the last of the rebels I plan to take myself up to the hot spring near Tiberias. I hear that it has a most rehabilitating affect on the constitution.”

“I have used that hot spring myself, and I can say that it certainly is stimulating.” Varro was trying to be kind. It was obvious to him that, whatever Bassus was suffering from, a bathe in a hot spring would do little if anything to help.

“Good, good. Now, what was it we were discussing?” The sentries either side of the entrance to the general’s pavilion stiffened at their commander’s approach. “Come inside, out of the sun, Varro,” Bassus urged.

As the pair passed into the large tent, two of the general’s servants anxiously rose up from the floor where they had been waiting for their master’s return. Taking Bassus from Varro, they helped him to his camp bed then carefully lay him on his back.

“There is no position that I find comfortable for long,” the general confessed, as Varro came to stand looking down at him and the servants began to towel the general’s perspiring brow. “I am as happy on my feet as in any other position.”

“How long have you been suffering like this?”

“Not long. I live with it, and plow on with the business of soldiering. Mind you, I do find that riding can be an agony at times, which is just a little inconvenient for a soldier. Still, every problem has its solution. I sent down to Caesarea and had the procurator send me up the chariot and pair he was so proud of.”

“Procurator Rufus sent you his chariot?” Varro suppressed a smile. He knew how enamored his cousin had been with chariots since childhood, and guessed that Rufus had been far from happy to part with his plaything.

“I drive it myself. It allows me to stand, and makes travel almost tolerable. Now, where were we, Varro? Remind me of what we were talking about.”

“You were explaining why you let the rebels at the fortress go free.”

“Of course. While we were building our encirclement, the partisans would send out raiding parties to harass us. One day, a youngster by the name of Eleazar, a member of one of these raiding parties, was captured alive by one of my Egyptian auxiliaries. I tied this Eleazar up on a cross, for all his comrades up in the fortress to see. It eventuated that Eleazar was the son of a leading Jewish family, and the rebels sent envoys down, offering to evacuate the fortress if I returned this Eleazar to them alive. I agreed.”

I see.

“It meant that I could take possession of the fortress without losing a man, while the partisans were left to flee into the wilderness. You see, Varro, I knew that the rebels at Masada would rather cut these peoples’ throats than take them in. In my own time, I will track them down, in the open, and I will deal with them once and for all.”

“A clever strategy.”

“I thought so. To complicate matters, the people in the town refused to leave, so we continued siege operations, until last night’s fun and games. Of those we intercepted we killed everyone bearing arms, of course. The unarmed and the women and children were put with our existing prisoners.”

“It is the prisoners that interest me, general. Do I have your permission to seek out several Jews among your prisoners?”

“Help yourself, Varro. Give my camp prefect their names; he’ll rake them up for you if they are here.” Bassus suddenly let out a pain-filled groan. He sat up, as if propelled by an unseen hand, and, doubled over. Clutching his midriff with one hand, he grabbed at a slave with the other. “The medication,” he gasped. “The medication!” Another slave ran to him with small stone bottle. Bassus drank, then, with a twisted face, waited for the potion to go to work. As the pain drained from his face, he slowly eased back down to the supine position. “That’s better,” he sighed, with relief.

By night, Bassus’ three thousand Jerusalem prisoners, now joined by a similar number of women and children from Macherus, were housed in miserable slave camps on the Macherus perimeter. By day, they were on the road to Jericho, hauling water in clay pots strapped to their backs, like pack animals, watched over and goaded by auxiliary cavalry.

In the evening of the day on which Varro and his column had linked up with the twelve thousand troops of Bassus’ army, the questor stood at the gate to the largest of the camps for male prisoners, flanked by his deputies and with men of his 4th Scythica Legion detachment drawn up in ranks behind him. Led by centurions, parties of 10th Legion soldiers were moving through the camp with torches held high. Every now and then the centurions would halt among the collection of pathetic shelters formed from clothes and blankets, and call out the names of three men: “Matthias ben Naum, an apothecary of Jerusalem. Baruch bar Laban, a native of Tiberias. Tobias, his son.”

Varro stood with folded arms, watching and waiting as the centurions repeated the names time and again, hearing them add that a reward awaited these men if they came forward. Varro had promised old Laban bar Nahor that in return for information he would seek his son and grandson among the Jerusalem prisoners, and he was keeping his word, although he held little hope of finding either. But the main focus of Varro’s quest was the apothecary Ben Naum. The escapee Aristarchus had not been apprehended by the search parties. It was anyone’s guess where the Greek scribe was now. Varro had recalled Crispus and his men, but he had left Venerius and a small cavalry detachment out patrolling the Jericho road on the lookout for Aristarchus. In the meantime, the questor was proceeding in the hope that the scribe’s evidence was reliable. Yet, severe doubts now occupied his mind about the very existence of Ben Naum.

If any of the men the questor was looking for were located, Varro expected that they would be in poor health; all the prisoners appeared to be in a state of physical exhaustion. With that in mind Varro had instructed Diocles the physician to be present. The doctor stood with his
assistants in a group to Varro’s right. Now, while he waited for results to be generated in the compound, the questor beckoned Diocles. “A question of a medical nature for you, physician,” he said once Diocles had waddled to his side.

“If it is in my power to answer, my lord questor,” fat Diocles replied.

“If a man were to regularly pass blood,” said Varro, “what would be the nature of his complaint?”

Diocles rubbed his chin, looking like a philosopher contemplating a matter of significant gravity. “It would depend on which of the five orifices of the body provided the outlet for the blood, questor,” he answered, with an air of importance. “In the case in question, are we talking about the mouth, the nose, the ears, the penis, or the anus?”

“The anus.”

“The flow is regular, you say? In quantity?”

“Regular and in quantity, accompanied by a fiery sensation, and with a gripping pain in the abdomen.”

“Oh, my goodness. We are not talking about yourself, are we, questor?”

“No, not me. This is a purely hypothetical question.”

“Ah, well, I am relieved to hear that. Your hypothetical man would in all probability be suffering from a cancerous growth.”

“A cancer?” Varro nodded slowly. He had feared as much.

“A cancerous growth in the bowel, I would fancy.”

“I see. Can it be treated?”

“Treated, yes. Cured, no. It is a death sentence, questor. A death sentence.”

Varro reclined beside Bassus in the general’s
pretorium
. Senior officers and leading freedmen from both camps were arrayed on couches around two dining tables in the large tent. Most were enjoying a sumptuous dinner, but, as Varro noticed, Bassus only nibbled at his food. Varro guessed that Bassus must have realized the cause of his medical condition by now. If Varro’s drunkard of a physician could diagnose the general’s illness from a description of the symptoms, then the physician treating the general would have known what he was dealing with. Besides, Bassus was no fool; even without a doctor’s prognosis he would have known that he was a dying man.

With a sigh, Varro took up his drinking cup, and looked absently into the diluted wine. Knowledge of Bassus’ awful and terminal illness was enough to depress anyone, but the questor’s own life was not exactly panning out the way he would have liked either. As things stood, his investigation was in jeopardy. The exercise in the prisoners’ camp had proven to be a waste of time. No one answering the name of Ben Naum had come forward. Neither had the son or grandson of old Laban been located; not that they would have been of any assistance to him. When, as a last resort, Varro had sent Gallo back through the camps calling for anyone with information about the death of Jesus of Nazareth four decades before, not a single soul had responded. Figuratively, Varro had reached a river, and, for the life of him, he could not see a way across.

“Begging the questor’s pardon?”

Varro looked up from his cup, to see Centurion Gallo standing at the open end of the dining table. “Yes, centurion?”

The normally taciturn Gallo managed something approaching a smile. “The questor will never believe it,” he said, “but, after we left the prisoners’ camps, several men came forward and identified themselves to the guards.”

Varro’s spirits instantly rose. “Fortuna smiles at last.”

“It was the promise of a reward that brought them out from under their rocks, questor,” Gallo remarked with a cynical elevation of the eyes. “You can be sure of that.”

“Who do we have?” Varro asked with anticipation.

“Interestingly, questor, we have not one, but three Matthias ben Naums.”

Before long, three salivating Jewish prisoners stood in front of the dining table, taking in the sea of exotic dishes being served to the Roman officers. One prisoner was elderly, one middle-aged, the third in his twenties. All were well-built, which was why they had been allocated to General Bassus’ slave labor parties. Each was chained to a soldier of the 10th Legion. The officers continued to eat while the prisoners were questioned; to them, this was entertainment.