The Inquest (23 page)

“There is, of course, the matter of your credentials. Before I can entertain the matter of a reward, I will need confirmation of your identity.”

“I have my manumission certificate, my lord, issued by Pontius Pilatus.” The scribe reached to the leather bag on his belt in which he normally carried a small wax tablet and stylus, like all members of his profession.

“Yes, you can show that to us,” Varro responded, “but do you have any documentation to prove that you were the prefect’s secretary at Jerusalem?”

“Well, no. That information would be available in the archives at Caesarea.”

“Very well. One of my secretaries will return to Caesarea, to confirm that information.” Varro looked over at Artimedes, who nodded to affirm that he understood.

“Very good, my lord,” said Aristarchus with a continuing smile. “The secretary will have no trouble finding the necessary record.”

“In the meantime, you will be placed in the custody of Centurion Gallo.”

The smile dropped from the scribe’s face. “I am a prisoner?”

“Not at all,” Varro replied. “You shall be my guest, Aristarchus.”

“I may retain my money?” Aristarchus’ hand went to a bulging purse on his belt.

“Of course. Only prisoners are deprived of their possessions. I will ask you to remain with us only as long as it takes to ascertain whether Matthias ben Naum is among General Bassus’ prisoners,” Varro replied. “You did say you would recognize Ben Naum if you saw him again.”

Aristarchus looked suddenly unwell. “Yes, my lord,” he acknowledged.

“Then you will be able to pick him out from among Bassus’ prisoners. We march in the footsteps of General Bassus and the 10th Legion.”

“With free transport, food and lodging in the meantime,” said Martius with a wink Varro’s way, “courtesy of the questor.”

As Callidus led the scribe from the tent, Varro and his officers came to their feet.

“Another stray dog joins our wandering band,” young Venerius sneered. “All we need now is a snake charmer.”

“A lying dog,” said Martius, stretching. “You mark my words, questor, he may well have been Pilatus’ secretary, but the scribe’s slandering rumors are pure invention.”

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

Viewed from the Mount of Olives, the scene was one of serenity. There was little to advertise the fact that a famous city thousands of years old had once spread from the foot of the mountain. The giant Temple Mount was still to be seen, a rectangular, flat-topped man-made monolith flanked by walls of massive white Judean stone. Of the so-called Second Temple itself, a vast complex of buildings erected on the Temple Mount by Herod the Great where once an older structure built by King Solomon had stood, nothing remained. On a rise to the west stood a fortress built by the 10th Legion in the ruins of the Palace of Herod, around three ancient towers left standing by Titus. This legion fortress provided the only sign of life. Auxiliary light infantry were visible at sentry posts and moving along the walls. Their cloth standards fluttered in the breeze from the fortress’ tallest tower. Between fortress and Temple Mount lay a valley of broken stone, dirt, and dust. Among the rubble, hints of once mighty buildings protruded. Titus and his legions had devastated Jerusalem during their five month siege. In their wake, Varro’s cousin, Rufus, had leveled the ruins they left behind, earning himself the Turnus epithet.

“A million Jews died down there last year, questor,” said Decurion Alienus, as they took in the view from the mountain slope, “and thousands of Roman soldiers.”

Unlike Alienus, whose mind was filled with the faces of Roman friends and colleagues who had perished here at Jerusalem, Varro’s mind was on his investigation. “So,” he said, “you were quartered here on the Mount of Olives during the siege?”

“Yes, questor. The men of the 10th Legion had their camp up here, and my Libyan troopers and myself camped with them. Down in the valley, over to the northwest…” He pointed to the spot. “Titus had his main camp there, with the 5th, 12th and 15th Legions.”

“And we are standing on the likely site of the olive press, the one called Gethsemane?”

Alienus cast his gaze to left and right. Clustered behind them stood Varro’s officers and officials, talking among themselves.. “I cannot be entirely sure, my lord. When we first arrived here last spring this mountainside was covered with olive trees. We cut down every single one. There were several olive presses on the mountain when we arrived. The one here would have looked directly down on the Temple, and was within an easy walk of the city. If I had to hazard a guess, my lord, this was Gethsemane.”

Varro nodded. “Then, in all likelihood, this is where the Nazarene was arrested in the early hours of the Friday morning prior to the Passover, forty-one years ago. Lead on, Decurion. We shall trace Jesus of Nazareth’s last hours from here, step by step.”

Under a frying May sun, the guide led the questor and his party down from the red stone and dry earth of the denuded mountain, across the Kedron Valley, and up into the Lower City. They went first to the site of the house of the former Jewish High Priest Ananus. This location was fixed for the questor by Antiochus, who had visited Jerusalem several times in his youth as a Passover pilgrim and knew the city layout well. From one rubble-strewn site to another, Antiochus guided the party to a corner where once the house of High Priest Josephus Caiaphas had stood. From there, they walked beside the towering western wall of the Temple Mount, past its blockaded staircases, to the place, at the northeast corner of the Mount, where the Antonia Fortress had once stood. A single course of massive stones gave an impression of the layout of the rectangular fortress built by Herod the Great. According to Antiochus, the fortress had
originally been called the Baris but was renamed by Herod in honor of his great Roman friend Marcus Antonius.

“The legionaries of the Roman cohort garrisoning the Antonia were massacred when the Jews launched their uprising without warning,” Alienus commented with disgust. “Our men stood no chance at all. Last summer, Titus had the fortress reduced, stone by stone, before we launched the final assault on the Temple.”

Varro called for Aristarchus, the former secretary to Prefect Pilatus, brought to Jerusalem chained in a cart with Philippus the Evangelist. Now, released from his manacles, the scribe was led to the questor, who asked him: “It was to this place that the Nazarene was brought, to be questioned by Pilatus?”

Aristarchus nodded. “This is where the Antonia stood, yes, my lord. A long flight of steps, here, led up to an iron gate. I find it hard to believe that nothing remains. Quite astonishing. The city that I knew, the handsome Antonia and the Temple, all gone.”

“A city of fools,” commented Antiochus acidly behind him.

The scribe pointed to a mound of earth two hundred yards away; this had been the palace of Herod Antipas, he said. Each of the four legions involved in Titus’ siege had built massive ramps of earth against the northern and western walls of the Temple Mount for the final Roman assault. Rufus had pulled down the ramps and distributed the earth among the rubble. This mound, where Antipas’ flat-roofed pyramidal palace had once stood, was the remnant of one of those ramps. King Agrippa and his sister Berenice had later acquired the palace, and used it whenever they came to Jerusalem.

“The Nazarene was then returned here to the Antonia,” said Varro, thinking aloud. “Pilatus endorsed the warrant which you wrote, Jesus was flayed, then three prisoners were brought out, down the steps to where we now stand, on their way to their execution. Take us to the place of execution, Aristarchus.”

As commanded, the scribe led Varro and his companions to the execution site. Their route took them over the worn cobblestones of a narrow street which ran across the excoriated landscape to the west. As they went, Alienus indicated a spot to their left, where, he said, the men of the 10th Legion had unearthed a huge trove of buried Jewish treasure weeks after the end of the siege. Beside the white stone fortress where the Roman military banners flew, and where the expedition members had made their quarters on arrival the previous day, the stumps of gateway pillars marked the city’s Water Gate.

“The prisoners and their escort would have emerged from the city at this point, questor,” said Aristarchus as the party passed through the opening. “There, where the fortress now stands, that was the Palace of Herod, where I spent the middle part of the day with Prefect Pilatus. The execution site is that rocky rise over there.” He pointed away to their right. “It was called
calvaria
, or, as the Jews say, Golgotha.”

“The Skull? Varro remarked. “It most certainly looks like a skull.”

He led the way, following the road inclining up to a rise and which a northbound traveler would take on the first steps on a journey to Galilee or Syria. It took just a few minutes to reach the base of the rocky outcrop.

“There were dead trees up there,” said Aristarchus. “Condemned men were required to carry the cross beams on which they were to be crucified. The cross beam would be nailed to the trunk, and the prisoner would be lashed to the cross so formed.”

Varro clambered up onto the rocks. On the rise he found the sawn-off stumps of dead trees embedded in the dry, rocky earth. Even the dead trees had been cut down during the siege. Here,
on this rock, hundreds of men had met their deaths over the years. Yet, to Varro, it did not seem a haunted place. Not like the Temple Mount and the Antonia, which had made his skin crawl. The questor looked back toward the site of the city. This would have been the Nazarene’s last earthly vision: the city walls, the Temple, the Mount of Olives rising behind it, assuming he was crucified facing Jerusalem. Perhaps, Varro thought, he had been deliberately faced the other way, with his back to his holy city. On this rock, the Nazarene had died. Or had he?

The questor and his party spent an hour in the area. Within a half mile radius of the execution site there were a number of Jewish tombs cut into the terraced rock. During the Revolt most had been damaged, some destroyed. One of these tombs would have been that of Josephus of Arimathea, the sepulchre used for the interment of Jesus, but there was no way of knowing which tomb it had been.

Varro had dined with his officers and the prefects of the auxiliary units based at Jerusalem. Now, in the moonlight, he and Martius climbed the succession of wooden ladders which took them to the top of the tallest tower of the fortress. Called the Hippicus by the Jews, the tower was said to be twice as old as Rome. The standards of all the units currently at Jerusalem were displayed here, among them the blood red
vexillum
of the questor’s 4th Scythica Legion detachment and the white banner of his Vettonians.

“Did you know, Julius, that no Roman standards were put on display here in the years before the rebellion, to appease the Jews?” said Martius disapprovingly when they reached the stone tower’s crenellated summit and looked out over the desolation below.

“I have heard,” said Varro, gazing out to the Temple Mount glowing silver in the moonlight, “that when Pilatus first arrived at Jerusalem, at the beginning of his posting, he installed his standards up here. The Jews rioted, and followed him back to Caesarea in their thousands. They refused to budge until he relented, which he did in the end.”

Martius shook his head. “We should not have given in to the Jews over the years the way we did. It only primed them for revolt. We gave them exemption from military service, we gave them coins without Caesar’s image, we allowed them to collect their Temple tax from their people across the Empire and to remit it to the priests here. Worst of all—preventing a legion from displaying its standards—that is going too far.”

“Our procurator did steal from their treasury,” Varro returned. “That was what set off the Revolt, Marcus. If Cestius Gallus had punished Procurator Florus for his thievery and given the Jews back the gold he purloined, there would have been no uprising.”

“If it had not been that, it would have been something else. The Jews would have found some pretext or other to rebel. It was our own fault. A handful of Caesars gave them concession after concession. We gave them a taste for freedoms, and in the end they could not be content with what they had. What a self-destructive people they are.”

“They couldn’t have imagined, ten years ago, that it would come to this.” Varro’s eyes traversed the silent valley that was now the graveyard of a city. “Who could?”

Martius was looking up at the moon. “Ten years ago, you would not have imagined yourself here today,” he mused. “And in these circumstances.”

“I certainly would not. Ten years ago?” Varro stopped to reflect. “I was twenty-four, and commanding the 2nd Wing of the Pannonian Horse, on the Rhine. All the talk then was of the revolt of the Britons the year before. Nero was emperor.

“And we loved him,” Martius chuckled. “No one then believed that he had murdered his own mother and was losing his mind.”

“What of you, Marcus? Where were you, and your dreams, ten years ago?

“Home, a thin-striper fresh from the 14th Gemina Martia Victrix in Britain.”

“You served with General Paulinus during the revolt of Queen Boadicea? I was unaware of that.” Varro was impressed. “The 14th’s victory is the stuff of legend.”

Martius nodded. “I never expected to survive, outnumbered twenty to one. We won that last battle more by Mars than Minerva, I can tell you.”

“My manservant Hostilis was made a prisoner in Britain during that revolt.”

“A Briton, is he? He looks too slight to have been a fighter. We made a great many Britons slaves after that revolt. The Britons don’t believe in slavery, you know. They killed their captives. No sense of commerce, those people. The Britons will never amount to anything.” He moved to the other side of the tower. Away to the south-east, the waters of the Dead Sea shimmered on the horizon. “After our victory I decided the gods must have chosen me for the soldiering life. I found my future on that battlefield.”

Varro joined him. “The soldiering life is still your ambition?”

“A general’s standard, famous victories, a consulship, and then a conquering expedition to some exotic land to expand the borders of the Empire—in that order. That should keep me occupied for the next ten years.”

“You will make a fine general, Marcus. You command respect. The way you handled the men during the tremor, on the road from Lydda…I could never do that. I am no soldier. And I have no desire to be a soldier.”

“What then does the future hold for you, Julius? Senator, pretor, and consul?”

“That is the plan,” Varro said without enthusiasm. “My mother is relying on me. I am the man of the family; much is expected of me. But should the chance present itself, I would like to write. History.”

“History? Any subject in particular?”

“Historical mysteries have always interested me. The mystery of the murder of Germanicus Caesar, for example. Then there is the case involving his daughter and his grandson Nero, and the murder of his mother Agrippina. Mysteries of that nature intrigue me. The ability to ask questions is the one thing that sets us apart from the beasts, after all, Marcus. Without questions, mysteries will always remain unsolved.”

“I like matters clear-cut.”

Varro smiled. “The soldier’s way.”

“Once we expose the Jew’s crucifixion plot and you deliver your damning report to Collega, the affair of the Nazarene’s death will be clear-cut, the mystery resolved.”

“Possibly so.” Varro looked to the dark south. “The solution is perhaps down there, with Bassus. I must find the apothecary Ben Naum. His evidence will be crucial.”

“We shall find him. Then you shall have the evidence you need. Mark my words, Julius, my friend—in ten years time no one will have even heard of Jesus of Nazareth.”