The Last Temple (2 page)

The crowded market square of Caesarea, in a city that was solidly a Roman possession, should not have been a place of danger. But a good soldier should always remain watchful. So later, in the early hours of the following dawn—before the first hammer blows descended on his helpless body as a result of his carelessness—Gallus Sergius Vitas would look back on what had happened and realize he had made his first mistake when he allowed irritation to overcome his habitual watchfulness.

He could not excuse the lapse, even though there were plenty of reasons to justify his irritation. Not the least were the fresh tattoo marks on his forehead that identified him as a slave, a criminal punished with bondage—a possession of the Beast named Nero. With these markings came a copper band on Vitas’s wrist and the rough tunic of the new class of society to which he now belonged.

Since arriving in Caesarea months earlier, Vitas had posed as a slave to his brother, Damian, because that was his best protection as a fugitive from Nero. His tattoos were not from ink but from a paste made of the powdered leaves of the henna plant. They would not remain permanently. While the false markings were a symbol of hope, signifying Vitas’s expectation that someday he would no longer be a fugitive but a free man again, in his heart Vitas felt this hope was a mere pretense. Each morning was an event that dulled his soul, for waking brought with it the ache that never seemed to lessen—knowledge of his wife’s death.

Only recently, Damian had proposed that since Vitas was already perceived as a slave, there would be no harm in carrying the deception a step further. He had convinced Vitas to allow himself to be sold into servitude to the household of Gnaea Lartius Helva, the fiscal procurator of Judea. Damian, a slave hunter who had engaged Vitas to join Helva’s household and spy on a domestic situation, had promised him it was only a temporary situation.

Vitas should have known better. Once he had agreed—with reluctance—to assume an identity as a slave named Novellus, Damian had promptly left for Jerusalem to find an old friend—Maglorius, who had been a renowned gladiator in Rome. Vitas guessed that Damian now probably spent his evenings on silk in Jerusalem, while Vitas slept on a filthy straw mattress each night, sharing cramped quarters—and fleas—with two other men who had not bathed in weeks, if not months. Vitas itched in places he’d never itched before, and for every flea he caught on his body and pinched with grim delight between the nails of his thumb and forefinger, there were scores more to replace it.

These were minor irritations, however; after he had survived a campaign in Britannia, nothing seemed worth complaint.

Just before the disastrous events in the Caesarean market unfolded, Vitas’s major source of irritation was the woman his new master had assigned him to guard. Helva’s wife, Dolabella. The mistress of the house rotated her bodyguards and, it was rumored, occasionally subjected them to her lascivious whims. But because her retinue numbered a dozen, she had yet to turn her attentions fully to Vitas.

Vitas had observed her closely and did not like what he saw. She was the sort of woman who relied heavily on her looks and was at an age where she had realized her looks would not remain eternal. For this day’s visit to the governor, she had dyed her hair a blonde that verged on orange, donned the most luxurious clothing possible, and draped herself with pounds of jewelry, then set out to enjoy a stroll through the market, grandly pretending she was just another Roman citizen.

In the marketplace, Vitas walked behind her with another slave, a monstrous mute named Jerome, at his right side, and two other slaves at his left. Like Vitas, Jerome had been assigned to this deception by Damian; unlike Vitas, Jerome truly was a slave and had belonged to Damian for years.

Dolabella’s husband, Helva, hurrying ahead because of an urgent summons from the governor, was accompanied by half a dozen soldiers. Caesarea was not an area of unrest like Jerusalem, and the soldiers were mainly a show of prestige. The group formed a wedge that shoved aside the people at the entrance to the market.

As they made progress through the market, a trumpet sounded three times. Vitas had his mind on the synagogue beyond the market, and the noise of the trumpet barely registered on his consciousness. The smells of the market, however, were difficult to ignore.

The morning was ripe. In all senses. Perhaps in the hills, where an aqueduct fed water to Caesarea from Mount Carmel across the fertile plains, the growing strength of the sun would be welcome, as a breeze moved among the green vines. Here, in the market, where the buildings trapped the heat and the smells, the mixture of camel dung and fish and fly-speckled goat carcasses was strong enough to overpower even Dolabella’s perfume.

She stopped abruptly, pushing aside a boy who was waving a branch above a skinned lamb to keep it clear of flies.

“I want that!” she shouted at her husband.

Helva stopped too. He had to raise his voice above the noise of the market. “The governor expects us. We can’t be late.”

“That porcelain dish!” She pointed past the boy at an old woman in a formless dark dress, rocking back and forth on her heels in front of a set of plates and cups arranged on an old blanket. “I want it.”

“We must keep moving,” her husband answered.

“Then you keep moving,” she said. “I want this, and I want it now. Continue without me, and I will catch up.”

She did not say “
we
will catch up,” although Vitas and Jerome and the two other slaves assigned to attend her made it a group of five. Slaves were objects; it would be ridiculous for their mistress to speak as if they were somehow with her.

Helva gave a wave of frustration, his face displaying a universal look of impatience and helpless exasperation. Then he walked away, flanked by his soldiers.

“How much?” Dolabella demanded of the old woman.

The old woman’s reply was barely audible as she named a price.

“What?” Hands on her hips, Dolabella projected outrage. “Robbery.”

Unlike most slaves, Vitas had a sense of the value of fine objects. In another lifetime, he’d accumulated more than his share, only to have his entire estate confiscated by Nero. He knew the old woman’s request was anything but robbery.

“It is the last of our household,” the woman said. “I need the money to—”

“Save your lies,” Dolabella snapped at the old woman, then cocked her head. “Your accent. You’re a Jew. Here, in the market. I should have you arrested.”

“My entire family was killed during the riots,” the old woman said. “My home taken. Please. This is all that I could rescue. I need to sell it to survive.”

The riots had taken place months ago, in the fall, just before Vitas had arrived in Caesarea with Damian and Jerome. Vitas well knew what had happened. A dispute between Greeks and Jews over a building project near the synagogue had festered, then erupted because of the former governor’s incompetence and greed. Twenty thousand Jews had been slaughtered in the city, triggering rebellion all across Judea. Jerusalem had rebelled against Rome and was in the hands of the Jews. Then came the formal declaration of the empire’s war against Judea. Rome had two legions in Ptolemais. Vitas had heard that the Fifteenth Legion was on the way from Alexandria to add to the buildup of military power; the news reminded him of all he had lost through Nero’s persecution.

“I said, save your lies. This is my offer.” Dolabella named a sum that was one-tenth of what the old woman had requested. Then Dolabella noticed that Vitas was frowning. “Is this your business?” she demanded.

Vitas stared at the ground. He should not have given any indication that he’d been listening. But seeing the old woman had awakened what was never far from his thoughts. Memories of his wife. A Jew. Murdered by Nero. If only his estate were all that Nero had taken from Vitas.

A blow struck his face. Dolabella had slapped him. “I asked you a question!”

Vitas lifted his eyes again to Dolabella, whose cheeks were tightened with rage, exposing the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes that she was so desperate to hide with makeup.

“It is not my business,” Vitas said.

“Make sure it remains that way.” Dolabella leaned forward, grabbed the old woman’s hair, and yanked her to her feet. “Jew, perhaps you should just give me the dishes. I won’t tell the authorities about you.”

Vitas stepped forward and grasped Dolabella’s wrist. “Let go of this poor woman.”

“What? You defy me? I shall have you crucified.”

Vitas doubted that. The household had paid too much to acquire him and Jerome. Helva would not allow execution. Vitas did expect punishment for this, but he guessed it would be a token effort to satisfy Dolabella’s pride.

“Let go,” Vitas repeated to Dolabella. “Now.”

She must have seen the cold resolution in his eyes. Heard in his voice the iron of a man long accustomed to giving orders.

She dropped the old woman’s wrist and glared at Vitas.

This, Vitas realized later, became the moment where irritation overshadowed his military-trained watchfulness. Vitas had some coins hidden in his belt. He smiled at Dolabella as he dug out the coins. Easily a month’s wages for a laborer.

Later, thinking about these events before he faced death for his role in them, Vitas would wonder if his impulse came from a sense of justice, from sympathy for the old woman built on the love he had for his dead wife—who had also suffered because of her Jewish identity—or from the satisfaction of defying Dolabella. Whatever the answer, later he would tell himself he should have been more aware of the impending danger.

Somehow the mood in the market had shifted, quieted. While he noted it, he did not act upon it. Instead, he remained focused on what was directly in front of him. Vitas gave the coins to the old woman. “Hold on to your porcelain,” he said. “And may God be with you.”

Dolabella slapped Vitas again. “On your knees,” she spat. She snarled at all of her bodyguard slaves. “Each of you. On your knees with him. A lesson will be taught here.”

Still standing, Vitas glimpsed motion over Dolabella’s shoulder, and he looked past the woman.

A transport man had been trying to move a herd of camels away from a silk vendor’s stall, each animal tethered to the next. But there was smoke. Of torches. And . . .

Another slap across his face. “On your knees,” Dolabella shouted.

Vitas felt a hand on his waist. Jerome, already kneeling, was trying to pull him down.

But Vitas had greater concerns. Someone had thrown oil across the backs of the camels. Others, armed with the torches, were lighting the soaked camels, turning them into living firebrands. In seconds, the huge beasts had begun to plunge up and down in panic, breaking free of the tethers and crashing among the people of the crowded market.

Screams rose in reaction to the mayhem. Vitas pushed Dolabella backward, toward the market stalls.

“You filthy—” Her hand rose in an arc to slap him yet again, but this time, Vitas lifted his own forearm in a lightning-swift move of self-defense and blocked the blow with his wrist, stunning her into silence. He rammed a shoulder into her belly and rose with her over his back, carrying her with his right arm.

His path to safety, however, was blocked by the old Jewish woman. He crouched and grabbed the old woman’s wrist, pulling her to her feet. He was just about to attempt to lift her with his other arm when Jerome moved him aside and pulled the old woman into his arms. He rushed ahead of Vitas with the fragile woman and set her in a stall, beneath a table covered with copper pots and pans.

Vitas rushed in the same direction with Dolabella and, with no effort at gentleness, tossed her beneath the table. As both men backed away from the table, Jerome grabbed the overhang of the stall and pulled it down, bringing the front half of the entire structure over the table. It was the best protection they could offer as they turned back to the market. Even with half a dozen soldiers, Gnaea Lartius Helva was vulnerable. Gone berserk, camels were nearly unstoppable.

Yet that wasn’t the danger.

Vitas was taller than most, and he saw it unfolding. Against the flow of the stampede of people fleeing the camels, men in long robes, perhaps twenty of them, advanced. Vitas saw a flash of steel in sunlight. A short dagger.

Sicarii. A planned assassination.

These extreme Jewish Zealots were known to conceal their
sicae
, or small daggers, beneath their cloaks to stab their enemies—Romans or Roman sympathizers, the Herodians, or wealthy Jews who embraced Roman rule—then lament with those around them to blend into the crowd.

In Caesarea, because of the rebellion, no longer were crowds allowed to assemble for events or holidays. Lighting camels on fire was a brazen tactic, and they could have only one target in mind: Gnaea Lartius Helva, the fiscal procurator of Judea.

Protecting Helva was more than duty for Vitas and Jerome and the other bodyguards. It was literally life or death—not only for Helva, but for his slaves. Allowing an owner to be murdered meant punishment by death for all the slaves in the household.

As Vitas sprinted forward, he saw one soldier go down. Then another. And another. The Sicarii swarmed in deadly precision, taking down the ring of men around Helva.

A camel plunged toward Vitas. He dodged, feeling the bulk of the camel’s body brush against him and the heat of the unquenchable fire on the camel’s hide.

When he looked again, Helva was down.

Knowing Jerome was beside him and knowing the mute’s intelligence and ability to assess a situation, Vitas stopped and held up a commanding hand, for a moment becoming the Vitas of old. This sense of authority was second nature to him, something he’d had to set aside after the copper band had been put on his wrist and the mark on his forehead.

“Too late,” Vitas said tersely to Jerome. “We’ve failed.”

Vitas understood too well the implications. They had not only failed, but failed spectacularly. As fiscal procurator of Judea, now including Galilee and Samaria, Gnaea Lartius Helva had been one of the highest-ranking officials in the province, with only the procurator Marcus Antonius Julianus—governor of Judea—having more authority. Even so, Helva did not report to Julianus but directly to Nero. That the second-highest official in the land had been assassinated was disastrous enough. To give the triumph to the Jews was double disaster. It would only add to their sense of invulnerability that had grown in the weeks after routing Gaius Cestius Gallus and chasing him and his army back to Syria.

Vitas put his hand on Jerome’s shoulder. The man had a blocky head with ragged hair and could not speak, his tongue having been cut out in his childhood. Vitas knew this because Jerome, too, had been sold by Damian to Helva.

“My friend,” Vitas said, looking upward into the large man’s face, “we should take care of ourselves now. We need to run and find a place to hide until Damian returns tomorrow to vouch for us. In this chaos, it’s our opportunity. Follow me.”

He turned, expecting Jerome to instantly obey. But Jerome spun him around with a hand on his shoulder. As Vitas stumbled off balance, Jerome hammered him in the forehead with an elbow. An ox would stagger under a blow like this from Jerome; Vitas had no chance. He fell flat onto his back.

With fleeing people streaming around them as if they were boulders in the center of a river, Jerome dropped on top of Vitas, sitting across his chest, pinning both of Vitas’s arms with his knees.

Vitas was too dazed to speak. Against the glare of the sun, he saw Jerome’s arm rise, then slowly descend. Vitas felt a bite on his throat. He knew what it was. The sharpened edge of steel. He’d seen the knife in Jerome’s hand.

It was an incomprehensible turn of events. Jerome had been Damian’s slave for years. To turn against the master’s brother was beyond belief.

Yet it was happening. And Vitas was powerless.

He closed his eyes, seeing the face of his dead wife, Sophia. If he was going to die, that was what he wanted to take with him. In this moment, he didn’t need to pray that he would see her on the other side. That had been his prayer every night before sleep and every morning before rising from bed. If those pleas had not been heard in all the months since her death, a prayer in the confusion of the market stampede would not be heard either.

The pressure of the knife against his throat increased. Then stopped.

Vitas opened his eyes.

Jerome’s face was expressionless.

This time, Vitas did not close his eyes. He would show no fear, let his steady gaze of silent condemnation be the last thing Jerome would see of him alive.

Again, the pressure of a sharp blade against his skin.

And again, just as suddenly, the pressure relieved.

Abruptly, Jerome slid off Vitas’s chest. He reached down, grabbed Vitas by a wrist, and pulled him up as effortlessly as if Vitas were the old woman Jerome had just rescued.

With the noise and confusion around them, it seemed to Vitas as though the two of them were in a bubble of silence.

Vitas touched his neck, then pulled away his fingers. A brief glance showed blood.

Jerome reached forward and extended the knife, handle first. He pressed it into Vitas’s hands. Then, with both of his large hands wrapped around the hands of Vitas, he pulled the knife forward so the point pressed into the softness just below Jerome’s ribs.

Tears filled the eyes of the mute slave. He nodded. Death. This was the punishment for a slave who turned against his master.

In the silent space, Vitas could again find no comprehension for what was happening.

Jerome had taken perfect advantage of the chaos. As if he’d been waiting for a moment to kill Vitas. With one swipe of the knife, he could have left Vitas on the ground, life force gushing into the dirt. Jerome could have melted into the crowd, leaving Vitas behind as if Vitas were another victim of the Sicarii. For Jerome, escape would have been simple with so many ships in the harbor where a strong man could find employment and passage to a foreign country. A murder without any chance of recrimination.

Yet now, Jerome was offering his life. Waiting for Vitas to plunge the knife forward.

They stared at each other.

Then the bubble of silence was broken as Roman soldiers finally appeared and Dolabella began to screech for help. Within seconds, Vitas and Jerome had been arrested.