The Master's Quilt (17 page)

As if he just became aware of the fact that
he must indeed look horrible, Deucalion stood up and examined
himself. He grimaced, then walked over to a table next to the arch
leading to the balcony and poured some fresh water from the
alabaster pitcher into a gold-rimmed basin. As he washed his face
and hands, the clear, tepid water turned a deep rust brown
color.

Pilate stood silent and waited for Deucalion
to make himself presentable.

The Praetorian finished washing as best he
could with the limited facilities, then turned and walked past
Pilate wordlessly. He stood on the balcony and looked down at the
Temple, wondering how men who professed to serve God could engage
in the kind of brutality he had witnessed last night.

“I have served Rome faithfully for fifteen
years—since the age of twelve,” he said absently. “I’ve traveled
wherever she wished and fought whomever she declared to be her
enemy and never concerned myself with politics.” He shook his head
wearily. “I chose to develop my skills as a soldier, instead,
leaving politics for Caesar, the Senate, and the Generals. Yet,
never have I been a party to such cowardice and such bloodthirsty
hatred as I was almost forced into participating in last
night.”

“What do you mean,
almost
?”

“I’ve seen women and children killed in the
course of battle and I’ve wept over their corpses,” he continued,
ignoring the question. “But last night, I could not weep. Had I
loosed my true emotions, I would have killed Saul, and perhaps even
turned upon my own men.” He turned from the window and added, “I am
not sure why I’m explaining this to you, Pontius, or even if I’m
making any sense; but it’s something I must say.

“It was almost as if once we entered the
woodworker’s shop, a blackness that was deeper and darker than the
night descended upon Saul. I was standing beside him and I felt him
change. We had been talking civilly to one another as we walked and
I thought I was beginning to understand what it was that drove him
so.” He stared into Pilate’s sullen eyes. Without condemnation, but
with the realization of one who has probed the hearts and souls of
two seemingly dissimilar men and found a common scarlet thread
binding them to madness, he said, “He has the same passionate,
narrow-minded love for Hebrew law that you have for Roman
jurisprudence.

“But I was totally unprepared for what
happened when we arrived at our destination. Saul became a man
possessed. He ripped the door leading to the back of the shop from
its hinges with one blow. My men and I were stunned. He exhibited
the strength of several men.

“Once inside the room, he harangued the small
group of people unmercifully, attempting to antagonize them into a
foolish act so that he could justify what he had planned to do from
the start. The fact that they did not respond as he intended seemed
to cut loose the last tie binding him to reason. That’s when the
slaughter began. And that’s when I lost my sword.”

Pilate listened without expression and
without comment. It was evident that Deucalion’s attitude had
changed dramatically in the last few days. The Procurator now
realized that by refusing to acknowledge the chasm growing between
them, even as he refused to accept the implications of his actions
of which the bridge over the Tyropoeon Valley reminded him of
daily, he had doomed their friendship.

He wanted to weep, but he knew he could
not.

Now, more than ever, he realized the truth of
the matter. He was a man who, because of his intellect, could not
plead ignorance. Yet, because of pride in that same intellectual
ability, he could not help but make decisions that were contrary to
his own best interests. In many ways he was as much a power addict
as Antipas.

That bit of introspection startled Pilate. He
had thought himself incapable of such stark honesty where his own
motives were concerned.

Overcome by a rare moment of compassion, he
opened himself up to Deucalion. “Listen to me,” he pleaded,
catching the Praetorian off guard. “I’m a man plagued by the demons
of unjust decisions, most of which I found not merely unpalatable,
but abhorrent to my sense of ethics and morality. And I have been
forced to make those types of judgments in order to survive in a
world I no longer understand. The memories of those decisions
resurrect themselves inside my head at will. I have no control over
them. A sight. . .a sound. . .sometimes the touch of another human
being—all open the door to the pit and unleash the power of
evil.

“In those terrifying moments of darkness, I
imagine that my deeds are so foul, so repugnant, that even though I
hold a ticket of passage on the ferryman’s ship of death, I am an
unwanted guest. I ride Charon’s demonic frigate endlessly as it
glides over the putrid sea of misery—the one the gods call the
river Styx. I sit apart from the lost souls that are my fellow
passengers and, like a leper, I pray no one will look at me. Yet I
desperately want one last moment of recognition, one look to assure
me that at least there was a time when I was one of them, even if
only for a moment.”

He rubbed his temples, trying to massage away
the pain that had become aconstant companion. “I’m no longer the
proud citizen of Rome I once was, Deucalion. I’m no longer sure of
my destiny—no longer certain of my ability to survive no matter
what the odds. I’m even less certain of the institution I worship
like a god.

“Rome has failed her people. And I, once a
true son of the Republic, have failed Rome. I have given up on my
adopted mother. Oh, there was a time when, like Oedipus, I courted
her, blind to the fact that she was who she was and what she was.
Now, however, my conscience robs me of my ignorance.”

Although the Procurator’s suddenly placid
eyes were dry, Deucalion thought Pilate might weep. With unwavering
voice his superior continued. “You are the closest thing to a son
I’ve ever had. Claudia has given me only prophecy—illegitimate
prophecy to boot. The idea of losing you to a woman is
understandable; the possibility of losing you to an ideology that
is beyond my ability to comprehend is unbearable.”

He twisted his hands together. “I fear losing
your friendship,” he croaked, his voice almost a whisper. “No,
that’s not exactly true. I fear the loss of the sense of belonging
that you’ve given to me. I dread that more than I dread losing my
appointment as Procurator.”

Realizing what he had said, he grew suddenly
quiet. His face became an expressionless mask.

Outside Herod’s palace, a bird sang merrily.
When the sound of its fluttering voice reached Deucalion, he
glanced at the city spread below them, a sprawling metropolis of
contradictions, and thought about Esther. He wondered if there were
myrtle trees nearby, and if the bird was frolicking with a
potential mate, wooing her with music, singing to her of his love
as she sat upon the starry white flowers.

At the same time, he was intrigued by
Pilate’s unusual behavior. He was also stunned by the Procurator’s
confession. Maybe there was still hope. “You never mentioned
anything about prophecy to me before, Pontius,” he said with
compassion. “Certainly not in reference to Claudia. What prompted
her to speak to you in such fashion?”

Pilate stared at Deucalion with sunken eyes,
the pale skin beneath them stained by the dark smudge of too many
sleepless nights. “Claudia visited me only hours before I sentenced
Jesus to die and told me she’d had a vivid dream. She warned me
that I was making a serious mistake. I argued with her, but she
wouldn’t be moved.”

“What exactly did she say?”

He recounted Claudia’s exact words, and then
said, “I didn’t listen to her—or my conscience. And the price I’ve
paid for my foolishness is beyond measure. If the
Gehenna
of
the Jews is real, I don’t want to face it. Surely it’s worse than
the hell I live in now—and that is almost more than I can
bear.”

“But, Pontius, you just told me that many of
the decisions you’ve made have been forced upon you. Obviously
you’ve honored Rome by being a faithful servant, as well as a loyal
soldier.”

“Ha! You’re too young and far too naive to
understand what soldiering in the service of Rome is truly like. My
father, Marcus Pontius, was a native of Seville. He gained fame in
the service of Rome during the wars of annihilation waged by
Agrippa against the Cantabrians.

“He was a rogue, some even go so far as to
say a renegade, to the cause of the Spaniards, his countrymen. When
Spain was conquered by Rome he received the
pilum
, a reward
for his service and a mark of distinction. Shortly thereafter, he
changed the family name to Pilati, in honor of the javelin he had
received from Caesar.” He forced a smile. “My father used to tell
my mother that our new name would bring us luck because it was the
weapon favored by many in the Legion. Since the Legion represented
Rome, which was invincible in his eyes, he would be an extension of
that invincibility.

“He was quite a visionary, my father,” Pilate
added, chuckling, turning his back on Deucalion and the balcony. He
walked inside and when he reached the marble table he rubbed the
fingers of his right hand along the polished surface. “After
leaving Spain, I entered the service of Germanicus on the Rhine and
served through the German campaigns. Not long after, I found myself
in Rome. It was there I decided that I must make some crucial
decisions if I wanted to get where I had believed I belonged.”

Deucalion flinched at Pilate’s choice of
words; they echoed hauntingly in his ears.

“I made what I thought at the time was a
prudent and farsighted decision—I married Claudia.”

“I don’t understand.”

Pilate turned and let his tired eyes linger
upon Deucalion, then looked past him, staring outward again at the
distant mountains. He thought he could hear a bird singing, out
beyond the balcony. “Your youthful naiveté keeps raising its honest
head. Claudia is the youngest daughter of Julia, daughter of
Augustus.”

Recognition glowed in Deucalion’s eyes and
they widened considerably at the mention of
Augustus
, the
imperial title of Octavius, the successor of Julius Caesar.

“I assumed at the time I would find favor
with the Emperor, stay in Rome, become a member of the Senate, and
retire. I would be a happy, not to mention wealthy, landowner. But
the gods had other plans,” he added resignedly and shrugged his
shoulders as an old politician will do when a weight he has been
carrying for too long becomes too heavy to bear.

“It is indeed ironic how the fates have
manipulated my life. Augustus ordered an enrollment for tax
purposes that caused two undistinguished Jews to go to Bethlehem,
where a son was born to them. He in turn eventually upset two
nations: one worshiping a supposedly benevolent god of love, the
other serving a relentless and uncompromising god of war.

“He alienated and incensed His own people,
the Jews, by claiming to be the Son of God. And by refusing to
behave as the treasonous rabble-rouser His accusers labeled him, He
placed the greatest empire the world has ever known in one of the
most disastrous predicament it has ever been in.

“Now, we must help our enemies eradicate the
very infection that threatens to accomplish what all the might and
power of the Legion could not. What irony!”

Pilate’s face sagged as he spoke. He looked
like he was wearing a wrinkled mask left over from a long past
bacchanalian party. “So you see my young and innocent Praetorian,
Charon’s frigate is large enough to carry nations as well as
people. And that, of course, is the final irony. Rome’s blindness
has brought her to the brink of oblivion. She is slowly dying, and
her citizens don’t even realize that the rot they fear from without
has already taken root and spreads from within. The fruitfulness of
the once invincible empire has been destroyed by one too many
abortive attempts at self-preservation.”

Deucalion could not believe what he was
hearing. Pilate had never spoken to him with such passion before.
That such a razor-sharp, pragmatic assessment of Rome’s predicament
should come from the lips of a career soldier was astounding. It
was obvious that in spite of all he’d said, Pilate still loved Rome
as an unhappy, but very married man loves his mistress. It was
equally obvious that Pilate had misinterpreted a key piece of
information—an error that, on the battlefield, would inevitably
prove fatal to a field commander.

It wasn’t Rome’s
blindness
that fueled
the fire voraciously consuming the rotting infrastructure of the
Empire. It was simply
momentum
. Rome was like a wounded
Leviathan. Thrashing and howling in her death throes, she had
turned upon herself and was desperately trying to tear the source
of pain from her body. In the process, she was unwittingly ripping
herself apart.

“If you see all this so clearly, Pontius, why
don’t you try to do something about it?” he asked.

The Procurator frowned. “Oh, but I am. I made
a serious mistake by allowing the Jews to involve me in the Jesus
incident and I don’t intend to make another.”

Deucalion’s sympathy for his superior rapidly
began to dissipate. Deep inside, the disgust at what he had
witnessed the night before still burned hotly, like a live coal
simmering in his belly. “So you make use of men like Saul,” he said
sarcastically. “Men who are not tormented by their conscience.”

Pilate’s eyes narrowed. Deucalion realized he
had stepped into dangerous territory.

“Don’t take that tone with me, Deucalion. I’m
fully aware of my responsibilities as Procurator. Men like Saul are
a necessary evil. Unfortunately, they have a way of getting out of
control. That is why we must be careful how we use them. So long as
we avoid any direct involvement, we remain in control.”