The Painted Messiah (41 page)
'You didn't think I should get involved?'
'You obviously were and it was clear you weren't about to walk away from an agreement, so I thought it best to remind you of your mortality.'
'If the point was to eliminate Corbeau,' Malloy said, 'why not just come to me - or one of your other friends? Kidnapping him might not have looked feasible, but an assassination could have been arranged without too much trouble.'
'The point, Thomas, was to steal the painting. It was at the centre of Templar ritual and magic - the reason for the Order's existence.'
'We burned the painting, contessa.'
Her eyes showed curiosity, nothing more.
He shook his head. 'The idea of Richland holding up the face of Jesus on TV and selling copies to the faithful was worse than anything we could imagine.'
'I expect all three of them had decided to keep it out of the public eye. Reserved for the elect of the faith, so to speak.'
'Just like the Templars . . .'
The contessa's smile turned cold. '
Blessed are the pure in heart.'
Malloy shook his head in disgust.
'Do you find it curious,' she asked, 'that a painting of the Savior turned believers into monsters but left you, Ethan, Lady Kenyon, Roland Wheeler, and even Hans Goetz unaffected?'
'The believers wanted a miracle. For us the only magic in that piece of wood was the cash it could generate. What I want to know is how
you
resisted it? If I understand you correctly, you'd spent years searching for the Holy Face. When you found it, instead of acquiring it by some means, you arranged to pry it from the hands of one criminal and turn it over to another. That must have been hard to do for a woman of faith.'
'How do you know I wasn't tempted?'
'By the way you handled it when we looked at it in your kitchen. I could see you were curious, but you weren't like the others. You weren't afraid that now you had it in your hands someone was going to take it away.'
She nodded, pleased it seemed he had understood her response. 'There was a reason the Edesseans buried that painting in their city wall, Thomas. You have only to look at the fruit it bore in a matter of days - the death and betrayal it inspired - to know it was an abomination.'
'You don't really think it was evil?'
'Not at all. The evil existed in the hearts of those who adored it. The painting simply provided the stimulus for them to act.'
'Was it the face of Jesus, do you think?'
'You mean did you commit a monstrous crime?'
He smiled sheepishly. 'I guess that's what I mean.'
'Corbeau got what he deserved, Thomas. As far as I am concerned the devil he prayed to can go to hell with him.'
'Just a painting then - some face?'
'Who knows? Maybe it was a pretender, a charlatan who passed himself off as the risen Christ. There were certainly enough of them around.'
Malloy looked away. 'What do you do now, Contessa?' he asked.
The brittleness that had overtaken her features softened as she considered her prospects. She looked at the passing figures, the bright Christmas lights, the laughing children. 'Now that I am presumed dead in Europe and living as a penniless middle-aged immigrant in the land of opportunity?'
Malloy laughed. 'You make it sound almost romantic.'
'Things are not really as desperate as they seem. I may have left a fortune behind, but I can retrieve most of it before they declare me legally dead. And I had a little something to take with me.'
'The painting you took when you left?'
The contessa smiled. 'Rene tells me you wanted to know why I chose that particular one and left the others.'
Malloy looked away again, watching the crowd. He was still not sure if he trusted everything the contessa told him. 'I'd almost convinced myself you had gotten your hands on the True Image and we were all chasing after the face of a first century impostor.'
'I took that particular painting and left the others for the simple reason that it was not a forgery. Combined with an antique ring and necklace I had in my possession, I got resettled without too much discomfort.'
'You sold your painting?' He was surprised.
'Don't be silly, Thomas. I used it and the jewellery as collateral on a personal loan I took from a friend in Geneva.' She nodded in the direction of the ice rink. Gwen had stopped skating and was looking for Malloy. 'I had better go. Your friends just noticed you're not watching their show.'
'Will I see you again?'
Their eyes met and the inevitable feeling of desire swept over him. 'That is the question, isn't it?' she asked. The playfulness was gone. Their long history as friends and allies lay between them like a tangible thing.
'That's the question,' he answered.
The contessa leaned forward to kiss his cheek, her eyes suddenly quite sad. 'For now,' she said, 'this had better be goodbye. As for the future . . . let's leave that in the hands of God, shall we?'
Pulling back to arm's length, she held Malloy with her dark, luminous eyes all too briefly before she turned away.
A moment later the Contessa de Medici had melted into the crowd and was gone.
AD 30-41.
There was no mention of Pilate's first administrative embarrassment resulting from his failure to raise the image of Tiberius in Jerusalem, but nobody missed the point when they saw the portrait of the man named Yeshua in Pilate's banqueting hall. 'In Jerusalem,' Pilate announced to anyone noticing the portrait hanging from the imago standard, and everyone did who wanted to please Caesar's prefect, 'the Romans might not be allowed to display the image of the emperor, but in Caesarea the Romans show an unsurpassed open-mindedness by giving a place of honour among the Roman standards to the
imago
standard of the King of the Jews.' The pleasure of the joke lasted many weeks before Pilate told Cornelius to have the standard repaired and to discard the image of the dead Jew.
The following year Tiberius's sister-in-law, Antonia, received a courier from Caesarea with a message that she passed on to the emperor. In it a number of the activities on the part of the emperor's 'most trusted servant' were spelled out, including Sejanus's covert attempt to start a war with the Jews. Tiberius rallied from his lethargy and managed without great difficulty to eliminate Sejanus and his allies, including Senator Vitellius. Afterwards he exiled Antipas and Herodias to Gaul. He then settled back into his semi-retirement in Capri and lived for another half dozen years.
During that time Pilate remained as the prefect of Judaea, Samaria, and Idumaea. The event that finally prompted Pilate's resignation was the appearance of yet another Messiah: a Samarian holy man named Simon Magus. Simon had an army that worshipped his image in its many manifestations. Among them was a portrait of Simon wearing a crown of thorns, for he preached that he was the culmination of the greatest prophets, including the most recent and notorious, a man named Yeshua, whom some, he said, mistakenly believed was the Messiah.
His followers prayed to Simon's images morning and evening in the belief that doing so would guarantee they would neither age nor taste death. Since they imagined themselves immortal, they were ferocious if undisciplined fighters, but they had not their general with them when it mattered. With a force of some three thousand and outnumbered nearly two to one, Pilate met and exterminated the radical sect in a single engagement. He crucified all who did not perish on the field of battle and gave orders to hunt down Simon Magus as well. Simon fled into Syria, however, where his cult of worshippers persisted for many centuries, for he was a persuasive man and a magician of extraordinary skill, having learned the arts of necromancy in Egypt, where the priests still worshipped Hermes the thrice-born.
By chance, Pilate's victory in Samaria was marred by a deep wound in his groin. Though painful it did not at first appear to be life-threatening. The ensuing infection however nearly took his life. In fact, the prefect's doctors gave Procula no hope when he fell into a coma some five days after the battle. They suggested she make a sacrifice at the temple of Asclepius, the god of medicine, for it was the only chance he had.
When that failed to bring relief, Procula called on Cornelius, then living in semi-retirement in Caesarea and practicing his medical skills, such as they were, among the poor. He had become a Jew since leaving Pilate's administration. But for a bit of foreskin he had sacrificed, he was still the same - still the great hulking figure and still the great passion to protect Pilate's wife. Arriving with only a bit of ointment that he put together from his own garden, the old centurion applied it to the festering wound and broke the fever within minutes. Pilate awakened from his long sleep an hour later - refreshed and cheerful.
Some weeks later, though fully recovered, Pilate resigned his post in Judaea, pleading disabilities. Tiberius's health was failing, and the son of the glorious Germanicus was set to become the new emperor. Rome was about to enjoy a renaissance that Pilate did not care to miss.
Caligula was twenty one years old when he came to the throne. He was handsome and popular and found his treasury brimming with the fortune that Tiberius had refused to spend. Sejanus was gone, the Senate had lost
the last of its potency, and the world answered to the whims of the man who sat on the imperial throne.
For years a virtual prisoner on the Isle of Capri, Caligula came to Rome like a hungry tiger. He wanted pleasure and parties - parties like the world had never seen - and he wanted to be worshipped as a god. Because he had a tremendous imagination the costs were staggering and nearly bankrupted the once overflowing treasury. Warned of the dangers of spending more than he possessed, Caligula refused to cut back. Instead, he turned his mind to replenishing the imperial fortune.
Summoning great numbers of nobility to his palace for banquets it would have been treasonous to refuse to attend, Caligula would choose one among his guests - always the wealthiest and usually the most corrupt. He would then entice his victim into signing a will that left everything to Caligula. The enticement might be the promise of not executing all of the man's children as he watched, taking only a few of them instead, or raping the wife and eldest daughter, while sparing the younger children.
Those who resisted beyond these reasonable enticements were tortured until they signed anyway. Once the will had been examined by various witnesses, Caligula would then devise an entertaining end for his victim as his guests watched. One was drowned in a cauldron of soup. One was turned into a human torch while Caligula pretended to study his will. Some played games of chance that let them live so long as their luck held. One played Adonis, another Attis, a third Heracles wearing the poisoned cloak his wife had given him. One was grilled on a spit while he was still
alive, then served Very rare' as an entrée to Caligula's terrified guests.
By the time the senators and equestrians of the city understood just what kind of madman ruled them, they discovered an even more horrifying fact. The plebeians of the city hated them with such passion they actually celebrated Caligula's crimes and wanted only the privilege of watching his imaginative executions in the Circus Maximus.
Having an audience fully appreciative of his genius, Caligula found new inspiration.
When Pilate's invitation to the palace arrived one morning, he waited until Procula left the house, then quietly retired to his bath and opened his veins.
Denied what was reputed to be a great inheritance, Caligula refused the family of the Pontii permission to bury Pilate, insisting instead that Procula - the sole heir of her husband's fortune - come alone to the palace afterwards with her husband's ashes. The emperor wanted to grieve in private with his cousin.
Following a depressingly simple funeral, Procula returned to the city. While she was still in the plaza before the great house Pilate had bought for them on their return from Judaea, Procula freed her slaves, bid farewell to the Pontii, and took the urn bearing her husband's ashes.
At the front gate she was turning the key when Cornelius stepped out of the late afternoon shadows. 'Centurion!' she said in bewilderment. She had not seen Cornelius in over two years and had assumed he was still in Caesarea. 'What are you doing here?'
'The palace guard is waiting inside your house, Lady. They do not intend to let you take your own life, if that is your intention.'
Procula felt a moment of panic but then steeled herself with the courage expected of a Roman matron. 'Honour me with your sword,' she said, 'and I will give them no say in the matter!'
'I will do better than that. I will get you out of Rome.'
'If they are inside my house, they are in the streets as well!' She looked out across the plaza and saw several groups of men engaged in conversation. Some she had seen earlier in the day but only now recognized this was not a coincidence. 'Please, Centurion! Give me your sword!'
Cornelius took her hand and placed it gently on his forearm. Considering her exalted station, she ought to have been insulted or outraged, but in fact she found comfort in his touch. 'I will not let you die, Lady, but you must trust me.'
