The Wolf and the Lamb (13 page)

Chapter XXV

Loukas led the way from the shade and comfort of the shop back out onto the street. Gamaliel heaved himself up with a grunt.

“Tell me, Rabban, can you remember a time when the country could fairly be described as the land promised to Moses, the land they traveled to for four generations after the first passing over? I cannot think of a time when we have not been an oppressed Nation. My study of the King’s Book suggests that except for David and Solomon and perhaps briefly with Solomon’s immediate successors, we have been subject to invading tribes and nations or subject to the whims of a despot for what seems forever.”

“Your reading is superficial, yet near enough. What is your point?”

“Point? I am not sure I have a point. It simply occurred to me that this business with the Prefect is but a small itch on the giant backside of our history and we, mostly you, are taking this call to justice far too seriously.”

“Small or large, victim or villain, justice is never trivial, unneeded, or to be set aside because in the broad sweep of history it will be deemed insignificant. You take Caiaphas’ obsession with Rabbi Yeshua. He would have him cast away, even stoned. To do so would be, in my opinion, an unjust act, but will it affect history? It won’t. People will just say ‘the removal of one itinerant rabbi more or less cannot make a difference’ and they would be right. Yet, to fail to provide justice or fairness to him or to anyone else, denies it to us all. Justice cannot be arbitrary. It cannot be granted to some but not others because we don’t like them, or we think they are foolish or unworthy.”

“You are the Rabban. You are trained to think that way. However, there are times, my friend, when you would benefit from a little Roman pragmatism.”

Gamaliel snorted and the two pressed onward. They picked their way through the crowds busy with their preparations for Passover which for some would begin soon. The rest were occupied with making similar preparations for the High Holy Day two days hence. There were meals to prepare. Those pilgrims relegated to tents outside the city walls would have to improvise settings suitable for the occasion. That would not be easy. They would have to attempt to set up trestle tables on the steep hillsides surrounding the city. Even low ones, with the strategic placement of wedges and stones to level them could tilt and spill the evening meal on the ground. Some of the city’s merchants, recognizing that and seeing an opportunity to profit from it, had cleared their shop floors and rented space to the influx of pilgrims either as dormitories or meeting rooms. For the latter, they set up trestle tables and couches which they then leased for a fixed period of time to anyone seeking a place to hold their Passover. Depending on the available space, several tables might be set up and more than one family might be celebrating at the same time. The early time periods brought the highest price.

A few elders in the city grumbled about this practice and the increased price for food and drink, lodging, and simple services that characterized Passover in Jerusalem. It seemed crass that people should seek monetary gain from it, but as yet, no one had had the temerity to call the merchants out. Every year Gamaliel was besieged by those holding negative views to find the passages in Holy Writ that would put a stop to it. He had not obliged them, believing that keeping the tradition should take precedence over presumed legalisms about how it should or should not be done. So, the Essenes had their Passover two days early. He wished that they kept to the calendar prescribed by the Sanhedrin, the one derived from the Nation’s long history, but felt that a wrongly timed Passover was better than no Passover at all. And it did spread out the strain on the city’s resources.

They continued on their way pushing through the crowds and making slow progress toward the Fortress. Gamaliel wondered what had possessed the first Herod, the father of this mouse who currently held the title of King, to build the Fortress so much larger than the Temple. Was he making a statement about his own spirituality, currying favor with his then Roman ally, Marc Antony, or did he see the rule of military might as the only way to secure his immortality? In any event, he’d been wrong on all counts.

Pilate was not in his subbasement cell when Gamaliel and Loukas arrived. A servant greeted them and said that Cassia had granted the Prefect’s wish to return to his apartments on the condition he agreed to the terms of house arrest. The difficulty with this new arrangement lay in the fact that Gamaliel now had no access to him. He sent a message by way of the servant appraising Pilate of that fact and that if he expected any further help in clearing his name, the Prefect would return to the room immediately or establish another meeting place. The servant looked startled and then left to deliver the message.

“Take it as a sign, Rabban,” Loukas said. “You are to move on from this folly.”

“The only ‘sign’ I see emerging from this latest change, is the fact that the Prefect is supremely self-centered, and he had no thought what his need for the comforts of his rooms would have on anyone else. It is the nature of despots to justify their actions irrespective of the consequences.”

“If you say so. Do you believe he will meet you here?”

“I hope not. I hope he will find a nice sunlit space outside this monstrosity of a building where we can sit and relax and enjoy fresh air and a view that is not four stone walls.”

“How long will you wait for an answer?”

“Not long. If he still wants my services, he will answer immediately. If not, we will know in less than an hour.”

Loukas began a slow pacing of the perimeter of the room, counting out each step in units which Gamaliel recognized as Arabic enumeration. “When I have circled this room five times,” he said, “either Pilate will walk in through that door or I will walk out.”

“Fine. I wonder what happened to the horse.”

The door burst open and Pilate entered. “By the horse, I suppose you mean Pegasus. My good wife reports that he is comatose. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, do you?”

“Is it important if I do?”

“Not to me.”

“Then, I would rather not say. Pilate, we need to come to an understanding. I am trying to tease out the threads of this mystery for you. To do that in a timely manner, by which I mean, before you are shipped off to Rome in chains, I need access to information. You are the only access point I have and you are not telling me everything I need to know, yet you desert me at this critical moment.”

“Desert you? Do you mean because I have abandoned this sewer? I have answered all your questions, Rabban. What else is there to say? I assumed that after you interviewed Procula, you were finished with us.”

“Surely not. I need you to go over your recollection again.”

“Not again? Why?”

“Because with each telling something new may emerge. As you repeat the story, the immediate details come to you automatically, and you no longer have to think about them. Then the smaller bits and pieces surface in your memory. So, tell me again. What happened that day? Tell me right up to the point you found yourself relegated to this dank cell.”

Pilate sighed and repeated his story. Gamaliel interrupted once or twice to prompt him into thinking about one or more details.

“Picture the room in your mind, Prefect. Now, in your mind’s eye, look around you. Who else is there? What are they doing? Is anything out of place? Is anyone looking at you—not looking at you. Where is your dagger, for example?”

“My dagger? It should be in the great trunk in the corner.”

“Is it?”

Pilate’s face darkened as he concentrated on the image behind his eyes. “No, by the gods, it is not.”

“So it was removed the previous day?”

“It must have been.”

“That would have been the day your good wife thought she saw a strange woman in the apartments. There, you see, Prefect, you still have much to tell me.”

Chapter XXVI

Pilate poured three chalices of wine, kept one and pushed the other two toward Loukas and Gamaliel. Loukas reached for his and smiled his thanks. Gamaliel hesitated.

“Not just now, Prefect, I need a clear head.”

“And I don’t?”

“No, actually I believe a little wine might make you a little less ‘pragmatic’ and a great deal more loquacious. Please, drink up. Have some more.”

“You are mocking me, Rabban. Be careful. I do not like to be mocked.”

“No one does, and I assure you, making fun of you is the furthest thing in my mind.” Gamaliel thought he heard Loukas cough. He hoped the Prefect had not. “It is a simple truth that men’s tongues are eased with wine. I need you to be at ease. I believe you will be more likely to remember details outside the mainstream of your story if you are. Where were we?”

“We had decided my dagger had gone missing the day before the banquet.”

“Exactly. A mysterious woman appears, disappears, and a dagger goes missing. No one has seen or heard from her since, at least we don’t think so, and your weapon ends up in the dead man’s heart. It is too much of a coincidence to ignore. Go on with your story.”

Pilate continued, and once again, Gamaliel interrupted him from time to time to probe a memory, to force him to “look around” the room and describe a person or an event.

“When the legionnaire handed you the note—”

“I told you, Rabban, there was no note. He reported to me in person and delivered the message. No note.”

“Sorry, yes, you did, but you see, if not, that presents a problem.”

“May the gods forgive me, Rabban you are the most exasperating man on the face of the earth. What kind of problem is created by a legionnaire speaking to me?”

“I misspoke.”

“Well, at last. The genius of Jerusalem admits he made an error.”

“Indeed. It presents not one problem, but two. Listen carefully and tell me what I may have misunderstood. The soldier approaches you, makes some sort of acceptable greeting and delivers this message, ‘Excellency, the Centurion Priscus sends his greetings and asks that you meet him in such and such a place. He has something to tell you in confidence.’ Have I got it approximately right?”

“We have been through this before. Yes, yes, close enough.”

“Good. Why, if it was a meeting that included something of such importance that privacy and confidentiality were required, would Priscus have entrusted it to a lowly soldier and not at least have written it out? I keep thinking there must have been a note because there should have been a note. Soldiers, as a rule, cannot read. Therefore, sending the message by way of a note assures secrecy or at least confidentiality. But delivering it to you orally means the entire barracks could have known of the meeting. You can envision the ramifications that possibility creates. That is the first problem. The second stems from that premise. If Priscus thought his information was important enough that you meet privately and in secret, why have an intermediary deliver the message at all? Why didn’t he just approach you and tell you himself? I have heard of the Roman fascination for intrigue and note passing, but common sense—pragmatism—would dictate a direct contact, don’t you think?”

“He might have been busy or away at the time.”

“‘Might have been?’ He attended the banquet, did he not? So he was not busy and obviously not away anywhere.”

“Very well, it wasn’t important enough to require the level of security you describe.”

“With respect, Excellency, that makes even less sense. He claims that he never sent the message in the first place. No, the obvious conclusion is, someone else recruited the legionnaire to deliver the message. He wouldn’t have written it for fear the soldier would read it—”

“You just said soldiers cannot read.”

“I believe that is true for the most part, but the writer might have been sufficiently unfamiliar with this particular soldier or barracks to know who did and did not and therefore could not take the risk. The more important thing here is who can write and if he can, in what hand? You might have recognized the writing or the source of the papyrus. In any case, he could not risk being found out. Remember, you received the message just as you were about to enter the banquet so that you could not easily confirm its contents with the Centurion. Am I correct in believing he left shortly before the official ending of the meal?”

“Now that you mention it, yes he did. At the time, I assumed he went to our meeting. You believe that to be significant? Rabban, you are right. This is far too convoluted even for me and decidedly for them, as well.”

“So what do we know or think we know?”

“You tell me.”

“Yes, well…we know that your dagger was stolen a day early. That means the murder was premeditated. We know that the nature of the message delivery means that all the legionnaires on duty that night could have know its contents…or not. That leads us down a different pathway. Is it possible that it is the legionnaires who wished a man killed, perhaps even Priscus, and all the rest is smoke and mirrors?”

“I had not thought of that. You might just have it, Rabban. Now, how do I convince my visitors that is what happened?”

“You don’t. In the first place, they do not appear to be interested in your innocence at the moment, and this is only speculation. Furthermore, the Centurion has been sent away and cannot verify what, if anything, happened after the dinner. Did he go to the meeting? He claims to not have sent the message, therefore he wouldn’t have gone to that dark corridor. I believe he tells the truth. Therefore, he did not go. Further, no one can identify the legionnaire who delivered the message much less which of the hundred or so legionnaires currently in residence may have held a grudge against Priscus. Calculate the chances of discovering the facts about this? Then there is the difficulty of the dagger.”

“The dagger?”

“If you are an angry legionnaire and you hear about an opportunity to dispatch your Centurion that afternoon, how do you manage to steal the Prefect’s dagger the day before?”

“Oh.”

“We must dig deeper, Prefect, but I assure you we are making progress.”

***

An hour later and two hours past the time Gamaliel had his noon meal, the two men emerged from the bowels of the Antonia Fortress. Gamaliel seemed deep in thought, Loukas serene and detached. Neither noticed the High Priest bearing down on them like a heavy-laden merchant ship riding a following wind. He pulled up in front of Gamaliel and jabbed the Rabban in the chest with a stubby finger.

“We will have him this day,” he announced.

“
Ha Shem,
High Priest, dare I ask who is to be had?”

“The Galilean, Rabban, Yeshua. As I predicted, one of his men has sold him out.”

“A triumph for you, no doubt. This concerns me how, exactly?”

“A trial, Rabban. We will try him and you must preside.”

“Very well, but that can’t happen for days, weeks even. The Law ascribes certain rights to the accused, to counsel, for example, and there must be witnesses who are reliable. You know the lesson from the Book of Susannah. And then there is Passover to celebrate. It will be a week or two at the earliest before any of this can be done.”

The High Priest looked crestfallen. “That long? Surely not.”

“Absolutely.”

“But by then, the Prefect will be gone.”

“Gone? You think they will have him off to Rome. Not if I can help it.”

“Rome? Whatever are you talking about? He will have returned to Caesarea Maritima. I need his judgment now.”

“His judgment? Whatever for? The transgressions you accuse the rabbi of fall within the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin, not Pilate’s.”

“What? Yes, well, never mind. Now that I think about it, I believe that a preliminary hearing would be more in order.”

“A hearing? What sort of hearing?”

“The Sanhedrin can hear about the blasphemous things he’s accused of and then proceed in an appropriate manner.”

“I see. In any event, you will call on me if and when the time is set for a trial?”

“You may count on it.”

The High Priest did not sound very convincing. Gamaliel cocked an eyebrow. The High Priest scurried off.

“Well, let’s hope that this is the end of conversations about what’s-his-name, the itinerant rabbi from the Galilee,” Loukas said.

“Yeshua. Yes, let us so hope.”