“The Galilean, is he...?”
“He’s dead,” the man answered before the fish merchant could complete his question. “He died just as the storm broke. This fish”—he pointed—“where was it caught?”
“No earlier than the day before yesterday, and fetched by fast cart from the Sea of Galilee. Good, fresh carp, perches, bream.” With grimy fingers he poked at now one and now another of his offerings. “The finest fish in Jerusalem, and the most weight for your money!”
Cornelius stepped away from the stall into the warmth of the freshly cleansed air. As he walked quickly along the road he could now see plainly revealed the three crosses and their inert, mutilated burdens. The pause in the fish market during the raging of the storm had given him time to catch his breath after racing over the cobblestones from the square in front of Antonia.
But why had he come on the run to the Hill of the Skull? Why had he come at all? Porcius had said that Jesus had already been nailed to the cross for several hours. Had the centurion hoped in some mysterious manner to save the Galilean, to get him down from the cross and revive him? Had he thought he might countermand Pilate’s judgment and sentence?
He hadn’t thought. He had acted on his emotions. He had wanted to see Jesus, to protest to Longinus, to scream out his denunciation of everyone who’d had a hand in this abominable act. He hadn’t reasoned any course of action. He had only come as fast as he could to the place of horrors, his whole being seething with resentment and anger and a terrible bitterness.
And now Jesus was dead. The good man who had done no man ill, who had done countless men good, who had restored Lucian, and Chuza’s son. Or had he really?
Would he be up there now, perhaps already dead on a Roman cross, if he had had the power to heal Chuza’s little boy, if he had been able by his own mighty will to rid Lucian of the fever that was consuming him? Would he?
Longinus had been right. Those “miracles” had been only remarkable coincidences. The Galilean wonder worker, the good man, the son of the Jews’ one god—Cornelius ventured to raise his head from the ascending path and look upward toward the central cross—was hanging spiked to a crossbeam, crumpled and lifeless, as dead, or soon to be, as those two revolutionaries who hung there with him. And Longinus, though unhappy that Pilate had required him to crucify an innocent man, would remind him that all along he had been right in denying that Jesus of Galilee had been anything more than a good man.
He found Longinus seated not far from the crosses on a low stone outcropping. His head was bent forward, cradled in his hands, and his eyes were fastened to the ground.
“I’ve been expecting you, Cornelius,” he said, looking up as his friend spoke. “I knew you would be coming.”
“We didn’t get into Jerusalem until a short time before the storm. As soon as I heard at Antonia, I came running; I was at the gate down there when the storm struck.”
“I knew you would come.” He shook his head slowly; his eyes were fixed, unseeing. “And I deserve everything you’re going to say.” He lifted his face, and Cornelius saw on it fear and sorrow and a great revulsion. “I’m undone, my friend.” He arose slowly to his feet, and his eyes, for an instant before he looked away, encompassed the crosses behind Cornelius.
“But, Longinus, you didn’t ... it was Pilate....” He reached out to put his hand on his comrade’s arm, but Longinus drew back, hand raised.
“No, Cornelius, Pilate condemned him, but I killed him! I, this hand. Look!” He held it before him and turned it slowly. “His blood! His innocent blood! I tortured to his slow death an innocent man, a good man, Cornelius, a perfect man, yes, and by all the gods, even more than a perfect man!”
“I’d thought that he was more, that perhaps he possessed powers no man could have, I’d hoped so; I’d hoped that he had called upon a supernatural power to heal Lucian. But would a god, would the son of the God, if there is one, my friend”—Cornelius’ countenance was darkly pained—“allow himself to be put to death, to accept the tortured death of the cross?”
“I know that my saying it sounds strange, Cornelius, but ever since this morning I’ve had the feeling that he was allowing himself to be crucified and that at any moment, if he had wished, he could have destroyed us all. Yet in the midst of his agonies, while we were spiking him to the crossbeam, he prayed to his god to forgive us. To forgive us, Centurion!” He shook his head sadly. “To forgive me. But I killed him. By all the gods, let me show you.”
They walked over to the foot of the center cross. The body of Jesus, naked except for a bloody loincloth, hung out from the upright at a grotesque angle, held by heavy spikes through the palms of the hands and supported by a narrow wedge between the legs. The head had slumped forward so that the twin points of his short beard splayed out across his chest. Other large spikes through his purpling feet held them to the upright.
“See?” Longinus pointed to a gaping wound from which blood and body fluid still dripped slowly. Blood had gushed forth when the wound was made, for below it the tortured flesh was wide streaked and the loincloth was gore-soaked; his blood had run down the length of one leg, and even as Cornelius stared, a crimson bead swelled at the end of the great toe and dropped to the bloodstained ground.
“But why this wound?” Cornelius asked. “Did you...?”
“Yes, it was my lance that did it. He must have been already dead, but I didn’t know. And I couldn’t bear for him to have to endure any more agony.”
“You did it in mercy, Longinus.”
“Yes, but I killed him, Cornelius. He’s dead, and I can never have his forgiveness. And I’m soiled, ruined, undone. I can never cleanse myself”—he studied his hands—“of this man’s death.” He lifted his eyes to stare at his friend. “Strange, Cornelius, but ... well you know what I’ve always thought of the gods, Roman, Greek, Jewish, any of them, and of the survival of the spirit or whatever you want to call it. And you know what I thought of”—he gazed a moment at the dead man stiffening above them—“him.... Well today I’ve been with him for several hours, long, terrible hours of torture for him, and for me, too.” He paused, trying painfully to choose his words. “Now I don’t know, Cornelius; I’m confused, my smug assurance is gone. I’m not sure any more. But he”—he looked up again—“by all the gods, Cornelius, he was!”
“Then you think now he may have been...?”
“If there are any gods, Cornelius”—he stared into the blood-drained face of the Galilean, and his voice was infinitely sad—“if there exists any being like the one your old Greek tutor spoke of, a good, all-wise, all-powerful one god, then this man must have been the son of that god.”
52
As soon as Longinus left the palace with her message, Claudia went back to bed in the hope of finding relaxing sleep after the terrifying dream. But sleep would not come; she was almost afraid to close her eyes for fear the nightmare would return. And even as she lay sleepless, staring wide-eyed at the high ceiling of her bed-chamber, she began to envision a pair of disembodied blood-red hands feeling their way stealthily around and across the intricate plastered figures and medallions of its surface.
“Tullia, it’s no use trying any longer,” she called to her maid, as she swung her feet around to stand up. “I just can’t seem to shake off the dream. Maybe if I dress and busy myself at something, I’ll think no more of it. Thank the gods, though, I sent the Procurator that warning.”
But as the morning hours went by the dream did not go away; it persisted in all its horrible detail in the forefront of her consciousness, and the harder she tried to dispel it, the more determinedly it stayed with her. “Why, by the Great Mother, little one, am I so disturbed by a dream?” she at length demanded of her maid. “I put no faith in dreams. I must have had thousands, and not one has ever before bothered me. I know they’re nothing but rearrangements, often fanciful and sometimes, like this one, frightening, of things that have happened to us, people we’ve seen, places we’ve visited. You can always explain them. Even this one I understand. You came in late from Bethany with the fearful news of the Galilean’s arrest and the High Priest’s plotting to have Pilate condemn him. Then soon afterward I went to sleep and dreamed about it. It’s simple enough to understand....” She paused, silent in thought. “Or is it?” she asked softly. “Are people ever warned in dreams? Is there really some power...?” The question was unfinished.
“I don’t doubt it, Mistress. Our ancient scriptures tell of many instances in which God spoke to His prophets in visions, which must have been dreams or the like.” She paused. “And there’s the story of Julius Caesar’s wife, you know.”
“Yes,” Claudia’s eyes narrowed. “But if your god wished to save the Galilean’s life, why didn’t he let Pilate have the dream?”
Tullia shook her head thoughtfully. “I can’t say. I can’t fathom the mind of God, Mistress.” A suggestion of a smile crossed her face. “Maybe He thought you might have more influence on the Procurator than He Himself could.”
Claudia smiled. “Certainly I’m more real to Pilate—and threatening, no doubt—than your Yahweh.” With a quick lifting of her shoulder, she changed her tone. “But why talk of it further? I’m sure my message warned him sufficiently. And I want to forget the dream and the Galilean. This terrific heat is exhausting enough. Still, I do wonder....” She scowled and said no more.
The heat grew more intolerable. Longinus did not return, nor did any news come from Antonia. Midday passed, and as she had done the day before, Claudia retreated into the garden and sat on the stone bench before the spouting fountain. But today, unlike yesterday, there were no white puffs of clouds. Instead, from noon on, a thick overcast began to settle upon Jerusalem, so that inside the palace servants lighted lamps, which added, it seemed to Claudia, to the oppressiveness. As she sat staring introspectively at the spray of water, the heat, despite the covering of clouds screening off the sun’s rays, seemed to be mounting as the skies darkened; in the thickening gloom the air grew still; yesterday’s singing, twittering birds had taken cover under the heavy, drooping foliage, and all nature seemed silently expectant of a coming upheaval. But maybe, thought Claudia, the impending storm will not descend; maybe the winds, like yesterday, will spring up and blow the clouds away and bring welcome relief from this oppressive heat.
It was during this foreboding lull, some two hours past midday, that a sedan chair entered the palace grounds, and when the bearers set it down at the doorway, the Tetrarchess of Galilee and Peraea emerged and was admitted to the sumptuous edifice. A moment later, with much bowing and murmured directing, servants conducted her to the wife of the Procurator. But the two had done little more than exchange greetings and sit down together when the winds did come, and with a suddenness and severity that sent them scurrying for the protection of the palace. This time the clouds were not immediately blown away; crash after crash of lightning sundered them, and for a few wild moments they poured a deluge upon the steaming, crowded capital of ancient Israel.
“Claudia, I know you wonder why I have come,” Herodias said, when they were settled in one of the inner chambers into which little of the noise of the storm penetrated. “But soon the Feast of the Passover will be ended, and we will be going back to our posts; I’m sure you, at any rate, are unwilling to consider Caesarea home. So we may have little further opportunity to talk together alone, Herod’s engaged at the palace, and Pilate, I presume, will be busy at Antonia.” Claudia nodded. “Yes. Well, you remember once in Rome when you came over to see me and we were talking about Antipas and Longinus, and you wondered why I was interested in the Tetrarch....” Herodias paused, and Claudia, smiling, nodded again. “You may recall, too, I told you that I was interested in what the Tetrarch could become, in the position he might attain, rather than in Antipas as a man....”
“Yes, I recall. You said he might become a king like his father.”
“I did. Some day he might, I believe I said, with my conniving.” She leaned forward and looked Claudia directly in the eyes. “The time has come,” she said quietly, “for us to begin our determined conniving.”
“Our?” Claudia queried, her tone intent.
“Yes. What I’m scheming will concern you, and Longinus, as much as it will Antipas and me.” Her brow suddenly furrowed. “You still feel the same way about the centurion, don’t you, as you did when you left Rome to come out here?”
“Well, yes, but....”
“Oh, I know, Claudia, you must be careful, must guard your tongue. But you needn’t worry about my making indiscreet remarks, you know.” She shrugged. “I haven’t thus far, have I? And I’ve known all along. And now”—she did not wait for Claudia to answer her question—“the time has come for us to strike out for what both of us want. Soon Longinus will be going back to Rome, and more than likely this time he’ll have much to tell the Prefect.”
“But, Herodias....”
The Tetrarchess laughed and shrugged. “Oh, nobody has told me anything,” she said, “but I do have eyes and ears and an ability to put things together. I know that Senator Piso and Sejanus are more than friends; they’re bound to be business partners, for Sejanus, you may be sure, has his fingers in any enterprise that has been operating with considerable success. I know that Longinus has had unusual freedom for a centurion presumably on active duty and that he has made trips back to Rome, to Antioch, and to many another place that no centurion ordinarily would be called on to visit in the course of duty. And you told me, remember, that he was being sent out to Palestine on a special mission.” She paused, and when Claudia made no comment, she smiled and gestured with outflung hands. “Well, it makes little difference whether he was sent out to watch Pilate or not, and maybe Antipas and me ...” she paused, grinning, “and possibly even you, Claudia. He’ll probably be called back to Rome soon to make some sort of report, even about the operation of the Senator’s glassworks....”
“But how would that affect you and Antipas, and Pilate ... and maybe me?”
“Longinus might be called back to Rome to report on Pilate’s ... well, shortcomings.”
“Even then I fail to understand how....”
“This is the way I envision what might easily happen should he be ordered to Rome,” Herodias interrupted. “Longinus certainly must have strong influence with Sejanus, because he’s Senator Piso’s son, for one thing. Should he point out, and with emphasis, Pilate’s failures as an administrator—and certainly he’d have little trouble supporting his charge—he might very likely cause the Prefect to dismiss Pilate as Procurator or move him to another province. And with Pilate disgraced, surely you would be permitted to divorce him.” She smiled and airily lifted her hands. “Then, my dear, you could marry Longinus and return to Rome to live.”
“Maybe so. But even then how would that affect you and Antipas?”
Herodias leaned toward her hostess, her expression intent. “Suppose Pilate is dismissed, transferred, even, by the gods, beheaded....” Her eyes narrowed. “That would cause you no grief, would it?” But she did not pause for Claudia’s comment. “Then Sejanus, regardless of Pilate’s fate, might extend Antipas’ realm to include Judaea, don’t you see, and elevate him to kingship. And I”—she sat back and smiled felinely—“would be queen.” Quickly the smile vanished. “And I shall never be content, Claudia, until I’m a queen. Why, soon as Tetrarchess I’ll have no higher station than little Salome.” She paused, her expression suddenly questioning. “Did you know that she is marrying Herod Philip?”
“Her father?” Claudia exclaimed, aghast. “By all the gods, surely....”
“Of course not, my dear.” Herodias laughed. “The other Herod Philip, her father’s half brother and”—she grinned—“my half uncle. He rules the puny tetrarchy over east of us, Batanea and Trachonitis. He’s considerably older than Salome, naturally, but....”
“Then he’s Salome’s half great-uncle and half uncle as well as half stepuncle, and ... well....” Claudia broke off with a shrug. “You Herods really never let anything get out of the family, do you?” Then she was serious. “But what about old King Aretas? If he should attack Antipas....”
“Certainly he hasn’t attacked yet,” Herodias hastened to reply. “And he probably never will. But even if he does, that might just strengthen Antipas with Rome. At any rate,” she added, “the Arabian isn’t making trouble at the moment.”
“But, Herodias, what if Sejanus, instead of putting Judaea under Antipas and making him king, should send out a new Procurator to succeed Pilate?”
The Tetrarchess of Galilee and Peraea was not abashed. “In that case,” she replied without hesitation, “he might even make Longinus Procurator, although I’m sure he—and surely you too, wouldn’t you—would prefer to be assigned a post in some province other than Judaea. But in any event, Claudia, if Longinus should very strongly recommend and urge the transfer of Pilate and the extension of Antipas’ realm to embrace Judaea, then I’m confident it would have great weight with Sejanus. That’s why I came to see you, Claudia, the principal reason, I mean. I hope you’ll suggest such a course to Longinus. It’s a way by which you and Longinus and I—I’m not considering Pilate and indolent old Antipas—can attain what all three of us want most.” She leaned forward again, and her expression betrayed a malevolent cunning. “Claudia, Longinus would have good reason to advise Sejanus to withdraw Pilate from Judaea. Pilate from his first days out here has failed to get along with the Jews, from the High Priest on down. And now, today, the suddenly bitter hostility of the followers of this Galilean fellow whom he tried this morning....”
“Galilean fellow?” Claudia’s expression was suddenly grave. “Who...?”
“Maybe you haven’t heard of him. He has a large following devotedly attached to him, so large that the Temple leaders are both jealous and fearful of him. They brought him before Pilate this morning, and the Procurator, wishing to evade responsibility”—her tone was sarcastic—“sent him to Antipas for trial, since the fellow was a Galilean, from the village of Nazareth, I believe. But I learned about it in time to warn Antipas to have nothing to do with the fellow....” She paused, and the bitter lines around her mouth deepened in a scowl. “He’s never forgotten that Wilderness fanatic at Machaerus. So he sent the Galilean back to Pilate.” She smiled. “Whatever the Procurator does with him, or has done, will add to his troubles with the Jews ...” she paused—“or at any rate, we hope so, don’t we?”
“Then you don’t know whether Pilate has tried the man?” Claudia tried to conceal her anxiety.
“No. I only know that Antipas didn’t fall into Pilate’s trap.”
... Thank the Bountiful Mother I sent Pilate the message....
“You were always a clever one, Herodias. Antipas is fortunate.” But she did not elaborate and quickly changed the subject.
With the same suddenness that it had begun, like the opening and closing of a great door, the storm ended, and the sun shone down through skies sparkling and refreshed. “I must be going,” said Herodias. “I’ve much to do before we start back to Tiberias. My dear”—she laid her hand affectionately on Claudia’s arm and stood up—“do come to visit us again. And won’t you talk with Longinus about this? You’ll be seeing him, of course, perhaps tonight?”
“Perhaps.” But Claudia’s smile was thin.
Herodias’ visit and the dissipation of the storm clouds had done nothing to dispel Claudia’s misgivings; the news brought by the Tetrarchess had, in fact, served to deepen her foreboding. Why hadn’t Pilate acknowledged receiving her message, if indeed he had received it? Suddenly the desperate notion possessed her that the Procurator had failed to get her hurriedly scribbled warning. And why, if he had seen it, had he failed to reassure her that Jesus would not be condemned? What, by the gods, had Pilate done with him?
She summoned her maid. “You must go up to Antonia and discover what’s happened to the Galilean, Tullia,” she said. “Until I hear, I shall have no peace.” She hesitated, brow furrowed. “No, wait. I’ll go myself. Call the sedan-chair bearers.”
53
When Herodias returned to the Hasmonean Palace she learned from Neaera that the Tetrarch had shut himself away from all company in the seclusion of one of the inner chambers. He seemed to be entering a period of depression, the maid reported, like the one into which he had plunged after the beheading of the Wilderness prophet.
The Tetrarchess found him sprawled in his chair, staring at the wall, his heavy jowls sagging. For a moment he appeared unmindful of her entrance. Then he turned ponderously to face her. “The Galilean,” he said slowly, as though in pain, “is dead. Crucified.”
“Dead already? How did you learn it?”
“Joanna. She was at the Hill of the Skull with some of his friends, including Mary of Magdala. They saw him die. But she declared she knew that the Galilean”—suddenly his dull eyes brightened with the pain of sharpened fear—“would rise from the dead and avenge himself upon his enemies. Herodias”—he got heavily to his feet and flung out his hands in desperation—“why did you make me do it? By the beard of the High Priest, Tetrarchess, why, why?”
“Are you mad, Antipas?” Her dark eyes snapped. “You didn’t kill him! By the gods, Pilate did. The Procurator tried him. You sent him back to Pilate, don’t you remember?”
“Of course I sent him back to Pilate. But I had it in my power to free him; instead, I sent him to his death. When he rises, he will wreak upon me a double vengeance.”
“Double vengeance?”
“Yes, the vengeance of both the prophet of the Wilderness and of the Nazarene.” His eyes glittered with incipient madness. “The Nazarene was the prophet returned to life. When he arises, he will be the two returned.”
“Nonsense!” Herodias advanced, her eyes flaming, and grasped her husband’s arm. “If the Galilean is dead, he’s dead, and you know it. Must you give heed to Joanna’s superstitious drivel?” Her scowl lightened into a crafty smile. “Pilate has served you well in crucifying this fellow. Can’t you see that the Galilean’s followers will be all the more determined to do the Procurator ill?”
“But how will his misfortune help me?” the Tetrarch asked.
“Your father ruled this whole province. Should Pilate’s mishandling of his duties drive him from the Procuratorship, the Emperor might elevate you to king of all the region. It’s not for nothing that your father is called ‘Herod the Great.’” She shook a ringed forefinger under his nose. “If you had one-fourth the ambition and energy that he had, you’d already be wearing the crown!”
“But I don’t want to wear a crown,” Antipas protested. “Crowns often become greater burdens than they’re worth. We can live out our lives at Tiberias, happy and unchallenged, and enjoy the benefits of the royal prerogative without risking its dangers and burdens, my dear, and with considerably less chance of drawing the ire of old Sejanus.”
Herodias stamped her foot angrily. “Don’t you have any aspirations, Antipas? Are you willing to continue being a mouse instead of a man?” Her tone was coldly sarcastic, and she knotted her hand into a fist to emphasize her stern words. “Well, by the beard of the High Priest, Antipas, I’m going to see to it that you sit on the throne of Judaea as your father did. I’ve just returned from talking with Claudia about my plan ... and my determination ... to get you elevated to kingship. She will help; she wants to see Pilate disgraced so that she can divorce him and marry Longinus.”
“I don’t know about that, my dear Tetrarchess. What would be the difference anyway, except in titles? Wouldn’t it be best to let well enough...?”
“And spend the rest of our lives in an out-of-the-way poor district of illiterate fishermen and grape growers! Never!” she stormed. “Would you be willing for me never to occupy a station higher than Salome, by all the gods?” She studied him, her contempt plainly revealed. “I do believe you would. Well, I’m not willing. I’ll leave you first ... and go back to Rome!” She was silent for a moment and when he made no retort, continued. “This is what we’ll do,” she said, her tone even now. “We’ll return to Tiberias and begin to assemble choice presents for the Emperor, and most important, for Sejanus. And you will increase the revenue going to the Prefect. The gifts will please and flatter him, and the increased revenues from Galilee and Peraea may suggest to him that if you were governing the whole province the increase in taxes would be substantial. And we won’t send them to Rome, the gifts, I mean, but we’ll take them ourselves, and then we can personally petition Sejanus to make you king over the entire province.”
Herod Antipas shook his grizzled head slowly, and his countenance was troubled. “But I foresee only disaster if....”
“I don’t care what you foresee or how agitated you may become,” she said, with a defiant toss of her head, “we are going to Rome to ask the Prefect to make you king, and I’m either coming back to Palestine as queen or I’m not coming back at all!”
54
As Claudia and her maid entered the anteroom adjacent to the Procurator’s great chamber in the southwestern tower of Antonia, two men of serious mien, well-dressed and with beards oiled and carefully braided, emerged from Pilate’s room and walked quickly into the corridor.
Claudia motioned Tullia to a seat and without pausing strode past the attendant through the still unclosed doorway.
Pilate stood before one of the windows facing westward. His long shadow reached out to her feet across the high-domed room; soon now the sun would be dropping beneath the wall of the ancient city, and the solemnity of the Jewish Sabbath would still the Passover festivities. He turned to face his wife, and she saw that his expression was deadly serious. She questioned him with a lift of her head. “Those men who just went out?”
“Wealthy Jews,” he replied. “One of them anyway, a merchant from Arimathea. Both of them members of the Sanhedrin. They came to petition me.” He saw that she was still not satisfied. “A small matter; they asked for the body of one of the men crucified today. They want to bury him.” He advanced toward her and managed a thin smile. “Here, my dear Claudia,” he pointed, “have this chair.” His smile warmed. “To what am I indebted for the honor of your visit?”
“This man whose body they wished,” she asked, ignoring his question, “could it be that he was the Galilean mystic?”
“Yes, they said he was from Galilee.” His eyes avoided her probing stare.
“He was called Jesus?”
“I believe they called him that.”
“Then you did not receive my message ... about the dream I had?”
She saw in his eyes a mounting panic. “Yes, Claudia, but it was only a dream, and the High Priest demanded....”
“You condemned to the cross an innocent man”—she stood up and pointed a trembling finger at the Procurator, and her eyes blazed furiously—“because the High Priest demanded it! The great Procurator, representative of imperial Rome, crucified an innocent man because a jealous and mean little Temple strut-cock ordered you to send him to the cross! By all the gods, Pilate, and you condemned him after I sent you that warning!”
“But, Claudia, I was being pulled at from both sides. I didn’t want to condemn him. I told them I found no fault in the man. I had a basin of water fetched and before the multitude I washed my hands of his blood, and....”
“You washed your hands of his blood! Never! Oh, by all the gods, those hands! Those blood-red, crawling, slinking hands!” She held her palms before her face. “In the dream I saw them. Now you’ll never be able to cleanse those foul, polluted hands.”
“But if I had released him, Claudia, and news had got back to the Prefect that I had allowed a dangerous revolutionary to go free....”
“You knew he was no revolutionary.” Her voice was almost a hiss. “You knew he was an innocent man, and you sent him to the cross.” She crossed the room quickly and looked out toward the Hill of the Skull. The shadows were heavy in the square before Antonia, but the sinking sun shone levelly upon the three burdened crosses on the hill. “Which cross is his?” she asked, without taking her eyes from the macabre scene.
“The one at the center,” he replied, his eyes fixed unseeing on the polished surface of his desk.
“And he is dead, you’re sure of that?”
“I don’t know. I’ve sent for the centurion in charge of the execution, and now I’m waiting for his report. I told the two Jews I would not release the body until I was certain the Galilean was dead. Should the body be taken down and the man revived, and should word, as it would, get to Rome....”
“Are you concerned only with what sort of reports go to Rome?” she demanded, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “Have you no interest in seeing justice prevail even in Judaea?”
“I am interested, my dear Claudia”—he appeared somewhat to have regained his composure—“in maintaining myself in the office of Procurator. Perhaps I erred in the case of this Galilean. Perhaps I should have given greater heed to the message you sent me. But I’ve spent many hard years in the army, and I have long dreamed of being the Procurator of a province of imperial Rome. Now that I have attained it, I must not gain the further enmity of the Temple leadership, or I might lose the post, you know.”
“Then your only concern is in remaining Procurator of Judaea?” Her tone was coldly scornful. “And you might have the post taken from you, at that. Much depends, you know, on the attitude of the Prefect toward you.”
Pilate blanched. “But, my dear, surely you wouldn’t suggest to him that he carry to Sejanus an evil report about my conduct of affairs....”
“To him? To whom, Excellency”—she paused, and her tone was taunting—“do you refer?”
But once more he was evasive. “Perhaps you are tired, my dear,” he said with a short, humorless laugh. “Perhaps you should return to the palace. I can order the sedan-chair bearers....”
“Mine are outside,” she replied evenly. “But why are you trying to get rid of me, Pilate? Does the Galilean haunt you already?”
“Indeed, no.” Again he attempted a laugh, but it lacked conviction. “Any minute now the centurion will be reporting to me, and I thought perhaps you would not wish to be reminded again of the Galilean’s death or your strange dream....”
“No, I will stay. Perhaps it is you who do not wish to be reminded that you condemned to a terrible death a man innocent of the crime charged against him, innocent of any crime, and known by you to be innocent!”
“But, my dear Claudia, had I freed....”
The Procurator’s protest was interrupted by a knock on the door, and a moment later at Pilate’s bidding the attendant entered. “The Centurion Longinus, Excellency,” he said, bowing, “has arrived to make his report.”
“Longinus! By great Jupiter, did you send Longinus to crucify the Galilean?” She whirled to face the centurion, who had entered the chamber. “Surely, Longinus, you didn’t...” Abruptly she stopped; her face, suddenly drained of fury, betrayed apprehension and pain.
“Yes,” he said, “I killed him. I was ordered by the Procurator to do so, but that doesn’t absolve me from guilt. I crucified an innocent man”—his eyes shifted to level on Pilate—“as the Procurator well knew when he condemned him to the cross.” He paused, but Pilate did not challenge the statement. “Excellency, you sent for me to report. The Galilean is dead. Your order has been carried out.”
“Thank you, Centurion. Then I shall grant those Jews’ request for the body for burial.” He spoke calmly, but his flustered manner betrayed an inner stress. “You may return to your duty and notify the men, who will be at the execution ground, that I grant their petition. You may have your quaternion help them remove the body from the cross and ...”
He broke off suddenly. Through the slit in the doorway, which Longinus had failed to close completely behind him, came the insistent voice of a man talking with Pilate’s aide in the anteroom. “By the gods, I’m glad to catch him. I’ve come from Caesarea with a message for him from the Commander Sergius Paulus. And I was given emphatic instructions to deliver it myself into his hands with the seals unbroken,” they heard the man say. “I’ve been searching all over Jerusalem for him; I even went out to the crucifixion hill.” He lowered his voice. “It’s bound to be an important message. It came from Rome, probably, by the gods, from the Prefect or even the Emperor.”
“Centurion, perhaps you’d prefer to go out there”—Pilate’s face had paled perceptibly—“to accept the message.”
Longinus nodded and left the room. As the door closed behind him, Claudia turned with renewed fury upon her husband. “Why did you assign Longinus to crucify the Galilean?” she cried. “Was it because I sent my message by him and you suspected he had spent the night with me and you finally did me the small honor of being jealous? Well, by the gods”—her voice was tremulous as her anger rose—“that’s exactly what he did!” With hatred in her eyes she approached him, coming so close that their faces nearly touched. “And, you fool, that wasn’t the first time,” she added with a low, harsh laugh, “nor even, by Jupiter, the last!”
The Procurator stepped back and sank heavily into his chair. For a long moment he sat silent, staring at the floor. Then he raised his eyes to his wife’s bitter, scornful face. “Surely you cannot believe me that stupid, Claudia my dear,” he said quietly, “to think that I haven’t known. Surely you must know that I am not entirely deaf and blind, that I have even contrived to spend many an evening away so that you....” He paused, pensively contemplating the woman before him. “But perhaps you don’t know....”
“Oh, how I despise you!” she screamed. “I knew you were a weakling, a coward, a ... yes, today, even a murderer. But I didn’t know you were a crawling worm who would willingly lend his wife to another man! By all Pluto’s fire-blackened imps, I....”
“But perhaps you don’t know,” the Procurator went on, “that I was commanded by the Prefect and the Emperor, at the time our marriage was arranged, to do everything possible to keep you content in this dismal province ... even to overlooking any indiscretions....”
“Then you’ve been willing to do anything, by the Great Mother, in order to stay in the good graces of old Sejanus,” Claudia hissed. “You’re willing to send a good and innocent man, maybe a god-man, to the cross rather than displease a contemptible High Priest who might complain against you to the Prefect!” She clenched her fists and brought them down, hard, across the desk. “You’re even willing to surrender your wife to another man’s enjoyment in order—you said it—to keep her ‘content’ but really to keep that man from reporting to Sejanus your bumbling incompetence, your foolish provocations, your utter imbecility!” Her voice had risen to a shout. Slowly she moved toward the window, and then she whirled about to face him again. “Well, I’m not ‘content,’ and I never will be ... with you! And by all the gods, I hope Longinus will go to Rome and reveal to Sejanus how miserably you have administered the affairs of the Empire in this province!” She pointed at him from across the room. “And how you have dragged in the dust Rome’s vaunted justice, how in all probability”—her voice dropped to a menacing tone—“you have withheld funds from the Empire’s treasury....”
“No! Oh, no, Claudia! I have kept back nothing due the Empire or the Prefect! Nothing! Not one shekel, not a denarius! Longinus knows it’s true.” He lowered his voice. “Hasn’t he been watching; hasn’t he been reporting? Surely you don’t think I haven’t suspected....” But suddenly he broke off his protests. Quickly crossing the chamber, he opened the door and summoned the centurion. “You have heard my wife’s words?” he asked, as he closed the door behind them.
“I’ve heard excited words,” Longinus replied cautiously. “I didn’t get the full import of them, though.”
“Claudia has been hurling accusations at me. She said she hoped you would report me to the Prefect when you go to....” He paused, and both his face and voice revealed his fear. “The message was from Rome, wasn’t it? From Sejanus? He asked you to report to him on the situation out here, how I’m administering...?”
“He asked me to come at once to Rome, but he said only that it was to meet with him on a matter of utmost concern, the nature of which he did not indicate. Here, Excellency”—he handed the letter to the Procurator—“you may read it yourself.”
Eagerly the Procurator accepted the message. His forehead creased as he studied it. “True,” he said, handing it back to Longinus, “there’s no mention in it of the Procurator. But surely the Prefect will ask you how I’m administering affairs. I beg of you, Centurion, don’t give him an unfavorable report; don’t make any charges against....”
“What of the Galilean you’ve just crucified?” Claudia interrupted. “Can you contend that you even thought you were acting justly? Didn’t you just tell me you found no fault in the man? What else could Longinus tell the Prefect concerning your trial...?”
“But the centurion will say nothing of this Galilean, surely.” The trace of a sickly smile flickered across his round face. “The centurion will remember that it was he who crucified the man.”
“Yes, I shall never forget that I killed him,” Longinus said. “And I suspect that to the end of his days the Procurator, too, will remember the part he played in this horrible thing. But if this Galilean’s case comes to the Prefect’s attention and he inquires of me about it, I shall reveal fully what happened, and why I was involved.”
“But surely, Centurion, unless you report it, Sejanus will never know about it. Caiaphas is pleased. The illiterate, poor followers of the Galilean didn’t even attempt to aid him at the trial; their protests, if they offer any, can never reach as far as Rome. I beg of you, Longinus, make no mention of it to the Prefect. The Galilean is dead; soon he’ll be forgotten.”
“No!” Claudia protested. “I’ll never forget him! Longinus will never forget him! Nor will you! Look at your hands, Pilate. Soon you will be seeing them as I saw them, cold, clammy, scurrying to hide themselves under the rocks, foul and evil and reeking with his blood! By all the gods, Pilate”—her voice was shrill in newly mounting anger—“if Longinus doesn’t tell the Prefect of your cowardly flouting of Roman justice, I will!”
The Procurator’s face blanched. He started to speak, then swallowed. “Claudia, my dear, you wouldn’t. Surely you wouldn’t be so....”
“Indeed, I would! I have lost all patience with you, Pilate. Today I’ve seen you as I’ve never seen you before. You’re a small man, Procurator, vain, self-seeking, pompous, and yet a sniveling coward too fearful for his own skin to rule justly. And at the first opportunity I shall so describe you to the Prefect ... and perhaps to the Emperor.”
“No, my dear! No! Please....” His panic changed quickly into abject pleading. “Please don’t, my dear. Why should you wish to ruin me? What would it gain you ... and Longinus?” He sat down wearily behind his desk. “Why can’t we continue as we have been ...” he paused, “enduring this trying land and these troublesome people? Centurion”—he faced Longinus—“for a long time I have suspected, and known, the ... situation. But haven’t I been understanding, even co-operative?” The suggestion of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Why, then, cannot the three of us, understanding this and appreciating it, just continue to play the roles as we have been? Why can’t we...?”
“Oh, by great Ceres!” Claudia shouted angrily, “you are indeed a crawling worm! You invite another man to your wife’s bed! You pander! You’re nothing but a procurer, a Spanish pimp! Gods, but I detest you!” Turning, she strode to the door and opened it. “Summon my sedan-chair bearers,” she ordered the attendant, “and quickly!” Then she wheeled about to face the Procurator again. “I’m going back to the palace. I cannot summon the patience to remain longer in your presence. It would please me greatly if I should never lay eyes on you again!” She stormed through the doorway; the door slammed behind her.
Pilate sat unmoving and stared stonily into space.
“A moment ago, Excellency,” Longinus ventured, “you directed me to return to the Hill of the Skull. The Jewish Sabbath is fast nearing. Perhaps I should go now.”
Without raising his eyes, Pontius Pilate nodded. Longinus crossed the darkening chamber and went out. After a while the Procurator stood up and walked to the window. Out beyond Antonia’s front square and the squat stone structures flanking it, on a wretched knoll beyond the city’s wall, the three crosses still lifted their quiet burdens into the waning light. But already the shadow of the wall was groping for the pinioned feet of the man on the middle cross. For a long moment Pilate stood rooted before the window; when the shadow had climbed to engulf the man’s sagging knees, he turned slowly away and sat again in his big chair. As the gloom thickened in the great chamber, the staring Procurator leaned slowly forward to cross his arms on the desk and, bending over, cradled his round head on their crossing.
55
Late in the afternoon of the Jews’ Sabbath the Procurator Pontius Pilate stood face to face once again with the High Priest Joseph Caiaphas.
“My visit to you, Excellency, and the petition I bring,” he began, “concern that impostor and revolutionary you crucified yesterday, the one who was seeking to establish himself upon the restored throne of Israel.”
“But the man is dead and buried,” Pilate spoke up irritably. “Can’t you let him lie quietly in his tomb? Can’t you understand that I wish to have no further mention made to me of that Galilean?”
“Indeed I do understand, Excellency. That’s exactly what we also wish, to allow him to lie quietly and undisturbed until his body rots and his name is forgotten.” He leaned forward, and his black eyes lighted with new fires. “But, Excellency, as you may have been told, that blasphemer was heard to declare that he would destroy our Temple and in three days with his own hands rebuild it. Now some of his deluded followers are saying that he wasn’t speaking of the Temple yonder”—he nodded in the direction of the great structure—“but rather of his own physical body. They interpret his words as meaning that he would of his own accord give his life and then on the third day claim it again and walk forth from his tomb. Of course, Excellency, we know that the fellow is dead and will never rise again”—with the tip of his tongue he licked his thin red lips—“but many naïve ones may be deluded into believing that he really did possess power to call back his life. Even today a report has reached us that certain of his followers are planning in the nighttime to visit the tomb and steal away the body. Then with the tomb empty on the morrow, which will be the third day since he died, they can publish abroad the tidings that the blasphemer really did arise as he had declared he would do.”
“But how am I concerned in this nonsense?” Pilate was plainly annoyed. “What do you want me to do?”
“We would have you set a guard over the fellow’s tomb, Excellency, to see that no one steals away the body.”
“What’s this but children’s prattle? Surely no one would seriously expect a dead man to walk from his tomb.” Slowly Pilate’s scowl gave way to a mocking half-smile. “What would the High Priest do if the Galilean did rise? You contrived his crucifixion.”
“But what, Excellency, would the Procurator do? You crucified him.”
Pilate was not amused by the High Priest’s retort. “Maybe it’s as well,” he observed, “that neither of us will be so tested.” For a moment he was silent, looking away. Then he turned back to face Caiaphas. “You have your Temple guards. Can’t you use some of them to guard that tomb?”
“But, Excellency, with the great surge of Passover pilgrims still in the Temple courts and about the cattle stalls and the money changers’ tables, our guards are all greatly needed. And, more important, your placing a guard would lend greater prestige....”