The Last Temple Page 22

  Vitas knew the story. When Roman troops first marched to Jerusalem four years earlier, Ben-Gioras, little more than a highway robber, had assembled men and helped defeat the Roman advance by attacking from behind and taking many of the beasts that carried their weapons, boosting his ragged army even more. But the Jerusalem authorities had rejected him. He was too popular as the leader of a rebellious peasantry consisting of bandits and unemployed looters. Ben-Gioras drew even more men and, inside the city, began robbing houses of the wealthy. Then he fled to Masada, where he gathered more men, promising liberty. With his army ravaging the countryside to support themselves, Zealots in Jerusalem managed to ambush and capture his wife, holding her hostage. Instead of being cowed, Ben-Gioras camped outside the walls and captured anyone exiting the city, killing some and cutting the hands off others, then sending them back inside with a message that he would do the same to all. The Zealots let his wife go, but Ben-Gioras wasn’t finished with Jerusalem.

  The return of the Roman army forced him again to camp outside the city walls with his own army. By then, John of Gischala, given power by the Zealots, had become a tyrant inside, and the Temple authorities invited Ben-Gioras and his army of fifteen thousand into the city to drive John and the Zealots away. They retreated into the Temple area and held ground there.

  “Tell me who you are,” Ben-Gioras demanded. He pointed at Vitas. “This one, I’ve been informed, betrayed his Roman heritage with his accent. He’ll be dead within minutes unless you satisfy my questions, and you will be next. Both of you, flung from this tower.”

  Ben-Aryeh began to pace. “No. What I demand from you is a force of fifteen of your strongest soldiers, willing to sacrifice their lives.”

  Ben-Gioras reached into a pocket and flipped a coin in Ben-Aryeh’s direction. “See that coin? It was minted by my authority. I am king of an independent Jewish state. You will not make demands on me.”

  “Who told you the significance of the olive trees in white?” Ben-Aryeh said. “Who told you that when it happened, two men must be prepared to lower a rope from this tower? It is not I who make demands, but that person.”

  “You have proof that you are here on his behalf?”

  “I am here. That’s proof enough.”

  “Listen, old man. In the last week, I have run a knife across the throats of friends. I’ve looked them in the eyes as they died. They were about to betray our cause and flee to the Romans. I control this city, and nothing happens without my authority. I will tell you what is proof enough.”

  “Either you understand the importance of why I am here. Or you don’t. If you do, then send me the soldiers. If you don’t, stop pretending and throw me out of the tower.”

  Ben-Gioras leaned against the wall. “You have passed my test, and I now understand why you were chosen for this. You, too, are prepared to die.”

  “There is nothing more important for a Jew than that,” Ben-Aryeh said. “It’s enough to unite sworn enemies. Am I right? Who among the Zealots told you? I need to know, or we proceed no further.”

  Vitas was watching and hearing but not understanding any of this. Ben-Aryeh was treating one of the most feared and ferocious men in the city as a servant. What kind of power did the older Jew have?

  “You are aware of the treachery that John of Gischala used to gain control of the inner Temple?” Ben-Gioras asked.

  “When Eleazar opened the gates to allow worship during the festival,” Ben-Aryeh said, “John committed the ultimate abomination, spilling blood instead.”

  “Eleazar was hours from dying, cut down by a sword in the battle for the inner Temple. I was told about this by a woman. Please give me her name before I trust you with any more information.”

  “Amaris,” Ben-Aryeh said.

  Vitas was taken aback. That was the name of Ben-Aryeh’s wife. And it echoed through Vitas’s mind. “This was arranged long ago.”

  “I am getting closer and closer to trusting you,” Ben-Gioras said. “But I will not speak openly of the secret in front of this Roman.”

  “I’ve told him very little,” Ben-Aryeh answered, “and the less he is told for now, the better.”

  Ben-Gioras nodded and continued. “When I learned about Eleazar’s injuries, men brought him to a place where we could meet, a place hidden beneath the city. I am going to assume you know where it is, because if you don’t lead me there within the hour, I will know you are not who you say you are.”

  Ben-Aryeh growled. “I know where it is.”

  “He dismissed the men who carried him there. He’s the one who told me. And you are correct. He was a sworn enemy, a man I’d hunted for months. Yet the secret united us, and he knew its importance was enough that I would uphold the duty that came with it.”

  “You acknowledge that the time is now?”

  Ben-Gioras bowed his head briefly. “Rome can’t be stopped. The time is now.” He raised his head again. “But this man here—what is his purpose? Surely you don’t trust any Roman alive with the secret.”

  “As I said, he will only know when it is necessary,” Ben-Aryeh said. “And without him, the plan will fail. This was decided long ago. If you defy me, you defy all of us who have sacrificed to make arrangements for this day.”

  Ben-Gioras gave that some thought before speaking. “We proceed, then. I will send for the soldiers.”

  “Not yet,” Ben-Aryeh said. “If Eleazar told you to expect me, then you know what I require next. That is my test for you.”

  Again, that barking laugh. “No. You’ve passed another test. Had you not asked, I would have had you thrown from the window.”

  Hora Tertiana

  Leaving behind the men who had been guarding the door in the upper room, Ben-Gioras led Vitas and Ben-Aryeh downward in the square tower. The stone steps skirted the inside of the outer walls, descending at forty-five degrees and bending ninety degrees at every turn. The air was cool and quiet, and it seemed unreal to Vitas that on the other side of the city, thousands of men were fighting and hacking and spearing each other in a battle to the death that would not end until one side had defeated the other in a haze of smoke and dust.

  He was trying to grapple instead with all the implications of what he had heard in the conversation between Ben-Aryeh and Ben-Gioras. Obviously, the Jewish factions could unite against a common enemy. The proof was across the city: after fighting each other so fiercely that they had burned the city’s grain supply and forced a famine on the people, the men of Ben-Gioras and John of Gischala were defending the Temple together against Titus.

  But a deathbed secret from one enemy to the other, each knowing it was important enough that the other could be trusted? And a secret that put Ben-Aryeh at the center of it?

  Vitas could guess that his own role involved the soldiers waiting outside the city with camels. This caravan would not move without his permission.

  He was still pondering this when he realized they’d reached ground level. But Ben-Aryeh instructed Ben-Gioras to lead them lower, to the dungeon beneath.

  “We’ll move slowly,” Ben-Gioras answered. “No torches remain. But your eyes adjust.”

  The air that had been cool and pleasant became fetid with the smell of body waste and rotten straw. Much as Vitas wanted to ask Ben-Aryeh what was ahead, he resisted. The man was stubborn, and Vitas knew he would get no answer. What was obvious, however, was that Ben-Aryeh was moving with the confidence that showed he was in control of the situation. All Vitas could do, at this point, was trust the older man.

  Vitas heard coughing ahead. Prisoners. Each side of the corridor held men behind bars. It brought Vitas back to his time in the bowels of the arena, where prisoners stood and pleaded for mercy from each passing visitor.

  Here, however, there was only the coughing. The prisoners were too weak to move.

  “This one,” Ben-Gioras said, stopping at a set of bars. “You’ll have to drag them outside. Last I saw, they were barely alive. If it weren’t for the woman bringing them scrap
s, they would already be dead.”

  Vitas expected Ben-Gioras to take out a key for the locks. But Ben-Gioras said to Ben-Aryeh, “You know what’s next. Or both of you die instead.”

  There was rustling behind Vitas, and it took him a moment to realize that Ben-Aryeh was moving forward. Vitas dimly saw Ben-Aryeh reach out, and when he heard the scraping of metal on metal, he understood that it was Ben-Aryeh who had the key. And must have had it with him long before entering the city.

  Ben-Aryeh stepped inside. A shadow seemed to move. Two figures became one.

  Vitas heard a gagging sound. The shadow that had attacked Ben-Aryeh was choking the man.

  “No fast movements,” the prisoner said. “I’ll snap his neck like a chicken bone.”

  Vitas had no doubt the man behind Ben-Aryeh was not only capable of it but had the willpower to do so. For despite his stunned disbelief at hearing the man’s threat, he recognized the voice. It belonged to a man who had killed dozens in the arena, probably the only man alive who could be starving to death in a prison and yet retain the strength and quickness to take an unwary visitor hostage.

  Vitas also knew how to stop the man. He had to do nothing more than identify himself.

  “Maglorius,” he said. “It’s Vitas. No need to kill your friends.”

  Yes, Maglorius. A man whose death Vitas had grieved many times. But now alive!

  Could Vitas dare hope that . . .

  Then he heard another voice, a voice that was barely more than a croak, but that filled him with unexpected joy.

  “And you complain,” the voice said, “that I’m the one who is always late?”

  Damian. Vitas rushed forward and clung to his brother.

  When all of them reached sunlight, Vitas assisting Damian up the stairs from the dungeon prison, Vitas saw that he would not have recognized Damian but for his voice.

  His last memory of his brother had been of laughter coming from a vigorous man in his prime. That had been in Caesarea, when Vitas was posing as a slave in Helva’s household. Damian had been on horseback, ready to ride down the road, assuring Vitas that any worry was needless, that nothing would go wrong.

  Then, Damian’s hair had been just a little too long to be stylish, but perfectly suited to a man who enjoyed the attention of women for the amused devilish appearance he cultivated with so little effort. Now, it was a greasy mat, down to his shoulders.

  Then, his face had been smooth, with a nose bent from a loss in a bar fight. Now, he was bearded well below his collarbone, with pieces of straw hanging from his chin.

  Then, Damian had been a dashing figure in the latest fashions. Now, he was in tattered clothing that would not have been suitable to serve as rags.

  And thin. Vitas marveled that a man so gaunt could still be alive.

  Maglorius, too, was much diminished, and his thinness was even more striking because of how large-boned he was. His hair and beard were equally as long and filthy as Damian’s. Vitas could only conclude they had been in prison as far back as Vitas had been told of their deaths.

  Three and a half years. Since Vitas and Sophia had been reunited in Caesarea. In that span, Vitas had been given more than three years of luxurious estate living in Alexandria, content to see his two children born—that span only broken in the middle by a journey to Rome at the end of Nero’s life. And while Vitas had continued this domestic idyll in Alexandria after Nero’s suicide, the distant empire had almost collapsed as a succession of emperors fought for power.

  Three and a half years of full living for Vitas.

  Three and a half years in a filthy prison for Damian.

  Damian shielded his eyes from the indirect sunlight piercing through one of the tower openings.

  Vitas could only imagine the death-like pallor of the skin beneath the filth that crusted Damian’s bony wrists. His forearms showed open sores.

  “Usually the reasons you gave for not returning on time were easily perceived lies,” Vitas said. “This time, however, I’ll accept the excuse you give for not returning to Caesarea and rescuing me from slavery.”

  He meant it as a jest, and Damian took it that way.

  “It wasn’t the prison that was a burden,” Damian said. “It was the torture of enduring Maglorius for all that time. Have you ever heard him sing?”

  Vitas swallowed against a lump of joy. Broken as Damian’s body was, his spirit was still the same.

  Damian scratched himself and absently examined a flea that he found. He popped it with his long fingernails, then dropped it into his mouth. A puzzled look briefly crossed his face as he realized what he’d done; then he grinned, and his teeth were startlingly white against the grime of his beard.

  “I guess I won’t have to worry about food now, will I? You are taking us out of this city, right?”

  Ben-Aryeh finally spoke. “You have the strength to climb down a rope?”

  Damian cocked his head. “What’s that noise I hear?”

  Vitas, totally lost in the moment of discovering his brother alive, had not consciously noted the shrieks and screams coming from across the city.

  “Titus and his legions,” Vitas answered. “A final push to take Antonia.”

  “Let’s go then,” Damian said, grinning again. “I’ve never been much of a fighter.”

  Vitas spoke to Ben-Gioras. “You can spare a few men to help them down the rope? Damian’s always been a liar. He doesn’t have the strength to even walk to the upper tower.”

  Ben-Gioras nodded.

  “Good,” Vitas said. “I’ll give them the password for the soldiers I have waiting down below.”

  To Damian, Vitas said, “They’ll have food and water. Tell them I have ordered two of them to take you directly to the medics at the Tenth Legion.”

  “You’re not coming?” Damian said. “If the city is about to fall, what other reason could you have to stay?”

  “I wish I could answer that,” Vitas said dryly. “You’ll have to ask this stubborn old Jew.”

  A shuffling of footsteps on the stones of the stairs drew attention away from Ben-Aryeh, and all of them looked toward the person approaching.

  It was an older woman, dark hair streaked with gray. Vitas gaped.

  That wasn’t Ben-Aryeh’s reaction, however. He rushed forward and threw his arms around her.

  The woman was Amaris, Ben-Aryeh’s wife. With her arms around him too, her face was over his shoulder, her eyes closed.

  Vitas rejoiced for his old friend and did nothing to interrupt the moment. Still, he could not help but wonder. If Ben-Aryeh had known Damian and Amaris were alive, and if he had been able to make these arrangements to enter the city, why wait so long?

  Vitas heard Ben-Aryeh choke out some words. “God has been faithful.”

  She was weeping as she said, “Truly faithful. He has spared us both.”

  They pulled away from each other, but Ben-Aryeh kept a protective arm around Amaris as he spoke. “You are safe now. Go with Damian. If the Lord is willing, you will see me at nightfall.”

  “You and Vitas are staying in the city?” Damian said, incredulous.

  “We have a final task,” Ben-Aryeh answered.

  “Not without me,” Damian said.

  Vitas would have laughed if Damian hadn’t been so serious. His brother was barely more than a skeleton.

  “I need you to protect Amaris,” Ben-Aryeh said. “Otherwise, she risks the dangers any other deserter faces. Without you, she won’t be protected by Titus.”

  “No,” Damian said.

  “I’ve heard enough,” Ben-Gioras snarled at Damian, then turned to Ben-Aryeh. “I have fulfilled my obligation to you by sparing all of them. But that is as far as I will be pushed.”

  Ben-Aryeh nodded. “You have done what was required.”

  Ben-Gioras addressed Damian. “Time is short. You escape now, by rope with the help of my men. Or be tossed from the wall. For what lies ahead only one Roman will be permitted to witness.”

  H
ora Quarta

  The walls surrounding the palace that Herod the Great had built for himself on the western hill of Jerusalem were almost as high and wide and impregnable as the walls surrounding the Temple across the city. While Herod had built it to protect himself from the Jews while he lived among them, it had also served to keep the remnants of the moderates safe from John of Gischala until they had appealed to Ben-Gioras to help them with his own army.

  Ben-Gioras led Vitas and Ben-Aryeh through the high marble corridors of the palace with a sense of familiarity and proprietorship as if it belonged to him—which was closer to truth than presumption, for after driving the Zealots to the Temple Mount and containing them there, he’d made the palace his headquarters.

  “Where are your men?” Ben-Aryeh asked, his voice echoing in the quiet of the palace.

  “Waiting,” Ben-Gioras answered. “I kept them back once I was notified of your signal on the Mount of Olives.”

  “Do they know why?”

  “Of course not,” Ben-Gioras snapped. “We both know not a whisper of this can escape.”

  “And the other requirement?”

  “All are sons of Levi.”

  No more was said until they reached a room buried in the depths of the vastness of the palace.

  It was empty except for old blankets on the floor. And ten young Jewish men, all armed with short swords on their belts. The men straightened from where they had been leaning against the walls, some of them near a luxurious decorative royal banner that hung from ceiling to floor.

  Hunger had etched their bodies too, but they still appeared strong. None spoke, but all kept questioning eyes on Ben-Gioras.

  “These two will join us,” Ben-Gioras said with no preamble as he motioned toward Vitas and Ben-Aryeh. “If needed, you will die to protect them, because in protecting them, you are protecting all that is holy to our people.”

  Ben-Gioras spoke as if he fully expected total obedience, and not one of the young soldiers even flinched.

  “Where is it?” Ben-Gioras asked Ben-Aryeh.