The Last Temple Read online

  Then moisture on his face pulled him back to a reality veiled with dull pain.

  Arella had lifted the cloth from his head and pushed a sponge to his face again.

  Yet as he lowered his head to the sponge, the delirium was so intense that he saw Sophia passing along the other side of the road, hemmed in by travelers, averting her face from the horrible spectacle of men impaled upon wood. It was only a glimpse of her face, but so real to him that he croaked in agony that struck his heart with far more force than anything the cross inflicted upon him.

  Arella spoke. “Soon it can be over. Just give the word.”

  “I saw her!” Vitas uttered. It took willpower just to draw air into his lungs. “My wife. She was there. Not dead! Jerome. Did you—?”

  He stopped. The question was useless, and he was wasting precious breath. Jerome’s head was veiled too, with a small protective sheet that the soldiers had allowed Arella to place on him.

  “My child, my child,” Arella told Vitas. “You are dreaming. Drink.”

  He sucked at the sponge and, when finished, gasped for air. As the drug coursed through his body, a vision came to him, so utterly real that he smelled the blossoms and felt the softness of petals drifting over his face. A month after their marriage, Vitas had fallen asleep in the gardens of the estate in Rome. It was midafternoon. Slaves had served a light lunch of cheeses and wine, and he’d leaned against a tree, content—not from the afternoon sun, a perfect temperature on that day, nor the excellence of the cheeses, nor the satisfaction of being able to look around at property that belonged to him, but from the joy that filled him because of Sophia. She truly did complete him, and after far too many years as a soldier and a man alone, he was content to live a life utterly without adventure or excitement. How incredible, to wake each morning beside Sophia, to nuzzle her hair and whisper stories to make her laugh, knowing nothing more was expected of them throughout the day than a chance to stroll through the markets. With those images to comfort him, he’d drifted into sleep, only to be woken by a sensation softer even than Sophia’s hair across his face, puzzled by the colors and sweet aroma until he realized she’d taken petals and was sprinkling them over his face to pull him out of sleep.

  “Have you given it thought?” she asked. “The poison?”

  So completely lost was Vitas in the memory that only after long moments did he realize where he was and that the old woman was talking about something she had promised earlier. To find poison.

  It was a risky promise.

  The soldiers who stood guard had not stopped the old woman from draping Vitas’s head with a cloth, for the same reason that she—and others who came to gather around a husband or son or father dying a slow death—had been allowed to offer water from a bucket. The mercy it extended was also a form of torture. These ministrations lessened the discomfort, but at the same time they would lengthen his life. The victim’s choice then was simply another form of torture. Die sooner with greater pain? Or ease the pain yet suffer it longer?

  But Arella was offering suicide as an abrupt escape from the prolonged agony of crucifixion. If they caught her in the attempt, she too would be crucified.

  The old woman’s question brought to Vitas a knife’s blade moment of clarity.

  “Yes,” he told her, still in agony over the deluded sighting of his wife and the searing memories of their last moments with Nero before Vitas’s actions had condemned him and his wife to execution. He could not endure this much longer, and Damian might be another week. “I want this to end.”

  Mars

  Gallicinium

  Beneath the starlight, there was a change of guards at the beginning of the next watch. The replacement guards kicked at a couple of soldiers who were asleep on the ground.

  There was nothing unusual about these soldiers and their sleep. As dusk fell, with a spectacular sunset over the Mediterranean that none of the dying men gave any notice, the soldiers had thrown dice to see which ones would remain attentive on the remote chance that there would be any rescue attempt.

  Among the crucified there were no high-profile political prisoners likely to be rescued—just common highway brigands and ill-favored slaves. And because of the logistical difficulty of prying spikes away from wood, taking down a man ensured such a drawn-out process that even the most sleep-drugged soldier would be roused, especially with the screams of pain that would come from the rescued.

  So the soldiers who lost the dice throws grumbled, then sat with their backs against the vertical beams of the crosses—soldiers on one side telling stories and eating breads, meats, and cheeses; dying men hanging from spikes on the other.

  During the change of the guards, Vitas gradually became aware of his pain again.

  The old woman was gone, chased away by the soldiers at dusk like all those around the crucified men. Some would return in the morning to take away their loved ones for burial; their vigils had ended in late afternoon, when those they tended to had succumbed to one more day’s heat and finally, mercifully, had taken their last breaths. The effect of the poppy tears had worn off for Vitas, and in his agony, he felt his fingers curl against the spike that impaled his left hand. The ropes had rubbed his wrists and ankles raw; they oozed with pus and blood. His chest muscles felt torn from the weight of his body. Sand fleas tormented his skin. He was thirsty beyond any cruel sensation he had ever experienced. And he couldn’t breathe.

  He moaned as he pressed his weight down on the mangled arches of his feet. It was a sound lost among the moans of the other men on the crosses nearby.

  Even Jerome, large and stoic, added to the chorus with the peculiar sounds forced from his throat.

  Vitas stared ahead in the darkness. Wondering about the vision he’d seen of Sophia walking along the road. Wondering about the vision and waiting to die.

  It was only the sixth watch.

  With the sun, the old woman returned as promised.

  “More poppy tears,” Arella said. She immediately offered up a sponge to Vitas.

  “No,” he said. “Please bring me water.”

  “Water alone?”

  “No poppy tears. No wine. Just water.”

  He imagined the glorious taste of it, slaking his thirst, telling himself that the joy of this sensation would force him to forget his agony. It was a lie, but he did his best to believe it.

  “I have what you asked for,” the woman whispered. “In a powder. All I need to do is dip the sponge and sprinkle the powder. I was guaranteed that after the poppy tears dull your senses, you will die as painlessly and quickly as possible.”

  “Water,” Vitas said. Each word passing through his throat felt like sand. “Just water.”

  “I have only one bucket,” she said. “If I empty it to carry water, all the poppy tears I was able to purchase will be gone.”

  “Give what you can to Jerome,” Vitas said. “Bring me back water.”

  “The poison?”

  “Not yet. I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Please,” the old woman said. “I watched my sons die. What you’ve experienced until now is nothing compared to the final agony. If I’d had any money then, I would have begged them to take poppy tears. I would have begged for the chance to end their lives myself.”

  “Water,” Vitas said. He was exhausted, and breath was too precious to explain. Water first; then he would ask her his question.

  She held the sponge up to Jerome.

  The big slave shook his head, refusing.

  “Take it!” Vitas snapped.

  Jerome made the ungh-ungh sound.

  Their eyes met.

  Even though the slave could not speak, Vitas believed in that moment he understood that Jerome was still seeking redemption for placing a knife against Vitas’s throat. A slave would not take comfort ahead of the master or the master’s brother.

  “Fools,” the old woman said. “Both of you are fools.”

  Another man farther down spoke in a ragged voice. “I beg you, g
ive it to me!”

  Vitas nodded at the old woman. “Give the poppy tears to others. Then please hurry for water.”

  It felt like days passed before the old woman returned with water, but the well was just down the road, and Vitas was able to watch her walk to it and back.

  She offered the sponge again, and he wept at the taste of the water. Badly as he wanted more, he found the strength to turn his head away as she lifted it again.

  “Some for Jerome.” No matter what mystery had caused the mute to first draw the knife, then offer it to Vitas, he had truly been a good slave and a good man.

  Jerome gasped as he drank from the sponge.

  Small mercies meant so much. The two of them took turns drinking until the bucket was empty.

  “Now,” Vitas said. He pushed away all the pain that screamed at him from various points of his body. “Ask around. For a traveler. A Jewish woman named Sophia who is married to a Roman named Vitas. Bring her here.”

  “The woman of your poppy delusion? It’s a fool’s errand. For you and for me.”

  During the long, horrible hours of the night, his mind clear, Vitas had given it thought. In all likelihood, yes, his sighting of Sophia had been a vision induced by the narcotics.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  What if—against all odds—Sophia had survived the execution ordered by Nero? After all, so had Vitas.

  What if—and yes, it was delusional hope—she too had been directed to Caesarea, as he had been?

  It was certain that Vitas would die on this cross. He doubted he could make it through another day in the scorching heat, even with water. He doubted Damian would return.

  If he was to die, and if there was only one chance in as many stars as the sky held that he could speak to Sophia before he died, he was prepared to face any amount of agony.

  “Please,” he said to the old woman. “Just ask.”

  Those were the last words he would remember speaking over the next few hours before he lost consciousness and, with it, all sensation of pain.

  Intempesta

  Vitas woke in a bed, confused by the cool darkness that surrounded him. It was so startling and in such contrast to the blazing heat and the overwhelming pain that had been his existence that it took long moments for his awareness to adjust to other sensations. His body rested on soft linens. His hand, where it had been impaled by a single spike, was bandaged. His feet, too, were gently tended with ointment and strips of cloth, and his skin had been oiled.

  And his feet were shackled to a short length of chain. As were his wrists. Enough slack to move about, but still a prisoner.

  In comparison to the way he’d been bound to beams of wood, this was glorious freedom. His last moments of consciousness before waking to this had been the inexorable agony of his body hanging on a cross, flies across his face, a tongue swollen with thirst.

  And now he was here.

  But where was here?

  As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, Vitas realized he was in a small room. He swung his feet to the floor and gasped as he put weight on them, reminded of where the spikes had bit into his arches. He shuffled and tried a door, which gave slightly before stopping with a solidness that told him it was barred on the outside.

  He explored the walls with slow sideways steps and almost stumbled over a small table. It held a jug of water, a bowl of oranges, and another bowl that contained, as he discovered with a tentative nibble, delicately spiced cooked strips of chicken. He sat on the edge of the bed and drank. Ripped apart the meat with his hands and devoured it. Pulled apart the oranges and had them as dessert.

  So focused was he on satisfying his belly, it took a while to realize the fingers on his injured hand were not crushed or broken. He’d been removed from the cross in such a way that his hand had been protected from further injury.

  Only the governor could have ordered this, so the real question was why.

  Had Damian returned from Jerusalem in time? No, he decided, otherwise there would be no shackles. And Damian would have been waiting for him to wake, ready for Vitas to show proper gratitude at Damian’s rescue, prepared to ignore any protest that it had been Damian’s idiotic schemes that put Vitas on the cross in the first place.

  So what reason or person had persuaded the governor to commute the death sentence?

  A disturbing thought: perhaps it had not been commuted but only delayed. After all, Vitas did wear these shackles.

  Before he could contemplate this for long, Vitas heard the bar sliding on the other side of the door.

  Flickering torchlight outside the room gave him a brief view of the figure who entered, covered with a shroud.

  “Who are you?” Vitas asked. “Where am I?”

  “Understandable questions, both of them.” A man’s voice. “I am Joseph Ben-Matthias. You are under guard in a rich man’s villa.”

  The man spoke Vitas’s native Latin, but with a Jewish accent.

  “Why am I here?” Vitas asked. “In this room and not on a cross?”

  “We have little time. What should matter to you more is why I am here. If I am caught with you, I will be set up on a cross alongside your brother’s mute slave.”

  Vitas had been alert from the moment the door creaked open, but this brought his senses to an intensified level.

  His mind registered the fact that Jerome was still on a cross. But Vitas pushed that aside. The mystery man in front of him knew the true identity of Vitas. And this meant . . .

  “Does that suggest you need to listen?” the man asked. “Because I’m letting you know that I know who you are?”

  Vitas shifted slightly, and the chains of his shackles betrayed him.

  “I also know that those chains aren’t enough to keep me safe from you. Trust that if I’ve risked my life to bribe a guard that I might speak to you, you need to hear what I have to say.”

  “Then speak,” Vitas said. If this man knew about Vitas and Damian and Jerome, surely he was part of the mystery of those who had rescued Vitas from Nero and sent him away from Rome.

  “The city of the Beast. And the city of the second beast. What are those cities?”

  “Rome,” Vitas said. “Jerusalem.”

  “I’m impressed,” the man said. “I knew you had read the letter of John. This tells me that you have made efforts to understand it. Few in Rome have. I expected no less, however, given the message that brought you to Caesarea.”

  Yes, the man was part of it. Vitas’s own stillness gave away the fierceness of his concentration on the man in front of him. Vitas could quote the entire message that had been on the scroll he’d been given at his escape from Rome.

  You know the beast you must escape; the one with understanding will solve the number of this beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666. . . .

  “I’m told,” Ben-Matthias continued, “that John himself was on the ship that carried you away from your death sentence.”

  “You’ve succeeded in impressing me that you know enough about my situation. I’d like to know why.”

  “Do you believe the prophecies of the letter of Revelation? That Nero will die? That Jerusalem will fall? That the empire will face death throes and then survive?”

  “You risk your life—if I am to believe you—to meet with me just to ask me that?”

  “Will Jerusalem fall?” Ben-Matthias asked.

  Vitas felt a degree of impatience. “Unlikely. No, impossible. To any casual observer of politics, yes, it’s obvious that the Jews are a constant thorn in Rome’s side, and yes, anyone could have easily predicted that eventually there would be rebellion. But one of the reasons the Jews have come to the point of rebellion is their unshakable belief that God will always protect Jerusalem and their sacred Temple.” Vitas snorted. “But anyone in the world can tell you they don’t need God’s protection. Its heights and walls are impregnable; it has a ten-year food supply, unlimited water, and an entire populace willing to die to save the Temple. You said your tim
e is short. Why waste time on the obvious? What do you want from me enough to bribe a guard and risk your life?”

  Vitas had decided that might be his only leverage. He badly wanted the knowledge it seemed this man had. The source of the letter that had sent him to Caesarea. Indeed, perhaps even the reasons for the letter and the identities of the men who had rescued him from Nero and put him on the ship. Once he understood what the man in the shroud wanted, Vitas would negotiate.

  “Once,” Ben-Matthias said, “I too believed Jerusalem would not fall until the promised Messiah arrived. Now I’m not so sure. Perhaps this Jesus of Nazareth truly was the Messiah. The Christos. If so, the Temple will fall within this generation as he prophesied.”

  Normally, Vitas would have pressed forward with this direction of conversation. He’d experienced events that bordered on the supernatural, that had brought him to the point of uttering a belief in the Christos himself, but was still unsure whether it was something to make the foundation of his life. Romans, after all—especially Romans with his family background and former wealth—were more pragmatic than that. It was simple. The Temple would not fall or be destroyed.

  But in this moment, with the urgency first expressed by the man who called himself Ben-Matthias, and especially with the sense that finally, here were answers to the mystery, Vitas did not want to be distracted from what was important. So he held back from speaking and waited.

  “Here is the irony,” Ben-Matthias said.

  Irony? Vitas wanted to reach forward and grab the man’s throat and shake answers out of him.

  “You would think I should have been convinced by the man’s miracles. Instead it’s the prophecy. If Jerusalem falls, then I will be convinced the Nazarene was who he said he was. And . . .” Ben-Matthias paused gravely. “. . . Although all around me disagree, I foresee that Jerusalem will fall.”