The Last Temple Read online

  “You said time was short,” Vitas again pointed out.

  “Do you want to understand why you are in Caesarea?” It was a rebuke.

  Vitas accepted the rebuke in silence. He wanted few things more than this knowledge. Only to hold Sophia. But that was impossible. His mind clear of poppy tears and undistracted by the agony of crucifixion, he knew he’d been hallucinating on the cross when he’d dreamed of seeing her face among the passersby.

  Ben-Matthias continued. “The Nazarene was the first to foresee that Jerusalem and the Temple would be destroyed, the first to understand how the arrogance and greed of its religious rulers would finally bring them at odds with Rome and, in so doing, bring the full force of the empire against it. While I see it now, few others do.”

  He took a breath, for he was speaking with passion. “The worst thing that could have happened to my people was victory. First in Jerusalem during the riots and then against Cestius, chasing the governor all the way to Syria. They believe God has begun to deliver them, preserving the Temple until the promised Messiah arrives. Except it is a messianic fever that history will prove wrong. They have not been to Rome as I have. They do not understand the difference between an incompetent governor like Cestius with his small army and the might of a full legion. And now Rome has sent two legions. Two!”

  Another pause, until Ben-Matthias began again, almost at a whisper.

  “You, Vitas, do understand what is ahead for my people. If, against all odds, two legions fail, Rome will send two more. And two after that. Because Rome knows if it suffers defeat against the Jews, other peoples in the empire will rebel. Rome must always win.”

  “Yes,” Vitas said with equal softness. “I do understand the might of a legion, and yes, Rome will not lose.”

  “You owe me your life,” Ben-Matthias said. “Keep that in mind as you consider my request.”

  “You had me taken down from the cross?”

  “Rescued from Nero. If the day comes that Jerusalem will fall, then honor your debt to me.”

  “You rescued me from Nero. In Rome. Why should I believe that?”

  “‘You have fled the city of this beast; from the sea it came and on the sea you go. North and west of the city of the second beast, find the first of five kings who have fallen.’” Ben-Matthias stopped briefly. “Heard enough? Or should I quote you the entire letter?”

  “You were in Rome, then,” Vitas said.

  “No. I have friends in Rome. It was arranged. Ask no more about the arrangements. Men risked their lives to conspire against Nero.”

  “How am I to repay the debt?”

  “You will know only if the day comes that it is necessary to ask repayment, and that request will be necessary only if the Temple does fall to Rome. If the Temple does not fall, you are not obliged to me for your life. Hold out your hand.”

  Vitas had a degree of suspicion but complied nonetheless, telling himself if the man had meant harm, it would have happened already.

  He felt something cold and round pressed into his hand.

  “Wear this around your neck, and keep it safe. If someone comes to you with its twin, you will know that I have sent him. And when that person sees you with the same token, he will know you are the one to trust with the obligations put upon you. Until then, keep this portion of our conversation secret. From everyone. Not even Bernice or Titus or Ruso should know of it.”

  “Ruso?”

  “I suspect you’ll meet him sooner or later. That is irrelevant. If someone has the matching token, you repay the debt. That is all that matters.”

  “Why not to you?”

  “I am not a military man, but I have been chosen to lead the Jews. I doubt I will live to see whether the last Temple falls. So, if necessary, it will be someone in my place who approaches you about repaying the debt you owe.”

  “The letter directed me to the synagogue here in Caesarea,” Vitas said. “If you know of the letter, you could have found me there any Sabbath. Why now?”

  “That is not it,” Ben-Matthias said. “You are to meet—”

  The door opened with a suddenness that brought a draft into the room.

  “Soldiers approach!” a warning voice hissed.

  “Tell me who I am to meet at the synagogue!” Vitas said to prompt the man.

  “This is more important for you now. Remember this name. For the governor, Julianus. Remember this: Glecko Partho. He was the one who threatened Helva.”

  “Tell me about the Sabbath and the synagogue!”

  “Glecko Partho. With that name, you can spare bloodshed of my people.”

  That was all.

  The shrouded figure fled the room. And the door shut upon Vitas, leaving him in silence and darkness again.

  Mercury

  Hora Tertiana

  In the morning, after a simple but adequate breakfast, slaves came to clean and groom him and provide a freshly laundered tunic.

  Still in shackles, he was led to a courtyard, where he recognized why he’d been made presentable. In the shade at the far end of the courtyard of the luxury villa was a dark-haired woman famed for her attractiveness, seated with Marcus Antonius Julianus, governor of Judea. When she rose and walked toward him with Julianus at her side, he immediately knew her.

  This was Queen Bernice, great-granddaughter of Herod the Great. Her father, Herod Agrippa I, had been a friend of Emperor Claudius, and the Herodian dynasty was on good terms with the Romans. She’d been forced into marriage with her uncle—at only age thirteen—and, after becoming a childless widow, had moved back to the palace, where rumor held her brother treated her like a wife.

  While it was a surprise to see her, it was not so surprising that she would be in the company of the governor.

  Herod the Great had built Caesarea on the site of what had once been a Phoenician port, dredging a deep-sea harbor, then constructing an aqueduct, a hippodrome, and a magnificent amphitheater. The process had taken twelve years and countless thousands of workers. After completion, it was the grandest city in Palestine other than Jerusalem. Then Herod had dedicated the city to Caesar Augustus and changed the name from Straton’s Tower.

  Naturally, then, given that Herod had built the city, and with the Herodian dynasty owning opulent residences all across Judea, Bernice was known to frequent a royal residence in Caesarea, especially during the hottest months when the sea breeze made life more bearable.

  She was not, however, simply a woman spoiled by upbringing, a lapdog for Roman overlords.

  The summer before, she had surprised her people—and Rome. When Florus, the previous governor of Judea, had loosed his soldiers to slaughter citizens of Jerusalem, she’d risked her life to cross the city and publicly beg for mercy for the Jews.

  There was more to her bravery, however, and none of her people knew the extent of what she had risked in an effort to protect them. After pleading with him had failed, she’d attempted to seduce Florus, intending to murder him. She had failed there too, and Florus had demanded a sword to kill her. Florus would have decapitated her on the spot but for the intervention of a delegate sent to Jerusalem by Nero: Gallus Sergius Vitas.

  Vitas forced himself to match her expressionless gaze.

  If she recognized and remembered Vitas as a Roman citizen, he would be freed from his role as a slave, freed from ever being returned to the torture of the cross. But Vitas would then become a different sort of prisoner. Chances were, Julianus had heard already how Vitas had defied Nero and been sentenced to death, for a Roman governor was a well-connected man, acutely aware of the politics of Rome and even more acutely aware of whom Nero favored and whom Nero condemned. Sending Vitas back to Nero would be a gift the emperor would never forget, and in so doing, Julianus would secure his future.

  His life was in Bernice’s hands. Maintaining a lack of expression, Vitas stared straight ahead, not daring to meet her eyes.

  “Yes,” Bernice told Julianus, “this is the slave from Helva’s household.”
/>   Vitas relaxed, but only slightly. What business did the queen of the Jews and a Roman governor have with a slave condemned to crucifixion? Or if she did recognize him and was pretending otherwise, what business did she have by presenting him to the governor? Or dare Vitas hope the magistrate who had condemned him to the cross had actually delivered a message to the governor?

  Julianus was a big man, barrel chested with thinning red hair and a sunburned face. His voice was oddly strained. Vitas knew the man had been a soldier once and had survived a fire, leaving him with the inside of his throat scarred and forever altering his vocal cords.

  “I’m told that you have information about the assassination of the fiscal procurator,” Julianus said. “That you overheard a conversation about the plot to kill him.”

  This explained it partially. The most pressing matter facing Julianus would certainly be the assassination of Gnaea Lartius Helva.

  “You have investigated the owner of the camels?” Vitas said.

  Julianus frowned. “Camels? You make no sense.”

  Vitas silently agreed but deemed it wise not to show his own confusion. Obviously Vitas had not been taken off the cross because of any message delivered to the governor by the magistrate.

  Queen Bernice spoke. “I’ve been told this slave is aware of the name of the man who plotted the murder of the fiscal procurator. He overheard a conversation where the man threatened to kill Helva. A Greek.”

  Vitas glanced at her. She met his gaze and held it, then gave the slightest of nods. What had Joseph Ben-Matthias said the night before? “For the governor, Julianus . . . Glecko Partho. With that name, you can spare bloodshed of my people.”

  Vitas made the connection. Although it did not explain the token given to Vitas, it did explain the name that Ben-Matthias had given him. He and Queen Bernice both wanted to protect innocent Jews. Vitas didn’t need to be told the danger ahead for Jews of the area, for he was a Roman and understood Roman ways. Dolabella’s husband, the fiscal procurator, had been killed—apparently by Zealots. It was an assassination that would demand reprisals by Rome, likely the deaths of hundreds more Jews, most of them crucified as punishment. It would not matter if these were Jews guilty of the crime. This was how Rome dealt with insurgency.

  Glecko Partho was not a Jewish name. It was now clear that uttering the man’s name might deflect blame from the Jews, sparing them from bloodshed.

  “Yes,” Vitas said, “I do have a name.”

  He saw Queen Bernice exhale as if she’d been holding her breath.

  Vitas knew now that she did recognize him and did trust him. All Vitas needed to do was tell the governor about his visitor the night before and expose this plot, and she would probably be condemned to crucifixion along with the rest doomed by an imminent reprisal.

  But it didn’t explain how she had found him, for Damian had been very careful to ensure Vitas had been delivered to the fiscal procurator as a slave. Nor did it explain how Ben-Matthias had been sent to him the night before. And it certainly didn’t explain the letter the previous summer that had brought Vitas to Caesarea. The letter that Ben-Matthias knew about too, from halfway across the world.

  “Out with it then,” Julianus snapped. He briefly turned to Queen Bernice. “I will not accept this slave’s word for it, but it will be enough to begin a thorough investigation. Slave, if you are correct, then the Jewish families we’ve captured will be freed. I’ve spared your life for this, and I’m not a patient man. Perhaps you should be placed on a cross again.”

  Vitas thought of Jerome, still on the cross. And the otherworldly suffering that each slow second brought for a man bound to the beams of wood.

  “No,” Vitas said. “Not until the other slaves are taken from the crosses. They are innocent of crimes against their master.”

  “Give me the name! I will have you whipped for insolence.”

  Vitas smiled. Not a warm smile. “After crucifixion, do you think I really fear the whip?”

  “Bah,” the governor said. “Let the Jewish families die.”

  Julianus turned to walk away. Bernice’s face showed horror.

  Vitas spoke, and Julianus halted. “What do you expect will happen to you when Nero learns you are too incompetent or lazy to bring to justice a man who killed a high-ranking official, especially when this province has revolted against Rome? Word will get back to the emperor that you could have had the conspirator’s name but chose not to pursue it. You know that Rome never shows weakness, yet here you walk away.”

  Julianus whirled and slapped Vitas across the face. “A slave will not speak to me in this manner.”

  Vitas tasted blood. “They will once you are held in the same prison cells with them. But you won’t find it offensive then. You’ll have other things to worry about as you wait for the beasts of the arena to entertain Nero by ripping you apart. I’m told he finds it amusing to watch a man try to stuff his entrails back inside his body.”

  Julianus slapped him again. And twice more.

  But it became obvious almost immediately that the blows were strictly for appearance. The governor of Judea could not merely overlook insolence of this kind from a slave.

  “Take the others off the crosses,” Julianus snarled at nearby guards. “Immediately. Bring them here, dead or alive, so that this slave sees my orders have been followed. Once he sees that I have honored our agreement, bring him to me.”

  Julianus slapped Vitas across the face one more time. “If the name turns out to be nothing but a bluff, I will pull out your entrails myself.”

  Hora Quarta

  With Julianus gone, Bernice dismissed her slaves so she and Vitas could sit in the shade without fear of having their conversation overheard. She had openly established in front of the governor a reason to speak with Vitas; there was no cause now to worry what the governor would think.

  “Vitas,” she said. “Welcome back from the dead.”

  “I have you to thank, is my guess,” he said. “My last memory before waking last night is on the cross, fighting for consciousness.”

  She took his injured hand and examined it, although there was nothing to see of the wound because of the bandage that hid where the spike had pierced it.

  “I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” she said softly, “the hammer coming down.” She let go of the bandaged hand. “But I wasn’t referring to the crucifixion. I am welcoming you back from your very public execution. In Rome. Titus told me that you attacked Nero and were condemned to the arena. He said you fought poorly and were booed when you died by the spear of a retiarius.”

  She had spoken in a teasing voice and now sat back with an expectant look on her face, waiting to be entertained by an account of an escape from Rome.

  For Vitas, however, there was nothing in the retelling that would give him pleasure. He’d attacked Nero to protect Sophia from his advances. Not only had his defense of her failed; he’d later signed over all of his estate to save her life, only to be betrayed and learn that she’d been forced to commit suicide. As for how he had escaped death in the arena and who had arranged it, he had no information to offer Bernice. All he knew about it was the scroll that he’d been sent with onto a ship to Alexandria, the scroll that had led him to Caesarea and vigils each Sabbath at the synagogue.

  “Titus,” he said, smiling to hide from her the pain of those memories. “His stories are hardly ever to be believed.”

  Titus Flavius Vespasianus was the son of the famous general Vespasian and had carved out a respectable military career himself. Vitas and Titus had fought together in Britannia, where they’d forged a lifelong friendship. Both were highly connected in Rome. Titus had been brought up in the imperial court, a companion of Britannicus, and he moved in the highest circles, for Britannicus had been the heir apparent for emperor until he was killed by Nero. Only once had Titus spoken of Britannicus’s final night to Vitas. Like Britannicus, Titus was barely into his teens when Britannicus’s father, Emperor Claudius, ha
d died. Barely months later, Nero, the stepbrother, arranged for poison, and Titus was there, reclining beside Britannicus when he died a horrible, shuddering death.

  Titus’s first wife had died of illness, and his second wife had been implicated in a failed murder conspiracy against Nero. Titus had not remarried.

  Naturally, Vitas began to speculate about the relationship between Titus and the woman in front of him.

  “Titus is well?” Vitas asked.

  “I know what you’re asking,” she said, granting Vitas a half smile. “And the answer is yes, we are intimate. He wintered in Alexandria, where we met at various functions.” She lost her smile. “At first, I thought it would be an advantage to strengthen my ties to Rome through him. The Herodians have become experts at it over the generations. It’s how we keep our power. But it’s become more than that. At least to me. And I want to believe it’s the same for him. He sent me ahead from Alexandria by ship. As you might know, he was in Alexandria with the Fifteenth Legion and has begun to march to Judea to meet Vespasian at Ptolemais. But I doubt that is news to you.”

  “I’ve been here for months, posing as a slave on behalf of my brother, Damian. I’ve heard all the rumors.”

  “Did you intend to meet him as he passed by this city with his legion?”

  “No. It would have put him in danger from Nero. If Titus knew I was alive, he would have been obligated to report it to Nero.”

  “He wouldn’t tell Nero.”

  “I know,” Vitas said. “So by visiting him, I would have made him guilty of treason to the emperor. I would not do that to him. He is too much of a friend. Now, I’m surprised to learn he is aware I did not die in the arena.”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  Vitas obliged with an explanation. “Titus would not have insulted my final moments in the arena if he believed I had been slain.”

  “Yes,” Bernice said, “Titus knows you are alive. It was no accident that I found you on the cross. Titus told me to look for you and your brother. When I arrived, I asked for Damian, only to discover he had sold his slaves to Helva and gone to Jerusalem.”