The Last Temple Read online

  Vitas badly wanted just a little time with Jerome. In private. To ask about the grass bracelet. But it was not given.

  One final statement to Vitas: “And you, slave, leave immediately. You have until dusk to bring in the man you insist murdered Helva. Or the queen of the Jews dies for her people.”

  Hora Octava

  Vitas found the rope that tied his ankles was not uncomfortable in any way. He could walk without tangling himself. If he tried to run, however, he would fall within two steps.

  His wrists were likewise encumbered. His hands, in front of him, had ample movement but not enough to allow him to attack the two soldiers who stoically followed him into the slums of the Jewish community outside of Caesarea.

  Not that Vitas had any intent of something so foolhardy. First, the soldiers were well armed. Second, Vitas was truly in pursuit of answers. He did not want to escape.

  Governor Julianus had not been content to restrict the escort to Roman soldiers, however. There was a third man walking beside Vitas, a man who enjoyed talking.

  “Remarkable, these Jews,” the man was saying. Gneus Bucco, as he’d introduced himself upon his arrival with the soldiers, was a short, skinny man with a nose a little too long for his face. Young, but with pockmarked skin that took away any air of youthfulness. “They have been here months, but I see none of the garbage I’d expect. And already a semblance of order. Any other slum area would be infested with rats, but the Jews have done a commendable job of making it livable here. If only they weren’t so stubborn about believing in one God.”

  As he had the entire journey, Vitas ignored the man.

  Bucco was not dressed with any degree of luxury, but his fingernails were manicured, and the cut of his hair betrayed a higher position than most. Vitas guessed Bucco had chosen to dress in a manner that would not draw the attention of thieves.

  It was unnecessary. With Roman soldiers—even an escort as small as two—they were immune from danger. It wasn’t that the soldiers themselves would have been able to protect them from a gang of determined bandits or an angry crowd. It was the might of Rome that backed the soldiers: an attack on these two would be considered an attack on Rome itself.

  The Jews were already afraid enough, considering the families that Julianus held hostage. They would not want to further provoke the governor.

  This was one of the reasons Vitas, after further consideration, did not believe actual Sicarii had killed Helva. They were family men and knew the consequences. It was one thing to slip into a crowd and kill a Jew who was a Roman sympathizer. Quite another to challenge Roman officials, especially in light of all the other punishments already inflicted on the Jews in the previous six months.

  “As I said: remarkable,” Bucco prattled on. “These people do not behave as if they’ve been subjugated and beaten down in riots. It’s almost as if they believe this defeat is only temporary.”

  Vitas had a destination and did not want to be distracted from it. This community of exiles was set half a mile outside of Caesarea—he’d walked past dying men on the crosses to get to it. At the first opportunity, he’d inquired about Arella, the old woman, and now he wanted to get there as fast as he could.

  “Do you have an answer for that?” the chatty little man asked Vitas.

  None that Vitas wanted to share.

  As he continued to walk, Vitas thought of another time, reminded by the crowding of the hastily built stone walls of the small houses that were closer to huts, the obvious poverty of the children playing in the dust of the paths between the houses, the smells from cooking pots over open fires, and the upright, dignified strides of bearded men wearing shawls with tassels of religious significance.

  Barely over a year earlier, he’d been in a similar slum outside the walls of Jerusalem, among the stench of the tanners.

  That day, tension had filled the air as surely as the heat of the sun, tension that had broken into the screams of the dying when Florus, the previous governor, had unleashed his soldiers.

  But it wasn’t the memory of the dying that took Vitas back; it was the memory of his emotions. He’d been searching for a woman, hoping to save her from the slaughter. He’d succeeded, found Sophia, convinced her to marry him—only to deliver her to another beast of Rome: Nero.

  “Why this attitude among the Jews? This sense of specialness? Are you even hearing me?” Bucco demanded.

  Vitas let out a sigh. “Doing my best not to listen.”

  The little man squawked. Like a chicken indignant at the foot that swept it aside.

  “Let us not pretend,” Vitas said. “You are along to spy for the governor. I can’t stop you from anything you choose to report, but I don’t owe you any conversation.”

  “Julianus said you weren’t stupid,” Bucco said.

  “Suddenly I feel uplifted.”

  Bucco squinted. “Ah, sarcasm.”

  “Are we finished with this conversation?”

  “Answer my question first. What possible reason could these Jews have for believing that Rome will suffer defeat to them?”

  “They wait for their Messiah,” Vitas snapped. “Their God has delivered them again and again from enemies as mighty as Rome, preserving their people to ensure the Messiah will be born among them.”

  “That does answer my question,” Bucco said. He smirked. “Not about the Jews. But about you. It tells me you are familiar with these people.”

  Vitas was content to let Bucco think he had outsmarted a lowly slave.

  Especially because the stakes were so high.

  Everything depended on what Arella might be able to tell him about the bracelet of grass that had been placed on Jerome’s wrist.

  At the end of the previous summer, Vitas had been in the bowels of the arena in Rome, enduring the smells of blood, vomit, and human waste as he waited in a cage to be released onto the sand to die in front of Nero.

  Then, he had not been resigned to death; resignation would have meant his emotions were dead too. Instead, he’d been filled with enraged futility at the injustice of his imprisonment and overwhelming sorrow that his actions had condemned Sophia to an unknown fate.

  But when he heard news of her death, he abandoned all hope of ever seeing her again, the loss like an abscess in his soul. Each morning, in that brief twilight between sleep and wakening, he’d reached for her, only to be devastated anew each time the truth dawned on him. Except for a curiosity he could not avoid about who had arranged his escape and what the letter meant, he’d truly become resigned to a state of emotional dullness.

  The grass bracelet had changed that. With the rope still tied to his ankles to keep him from fleeing the escort of soldiers, Vitas shuffled into a makeshift hut built of dried-mud bricks and quivered with anticipation. His last request to Arella had been to look for Sophia. If she’d found Sophia and they’d returned to the crosses to discover Vitas had been taken down, that might be the explanation for the grass bracelet he’d found on Jerome.

  Vitas was pretending—because of the governor’s spy beside him—that Arella might have an answer to the whereabouts of Pavo, but what he really sought was a miracle.

  That his beloved Sophia was alive.

  From the outside, it was obvious the hut was but a single room. If Arella had found Sophia, she might be only a step away, the step through the doorway from sunshine into shadow.

  But the hut was empty.

  And the sensation of being crushed between two boulders was enough disappointment to tell Vitas how much his fleeting hope had meant to him.

  Especially when Bucco said in a cheerful voice, “If the old woman isn’t here, she must be among the group the governor has set aside to be condemned for reprisal.”

  Hora Nonana

  The families had been treated like cattle, herded into a compound on open ground and guarded by enough soldiers on the perimeter to discourage any rescue attempts.

  Buckets of water had been placed in the center. The only possessions that the famil
ies had been allowed to take inside the compound were blankets, and Vitas saw that mothers were doing their best to shield the younger children from the sun. Some men paced. Others stood motionless, arms around their wives or children.

  They could do nothing but wait, knowing their lives depended on the governor’s decision, too keenly aware that if the governor decided to make an example of Roman power by executing them, each would be crucified. In other countries, Vitas had seen lines of crosses—one every five feet—that extended half a mile along a road, each victim crying out for help as death approached with excruciating slowness. It was an effective deterrent to future rebellions.

  The compound was a semicircle, barely twenty-five paces across at its widest.

  As Vitas scanned the families trapped inside, some stared back with open hostility and fear on their faces. To them, new soldiers had arrived. Did it mean the governor was proceeding with the retribution?

  He saw Arella first.

  And then . . .

  Yes!

  She was there. Sophia. Her head was up, and over Arella’s shoulder, he could see her face turned sideways. She had not seen him yet. His ruse to find the old woman had been rewarded beyond the heights of any and all euphoria a man could experience.

  He’d felt this before, too, on a day in Jerusalem after traveling the known world to search for her and finding her safe, but in the midst of a savage uprising that pitted Jews against Romans. On that day, he’d been able to stride forward and speak to her and resist the urge to sweep her into his arms. Now, to protect her, he wasn’t even able to acknowledge her, an act of passivity made all the more difficult by his desire to shout with joy. It took all his strength not to betray the intensity of this sudden emotion. Not to croak out an exclamation of relief. Not to cry out questions.

  How had she survived? What journeys had brought her here? Who had arranged it? All questions of vital importance, but all questions that Vitas must ignore. For the man beside him, Bucco, would pounce if he gained the slightest inkling how much this meant to Vitas.

  “You!” Vitas yelled instead. “Old woman! Come here!”

  The shout was a diversion to deliberately draw the crowd’s attention. Among the rest of the surprised glances, Bucco wouldn’t pick out a reaction from Sophia.

  Arella merely frowned, puzzled. But Sophia gaped and stepped past Arella.

  Their eyes met, and Vitas wanted to rush forward, leap past the guards, over the fence of the compound, and through the families, and pull her into his arms. Then he was staggered by a new observation. Sophia’s belly was swollen with pregnancy. Months earlier, her face glowing, she’d informed him that he would be a father. But to see it now hit his heart, not his mind.

  With great inner discipline, Vitas kept a stone face and gave the slightest shake of his head as their eyes remained on each other, hoping she would understand.

  “That’s the old woman we need,” Vitas said to the soldiers with slightly less volume, pointing at Arella. “No one else.”

  Sophia heeded this additional warning and dropped her head, becoming a woman who did not want the attention of Roman soldiers.

  His shout, however, had drawn someone else forward to stand beside Arella. A man who also gaped at Vitas.

  “Another old Jew,” Vitas said, lifting his shackled wrists in a dismissive action. “Don’t let him become a distraction.”

  Far from being just another old Jew, this was a man Vitas knew well: Simeon Ben-Aryeh. They had first met here in Caesarea, almost a year ago, when Vitas had come to Judea to seek Sophia. Of high standing in the religious circles of the Temple, and ordered by Bernice to help Vitas, the man had been a reluctant, surly, resentful guide, a Jew who thoroughly hated all things Roman. He was now a fugitive from justice, long fled from Jerusalem for a crime he did not commit.

  “I’ll need to speak to the old woman alone,” Vitas said to Bucco.

  “That won’t be permissible,” Bucco answered. “I have specific orders from the governor.”

  “Then she won’t speak freely.”

  “I’m sure she will,” Bucco answered. “We could always put a knife to the throat of the daughter beside her.”

  Good that Bucco had made the assumption. Not so good that Bucco had identified a weakness, though Vitas was grateful that the little man had no sense of where the real weakness lay. Sophia had come back to life for him. Vitas would not let her slip away again.

  “My name is Novellus, and I was a slave to Helva,” Vitas said to Arella, calling out across the few paces between them. “I’m here because the governor wants answers to who killed Helva and how. I’m looking for a man named Atronius Pavo, and I’ve been told you might know where to find him. In the market, I overheard him once ask you where to hire a camel driver. If you tell me where he is, I’m sure all of you here will be safe. As will all the Jewish families held hostage by the governor. First, tell me the names of those two.”

  Meaning Ben-Aryeh and Sophia.

  Each answered.

  Nothing on Sophia’s face betrayed the knowledge that Vitas was close enough to reach by extending her arms. Vitas felt like his legs were saplings shuddering in a breeze; he could hardly stand because of his relief and euphoria and the amazing surge of love that filled him. In his memories he had visited her often, recalling her beauty. But here, in front of him, the impact of how truly beautiful she was seemed like a physical blow and made a mockery of those memories.

  He had to swallow twice to be able to speak.

  “These names mean nothing to me,” Vitas told Bucco. “I have not heard them in connection to the threats against Helva.” He paused significantly. “But as the old woman will undoubtedly verify, a Greek asked her about camels. What do you know about the Greek? Where is he now? Is there a camel driver you sent him to? Or perhaps you gave him no answer at all, and this trip has been a waste of time.”

  It was a strong hint, and Arella took it.

  “Bah,” the old woman said. “Of course I remember. Some fool asked me about camels. But I didn’t have an answer for him. So don’t ask me where he is. Yes, you have wasted your time, because the only place you’ll find an answer is in the market.”

  No. Anything but a waste of time. Arella was an intelligent woman and had responded perfectly. Vitas could have taken Bucco directly to the market to make inquiries about the camels, but this had been what Vitas wanted to accomplish.

  To find out who had placed the grass bracelet on a crucified man.

  Now that he’d learned the answer was as he hoped, he could go.

  But he knew if he didn’t find a guilty man by dusk, he might end up on the cross again, his crucifixion all the more agonizing because of the knowledge that Sophia was alive.

  Hora Decima

  The market brought the mixed smell of spices and offal, the sounds of grunting camels and shouted bartering.

  Vitas found himself amazed at the vividness of each smell and sound. It was as if he had been freshly born and was rediscovering his world.

  He knew it was joy. He did feel like a new man. Sophia—alive!

  His elation was tempered, of course, by urgency . . . and also by a tinge of self-disgust.

  Earlier, he had wrestled with the morality of sacrificing a criminal Greek as a scapegoat to save the families of Jews who were to be slaughtered as retribution for Helva’s death. Now, when it was his own family at stake, he had to wonder: If he failed in his efforts today, would he let that innocent man die simply to save Sophia?

  He tried to justify it.

  Wouldn’t any man—faced with choosing the death of his own son or daughter—give nod to a stranger’s death if that would save the child?

  Did nations not choose their finest young men and send them out in battle as soldiers so that the deaths of a few might preserve many?

  As he moved through the bustle of the market, another thought occurred to him.

  Despite the logic that a person should die to save many, could he as a father
give up his own child to save a nation?

  It led him to think of the Christos.

  One to save many.

  The Greek was not pure by any means and probably deserved death for any number of other reasons. Yet the Christos—according to reliable accounts by followers who knew him during his life and shared their knowledge through word and letter—had truly been not only an innocent man, but a man of love. A man who healed with a touch. If any man should ever have been lifted to a throne, not a cross, it should have been the Christos—who was also reported to have risen from the dead. But to Vitas, the one obviously flawed prediction by the Christos made everything else a lie. The Temple was not going to fall.

  Vitas growled at himself. He needed a clear head to save Sophia, not one muddled with conundrums of philosophy.

  Bucco glanced toward him. “Yes?”

  Vitas realized his growl had been heard. “A pebble inside my sandal.” He shook his foot as if to kick it loose.

  “The smallest things,” Bucco said, “are the ones that can trouble us the most.”

  More philosophy. Vitas did not need this.

  He needed to find the camel driver, and one man could lead him there. The silk vendor who had bartered with the caravan, with a table out near some stacked amphorae filled with wine.

  Now it was a matter of finding a way to force that man to give answers.

  So Vitas told Bucco what was needed.

  Bucco stood in front of the silk vendor. His legs were spread and braced, his arms crossed, an aggressive stance that appeared ridiculous from such a small man. Ridiculous, but all the more intimidating for its ridiculousness.

  Only a small man backed by Roman soldiers would assume this stance, and the swords of the soldiers behind Bucco gleamed in the sunlight.