Behold the Man Read online

  “I dare not get out. Dare not be seen in the open. Someone will surely report to my . . .” She covered her almost-slip swiftly. “. . . father that I was here.”

  “Yes, my lady. People are already staring at your chair and wondering who is behind the veil.”

  “Four hours to get here. Is his ship still moored? Are we too late?”

  Jono straightened and was mute for a minute. She prayed that she was not too late and that there were no spies lurking.

  At last Jono spoke. “I cannot tell, my lady, if he has sailed.”

  “Perhaps we should return to Rome, Jono. It was foolish of me.”

  “A few minutes more. The tide has not turned.”

  “I am sure I shall regret this. I regret it already.”

  “No, my lady. Wait here, and I shall see if I might find your dear old friend. Bring him back here to speak with you.”

  He did not wait for her to answer.

  “Jono . . . Jono, wait,” she called out to him, but he was gone.

  There was nothing to do but wait.

  Tired from a sleepless night and hungry, Marcus was ready to pause for a meal when a tall, powerfully built black man with a regal bearing and a hoop of bronze around his neck approached him.

  “It is good to see you again, sir. Marcus Longinus.”

  “Jono,” Marcus greeted his old enemy. “You are well?”

  Bowing deeply, Jono reported, “The lady wishes to speak with you.”

  “Where is she?” Marcus scanned the docks.

  “If you would please follow me . . .”

  Brushing rock dust from his uniform, Marcus accompanied the messenger a distance of two blocks by way of two turns.

  As if sensing Marcus’s impatience, Jono hastily noted, “She is just there, sir. You see?”

  A sedan chair, completely enclosed by heavy drapes, was guarded by another quartet of Nubians. Jono called out, “He is here, madam,” then he and the sentries stepped several paces aside.

  The curtain parted. Claudia was framed in the opening. The sudden shock of seeing her so near robbed Marcus of politeness.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  “I wanted to say . . . thank you.”

  “For what?”

  Giving a long sigh, Claudia explained, “I know that, despite everything, you did all you could to defend him. You saved him, and you are still trying to protect him.”

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Marcus scolded. “Go home. Pilate is madly jealous. Use the month you have left to persuade your father against this. Pilate is neither a soldier nor a diplomat. Now it is you who must save your husband.”

  “Husband was not my choice,” Claudia replied.

  Marcus chose to ignore this argument. The circumstances of Claudia’s marriage to Pilate were in the past. Too much had happened since. There was no going back. This was pain to no purpose.

  He snapped at her, trying to sound as blunt and uncaring as he could. “Make him be a farmer. Take over the family’s estates. Make wine and more babies.”

  “He is no kind of husband. Neither is he a father. He despises the child.”

  Turning one shoulder away from her, Marcus said, “I won’t listen to this. I can’t. He is the new governor of Judea and will be my superior.”

  Continuing as if she had not heard, Claudia leaned forward and seized his hand. “I can forgive him everything . . . even the worst that he has done to me, to Philo . . . but . . . Marcus, Philo is a good boy . . . a bright boy, a caring boy.”

  Marcus was stabbed in the heart by what might have been . . . what should have been. “It’s too late, Claudia. Do what you can to change Caesar’s mind. Stay out of Judea if possible.” He added harshly, “It’s too bad you weren’t born a man. I believe you could have ruled the Jews. But if you come to Jerusalem now, I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect much.”

  Then, very much against his will and better judgment, he clasped her fingers in his. Lifting her hands to his lips, he kissed them, savoring once more the scent of the jasmine perfume she favored. She pressed his rough, soldier’s hand to her cheek. Marcus felt a warm tear trickle down.

  Abruptly, he let go. “I pray we don’t meet again, Claudia. It would be better for us both.”

  With that he turned his back and strode away toward the ship.

  Part Two

  I am a foreigner and stranger among you.

  GENESIS 23:4

  Chapter 11

  Marcus Longinus was ushered into the Jerusalem audience chamber chosen by Herod Antipas for state visits. The centurion, now Primus Pilus and the highest Roman officer in Judea, was left there to wait for almost an hour. He was convinced the act was merely to impress upon him their relative ranks.

  The Hasmonean palace, while large and grand in its day, was old and drafty. The crumbling plaster on the walls meant that the wall paintings were disintegrating as well. It was not in the fashionable Upper City but just inside the northern city walls. It was further humbled by being placed below the Temple Mount and on the main caravan route into the city. It suffered from dust, flies, and the stench of camels and pilgrims.

  Caesar allowed Herod the use of the place, which was more than a hundred years old. It was rumored, Marcus knew, that this slight was only one among a long list of grievances Herod felt he suffered at the hands of Rome. Herod’s cherished ambition was to someday be acclaimed King of the Jews, as his father had been. To Herod it did not matter he was not Jewish. His mother had been a Samaritan and his father a half-breed Idumean, but this was politics, not race or religion as far as he was concerned.

  Instead Rome provided Judea with a twenty-year-long series of prefects of whom Pontius Pilate would merely be the latest. Herod was called “tetrarch” and reduced to holding authority over only a fourth of his father’s former kingdom. He ruled the region known as Galilee and a section of territory east of the Jordan called Perea, but not in Judea proper or in Jerusalem.

  When Herod, enveloped in brocade robes, finally swept into the room, Marcus was struck by how similar his description might be to that of the old dwelling. Both were graying, sallow of complexion, greasy, and sagging.

  Tetrarch Herod was not lodged in his father’s much grander Jerusalem palace. That expansive mansion, built by the elder Herod, was furnished with marble halls, lush gardens, and spouting jets of water.

  For two decades that magnificent structure had been the Jerusalem residence of the Roman prefect. It would now belong to Pontius Pilate.

  If Herod resembled the pigs his subjects despised, his wife was more like a vixen. Thin where he was fat, Herodias had a pointed nose, sharp cheekbones, and coppery red hair. She also exuded aggressive sexuality.

  Herodias’s teenage daughter, Salome, stood behind her mother’s shoulder. Both studied Marcus with frank, unblinking appraisal, while Herod’s eyes darted around the room.

  At his nod, Guard Sergeant Quintus, who waited with Marcus, produced a leather tube containing the Imperial dispatch. The container passed through the hands of three slaves before being opened by Herod’s steward, Kuza. The document was in Latin, but Kuza translated as he whispered its contents to the tetrarch.

  After listening with a lazy, unconcerned expression, Herod waved for the translation to stop. “So,” he drawled in Greek, “my friend Tiberius is sending yet another caretaker.”

  Leaning forward, Herodias observed, “Pontius Pilate. I’ve heard of him. They say he’s handsome.” These words she spoke while staring at Marcus and darting sideways glances at her husband.

  Salom
e studied the centurion with undisguised interest. To her mother she commented, “Not as handsome as this one, I wager.”

  This remark, deliberately made loudly enough for Marcus to overhear, caused him to unconsciously raise his hand to his thrice broken nose, then drop it quickly.

  Salome smirked, pursing her lips as if blowing a kiss.

  Doing his best to make his face expressionless, Marcus addressed his explanation to Herod. “Pilate has military experience, sire. The emperor assesses that such may be needed in the territory.”

  “And what of your own . . . experience?” Herodias asked.

  Herod’s flabby jowls quivered as he shook his head. Clearly he did not enjoy the teasing innuendo.

  “You are the one who saved Pilate’s neck in Germania, isn’t that so, Centurion?” Herod offered the statement without any praise in his tone.

  “You see,” Herodias purred, “your reputation as a warrior goes before you.”

  Marcus paused. “Pilate and I were both in that battle, yes.”

  “I can see you both now,” Herodias breathed. “Back to back, swords drawn. Cleaving the enemy. Now you’re here. Exciting.”

  Herod sniffed. “The new governor may find this place more of a battle. The high priest slanders us. Religious fanatics stir up the people. A new battle every day.” Gesturing toward a slave holding a jug, Herod accepted a filled cup of wine and drained it completely before continuing. “Depressing at best. Tiresome.”

  Trying his hand at diplomacy, Marcus noted, “Your friend Caesar wishes to lighten your burden.”

  Unimpressed, Herod snapped, “Then first he should silence the so-called prophets. Rome should permit us to share in the wealth extorted from the people by the high priest. By the gods, do you know what I could accomplish if my income was a tenth of what High Priest Caiaphas steals from pilgrims’ pockets?”

  “There is much to accomplish. Aqueducts. Road building. Peacekeeping. Governor Pilate’s wife, Claudia . . . Caesar’s daughter,” Marcus stressed, “accompanies him here. Thus you know how much the emperor esteems you.”

  Salome clapped her hands. “Oh, Mother, we must have a banquet in their honor when they arrive.” She wiggled sensuously for Marcus’s benefit. “We’ll hear all the news from Rome. Can’t we?”

  Moments later Marcus was dismissed with grudging thanks for bringing the news of yet another Roman governor.

  After the two soldiers passed the gates of the palace and marched amid a squad of their own men, Quintus said wryly, “That pretty young thing has her eye on you.”

  “A younger version of the same breed of spider as her mother,” Marcus shot back. “I plan to stay far away from all Herodian webs.”

  “Aye,” Quintus agreed. “That sort of spider devours her mates.”

  The bow of the ship rose and fell with the even cadence of a horse. Claudia smiled as salt spray sprinkled her cheeks. A sense of freedom washed over her like none she had ever felt.

  “It’s very good, isn’t it, Mother?” Philo leaned his head against her. “We are like Starling, flying across the waves.”

  “Oh, look! Look!” Claudia laughed and pointed as a pod of dolphins raced beside them and played in the bow wave.

  The prying eyes of Caesar’s court receded. Fear had no power on this sea voyage. She had not imagined that leaving Rome would be so exhilarating.

  “We should have been sailors, you and I,” she answered her son.

  Philo motioned toward the bird in her cage. “And look at her—she likes the wind. Yes, I will be captain of my own ship one day, and I will call it Starling.”

  At that instant Pilate puked over the rail of the ship nearby, then staggered off to disappear down the steps of the galley.

  “But Father does not like the sea,” the boy observed. “Nor does Jono. Jono is sleeping in the cargo hold and told me to wake him when we reach land.”

  “He will be sleeping several weeks if that’s the case.” Claudia gazed into the sparkling aqua water of the coastline.

  Philo slipped his hand into hers. “Mother? I don’t ever want to go back there.”

  She did not answer. Perhaps she did not need to reply. Were they not thinking the same thoughts? Feeling the same sense of light as the darkness of Rome fell away behind them?

  The boy peered up at her. “Mother, our shadows. See? My hair and yours!”

  Claudia’s copper hair had tumbled loose in the sea breeze and gone wild with curls. “My mother had curly hair.” She ran her fingers through the thick mane and tossed her head. “She told me once that there was a king in Jerusalem, King David, and he had curly red hair like hers . . . like yours and mine. Perhaps King David is our great-great-great-grandfather, and the closer we get to home, everything about us will become what we were meant to be.”

  “Do you think so, Mother? I feel like we are coming home.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes as the image of Marcus came to her. She thought of him riding through the city of her mother’s ancestors. Would she see him there? Would they speak often and learn to smile at one another in spite of the heartache of never speaking about what they had once meant to one another?

  No doubt Caesar had arranged this posting to mock Pilate and torment Claudia and Marcus with a love that could never be fulfilled. There was danger in Caesar’s games, she knew.

  Yet today, with the sun on her back and the wind in her hair, Claudia was unafraid. She licked the tangy kiss of salt spray from her lips and dreamed of Marcus.

  The blocky fortress known as the Antonia loomed above the northwest corner of the Temple Mount the way Roman rule overshadowed local authority throughout the Empire. Besides being the barracks for the Roman soldiers in Jerusalem, it was also where the high priest’s vestments were stored. Though the Jews were permitted to worship their strange god in their own strange ways, this bit of extortion was a constant reminder that such privileges could be revoked.

  A simple wooden, cross-shaped frame stood in the corner of Marcus’s room in the Antonia. From it hung his dress uniform—red tunic with gold embroidery and cuirass of polished, segmented metal punctuated with brass fittings. Atop the upright was his helmet with its red transverse plume. Finally, resting like a bronze collar at the juncture of upright and crosspiece, was the corona obsidionalis.

  Carta sat on the floor at the foot of the cross. He polished Marcus’s greaves so that the embossed rampant brass bulls gleamed. The Roman legion assigned to patrol Judea, the Tenth, was actually in Caesarea Maritima, since that was the governor’s official residence. Marcus had a small contingent of Roman troops permanently based in the Antonia, but most of the men under his command were auxiliary legionaries—Samaritans, along with Syrians, a few Greeks, and some Thracians.

  The garrison in Jerusalem was enlarged as visiting dignitaries and turmoil in the streets dictated. The Temple officials had their own troops to patrol the sacred precincts. Herod Antipas also brought bodyguards with him to the Holy City.

  Sometimes keeping the varying factions from slitting each other’s throats was the greatest challenge. This would have been a constant struggle, were it not for the one thing that united them. They all hated Jews.

  A couple hundred paces outside his window was a thick column of oily smoke from the evening sacrifice. A wind out of the north bent the pillar of black fumes just after it rose above the rooftops, carrying it away from Marcus and toward the Sinai.

  “Smell that?” Quintus asked appreciatively, inhaling the scent of roasting meat. “Makes my mouth water. Wish the Jewish god wasn’t so stingy.”

  “The priests of this unnamed being share it,” Marcus corrected.
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  “Aye, but do they ever think to offer us a haunch of lamb? A little prime meat to supplement our rations would mend discord.”

  “You’re dreaming.” Marcus laughed, jamming a thumb out the window. “With every plume of smoke go prayers that we will choke on our rations. Why do you think they sell us the toughest, stringiest old mutton? Selfish, eh, Carta?”

  The boy’s head bobbed in agreement. “Selfish.” Picking up his work, he moved to the window so the light would reveal any unpolished spots.

  “And me such a cheerful fellow,” Marcus teased, “for them to wish me dead.”

  “We’ve only been here a month,” Quintus grumped. “How I hate the Jews.”

  Marcus grinned. “They return that investment with enthusiastic interest.”

  Carta turned toward Marcus. “Master, something is happening. Look.” He pointed out the window.

  Both Quintus and Marcus joined the boy at the casement. Following the line of his outstretched arm, Marcus witnessed a confrontation between a half dozen soldiers uniformed as auxiliary legionaries and a dozen Jewish men. There was too much confused noise from the Temple Mount, and he was too far away to hear what was said. But postures and angry gestures told him harsh words were being exchanged.

  The altercation ended abruptly when one of the soldiers seized the most demonstrative Jew by the neck and flung him to the ground. His companions advanced several paces with clenched fists but retreated when the soldiers drew their swords. The Jew’s hands were bound behind his back, and he was marched away in the midst of the legionaries.

  Marcus sighed and faced Quintus. “Do you blame them for hating us? It’s likely one of those troopers was a Samaritan. The Jews probably object to his presence anywhere near their sacred ground.”

  Quintus gnawed his lower lip. Marcus read his guard sergeant’s quandary. He would not argue with Marcus as his superior officer, but neither was he ready to sympathize with hardheaded Jews.