Chapter V: Part 5

“By the gods, then, that’s all the more reason I want to hear him.” She laughed gaily, then quickly grew sober. “And certainly the Tetrarch should be concerned,” she added, “if the man flouts the Tetrarch’s authority.” She signaled to Longinus to resume the march. “Let’s ride down and join his audience. After the boredom of our journey, this should at least provide a diversion.”

Antipas shook his head grudgingly but offered no further protest. “She’ll regret it as soon as she hears him, by the gods,” he muttered to the centurion as they started. “But I warned her.”

At the bottom of the slope the group dismounted, and on Longinus’ summons, soldiers came up to hold the horses. The servants remained behind with them except for Neaera and Tullia who followed their mistresses as the Tetrarch’s party quietly slipped around a screening clump of willows to join the throng about the gaunt and weathered speaker. To Antipas, John seemed little changed since that day when they had come upon him at the ford farther up the Jordan. His clothes looked the same; fleetingly the Tetrarch wondered if the haircloth mantle had ever been cleaned since he had last seen it.

Although the Tetrarch’s group had slipped unobtrusively into the rim of the crowd, Antipas was quickly recognized, and soon a murmur moved through the multitude and heads began to nod as intent black eyes shifted from the fiery prophet to study the newly arrived ruler of Galilee and Peraea.

“It’s old Herod,” Longinus heard a beak-nosed, thin Jew whisper to the man beside him. “And that woman, she must be the new wife he’s fetched from Rome, the one he took away from his brother, and that must be the brother’s daughter beside her.” Both men turned to stare, then smile. “I wonder what John will say to that!” one said to the other as they turned back to peer again at the thundering prophet.

John, too, had recognized the Tetrarch, Longinus was sure; yet the prophet made no immediate reference to his presence. Instead, he continued preaching on the necessity of repentance and on the use of baptism as a sign of Yahweh’s forgiveness. The man was a powerful speaker; he had native ability, Longinus immediately perceived, to command attention and sway his hearers. The crowd listened, entranced, to his every word; now and then one would step forward and, crying loudly in repentance, ask for baptism.

Sometimes a man would interrupt the prophet to seek an answer to some deeply perplexing problem. But no one yet had spoken openly of the Tetrarch’s presence among them.

Then a tall, narrow-faced Jew, unkempt, ill-clothed, evidently a man of the earth, stepped forward and held up his hand. “This repentance of which you speak,” he questioned, “is it necessary for the rich man in the same manner as it is for the poor and dispossessed, for the man of authority as well as for the servant? I ask you, does the measuring rod measure the same for all men, or is there one rule for one man and another rule for another?”

“Repentance is necessary for all men, my brother,” John replied calmly. “The same measuring rod measures for both the man of authority and the servant who serves him, for both the rich man and the man of earth.”

John paused. Then slowly his dark eyes moved from the face of his questioner to that of the Tetrarch. “The same measuring rod measures for the Tetrarch of Galilee, my brother, that measures for you, and it is the same for even the lowliest servant in that iniquitous marble pile above the graveyard in Tiberias!” The prophet’s eyes were blazing now, and he raised his gaunt, sun-bronzed arm to point a lean forefinger directly at Herod Antipas. “Repent, O Tetrarch, repent!” His voice was thunderous now, and the finger darted forward like the tongue of a serpent. “Repent while yet there is time! Repent of the evil you have done, and seek in true penitence the forgiveness of our God Whom you have scorned and despised!”

Antipas stood silent and stared straight ahead, looking as though suddenly he had been turned to stone. But Herodias, though amazed, had not been rendered speechless by the torrent of the prophet’s denunciation. Calmly she turned to her husband. “Do you intend to stand here and allow this madman to vilify you? Are you going to stand patiently while...?”

“And you! You evil woman!” John’s shout interrupted her. Now the angry hand was pointed directly at her. “You call me a madman,” he said. “Yes, I am a madman. I am a madman for our God. And I call upon you, too, to repent. Repent before our God turns His face from you forever. I call upon both you sinners to fall on your faces and cry out to the God of Israel, imploring Him for forgiveness.” Then the prophet’s stern eyes turned again toward the Tetrarch. “Herod, cast this foul woman from you! Have you not stolen her away from the bed of your brother? You cannot have her, O Tetrarch! Does not God’s holy law forbid a man from taking to bed the wife of his living brother in the flesh? Adulterer! Repent! And you, evil woman, you adulteress”—John’s eyes were fiery now with a wild zeal as he faced Herodias, whose flushed cheeks and lips drawn into thin lines revealed her fury—“neither shall you have him! Get you back to the bed you have deserted, if the husband you have abandoned has the grace to forgive and receive you! O Tetrarch”—John lifted his gaunt arms toward the heavens—“cast her from you before your grievous sinning brings ruin down upon the land. Send her back to your brother, and humbly beseech the forgiveness of our God! Repent, O Tetrarch, repent! Repent!”

Still Herod Antipas stood staring, unmoving, rooted.

“By all the great and little gods, Antipas”—Herodias, infuriated, whirled upon the Tetrarch, grabbed his arm and shook him—“will you stand there like a statue and permit that fanatic to insult and intimidate you and your wife before this crowd?” Scornfully she measured him, and her lips curled with disgust. “Are you indeed the Tetrarch of Galilee, or are you a frightened mouse?” She stood back, taunting him with her shrill laugh.

Her challenging words and her mirthless laughter broke the spell the prophet had cast. “No, I am not afraid of him,” Antipas replied slowly, as though he were arguing with himself. “Nor can I any longer permit this abuse to go unpunished. He has not only vilified your Tetrarch and his wife”—Antipas was now addressing the crowd rather than Herodias—“but he has challenged my honor and authority. His words are a call to insurrection. I can no longer permit the preaching of rebellion.” He turned to confront Longinus. “Centurion, arrest this man. Have him taken at once to the Fortress Machaerus and there placed in its dungeon. Order him held until I pronounce judgment.”

Without even a glance toward the now silent but calm and seemingly untroubled prophet of the Wilderness, Herod turned and started along the gentle rise toward the horses.

19

As they approached the southern shore line of the Sea of Galilee, Longinus sent riders ahead to notify Chuza of the impending arrival of the Tetrarch and his party at Tiberias. So the steward, with household servants to handle the baggage, was waiting at the palace gate when the caravan entered the grounds.

But Chuza, though he greeted them warmly and with profuse smiles, was obviously troubled, and Antipas quickly drew the man aside to question him. “Sire, you will not find the Tetrarchess here to welcome you,” the steward explained, his tone apologetic and his expression patently pained. “She has departed from Tiberias. I suggested that she might wish to delay her leaving, Sire, until your return, but she insisted on going at once.”

She had received a message, she told Chuza, that her father, King Aretas of Arabia Petraea, was desperately ill and that he had summoned her to his bedside. Although the steward had seen no messengers, he had not been disposed to question the Tetrarchess. She had prepared for the journey very quickly. The Centurion Cornelius had provided her with a detachment of soldiers to escort her to her father’s capital in the country southeast of the Dead Sea, beyond the Fortress Machaerus; she had taken with her, in addition, her best raiment and many of her choicest personal possessions.

“Then you think that she is not planning to come back to me? Is that what you’re suggesting, Chuza?”

“Sire, I am suggesting nothing. I am relating only what I saw and heard. I have no opinion as to what plans the Tetrarchess....”

“The Princess Herodias is Tetrarchess now, Chuza,” Antipas interrupted.

“Indeed, Sire”—Chuza bowed to the Tetrarch and then to Herodias—“the former Tetrarchess....”

“But when did she depart, Chuza?” Antipas interrupted again.

“A week ago, Sire. The escorting soldiers have not yet returned.”

“Had she heard that I was returning from Rome with a new Tetrarchess?”

“She said nothing to me about it, Sire, but I am confident that she knew of the Tetrarch’s marriage. Passengers coming ashore at Ptolemaïs from the vessel on which you and the Tetrarchess sailed out from Rome brought to Tiberias word of the new Tetrarchess. I myself heard it, and surely the report must have come also to her ears here at the palace.”

“Very well, Chuza; think no more of it.” By now they had entered the lofty, marble-columned great atrium. A faint smile crossed his heavy face. “Do you know, I believe she must have suspected all along?” He turned to Herodias. “By all the gods, my dear, she has made our course all the easier.”

Longinus declined the invitation of the Tetrarch and Herodias to take a chamber in the palace during his stay at Tiberias. He had promised Cornelius that he would be his guest when next he came to Galilee. Tempting though the Tetrarch’s invitation had been, Longinus reasoned that it might be wise to assume that the watched might also be the watching.

Besides, Claudia had been assigned an apartment which, the centurion had observed, looked out upon a broad terrace facing the Sea of Galilee. A door from Claudia’s bedroom conveniently opened onto the terrace. Longinus smiled as he reviewed the details of the arrangement.

The sentry at the palace gate, he also knew, would be a Roman soldier.

20

Cornelius shook his head solemnly. “Herod will regret it. Arresting the prophet was unwise, Longinus.”

“But the fellow is an insurrectionist, Cornelius; certainly it can’t be denied that he’s been inciting rebellion against the Tetrarch’s rule. You should have heard what he called Antipas and Herodias.” A wry smile twisted the corners of his mouth. “Of course, just between you and me, I think he was right. But that doesn’t absolve him from agitating against the Tetrarch, and in this province, of course, the Tetrarch represents Rome.”

“But I don’t think that the prophet’s a revolutionary,” Cornelius insisted. “He lambasted the Tetrarch that day we came on him at Bethabara, too, but he wasn’t challenging Herod’s authority as Tetrarch; he was denouncing his wickedness as a man and calling upon him as a man to repent just as others were repenting. There’s a difference, Longinus, even though it’s hard for us Romans to understand that. We bundle our religion—if we have any, which few of us do, I suspect—and our imperial government into one packet. But the Jews keep their religion and their government, or rather our enforced government over them, separate. And their religion is predominant. In ordering John imprisoned, therefore, Herod is allowing the government to invade the Jews’ religious precincts, just as Pilate did when he had the army’s ensigns flown from the ramparts of Antonia. He’s likely to find himself in the same sort of situation that Pilate faced. It will do him no good; John at Machaerus will likely have more power over the people than he would have had if Herod had left him unmolested.” He glanced quizzically toward his friend. “Don’t you think so?”

“I’ve never thought of it. Nor do I care, by the gods, what becomes of that Wilderness fellow, or....” He paused and glanced about.

“There’s no one to hear us.”

Nor was there. From the early evening meal, eaten in the stuffiness of the garrison’s mess hall at a table with the other officers, Cornelius had brought his guest to the flat roof. Up here they would escape the heat and the heavy odors of food and wine and sweating soldiers and at the same time catch any vagrant breeze that might be stirring from the sea. Nor would there be any ears to overhear.

“I was going to say that I cared little what happened to him or Antipas ... or, by great Jove, even Pontius Pilate.”

“Both Herod and Pilate have blundered. And I’m sure Sejanus will be hearing about it; that is, if he hasn’t heard of it already.”

Longinus nodded, then casually changed the subject. “By the way,” he commented, “that reminds me; what ever became of that carpenter you said the desert preacher hailed as the Jews’ Messiah? Has he begun yet the task of wrecking the Roman Empire with his hammer and chisels?”

“It’s just possible that he has, though not with any hammer and chisel.” His smile was enigmatic. “Certainly the Empire, if I understand him, isn’t built on any plan that he approves.”

“By all the gods, Cornelius!” Longinus, who had been sprawled in his chair with his feet propped on the low rampart, sat up with a start. “What do you mean?”

Cornelius held up his hand. “Now wait,” he said calmly. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about. You won’t need to report to Sejanus about the carpenter. But since I saw you last he has gained a great following, even among some of the more influential people. You remember that beautiful woman Herod took with him to Jerusalem, the one called Mary of Magdala?”

“Who could forget her?”

“I agree. Well, she’s a disciple of the carpenter now, and a different woman, they say; she’s forsworn the Tetrarch’s bedchamber.”

“Maybe”—Longinus grinned—“that’s because Herodias has moved in.”

“Could be; I don’t know. But the report is that she’s given up all her amatory pursuits in order to follow him. All up and down the seaside, in fact, the people are swarming to hear him and beseech his help.”

“But insurrection, Cornelius....”

“Oh, it isn’t that, Longinus. The Galilean isn’t concerned with the government, as I understand his teachings, though I’ve seen little of him myself; I get my information from some of the Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum”—he smiled—“who secretly, I suspect, are followers of the man, though many others among the Jews are hostile. I think he wants to change people as individuals, not their governments; he wants to help them. I’m sure he’s never given any thought to fomenting rebellion against Rome.”

Longinus relaxed and sat back. “Then he’s just another of these religious fanatics, isn’t he? Well, I’m relieved to hear that, though Palestine seems to have more than its share of these charlatans.”

“Charlatan? I wouldn’t say that. Let me tell you a story, and then you can deduce what you wish. It happened only a few weeks ago. When you see Chuza, Herod’s steward....”

“I saw him today.”

“When you see him again, ask him to tell you what happened to his son. Everybody in this part of the country has heard about it; the news swept through Galilee like flames across a parched grassland.”

“Well, by the gods, Cornelius, what did happen?”

“Chuza’s young son had come down with a fever. In this low country along the lakeside, you know, fevers are pretty common, but they’re not often dangerous. So Chuza and Joanna—she’s his wife—weren’t alarmed at first. But when days passed and the boy didn’t improve—in fact, his condition grew worse—they became concerned. One physician after another was called in, and they exhausted all the treatments they knew how to give. But the child was failing fast, and Chuza and Joanna were frantic; it looked as though their son wouldn’t live much longer. The fever was consuming him. What could they do? Where could they get help?

“It happened that on the last day, when it appeared that the boy was about to die, a Jewish fisherman who had occasionally been supplying the palace came to Chuza. He and his brother and two other brothers with whom he frequently fished had made a heavy catch, and this Simon had come to inquire if Chuza would buy a mess for the Tetrarch’s household.

“But a servant came to the door and told him his master could not discuss business; the steward’s son, he explained, was dying.

“‘In that case, I must see him,’ the fisherman said to the servant. ‘I can tell him how his son’s life may be saved.’

“But the servant told him that the physicians had despaired of saving the child and that the parents were momentarily awaiting his death. He ordered Simon to leave.

“The fisherman, a headstrong fellow, insisted, however, on being shown into the chamberlain’s presence, and the argument grew so loud that Chuza heard and came out to discover what was taking place. The fisherman Simon then told the Tetrarch’s steward of the Galilean carpenter’s amazing ability to effect miraculous cures, and he suggested that a servant be sent on horseback to find this young man, whom Simon referred to as ‘the Master.’ ‘And when the servant finds him,’ he said ‘have him bring the Master here, and he will heal your son.’

“Of course Chuza protested,” Cornelius continued, “that skilled physicians had been unable to cure the child. ‘Only try the Master,’ Simon then implored him. ‘Only have faith in him and ask him to heal your son, and he will heal him.’

“And suddenly the thought came to Chuza that surely he had nothing to lose by seeking out the Galilean mystic. The child was already on the verge of death; certainly this Jesus ben Joseph, whatever he might do, wouldn’t further endanger the boy’s life. So he asked Simon where his master might be found and whether he would come at once to his son’s bedside.

“The Galilean was visiting friends at Cana, a village a few miles west of the little sea. And Simon assured Chuza that he would come.

“So Chuza decided to seek the carpenter’s aid. But he sent no servant for him. Instead, he had three horses saddled, one for Simon, one for himself, and one for this Jesus ben Joseph.

“‘As we rode westward toward Cana,’ Chuza told me, ‘I felt a growing hope that the strange Galilean might really be able to restore my son to health, and I was possessed by an overpowering urge to find the man. Soon Simon and I were racing along the dusty road. When we reached Cana and found the house, we discovered this Jesus seated with his friends at the noonday meal.’”

Cornelius got up from his chair, sat down again on the rampart, and looked out toward a small fleet of fishing boats coming in to shore with the day’s catch.

“By the gods,” Longinus asked, “what happened then? Go on; it’s a good story.”

“When he looked into the understanding eyes of the young man from Nazareth, Chuza told me, a strange warmth, not physical warmth from the hard riding but a sense of eased tension, of peace, perhaps, something he said he couldn’t describe to me and didn’t entirely understand himself, took possession of him. He knew then, he was utterly certain, he said, that the young man smiling at him had the power to heal his son, if he could but get him to Tiberias in time!”

Once more Cornelius paused in his recital to study a fishing boat unloading a heavy catch. Then he resumed the narrative.

“Chuza said he didn’t remember what he said to the man, except that he blurted out his plea for help and begged the stranger to return with him to the boy’s bedside. He and his wife loved their son so much, he pleaded, and the little fellow was dying. If only the carpenter would intervene to save him, he knew the child’s life would be spared.

“Then,” Cornelius went on, “the Nazareth carpenter said a strange thing. He turned his intent, kindly gaze from Chuza to glance at those at the table with him. ‘Always you must have signs and wonders,’ he said. ‘Can’t you believe without actually seeing these things done before your eyes?’

“Chuza didn’t understand the man’s words, but he didn’t try to find out what they meant. His son was dying, his need was desperate. Once more he begged the carpenter for his help. ‘O, sir, my boy is dying,’ he pleaded; ‘he won’t last out the day unless you go to him. Won’t you leave with us now, sir, and restore him?’”

Cornelius paused again. Longinus, his forehead creased in heavy concentration, seemed absorbed in the doings of several fishermen down at the water’s edge as they struggled with a heavy net. But he turned quickly to confront his friend. “Pluto blast you, Cornelius! Why do you keep stopping? Did the carpenter return with him or didn’t he?”

“No, he didn’t. He laid his hand on Chuza’s shoulder. ‘Return to your son,’ he said. ‘The fever has left him. He has been restored.’”

“And I suppose when Chuza and the fisherman got back, they found that the boy’s fever had actually broken?”

“Yes, he was fully recovered. And when Chuza asked Joanna what time it was when the fever broke, she said it was the seventh hour, which was exactly when the carpenter had told Chuza that the boy had been restored.” Cornelius smiled and stood up. “That’s the story, Centurion ... Chuza’s story, not mine. What do you make of it?”

“A good story, and ably told by you. I’d call it an entertaining account of a remarkable coincidence.”

“Only a coincidence?”

“What else could it be? Surely you don’t believe that this carpenter fellow, without even going to the sick boy, drove out the fever? You know that fever victims either get well or die and that once the fever reaches a certain point, it goes one way or the other; it’s either death or a very rapid recovery, and the odds are about the same.” He shrugged his shoulders. “After hearing Chuza’s story the carpenter probably calculated it was time for the fever to break, and he simply gambled on the outcome.” Then he was suddenly serious, his eyes questioning. “Cornelius, don’t tell me you believe the carpenter actually cured the boy?”

“I don’t know, Longinus. But I’ll say this: I don’t disbelieve it. And I do know that the boy is alive and well today.” Cornelius stood up and stretched. “After all, to Chuza and Joanna that’s the important thing. When you see Chuza, you might ask him what he thinks of the Galilean.”

“If that carpenter did cure the boy in the manner you described, Cornelius, then he’s bound to be a god. And would a carpenter be a god, and a Galilean carpenter, at that? To me the whole idea is preposterous. But I’m just a Roman soldier; I haven’t been exposed, like you, to these eastern workers of magic.”

“This Jesus is no magician. In fact, he seems reluctant to perform these—what did he call them—‘signs and wonders.’ But the sick and the crippled continually besiege him to heal them, and his sympathies for the unfortunate appear to be boundless.” Cornelius sat down again on the parapet. “Tell me, do you remember that day we were sailing down the Tiber, standing at the ‘Palmyra’s’ rail talking about the various gods, and you said that you could never comprehend a spirit god, something that was nothing, you said, a being without a body?”

“Yes, and I still feel that way.”

“But what about a god that does have a body, a god-man? If a god should have a physical body and be in every physical respect like a man, would that make sense to you? Could you comprehend such a god?”

“By Jove, Cornelius, you’ve been out here with these Jews for much too long. You’ve been listening to too much prattle about their Yahweh. A god without a body, a body that houses a god. Bah! I put no credence in any of these notions. As for that carpenter, I’d say he’s another Wilderness preacher, not as fanatical perhaps, not as desert-parched and smelling of dried sweat as John, but certainly no god—whatever a god is, if there is such a thing, which I most seriously doubt. A carpenter from Nazareth, that hillside cluster of huts! Cornelius, I’ve been to Nazareth, as I’m sure you have. I ask you, would a god choose Nazareth to come from?” He stood up. “Nevertheless, the story you told was entertaining. Maybe to some it would be convincing. To me, though....” He shook his head slowly. Then suddenly a wide grin lighted his grim countenance. “How is it that you and I inevitably get around sooner or later to a discussion of the gods? And where do we invariably end? Nowhere. Talk, that’s all. And talk is all it can ever be, isn’t it? It’s all too nebulous, intangible....”

“But, Longinus, if this all-powerful, all-wise, all-good god that old Pheidias envisioned, this supreme one god, in order to communicate with his earthly creatures”—Cornelius held up his hand to stop Longinus, who had been about to interrupt—“should decide to take the form of a man, an ordinary man....”

“By all the small and great gods,” Longinus did interrupt, “do you think then that he would choose to be a carpenter from Nazareth?”

Cornelius stared at the fishing boats, now pulled up on the beach; the lengthening shadows had already begun to obscure them. “I wonder,” he said.

21

Herod Antipas was in a bad mood; he said little and appeared preoccupied during the meal. When they had finished he announced that he planned to spend the remainder of the evening conferring with his ministers. “I’ve been out of the country for a long time,” he explained casually. “I suspect there will be many trying problems awaiting consideration.”

When the Tetrarch withdrew from the lofty dining chamber, Herodias had servants place couches at the eastern edge of the terrace beside the bordering balustrade of faintly rose-hued marble, and with Neaera and Tullia hovering discreetly near them, the new Tetrarchess and her guest lay back comfortably to relax after the heavy meal. Out here it was cooler than it had been in the great chamber, for the white marble palace of Herod Antipas had been built on an upflung spit of land that pushed out like a flattened giant thumb into the Sea of Galilee, and whenever there was a breeze from off the water it swept unobstructed across the spacious terrace.

This terrace had been built seaward from an immense glass-covered peristylium, paved with tiny marble blocks in colors that had been laid to form an intricate but pleasing mosaic pattern and alive with fountains, flowers, and luxuriant tropical plants. Predominantly Roman in architecture, decoration, and furnishings, the palace reminded Claudia of the Procurator’s Palace at Caesarea. “Except that it’s more pretentious,” she told Herodias.

“Yes, it is,” Herodias agreed. “Antipas was determined for once to outdo his father. He had always lived in the shadow of old Herod, and I think he resented it. But even so, he has never had the ambition or the courage that his father had.”

“But surely, Herodias, you don’t see any virtue in your grandfather. Didn’t he have your grandmother and your father killed?”

“Yes, and my father’s brother Alexander. No, he was a monster, particularly in his last years when I think he must have been demented. But he was an able man, and he had courage. He never would have permitted that desert fellow to stand there and insult him and his wife, for example, even if the man had had all the Jews in Galilee at his side. Nor would he have yielded, as your Pilate did, to those Jews at Caesarea. He would have had them run through with swords and would have roared with laughter at their agonized dying. But perhaps I offend you.”

“No, you don’t offend me, my dear. Nor do I defend Pilate. But you must remember, he has Sejanus to deal with and also my beloved stepfather. Neither of those pillars of the Empire would have sanctioned the massacre of thousands of Jews. Pilate does have a difficult role to play.”

Herodias smiled and pointed a ringed forefinger. “And are you going to help him play it, my dear Claudia, or will you...?” She paused and allowed her question to hang in mid-air.

“Or will I conspire with Longinus to lead Pilate into making further wrong moves, thereby getting him recalled and perhaps banished and permitting me to divorce him and marry Longinus?” Laughing, Claudia sat up and swung her feet to the floor. “You are so subtle, my dear, so very subtle.” Now she shook an accusing finger at her hostess. “But tell me, what will you do when Aretas’ daughter returns to Tiberias and demands her place as Tetrarchess?”

“She won’t return; Antipas is sending her a bill of divorcement. Surely you must know that I would see to that. In fact, I think she left with her mind made up that she was finished as Tetrarchess. My only thought—and that isn’t concern—is what old Aretas will do about it.”

Behind them now the lamps had been lighted in the palace. A brilliant full moon slowly climbed the sky above the little sea; both women lay back luxuriously to watch the moon mount higher, and before long their talk had slowed into silence. Suddenly Herodias realized that she had become almost senseless. She sat up with a start.

“By the gods, Claudia, we’re almost asleep!”

“We’re tired from the journey,” Claudia said, rubbing her eyes.

“Yes. Maybe we should go to bed. Can I have Neaera bring you something? Some wine and wafers, fruit, or a glass of hot milk?”

“No, not a thing. I’m still stuffed from the wonderful dinner. I only want to get to bed and to sleep. I am really quite tired.”

“You must be indeed.” Her smile, Claudia saw plainly in the brightness of the full moon, was positively devilish. It was impossible to mistake its meaning.

“Oh, that,” she laughed, then added, “but surely you heard him tell the Tetrarch he would spend the night with Cornelius?”

“Yes, I heard him tell the Tetrarch.” She stood up. “Let’s go to bed.” They crossed the terrace and entered the palace. “I’ll see you to your chamber,” she said.

An inner room that opened into Claudia’s had been prepared for Tullia. Herodias glanced quickly around the apartment, then turned to go. At the door opening onto the corridor she paused. “I hope you will be comfortable and sleep well.” Her eyes brightened. “You won’t be disturbed. And you’ll discover”—she swept her hand in an arc to embrace Claudia’s chamber—“that all your doors have bolts opening from the inside, including,” she added with a knowing smile, “the one to the terrace. Good night, Claudia. And, by all the gods”—her dark, wanton eyes had burst into dancing flames—“I envy you!”

22

Claudia sat up in bed, instantly and fully awake. She knew that she had been dreaming, a confused, wandering, disconnected, senseless sort of dream, though now with her awakening it had vanished completely, dissolved into nothing. But the gentle tapping that had been mixed with the dreaming, had not been a part of it; the tapping at the door to the terrace was real and repeated and insistent.

She kicked her feet free of the sheet and swung them to the floor. From the waist down, as she arose, she stood in the narrow band of silver-cold moonlight spearing through the tall window behind her to cut diagonally across the foot of the bed; quickly she stepped into the less revealing shadows at the doorway.

“Longinus?” she whispered, her face close to the panel.

“Yes.”

“One minute until I can draw the bolt.”

When he was inside and she was closing and bolting the door, he slipped his toga off and, stepping past the shaft of moonlight, dropped it on a chair against the wall near the head of the bed. As he turned around, she came toward him, her arms outstretched; crossing the bright beam, her white body stood plainly revealed through the sheerness of the black gown.

“Oh, Longinus”—she flung herself into his arms—“I thought you really had decided to stay with Cornelius.”

He lifted her to her toes and held her, almost crushingly, against him, and then he caught her chin and raising her face so that he could look into her eyes, bent down and kissed her red and warmly eager lips.

“Didn’t you know,” he asked when he released her after a long while, “that those words were for Antipas and not you? Didn’t you know that nothing could possibly keep me from you tonight?”

Gently, almost carrying her, he led her the two or three steps to the bed. They sat down beside each other, and he bent forward to unbuckle his sandals. When he sat up again, she twisted her feet around and lifted them to the bed, doubled up her knees, and lay with her head and right shoulder pressed hard against his side. “Are you tired from the journey and anxious to get to sleep?” she asked, turning her head to look into his face.

“Tired maybe, and warm from walking from the Antonia”—he pulled his tunic open at the throat and to his waist—“but sleepy, no.” He laughed, but not loudly, for the palace was as quiet as a sepulcher. “Do you think any man in my present situation could be sleepy?”

“Yes, by all the gods, I know one.” She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. “Pontius Pilate.”

“No, Claudia, he couldn’t be that cold-blooded.” He pulled her to him, and drew her warm body into the closing circle of his arms. She lifted her feet again to the bed and slid down into the brightness of the moonlight.

“But, I tell you he is, Longinus. All the man ever thinks of is guarding and extending the powers and authority of the Procuratorship and piling up Jewish shekels. To him my only attraction is being the Emperor’s stepdaughter.”

“Then he’s an even bigger fool than I thought.” Gently he pushed her chin down to pull her lips slightly apart and, bending over her, crushed his mouth upon them.

“Oh, Longinus,” she cried out, when finally, breathing heavily, he raised his head, “do take me away from him! Do, Longinus, oh, do, do! I cannot endure him! By all the gods, I simply cannot!”

“But where would we go?” He looked deeply into her troubled eyes, luminous even in the shadows. “How could we escape the Emperor and the Prefect, my dear girl? How could we?”

“We couldn’t, of course. If we attempted it, they would soon find us, and Tiberius would do to you what my grandfather did to my poor father. I know that, Longinus. But it’s so long from one time with you to another, from one night so quickly passed to the gods only know when again.” She slipped her hand beneath his tunic and caressingly ran her fingers across the damp, warm expanse of his chest. “It’s so hard waiting for these few stolen hours,” she murmured. “Must we be forever waiting, Longinus?”

“No, Claudia, no. Pluto burn him! One of these days he’ll go too far with the Emperor and Sejanus. But we’ve got to give him time to be caught in his own trap. Then when he’s ruined himself, the Emperor will permit you to divorce him. But in the meantime, we must steal all the hours we can”—his words were blurred as he buried his face in her lustrous, fragrant hair—“and not be too concerned with Pilate or our future.” They remained silent side by side for a while, then Longinus raised his head. Claudia lay stretched out full length upon the bed, and from the waist down now her scarcely concealed body came within the rapidly widening band of moonlight. “We mustn’t try to anticipate things,” he said quietly. “We must seize the opportunities as they come. Carpe diem, that’s all.” He bent lower to look into her eyes. “More to the point, let’s enjoy the night while we have it.”

He stood up quickly and in the shadows hastily stripped off his clothes.

23

As he drifted up slowly out of the depths of slumber he fancied he was hearing the early cockcrow from Castra Praetoria; surely he was sharing Claudia’s bed in her apartment in the Imperial Palace, for he could smell her perfume, he could feel the satiny texture of her hair spread fan-like across his chest.

The trumpet was insistent. He would have to open his eyes. He twisted up on his elbow and squinted toward the window; light sifting into the chamber revealed the crumpled sheer nightgown dropped across his clothes on the chair near the bed. Looking down, he studied Claudia’s sleeping face—rouge-smeared, half-open mouth, cheeks, forehead, and even her neck splotched with the smudged prints of his lips from her own lipstick.

He glanced around the room again; no, this time he was not in Rome, and the trumpet call came only from the post headquarters in Tiberias. This time there was no threat of immediate separation. Immensely relieved, he pulled up the sheet that had fallen away and snuggled back down beside her.

“Must you be going so soon?” she asked sleepily, for his movement had aroused her. “Must you always be leaving me?”

“That’s the cockcrow at Castra Praetoria, and I have early duty,” he said. “Maybe this morning I’ll be summoned before the Prefect.”

“You aren’t deceiving me. The Prefect is in Rome, and we are in Tiberias,” she replied. “And you have no morning duty at the post’s quarters.” Smiling, she added, “I’m not that sleepy, Centurion.” She slid forward and sat up, then just as quickly slipped back beneath the protecting sheet. “I forgot,” she said, grinning. “But I’m so glad that you don’t have to leave now.”

“But I’ll have to be going soon,” he declared. “I’d like to get away before the palace is too much astir.”

“But why, Longinus? Must you sneak away as though you were a thieving intruder? Don’t you know that Herodias was expecting you? She even admitted that she was envious of me; I’m sure she was anticipating a far less interesting evening with Antipas.” She paused, and her eyes widened. “Surely you aren’t afraid of his knowing ... about us?”

“You know I’m not afraid of the Tetrarch’s knowing”—his tone was gently scolding—“or, by the gods, of Pontius Pilate’s.”

“Then could it be Cornelius?” Now she was teasing. “But doesn’t he know? Surely....”

“Of course,” he interrupted. “He knew last night I was coming here. He gave me the password for the sentry at the palace gate.”

“But did he know you were going to be spending the night ... with me?”

“I didn’t tell him that. But I’m sure that anybody with the intelligence of a centurion would arrive at such a conclusion.” He was grinning. “Wouldn’t you think so?”

“Yes. But maybe he doesn’t approve, now that he’s become so interested in the Jews’ religion. And judging by that desert fanatic’s tirade against Herodias and Antipas, even the most innocent adultery is frowned upon by these Jewish religionists.”

“Whatever he may think about it, Cornelius knows very well that what you and I do is none of his business, and I’m sure he won’t try to make it his affair.”

“Then I’m the one.” Her smeared lips were pushed out in a feigned pout. “You’re bored with me. I know, you’re just trying to get rid....”

“Silly girl.” He pulled her close, for she had coquettishly twisted away. “Did I say I was leaving right now?”

24

Two soldiers from his own century at Caesarea who had ridden into Tiberias during the night were awaiting Longinus when he returned to the garrison headquarters. They had been sent by Sergius Paulus with a message from the Prefect Sejanus. A note from the Prefect had been attached to the carefully sealed message, emphasizing the importance of the communication and ordering Sergius Paulus, should Longinus not be in Caesarea on its arrival, to have it dispatched to him wherever he might be and as speedily as possible.

The message from Sejanus had arrived on an Alexandrian grain ship that had sailed into the harbor at Caesarea several days after Herod Antipas and his new wife, with their party and their guest, the Procurator’s wife, had departed for Jerusalem on their way to Tiberias. The cohort commander had dispatched the two horsemen at once in the hope that they might overtake the centurion before Herod’s party had started on the journey up the Jordan Valley toward the Galilean capital. But the caravan had been two days on the way before the horseman rode into Jerusalem; from there they had started almost immediately for Tiberias.

Quickly and with considerable apprehension Longinus broke the seals. Why was the message so urgent? What could have happened? He knew that Sejanus was not replying to the report he himself had dispatched to the Prefect by the hand of the “Actium’s” captain; that vessel had probably not even reached Rome yet.

Longinus hurriedly scanned the message; then, relieved, he read it again more slowly. The Prefect was summoning him to return to Rome to report in detail on the situation in Judaea and Galilee. But first he was to go immediately to Senator Piso’s glassworks in Phoenicia. There he would receive a package which he would then convey to Rome.

The package would be highly valuable, the Prefect warned; it would contain a large sum of money, revenue from sales of glassware, and he was to exercise every precaution in seeing to it that he got it to Rome intact. Impress as many soldiers as he thought necessary to serve as guards while the package was being transported from the glass plant to the ship that would bring it to Rome, the Prefect ordered; take no risk of being waylaid by robbers or some band of zealots. He suggested that to minimize this danger, the centurion should go aboard ship at Tyre, the seaport nearest the plant.

Longinus explained to the two soldiers who had brought him the message that he was being ordered to Rome by the Prefect Sejanus and instructed them to bear to Sergius Paulus a message he would write. In this note he informed the cohort commander of the assignment Sejanus had given him to come to Rome, although he made no mention of the money he would be delivering. He added that the Prefect had given him no details of the new assignment; he would write later from Rome. When he finished writing the communication, Longinus dismissed the two to return with it to Caesarea.

Cornelius had been aware of the arrival of the two men sent by Sergius Paulus; Longinus told him what the Prefect’s instructions had been.

“Cornelius, I want you to pick a small detachment from your century to go with me to Phoenicia for the package and then on over to Tyre,” he said. “If by any chance I should let that money be stolen....” He shrugged and drew his fingers across his throat. “I suspect a large portion of it, if not all, is destined to find its way into the Prefect’s private coffers.”

Cornelius agreed to accompany him. His men would leave early on the morrow and meet the two centurions at the home of Cornelius at Capernaum where they would spend the evening. From there the party would start northwestward for the senator’s glassworks in Phoenicia.

“And now,” said Cornelius when they had made the arrangements, “you’ll be wanting to return to the palace; after today it may be a long time before you see Claudia again.”

Only last night he and Claudia had talked of how they might remain in Tiberias for perhaps two weeks; he had even considered taking her with him on a hurried visit to the glassworks, which he had not inspected for the last several months. And they would manage to spend every evening together, to be with each other every night through.

“Oh, Longinus, let me go with you to Rome! Take me, please,” she pleaded an hour later as they sat on the terrace outside her bedchamber. “Do you dare, Longinus? Or, should I say, do we dare?”

“No,” he said, “though by all the gods, I wish we did.” He shook his head slowly. “No, Claudia, we mustn’t attempt it. You might be able to hide from the Prefect and the Emperor. But not for long. Pilate would report your disappearance—he would have to for his own protection—and immediately Sejanus would suspect me. He might even think you and I were plotting to upset the rule of Tiberius, which would mean, of course, the overthrow of the Prefect. You would be discovered within a matter of days. And then in all probability it would be the imperial headsman for me, and for you ... well, for you it would probably be a fate much like your mother’s, Pandateria or some other far-off place. And for the friends who tried to hide you, death, too. You see, Sejanus and the Emperor married you off to Pilate to get you far away from Rome. They intend for you to remain away. Until”—he shrugged—“there’s a violent change in Rome, you must not return.”

They sat quietly and looked out at the fishing boats plying the sea.

“I won’t remain long in Rome, I think,” he said after a while. “If the gods are good, Claudia, it will be only a few months until....”

“If the gods are good!” she interrupted, harshly. “There are no good gods, Longinus. There are no gods!” She scowled and looked away. “If there are, how can they be so perverse?”

“I don’t dispute it. Call it what you like, gods, fate, chance, luck....”

“Ill luck, perversity of fate. Bona Dea, Longinus, if there are gods, they are evil, and the most evil of all is old Sejanus, may Pluto transfix him with his white-hot fork! Why must he forever be doing us ill?”

“Perhaps, who knows, he may be serving us well in calling me to Rome. It may lead to the Emperor’s banishing Pilate or, if not that, his removal from the Procuratorship.”

“May the gods grant it!” she said fervently.

“But now, my dear”—he smiled—“there are no gods.”

They sat for a long time on the sunlit terrace and talked, though they knew their future was a difficult one to predict. They walked down to the beach and strolled along the sands; once they paused to sit for a while on the rotting hull of a half-buried fishing boat. Before the sun dropped westward behind the palace they climbed the steps and crossed the esplanade; in the peristylium he said good-by to the Tetrarch and Herodias. Claudia walked with him back to the terrace, where he quickly bade her farewell.

“I’ll see you before many months in Caesarea,” he said and gently pinched her cheek. He bent down for a last kiss. “Pray the gods for the winds to bring me quickly ... and with good news. Pray the silly little no-gods.”

“I would, if I thought it would bring you back any sooner,” she said. “I’d even say a prayer—and offer a lamb—to the Jew’s grim Yahweh. But I have more faith in the charity of the winds themselves.”

An hour later he and Cornelius set out for Capernaum. The squad from the Tiberias century that would escort them to the glassworks and then to the harbor at Tyre had been selected and equipped for the journey; the soldiers would join the centurions the next morning at the home of Cornelius.

As they were nearing the house, Cornelius turned to question his friend. “Longinus, do you remember Lucian?”

“Lucian? Your son?”

“Well, you could probably call him our son, although he’s actually my slave. He was given me by his father, just before he died, when Lucian was only three or four years old. He’s the grandson of old Pheidias, the tutor I was telling you about some time ago.”

“Yes, I do remember the boy. But he is more like a son than a slave, isn’t he?”

“He is. We’re devoted to the boy. We couldn’t love him more, I’m sure, nor could he love us more, if he were really our own flesh and blood.”

“But why are you asking me about him?”

“Well, some time ago I promised Lucian that the next time I went on a journey I’d take him along. I wonder if you would object to his going with us up into Phoenicia?”

“Of course not. Why don’t you take him?”

“Then I shall. We’ll get an early start in the morning. We ought to be ready to begin the journey when the detachment arrives from Tiberias.”

But the next morning Lucian was ill. Perhaps, Cornelius thought, it came from the great excitement of the anticipated journey. With his palm the centurion felt the boy’s forehead, cheeks, under his chin. They were feverish.

Phoenicia

25

The old man, smoke-blackened and naked except for a frayed and soiled loincloth, tottered forward and collapsed at their feet.

“He almost fell into the fire chamber,” explained one of the two young slaves who had dragged him from the furnace shed.

A beetle-browed, scowling overseer with a long leather whip came running from an adjacent section of the sheds. “Get back to your work!” he shouted, as he slashed viciously at the slaves. The two fled inside; the burly fellow strode across to the old man on the ground.

“Water! O Zeus, mercy. Water! Water!” the old slave gasped.

The overseer raised his whip. “Stand up, you, or by the gods, I’ll cut you in strips!” he hissed. “Get back to the furnace!” He stood poised to strike the inert man.

“Hold!” Cornelius commanded. “Strike him once, and by the great Jove, you’ll have me to deal with!” Suddenly furious, his eyes blazing, the centurion stepped forward to confront the overseer.

“Who, by the gods, are you?” the fellow demanded insolently. “By whose authority do you interfere with the operation of this plant?”

“By the great gods, my own, if the centurion”—he glanced coldly toward Longinus—“is little enough interested to stop you.”

“Don’t touch him!” Longinus pointed. “And get back to your duties.”

“And who”—the fellow was glowering, his heavy jaw thrust out—“are you, by the gods, to be giving me orders?”

Aroused by the angry words outside the fire chamber, a man rushed from the near-by furnace-shed office. “Porcius, you insolent, blundering fool, put down that whip!” he bellowed. “Don’t you know the centurion”—he gestured toward Longinus—“is the son of Senator Piso, who owns this plant? And the other one is his friend. Now you get back to your work!”

“But first let him get this poor old slave some water.”

“Yes, Centurion.” He turned fiercely to the overseer. “You heard the centurion. Go! And bring a cloth, too, to bathe his face.”

“O Zeus, mercy. Water.” The old man’s plea was hardly a whisper. “Mercy, O....”

Longinus pointed. “Water will do him no good now, Cornelius.”

The wizened, gaunt slave’s eyes, wide-open, were setting in an agonized, frightened stare; his head was stretched back, and Cornelius, looking into his blackened and bony face, saw that it was pitted and scarred from innumerable small burns; the eyebrows and eyelashes were completely gone, singed away in the intolerable heat of the glass furnaces.

The overseer returned with the water and a smudged cloth.

“No need now,” the plant superintendent said. “He’s dead.”

The overseer nodded. “Shall we....?” He paused. “The usual way?”

“Not for the moment. Put him over there under the shed. Later, when....”

“When we have left, eh?” Cornelius was pointedly sarcastic. “What is the usual way?”

The superintendent hesitated.

“I’ll tell him, Lucius,” Longinus spoke out unconcernedly. “Usually, Cornelius, they are thrown into the furnaces they have been tending, provided, of course, that the heat is so intense that such disposition of the cadaver will not endanger the mixture in the glassmaking. Oftentimes they end up over there, in the deserted area behind that sand dune, with the vultures picking their ill-padded bones. But every now and then, when they do drag one over there, particularly if the breeze is from the land, they shovel a bit of sand over him.” He shrugged and thrust out his hands solemnly. “Of course, doing it that way provides a more pleasant atmosphere for working.”

Cornelius appeared not to have heard his friend’s poor attempt at humor. He stared at the dead slave on the ground and slowly shook his head. “He was calling upon Zeus, a Greek. He might have been another Pheidias.” He shook his head ruefully. “Slaves both, but what a difference in their lots.”