Chapter VI: Part 6

“And what is the difference?” Longinus demanded. “They’re both dead. Your old tutor was put away honorably in a tomb, no doubt. But when this fellow’s carcass has become a handful of ashes or is completely dissolved into the sand and water and sea winds, won’t they both be gone to nothingness, ended without a trace?”

“They’re both dead, yes. But gone to nothingness, I can’t say. It might be that their spirits, their souls....”

“Oh, come now, Cornelius.” Longinus turned to the plant superintendent, “My friend has been too long in Palestine,” he commented wryly. “He has come to believe what those Jews believe, that the death of a man is not his end. In other words”—he pointed to the stiffened slave now being borne to the shed—“that that fellow’s soul, whatever a soul is—if there is such a thing, which I find it impossible to believe—is floating around somewhere in a world filled with other disembodied beings.”

“If you will excuse me, sir,” the manager said, evading comment, “I have some work....”

“Go ahead, Lucius. We will be leaving early tomorrow for Tyre. Everything, you say, is ready?”

“Everything, the reports, the revenue, everything, sir.”

Earlier Longinus had shown Cornelius through the various departments of the glassmaking plant, and Cornelius had marveled at the skill of the glassblowers, slaves whose lot was incomparably more fortunate, he saw, than that of those who fired the roaring furnaces. When he had remarked about this to Longinus, his host had observed casually that the blowers were valuable property, while the laborers in the furnace chambers were easily replaced when after a few weeks or months they literally burned themselves out. The two had just completed their tour when the old Greek was dragged out to die before them.

From the plant they strolled toward the beach some two hundred paces below it. “I can’t get that slave out of my mind,” Cornelius said, as they sat in the bow of a small boat that had been pulled up on the sands. “By all the gods, I thought those on the docks of the Emporium were having a hard time, but these slaves that fire your glass furnaces”—he grimaced—“Jupiter pity them. Certainly nobody else does.”

“But if we are to have beautiful glass in the mansions of Rome, or at the Tetrarch’s Palace, or the Procurator’s at Caesarea, or in countless other great places of the wealthy and the privileged, if revenue from the glass factories is to continue flowing into the coffers of the Empire and the Prefect, then, Cornelius, the furnaces must be stoked and the molten glass must be blown. So”—he shrugged—“slaves will die and be replaced. But remember, Cornelius, they are slaves, and slaves are easy to come by; fresh ones are always being sent out here by Sejanus. And we only put those of least value into the furnace chambers.”

“So, Longinus, the value of a slave is to be measured in direct proportion to the value of the merchandise—in your case, glassware—he is able to produce? And when tomorrow you leave for Rome with the profits made from your glassware, you will be carrying the lives of many slaves in your package, won’t you? And when at the markets of Rome and Antioch and Alexandria you sell those beautiful goblets with their slender, rose-tinted stems, you will know that you are selling glass colored with the lifeblood of men such as that old Greek, that slave who perhaps by now has been consumed in the very furnace that exacted his life? Isn’t that true?”

“Cornelius, you’re a good soldier, but you’re in the wrong profession.” Longinus leaned forward and cracked his bronzed knuckles. “You should be writing poetry or lecturing classes in philosophy, or even”—he paused, and a grin spread across his face—“be acting as a priest in the Temple at Jerusalem.” Suddenly the smile was gone. “Of course a slave is valuable in proportion to what he can produce or the service he can provide. Aren’t we all valuable in that same proportion? We live awhile, work, love, hate, die. What do we leave? Only what we have produced. Everything else is gone, including us. So, in the end, we and the dead slave are the same ... nothing. But you don’t agree, do you?”

“I don’t want to agree, Longinus. What you say makes sense. But something within me says just as emphatically that you are wrong. Yet I can’t prove it.” Cornelius dug his sandaled heels into the sand at the bottom of the long abandoned boat. “I keep thinking of the old Greek up there. I don’t know what life gave him, of course, before some invading Roman soldiers destroyed his home—if he had a home—certainly his way of life, and dragged him to Rome, where he simply had the bad luck to fall into the hands of the Prefect. But there’s no mystery about what life has offered him since his enslavement. And this man may have been another Pheidias, Centurion, a man more intelligent, more cultured, a better man, my friend, than nine out of ten of the equestrians in Rome. Obviously, then, life has been unfair to him. And you say he is finished, done for, nothing. You say there will never be any chance of his getting a better throw of the dice.”

“Exactly. And throw of the dice is right, too. He shook them in the cup and rolled them, and they rolled wrong; we rolled ours, and they stopped with the right numbers up. That’s all there is to it. Fate, chance, luck, call it what you will. It’s a few years or many, a good life or one of pain ... and then nothing. Isn’t it just that simple, Cornelius? How else could it possibly be? Isn’t any other idea simply superstition?” Longinus leaned over and picked up a small shell. “Look at this,” he said. “What happened to the mollusk who lived here? Did he live out his span of life happily, or was he eaten in his prime? And is his unshelled spirit now swimming about in some sea heaven?” He tossed the shell into the surf. “That old slave up there, I maintain, is just as dead and gone—or will be when his corpse is disposed of—as the mollusk who once inhabited that shell. And both of them are gone for good.”

“Then you put men and mollusks in the same category?”

“Yes, as far as having immortal spirits is concerned. But you don’t, Centurion; you hold with your Pharisee friends—it’s the Pharisees who believe in immortality, isn’t it—that man is a different sort of animal in that he survives in a spirit world....”

“I’d like to; I want to. It’s a damnably unfair world if he doesn’t.”

“And it’s just as unfair if he does. Look.” Longinus leaned forward again. “You say that this all-powerful, all-wise, all-good god, this Yahweh, will see to it that in the next world, the spirit world, that old slave up there will get justice. But I insist that such a god does not exist; if he did, as I argued that day we were sailing down the Tiber, you remember, he wouldn’t permit such unfairness and injustice in this present life. Isn’t that a logical contention, Cornelius? How can a good god, I ask you again, decree, or permit, so much evil?”

“I don’t know,” Cornelius replied. “I’m no nearer an answer to your question now than I was that other day. But I am confident that if this god exists—and I believe he does, Longinus; in fact I’m even stronger now in that belief than I was then—he does not decree evil, he simply permits evil men sometimes to rule in the affairs of this earthly, physical life. It may be that he doesn’t want to restrict man’s freedom. Do you see? That wouldn’t mean he approves of the evil acts of men.”

Longinus slowly shook his head. “No, Cornelius, I don’t see. Your argument seems completely fatuous to me. I cannot comprehend an all-powerful, good god who would permit men to do one another evil. I am convinced that the fact that the world is filled with men who are unjust and cruel and evil indisputably proves that no such god exists.”

“And I would answer that it is strong evidence but not indisputable proof.” For a long moment Cornelius stared out in the direction of a merchant ship sailing southward toward towering Mount Carmel. “You see, Longinus,” he said, turning to face his companion, “we have so little information on which to base an opinion. If there is such a god—if there is, remember—how can we even comprehend his nature, what he is like, unless?...” He paused and looked back to the sea.

“Unless?”

“Unless someone reveals him to us, interprets him to men, shows his works and thoughts....”

“The Jewish Messiah, eh? The carpenter who is about to overthrow Rome?”

“I don’t think he’s ever indicated that he was seeking to overthrow Rome. I think that idea has come down from the old Jewish prophets, who foresaw a great political and military savior of their land. Several times I’ve been in the crowds listening to him talking, and so far as I could tell, he was only trying to explain to the people the nature of this god whom he refers to as his father. He was attempting to interpret this Yahweh to them sometimes even to the extent of utilizing some of this father god’s power. That’s apparently what he did when he restored Chuza’s son.”

“You mean he was clever enough to figure out when nature would do the restoring. But we won’t go into that again.” Longinus twisted around in the boat and stood up. “No, my friend, I insist that your reasoning is not sound, that you have been overcome by this eastern mysticism which seems to fill the very air out here.” He clapped his hand on Cornelius’ shoulder; his friend had risen with him. “Centurion, come with me to Rome; I suspect that you need to be indoctrinated again in the ways of modern thought.”

“I wish I could go with you.” Cornelius stepped from the boat and kicked the sand from his sandals. “But sometimes I wonder just what sort of thinking could properly be termed modern.”

They walked back to the inn to await the loading of the ship on which Longinus would sail for the capital. No further mention was made of the Roman gods, the Greek gods, Yahweh, or the Galilean carpenter. And early in the forenoon the next day the vessel spread its sails for Rome. Two hours later Cornelius and his men started on their return to Tiberias.

26

One of the household servants was waiting for Cornelius when he returned to the garrison’s quarters at Tiberias.

“Centurion, Lucian is desperately ill,” he reported. “In the last few days he has developed a palsy. Your wife bade me tell you that she fears him near death. You must come back with me, sir; she’s greatly frightened and in much distress about the boy.”

“But the physicians? Haven’t they been able to help him?”

The man shook his head. “She has had them all with him, sir, all she could find in this region, and they have done what they could; but the paralysis has spread, and his fever does not abate. All their efforts have been useless. She prays that you hurry, sir.”

As fast as their horses could take them the two raced toward Capernaum. When Cornelius entered the house, his wife rushed to him and fell into his arms. “Oh, I thought you would never get here,” she cried. “Lucian is near death, I know; I don’t see how he can live much longer. And the physicians have despaired of saving him.”

“But there must be something we can do,” he said, as he turned toward the sick boy’s chamber. “Are there no other physicians we could call?”

“None,” she said. “And the paralysis seems to be growing worse. He is deathly ill, Cornelius. Oh, by all the gods, if there were something....”

“‘By all the gods.’ The carpenter! Didn’t he restore Chuza’s son? And though Lucian is a slave, isn’t he just as much a son to us? Wouldn’t the carpenter just as willingly restore a slave boy, even of a Roman soldier?” He had said the words aloud, but they had been addressed more to himself than to his wife.

He turned smiling, to face her. “Do you remember how that young carpenter of Nazareth healed the son of Herod’s chamberlain? Don’t you think...?”

“But he’s a Jew, Cornelius, and we are Romans.”

“No matter.” He turned to the servant who had gone to Tiberias in search of him. “Get me a fresh horse, and quickly!” he ordered. “I’m going out to find that carpenter!”

A few minutes later he stopped to inquire of a shopkeeper if the man had seen the young Nazarene rabbi. “Has he been around today?” Cornelius asked. “Can you tell me how to find him?”

“He passed here this morning,” the shopkeeper answered, “with Simon and the Zebedees and some of those others who are usually with him. They went out the gate in the western wall, and judging by the poor trade I’ve had all day, the whole city’s gone out after them. I hear the carpenter’s been speaking to them from the side of that little mountain over there.” With his head he motioned toward the west. “In all likelihood you’ll find him there, soldier.” Suddenly his face fell; his hands shook as he grasped his scraggly beard. “Now wait a minute,” he sputtered, “this fellow, this Nazarene, he hasn’t run afoul of you Romans, has he?”

“No. No, indeed. It’s on a personal mission that I seek him.” Cornelius smiled reassuringly. “I’m his friend.”

The shopkeeper looked relieved. “Then if you station yourself at the western gate, you’ll surely see him as he returns to the city. Or you might ride out toward the mountain, soldier.”

Cornelius rode on through the gate. He was halfway to the little eminence in the plain west of the city when he began to meet the throng returning. Soon he spotted the rabbi walking in the company of the Capernaum fishermen. Boldly he rode up to them and dismounted.

The men with Jesus formed a circle about him.

“I am unarmed, and I intend no one harm,” Cornelius said, holding out his hands. “I am seeking the rabbi of Nazareth.”

Jesus stepped forward and held up his staff in salute. His brown eyes were warmly bright. Cornelius, closer to him than he had ever been before, saw sparkling in the beads of perspiration rolling down his bronzed smooth forehead the long rays of the setting sun. He saw them, too, in the beads clinging to the thick mat of reddish-brown hair on the carpenter’s chest, for in the sultry stillness of the dying day, Jesus had thrown open his robe half way to his rope-belted waist.

“What would you have of me, my brother?” he asked the centurion.

“Sir, I pray you to restore my little servant boy whom I greatly love; I fear he is near death of a palsy. If, sir, you would but say the word....” He paused, suddenly hesitant.

The rabbi reached out and with strong brown fingers grasped the centurion’s arm. “I will go with you and restore the boy,” he said gently. “Show me to your house.”

“But, sir, I am a Roman soldier”—a feeling of embarrassment, deep humility, strange to the centurion, possessed him as he looked into the face of the young rabbi—“and unworthy that you should enter my house. But if you would only command that my little servant boy be healed, while we stand here, sir, then I know that he would be restored to health.” He smiled, weakly, he thought. “You see, sir, I understand authority, for I am a centurion and when I give a command, it is obeyed.”

For an instant the rabbi said nothing, but his warm eyes lighted with a rapture plain to see. He turned to his friends. “Nowhere in Israel have I seen such faith. I tell you that many will come from the east and the west and with our fathers Abraham and Isaac and Jacob sit down in the Kingdom of Heaven. But many of the chosen likewise will be cast out, and there will be great wailing and mourning, for their faith shall not be as the faith of this Roman.”

Then he turned again to confront the centurion, and Cornelius saw that his face was radiant. “You may go on your way, my brother,” he said. “As you have believed that it might be done, so has it been accomplished. Return in peace to the little boy.”

“Oh, sir....” But the centurion’s eyes were blinded with tears, and he bowed his head, and no words would come. Then he felt a warm hand on his shoulder and strong fingers once more gently squeezing his arm, then the fingers released it. When after a moment he looked up, Cornelius saw that the Nazarene and his friends had resumed walking toward the city gate. In that same instant Jesus turned and looked over his shoulder, his face still alight with a glowing happiness, and raised his hand high in a parting salute. Then he quickly turned eastward again, and the little group disappeared around the bend.

Cornelius stood unmoving, his left hand still clutching the bridle rein, and then he mounted and rode toward the western gate. A few paces ahead he went around the bend and shortly passed the rabbi and his friends, who had overtaken several men who evidently had been out with them at the mountainside; Jesus smiled and once more lifted his hand in friendly greeting.

The centurion, reaching the gate, rode through it and toward the center of the city, where he turned left and followed a cavernous road to the gate in the southern wall. He was in no hurry as his horse picked its way along the cobblestones and out upon the coast road southward. His fright, his sudden hysteria had gone; it had vanished completely as he had looked into the eyes of the young rabbi. Cornelius knew that Lucian would be well; not the shadow of a doubt darkened his thoughts.

When he reached home and turned into his courtyard, a servant came running to take his horse. “Lucian, sir, is well again!” the man declared, almost breathless with the excitement of being the first to give his master the thrilling news.

“Yes, I know it.” Cornelius smiled.

“But, sir, it was only an hour ago that....”

“A man over at Capernaum told me then,” he said and strode toward the house as the servant, mouth open, stared after him.

As he stepped inside from the courtyard, his wife, who had heard him ride in from the roadway, rushed to him and flung her aims about his waist. “Oh, Cornelius, Lucian has been restored! Not only has his fever gone, but so has the paralysis. He can use his arms and hands, and he can walk as though nothing had ever been wrong with his legs!”

She stood back from him, her eyes wet with the sudden surging of her emotion. “Isn’t it wonderful, Cornelius! And it happened so quickly, too; he was low, Cornelius, desperately sick, much sicker than when you left, I’m sure, and the fever was consuming him. I had turned aside from his bed a moment to wet a cloth to spread on his forehead; then, as I wrung it out and turned back to him, suddenly he sat up. I caught him under his arms and discovered that he was no longer feverish; in a moment he was talking and using his hands, and then quickly he stood up and walked toward the table where I had set the pitcher of cool water. ‘I’m so thirsty,’ he said, grinning at me, ‘and hungry, too.’”

“Yes, I knew about it. It happened about an hour ago. Where is Lucian now?”

“He went out to the stables. He wanted to see his horse; he hadn’t....” Abruptly she broke off and stared at her husband, incredulous. “Cornelius, how did you know when it happened? Did one of the servants tell...?”

“Yes, when I rode in a moment ago. But I knew when it happened.”

“But how, Cornelius?” Her amazement was evident.

“Have you forgotten that I went in search of the carpenter of Nazareth? Well, an hour ago I came upon him beyond the western gate of Capernaum. I implored him to heal Lucian, and he did. He told me so. And I knew he had; I had not the slightest doubt. Nor am I in the least surprised to find him well.” His serious expression relaxed into a warm smile. “Did you feed the young imp?”

“Yes. And he was famished. Literally, Cornelius, the boy ate like a horse.”

“Well, he hadn’t had anything in days; he was bound to be empty.”

“But, Cornelius, this carpenter from Nazareth....” She paused, her forehead furrowed in perplexity.

“Yes,” he said, not waiting for her to finish her question, “and, by all the gods, I’d like to see Longinus try to explain this one away!”

Rome

27

When the vessel eased in to dock just below the Sublicious Bridge, almost at the spot from which the “Palmyra” had started its voyage, Longinus went ashore. Quickly he engaged a loitering freed slave to help with his luggage. He had brought little from Phoenicia, only his clothing and a few small presents for his mother, principally some choice pieces of glass, and the package he was delivering to Sejanus.

“I’ll carry this,” he said to the fellow; “it’s glass and fragile.” He picked up the bundle, heavily wrapped. “And I’ll take this spare toga, too. You can carry the remainder. I don’t want any sedan chair; I’d rather walk. I want to get my land legs back.”

The toga had been wrapped about the money packet, which Longinus had kept securely under his arm as he descended from the ship. But it was an innocent looking bundle and only its weight would have excited a bearer’s suspicion. Longinus had determined not to let it get out of his possession until he had locked it in his father’s safe to await its delivery to the Prefect.

They walked from the pier along the way that went eastward from the bridge into the dense, traffic-jammed heart of the city. At the foot of Palatine Hill they turned left and walked northward past the western front of the Imperial Palace. Glancing over his shoulder as they reached the northwest corner of the sprawling great structure, Longinus had a glimpse of the wing that had been Claudia’s apartment; once again he picked out the bedroom window through which that morning he had heard the rising bugle at Castra Praetoria.

“I wonder....”

“Sir, did you say something?” His helper, trudging behind, paused.

“No.” Longinus turned to face him. “I was just thinking, talking to myself.”

All the way from the dock area Longinus had been retracing the route he had come with his century from Castra Praetoria the day they sailed for Palestine. But a hundred paces farther on, instead of continuing past the Forum of Augustus on their left, he turned abruptly westward. “I want to walk through the Forum Romanum,” he explained. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. I’ve lost touch with Rome. What’s been happening lately?”

“Very little, sir, as far as I’ve seen.” The fellow shook his head resignedly. “No triumphs, as I recall, no big ones anyway, and precious few games.”

“Why haven’t there been more?”

“Oh, I don’t know, sir. They say the Emperor gets no enjoyment out of such things, and he’s not here in Rome most of the time anyway, and I hear it told that the Prefect doesn’t want to spend the money....”

“They do say that?”

“Now, sir, I have heard such talk. Understand, I don’t know anything about it; I don’t know anything about them, the Emperor and the Prefect. Not a thing. I don’t even know whether I’d recognize either one of them if he came right up to us now.” The fellow’s fear that he had spoken too boldly was obvious. “All I ever get done, sir, is work; I have to struggle hard to make a living. Seems that it’s just like it’s always been in Rome, the way I see it, which is that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” He grinned good-naturedly. “I’m meaning no offense to you, Centurion; likely you’re one of the rich ones.”

“I understand, and I suspect it’s a sound observation, that the rich do get richer and the poor get poorer, I mean. But it’s not true of Rome alone; it’s that way everywhere, isn’t it, throughout the world?”

“I couldn’t say as to that, sir. Rome’s pretty much my world.”

Rome was his world, too, Longinus told himself a moment later as the two were propelled suddenly from the shaded cavern of the cobblestoned narrow street into the widened stir and commotion of a veritable forest of marbled columns and statuary.

The centurion’s heart lifted as he strode once more into the Forum Romanum, that busy, marble-crowded flat between the Tiber’s westward bend and the mansion-crowned hills. He took a deep breath, and his chest swelled.

_... This is the veritable beating, pulsing heart of Rome, and Rome is the world. Here is reality. Here are solidity, strength, planning made real, dreams hewn in enduring stone. Here are wealth, accomplishment, power, might. Not twenty paces across there is the Millenarium Aureum, the resplendent bronze column set up to mark the center of the Roman world, the point from which miles are counted along the highways and their joining sea lanes stretching to the ends of the known earth to bind Rome into one colossal, unconquerable, enduring Empire!..._

They paused to catch their breath. Longinus set down the glass, but he continued to clutch the toga-wrapped packet under his arm. In another moment they would push once more into the jostling, shoving multitude milling through the Forum’s crossways. Suddenly the centurion remembered Cornelius and their discussion that afternoon as the two men had sat in the wrecked rowboat near the glassworks. He smiled grimly.

_... But this is Rome. This is reality. This is accomplishment, creation. I can reach out and run my hand over the stone and feel these marbled creations of men; a thousand years from now, were I to live so long, I could rub my hands across their imperishable cold faces. These are tangible things, and Rome is tangible, her power, her strength, her wealth, her dominance over the world. Cornelius may prate of his old tutor’s preachments about the imperishability of the intangibles and the reality of things unseen. But these statues, these temples, this Millenarium Aureum, are tangible. Rome is carved statuary and fluted marble magnificence; Rome is spacious mansions and marching great armies flaunting their ensigns. Rome is poverty, too, and injustice and ugliness at times and in places, but Rome is no pale intangibles, no vaporous conjurations of an eastern philosopher. Rome is not even her gods. This is Rome, this marbled splendor of the Forum; Rome is here and now and touchable and real, and Rome, by all the gods or no gods, will endure._

_... Rome is something else. Rome is strength and power and substance, but Rome is also grace and beauty. Examine these graceful columns, these elegant pediments. Rome is feminine, a beautiful woman. Rome, by the great Jove, is Claudia. Indeed! What is more Rome than Claudia; what is more Claudia than Rome? Rome is beauty and pleasure, tangible, real, to be experienced, enjoyed._

_... And Rome will endure. That carpenter of Galilee, wandering up and down the seacoast with his little band of poor working people, talking of intangibles to illiterate fisherfolk and the dwellers in Jerusalem’s festering Ophel, that fellow to overcome Rome! Even under the silvery softness of a full moon beside the sea in Galilee, it was a preposterous notion. But here in the middle of the Forum, with confirmation of Rome’s might everywhere around...._

“By all the gods, Cornelius. Can’t you see?”

The man carrying Longinus’ belongings whirled suddenly around. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he asked, “did you command anything of me?”

Longinus laughed. “No,” he answered. “I was just thinking aloud again. I must be growing old.” He reached down and picked up the glassware package. “But let’s be moving on. I’m anxious to get to my father’s house.” He pointed the directions. “Out that way and on through the Forum of Augustus to Via Longa. The house is on Quirinal Hill.”

28

Longinus placed the package on the desk in front of the Prefect. “Sir, I’m delivering this to you just as I received it at the glassworks,” he said. “I have not seen the contents; I don’t know what’s inside. The package when it was handed to me was sealed as you see it now; the seals have not been broken.”

“Thank you, Centurion, for bringing it; it has been quite a responsibility, I know.” The Prefect’s darting eyes, Longinus saw, had examined the package already. The centurion, appraising Sejanus in the short moment he had been in the ornate chamber, had observed no change in the Prefect’s appearance. Judging by the man’s looks and demeanor, it might well have been only yesterday that they had last met. The small, cold eyes were just as carefully calculating as they had been the day the Prefect had given Longinus his orders and sent him and Cornelius eastward aboard the “Palmyra.” Now the eyes were disarmingly friendly. “My purpose in having it so well sealed was not because I didn’t trust you, Longinus, but because I wished the manager at the glassworks to know that no one but himself could be blamed in the event that the contents were subsequently found short. I knew that he would therefore make sure that the packet left Phoenicia intact.” The blinking, small eyes narrowed. “So actually, you see, it was a protection for you.” With a flourish of the hand he motioned to the chair in front of the massive desk. “Sit down, Centurion.”

“Thank you, sir.” Longinus took the seat and faced the Prefect.

Sejanus leaned forward and crossed his hands on the desk. “In all likelihood, Centurion, you’ve been wondering why I summoned you to Rome.”

“I have wondered, sir.”

“Yes, I’m sure you have. And I’m sure you’ve also guessed that I dispatched my message to you before receiving your report.”

“I had presumed so, sir.”

“And right you were. Had I received the report but a few days earlier I would not have summoned you here. But once I’d received your communication, I had no way of countermanding my order to you so that you would get it before sailing for Rome.” He sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest; his entire attitude radiated good humor. “But I’m glad it happened as it did, Longinus. I’d rather like to hear in person from you concerning the situation in Palestine. It was a good report, Centurion, and comprehensive, so far as such written reports go. But I had the feeling in reading it that you might have had further information to give had you been able to talk with me directly. Perhaps discretion had cramped your writing hand.” Now his smile was disarming. “But here, with no ears to hear us but our own, we can talk with complete freedom. I, too, can say things that I would not dare write.”

The Prefect unfolded his arms and, leaning forward, drummed his fingers on the desk. He studied the centurion briefly through narrowed eyes, then sat back again.

“How did you leave the Procurator, Longinus?”

“He was quite well, sir, when I left him at Caesarea. But your message overtook me at Tiberias, and I had then been away from Caesarea for some time. I went on to the glassworks and sailed from Tyre, as you suggested.”

“Then you have seen Herod Antipas quite recently?”

“Yes, sir. I saw the Tetrarch and Herodias and told them good-by just before leaving Tiberias. I had escorted them to Galilee from their landing at Caesarea.”

“And how did the daughter of King Aretas accept Herod’s new wife?”

“She didn’t, sir. She has left him and returned to her father. She....”

“By winged Mercury!” Sejanus lunged forward and slammed his fist against the desk. “Gone, you say? Fled to Aretas? By great Jupiter! But this you did not report, Longinus!”

“Sir, Herod didn’t know she was gone until we arrived at his capital. I was preparing to dispatch a report to you when I received your summons, and then I decided I would bring the report in person, instead.” He ventured a wan smile, and the Prefect himself relaxed.

“I understand; you did right, Centurion.” Then his countenance darkened, and his narrow forehead wrinkled. “This is a matter of considerable moment; I shall come back to it presently.” He shook his head. “Yes, it could have dire repercussions. But for the moment, let us speak of more pleasant things.” His small weasel-like face lighted with a thin but suggestive smile. “Longinus, when did you last see Claudia? How is the Procurator’s wife?”

“I saw her in Tiberias the day before I left there for Phoenicia, sir. Herodias and Herod Antipas had invited her to accompany them to Tiberias for a visit.”

“And Pilate didn’t object to her going up into Galilee with them ... and you?” He licked his lips and drew them in thin lines across his teeth.

“If he did, sir, he did not indicate anything of the sort to me.”

“I’m sure the Procurator would do nothing that he thought might displease the Emperor’s stepdaughter. But what he thinks, however, is a different matter, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure it is, sir.” Longinus expected momentarily that the Prefect would begin plying him with intimately personal questions concerning his relations with the Procurator’s wife, and he wondered desperately how he should answer. But, happily, Sejanus turned away from the Procurator’s affairs to return to a discussion of the Tetrarch’s.

“You were saying a moment ago, Longinus”—the familiar scowl had returned to the Prefect’s face—“that Herod’s wife has gone back to old Aretas. Have you had any reports concerning his feelings toward Herod for the way his daughter has been treated?”

“He was greatly angered, according to reports coming back to Galilee, sir.”

Sejanus shook his head slowly. “No doubt.” He reflected a moment. “Has there been any talk of possible reprisal?”

“There has been some talk that Aretas might attempt to punish Herod. But that would mean war, sir, and war with us Romans. So I feel that Aretas would hardly be so foolhardy as to attempt to send an army against Herod.”

“I hardly think so, either, Centurion. But a father will sometimes do foolish things when his daughter’s honor is at stake. If Aretas should challenge Herod, that will mean war, and war is expensive, Longinus. The cost in terms of both men and money is exorbitant ... and useless. War would also mean loss of work and production and loss of revenue in addition to the expenditure of revenue already collected.” His frown deepened. “By the great gods, I should never have permitted Herod to have Herodias. He has not only offended his own people; he has now set King Aretas against him ... and us!”

Angrily the Prefect drummed his fingers on the desk again. Then quickly his anger seemed to disappear. He arose, and the centurion stood with him. “But we need not anticipate events,” Sejanus said. “When you go back to Palestine, however, I want you to make a careful investigation of the situation. It might be well for you to contrive some reason for visiting our fortress at Machaerus; it’s over beyond the Dead Sea on the borders of Arabia; perhaps by going there you may learn whether Aretas is actually planning to attack Herod.”

“I’m familiar with the place, sir. I was there several years ago.”

“Yes. By the way, in your report of Herod’s arrest of that desert preacher, you indicated that he may have displeased a large number of the Jews.”

“I’m confident he did, sir. Many of them hold that John in the highest regard. I think Herod made a mistake, sir, and I felt it my duty to inform you so.”

“But wasn’t Herod justified in believing him to be an insurrectionist?”

“At first, sir, I confess I thought so. But Cornelius, who understands the Jews, insisted that he was just a harmless religious fanatic, and nothing more. Frankly I soon came to the same conclusion. The fellow is deluded, of course, but so are most of the Jews in respect to their foolish one-god religion; other than that, I’m convinced that he’s entirely harmless. And he has many followers who were deeply offended when Herod, at the insistence of Herodias, had him arrested.”

“By the gods, that headstrong woman! She will be Herod’s ruination!” He was thoughtfully silent. “Perhaps, Centurion, Rome might profit if I had the man liberated. At any rate, look into the matter, and let me hear as quickly as you can”—his scowl deepened—“if it will wait that long ... and if Aretas isn’t precipitate in sending an army against Herod.”

“But, sir....”

“I haven’t told you, Longinus,” the Prefect interrupted. “You aren’t returning at once to Palestine. Now that you’re here, I have another mission, quite urgent, that I’m sending you on into Gaul. When you have accomplished this—and it should require only a few months—you will go out to the east again.”

Sejanus pushed out his lips into a round pucker, and once more his eyes began to catch fire and his narrow face lighted sensually. Then he twisted his lips again into the thin semblance of a smile. “I hope, Centurion, that you can wait that long ... before getting back to Claudia!” Then quickly the smile was gone. “Remember, Longinus, she must be kept away from Rome, and it will continue to be your task to keep her happily occupied.” The lips twisted again. “That task, I should think, will not be an unpleasant one.”

Machaerus

29

Someone knocked on the door to Claudia’s apartment, and Tullia was sent to answer it. She ran quickly back into the tepidarium.

“Tertius says there’s a soldier to see you, Mistress, a centurion. He’s waiting in the atrium.”

“Longinus! Oh, by the Bountiful Mother!” But quickly Claudia’s elation subsided. “He must still be in Gaul, though, according to the information Sergius Paulus had from Rome. Still”—her face lighted—“he might have returned early, perhaps, and caught a fast vessel to Caesarea. Bona Dea, Tullia, help me finish dressing! The perfume, that vial”—she pointed—“the Tyrian. And do hurry, Tullia!”

A few minutes later she scurried breathlessly into the atrium. But the soldier was not Longinus. The Centurion Cornelius arose and advanced to meet her. He saw her disappointment and smiled understanding. “I’m sorry, Claudia, but Longinus hasn’t returned to Palestine, nor have we heard at Tiberias when he expects to arrive. I’ve come to bring you a message from the Tetrarch Herod Antipas and the Tetrarchess.”

“I’ll confess I was hoping Longinus had surprised me, Cornelius,” she said, “although I’d heard that he was still in Gaul. Did you know about his assignment out there?”

Cornelius nodded. “Yes. But we understood it was not to be a lengthy mission.”

Claudia motioned to a seat; she sat down and Cornelius sat facing her. She summoned Tertius to bring wine and wafers. “And now, Centurion,” she said, “what is the message you fetch me from Tiberias?”

“They are inviting you and the Procurator to go with them down to Machaerus to spend a holiday season there. And if the Procurator’s duties will not permit his leaving his post, the Tetrarchess hopes that you will join them anyway, together with your servants and any guests you may wish to bring.”

“To Machaerus? That’s the fortress castle on the other side of the Dead Sea, isn’t it, on the southern border of Peraea?”

“Yes, it’s on a high plateau overlooking the Dead Sea, some way south of Mount Nebo.”

“A wild and desolate country, isn’t it? I’ve never been there.”

“I understand so; I’ve never been there myself. A good place, they say in Tiberias, for the sort of holiday the Tetrarch particularly enjoys ... wild, uninhibited, like himself.”

Claudia laughed appreciatively. “It promises to be interesting at any rate. But”—her face clouded perceptibly—“I know that Pilate won’t go. In the first place, he loathes Antipas—and I do, too, as a matter of fact—and in the second place, he wouldn’t venture that far from provincial headquarters. But he might let me go. And it would be a change from this dreary existence.” She brightened. “When are they planning to make this holiday excursion?”

“As a matter of fact, they’ve probably already started. They sent me on ahead in the hope that you might agree to join them; if you should, I’m to escort you and your party to the Jordan, where they plan to meet us. They were to start this morning from Tiberias. If we could leave by tomorrow morning, we would be able to reach the Jordan at about the same time they do. From there we would continue down the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea and around its eastern shore at the foot of Mount Nebo to Machaerus.”

“How long do they plan to be there?”

“A week or longer, probably longer”—Cornelius smiled glumly—“if the Tetrarch has to recover from one of his usual drunken orgies. But if you should wish to leave earlier, I’d be glad to escort you back to Caesarea. And we’ll see that you don’t ran afoul of Bar Abbas or any of those other zealot cutthroats.”

“I really would like to go, and I see no reason why I shouldn’t, even if Pilate won’t. If I only knew that Longinus would be there.” ... She broke off, laughing. “Cornelius, why do you suppose old Sejanus recalled him to Rome? Do you think it was because of”—she shrugged—“well, us? And do you suppose he’ll continue to provide assignments that will keep him away from Palestine?”

Cornelius shook his head. “I hardly think so, Claudia. The Prefect, in my opinion, summoned him to Rome to inquire about the situation out here. I think he wanted to learn about the temper of the people, how the Jews were taking to Antipas and his new wife, and to the new Procurator; that was one reason, I’m sure. But he was mainly interested in learning whether the revenue was flowing into his treasury without being diverted in part into the coffers of....” He paused.

“Pilate and Antipas?”

“That’s my opinion, Claudia. I don’t believe the Prefect is really concerned with anything beyond keeping the province peacefully paying its taxes. So I’m confident Longinus will be sent back to Palestine, he’s the man Sejanus needs for the job he gave him ... and still needs; he’ll be back, though I’d hesitate to predict when.” He shrugged his shoulders. “For a soldier, I’ve been speaking very freely, and to the wife of the Procurator, at that.”

“And for the wife of the Procurator, so have I. But I’m not naïve enough to think, Cornelius, that you don’t know just how little I am Pilate’s wife. You must feel free to talk with me in complete frankness, just as I feel free to talk that way with you. And tomorrow, by the gods, Pilate willing or Pilate grumbling—and he won’t grumble at me, by the Great Mother—I’ll start with you for Machaerus.”

30

The two sat in a protected spot of warming sunshine on the terrace at Machaerus. A week ago as the caravan bringing the Tetrarch’s party had moved down the low trough of the Jordan, the faintly greening willows and oleanders bordering the twisting stream had hinted of spring. But here on this desolate, upflung headland, barren and granite-capped, the March winds were crisply chill.

“Are you cold?” Herodias asked. “Would you like to go inside?”

“No, it’s wonderful out here, as long as we’re sheltered from the wind. It’s so bracing, so invigorating after all our dissipating....”

“But, my dear, I haven’t been aware of your dissipating at Machaerus. With Longinus not here....”

“Pluto roast old Sejanus! But too much wine, nevertheless, and entirely too much rich food.” Claudia looked out from beneath long eyelashes. “After all, isn’t more indulging done in banquet halls than in bedrooms?”

“As far as I’m concerned, yes, certainly.”

“But the Tetrarch is here with you, Herodias, and he appears to be in a gay holiday mood.”

“Here with me? Hah!” She tossed her head disdainfully. “With his women, you mean, those dark, fat, greasy, perfume-reeking Arabian women old Aretas gave him. And his little girls.”

“Little girls?”

“Yes. Hadn’t you noticed? They seem at the moment to be an important part of the Machaerus staff. As Antipas gets more senile—and I’m sure he’s getting that way—he tries more and more to ape the Emperor. At least, that’s what I believe he thinks he’s doing. It’s disgusting, of course, but I welcome being relieved of his crude attentions.”

“But in Rome, Herodias, weren’t you eager to marry Antipas?”

“Yes, but you know why. I wanted to marry the Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea so that I could make him a king and myself a queen. I sought the office, my dear, not the man.” She pulled her lips into a determined grim line. “And I still expect to see him on a king’s throne, with me seated beside him. But as a man Antipas has as much attraction for me as ... as I suppose Pilate has for you.”

Claudia laughed understanding, but made no observation. Instead, she pointed westward. “Look how high we are here. The Dead Sea seems almost below us, and it must be several miles away.”

“The surface of the Dead Sea is a quarter of a mile below the surface of the Great Sea. And we’re a half mile above the Great Sea; that would make us, where we sit now, about four thousand feet above the Dead Sea, wouldn’t it? Jerusalem, of course, is almost this high.” Herodias twisted around slightly to point northwestward. “See, across there, almost straight west of the top of the Dead Sea, that’s Jerusalem. It’s too far away, of course, for us to distinguish any of the buildings, but the city’s on that rise, just there. Sometimes of a late afternoon, when the angle is just right, they say, one can see the sunlight flashing from the golden roof of the Temple.”

Claudia looked off to her left and settled back in her chair. “Herodias, why did they ever build this palace in such a desolate, rockbound region so far from everything?”

“I asked Antipas the same question. He said it was built more as a fort than a palace. This is near the southern boundary of the tetrarchy. Down there”—she pointed southward above a narrow valley fast greening with luxuriant vegetation—“beyond that stream with its banks lined with willows is the kingdom of Aretas. The Herods originally came from that region at the southern end of the Dead Sea, which was called Idumaea. So this fortress up here was built as a defense post.”

“Then Aretas isn’t far away, is he? By the way, what became of his daughter, the woman you displaced?”

“I don’t know, and what’s more, I don’t care!” She realized that she had spoken petulantly. “I didn’t mean to be short, Claudia. I have no reason to hate her, after all. And I have no idea that she or her father will attempt reprisal against Antipas. Any attack upon him would be an attack upon Rome, and surely they wouldn’t risk that.”

“I think you need have no apprehensions. But, of course, I know absolutely nothing about this King Aretas or his daughter. Generally, though, I understand, these eastern peoples are impulsive and vindictive.”

“But they’re also known to be very shrewd. Surely he would know he couldn’t defeat Rome.”

“If he calmly considered the situation, yes.” She shrugged. “I hope so. If Rome should be involved in war with the Arabian king, Sejanus and the Emperor would both be infuriated, and Sejanus, I’m sure, would place the blame for it upon Antipas ... and you.” She had been looking downward beyond the descending outcroppings of granite and limestone and sand to the great sluggish salt sea far below them. But now she confronted Herodias, her countenance plainly concerned. “Herodias, if Aretas should seek vengeance against the Tetrarch and you, what would the Israelites do? Would they fight him? Have they become reconciled to your being Tetrarchess? Do many of them still hold with that wild fellow we encountered that day on the river bank?” She paused, and suddenly her eyes were roundly questioning. “Wasn’t it to Machaerus that Antipas sent him? By the gods, is he here now?”

“Yes, and still a troublemaker. They say his followers have been coming here all the time since he’s been imprisoned. Haven’t you noticed all the Jews coming and going while we’ve been here? Look.” She indicated a point far down the slope where the trail to Machaerus led from the road paralleling the lakeside. “That group down there, I’d wager they’re coming here to listen to the fellow’s haranguing. And they’ll try to see Antipas and petition him to free the madman.” For a moment she watched the men coming slowly up the slope. “If Antipas had done as I said and had the man beheaded, he could have prevented all this; while that fellow’s alive there’ll be more and more agitation against us.” She hunched up a shoulder. “But what can one do with a person,” she said indifferently, “who is not only fearful and woefully superstitious but is horribly obstinate as well?” She stood up. “Excuse me, Claudia; you stay out here and sun yourself as long as you like. But I have some things to do before we sit down to Antipas’ birthday banquet, one of which, no doubt”—her brittle laugh echoed across the terrace—“will be to get him sobered sufficiently to attend it himself.”

31

The Tetrarch, mouth open, his thick lips grease-smeared and wine-purpled, snored sonorously; his round, closely cropped head, cradled in his hand, swayed in precarious balance on the column of his forearm which was pressed into the heavy cushion.

Herodias, reclining at his left, had changed position to rest her head on her right arm and thereby avoid somewhat breathing the heavily alcoholic exhalations of her spouse; she lay facing her daughter.

Claudia, Herod’s guest of honor, was at his right, and next to her, as the ranking Roman soldier at Machaerus, Herod had placed the Centurion Cornelius. Other guests, in various stages of intoxication, sat or reclined on their elbows or had fallen inert on their couches to the right and left of the Tetrarch.

The banquet had begun in the daylight of late afternoon, and by the time the sun had dropped behind the western headlands the Tetrarch and his guests had begun to be surfeited with the richly tempting food, the wine, and the wildly sensual dancing of Herod’s darkly handsome Arabian women, who, nude but for gossamer thin, gaily colored loincloths, writhed and twisted in the open square before the tables to the oriental, whining insistence of the strings and the maddeningly rhythmical beat of the drums.

But now the dancers, their copper-hued perspiring bodies shining as though they had been rubbed with olive oil, had retired to a chamber adjoining the banquet room. From there they could come prancing out barefoot, with lewd twistings and contortings, at the first summons of the musicians. Until Antipas should arouse from his stupor, though, and call for them, they would be free to relax.

Cornelius, who had been eying the Tetrarch, nodded in his direction. “If we could get his head down flat,” he said to Claudia, “he’d be asleep until morning, and we could leave. Wouldn’t you like to get away?”

“Yes. I’m gorged. And I’d like to have a breath of fresh air on the terrace. Perhaps Herodias would excuse us. I had no idea that Antipas....”

But at that instant the Tetrarch’s head slipped from its cradling hand, and he fell face downward upon the cushion. The sudden drop awakened him, and he twisted his legs around heavily and sat up. The leader of the musicians, seeing him, signaled his men to begin playing and motioned to the dancers to return.