The Eighth Veil (21 page)
Was the Greek usage consistent with a pagan writer? Possibly, but he thought not. The physician knew the Hebrew Scriptures but he was an exception…or was he? Another mystery for another day. This letter writer cited bits and pieces from the book of Judges. An interesting and puzzling book to cite.
He poured over the letters finding they raised far more questions than they answered. He did arrive at one or two conclusions. They dealt with the girl’s identity. The queen had reported she’d been placed in her household by her first husband, the late Herod Philip. But he had since passed on to his reward, a dubious one, Gamaliel thought. He had admonished the queen to “keep an eye on her.” This girl, young woman, must have been the daughter of an important acquaintance. But what king will take in a friend’s daughter, place her with his queen, and not tell her what or who she was? A man to whom he owed a debt? Possible but…no…family. The most likely explanation would be that Cappo must somehow be connected to him by blood. She must have been one of the myriad multigenerational offspring of the late Herod. That knowledge would help, but not much. Offspring from his multiple marriages and liaisons plus his children’s similar behavior had resulted in an array of princes, princesses, kings, queens, and those who were neither one or the other but had ambitions in that direction.
Gamaliel read on until his wonderful lamp began to sputter. He lit another and stretched out on a low couch to continue his reading.
His servant found him the next morning asleep on the couch, the letters scattered across the floor where they had fallen from his hands when he had finally drifted off to sleep.
The palace seemed unnaturally quiet when Gamaliel entered it at midmorning. Earlier he’d sent a messenger to the Prefect informing him that the evidence against Menahem had collapsed and the investigation had recently taken a new and politically dangerous turn. He didn’t know what he meant by that exactly, but he assumed the combination of the words
politically
and
dangerous
would get Pilate’s attention and hold him at bay for a few days. Barak met Gamaliel at the entrance to the room he now thought of as the Interview Room. Barak waggled his eyebrows and glanced toward the wall. Gamaliel nodded his understanding. It seemed he had a monitor again. Who could it be this time?
“Is the steward here?”
“He said he would attend you soon. There has been an incident in the cellars.”
“An incident? What sort of incident would that be, Barak?”
The steward bustled in and interrupted any answer Barak might have given.
“Rabban, your pardon, but I fear there has been another death.”
“Murder?”
“No, yes, no…I can’t say. It’s suspicious. A man is dead.”
***
The cellars of this palace—like those Herod had built elsewhere—on the shores of the Great Salt Sea at Masada, the Herodium to the south, and Machaerus across the Jordan—had been designed by him to hold stores for extended periods of time. He’d lived in a chronic state of agitation, fearing possible plots against him, attempts on his life, his kingdom, and his family. To secure his body and court, he constructed his palaces like forts and his forts like palaces and all with storage space for enough food and water to sustain him and his followers for prolonged periods of time, even a siege by his enemies if necessary. But in Jerusalem under Antipas, less than half the space in the warren-like arrangement of connecting cellars did in fact hold material of that sort. Still, the goods and their amounts were substantial. Some served the current residency and the rest were the supplies needed for an extended stay or another later stay should the king suddenly force an unscheduled return.
All these goods were stacked close to the entry to the kitchens and servant’s work areas. Another cellar farther along had been designated as a place to store miscellaneous items and things no longer pleasing or useful to either the queen or her daughter. It was in this area that the crumpled body of a kitchen worker had been found with the back of his head crushed. Scattered next to him were the shards of a large clay pot along with the metal clasps, fasteners, and rivets it once held. The pot appeared to have fallen off the shelf above him which, Gamaliel noted, extended the width of the room. It contained rows of similar earthenware jars along its length with the one solitary gap where the shattered jar must have once been placed.
“An accident do you suppose?” he asked.
“It would seem so but…we may never know.”
“No? Did this poor man reach up to secure this jar only to have it slip and fall on him? And who is this man? What reason had he for being in the basement in the first place?”
“According to his master, he was sent for wine. It is kept in the large stone urns over against the opposite wall. He had no business in this area. His duties are simply to aid the cooks and cup bearers. His master said that he would go to the stores every morning and bring up whatever the cooks needed. He also had the duty to replenish the wine skins and urns from those great stone jars.”
“If that is so, what was he doing over here in this storage area?”
Chuzas held out his hands and shrugged. “I cannot say. Perhaps he thought to help himself to something among the queen’s things.”
“A pot full of fasteners? I think that unlikely. Let us try something else, he was drawn over here because he saw, or thought he saw something suspicious or out of place. He accidently bumps into the shelf and the pot drops on him.”
“Suspicious? Like what?”
“I can’t say, Steward, but it might have been anything or nothing, another servant pilfering, rats, a shadow, who knows? And there is also the real possibility that the jar did not fall on his head by accident.”
The steward’s face blanched and he began to sweat in spite of the mildewed chill afforded by the cellars. “If that is the case, you may have another murder to contend with, Rabban.” Chuzas’ eyes darted here and there, beginning panic, as if this new murder threatened to upset his household in ways the other didn’t.
“It will be my responsibility only to the extent that it can be shown to be connected to the death of the girl, Chuzas.”
“But surely, it must.”
“I don’t see why it must, but I concede that it most likely does.
“I see. Yes, well, what should we do?”
“For the time being, leave him exactly where he is.” He turned to the old man, “Barak, run fetch the physician, Loukas, and bring him here. Tell him it is urgent and that he should come at once. You remember where he lives?”
Barak nodded and hurried off. Chuzas found a rough measure of sacking and covered the body. He sent away the servants who had originally come in response to the cries of the person who’d discovered the body, and stayed to gawk—alternatively at the dead man, and at the famous Gamaliel.
“What would have caused that jar to fall in such a way as to kill this man?”
“Sir?”
“Sorry, Chuzas, I am thinking out loud, but as you are here, tell me, if this is an accident, why would he have tried to steal something of so little value?”
“He must not have known the contents and assumed the jar must have value. Why else would it be stored in the king’s cellars?”
Gamaliel reached up to the shelf and attempted to dislodge another, similar jar. It took considerable strength to move it a finger’s breadth.
“Even if he were trying to steal this jar, and had begun the process, he would have quickly learned that it would not be an easy task. Further, given the difficulty in moving these jars, I would expect that if it started to slip he would have easily stepped aside.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t know. We will await the arrival of the physician and hear what he has to say, but I am almost sure he will conclude this man’s death was not an accident. If that is the outcome, then we will indeed have to consider this another murder.”
“But, can you establish a connection to the dead girl?”
“Chuzas, I cannot even say it is a murder at this time, much less one connected to any other. Wait and see.”
While he waited for Loukas to join them, Gamaliel paced the area. He didn’t know what he thought he’d find but he searched anyway. That the area received a number of visitors each day seemed apparent and not just in the area where the food and consumables were kept. He saw traces, here and there, of visits to other parts of the cellar.
The physician arrived, greeted Gamaliel, and bent over the body. He turned the man’s damaged head to one side and stood.
“Congratulations, Rabban, you have another murder to reconcile for your master.”
“How can you tell?’
“The man’s head has been struck by a blunt instrument like a club or the heavy end of a sword, the hilt, maybe.”
“But what about the earthen pot?”
“Undoubtedly dragged off the shelf and allowed to shatter to create the illusion of an accident.”
“I do not need this additional distraction.”
“Yet here it is.”
Too many things were piling up around him. He hoped the physician could help him if it meant only listening to him while he talked. The two men, polar opposites, as Loukas might have described them, sat on the bench in the atrium just outside the bath. “Sometimes,” Gamaliel said, “just hearing the words in your own mouth can prompt a new thought. What do you think? This is the spot where this uncomfortable journey began.”
“I remember it so. So, Rabban, has your mysterious woman been dancing for you? Are there any new revelations you wish to tell me?”
“I wish you would erase that shameless image from your mind and our conversations. It is unseemly.”
Loukas smiled and cocked his head to one side. “I will, if you refrain from pontificating about your Law. Tell me what you have turned up, or would it be down? Sorry. Proceed.”
Gamaliel tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He let the late afternoon sun turn his world behind his eyelids red. After the damp of the basement, the warmth felt therapeutic. He cleared his throat and began. He told Loukas about the letters and what he surmised about the girl from their content. He said he felt sure the girl had been drawn into the bath with the promise of yet another letter. He told him of the evidence regarding Menahem’s knife and the role Chuzas played in that debacle. And he told him what he thought must have happened the night of the murder. He turned to his friend and saw the frown on his face.
“What?”
“I follow you as far as you seem to want to go. Something puzzles me, and has from the very beginning. Why was that girl raped and murdered? If, as you speculate, the object was to obtain the pendant, why kill her? As far as anyone knew, she did not warrant a second look. With the pendant gone, she had nothing.”
“The man was a brute, I suppose. Is there another reason to rape the girl?”
Loukas shrugged. It was a question without an answer.
“Wait, perhaps, Physician, there is. Rape in our Law is a heinous crime. Chastity is held in high esteem. If a man, for example, discovers his bride is not a virgin on the wedding night, he may ask for and will receive an annulment, no questions asked and…What was your question again?”
“I asked—”
“Yes, yes, I know what you said. Listen, suppose for a moment this girl represented a powerful family, which she must have, judging by the inscription on the pendant. She is a member of or close to someone with power or maybe only potential power, a threat either way to certain parties. Then suppose there were forces allied to prevent her family from assuming that power or, if they got it instead, intended that there be no successor from their rival?”
“Sorry, I am not following you.”
“No one would marry her if she was impure, don’t you see?”
“Impure? Surely if a woman is forcibly deprived of her virginity, she can’t be thought of as
impure.
”
“Perhaps not for you. For us, it is a fact, like it or not. We can debate the justice of that position some other time. It is not critical in the high thin air of royalty always, but it can be. The point is, the man did not need to kill her. But having said that, I should point out that when he raped her, she became damaged goods, and unlikely to marry and therefore not likely to bear a son or daughter. Supporters of her family’s claims, if they were to find her offspring years later, would have had a legitimate pretender to put forward, you see? But as she was murdered in the bargain, the whole thing is now academic. Thank you, Physician, you have been most helpful.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, but you are most welcome.”
“I will tell you later. Now, tell me, why was the man killed in the cellars?”
“The stock answer would be either he saw something or he knew something that might reveal the girl’s killer to you. He, the killer that is, dared not take a chance of him talking either to you or someone else and so, removed him from the list of people you might have eventually interviewed.”
“It’s possible. Or he may have seen something, but did not know what it was but the killer could not be sure. If we could find out the thing or event he witnessed we would have the key to unlock this business.” Gamaliel twisted in his seat to face the entryway to the bath. “I am not a trained observer, Loukas, but I would swear there was evidence of other sandals scuffling through those cellars.”