The Inquest (29 page)

“Yes, armed.”

“Questor, I am prepared to go with you,” said Crispus. He sounded hurt at being left out. “I will go wherever you go, face whatever dangers you face. I am unafraid.”

“I need you to stay with the expedition, Quintus. If Marcus and myself were to fall, command would devolve to you. In that event, you must complete this mission.”

Crispus nodded vigorously. “I would not let you down. I swear.”

“I shall also have need of a secretary, to record Ben Naum’s testimony.”

“Naturally,” said Pythagoras, “as senior secretary that task shall be mine.”

“No, Pythagoras,” Varro returned, causing a deep frown to appear on the secretary’s brow. “Whatever transpires, you must write the report that Gnaeus Collega is expecting, using the notes taken to date.”

“Ah, of course.” This explanation pleased the white-bearded Greek.

“That leaves the post of secretary in this little party to you, faithful Artimedes.”

Artimedes gave an accepting nod. “I understand, questor.”

“Then I am the last member of the party, questor?” Pedius said expectantly.

“No, Pedius. Your task is the guardianship of the woman and the child, and of the Evangelist. Philippus is to be released once the expedition returns to Caesarea. If I do not return, the females are to be sent to the household of Paganus, a freedman of Antioch.”

Pedius was gratified by his assignment. “Yes, questor.”

Varro looked over to the centurion of the 4th Scythica. “Centurion Gallo…”

Gallo’s eyes had dropped while the questor was speaking. Hearing his name, he looked up. “Questor? Am I to be the fourth man?”

“No. Select one of your trumpeters as my fourth companion. One who can ride.”

“Er, yes, questor.” Gallo’s mystified expression mirrored the thoughts of everyone in the room apart from Varro. “A trumpeter? May I ask why?”

By way of replying, Varro turned to Crispus. “Command, until I make my return, is yours once I enter the forest, Quintus. If you should hear my trumpeter sound ‘To Arms’ from the forest, you and your men are to come to our aid, at the gallop.”

Crispus smiled. “I understand, questor. At the gallop! Faster even than that.”

“Then…” Varro lifted his drinking cup. “Good Fortuna be with us all tomorrow.”

His companions raised their cups. “Good Fortuna be with us all!” they chorused.

An eerie ring of light circled the forest. Holding burning torches, Roman soldiers stood every few yards. Now and then, fresh torches were distributed around the line. The watches of the night had been reduced from the traditional four to three. At four-hourly intervals the watch changed with a chorus of trumpets, and a fresh line of almost four thousand men moved in to relieve the weary sentinels who had marched all morning, dug a camp in the middle of the day, and stood motionless in the sun through the afternoon.

In the fourth hour of the night, after taking in the unique sight of the illuminated circle from the camp wall, Varro and Martius strolled through their camp. “Now that we know Miriam is a Nazarene,” Varro remarked as they walked, “I have told Pedius to allow her to spend time with Philippus during the day. If she so desires.”

“I would not want to spend my days with that old charlatan,” Martius returned.

Three figures now came bustling down the camp street toward them. Tribune Fabius led the way, with a freedman and a servant bearing a lantern close behind.

“Varro! A word!” Fabius called agitatedly as he came up.

“Be careful, Julius,” Martius counseled his friend in a low voice. “This turbulent fellow Fabius will not let sleeping dogs lie.”

“What can I do for you, Quintus Fabius?” Varro asked.

“I want you to assemble your freedmen, for inspection,” Fabius announced. “I suspect that your party harbors a criminal.”

“You really do tire my patience, Fabius.” It was obvious to Varro that the petty Fabius was in search of revenge for coming off second best to Varro during the day.

“You are reputed to have picked up a number of suspicious characters.”

“You are misinformed, Fabius. Apart from a Nazarene informant who joined us in Caesarea, all my people came down from Antioch with me.”

“You will forgive me if I satisfy myself?”

“You seek someone in particular?”

“As a matter of fact, I am—a Greek swindler by the name of Alcibiades. He tricked me out of a large sum of money at Caesarea.”

“Just how did this Alcibiades manage to swindle you, Fabius?” Varro was unable to disguise his mild amusement.

“Well, if you must know, I had arrived at Caesarea at the beginning of the spring and was waiting for General Bassus to arrive in the province when this fellow came to me with the information that he had discovered the ancient book of an Egyptian priest called Bolos which revealed the secrets of turning silver into gold.”

“Alchemy?” Varro stifled a laugh. “You believed this fellow?”

“Not at first, but when he provided an example of the science of Bolos…”

“What manner of example?”

“Before my very eyes,” Fabius continued, “he turned a silver sesterce into gold. He placed it one end of a device, and it came out gold at the other end.”

“You genuinely believed that he turned silver into gold?” Varro was incredulous.

“It was gold sure enough, Varro,” Fabius fumed. “Then he asked me to give him one thousand silver sesterces, so that he could turn them into gold for me.”

Varro could not believe his ears. “You gave him one thousand sesterces?”

“No, I did not give him one thousand sesterces.” Fabius’ eyes flashed guiltily away. “I gave him five hundred. And then he disappeared. With my money.”

Martius roared with laughter. “Five hundred sesterces!” A military tribune was paid forty thousand sesterces a year. A legionary, meanwhile, earned nine hundred a year. Fabius had given the swindler the equivalent of more than half a year’s pay for a soldier. “I knew you to be a simpleton, Fabius,” Martius declared, “and now you have proved it!”

“I will have you know I took a precaution against thievery!” Fabius countered.

“What manner of precaution?” Varro asked.

“The fellow gave me share scrip as security; scrip in the corporation running the largest horse farms in Syria, with hippodrome and army remount contracts.”

“And, of course,” said Varro, “the scrip was a forgery?”

Fabius lowered his head. “Yes,” he conceded.

Again Martius roared with laughter.

“An excellent forgery, but a forgery just the same,” Fabius said with a sigh. “As I discovered too late. Alcibiardes, or whoever he is, must have a scribe as an accomplice.”

“This all seems so blatant, Fabius,” Varro remarked, shaking his head. “How could you have allowed yourself to have been taken in by so obvious a deception?”

“Damn it all, Varro, I was the most senior Roman officer at Caesarea at the time! It did not occur to me that anyone would have the gall to thieve from me, of all people.”

“That was what your thief was counting on,” said Varro. “The most skilled deceivers set their sights high.” As a magistrate, he spoke from experience.

“I scoured Caesarea for the fellow. But what better way to escape than to fall in with a visiting officials party? I must insist that you turn out your people for inspection.”

“What does your Alcibiades look like? Describe him to me.”

“A Greek. A good-living Greek, with a paunch. Bald. Round-faced, and with a distinctive mole on his cheek. A man with a way with words.”

Varro and Martius looked at each other.

“A mole you say? Varro touched his own cheek. “Here? The size of a sesterce?”

Fabius’ eyes widened. “You do have him!”

“No. You will find your man outside Macherus, beside the Nabatea road,” Varro advised. “His name was not Aclibiades, but Aristarchus, and he was a scribe by profession. He would have been the one to forge your share scrip.”

Fabius beamed. “Beside the Nabatea road you say? I will send a cavalry detachment to apprehend him at once.”

“There is no hurry,” said Varro. “Aristarchus is going nowhere.”

“Only as far as the wind will blow him,” commented Martius dryly.

Fabius frowned. “I fail to understand.”

“The man is dead, Fabius, and cremated,” said Varro “Someone cut his throat for his money. Your money. When he thought that his crime would catch up with him he fled my expedition, and into the arms of some cutthroat on the Jericho road.”

Varro and Martius had gone to the camp wall, for one last look at the ring of fire before they turned in for the night. Fabius had left them in the camp street, feeling the fool he was, and feeling cheated of his revenge on the man who had swindled him.

“It all makes sense now,” said Martius, inclining his head and taking in the stars. “Aristarchus was indeed a liar and a deceiver.”

“Aristarchus knew it would only be a matter of days before we overtook the 10th, and its tribune, his victim Fabius. That was why he fled our camp.”

“Did his escape have everything to do with Fabius and alchemy, and nothing to do with his testimony to us about Pilatus and the Nazarene? How much of what he told us about the rumored Nazarene execution conspiracy can we believe, Julius? If any of it?”

“About the Nazarene, Centurion Longinus, Matthias ben Naum, and the drug? How much indeed, my friend? Let us hope that Ben Naum can answer that tomorrow.”

Forest of James, “Territory or idumea,
Roman Province or Judea. May, A.D.71

Morning had arrived, and clad the earth in her saffron robe. All eyes tracked to the forest. In the dawn’s low light, a single rider could be seen emerging. Varro settled his helmet on his head, fixed the chinstrap in place, then eased his horse forward. He led the way at walking pace through the line of troops with their spluttering torches, down the grassy rise toward the distant rider. Artimedes came next, followed by Martius and Alienus. Publius, a pale, curly-headed legion trumpeter of sixteen years of age whose instrument curled over his left shoulder, came last of all.

The brother of Miriam sat waiting for them. As they joined him in the open, Jacob looked past the quintet. Like a flooding river, Roman troops were flowing from the camp and spreading to left and right behind the encircling line at double time. “What are they doing?” Jacob queried suspiciously.

“Reinforcing the line,” Varro replied. “As a precaution. If your people play the honest game, the legion will not interfere. Is Matthias ben Naum waiting?”

Jacob returned his attention to the questor. “Yes, he awaits.”

Varro nodded toward the forest. “Then lead on.”

Jacob turned his horse around and headed for the trees at the trot.

“Alienus and I will go first, questor,” Martius called, spurring his horse forward.

Varro let the two officers precede him. With Artimedes at his side he came along close behind. As before, the boy trumpeter brought up the rear. Holding his reins with the right hand and his trumpet at his shoulder with the left, the youngster looked anxiously all around him as the Jewish envoy led the way into the trees.

Easing back to the walk, Jacob followed a narrow track just wide enough to allow passage to a wagon or cart. The track meandered in a generally westerly direction. Two by two, the Romans followed him down the track at a short distance. The track climbed onto a rise, then fell away sharply to the left on the far side. There was no sign of life in the foliage to left or right. No animal stirred. No bird beat its wings among the branches. No partisan raised his head.

Varro’s muscles were tensed. He was prepared to defend himself at the first sign of threat. Yet, despite feeling more vulnerable than at any other time in his life, he projected an aura of calm indifference. As a Roman magistrate should.

After several minutes riding, they came to a natural clearing, roughly round in shape and some two hundred and fifty feet across. The grass had been pressed down, and there were circular piles of charcoal at regular intervals. It appeared to Varro that until recently there had been tents and cooking fires in this clearing, but he detected no movement in the surrounding trees. In the middle of the open space there was an oblong hole, freshly dug, ten feet long and four feet across. The earth from the hole had been thrown onto the ground behind it, forming a low mound.

Jacob dismounted at the edge of the clearing.

“This is the meeting place?” Martius called, as the Romans reined in around him.

“This is the place,” Jacob confirmed. “Here we dismount.” He slipped from the saddle, and following his lead, Varro dropped to the ground. His four companions warily did the same.

“What is the purpose of the hole in the ground?” Martius asked. With his left hand he held
his sword scabbard, securing it so that he only had to reach over with his right and draw his sword with one swift, smooth motion.

“You will see soon enough,” Jacob answered.

“Probably intended to be our grave,” said Alienus with a wry smile.

“We came in good faith, Jacob,” said Varro impatiently. “Where is Ben Jairus?”

Jacob nodded toward the far side of the clearing. As he did, three darkly-bearded men stepped from the trees. “That is Judas ben Jairus.”

None of the Jewish partisans wore a weapons belt. Nor were there weapons in their hands. The central figure wore armor with silver and jet inlay, the armor of a Roman centurion he had killed in the Sanctuary of the Temple during the battle for Jerusalem. This was Judas, son of Jair, leader of the second last Jewish rebel force under arms.

“Can they speak?” said Martius. “Or are they dumb?”

“You must disarm before Judas will enter into any discussion,” Jacob advised.

Varro shook his head. “First, I will speak with Matthias ben Naum. Where is he?”

“Look in the pit.”

All five Romans looked toward the excavation at the center of the clearing. From where they stood none could see into it. Varro tethered his horse to a bush. As the others did the same, the questor walked toward the pit. Alienus quickly joined him.

With his right hand Martius grabbed Jacob by the back of the tunic. “You come with us,” he growled, hauling the Jewish envoy with him as he followed Varro.

Artimedes and the trumpeter quickly fell in behind.

When Varro and Alienus reached the edge of the pit and looked down they could see it was some seven feet deep and that a lone figure swathed in a brown cloak sat on the earth floor. The man was big-framed, gray-headed and gray-bearded, with well-tanned skin. He might have been aged in his sixties, or seventies. Looking up, and, seeing faces appear around the perimeter of his place of confinement, he smiled. “You are the Romans? Come to question me?”

“You are Matthias ben Naum?” Varro responded.

“I am he,” said the man, effortlessly drawing himself to his feet.

Varro looked down at the Jew with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. He had marched across Judea to find this man, yet, the questor was strangely unexcited by what he saw. He had not imagined Ben Naum like this; he had pictured him small and wizened. This fellow was tall and powerful. The Jew held his right arm against his chest, as if it were injured.

“What is your occupation?” Varro asked him.

“Apothecary,” came the immediate rejoinder.

“From where do you hail?”

“From Jerusalem. Help me out of here, my lords. Judas put me in this hole so that I might not run away. I give my word, if you help me out, I won’t run.”

“Will you answer my questions, about the death of the Nazarene?”

“Of course. I will tell you all you want to know. Just help me out of here, good lords.” Smiling broadly, the man stretched up his left hand to Varro. But the questor, feeling that something was not quite right—precisely what, he could not put his finger on—held back. So the smiling Jew turned to Alienus beside him. “Give me a strong right hand, friend, and pull me out of here.”

Decurion Alienus dropped to one knee. While holding the long scabbard of his cavalry sword in place at his side with his left hand, the Egyptian reached down to the Jew with his right. “Here, take hold.”

The Jew wrapped his large, callused hand around Alienus’ right wrist, clasping it with an iron grip. “Pull away, my lord,” the man urged, grinning up at Alienus.

As Alienus went to stand and haul the Jew from the pit, Varro, looking down at the man still, was overcome with a growing feeling of unease. The Jew had reached up his left arm, apparently because his right was weak or useless. He had grasped Alienus’ right wrist, on the decurion’s sword arm. Alienus was now prevented from drawing his sword. All Roman soldiers were trained as right-handed swordsmen, reserving the left arm for a shield. With this simple act of grasping his right wrist, the Jew had for the moment rendered Alienus defenseless.

Yet, something else bothered Varro. Something about the Jew himself did not ring true. Even if the questor accepted that an apothecary could be tall and well-built, the man’s skin seemed oddly out of character. Surely, Varro now thought to himself, an apothecary worked indoors, making his potions and his preparations with his mortar and pestle and all the other equipment that an apothecary employed in his work. The skin of Saul ben Gamaliel, apothecary of Macherus, had been milk white. Yet, this man was so tanned by the sun his skin was like leather. This man had spent a lifetime out of doors. This man was no apothecary! “Wait, Alienus!” Varro yelled. “He is not Ben Naum!”

Even as the words were leaving the questor’s lips, the Jew’s right hand, the hand that had been seemingly useless only moments before, reached beneath his cloak. A sword slid from a concealed scabbard. The weapon shone like new; a Roman legionary
gladius
, twenty-two inches long, double-edged, with the short sword’s distinctive sharp pointed end. With hate in his eyes, the grinning Jew thrust upward with the weapon.

“No!” Varro bellowed.

Alienus had no chance to escape his fate. As the point of the sword came up at him he drew back his head and tried to pull away. But the Jew’s grasp was like a vice. In a desperate and instinctive act of self-defense the Egyptian went to reach for the sword’s razor-sharp blade with his bare left hand. His fingers reached the blade as the blade reached his neck. With all his strength, the Jew pushed the end of the sword up into the decurion’s exposed throat. At the same time, he dragged on Alienus’ right arm, pulling him onto the sword. The blade penetrated beneath Alienus’ jaw. The decurion’s eyes bulged, his mouth gaped open. The Jew withdrew the sword. The cavalryman hung on the edge of the pit, open mouthed, wide-eyed. Blood spurted from the entry wound. The Jew tugged with the left hand, and Alienus tumbled into the pit. Alienus had been right; this was indeed his grave.

All around the clearing, a victorious roar arose from a hundred throats. Varro looked up. Across the clearing, Judas ben Jairus and his two colleagues had dropped to their knees. They were scraping away loose dirt. Then they were rising to their full height once more, bearing swords and shields unearthed from hiding places at their feet. Judas was grinning at the questor. All around the clearing, scores of partisans were crashing through the trees, yelling at the top of their voices. Most did not have the luxury of armor. Many did not carry swords but were armed with simple spears, tree saplings with fire-hardened points. One or two were equipped with bows. Once in the open, the rebels came to a halt, and fell silent. Lining the perimeter of the clearing, they surrounded the five Romans in the same way that the Roman army surrounded the forest.

“By the thundering spouse of Juno, touch us, and you are all dead men!” Martius declared, drawing his sword.

“Yes, we are dead men!” Judas ben Jairus called back across the open ground in a rasping voice. “But we shall have the corpses of Roman officers to decorate our graves!”

Members of the partisan ring yelled in concert. All expected to die; they would die happy if they could take a Roman questor, tribune, and decurion with them. Seeing a chance to escape to his comrades, Jacob now broke away from Martius, ran around the pit and toward Judas Ben Jairus. Martius bounded around the opposite side of the pit to cut him off. Jacob, focused on reaching his leader, did not see the tribune coming. Martius raised his sword on the run. He swung it in a slashing motion.. The middle of the cutting edge caught Jacob on the right side of the neck, just below the ear. Driven by the force of the tribune’s blow, the steel cleaved through flesh and bone as if it were butter. Jacob threw up his hands, and fell forward. Martius came to a halt, standing over the fallen Jew. Jacob’s head had all but been cleaved from his body. In his death throes, the arms and legs of the youth were quivering.

There was an uncanny silence. The stunned partisans had watched the execution without a sound. Varro was the first to react. Turning to Publius the trumpeter, who stood beside him with a look of abject horror on his face, he grasped him by the arm, yelling, “Blow, boy! Sound ‘To Arms!’ Lose neither your courage nor your breath! Blow, boy!”

“With all your might,” Martius added, “so that even the gods might hear you!”

Prefect Quintus Crispus stood beside his horse. Behind him, Decurion Pompeius and his twenty-nine Vettonians also stood by their steeds, ready to mount up on the prefect’s order. In front of Crispus spread the ten cohorts of the 10th Legion in their battle lines. Away to left and right, three and a half thousand auxiliary foot soldiers, many carrying axes, stood in a line which circled the forest behind the inner line of mounted cavalry.

Immediately in front of Crispus, Centurion Gallo stood with his eighty men of the 4th Scythica Legion. In ten compact rows of eight men, they were ready to go into the forest with General Bassus’ army when and if the order was given. Junior Tribune Venerius stood with the centurion. To Crispus’ right, between the 10th Legions last line and the camp entrenchments,, stood General Bassus’ chariot, its two horses waiting calmly in their traces with a groom holding the bridle of one. The chariot itself was empty. Soon after the questor and his companions had entered the Forest of Jardes, General Bassus had been hit by severe pain, and had been carried back into the camp.

Crispus cocked his ear. The distant sound of musical notes wafted on the still morning air. A trumpet call, faint, but unmistakable. The legion call ‘To Arms,’ sounded over and over again. Crispus went cold. He was suddenly afraid. Not for himself, but for his questor. He whipped around to Decurion Pompeius. “You hear it?”

“I hear it,” said Pompeius gravely, nodding.

“Mount up!” Crispus ordered breathlessly.

Hostilis, Julius Varro’s servant, had been standing close by, watching and waiting for the questor s return like everyone else. He came running, to help Prefect Crispus up into the saddle. Behind Crispus, the Vettonians mounted their steeds. The detachment’s standard-bearer reached to the white standard of the Vettonian Horse that stood planted in the earth, lifted it up, and raised it high.

“Column of two’s!” Decurion Pompeius ordered.

As the cavalrymen were forming up in pairs behind Crispus and Pompeius, several horsemen came galloping toward them from the front of the 10th Legion formation—Tribune Quintus Fabius and an escort. “Where do you men think you are going?” Fabius called as he rode up.

“The trumpet call,” Crispus said urgently. “The questor’s signal for help!”

“No one may enter the forest without General Bassus’ express order,” said Fabius.

“But the general is not here,” Crispus returned, nodding to the empty chariot. “You can give permission in his stead, tribune. There is no time to waste!”