The Last Temple (28 page)

As Vitas made his way to his tent among the legions camped in the new quarter of Jerusalem, the rebels again charged the Roman soldiers as they were occupied with the fire at the gates of the inner court.

The fighting became impassioned. The Roman soldiers did not fight as a trained unit, but with the bloodlust of men who wanted to kill other men. The rebels scattered again.

This time the soldiers did not stop pursuit. They chased the rebels to the sanctuary, to the Holy of Holies. One of the soldiers, so filled with anger that he was not awed by the sight of something no heathen had ever seen, grabbed a burning brand.

He shouted for help, and a dozen eager hands hoisted him to a better vantage point. With a cry of satisfaction, he hurled the brand through a small golden door on the north side of the chamber.

The flames caught.

This was the ultimate desecration. The exterior of the Holy of Holies on fire!

Uncaring of their lives, dozens of Jews rushed forward among the soldiers to try to stop the fire.

Despite their efforts, the flames grew. So did the fighting as hundreds more Jews joined the first few dozen.

Vitas received word from a breathless messenger to join Titus outside the Temple sanctum. There, in the noise and the confusion, the soldiers could not hear Titus’s orders to stop. Or, in their bloodlust, they chose to ignore him.

Their fury was unstoppable.

Many were trampled by other soldiers rushing forward to kill more Jews. Others fell among the burning ruins, sharing the fate of the Jews they wanted dead.

More and more soldiers hurled torches into the depths of the sanctuary. The rebels were helpless with despair and no longer fought as the soldiers butchered them.

Corpses began to heap around the altar, and streams of blood flowed down the steps, just as the blood of countless calves had done over the centuries.

The fight spilled over to the women and children and old men who had taken sanctuary there, clinging to the altar and crying to the God of Abraham for mercy. For most, the mercy was in the savage quickness of death by the sword rather than the torturous crucifixion that still waited for tens of thousands in the weeks to come. At the altar, sharpened steel cut through supplicant flesh, just as if they had been bound sheep.

Yet the very innermost place of the Holy of Holies was still untouched.

Titus, Vitas, and the other commanders entered and stood as children, awed by the splendor within, by the sheen of plated gold, the draped jewels, the fine tapestries.

At the sight of the treasure, Titus rushed out again and appealed to his troops. The inner sanctum must be saved! Not just because of the woman he loved, but because of the incredible beauty and wealth, because of the prize it would be for Rome.

He even ordered a nearby centurion to club any Roman soldier who disobeyed.

But hatred for the Jews and hope of plunder made his orders useless. The soldiers were not blind. Every time they looked up from the hacking and killing, they saw the gold and assumed the interior contained vast treasure.

Even as Titus tried to restrain the troops, a soldier thrust a firebrand into the hinges of the final gate that led to the Holy of Holies.

Unquenchable flames shot upward. And this, the last sanctuary, began to burn.

The slaughter continued. As the soldiers rampaged, they stole everything of value, stopping only to run a sword through any Jew within reach, Jews who were on their knees, begging for God’s Holy Place to be saved.

Within half an hour, it seemed the entire city was blazing.

The roar of fire, the shrieks of the dying, the hoarse screams of the soldiers. All made it seem as if the world were ending.

Corpses were piled so high that soldiers had to climb over them to pursue the fugitives.

The soldiers set fire to all the surrounding buildings, to the remaining porticoes and gates, and to the treasury chambers. The great fire howled, and the draft of the heat pulled upward with the force of a storm.

Only one courtyard remained untouched.

In it, six thousand women and children had taken refuge, promised safety by a false prophet. This was the courtyard the man on the rooftop overlooked.

His wailing had been lost in the other noises, and even now, as he screamed to the skies, beating on his chest, no one below could hear his final repetition of all the prophecies that had warned of this day, for the cries for mercy became a united keen that would have touched the heart of any sane man.

Yet the soldiers were crazed, and one by one, they threw torches at the courtyard walls until this, too, added to the ungodly fire at the top of the mount of Jerusalem. The keening for mercy inside the courtyard became shrieks of agony.

As an afterthought, one of the soldiers hurled a spear at the man on the roof. It hit him with such force that it pinned him where he fell.

The flames began to lick toward him.

The cries of agony rose louder and louder, until one by one, each voice was snuffed by death, and there was only the crackling of flames.

Not one woman or child in the courtyard survived.

At dawn the next day, Vitas learned that Amaris had gone to the upper slope of the Mount of Olives. He found her near the rock where less than two weeks earlier, Ben-Aryeh had sat with him to overlook the Temple.

Then the building had gleamed in glory. Now it was smoking ruins.

Tears were wet on her face. He didn’t know if she was mourning the death of Ben-Aryeh or the fall of the Temple or if she was overwhelmed by both.

He didn’t offer any trite words of sympathy but instead waited until she was ready to speak.

Half an hour passed.

Much as he shared her grief, Vitas didn’t think he could fully comprehend it and felt guilty as his thoughts shifted to his own family and the joy he would feel to be reunited. Damian was on the lower slopes among the Tenth Legion, preparing for a journey to take all of them back to Caesarea, where they could catch a ship to Alexandria. From there, all of them would go to Rome and the estate that Vitas had once lost to Nero but had been granted again by decree of Vespasian.

When Amaris spoke, her voice was almost lost in the wind. “I’m glad my husband did not live to see this,” she said. She was no longer weeping but calm. “It would have broken him beyond all endurance. The Temple and serving our God were at the core of his entire being.”

“In his final words to me,” Vitas answered just as softly, “he said you understood how much it mattered to him to ensure the Jews did not lose the Ark.”

Amaris laughed for a few moments, a reaction that Vitas did not expect. Almost immediately, however, the laughter broke into tears, and the rawness of her emotions was evident in how long it took for her to regain her composure. “Vitas,” she said. “It’s almost a certainty he did not succeed.”

“I was there,” Vitas said. “I escorted the Levites to the edge of the desert, near the Dead Sea. When I departed with the soldiers, they were safe and headed into the hills. Both the Jewish and Roman armies were gathered here. They were in a desolate area, with no band of robbers big enough to attack them, even if they were seen.”

“The Ark might have been preserved,” she answered, her voice becoming clearer, “but it has still been lost. Somewhere, it sits in a cave, hidden, where I’m sure it will never be found in all of history.”

“I don’t understand.”

She shifted and faced him squarely. The sun was coming from behind her, over the top of the Mount of Olives, and her face was in shadow.

“The Levites who put it in the cave have no idea what it was and so have no reason to return,” she said. “As for the ones who planned so carefully to move it into that cave to reclaim it later, they were so few, and they are gone. Dead.”

“So few?”

“A man and wife cannot be closer than he and I were together,” she said. “I thought neither of us had secrets from the other. I knew early that he was part of a special group of Temple priests. From generation to generation, twelve men. Only when one died would another replace him. But not until the beginning of the revolt did I learn that he had always kept from me what their service to the Temple was. Yes, ensuring the Ark would always remain among the Jews. He told me only because of the desperation of the times, and because I was needed to help preserve the Ark if the unthinkable happened—the destruction of the Temple. Their first level of protection was the secrecy afforded by the Holy of Holies, and the second was to keep knowledge of its existence to themselves.”

Vitas nodded.

“When the revolt first began—and you were here in Jerusalem that summer—my husband came to me and said it was feared the Zealots would force war against Rome, and he doubted we could win,” she said. “He told me that the priests entrusted with the Ark had begun to plan for a day when the Ark might be in danger. He said they feared to try to move it while bandits roved the countryside, but if they waited too long and Rome did appear on the verge of triumph, it might be too late.”

Again Vitas nodded. “He told me that I became part of that plan.”

“Yes. And you know he had to flee Jerusalem or face death by stoning. What you don’t know is that later I was asked to replace him to help the other eleven. Ironic. They chose me not
despite
the fact that I am a woman, but
because
I am a woman.”

Vitas tilted his head slightly, expressing a silent question.

“It was becoming too dangerous for any men of power in the city. Women are invisible. My own sacrifice was to stay and help as needed. It was not our doing that Damian was captured, but once it happened, we saw how it could give you a reason to come to Jerusalem. One of my roles was to ensure that Damian did not die in prison. I fed them every day as well as possible. The others in the small circle used their influence to ensure they were not executed, contrary to the story that was falsely spread.”

She smiled grimly. “And that story was spread so that you would not return to Jerusalem too early.”

It came back to Vitas, the conversation he’d had with Ben-Aryeh in the tower of Phasael.

“Am I to understand that for months, someone has been looking out every day at the Mount of Olives for that very signal?”

“No. Years.”

“I’m sorry to tell you this,” Amaris continued. “It was important to keep Damian and Maglorius alive for the day when you would be needed to return to help. The others involved in this thought if you refused, Damian and Maglorius could be used as hostages to force you to use your influence with Titus.”

Her grim smile softened. “Much as I argued against that and for the release of Damian and Maglorius, they would not believe what my husband and I already knew. That if he asked, you would freely give your help.”

This had been arranged long ago.

“Vitas,” she said. “You asked me last night if I would leave here and live with you and your family. I must ask you something first. Do you think it was coincidence that he spent years with you?”

“Not at all. I’ve wondered, in the last few days, if Ben-Aryeh arranged for those false charges to be laid against him.”

She gaped. “How could you guess?”

This had been arranged long ago.

“It was the perfect excuse to join me and Sophia,” Vitas said. “To earn my trust. And for me, in turn, to earn his. He himself said that I was the only one in the perfect position to be trusted and still have influence with Titus. I began to wonder how long he’d known that and realized he probably would have known it immediately upon meeting me, when Bernice sent him to be my guide.”

“You are right,” Amaris said. “Yet you don’t look angry.”

“He saved my family. You argued for the early release of Damian and Maglorius and, when that didn’t happen, ensured they would survive. I’m not angry. I’m grateful. Amaris, don’t stay here alone and widowed. Jerusalem is desolate. Let me honor my friend Ben-Aryeh and provide a home for you where you will be loved and cherished. I will never forgive myself if I leave you here.”

“I’m afraid that someday you will resent me. That someday you’ll be bitter about my husband’s deceit.”

“The last time I saw him, he begged me to understand the reasons for his actions. I promise you, Amaris. I do understand. If I could speak to him, I’d tell him there is nothing that needs forgiveness.”

She looked at the ruins of the Temple, then back at him. “Vitas, please take me from here. Let me join you and your young family in Rome and serve you as if I were the grandmother of your children.”

He nodded. “You promise not to resent me and become bitter?”

“You have done nothing wrong.”

“But the Romans have. The Ark is lost, and all that Ben-Aryeh lived and died for is lost. You will be living among the people who took that hope from your husband.”

Vitas remembered what Ben-Aryeh had said to him at the campfire.
“I am coming closer and closer to believing that perhaps the Nazarene was the Messiah.”

“If he were alive, he would finally acknowledge what I must acknowledge. The fall of the Temple confirms that the Nazarene is our Messiah. It fell because Jerusalem—my husband among the religious leaders there—rejected him.”

She laughed softly. “If my husband were here, he would shake his head. All his efforts to protect what he believed was the most important thing to our people, only to learn that God does not need the Ark preserved, nor do the Jews.”

She put her hand on Vitas’s. “I am now among the first generation of believers. Here is what I understand. God’s people no longer need a building or sacrifices on an altar to be heard by God or to make atonement. The Christos was the Lamb. The destruction of the Temple is more than God’s punishment for rejecting his Messiah; it releases us from requiring a physical place to worship.”

She was smiling, and it seemed like she glowed from within. “Vitas, his words have been fulfilled within this generation as promised. His prophecies came true. He was—he is—the Messiah.” She pointed across the valley. “Vitas, that is not the last Temple. Instead, the Christos is.”

Something brittle inside Vitas seemed to shatter. He’d fought so hard and so long to believe that a man lived and died on his own terms, his own honor, and he’d learned to depend on no one, to yield to no other man.

It was as if he’d built a structure around his soul based on these convictions and the principle that a man paid for his own sins and suffered for the suffering he’d caused others.

He thought of Sophia, kneeling in prayer. Of Sophia, so open and so vulnerable, yet so calm and enduring.

His mind moved inexorably to the river of the water of life described by the last disciple of the Christos in the scroll that had been so feared by the beastly Nero. The words washed over him with the force of a torrential downpour.
“Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.”
He thought of a stream of pure water and how thirsty he felt, thirsty for something that was beyond his grasp and understanding.

He thought of a man lying prostrate in a pool of his own blood, a man bearing the sin and suffering of all humanity, a man accepting the burden so that others would not have to bear their own. Vitas thought of all that was helpless and hopeless in his life. That no matter how much he loved and cherished Sophia and his children, death would eventually turn his love into ashes as horrible as the ashes of the destruction before him. Unless, as the Christos had promised, there was a home with many rooms waiting for him and his family.

Vitas thought of how much he wanted to believe.

And he fell to his knees and began to pray.

To the Christos.

To the last Temple.