The Magic Circle (56 page)

“Master, forgive me,” said Philip of Bethsaida. “Your words seem to touch on past, present, and future events, so I’m never quite sure how to interpret what you say. But when you speak of love, surely you mean that our love of the Divine, if properly understood and nourished, might enable us to transcend even death? And yet, one must agree that the Song of Solomon, like the historical king himself, would suggest a very different, sensual, one might almost say a
carnal
picture of love—a portrayal that seems scarcely to suit the image of the coming kingdom which you, yourself, have foretold.”

“Indeed, Philip,” said the Master. “And that is precisely where the mystery lies.”

Mona Island, Britannia: Autumn, A.D. 44

To: Miriam of Magdali

at Lugdunum, Gaul

From: Joseph of Arimathea

at Mona, Sea of Eire, Britannia

Dearest Miriam,

As you see, your last parcel found me, though it took some time to arrive here. Due to last year’s “conquest” of southern Britannia by the emperor Claudius, I’ve temporarily relocated our base of activities here to the north, a druidical stronghold where we’ve received much support. Though I was never physically in danger—the Roman landing was a bloodless takeover, no battles were fought, there were no casualties, and the Romans were in and out in a few months’ time, leaving only a few legions behind to start construction—still I feared for the safety of those things I possess, which as you know are of some value. This leads naturally to the topic of your letter.

With regard to your offer—much as I yearn to see you in person, I don’t think it a good time for you to travel here just now from Gaul. I’ll explain in more detail below. But first I must convey my great appreciation for the new information you’ve provided, which I’ve taken much care in reviewing.

More and more, as our original numbers are decimated by the Romans or their puppets—James Zebedee’s brutal execution last spring at the hands of Herod Agrippa, or Simon Peter’s imprisonment, followed by his self-imposed exile to the north—I have come to see how very important it is for us to piece together a much fuller vision of what the Master was trying to accomplish in that fateful last week of his life.

Further, with all his warnings of false prophets, it seems clear Jesua must have foreseen someone like this Saul of Tarsus of whom John Mark speaks in his letter, who might arrive on the scene after his death and try to alter his entire message in such fashion. So I’ve tried to combine this new account you’ve sent of the Master’s last supper with his disciples with the information we’d previously collected. And I agree that we can see far more clearly now just where his message was heading.

First, the Master’s presentation of himself as the divine servant whose chief task is to ritually cleanse the temple and all who are about to enter it. Submission. And then the comparison of his body and blood with bread and wine—an Isaac-like gesture, as if he were offering himself as both matter and spirit in lieu of the ritual offering usual on such occasions. Self-sacrifice.

If only his arrest had not come so soon, that night in my garden, and he’d been able to complete his initiation of young Johan Zebedee as he’d intended. (Though I can well see why Johan resents you so today, since you are now the only disciple who ever received the full initiation directly at the Master’s own hands.)

Finally, you must have guessed, as I did, from Maryam Mark’s letter that if the Master planned every detail of the meal, it was likely no more than he did with the other events of that week. Perhaps his stress on the appointments of her upper chamber was designed to conceal the significance to him of a few specific objects—for example the chalice he drank from at her home, which you’ve told me she later entrusted to you at his request.

It occurs to me now that he seems privately to have arranged for each of us individually to take one of the objects that he touched—or that touched him—in his last hours on earth, and to keep it in a special place until his return. For instance, the garment he wore that Nicodemus preserved after we washed the body. Or the spear-tip that pierced his side, which I was instructed to remove from the haft of that Roman centurion’s javelin and to preserve, as I have to this day. I believe these objects may possess some sacred power—and may be far older than we imagine.

But quite a few have been entrusted to me by others, as you know, for Britannia was one of the few outposts that has remained independent of Roman occupation or influence—that is, until now. It’s this alone, Miriam, that makes me fear for you to come here with the chalice. I believe the time has come for me to share some information with you that you ought to know, should anything happen to me.

Perhaps you recall, twelve years ago, just before the Master’s death, the trip I’d just returned from? At the request of the Sanhedrin, I’d been on a special mission to Capri where I had successfully petitioned the emperor Tiberius for the return of exiled Jews to Rome. What perhaps you were not aware of is that my escort to Capri on that occasion, and my advocate in that plea, was none other than the man who has just invaded Britain: Claudius.

Furthermore, as our newly minted emperor is likely aware, that interview with his uncle Tiberius was not to be my last. Indeed, I was with Tiberius on the isles of Paxi not a week before his death. And if Claudius has learned what we were doing there, we must wonder whether he had more than one motive in this recent expedition to Britain. He has left behind three legions, now busily engaged in building roads and setting up townships in preparation for the long occupation of Britannia he clearly foresees. They’ve used native forced labor to build a temple at Camulodunum.

The emperor Claudius may have failed to find what he sought here. But it seems he plans a more extended visit in future.

Rome: Spring, A.D. 56

CONFLAGRATIO

While I yet live, may fire consume the earth
. —Nero

As his slaves untied the curling ribbons and unwound his long blond hair, curl by curl, it tumbled in a tempestuous mass over the emperor Nero’s bare shoulders. He sat naked before the full-length glass, analyzing himself with cold blue eyes.

Yes, it was true. He was actually beginning to resemble Phoebus Apollo, as everyone claimed. His facial features were so sharply chiseled as to be almost pretty. He dabbed a bit of rouge on his lips to heighten their voluptuous appearance. This explained his appeal, practically since infancy, to both women and men.

After shaking his hair loose—it fell in abundance nearly to his waist—he stood up, the better to admire his remarkable physique in the glass: those hard, sinewy muscles toned by several years of competing in wrestling at the Olympiad in Greece—where in fact he’d just won several first-class medals. Ah yes, that shouldn’t be overlooked. As a reminder to himself, he leaned forward and jotted a note:
Give province of Olympia its freedom
.

To think, he had still several years before twenty, and already ruler of the largest empire in world history—and surely the only emperor ever who possessed the voice of an angel and the body of a god. All this had fallen into his lap, only because his beautiful mother Agrippina had been clever enough to marry her uncle Claudius, who then conveniently died from eating that batch of fortuitously poisonous mushrooms. Nero had Claudius deified soon afterward, explaining as part of the eulogy that it was appropriate since, after all, mushrooms were known to be the food of the gods.

The servants had just pulled his purple silk toga over his head, arranged his curls, and finished draping the gold-star-spangled cape over his shoulders, when his mother herself arrived in Nero’s private chambers. She looked beautiful, as always, so he took her into his arms for a warm hug and a warmer kiss on the lips.

“Darling, you won’t believe what I’ve planned for us for this evening,” Nero announced, drawing her away the better to look at her.

Then he undid the sash that closed the bosom of her toga and pulled the fabric away to expose her beautiful breasts. Truly, the twin golden globes of a goddess, he thought—but after all, she was only yet in her thirties, wasn’t she? As the servants and slaves cast their eyes discreetly elsewhere, Nero bent his blond head over his mother’s breasts and flicked his tongue over them, serpentlike, until her nipples became aroused. He let her touch him under his toga, as he loved. Mother was the only one who really knew how to excite him. But after a moment, he drew her hand gently away.

“Not tonight, darling,” he said. “At least not yet. We’re having supper at the tower of Maecenas, just you and me in the upper room. I’ve prepared a spectacle that’s about to start soon—just after dark, you know—and we’ll miss the first part if we dally.”

Nero was enraptured by the beauty of the flames. When he’d first come up with the idea of getting rid of those rickety wooden houses scattered all over Rome that were cluttering up the view from his new palace, he’d never imagined the actual fire would be so lovely. He’d have to remember to record his feelings about it in his diary. But the diary recalled something he’d planned to speak of with Agrippina:

“Mother, I was going over some of Claudius’s copious piles of papers yesterday, and imagine what I found?” he said. “The old goat kept a diary! It’s true, all sorts of libidinous thoughts—if very few actual deeds. I stayed up all night reading it, and I learned something of enormous interest. It seems your brother Caligula, before his untimely death, was on the trail of some powerful objects. Caligula had kept this even from your sister Drusilla, though they were so close. But he told Claudius about them, so he says in the diary. Though you and Julia were in exile—as you’d say, you were hardly Caligula’s confidantes—still I thought you might’ve learned something from Claudius.”

“Not this time,” Nero’s mother said calmly, sipping her wine as she looked down over the city of seven hills that lay in a darkness spangled by many little bonfires that were growing steadily brighter.

“But in fact,” she added, “I heard something of it from Drusilla’s husband, Lucius, when I came back to Rome to bury my brother. Lucius’s own brother Gaius had been a centurion in Roman Judea under Tiberius, more than twenty years ago, and he presided over the execution of one of these annoying Jewish religious fanatics you’ve lately been tossing to the lions. It seems already back then they were rabble-rousers, and their original ringleader was the very chap Gaius crucified. But the interesting part is, it seems he didn’t die by crucifixion, but was killed by a stab of Gaius’s javelin, which then inexplicably disappeared. Apparently the Jews believed the javelin held some mysterious power of a religious nature. I was never quite clear on the rest, so I’m afraid that’s really all I can say.”

Agrippina set down her wineglass and came over to sit on Nero’s lap—just as she used to do with Claudius whenever she wanted to have her way or wangle something important. Nero grew instantly suspicious. But as his mother rubbed her hands over his private parts and sucked his neck, he also felt himself growing stiff.

Damn: just when he most wanted to pay attention, not only to the wonderful spectacle he’d arranged outside but, more important, to the topic of conversation that had been so unceremoniously abandoned by her ploy for sex. But Agrippina had loosened the front of her gown and popped her golden apples tantalizingly out of the basket once more. They were practically in his face. He took a deep breath, swallowed air, and got to his feet, spilling the witch to the floor in a pile of her own silks.

“I don’t believe that’s all you know,” Nero told her. Tossing his long blond mane over his shoulder, he gazed down at her petulantly with icy blue eyes. “Claudius says in his diary that Caligula had all this information not only from that brother-in-law of yours, as you said, but some more from Tiberius, too. He lists what the items are—there are thirteen of them—and says that though they aren’t exactly treasures, they possess some kind of powerful force instead. Claudius even invaded Britain years ago, trying to get his hands on them! You
must
know about them—maybe what their value is, too.”

He bent down and grabbed Agrippina by the arms, pulling her up off the floor to face him. He tried to keep his eyes on her face and away from the beautiful curves of her golden, half-naked skin—her warm, sensual flesh that even now was being licked with light from the sweeping roar of flame washing the hills of Rome outside beneath the window. Agrippina smiled like a cat—then pulled his thumb into her mouth and sucked on it erotically, as she used to do when he was still a child. He felt his knees growing weak, but he remained determined and yanked his thumb out.

“I need a new ship, so I can come and go easily from my estate at Bauli,” Agrippina mentioned, picking up her wineglass as if nothing had occurred since her last sip.

“It’s yours,” Nero told her, privately wondering how he might quickly find someone who knew how to build a collapsible boat.

The woman held too much power over him—and she knew it. But if he could dispatch Claudius as he had, why not Agrippina too? Then he’d finally be free, while possessing more power than anyone else in the world. Which brought him back to the topic.

“What kind of power ‘of a religious nature’ did Lucius say the Jews believe the javelin possessed?” he asked his mother.

“Oh, Lucius had done quite a study of it,” she replied. “It involved a number of items the Jews had brought with them out of Babylon or Egypt, and some of the secrets of their mystery religion, as well. It all had something to do with rebirth, I believe—if these objects were held together in the right hands.”

“Do these Jews really believe that?” Nero demanded. “Or how did Lucius think it could take place?”

“It seems they must be put in the right spot,” she said. “A place of power, like the caves at Eleusis, or that one at Subaico just outside Rome, opposite where you’re building your summer palace. And of course, the time must be right too.”