“Claudia, my dear, you wouldn’t. Surely you wouldn’t be so....”
“Indeed, I would! I have lost all patience with you, Pilate. Today I’ve
seen you as I’ve never seen you before. You’re a small man, Procurator,
vain, self-seeking, pompous, and yet a sniveling coward too fearful for
his own skin to rule justly. And at the first opportunity I shall so
describe you to the Prefect ... and perhaps to the Emperor.”
“No, my dear! No! Please....” His panic changed quickly into abject
pleading. “Please don’t, my dear. Why should you wish to ruin me? What
would it gain you ... and Longinus?” He sat down wearily behind his
desk. “Why can’t we continue as we have been ...” he paused, “enduring
this trying land and these troublesome people? Centurion”—he faced
Longinus—“for a long time I have suspected, and known, the ...
situation. But haven’t I been understanding, even co-operative?” The
suggestion of a smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Why, then,
cannot the three of us, understanding this and appreciating it, just
continue to play the roles as we have been? Why can’t we...?”
“Oh, by great Ceres!” Claudia shouted angrily, “you are indeed a
crawling worm! You _invite_ another man to your wife’s bed! You pander!
You’re nothing but a procurer, a Spanish pimp! Gods, but I detest you!”
Turning, she strode to the door and opened it. “Summon my sedan-chair
bearers,” she ordered the attendant, “and quickly!” Then she wheeled
about to face the Procurator again. “I’m going back to the palace. I
cannot summon the patience to remain longer in your presence. It would
please me greatly if I should never lay eyes on you again!” She stormed
through the doorway; the door slammed behind her.
Pilate sat unmoving and stared stonily into space.
“A moment ago, Excellency,” Longinus ventured, “you directed me to
return to the Hill of the Skull. The Jewish Sabbath is fast nearing.
Perhaps I should go now.”
Without raising his eyes, Pontius Pilate nodded. Longinus crossed the
darkening chamber and went out. After a while the Procurator stood up
and walked to the window. Out beyond Antonia’s front square and the
squat stone structures flanking it, on a wretched knoll beyond the
city’s wall, the three crosses still lifted their quiet burdens into the
waning light. But already the shadow of the wall was groping for the
pinioned feet of the man on the middle cross. For a long moment Pilate
stood rooted before the window; when the shadow had climbed to engulf
the man’s sagging knees, he turned slowly away and sat again in his big
chair. As the gloom thickened in the great chamber, the staring
Procurator leaned slowly forward to cross his arms on the desk and,
bending over, cradled his round head on their crossing.
55
Late in the afternoon of the Jews’ Sabbath the Procurator Pontius Pilate
stood face to face once again with the High Priest Joseph Caiaphas.
“My visit to you, Excellency, and the petition I bring,” he began,
“concern that impostor and revolutionary you crucified yesterday, the
one who was seeking to establish himself upon the restored throne of
Israel.”
“But the man is dead and buried,” Pilate spoke up irritably. “Can’t you
let him lie quietly in his tomb? Can’t you understand that I wish to
have no further mention made to me of that Galilean?”
“Indeed I do understand, Excellency. That’s exactly what we also wish,
to allow him to lie quietly and undisturbed until his body rots and his
name is forgotten.” He leaned forward, and his black eyes lighted with
new fires. “But, Excellency, as you may have been told, that blasphemer
was heard to declare that he would destroy our Temple and in three days
with his own hands rebuild it. Now some of his deluded followers are
saying that he wasn’t speaking of the Temple yonder”—he nodded in the
direction of the great structure—“but rather of his own physical body.
They interpret his words as meaning that he would of his own accord give
his life and then on the third day claim it again and walk forth from
his tomb. Of course, Excellency, we know that the fellow is dead and
will never rise again”—with the tip of his tongue he licked his thin red
lips—“but many naïve ones may be deluded into believing that he really
did possess power to call back his life. Even today a report has reached
us that certain of his followers are planning in the nighttime to visit
the tomb and steal away the body. Then with the tomb empty on the
morrow, which will be the third day since he died, they can publish
abroad the tidings that the blasphemer really did arise as he had
declared he would do.”
“But how am I concerned in this nonsense?” Pilate was plainly annoyed.
“What do you want me to do?”
“We would have you set a guard over the fellow’s tomb, Excellency, to
see that no one steals away the body.”
“What’s this but children’s prattle? Surely no one would seriously
expect a dead man to walk from his tomb.” Slowly Pilate’s scowl gave way
to a mocking half-smile. “What would the High Priest do if the Galilean
_did_ rise? _You_ contrived his crucifixion.”
“But what, Excellency, would the Procurator do? _You crucified_ him.”
Pilate was not amused by the High Priest’s retort. “Maybe it’s as well,”
he observed, “that neither of us will be so tested.” For a moment he was
silent, looking away. Then he turned back to face Caiaphas. “You have
your Temple guards. Can’t you use some of them to guard that tomb?”
“But, Excellency, with the great surge of Passover pilgrims still in the
Temple courts and about the cattle stalls and the money changers’
tables, our guards are all greatly needed. And, more important, your
placing a guard would lend greater prestige....”
“The Antonia garrison is just as busy,” Pilate interrupted, “and many of
our soldiers are leaving Jerusalem. Maybe, though, I can arrange yet
again to humor the High Priest.” He beckoned to an aide. “Summon the
fortress commander.”
“Are there any centurions available for a special assignment beginning
at once and continuing into tomorrow?” he asked, when a few moments
later the officer appeared.
“Centurion Longinus, sir, is....”
“No, by all the gods!”
“The only other one not assigned at the present is Centurion Cornelius.
He’s preparing to return his....”
“Then call Cornelius in and instruct him to select from his century a
sufficient detail and mount a guard at the tomb of the Galilean”—he
paused and looked unsmiling toward the High Priest—“rather, the ‘King of
the Jews,’ to see that it is not disturbed.”
Caiaphas smiled grimly but made no comment.
“Now, O High Priest, you will have your guard, though I consider a guard
unnecessary. Once again your will has prevailed.” He bowed, and his
smile was cold. “I trust your sleep tonight will be peaceful.”
56
It was within two hours of midnight after the Jewish Sabbath, which by
Hebrew reckoning ended at sundown, when Longinus came to the Palace of
the Herods. Claudia was already in her nightdress and prepared for bed.
“Aren’t you going to spend the night?” she asked eagerly, after he
loosened her from their warm embrace.
“With your permission,” he said, grinning wryly. “I have your husband’s,
remember.”
“Please, let’s not talk of him.” Her expression sobered. “Did I speak
too frankly yesterday, Longinus? Did I reveal too much to him ... about
us, I mean? Is that why you didn’t come last night? You were annoyed
with me?”
“You really spoke your feelings, didn’t you? But I wasn’t annoyed with
you,” he said. “In fact, I’m glad you spoke up. And I suspect he was not
surprised at what you told him, only that you would say it, and with
such fury.” She had sat down on the side of her bed. He seated himself
beside her and bent over to unfasten his sandals. Then he straightened
and faced her. “Claudia, I was too depressed last night to be good
company.” He shook his head slowly. “I’ve never been in lower spirits.”
“Because of the Galilean?”
“Yes. Because of what I had done. It felt like a crushing load on my
back. I couldn’t get out from under it.” He stood up, and laid his tunic
across a chair. “After I left you and Pilate, I went back out to the
crosses and helped get him down, taking care to see that in pulling the
nails out we didn’t tear or further bruise the flesh”—he paused in his
narration, and his low laugh was hollow, mirthless—“after I had seen the
nails driven through the living flesh and had plunged my lance into his
side. Then we put him in the rich Jew’s tomb; they had bound the body
the way the Jews prepare their dead for burial, although they didn’t
have time to anoint it with aromatic spices as they customarily do....”
“They are going to do that tomorrow,” Claudia interrupted him. “Tullia
has gone out to Bethany to go with Mary of Magdala and Chuza’s wife
Joanna and some other followers of the Galilean early in the morning to
the tomb to finish the burial rites.” She paused. “But I interrupted
your story. What did you do when you had finished out there?”
“I came back to Antonia and sat for a long time on the balcony looking
out over the Temple courts. Then I went to bed and tried to get some
sleep, but I couldn’t, no matter how I tried. Every time I closed my
eyes I saw that man ... the death march out to the hill, nailing him
down, lifting him to the upright....” He cupped his palm across his
eyes. “By the gods, Claudia, it was terrible, frightening. And his
crying out to his god to forgive us.” His hand dropped listlessly to his
side. “Well, I finally gave up and walked out along the balcony again,
and then I went to see Cornelius. He was troubled, too. He hadn’t gone
to bed. We sat and talked, mostly about that man, until daylight.”
“Did you come to any conclusion ... about him, I mean?”
“Well, no, I suppose not, except that it was a monstrous crime to
crucify such a man, though Cornelius still held to the idea that the
Galilean probably was a god of some sort, that he had supernatural
powers, even the ability to heal people—he insisted that he had healed
his little Lucian—maybe to raise dead people to life. Cornelius even
said he thought it was possible that the Galilean might come to life
himself, as some of his followers say he will, and walk out of that
tomb.” He was silent for a moment. “If he does,” he added after awhile,
“he’ll have to move a tremendous stone from the mouth of the tomb ...
and _from the inside_.” He sat down again beside her. “And under the
noses of the guards, too.”
“The guards?”
“Yes. At the insistence of the High Priest, Pilate has set a guard at
the tomb to prevent the Galilean’s followers from stealing the body and
claiming that he actually did come to life. The Procurator put Cornelius
in charge, and I went out there with him; in fact, I’ve just come from
there. Cornelius is going to stay until daylight.”
“Then Pilate is still trying to appease the High Priest, even after all
I said to him yesterday?”
“Evidently. The Procurator isn’t likely to change his ways.”
“Maybe I was rash yesterday in losing my temper and speaking with such
boldness, but I’ve come to have such contempt for him, to loathe him so.
Oh, Longinus”—she clutched his arm in both hands and clung to him—“how
can I stay with him longer in this dreary land? Please take me with you
to Rome. Hasn’t the time come...?”
“That’s why I’m here, Claudia.” Then his serious expression softened,
and his eyes teased. “And because it’s my last night.”
“Must you be leaving tomorrow?”
“Yes. I’m going with Cornelius as far as Tiberias. From there I’ll go
across to Ptolemaïs and get a ship for Rome. Cornelius is providing me
an escort to the coast. I’ll have to get the first ship leaving that
port for the capital. But I had to see you before I left. Claudia”—in
the subdued light of the bedchamber the gentle flame of the wall lamp
was mirrored in his eyes as he looked deeply into hers—“it may be that a
way of escape is about to open for us. By all the gods, it’s strange,
and distressing, too, but the death of the Galilean may actually save
us.”
“You mean that Pilate in condemning the Galilean may have condemned
himself?”
“I believe he has ... in one way or another. And I think he has given
you a means of freeing yourself.” He paused. “You’re sure no one can
hear us?”
She nodded. But he went to the door anyway, listened with his ear to the
panel, and tried the bolt.
“This is dangerous, Claudia,” he said, as he sat down again. “You
mustn’t breathe a word of it to anybody, not even Tullia. It could get
us both killed.” He lowered his voice. “That message I had yesterday. It
brought startling news. I purposely showed it to Pilate, but of course
he had no idea what it was saying. But I did. That ‘matter of utmost
concern’ was the Prefect’s way of notifying me that now he’s finally
ready to proceed with his scheme and wants me in Rome when he makes his
move.”
“But this new scheme? What...?”
“It’s not a new one, Claudia. He gave me a broad hint concerning his
plans the last time I was home; he said that when I got a message so
worded it would mean he was ready to proceed with the final step.” He
leaned close to her. “Claudia, Sejanus is plotting _to have the Emperor
assassinated_; he is bidding for the throne.”
“But surely”—her face had paled—“he doesn’t mean for you to ...”
“Oh, no, not that. Some palace servant out at Capri will probably attend
to that. But he wants me in Rome when it’s done so that I can help rally
his supporters at the crucial moment and make him Emperor.”
“But even if Sejanus should become Emperor, how would that help us?”
“I would be much closer to him than I am now, one of his advisors,” the
centurion replied. “I’m sure I could poison him against Pilate, and
justly. This case of the Galilean will be just one more example of his
unfitness to administer Roman government. His failure to conciliate, his
forever keeping Judaea in a stir....”
“But, Longinus”—her face revealed sudden apprehension, fear—“what if the
Emperor’s supporters should discover the Prefect’s plotting and kill
_him_ before he could have the Emperor killed?”
“Then I would have been on the Emperor’s side.” Longinus smiled
reassuringly and patted the back of her hand on his arm. “Don’t worry
about me; I’ll not let myself get trapped. And soon now, either way the
dice fall, we’ll be the winners.” He stood up and quickly lifted her to
her feet. Leaning over, he pulled down the light coverlet. “But for now,
my dearest,” he said, as he gently pushed her down and lifted her legs
to the bed, “let’s forget them all; let’s make what’s left of it _our_
night.”
57
Once more she felt herself floating upward in a dark morass of confused
and tangled dreaming. Then as she seemed to burst through the heavy
waters to the surface and a sudden effulgent light, she sat up, eyes
blinking and sleep drained from her.
The knocking and calling were restrained but insistent from Tullia’s
side of the door. “Mistress! Oh, Mistress! Mistress!”
She sprang from the bed. “Just a moment, little one, until I can draw
back the bolt.” The movement and her exclamation awakened Longinus;
precipitately he sat up in bed. “Tullia’s returned,” she explained to
him, as he blinked sleepily. She opened the door. “Bona Dea, you’re
breathless,” she said to the girl. “What’s happened, by great Ceres?”
“I’ve run all the way from the Hasmonean Palace where I left Joanna....”
She paused, breathing hard. “Mistress”—her face flamed with new
excitement—“Jesus is _alive_! He’s come from the tomb alive! He did it,
Mistress! He really did it!”
“Sit down, Tullia,” she said calmly. “You’re excited, little one. Calm
yourself. Longinus told me that the Galilean was not in a trance; he
said he knew he was dead; he said....”
“He was dead, Mistress, I know. But _now_ he’s alive again! He’s
_alive_, Mistress, _alive_!”
Claudia shook her head dubiously. “I don’t doubt that you think so, but
when a man’s dead....” She paused. “And you’ve been under such tension,
so troubled....”
“But I’m no longer troubled, Mistress,” Tullia said calmly. “Nor have I
lost my reason. He _is_ alive. Mary of Magdala talked with him at the
tomb. We’ve just come from there, Mistress.”
“But where were Cornelius and his soldiers? Surely they didn’t all go to
sleep and let the Galilean’s friends....”
“They had gone,” the maid answered. “But nobody stole the body,
Mistress. Jesus walked away. He told Mary to tell those of his company
that he would meet them down in Galilee.”
“Then Cornelius and his guards weren’t at the tomb when the Galilean
walked from it, Tullia?” Longinus, adjusting his tunic, came through the
doorway.
“Oh, no, Centurion, I meant they were gone when we got there. But they
had left only a few minutes before. In fact, we met them coming in
through the city gate as we were going out. I recognized Centurion
Cornelius, although I don’t think he noticed me. He seemed greatly
disturbed.”
“Then, by the gods, Claudia, I must go find him. This is amazing.
Tullia, by great Jupiter, do you know what you’re saying? Do you realize
that you are saying a dead man....?”
His question was interrupted by a knocking on the corridor door. Quickly
Tullia opened it. A palace servant announced that Centurion Cornelius
was trying to find Centurion Longinus.
“Tell him to come in,” Claudia had overheard. “The Centurion Longinus is
here.”
“I’ve been trying since daylight to locate you, Longinus,” he reported.
“I went to your quarters, but I should have known....” He didn’t finish
the observation. “Something very strange has happened. The Galilean
disappeared from his tomb.”
“So Tullia has just told us,” Longinus said. “She contends that he came
to life and simply walked out.” His eyes narrowed. “By the gods,
Cornelius, did your guards go to sleep and allow his friends to slip in
and...?”
“No, Longinus, we weren’t asleep.” He shook his head slowly. “Nobody was
asleep. I can’t understand it. I had stationed my men so that no one
could slip past us to get to the tomb. And that heavy stone ...
Longinus, it had to be rolled uphill on its track, and that requires the
hard work of at least two or three strong men.” His forehead wrinkled in
a puzzled frown.
“Well, then,” Longinus pursued, “what _did_ happen?”
“That’s what I don’t know. Nothing happened. At least, I saw and heard
nothing. I asked the men later if any of them had, and they all
insisted, to a man, that they hadn’t heard a sound or seen anything the
least bit unusual. Only a moment before I had checked the tomb’s mouth.
The seal hadn’t been disturbed. And there was a dim light from a little
fire we had kindled earlier to keep off the night chill; it had burned
down, but there was still a light on the stone at the mouth. In fact,
that’s how we noticed....”
“The Galilean?”
“Oh, no, we didn’t see him. But one moment the stone was in place, and
the next ... well, I looked over there, and it had been rolled up the
track and the mouth was wide-open.”
“What did you do then?”
“I lighted a torch from the smoldering fire and investigated. The
Galilean was gone, disappeared. The linen strips with which the body had
been wrapped were lying there, still in folds but collapsed, just as
though the body they had been enfolding had melted away.” He shook his
head, gestured with palms up. “Longinus, I can’t figure it any other
way.”
“You mean you actually believe he returned to life?”
“What else can I believe?”
“But what about the stone? How could he have rolled it back?”
“If he had the power to call back his life,” Cornelius said, “rolling
away the stone would surely have been no problem.”
“But, Cornelius,” Claudia interposed, “Tullia, too, has just come from
the tomb. She was there with Mary of Magdala and Joanna and some other
followers of the Galilean.”
“I didn’t see them....”
“They got there just after you left. They saw you at the city gate as
you were coming away, she said. But Mary of Magdala saw the Galilean and
talked with him.” She shrugged. “Or at any rate that’s what she told
Tullia.”
The centurion’s amazement was not feigned. “Then where did he go? Where
is he now?”
“According to Tullia, he told Mary that he was going down to Galilee. He
said he would meet his band there.”
“Then we may come upon him somewhere, beside the sea with the fishermen
or maybe in Capernaum.”
“But, Cornelius”—Claudia’s expression betrayed a sudden
apprehension—“how would he receive Longinus?”
“In a spirit of forgiveness, I hope ... and believe. It was really not
Longinus who did it. The guilt was Herod’s and Pilate’s ... and, of
course, even more, the High Priest’s.”
“Cornelius, does Pilate know ... about the empty tomb, I mean?”
“Yes, Claudia. I reported to him first, before I started to look for
Longinus. He was still in his bedchamber.”
“What did he say? How did he act?”
“At first he was angry; he charged that the guards had gone to sleep,
said the High Priest would be greatly agitated, and threatened to punish
us severely. But when I stood my ground and insisted that no one had
stolen the body, he began to show concern, and when I left him he was
thoroughly frightened.” He turned to Longinus. “That’s why I want to get
started as quickly as possible for Tiberias, before Pilate orders my
century to remain in Jerusalem to help protect him from the Galilean.
Can you be ready to start by midday?”
Longinus nodded. “Yes. I’m already packed. All I have to do is pick up
my bags at Antonia.”
58
When Cornelius left the Palace of the Herods, Claudia and Longinus
walked out into the garden and sat on the stone bench before the
fountain. Already the sun was high in the cloudless heavens and the air
was growing warm. Birds chattered in the trees and shrubs, and as they
watched the spurting water, two small conies skittered across a circle
of sunlight to dark safety beneath a heavily leaved fig bush.
“A glorious day.”
“Yes.” He tossed a twig toward the fountain. “You know, Claudia”—he was
looking, she saw, at some invisible point beyond the trembling column of
water—“a hundred years from now the world may still remember this day,
if....”
“If the Galilean really has come to life?” she finished softly. “What do
you think about it, Longinus? Cornelius and Tullia seemed so certain he
has.”
The centurion shook his head slowly, his eyes still on the lifting and
falling water. “I don’t know what to think. But”—he turned to face her,
and his forehead was furrowed in concentration—“how else can you explain
it? The guards awake, the heavy stone sealing the tomb. By all the
gods....”
“Are you afraid then?”
For a long moment he was silent. “No,” he answered finally, “I’m not
afraid. But I’m ... I’m ashamed, Claudia; I’m ashamed for myself,
Pilate, Herod, the contemptible High Priest, my quaternion, everybody
who had anything at all to do with this terrible thing. If indeed he did
come back to life, I hope I may see him in Galilee and beg his
forgiveness.”
“But what about Pilate? Do you think the Galilean will seek vengeance on
him? And on the High Priest, and even Antipas?”
“Up there on the hill as we were nailing him to the crossbeam, that man
prayed to his god to forgive us ... to forgive us, Claudia. Didn’t he
mean _all_ his enemies?” Longinus stood up and walked to the fountain;
he held his palm against the upshooting column. “A few days ago I was
scoffing at him and even at the very idea of gods, any god, or spirit
being, or whatever you may call it”—he smiled glumly—“and so were you,
my dear. But since day before yesterday”—he shrugged—“and this morning,
well, I’m ... I’m changed. You know, I’ve been thinking about what
Cornelius’ old Greek tutor taught and how it might fit in with the Jews’
notion of their Yahweh. And now, if the Galilean really has taken on
life again—and I _know_ he was _dead_ when we took him down—it may be
that he really was ... is ... a physical, tangible manifestation of this
all-wise and all-powerful spirit....” Abruptly he broke off. “Oh, I
don’t know, Claudia, it’s too deep for me. But I do know”—his smile was
warm—“if there’s ever another testing, I’ll be on _his_ side then.”
He strode over to the bench and helped her to her feet, and they
returned to her apartment where no other eyes could invade the privacy
of their last moments together.
“Has this morning changed things for us, beloved?” she asked, as they
sat on her couch. “Your plans, in Rome, I mean, do you still intend to
do what you were telling me last night?”