The Hidden Flame (45 page)

When the words were called through the doors, the mob responded with the growl of an untamed beast.

"He claims that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and abandon the customs handed down by Moses!"

The Sanhedrin's long table was placed on a dais at the back of the room, so from their throne-like chairs behind the table they could look down upon Stephen and out over the crowd, even out to where the mob continued to grow. Sunlight through the open doors cast their grave expressions into deep furrows. Gamaliel looked like he had aged overnight.

Stephen, by contrast, stood as if in an eerie light. His face was utterly devoid of worry or fear. To Ezra's mind, the young man did not seem to belong to this earth at all.

The high priest demanded, "Are these accusations true?"

Stephen began to speak in a quiet, respectful tone. There was nothing about his manner or his voice to cause alarm. Nor was there the volume required to have gotten the attention of the mob outside. Ezra was certain they could not hear him, and yet, in that first moment when Stephen opened his mouth, the mob fell silent. It was as though all the air was withdrawn from the Council chamber. There was no space for anything save the sound of this man's voice.

Stephen began by referring to the Sanhedrin and the audience in the most respectful of manners. "Brethren and fathers," he called them. It was the form of address a student might use before Judean rulers or the elders of his tribe. "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham...."

Ezra found himself drawn into the man's presentation. Stephen spoke as a rabbi might to a Sabbath congregation, beginning his statement by tying his point to the Scriptures and the Law. In a steady cadence, Stephen walked the listeners through their people's history, moving from Abraham to the patriarchs in Egypt, and from there to God's delivery through Moses. His voice only began to rise as he started to describe how Israel had rebelled against God, casting graven images while Moses went up to receive the Law. Stephen then spoke of the founding of the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, and then Solomon's building of the first Temple. He concluded, "But the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands. As the prophet says, `Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me?' says the Lord."

It was at that point that the Council came fully alert. Though Stephen had given no indication of where he intended to go with his speech, they now knew. Attentiveness turned to alarm just before Stephen raised his hands and shouted, "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you!"

Ezra saw lances of genuine pain stab each of the men seated at the Council table. He felt again the power of his own guilt and regret and distress.

Stephen finished with, "You now have become the betrayers and murderers, you who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it!"

Ezra himself felt the unified sense of outrage gripping those at the table. He knew he had been condemned along with the rest. Yet Stephen remained untouched. Instead, the illumination surrounding him strengthened further, as though all light in the chamber was drawn to this one man.

Stephen lifted his face toward the chamber's ceiling and cried, "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"

These words unleashed both the Council and the mob. The chamber was filled with shrill cries demanding he be condemned to death.

Ezra backed himself into one corner as the mob rushed forward to snatch Stephen. The stone chamber reverberated with the force of their cries. He found himself shivering as though fevered.

His vengeance had finally been granted a fitting voice.

C H A P T E R

THIRTY-NINE

THE SENSE OF FREEDOM Linux carried with him from the palace vanished the instant he arrived at the lane fronting the Antonia Fortress. There was Abigail crouched in the corner, her shoulders heaving. Linux knew in a flash that she had come seeking him, only to have her virtue threatened and humiliated by a rough-speaking sentry. She had then retreated. Yet something kept her there. Something so dire she could not leave. So there she huddled, too close to the main avenue for the guards to trouble her further.

"Abigail." He crouched down beside her. As soon as her tearstained features came into view, he knew. "Why are you here?"

A stall holder across the lane called, "I've been over twice to ask what troubles her. She isn't saying. My guess is, one of your soldiers did her wrong."

Abigail gasped out, "It wasn't soldiers."

Linux lifted her to her feet. "Tell me what happened."

"Hey, you." The stall holder bravely shoved his way across the crowded lane. "It isn't right, a soldier handling a Judean lass."

Linux feared if he released her, she would collapse again. "I mean her no harm."

"And I'm telling you, she came away from the fortress looking like she'd been struck." The merchant was clearly ready for battle, now drawing hostile attention from passersby.

"Abigail," Linux insisted. "You must tell me if I am to-"

"The mob took Stephen to the Temple." It was more a sob than coherent words. "The guards bound him and took him before the Sanhedrin."

As soon as the man heard the Council was involved, he backed away. But Linux was not having any of it. "You. Stand where you are."

"I'm not looking for trouble with the Sanhedrin."

"And most of your trade comes from legionnaires. Do as I tell you. Stand by this woman, or I'll have your stall declared off limits!" Linux turned on his heel and raced back up the lane.

He flew through the fortress entrance and thundered into the open square used for weapons training. Thankfully, the sergeant on duty was a man whom Linux had helped train new recruits. He gasped, "I need a squad. Immediately."

The sergeant, a hard-bitten veteran of many years in Judea, said, "Trouble?"

"Perhaps. Speed is everything."

"All I've got on hand are these conscripts."

At least they were armed and wearing the standard enlisted men's leather breastplates. "Choose those you can trust and meet me at the main thoroughfare. Immediately."

Linux raced to the stables and took the one horse already saddled. When the stable master complained, Linux shouted at him with such vehemence the man retreated into a horse stall and did not reappear.

Linux emerged as ten men plus the sergeant trooped up the lane to where Abigail stood clinging to the side wall. The stall holder fled as soon as he saw Linux leading his horse up the path.

Abigail stared at them, uncomprehending. Linux moved in close enough to fill her vision. He addressed her in the stern coldness learned by every officer. "You will listen to me now. The life of your husband depends upon this."

She blinked, dislodging more tears. "It is too late."

"Perhaps, perhaps not. The faster we move, the more swiftly we know the truth." He helped her into the saddle, then turned to a soldier and ordered, "Hold fast to the reins."

"As you will, sire."

Linux turned to the sergeant. "Place your most trusted man as rear guard. I will lead off with you beside me."

"Where are we headed?"

"The Temple. The woman has brought word of a mob."

The young faces of the recruits stretched taut with alarm. They had all heard warnings of the Judeans' wrath if their Temple was in danger of being disturbed or desecrated.

The sergeant, however, made of sterner resolve, bellowed, "Form up! Five before the woman's horse, five behind. Ready? We move!"

Linux still wore the burnished dress uniform for his meeting with the prelate. His breastplate, belt, sword hilt, and leather fringes were all chased in gold. His helmet gleamed as if it were on fire. He was flanked by a sergeant who bellowed for all ahead of them to give way. The men marched in unison behind them. The horse snorted and pranced, its shoes sending up sparks from the cobblestones, and the people fled to each side before them. The wall from the Antonia Fortress to the main gates of the Temple was over a Roman mile long. They arrived puffing hard but made good time.

The sergeant's massive voice had alerted the Temple guards well in advance of their arrival. The normal contingent of six guards had been reinforced, and more came running through the gates as Linux and his men halted. Judeans in the area pushed as far away from the Roman soldiers and the gates and the coming confrontation as they possibly could.

The senior guard gripped his stave so that the wood trembled as violently as his voice. "What's the meaning of this?"

Linux stamped forward. He knew the sergeant and his men surged with him by how the Temple guards took a unified step back. "I have received word of a mob."

"Th-there is no trouble here, sire!"

"That is not the report I received. Of a mob seeking violence and revolt."

From behind Linux came a ripple of sound from the Judeans. Revolt was the one reason that granted Rome entry into the Temple compound. Despite all the Sanhedrin's protests and entreaties, every Judean governor had renewed the soldiers' authority to enter the compound at the first threat of revolt.

Linux snarled quietly, "Step aside or be cut down."

The Temple guard swallowed hard. But he held his ground. "They have g-gone."

"Gone where."

"Did not say."

"But you know." When the man hesitated, Linux bellowed, "Tell me!"

"T-to the clearing beyond the Dung Gate."

Linux felt the air freeze in his chest. The Dung Gate led to the Kidron Valley burial grounds.

"No!" Abigail's wail was so powerful she melted off the horse and would have collapsed upon the stones had the soldier holding the reins not caught her.

Linux demanded, "Did they have the one known as Stephen with them?"

"I know not any name."

"One of the followers! Did they take a follower with them?"

Something in Linux's eyes caused the man to quail. "P-Perhaps. Yes, I believe so."

"How long have they been gone!"

"An hour, per-perhaps more."

The silence was pierced with a single cry from Abigail.

Linux turned to the wide-eyed sergeant, uncertain what to say. A thousand eyes watched his utter defeat, the woman's broken weeping, the soldiers' indecision.

Then a woman cried, "Abigail!"

Abigail tore herself from the recruit and collapsed into the arms of an older woman Linux vaguely recognized. He heard Abigail say, "Take me to him."

"Child, the mob-"

"Take me!"

Ezra did not follow the mob. He led it.

Somewhere in the middle of the throng was Stephen, though not visible to Ezra. The crowd was simply too large. The people who surrounded the man waved their hands in the air and shouted their imprecations to the heavens as with one voice. From where Ezra marched, he felt they hollered in order to maintain their rage. As though if they were silent for a moment, the realization of what they were about to do might sink in and slow them down. For Ezra, however, no such drive was needed. The further he walked from the Temple compound, the greater grew his rage. As though all his frustration and all his fury and all his distress were finally ready to consume him.

They left the city by the Dung Gate and entered the Valley of Death. The sun was so fierce that it seemed as though the day reflected their rage. Either that or the heavens were casting fierce judgment upon their actions. If the latter, Ezra no longer cared. He felt the still, small voice call to him from somewhere deep inside, as though that tiny part of him, the compassionate corner of his soul, had not been entirely stifled. But all around him roared the voice of rage, of vengeance. Ezra was so enthralled by the crowd's presence and power that he could acknowledge the small voice and yet not care what it said.

Elders assigned by the Council to witness the event clustered together by a grove of desert pines. At their fore was Saul of Tarsus. The young man's face was aflame with the same fiery vengeance that filled Ezra's heart. The elders dropped their cloaks of office by Saul's feet and moved forward as the crowd unfolded. That was how it seemed to Ezra. They were a human fist, cloaked not in their robes but in rage, and they flexed their fingers in preparation of doing away with the man who dared offend the Sanhedrin.