The Last Temple (3 page)

Hours had passed since the mayhem in the market, and Vitas was alone in a garrison cell. Dirt floor. Rough stone walls. The smell of urine. He and Jerome had been seized immediately along with two other slaves, then thrown into separate cells.

He understood it was a standard interrogation technique. But he had not been interrogated yet. His only interruption was the delivery of a message from a scribe Damian had hired before leaving for Jerusalem.

The employment of this scribe was the one condition Vitas had set for agreeing to help Damian as a spy in the Helva household. Each Sabbath since his arrival in Caesarea the previous fall, Vitas had gone to the local Jewish synagogue. Although it had been destroyed during the riots and was now merely a shell of broken walls, duty and curiosity compelled Vitas to wait each Sabbath at what had once been the entrance.

All because of a portion of a letter that he’d found in his clothing during his escape from Rome and Nero, a letter in Hebrew, given to him by unknown benefactors.

You know the beast you must escape; the one with understanding will solve the number of this beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666. You have fled the city of this beast; from the sea it came and on the sea you go. North and west of the city of the second beast, find the first of five kings who have fallen. (The sixth now reigns, and the seventh is yet to come.) There will be two witnesses, killed yet brought alive. Find them and rejoice with them; then take what is given.

Then go to the woman clothed in finest purple and scarlet linens, decked out with gold and precious stones and pearls. She is the one who slaughtered God’s people all over the world. Find the Synagogue of Satan, at the end of the Sabbath, and stand at the gate closest to the den of robbers. Persevere and you will find your reward.

Much of the coded letter—written in ambiguous Hebrew to ensure Vitas’s protectors would remain safe from Nero if the letter fell into the wrong hands—did not make sense to Vitas. However, he was in Caesarea because of what he had learned from a man named John, the last surviving disciple of the person many claimed was the Jewish Messiah, who had been crucified and, if his followers were to be believed, had risen from the dead.

John had been on the ship with Vitas, also escaping Rome. It was said he’d been among twelve who witnessed miracles done by the Christos and attested to the Resurrection. John had translated the Hebrew and explained much of the ambiguity, proving to Vitas it was no coincidence he and John had been put on the same ship.

Nero was the first beast; Jerusalem was the second. North and west of Jerusalem was Caesarea, built by Herod the Great and named after Caesar Augustus. But Augustus himself had taken the name of Caesar from the first king of Rome, Julius Caesar. Nero, the sixth, now ruled the Roman world.

What Vitas could not make sense of was the reference in the letter to two witnesses, “killed yet brought alive.”

He understood, again with assistance from John, that in the Revelation, the mention of the two witnesses was a figurative reference to the long-dead Jewish prophets Moses and Elijah—who represented the law and the prophets and ultimately the Christos, who John had explained was the perfect Prophet and High Priest. As literary figures, these witnesses represented the entire line of Hebrew history testifying against Israel and warning of God’s imminent judgment on Jerusalem.

Vitas had kept silent during John’s explanation of this. He didn’t want to become argumentative by challenging John, but Vitas could not accept that the Christos had risen from the dead, and he found it impossible to believe that Jerusalem would fall, as predicted by the Christos and in John’s revelation. For Vitas, as a military man, had spent time in Jerusalem. It was such a secure fortress, not even the mighty Romans could ever take it down. Therefore, to Vitas, if that prophecy was wrong, anything else said about and by the Christos must be suspect.

And it was irrelevant to Vitas. He wanted to know what the “two witnesses” represented not in John’s revelation but in the coded Hebrew letter that had been left with him before his escape.

But nothing in the months since had helped him understand the puzzle. What two witnesses, once dead, would be alive to him?

Nor did Vitas know why he needed to find the woman in finest purple—who John had explained was Jerusalem, given that the slaughter of God’s people all over the known world had resulted from the Jewish religious establishment’s years of persecuting followers of the Christos.

Vitas was uncertain whether the letter directed him to wait at the synagogue of Caesarea or the synagogue of Jerusalem, and he suspected this vagueness was deliberate, to protect the writer of the letter from Nero if the emperor ever found the letter. As was common with writings of this kind, the arrangement of the instructions did not necessarily have to be followed in a linear fashion.

With Jerusalem in the hands of rebels—something Damian was willing to risk because he intended to be there for only a matter of days—Vitas had employed someone in the city to go to the synagogue every Sabbath and make note of anything unusual at the end of the day.

Here in Caesarea, Vitas had initially gone himself every week. Once he knew he would be in the Helva household, Vitas had insisted that Damian send someone else every Sabbath—someone who believed Vitas was a slave named Novellus and who was instructed to bring any news directly to him.

The messenger had brought some writing on a scroll for Vitas in his jail cell, and he had been pondering it since.

An old man, a Jew, arrived and waited the entire Sabbath at the ruin of the synagogue. At dusk at the end of the Sabbath, I approached him to ask if he’d been given a message to go to the synagogue. He refused to identify himself and was agitated when I would not divulge why I had been waiting too.

What had Damian promised before leaving for Jerusalem?
“Don’t worry, Brother. If nothing has happened yet on any of the previous Sabbaths, why would it happen now? Besides, it will only be a matter of days for you as Helva’s slave. What else do you have to do here? Continue moping? Why not make yourself useful. We could use the money, after all, and my client is a fat goose waiting to be plucked.”

Damian’s prediction had been proven wrong. It did happen now. An old man arrived and waited the entire Sabbath. A man Vitas could only believe had been looking for him.

Vitas had been banished from Rome, owing his life to a mystery he could not explain. Someone had put him on the boat with a coded letter to send him to Caesarea. Who had done this? Why?

The old man who had been at the synagogue might have the answers. But Vitas was in prison.

He heard a woman’s voice as the far door to the hallway began to open.

Dolabella.

Vitas guessed his prospects were about to get worse.

“This is the slave. Novellus.” Safe on the other side of the bars that held Vitas prisoner, Dolabella gave a theatrical shudder as she addressed the magistrate, a balding, skinny man wrapped in a toga. “He attacked me in the market. And the big mute one. They both assaulted me. The others failed in their duty to protect their master.”

“As I have promised, the interrogator will see the mute next,” the magistrate said. “No need to worry about it. You have so much else to deal with right now.”

He spoke with the solicitousness owed to a very recently widowed woman who had inherited a large estate. He grasped Dolabella lightly by the elbow and turned her away as if the matter were complete.

“I am guilty,” Vitas called out. “I assaulted this woman. I failed to protect her husband as a result.”

The magistrate paused and frowned at the obviously unexpected statement. As a slave, Vitas’s confession of assault against his owner was essentially a self-imposed death sentence.

“The other slaves,” Vitas continued, “had been ordered to remain behind with the master’s wife as he continued through the market. Furthermore, she had commanded them to get on their knees. They could not see the attack on the master nor get there in time. They are not responsible for his death.”

“You think I can’t see through your lies?” the magistrate said. “Your answer does not spare the others.”

It was commonly believed in a case like this—when the slaves and their families would be held responsible for the death of a master—that slaves would lie to protect themselves. Therefore, an interrogator would only be satisfied with an answer if it came after hours of torture.

“The big one,” Vitas said. “Because he is mute and illiterate. There is no way for him to answer an interrogator.”

Nor, Vitas could not help but think, was there a way for Jerome to explain why he almost murdered Vitas, then changed his mind.

“The mute one assaulted me too,” Dolabella said.

“Then,” the magistrate said in a soothing voice to Dolabella, “we will assume he is guilty as well.”

This was Vitas’s opportunity to protest and explain that he was a Roman citizen. But to prove it would expose his identity, and without doubt news of his whereabouts would reach Nero, who believed that Gallus Sergius Vitas, a man once among Nero’s innermost advisers, had died in the arena. Perhaps if Vitas was fortunate, after proving his citizenship and securing his freedom, yes, he could flee Caesarea to escape Nero, but that would mean he would lose the chance to find out whom he’d been set up to meet at the synagogue.

Instead, Vitas had no choice but to hide his citizenship and hope for the timely return of the one person he’d learned from experience was all too often unreliable. His brother, Damian.

To save the others from torture, Vitas would take full blame here and count on Damian’s promised return the next day to explain that Helva himself had hired Vitas to be a spy, and the reasons for it. Although Helva was dead and could not confirm this, Damian had been shrewd enough to get a contract from him in writing. Furthermore, Helva had sealed the contract with molten wax and the stamp from his ring, leaving a raised surface on the wax seal.

“The mute is not guilty of anything except being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Vitas told the magistrate. “The attack was planned, not simply an assassination of opportunity.”

“What?” The magistrate was startled.

“Find out who owns the camels,” Vitas told the magistrate.

“What are you talking about?” The magistrate puffed his chest, posturing for the attractive widow.

“If you have any political ambition at all, find out who owns the camels that were crossing the market when the Sicarii attacked. Find out who arranged the transport of the goods on those camels. Take that information to the governor. Tell him the question about the camels comes from the slave named Novellus, who was sold to Helva by the Roman citizen Gallus Sergius Damian.”

“Gallus Sergius Damian?” The magistrate laughed. “And to which brothel should we send the governor to look for Damian?”

“The governor will know what to do with that information,” Vitas said. “And you will be rewarded for it.”

“This is exactly the insolence and disobedience you would expect from a slave like this,” Dolabella said. “Can’t you see?” She slipped her arm around the magistrate’s ribs and drew him close. “I should not have to endure this. Not when I’m so badly in need of comfort.” She murmured something in the man’s ear.

“Yes, yes,” the magistrate said to her. He pointed at Vitas, using his free hand. “Tomorrow at dawn, you and the other slaves will be crucified.”

Vitas had not slept for hours, knowing what was ahead. Soldiers had moved Vitas and Jerome and the other criminals to the public thoroughfare just outside Caesarea, where the frequent crucifixions were intended to serve as a display of the empire’s power and a deterrent to further crime or sedition.

With the sun barely up, the soldiers approached. What Vitas had been dreading had arrived.

The sleepless early dawn had afforded Vitas too much time to think about his lapse in watchfulness. Too much time to consider how even if Damian returned to Caesarea this day as promised, it would be too late to save Vitas or Jerome from the hammer blows. It wasn’t that Vitas doubted the sincerity of Damian’s promise. While Damian wasn’t fully dependable, long gone were the days of his wanton irresponsibility. A few years earlier—when Vitas and Maglorius had rescued him from certain death in the arena—Damian’s close brush with mortality had sobered him. He’d discovered a talent as a slave hunter, and while it would have been impossible to repress Damian’s charm, he had realized that accountability had its merits as another hunting tool. If Damian didn’t return from Jerusalem as promised, it was likely because he was delayed by the political volatility of the region.

Vitas expected, then, that he would die on a cross.

He’d had time in the early hours to think about the irony. Sophia’s fervent faith had come about because of the eyewitnesses’ accounts of the resurrection of the Christos after his crucifixion. There was so much that was appealing about Sophia’s faith and how it gave her life purpose. Often in quiet moments, especially when mourning Sophia’s death, Vitas wanted that same certainty of life beyond this life. Of any reason to worship the Christos, for Vitas, this was the greatest: to be reunited with Sophia after death.

But the two stumbling blocks to acceptance of the Christos were too great. How could Vitas believe a man was a prophet if he predicted the total destruction of Jerusalem within the lifetime of those who heard him, when it was so clearly impossible? And how could he believe that any man could return to life, especially after the hideously torturous death of crucifixion?

So here was the irony that Vitas had been unable to avoid during his sleepless early dawn. His only hope beyond death was to believe in and accept the Christos, who had died in the same horrible way Vitas was about to die.

Unless, by some miracle, Damian would arrive in time to take them down from their crosses while they were still alive.

Nearly a dozen crosses were already up from previous days, each with a sign describing the crime that had led to the punishment. Some crosses held men who had expired during the night. Others held criminals who had been there for up to three days, even four. Men died slowly on a cross, most often from dehydration.

Vitas had supervised an occasional crucifixion during his military time, and he knew that fighting the soldiers was not only useless but would result in more injury. Still, it took all his willpower not to jerk away and struggle as four of them pushed Vitas flat on a cross on the ground, his arms spread. He wore nothing but rags wrapped around his midsection. The hole for the base of the cross was a couple feet away. Once the impaling spikes secured him to the cross, the soldiers would heave his weight upward and slide the base of the cross into the hole, leaving his feet only inches off the ground.

A fifth soldier held a spike with tongs, the point of the spike centered in Vitas’s left palm. The tongs were a safety measure. It was common for a hammer to miss the spike and smash a prisoner’s fingers. No sense putting a soldier’s hand in the same danger.

A sixth soldier lifted his hammer for the first blow. Vitas took a deep breath. In the hours alone in his cell, clinging to memories of his wife, Vitas had believed he’d prepared himself for the pain.

The hammer came down, ringing on the spike. Vitas flailed as the iron spike went through the center of his left palm. He bit completely through the strip of thick leather that the soldiers had provided him to clench between his teeth. The leather had not been provided out of mercy but because the soldiers were long weary of the screams that came with each hammer blow.

Pain shuddered through his entire body. This was infinitely beyond the dread he’d already suffered. Ahead were two or three spikes for each hand, then spikes through his anklebones. How could he endure it? Or the hours of agony ahead in the sun? What insane impulse had led him to defy Dolabella in the market?

Another spike placed against his palm, held by the tongs.

Another swift upward motion of the hammer.

“Stop!” The order came from the centurion.

Damian,
Vitas thought, sagging in relief. His brother had returned in time. Or nearly in time. While the first spike had not gone through any of the bones in his hand, it was going to leave a nasty hole.

“No more spikes,” the centurion said, standing above Vitas and the soldiers who crouched over him. “No spikes for him or the mute one. Ropes instead.”

Vitas slumped. Damian had not arrived. The crucifixion would proceed.

The soldiers bound one of his wrists, then the other, to the horizontal beam of the cross.

They pounded spikes into the vertical beam, near the base, where the spikes should have gone through his ankles. They bent his legs sideways, so that when his feet were immobile, his thighs would cramp without any chance of respite. They bound his feet in such a way that the weight of his body on the spikes would make the iron bite cruelly into the arches of his feet.

When Vitas was in place, they lifted him and secured the base. Arms wide, his body weight held by the tight ropes around his wrists and by the one spike already in his hand, he pushed down with his feet to support himself. Within seconds, the spikes tore into his skin. To find relief from it, he sagged against the ropes bound tightly to his wrists, against the spike in the center of his palm, and new pain flared into the skin there. The weight of his body tore against his arm muscles.

That, however, wasn’t the worst of it. Without his feet to support his weight, he was unable to expand his diaphragm with any effectiveness. Unable to draw even a quarter of a lungful of air, he began to suffocate. The sensation led him to unreasoning panic, and he pushed downward on his cramped legs, driving his torn feet into the spikes. He endured that pain as long as he could, then whimpered as he let his body hang from his arms again until suffocation drove him to push against his feet.

Flies settled on his face, darting to the moisture of his eyes. He blinked repeatedly, but the flies kept returning in swarms.

This was only the first five minutes of crucifixion.