Authors: David Epperson
She followed a rabbit’s warren of trails until she spotted a small opening and went inside.
“I can’t see much,” she said. “I can feel a rock ledge here in the back, though. So I’m going to sit down for a minute.”
I waited for her to give me a status update, but except for soft, steady breathing, that was the last I heard. She had stayed up all night, and the adrenalin rush of her escape had quickly worn off.
“Sharon, wake up!” I called out.
She didn’t respond.
Her earpiece had most likely fallen out. There was nothing else I could do.
The Antonia quickly came to life as the sun’s rays broke over the eastern horizon. I woke Lavon and Bryson, but I barely had time to explain what Sharon had done before a servant entered our quarters and summoned me.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The prefect has need of your assistance,” the man replied after Lavon had translated my question.
I grabbed what remained of my first aid supplies and headed toward the door, with the others in tow.
“No,” said the slave, “only you.”
I tapped my ear to remind Lavon to stay connected and then followed the man all the way to ground level. From there, he led me through a maze of tunnels until we reached a spacious, if rather Spartan office.
Pilate sat behind a wooden table covered with scraps of papyrus, a few scrolls, and a half eaten chunk of bread sitting beside a bowl of olive oil. Volusus and Publius sat on stools on the other side, while four junior Roman officers stood at ease against the nearby wall.
Two scribes, pens and inkpots in hand, waited at the far end, ready to take dictation.
Pilate looked up from his papers as I entered the room. I nodded my head in kind of a quasi-bow and then stood still, wondering what this was all about.
Though I only learned the details later, the governor had fallen off his horse on his way into the city the day before – something quite easy to do in the era before the invention of the stirrup.
Not wanting to show weakness in front of the soldiers, he had ignored the cut in his left instep; but now it was becoming infected.
Pilate barked an order to a servant who rushed over with a stool. He then plopped his leg up on the support and beckoned me to come over and have a look.
Other than starting to turn septic, the injury was not serious. Had he asked me to clean it yesterday, I could have done so easily. I still could today, though I’d have to scrape off some of the scab that had started to form.
This would sting; and I suddenly realized I was working for a man who had no compunction against killing those who displeased him.
I pantomimed my intentions as best I could, but Pilate just motioned for me to get on with it. I daubed some topical numbing cream and waited as long as I thought prudent before setting to work.
He didn’t utter a peep, though I’d like to attribute this to my superior medical skill. In any event, just as I finished wrapping his foot with the last of my sterile gauze, a messenger ran in with a dispatch. Pilate took it, then sat back down and began to read.
As he did so, I backed away and eased myself over toward the wall, hoping they wouldn’t think to send me out.
They didn’t, for their minds had turned to more weighty matters. Whatever the dispatch said, I could see by Pilate’s face that it wasn’t good news. He laid the scroll down and then glanced up at the two senior Romans with more than a hint of exasperation.
“Let’s get right to the point. I will not tolerate a disturbance like the one yesterday. Tell Caiaphas to crack down hard on any agitators. I mean it: show absolutely no mercy to troublemakers.”
“Yes, excellency,” said Volusus.
“And one more thing: if Caiaphas can’t do it, I’ll find someone who will. Make sure he understands that.”
The commander nodded again and then turned to one of the secretaries, who scribbled a hasty note and then sped out through the office’s main entrance.
This seemed to have a calming effect on the governor. He leaned back in his chair and then called for a slave to bring them more food.
As they ate, he glanced down at his notes. “Of the prisoners you brought in yesterday, how many are still among us?” he asked.
Volusus turned to one of the junior officers along the wall.
“About half, excellency,” the man replied.
Pilate chuckled. “I see Titus Labernius has not lost his touch. Did we learn anything we didn’t already know before they so tragically expired?”
“Not really,” said Publius. “We got the names of their associates who got away, but otherwise, it was the usual stuff – doing God’s work by driving the infidel out of the holy city; that sort of thing.”
“Did any of their leaders escape?” asked Pilate.
“Two,” replied Publius. “We have agents looking for them now. Just so you’ll know, one of them is a priest.”
“Irrelevant,” said Pilate. “Kill them both.”
He spoke with all the emotion of a man ordering breakfast.
“Yes, sir.” Publius signaled to the officer standing closest to the door, who turned and hustled out.
Pilate shuffled through a few other scraps of papyrus.
“Now, what about this prophet you told me about? Was he involved with these riots?”
“Not to our knowledge, excellency,” said Volusus. “We have no reports of him being in the city yesterday.”
“So he is not connected with these prisoners?”
“Not really. Two of them confessed that they had followed him for a year, in Galilee. However, they grew disillusioned with his teaching and left his service. Now they consider him a – um, what is the word?”
“Apostate,” said Publius. “A backslider; someone who does not devote himself to their God with the necessary resolve.”
Pilate looked genuinely puzzled. “Why do they say this?”
“Something about a failure to observe all of their silly rules, I’m told,” replied Volusus. “Apparently, he has also preached that they should love their enemies, and not try to kill them. They didn’t care much for that.”
Pilate considered this for a moment. Then he held up a scroll and waved it at the commander.
“This report says that he destroyed the Temple marketplace three days ago.”
Volusus nodded. “Yes.”
“An odd form of love, is it not?”
Neither the commander nor Publius could muster a reply.
After a brief moment, one of the officers along the wall spoke for the first time.
“There may be some basis to this, sir. I’ve heard reports that he instructed the people to pay their taxes without complaint.”
Pilate’s eyes widened. “A Jewish prophet telling them to pay
us
?”
“That’s what they said.”
Pilate shook his head. “Impossible. Your agents must have misunderstood. If this prophet said that, any following he had would melt away in an instant. I’ve been around this accursed country long enough to know that.”
No one spoke as Pilate scanned a few more of the loose scraps. Evidently, he was still wrestling for a solution in his mind.
He fished through the reports once more.
“What’s this about a kingdom?”
Volusus sighed. “So many wild stories surround this fellow. We’ve had a hard time sifting through them all to find the truth.
“He hasn’t called himself a king, then?”
Publius smiled. “Oh, I think his ambitions run much higher than that. Last night, I heard one of the high priests complain that he declared himself to be God – not
a
god, mind you, but
the
God, their one and only.”
They all laughed for a moment; then Volusus turned serious.
“If you want my assessment, I’d call him a mystic – one of these starry-eyed dreamers who pop up every now and then, preaching universal brotherhood, surrounded by fantastical tales of healing and miracles and food falling from the heavens.”
“That was another reason the prisoners abandoned him,” said Publius. “If he had a kingdom, it was, how did they put it?”
“
Not of this world
,” said Volusus.
“If he gets enough of the wrong sort of followers, it will be,” grumbled Pilate.
“True enough,” acknowledged Volusus, “but we’ve had our hands full this week fighting the bandits. And if this prophet had any followers on the Temple Mount when he assaulted the merchants, none of them chose to join in. We had to focus on our immediate priorities.”
“Yes, of course. But here’s what I find so strange: you say in this report that he came back the next day and preached for over an hour. Yet the Temple authorities did nothing.”
“We know he has sympathizers in the Sanhedrin,” said Publius, “but these are rational, educated men, not ignorant peasants chasing after the latest craze. They have as much to lose as we do from any serious trouble, which was another reason we chose to exercise caution.”
Pilate didn’t reply. Instead, he stared ahead, lost in thought.
“That may be,” he finally said, “but even if he has backers in their council, I find it hard to believe that he could destroy one of their biggest moneymakers and walk out untouched; not to mention coming back the next day and calling them – ”
Pilate glanced down at the written report. “– ‘hypocrites, robbers of widows,’ and here’s my favorite – ‘
whitewashed tombs,
with their shiny exteriors concealing the rot and corruption within.’ Even with that provocation, they still failed to act. Why?”
Publius and Volusus glanced at each other but did not respond. They had asked themselves the same question without reaching an answer.
“I’ll tell you why,” said Pilate. “They’re afraid of him. He may be waiting for the right moment to give the signal.”
“We considered that,” said Publius, “but we have yet to uncover a single shred of evidence pointing to such a thing.”
“No, but we have no guarantee that this is
not
his plan, either.”
Pilate shuffled through more of his notes.
“I recall a report, about a year ago, that said so many people crowded in to hear him preach that he had to hop on a boat and speak to them from off shore. These sheep can believe the most preposterous stuff, as you well know.”
The others nodded as Pilate grew more animated.
“And if he turns them against the high priests, do you think for a moment that they will not rise against us? At best, our careers will be ruined. We may, in fact, be lucky to escape this place with our lives.”
“That’s true enough,” said Volusus.
“What, exactly, do you want us to do?” asked Publius.
“Arrest him.”
“Unless he comes back to the Temple, the most difficult part will be finding him,” said Volusus. “Once we have his location, perhaps the safest course will be to do away with him quietly, out of the public eye.”
Pilate looked down at the scrolls again; then shook his head.
“No; it’s too late for that. If we fail to make a proper example of him, the mob will conclude either that we implicitly accept this conduct or that we are too weak to stop it.”
“With all of the people in the city at the moment, if he truly is popular, then killing him openly could trigger the very uprising we’re trying to prevent,” argued Volusus.
Pilate stayed quiet, lost in thought, as the groans of several prisoners came wafting through a corridor.
“No, it won’t,” he finally said. “We’ll think of something.”
I stood against the wall, so mesmerized with what I was hearing that I paid only limited attention to what was going on outside.
A guard, dressed like those we had seen in the dungeon the previous evening, stepped up to the doorway. He signaled to one of the junior officers, but Pilate saw him and beckoned him to come in.
The man saluted and stood at attention.
“You keep the prisoners?” asked Pilate.
“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I have one held in isolation, but I had no instructions as to whether he should be fed.”
I struggled to keep a straight face, hoping the governor would send the man away with a sharp command not to bother the officers with such petty concerns. But Pilate seemed curious as to why one prisoner had been separated from the rest. Decius was away, and none of the other Romans knew.
“Bring him here.”
The governor rose and walked around the table toward the doorway leading to the courtyard. A few minutes later, two soldiers dragged a very confused and frightened Markowitz up from the dungeon and threw him to the ground at Pilate’s feet.
The Roman stared at him, as if appraising an insect previously unknown to science.
“What is your name?” he finally asked.