The Last Sacrifice (22 page)

“I would hope it is also well-known that I am trustworthy.”

“And Romans in this city are not?”

“Perhaps the boy doesn’t know any Romans here.”

“Don’t treat me as if I’m stupid. You’ve read the letter. You know the boy is simply a messenger, representing two important Roman citizens trapped in the city. So why would they choose you over official channels?”

“At the boy’s request, I did not read the letter,” Joseph said mildly. “I’m in no position to speculate.”

Yet Joseph could not avoid his share of silent speculation. Learning more about the letter from Falco only raised more questions for Joseph. What two important Roman citizens were behind this? The city had been in civil war for only the last five days. Yet the boy had approached Joseph months earlier, when anyone had been free to leave the city. So what had trapped them? And, as Falco had aptly pointed out, why not go through the protection of official Roman channels?

Unless, of course, these citizens felt it was not protection at all.

“The sooner the boy arrives, the sooner I can leave this city,” Falco said. He heaved himself up and, like Joseph had done minutes earlier, walked closer to the edge of the roof. He looked past the lush gardens of the upper city and surveyed the valley between these residential quarters and the Temple, as if looking for fighting on the streets of the markets below.

Falco turned back to Joseph, frowning. “Something is wrong about all of this, and I don’t like it at all.”

The Seventh Hour

“Here.” Boaz thrust several bound scrolls toward Maglorius. “Contracts. Properly witnessed. Transferred and witnessed again. Penalties agreed upon if payments overdue. It’s all legal.”

Maglorius had risen as Boaz and the five men approached. Boaz had been unsuccessful raising extra men. He wasn’t surprised. Sounds of skirmishes between the royal troops of the upper city and the rebels of the lower city had been reaching him all morning.

“You are too kind,” Maglorius said. “If you don’t mind, tell me the sum of the debts outstanding and to which merchants they were owed.”

“Read them yourself.” Boaz had no urge to reveal the insignificant amount compared to the value of the house. He did not want Maglorius to respond with violence. “Everything is legal, as you’ll plainly see.”

“There’s the difficulty,” Maglorius said. He made no move to open any of the scrolls. “I don’t read.”

“You don’t read.” Boaz was stunned. He’d gone to all this effort. It had been a battle to convince the keepers of the records to let him leave the Repository of the Archives with them. Even the judge who had ruled in favor of Boaz had had no choice but to go to the repository to review the contracts.

“I don’t read,” Maglorius said. “However, Amaris does. If you’ll wait just a moment . . .”

Maglorius smiled and opened the door behind him. Before Boaz could protest, Maglorius took the scrolls inside. And shut the door.

From inside, the sound of a bar coming down to secure the door reached Boaz clearly.

What was he to do? Order these same five inept men to attempt to crash through the door? Hardly. Boaz knew full well that the upper-city residences were well protected. It would take a battering ram to get through.

He began to grind his teeth.

But he could do little else to ease his frustration as he waited.

And waited.

“It has been weeks since you permitted the last sacrifice on behalf of Caesar,” Ananias said to Eleazar. Ananias wore simple peasant’s clothing, not the ornate costume of the high priest. Here, he and his son would talk man-to-man. “I am here because I want to plead with you to resume the sacrifices on behalf of Caesar. Rome has not yet acted, but when it does, we are doomed.”

They stood in torchlight. Condensation in the cool air trickled down the stone walls and from the ceiling of the tunnel, with an occasional drop landing in the cistern with a plop that was loud in comparison to the natural hush around them.

“If you had the faith of our forefathers,” Eleazar said, “you would not declare doom upon our people. God has promised us a Messiah and will not break His covenant with us.”

This was the first time that father and son had spoken since Eleazar ended the temple sacrifices for foreigners, and for Ananias, his son’s words confirmed the accusation that Annas the Younger had made earlier in the day in front of the Great Sanhedrin.

“My son, my son. You are well intentioned, but if God sends us a Messiah, it will be in His own time. Who among us may force God to act?”

“
If
God sends a Messiah?” Eleazar lost his temper. “I knew you were a puppet of the establishment and a political choice for high priest, but is your faith in God and His promises that little?”

Ananias ignored the insult and ignored an impulse to admonish his son for the lack of respect. “Let me speak truthfully to you. Because if a father cannot trust a son, he can trust no one.”

Eleazar crossed his arms. It was a clear-enough signal of resistance to Ananias, yet this might be their only chance to speak freely one to the other.

The cool, damp air in the tunnel far beneath the Temple Mount was unnaturally still, but to Ananias it seemed to become even more still as he dared voice his doubts for the first time.

“There are times,” Ananias said, “that I wonder if the Nazarene was who he claimed to be.”

He didn’t have to explain who he meant. Since the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, his followers, who claimed the Nazarene was Messiah, had become known as Nazarenes.

“Am I hearing you correctly?” Eleazar asked. “You, the high priest, uttering blasphemy?”

“Listen to me,” Ananias said gently. “That’s all I ask.”

Eleazar shifted his weight from foot to foot as if impatient but did not protest.

“You remember James, the brother of the Nazarene.”

“I do,” Eleazar said. “We stoned Him to death because he proclaimed the same blasphemy as you do now.”

“While the Nazarene was on this earth, James rejected Him, ridiculed Him. Yet later, James died rather than deny Him. That has always haunted me. What would it take to believe that your own brother was the Son of God? What would it take to be willing to die for that belief?”

“Insanity,” Eleazar muttered.

“Or seeing the Nazarene resurrected, as was claimed by so many witnesses.”

“A man does not live after death,” Eleazar said. “Not after a whipping and crucifixion. Nor, if taken off the cross still alive, would he have the strength to move a stone that covers a tomb and defeat soldiers sent to guard Him. The witnesses have conspired to spread tales.”

“And endured our persecution to maintain that lie? My son, people do not give up their lives for that. Indeed, that’s why I’ve had my doubts. Watching the Jews among us who give up everything because of this faith.”

“Our Messiah will not arrive as a lowly carpenter from an obscure town, nor will our Messiah allow himself the humiliation of crucifixion. No, he will lead our people to victory against the oppressors.”

Ananias continued as if he had not heard Eleazar’s answer. “Many of the Nazarenes in this city have begun to sell their property. They believe the end of the age is upon us.”

Eleazar became more agitated as he listened more closely. “Exactly! The end of the age is upon us. The Messiah must come soon, and when he does he will vindicate the Temple of our God and free our people from the tyranny of Rome once and for all. The Nazarenes are right to see the recent events as signs, but they blasphemously misinterpret them, claiming that they are the birth pangs of God’s wrath against Israel. Soon they will realize that the riots and wars do not portend God’s judgment on Jerusalem but rather the coming of Messiah to free Israel from her enemies. We have worshiped God alone and haven’t fallen into idolatry. We’ve kept the laws. There is no other explanation for what appears to be happening to our people and to Jerusalem than that the coming of Messiah is near.”

“I hope that you are right. But if you continue to provoke Rome, you may help prove the Nazarenes correct,” Ananias responded. “Surely you know the prophecy that the Nazarene made before he was crucified. Before the end of this generation, he said, those who pierced him would see him coming on clouds. If the Temple is destroyed as he prophesied,
he
will be vindicated, not Israel. God will truly have punished those who pierced the Nazarene.”

“The Temple cannot be destroyed. No military power on earth is capable of taking this city, not with Jews ready to die for it, not with God on our side.”

“If He isn’t?”

“I cannot believe we are having this conversation,” Eleazar said. “The upper city wars against the lower city. You lead one side and I lead the other. Who knows when we might again speak alone? Why are you wasting time on this?”

“Because, here, away from the battle, we have time to waste,” Ananias said. In his love for Eleazar and his fear that they might not speak again, the voice of Ananias nearly cracked. “And because I, too, am fully aware that only God knows when we will speak again as father and son.”

“Then let’s speak of ending this standoff.”

“There has been no letter from Rome.”

Valeria shrugged and began to turn away from Joseph Ben-Matthias, toward the stairs that would take her off the roof and down the streets of the upper city that were so familiar to her. Every day—except the Sabbath, for in the strange manner practiced by all Jews, Joseph Ben-Matthias did not engage in anything that suggested commerce—Valeria had stoically prepared herself for this same answer from the man.

There has been no letter from Rome.

Day by day, since sending a letter to Rome begging for help, Valeria had never lost hope because she had never allowed herself any hope. Florus, the most powerful man in Judea, had wanted her family destroyed. Maglorius, a legendary killer of men, wanted to kill her and Quintus to hide the fact that he had murdered their father. Her stepmother, Alypia, had abandoned them during the May riots and fled for Rome, probably intent on securing the family fortune as the Bellator widow and matriarch. The very people Valeria would have turned to for help were the ones who posed the most danger.

Who then had given her and Quintus refuge? Families of Jews. Whom had she been forced to trust with her letter to Rome? Another Jew. The irony. She, the daughter of a noble Roman family, accustomed to Jewish servants, in Jerusalem because her father had overseen the tax collection of this subjugated people, now lived among them in hiding.

What choice did she have?

None, except to find Joseph Ben-Matthias every day but one, even now during the standoff between the upper and lower city. None, except wait until he had a reply for her from Rome. So, unless she was caught crossing the line of demarcation between the upper and lower city, she would return tomorrow to ask the same question.

“Wait,” called Joseph from behind her.

Valeria turned back to him. She said nothing. She made it a habit to speak little and, when she did speak, to speak in a near whisper. She had chopped her hair short, and she wore loose men’s clothing to disguise her femininity. Her appearance she could hide, but she feared her voice would someday give her away.

“There has been no letter from Rome,” Joseph repeated. “But it has been answered. You can go back to Valeria and Quintus to tell them that someone has been sent here to escort them to Rome.”

Valeria unconsciously cocked her head. Had she heard correctly?

Joseph was smiling. “Your persistence on their behalf has finally been rewarded.”

She had heard correctly. Yet how did he know?

As if understanding her thoughts, he continued. “Falco, the man who arrived today, told me this. As a result, much more about all of this is clear to me.”

Valeria relaxed.

“I must caution you,” Joseph said. “Falco feared the city was too dangerous for him, and he dared not wait until the rebels are defeated. He went to Florus for help, who sent soldiers with him.”

Florus!
Valeria began to edge away.
Soldiers!
Were they nearby?

“Please, stop,” Joseph said. “Let me explain.” He kept his distance from her, showing that he was aware that she was ready to bolt. “Falco and I discussed this at length while we were waiting for you this morning,” Joseph said.

This very morning! Were the soldiers nearby?
To calm her nerves, Valeria reminded herself that the soldiers did not want a mere messenger boy, as she had represented herself to Joseph.

“Falco and I both concluded that there could be only one reason Valeria sent you to me instead of openly going to Florus with her brother for protection and help to go to Rome. That, of course, would be fear of Florus.”

A cry of outrage reached them from somewhere in the lower city. Then screams and wailing. Neither acknowledged it to the other, but both knew. A dart or catapulted stone from the royal troops in the upper city had found a victim in the lower city. It was never the opposite; the rebels did not have military equipment capable of striking the troops from a distance.

Joseph adjusted his tunic and sat on the raised edge of his roof. He looked down across the city and smiled sadly. After a few moments, he spoke to her again. “Falco and I both agreed on one other conclusion. Their fear was justified.”

It was, as Valeria was all too aware. Her brother Quintus had told her that Maglorius had murdered their father on the final afternoon of the May riots across the city. But Valeria also knew that the ex-gladiator had taken advantage of the confusion and violence already inflicted on the Bellator household by Roman soldiers sent upon orders from Florus. Bellator had escaped the soldiers, only to be betrayed by Maglorius, who later made it look as though Bellator had died at the soldiers’ hands.