The Last Sacrifice (24 page)

“I’m listening.”

“But first we need to ensure that everyone knows Manahem will be able to enter the city as soon as he and his army arrive.”

“Debatable.”

“Which is why I’m here. On one hand, if we can’t get control of the city gates, we have only the possibility that Manahem will be able to help. With the possibility that his army will eventually stop waiting outside the city and drift away. Even if they do stay, Florus might actually send soldiers in this direction to rescue the city. Time is not on our side.”

“On the other hand?” Eleazar said, staring across the city. How he hated this situation, Jew against Jew. But he hated Roman oppression even more and believed God would help them prevail to end it.

“On the other hand, if we do get control of the city gates, it is certain that Manahem will give us complete victory.”

“I can’t argue with that. But we’ve been trying to win control of the gates for nearly a week. I don’t see any way of doing it before Manahem arrives.”

“Tomorrow,” Gilad said quietly. “Tomorrow we can storm the upper city. If you grant the order to go ahead with it, I would like your permission to have the house of Joseph Ben-Matthias protected. As you know, he saved me from execution in Rome.”

Eleazar shook his head impatiently. “We will not storm the upper city. Not enough men. No weapons for them even if we had enough. We’ve been fortunate to hold the line as long as we have. If we risk it all and lose, we’ll never have this chance again.”

“Tomorrow,” Gilad repeated. “You will have all the men and weapons you need.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Some of the Zealots from the hills have arrived already for tomorrow’s wood-burning festival. Your stand against the upper city has roused a belief that they can finally do something. I’m told thousands will be arriving with their
sicarri
hidden in their tunics. All they need is a signal, and they will rush out of the Temple and attack the upper city.”

“We agreed to a truce! The wood-burning festival is holy, not to be used for war!”

“You see it that way,” Gilad said. “I don’t.”

“As governor of the Temple, I made a vow to the high priest that—”

“To the high priest?” Gilad asked. “Or to your father?” Gilad put a hand on Eleazar’s shoulder. “My friend, you and I both know that the position of high priest has become the ultimate symbol of corruption to the people. He gets his power only from the king of Judea, who in turn gets his power from Rome. The high priest serves Rome first, the people second.”

Gilad pointed at the upper city. “If you have any doubts, look where and how they live. Far above the poor who cry out for justice from them. So is Ananias the high priest to you? Or your father?”

“A vow is a vow, whether I make it to my father or to the high priest. You want me to betray it.”

“Eleazar, we are running out of time. Tomorrow, victory is ours if we want it. Eventual defeat is almost as certain if you don’t want it. The choice is yours.”

As she walked away from the old woman, Valeria felt remorse that she hadn’t expected.

Earlier in the day, thinking through the problem, it had seemed clear. The old woman could not go with them to Rome. She would be unlikely to survive the journey. Worse, she would slow them down and add difficulty to their escape from Jerusalem.

Tomorrow Valeria intended to pretend she was taking Quintus to the market. And when she and Quintus were with the bodyguards arranged by Joseph and safely on their way out of the city, she would tell Quintus their destination and console him with the same promise she’d made to Malka. When they reached Rome, she would arrange for money to be sent back to the woman to make her last years comfortable.

Wasn’t that enough?

Yet seeing the old woman on the stool, with her deep wrinkles and the startling white milkiness of her cataracts, had provoked compassion in Valeria she did not want as a burden.

The woman’s quiet acceptance of their departure had also bothered Valeria, and looking past the woman into her shack had given her a sense of what it must be like to live alone in such poverty. Of course the woman would have grown fond of Quintus. Valeria should have foreseen that. But it was too late now.

Their escape was before them, and soon, this cursed Jerusalem would be behind them. Within days or weeks, especially as they approached Rome, Quintus would forget about Malka.

Yes, Valeria told herself with every step down the street, she was definitely doing what was best for all of them.

Dusk

“Valerius! Valerius!”

Valeria woke on the rooftop and sat upright on her sleeping mat. Leeba was calling for her, but because Leeba believed Valeria was a boy, she used the masculine version of Valeria’s name.

“Valerius!”

Valeria hurried to Leeba. Again the glassblower’s house was a disturbing scene. This time, however, Nahum was restraining his wife as she attempted to attack the three priests who were lifting the body of their son, Raanan.

“Stop them,” she pleaded to Valeria. “Stop them!”

“This is not your business,” Nahum said. “Go back to the rooftop.”

“They can’t throw him into the valley,” Leeba wailed as the three men straightened with the limp body of her son. “Not Gehenna!”

Although she wasn’t a Jew, Valeria had witnessed enough death in the previous days to understand. Dead bodies were not permitted to remain in the city overnight and defile the holy mount. Because there were too many killings in a day, the bodies were not given burial, but thrown over the city wall, down the steep incline to the bottom of the Valley of Gehenna.

Valeria remained motionless despite Leeba’s pleas. Never had Valeria witnessed such grief.

Leeba kicked futilely at the priests as they passed her. She spit at their backs and cursed them. To no avail.

Her son was gone.

On his journey to arrange for the execution of a man he hated but had not met, Annas the Younger stopped halfway up the steps to the flat roof of a small house in the lower city.

Because of Olithar, Annas knew this man would be sitting above, knew who would be surrounding this man at this time, knew why they had gathered. And he intended that he would have each one killed after they had served his purpose.

Dusk had deepened enough that in one direction, the black outlines of the Mount of Olives were almost invisible against the night sky, while from the other direction came the illumination of hundreds of lit torches from the Temple, throwing long, mysterious shadows into the cramped alleys.

Here in the squalor of the lower city, the smells of the cooking spices of a dozen different nationalities assailed his nostrils. It was a calm, hot evening, and the smoke of cooking fires seemed to hang like a shroud.

Annas had paused on the steps because of the voice that carried softly to him from the rooftop. The voice of one of the men that Annas intended for eventual death.

The words were clear to Annas:

“‘In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’”

In the hush that followed—punctuated by the clatter of a clay cooking pot as it shattered in a house farther down the alley and a brief outburst of yelling from a drunken man—Annas found himself surprised by anger. He was a businessman first and a man of religion second, yet he was offended deeply.

Sacrilege!

Annas had his informants in all corners of the city; even without them, he still would have recognized immediately what was happening.

Followers of the Nazarene called it the Lord’s Supper. A celebration of their last meal with the man of Nazareth the night before his crucifixion.

Sacrilege!

“In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

In those brief words, the implications were horrendous.

A new covenant between them and God?
Did they dare suggest that God’s covenant to Abraham and his descendants was broken? Heresy that should be punished by death!

“In my blood”?
The Temple and all of its priesthood existed to provide the atonement that came with the sacrifices of animals. Would the followers of the Nazarene then have the arrogance to suggest the Temple no longer necessary? to proclaim that because of one man’s death the offering of temple sacrifice was now and forever forbidden? dare to proclaim that the new covenant had been established by the shedding of a man’s blood? blood from the false teacher from Nazareth, a common criminal?

Proclaiming the Lord and His death?
No one would be Lord but God Himself or the Messiah He had promised.
Heresy!

“Until he comes”?
Dead once and resurrected, followers of the Nazarene claimed. And to believe further the man of Nazareth’s promise that within this generation He would arrive on clouds of heaven with power and great glory? that members of all the tribes of God’s people would mourn because of it?

Annas, like any educated Jew, understood the symbolism of the words borrowed from the ancient prophets such as Isaiah, who used this apocalyptic language of arriving on clouds to proclaim God’s imminent judgment. “See the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt.” So who were these people on the roof to believe and proclaim that God’s judgment on Israel was imminent because of what had been done to their supposed Messiah? And to further claim that there would be a final and literal return when all the believers would join in resurrection from death themselves?

Heresy! Heresy! Heresy!

These Nazarenes—Jews, no less, betrayers of the covenant God had made to Israel—now claimed that inheritance of the covenant blessings depended not on one’s ancestry, circumcision, or adherence to the Law, but rather on one’s belief that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s Messiah. These Nazarenes claimed the boundaries were gone—that uncircumcised Gentiles who believed were now included in the covenant, like branches grafted onto a tree. Claimed the covenant was now inclusive, not exclusive. Claimed that there was a new priesthood, that any Jew or Gentile who believed could directly approach God without a sacrifice performed at the Temple by a priest, because Jesus was both intermediary and sacrifice. Claimed Jesus was the living Temple and all that had been true of the Temple was now true of Jesus. Claimed that Jesus would be vindicated when the ruling authorities in Jerusalem had been judged and destroyed along with the old Temple. Claimed that after Jesus, who was sufficient atonement for sin, there was no need for a physical temple or a physical sacrificial system. Claimed that this communion allowed them to participate in the last sacrifice, made by Jesus.

No need for a temple? Or for a land of Israel? A covenant fulfilled and extended to all who wanted to be included apart from the Law? Jesus, the last sacrifice?

Heresy! Heresy! Heresy!

As Annas climbed the remainder of the steps, he smiled with a degree of satisfaction. Perhaps God had arranged it for Annas to hear the sacrilege at precisely this moment. For whatever guilt he’d had about how he intended to kill the men above had vanished in his anger.

With the guilt banished, Annas stepped into the light of the single torch on the flat of the roof.

Jachin knocked on the door to the house of Simeon Ben-Aryeh. He would have been more comfortable armed with a torch, but his orders had been total discretion. A lone man with a torch in the upper city in these times was anything but discreet.

He rapped on the door with his knuckles and, when no one came to answer, switched to the hilt of his knife. He pounded the door for at least a minute, with no results.

Although there was no audience, of course, Jachin shrugged. He didn’t blame those inside for ignoring him. Especially during these times. Who knew when the lower-city rebels might break through and attack the wealth of the upper city.

Just as Jachin decided to turn away, a sudden and fierce constriction bit into his throat. It took him a moment to realize someone had clamped a forearm around him, and he reacted without hesitating. He was a large, strong man, accustomed to street fighting.

A less-experienced fighter would instinctively pull against the forearm, trying to relieve the pressure. Jachin knew the unexpected would be far more effective. A spin to face his opponent would mean the back of his neck would bear the pressure, and his soft, vulnerable throat would be protected. Then a quick lift of the knee while his opponent was recovering from surprise.

He attempted the spin, but the man behind him clamped his right shoulder and lifted him off the ground.

Jachin would have yelped if he’d been able to expel air from his lungs.

“Drop the knife,” came the soft words into his ear. He felt the breath of his opponent, almost like a caress.

Jachin kicked into the air, hating this feeling of helplessness. His size was always an advantage to him, yet now it was useless.

“Drop the knife.”

Darkness began to close on the edges of Jachin’s consciousness, so he dropped the knife immediately. The pressure on his throat did not ease, however, and seconds later, he lost control of his muscles. He dimly knew he’d fallen, and the impact of his nose against the courtyard tiles was a blinding white light that kept him from blacking out.

His opponent pounced on his back and kept a knee grinding into his spine.

He felt a knife tip press into his neck, in the soft spot behind his jaw, just under his ear.

“Who sent you?”

“Joseph Ben-Matthias,” Jachin said, reduced to grunting his words directly into the cool tile pressing his face. “Listen to me. If I meant the household any harm, I would not have knocked loudly on the door. And if you knew anything about me, you’d know if I did mean harm, I could have slit the throat of every person in there and left again. Like a cat.”

The knife pressure did not ease.

“Why are you here?” came the soft voice.

“To speak to you,” Jachin answered. The man who had disarmed him so easily could only be Maglorius.

“Then speak.”

“Let me sit up,” Jachin said.

“Make yourself comfortable where you are.” The knife tip dug deeper, breaking skin. “What does Ben-Matthias want with me?”

So it was Maglorius. Who had just proven himself the best candidate for what was required.

“Nothing, directly,” Jachin answered. Blood trickled down his neck. More blood dripped from his nose onto the tile. “He doesn’t even know I’m here, nor does he want to.”

“Make sense and make sense soon,” Maglorius said.

“Ben-Matthias hired me to escort two Romans out of the city and into Syria. He doesn’t care what methods I use, as long as I get it done. Most Jews in the city—at least Jews I would consider for the job—are involved in fighting for the rebels. As you can imagine, not many men qualify for a job like this. So I’ve come to you, knowing your reputation.”

Without warning, Maglorius was off Jachin’s back. He yanked him by the neck of his tunic and pulled him to his feet.

Jachin staggered to keep his balance. He faced Maglorius but in the dusk saw only the man’s outline, not his features. Such a strong man. So fast. Perhaps after this job, Jachin could convince him to consider more employment. In times of trouble, it wasn’t difficult to find ways to make money for men who were strong, fast, and without scruples.

“I’m not interested,” Maglorius said. “On your way.”

Jachin saw enough of his own knife, in the other man’s possession, to see that it was held in a ready fashion. Jachin held his own hands out to make it obvious he would attempt nothing.

“Money won’t be a problem,” Jachin countered. “Ben-Matthias will be paid well for making sure the two Romans make it safely.”

“I’m not interested.”

“If it’s a matter of conscience,” Jachin said, “the two Romans haven’t done anything illegal or against the Jews. It’s a young boy and his older sister.”

“Why are they trying to escape the city?”

Did Jachin imagine a sudden interest in the man’s voice? “Apparently Florus wants them for some reason. He sent soldiers to take them back to Caesarea, but how much trouble could soldiers be to someone like you?”

Maglorius moved closer. “Only a boy and a girl? What else did Ben-Matthias tell you?”

“They had sent a letter to Rome, claiming an inheritance. A man named Falco came to get them, but when Florus heard, he sent the soldiers with Falco.”