Empire's End (29 page)

“When the slaves finish loading the wagon, we'll get under way,” he said. Six thin but heavily muscled, barefoot men wearing only loincloths, their skin reddish-brown from the sun, quickly filed past me in a tight line. They hoisted heavy wood boxes on their shoulders and kept their eyes straight ahead, peering out from deep eye sockets above protruding cheekbones. They situated the cargo in the wagon just so and jogged back for more, sweat dripping.

I carefully set my bag behind the driver's bench and was reaching for the strut to pull myself up into the passenger seat when I noticed him, second from the last returning to the wagon with another heavy box. He had to have lost twenty pounds since I had seen him, but it was definitely he.

“Nadav!” I hissed, and he turned with a start, the box slipping from his bony shoulder and leaving a gash. The man behind him deftly slipped around him.

Nadav's eyes filled, and he stared at me as if I were a ghost. “Balbus used me,” he moaned. “Forgive me!”

“Used you how?”

“Sold my children as slaves. Took Anna.”

“Where's—”

An overseer rushed up and savagely whipped Nadav, leaving welts on his neck and forehead. “Get that box aboard and get back there for more!”

As Nadav loaded the box, I said, “I'm a Roman citizen and I have need of him for a moment!”

“Make it fast. He's on this detail!”

I motioned Nadav to follow me inside.

“Kill me, Paul! All those people! All that blood on my hands! Put me out of my misery!”

“Stop! Pray God will forgive you!”

“He's abandoned me, as He should! How can He ever forgive me? How can you?”

“Nadav! Help me find the others! Where are your children?”

“They sell for more than adults. Balbus made Anna a concubine and sold the children to a trader in the south. I couldn't find them if I were freed today!”

“Where is she?”

“With him in Caesarea, where Taryn and Corydon are.”

“Taryn—”

“He divorced his wife and married her, but he also has a harem of concubines. It's awful for all of them.”

“How do you know this?”

“Government slaves are transferred back and forth. People talk.”

The door burst open. “Hurry and get him back out here!”

“Go!” I whispered. “I'm praying for you, and I'll do what I can. I'll try to get to Anna and tell her I saw you.”

“Tell her I'm well, Paul. Don't tell her I won't last long here, that they're starving us. And if you can ever find it in your heart—”

“Nadav, we're still brothers in Christ.”

Outside he was whipped again on his way to the cargo stack. He lifted
a box to his good shoulder as the overseer followed close and seemed to examine the bleeding wound on the other. Any hope that this might afford Nadav some reprieve was crushed when the man stopped and appeared to calculate the distance, then unleashed the whip so the tip cracked directly into the open flesh.

Nadav dropped to his knees with a shriek as the man blankly turned away, as if he had swatted a fly.

The cargo pile had shrunk to a single row of boxes, and the courier's wagon was already laden to where the horses would labor all the way to the coast. The driver was up in his seat and signaled me aboard with a nod, but I was so repulsed I could barely move. The inhumanity I had witnessed was, in truth, nothing compared to the atrocities I'd seen in Yanbu. But it all flowed from the same steaming pot of putrid poison that made up the Roman Empire.

At its beginning the realm may have seemed a grand design for the common good, and though I had never believed in a plurality of gods, for all I knew the original philosophers and thinkers were well intentioned. But with their conquests had come a reach and a power that resulted in a toxic elitism, a bloated entitlement scheme that seemed to necessitate supporting itself, despite its no longer working for the people.

“I'm cracking these reins when the last box is loaded, friend,” the courier called out, “whether you're aboard or not.”

I nodded, still finding it hard to move. Nadav retrieved the box that had tumbled when he fell and shuffled to the end of the line, sliding it onto the wagon and going back for another, appearing desperate not to endure one more lash. I fought every urge within me to attack the overseer myself, reminding myself of everything I would lose in the process—my freedom, my calling, any chance to see Taryn, let alone rescue her or Corydon. And it would surely mean the end of Nadav.

As the slaves heaved the last of the boxes onto their shoulders and the courier tightened his hands on the leads to the horses, I mounted the wagon. All the while, my mind was on the Empire and what it had meant to me as a child in Tarsus as compared to when I was a student in Jerusalem and then an employee of the Sanhedrin.

I slouched on the bench, but I turned to face Nadav as the wagon slowly began to move and the slaves were herded away. I tried to communicate with my eyes that he should stay strong and courageous and know that God had not abandoned him, that He would forgive him, and that he should never stop praying for his family.

In his eyes I saw only hopelessness.

As a child I had heard pride in my father's voice when he informed me we were Roman citizens besides being Jews, and not just Jews but Pharisees. Oh, it was good also to be Greek and of Tarsus. It's no wonder I became so full of myself. But when I became a rabbinical student I learned what a complication it was to live under the rule of a foreign power.

Then strangely, those of us associated with the Sanhedrin despised and resented the Romans and yet used them for our own purposes when the need arose. Indeed, we used them to do the dirty work when the Miracle Worker from Galilee began stirring crowds. And when we wanted to eliminate Stephen. And we tried to use them against Peter and John.

When I became a believer, I became an enemy of both my own people and the Romans, but the massacre in Yanbu and what Nadav had just told me made me face the truth: regardless how expansive, impressive, powerful, intellectual, or mythological the Empire appeared, it could not, must not be allowed to continue.

I did not know what would lead to its demise or how long it would take to finish it, but end it must. I prayed it would be a spiritual end, for then perhaps I could have a hand in it. God had not called me to be a
military leader. I would not likely ever carry a weapon or defeat an army. Neither would I fight this battle in the great halls of justice or academia, though I would have loved to debate the great minds of the Empire. If only God would allow the future of Rome to hinge on the efficacy of its spiritual foundations, I might be granted the opportunity to play some role in its downfall.

As the great cart loaded with boxes full of military equipment precariously shifted side to side, I held tight, closed my eyes, and prayed silently for the Empire's end.

When I opened my eyes the early afternoon sun made me squint. “General Balbus,” I intoned casually.

The driver grunted.

“You've heard of him?”

“Who hasn't?” he said.

“I hadn't until recently.”

“Decimus Calidius Balbus,” he said. “Ahala.”

“Pardon me?”

“His nickname. It means ‘armpit.' And it fits.”

“How's that?”

“I have to explain it? You seem like such a smart man. I haven't met him, but I gather he's not pleasant. Decorated. Feared. But a hothead, some say.”

“Decorated for what?”

“Volunteers for the unsavory assignments. Leads his troops long distances over rough terrain to carry out unpleasant tasks. He doesn't demand a popular battle in a major city that results in a parade with music and banners and dancing maidens. He'd just as soon drive his men for days to pillage an entire town, then return with the severed heads of his foes to present to his superiors.”

“Charming.”

“Ahala.”

“Long live Rome,” I said.

The man shrugged. “I just deliver the packages.”

“You've never seen this General Decimus—?”

“Decimus Calidius Balbus. And don't care if I ever do.”

“I'd like to get a look at him,” I said.

“Truly?”

“I would.”

“What would it be worth to you?”

“You could make this happen?”

“A couple of the boxes behind you are for Balbus. They are delivered by an actarius, but you give me a couple of drachmas, I give one to him, and he'll be happy to tell you where General Armpit lives. Whether or not the general is there, I keep the money.”

“I'll take the risk.”

“Give me the coins and I'll show you the man to talk to at the unloading station two hours after we arrive.”

Twenty miles and fours hours later we arrived in Caesarea, the salt breezes off the Mediterranean reminding me of more than twenty years before when my father and I sailed from there to Tarsus to bring back Mother and Shoshanna so I could attend rabbinical school under Gamaliel.

But now, unable to erase the images of the emaciated Nadav from my mind, I was consumed with finding Taryn. Like Nadav and Anna, she and Corydon were paying the price for his awful betrayal. How could he ever forgive himself? Had he really thought the general would honor him for being a traitor?

I don't know if I would want to survive, had my actions gotten my
wife used by a tyrant and our children sold into slavery. How could he ever face her or expect her to forgive him? I no longer knew how to pray for Nadav, that he live or die. I prayed he felt God's peace, but knowing the depth of my own guilt and shame, I found it hard to imagine.

The courier pointed out the man he was confident would trade places with me and tell me where to deliver my packages later.

I walked to the harbor of the city of more than one hundred thousand people, learned that the next ship to Tarsus left late the next morning, and booked my passage. I decided to get my hair cut in town rather than at the military outpost, for if I was recognized by anyone, it would most likely be by someone in authority. Half an hour later my purse was a few shekels lighter and my head and face were bare.

The voyage to Tarsus would be more than three hundred miles, giving me time to grow back my beard and what little hair I had, or not even my own family would recognize me. Already enough about my character and personality would shock them. What would Rabbi Daniel and the people of the synagogue who had known me since childhood think of me now?

CAESAREA

T
HE WALK TO WHERE
the Roman Tenth Legion was stationed brought the familiar quiver that always preceded the unknown. I prayed God would allow me not only to see Taryn but also get a chance to talk to her. Ideally, I wanted to rescue her, spirit her away to Tarsus, and marry her. I knew in my heart God could do anything.

What would it take to extricate a woman, who amounted to a spoil of war, from a general in the army of the Empire that rules a quarter of the people on earth? My beloved and her son and I would become fugitives, marked for death. It was a risk I was willing to take.

Yet God gave me no peace about such a plan, and common sense ruled it out. Only some miraculous turn of events resulting in the conviction—or death—of the general could create a positive outcome.

Still I pleaded with the Lord to speak to me about this, rather than
just leave me with a troubled spirit that told me there was no future in such a delusion. I wasn't certain I wanted an answer. Whenever God impressed something on my heart and soul, because He cannot lie, it was always, naturally, the truth—and rarely easy. This time was no exception.

I have called you to a lonely task. And when I provide you a companion after three years, it will be Barnabas
.

As always, I did not have to ask God to repeat Himself or clarify. While I had wished for news that Taryn might be thrust back into my future, plainly that would have to wait, if it was ever to be. I cannot deny disappointment, and yet I clung to hope as well. It is not all bad news when the Lord gives you a glimpse of your future, even when it doesn't match what you might have designed for yourself, if it includes a gift like Barnabas.

The man deserved his nickname, for he was more than just someone with a cheery outlook. He was a fount of encouragement—genuinely seeing and helping produce the best in everyone. I was a better person when I was with him, and because I was with him.

But what was I to do in Tarsus for three years? When the Lord sent me quickly from Jerusalem, He had said, “I am sending you far from here to the Gentiles.” Did that mean immediately to Gentiles in Tarsus? I had learned that His messages did not always mean what I thought they meant.

When He had sent me from Yanbu, I thought I was to preach to the Gentiles in Damascus. But no. Then when He sent me to Jerusalem for fifteen days, I thought I was to preach to the Gentiles there. But no. Now I would have to see what God had for me in Tarsus. My first audience would be my own family and childhood friends, because it would be the height of effrontery for me to return home and not see them immediately, though they were anything but Gentiles.

But I was prepared for anything. I would speak and preach and debate with anyone God put in my path. While He had called me to be an apostle to the Gentiles, He also said I would preach to kings and the children of Israel. My mission was to obey. I would not stop praying that my work would one day include Taryn and Corydon, but neither would I stop preaching while waiting for that to come to pass.

When I approached the man I was supposed to see and informed him it was I who had sent the money and was to replace him as deliveryperson to General Balbus, he said, “Oh, I don't think that is correct, sir.”

Imagining no good reason for this, I immediately said, “Do not even attempt to steal my money without satisfying your end of the bargain.”