The Eighth Veil (24 page)

“Barak, you heard. Tell me what you think.”

“It is not my place to question so eminent a person as the captain of the palace guard, but…”

“Yes? I think he shades the truth, Barak. Why does he do that, do you suppose?”

“Sir, I…”

“Never mind. Let us wander to the kitchens and see if there is any news of the dead man beyond what we have been told. You can tell me what you think of our captain on the way.”

He scooped up the pendant from the table, tucked it back in his tunic, and led Barak out the door. A glance in the direction of the lattice work failed to produce a shadow or even a hint of movement. Perhaps his watcher had fallen asleep. Perhaps he didn’t exist at all. The complexity that pierced wall created had shifted his investigation from difficult to nearly impossible.

Once in the corridors and out of earshot of a possible eavesdropper, he turned to the old man. “Yes?”

“I have had reports…you understand, from the servants, who cannot be identified, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“One is about the dead man. He sometimes met with one of the women servants in the cellars for…immoral purposes, you understand, and the woman in question said he told her that he’d seen and knew something. She said he thought it would be worth some money, but he did not tell her what it was he knew or saw.”

“Do you think the captain told the truth about his search?”

“Not entirely. Some of the servants said parts of the cellars were searched, but they were not sure they all were.”

“Not all? It seems I was right, then. The captain is adept at lying. Why, Barak, do you suppose he said he had done a search if he hadn’t?”

“Sir? Perhaps he did not know his guards slacked off when they had a chance.”

“Yes, that is one possibility. Then he would not be the liar I thought. Possibly some of the cellars are inaccessible either for searching or hiding. We will have to sort that out later. Now, I must have my midday meal and afterwards I will speak with Menahem.”

Chapter XXXIII

But Menahem would have to wait. When Gamaliel gained the street he found a messenger from the High Priest accompanied by four Temple guards waiting for him. His day seemed to be filled with armed men. He found himself escorted to Caiaphas’ house which, mercifully, was a short distance south of the palace. He thought to protest. As mighty a position as the High Priest occupied, his was at least its equal in the larger scheme of things. But, he realized in the long run, broadcasting his personal pique in the Sanhedrin would only reveal another crack in the Nation’s leadership, one which Rome would gladly exploit. Better to live under the Lord’s Law, if only at the sufferance of Rome, than bow one’s neck to
Lex Romana
or whatever version of it their conquerors decided to impose.

Once in Caiaphas’ rooms, he waited for the High Priest to work himself up into a state of sufficient irascibility. Everyone knew Gamaliel could best Caiaphas in any argument or disputation. The only way the High Priest could possibly prevail in such a confrontation was to shout the Rabban down. That took a certain level of anger. Thus the delay. Gamaliel asked for and received a cup of water to drink. The water in the city had always been suspect unless drawn from the well that gave David access to the city. He knew this water came from that well, now covered and linked to the pool of Siloam inside the walls by Hezekiah’s tunnel, built by that ingenious leader seven centuries earlier. Surely, he thought, if we could accomplish such a feat then, we can find the leadership to cast off this Roman burden now. But he could think of no one in the Nation who fit that bill. Certainly not the High Priest.

As if this thought had summoned him, Caiaphas appeared in the doorway and bore down on Gamaliel like a Greek trireme in full attack mode. Gamaliel could almost see the wake he left behind.

“High Priest, you wished to speak with me? I take it is a matter of some urgency or you would not have dragged me away from the task assigned to me by the Prefect himself.”

“You are the Rabban. You are the one who can say yea or nay to this upstart. Even your students report he is a blasphemer yet you report you find no fault in him.”

“I assume we are back to discussing the rabbi, Yeshua ben Yosef. Blasphemy is not so easy to define, High Priest. If he speaks the Name, yes he blasphemes. That is the Law. But too many of our rabbis confuse sin with blasphemy. I would be careful how you throw that word around.”

“Do not lecture me. I am not one of your students. Is it not enough that he consorts with the lowest sinners, tax gatherers, and the unclean? He does not observe Shabbat. His own people boast that Shabbat is made for the man, not the man for Shabbat. What does that mean except blasphemy?” Gamaliel opened his mouth to speak, but Caiaphas waved him off. “He healed a man of lameness two days ago—on Shabbat! He claims he can forgive sins. You tell me, what does that signify to you? Does he put himself on a plane with the Lord? What are we to do? Please do not tell me to wait and see. And another thing,” Caiaphas had slipped from his carefully prepared remarks. There is a downside to pumping up one’s anger and that is it often takes over and diverts you from your intended path, verbal or otherwise.

“You had the man in your hands. You had a murderer and you let him go. If you had done as our queen asked, this murder nonsense would be done and over by now and we could concentrate on more important things.”

“Like your annoying rabbi?”

“Precisely.”

“Is there anything else, High Priest?”

“What? No, I need answers from you and now.”

“Answers? Is it correct to assume your early remarks were aimed at the Galilean and the latter referred to Menahem?”

“What? Of course the man who claims to speak to the Lord directly and the…of course.”

“Answers, then. Here are a few that may or may not address your concerns, if I understand them. First, if we were to arrest and punish everyone who breaches Shabbat, half of Galilee would be in prison by nightfall. A condition, by the way, they would share with their king, the queen, and the princess, not to mention at least four members of the Sanhedrin that I know of. Are you sure you want to do that?’

“Don’t be absurd. Of course not, but this man is passing himself off as a rabbi and he has no training, no learning. He cites no authority.”

“Do we license rabbis now? I didn’t know. Where is it written one must study with Gamaliel, or with Shammai, or anyone else for all that, before one may teach? As regards the request by the queen to turn over Menahem, the king’s long time companion, to Pilate for disposition of punishment, there was no firm evidence then, none at all now, to convict him of anything more serious than befriending a servant girl. The Prefect would have been perfectly amenable to meting out some penalty, even knowing the man’s innocence. For him a quick political gesture endorsed by me was all he ever wanted. The question of guilt had nothing to do with it, you see?”

“But…. I have been reliably told you found a knife in the bath the day after they found the dead girl and it has been positively identified as having belonged to Menahem. Is that not evidence enough?”

“As far as that goes, you are correct, a knife was found and it did belong to Menahem, but it was not the murder weapon. It was placed in the bath after the deed had been done by someone wishing to implicate an innocent man, in this case Menahem. That man has been found out and has been dealt with. Since then there has been a second murder and if I do not soon return to my investigations there may well be a third.”

“Pilate wished you to turn this man over and you did not do it. It could have been a poor decision on your part. We continue to exist as a Nation at the sufferance of Rome. Should it be necessary to preserve the Nation would it not be better to sacrifice one man, even an innocent one?”

“I cannot believe you, as High Priest, would ever condone the spilling of innocent blood simply for political expediency.”

“No? Even so, we have an obligation to those who will follow us, to the future.”

“I must go. Time passes and my killer grows desperate.”

“Desperate? He will have fled the city by now, surely.”

“No, I believe he’s still here and getting more agitated by the hour. He wants something he knows I have and he will stop at nothing to get it. Perhaps I should leave it in your hands for safe keeping.”

“My hands? Certainly not. Are you mad? He might try to attack me. What is it he wants that is so dangerous?”

“Oh, I have no doubt he would attack you or anyone else for the bauble, for that is what it is. He has already killed for it twice. And, as he is not a believer, he will show no respect for either the High Priest, the Rabban of the Sanhedrin, or the Law. Sad but true. We allow too many people of questionable backgrounds into our city to share our hospitality, don’t you think?”

When Caiaphas stopped sputtering and calmed down a bit, Gamaliel sat and looked him in the eye.

“High Priest, I know how much you wish to rein in this rag-tag gang of reformers and their rabbi. But under our Law, we can do nothing more than prefer charges, try him in the Sanhedrin, and perhaps flog some sense into or exile him and the rest of them, maybe a little of both. If we do, however, I am sure it will accomplish nothing. As soon as this rabbi is gone another will take his place and another after that. Let him be. At some point he will say or do something serious enough so that even his closest followers will not be able to defend him. Then you may act.”

“But—”

“Trust me on this, my old colleague. We have had what? Ten generations of men, who would be, indeed some were even declared to be, Messiah. They come and they go. Only we, the Sanhedrin, the backbone of the Nation, only we endure. We must continue to do so or all is lost—the city, the Temple, everything. Do not spend what little currency we have on this man. Not yet.”

Gamaliel rose and left Caiaphas pondering and alone. Enough of that for now. He knew his killer lurked somewhere in the shadows and he would have him. He hurried to the palace where Barak awaited him.

Chapter XXXIV

“Excellency,” the old man began.

“
Ha Shem
, Barak, you have news for me? Is something amiss? You look worried.”

Barak’s face looked like a map of the wilderness, lines crisscrossing it like so many goat paths. Something, it appeared, had him agitated.

“No, no, I thought you would be here earlier and when you didn’t show up, I wondered. Then, one of the men who provide the kitchen with garum said he thought he’d seen you in the street near the Temple and you had been arrested by the High Priest or someone from the Temple. He said—”

“Nothing to concern you. The High Priest is in a state over one of the local rabbis and wanted me to confront and suppress him.”

“I imagine I can guess who. Well, you see the news of your arrest, only it wasn’t, of course, gave me cause to worry, Excellency, that you might not return I mean. At any rate, there is no news to report today. Chuzas says he has not yet arranged to have Menahem made available for you yet again. I am not sure why that is so and the guards have given up their search for Graecus, of course—”

“Of course.”

“Sir? Oh, I see, yes, and the queen is reported to be very angry at you for failing to turn Menahem over to the Prefect. They say she has since informed the High Priest about what you did, or rather did not do.”

“I thought as much. Rest easy, Caiaphas and I have had that conversation as well. The queen’s anger can’t be helped. I suspect she has reasons we can only guess at. It can’t be easy married to this king and to have a daughter like the Princess Salome. Now, I have a question for you and I must ask it out here where it is not likely we’ll be overheard.”

“Yes, Excellency?”

“I am curious about all that intricate lattice work in the room assigned to us to conduct our interviews. How is it arranged?”

“How? I don’t understand.”

“As you well know, people who wish to listen to us can sit behind it without being seen. What was the purpose of placing it there and how has it been used in the past? I assume you will know as you were in the old king’s service before this one.”

“Oh, I see. It was built by the old king, as you suspected. He prided himself on his ingenuity, you know. He would stand behind the screen to spy on people who were scheduled to come before him. He thought they might reveal things in their conversations while they waited for him. He thought he could gain an advantage in any negotiations that might follow. That sort of thing.”

“Did it work?”

“At first, I think so. You would have to ask the steward to be sure, but there are no secrets in palaces and soon everyone knew about the trick and were careful about what passed their lips in that room. I do not think the Romans ever knew. Whatever we might have felt about our king, we would never betray him to Caesar’s people.”

“I see. That is very commendable. Is there anything else?”

“The room also was used to hold small receptions and the like, with food and drink and sometimes entertainment. It would depend on who he met and how important they were or he thought they were.”