False God of Rome v-3 Read online

  False God of Rome

  ( Vespasian - 3 )

  Robert Fabbri

  Robert Fabbri

  False God of Rome

  PROLOGUE

  JERUSALEM, APRIL AD 33

  An abrupt knock on the door woke Titus Flavius Sabinus with a start; his eyes flicked open. Momentarily unsure of his whereabouts, he jerked his head up off the desk and looked around the room. The muted light of the fading sun seeping in through a narrow open window was enough for him to be able to make out the unfamiliar surroundings: his study in the tower of the Antonia Fortress. Outside the window the Temple soared to the sky, dominating the view. Its high, white marble-clad walls glowed an evening red and the gold leaf that adorned its roof glistered with sunset. Such was the scale of the Jews’ most holy building that it dwarfed the huge columns supporting the expansive quadrangle that surrounded it; they in turn made the multitude of figures, scuttling between them and back and forth across the vast courtyard that the colonnade encompassed, seem no larger than ants.

  The tang of blood from thousands of lambs being slaughtered within the Temple complex for the Passover meal that evening infused the room’s chill air. Sabinus shivered; he had become cold during his brief sleep.

  The knock was repeated more insistently.

  ‘Quaestor, are you in there?’ a voice shouted from the other side of the door.

  ‘Yes, enter,’ Sabinus called back, quickly arranging the scrolls on the desk to suggest that he had been immersed in diligent work rather than taking a late afternoon nap to recover from his two-day journey to Jerusalem from Caesarea, the provincial capital of Judaea.

  The door opened; an auxiliary centurion marched in and snapped to attention before the desk, his traverse-plumed helmet held stiffly under his left arm. ‘Centurion Longinus of the Cohors Prima Augusta reporting, sir,’ he barked. His face was tanned and wrinkled as old leather from years of service in the East.

  ‘What is it, centurion?’

  ‘Two Jews are requesting an audience with the prefect, sir.’

  ‘Then take them to him.’

  ‘He’s dining with a Jewish prince from Iudemaea and some Parthians who’ve just arrived in the city; he’s drunk as a legionary on leave. He said that you should deal with them.’

  Sabinus grunted; since being sent to Judaea ten days previously, to audit its tax revenues at the behest of his superior — the Governor of Syria, who held ultimate authority over Judaea — he had already had enough dealings with Prefect Pontius Pilatus to realise the truth of the statement. ‘Tell them to come back in the morning when the prefect is more approachable,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘I have, sir, but one of them is a malchus, or captain, of the Temple Guard sent by the High Priest Caiaphas; he was most insistent that the information that he has concerns something due to happen this evening, after the Passover meal.’

  Sabinus sighed; although new to the province he had gleaned enough knowledge of the complex political infighting between Rome’s turbulent subjects to know that Caiaphas owed his position to Roman favour and was therefore the closest thing to an ally that he could expect to find among the mainly hostile Jewish population of this combustible city. With the city bursting with pilgrims it would be bad politics to upset an ally during the Passover that he and the prefect had both come to Jerusalem to oversee.

  ‘Very well then, centurion, show them up.’

  ‘Best you come down, sir, where we can keep them at a distance from you.’ Longinus pulled two short, curved knives from his belt. ‘We found these hidden in the clothes of the other man.’

  Sabinus took the knives and examined the razor-sharp blades. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Sicae, sir; which would mean that he’s a member of the Sicarii.’

  Sabinus looked blankly at the centurion.

  ‘They’re religious assassins, sir,’ Longinus continued by way of explanation, ‘they believe that they’re doing their god’s work by eliminating those they consider to be impure and blasphemers; that covers just about everybody who’s not a member of their sect. He’d think nothing of trying to kill you even if he died in the attempt. They believe that if they’re killed doing holy work then, when this Messiah who they’ve been awaiting for ages finally shows up, they’ll be resurrected along with all the other righteous dead, on what they call the End of Days, to live in an earthly paradise under their god’s laws forever.’

  ‘They make the Zealots seem like reasonable people,’ Sabinus observed, alluding to the Jewish sect that had hitherto been the most unreasonable bunch of religious extremists he had heard of.

  ‘There’s no such thing as reason in this arsehole of the Empire.’

  Sabinus paused to reflect upon the truth of that statement. ‘Very well, centurion, I’ll come down; go and announce me.’

  ‘Sir!’ Longinus saluted and marched briskly out of the room.

  Sabinus shook his head; he rolled up the scrolls containing the audit of Jerusalem’s tax revenues for the past year — the cause of his earlier slumber — adjusted his toga and then followed. Although it offended his dignitas to go down to meet the Jews rather than have them shown into his presence he knew enough of their nature to take the advice of this seasoned centurion; he did not want to become the victim of some suicidal religious fanatic.

  ‘My name is Gaius Julius Paulus,’ the shorter of the two Jews announced in an impatient tone as Sabinus entered the Fortress’s great hall. ‘I am a Roman citizen and a captain in the Temple Guard and I demanded to see the prefect, not his underling.’

  ‘The prefect is indisposed so you will talk to me,’ Sabinus snapped, taking an instant dislike to this self-important, bowlegged little Jew, ‘and show me the respect due to my rank as quaestor to the Governor of Syria, the prefect of Judaea’s direct superior, or otherwise, citizen or not, I’ll have you flogged out of the Fortress.’

  Paulus swallowed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘Forgive me, quaestor, I meant no offence,’ he said with a voice suddenly oozing obsequiousness. ‘I come with a request from the High Priest concerning the agitator and blasphemer Yeshua bar Yosef.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ Sabinus said flatly, ‘what’s he done?’

  ‘He’s another one of those Messiah claimants, sir,’ Longinus informed him. ‘We’ve been trying to apprehend him for sedition since he caused a riot when he arrived in the city four days ago. He threatened the authority of Caesar by claiming that he was a king; quite a few people were killed, including three of my auxiliaries. Then he pissed off the High Priest by going to the Temple and offending just about everyone he could before turning over all the money changers’ tables.’

  ‘What are money changers doing in the Temple?’ Sabinus asked, genuinely curious.

  ‘The Jews think that our money is idolatrous as it has Caesar’s head on it, so they’re allowed their own Temple currency to buy sheep for sacrifice and such like. The changers make a tidy profit on the exchange rate, as you might imagine.’

  Sabinus raised his eyebrows; he was ceasing to find anything surprising about these people. He turned back to the two Jews; the second man, tall, full-bearded with oiled, black hair flowing from beneath a headdress wound about his head, remained motionless staring at Sabinus with hate-filled eyes. His hands had been bound in front of him. He was no rough, country peasant. His long-sleeved, light blue robe fell to his ankles; it was clean and seamless, expensively woven as one piece of material, the sign of a wealthy man. The fine quality of the black and white mantle that he wore draped over his shoulders added to that impression.

  ‘What has this man to do with Yeshua?’ Sabinus asked Paulus.

  ‘He is one of his followers,’ Paulus replied with ill-concealed dislike. ‘He was with him for the two years that Yeshua spent causing trouble up in Galilee. He claims that after the Passover meal Yeshua will declare that the End of Days is at hand; he’ll proclaim himself the long awaited Messiah and lead a revolt against Rome and the Temple priests. Caiaphas is asking for the prefect’s permission to arrest him for blasphemy and to try him before the Sanhedrin, the religious court; this man has said that he will lead us to him tonight.’

  Sabinus turned back to the other man. ‘What’s your name, Jew?’

  The man carried on staring at him for a few more moments before deigning to answer. ‘Yehudah,’ he said, drawing himself up.

  ‘I’m told that you are a Sicarius.’

  ‘It is an honour to serve God,’ Yehudah replied evenly in near perfect Greek.

  ‘So, Yehudah the Sicarius, what do you ask for in return for betraying the man whom you’ve followed for two years?’

  ‘It’s for reasons of my own that I do it, not for reward.’

  Sabinus scoffed. ‘A man of principle, eh? Tell me why you do it so that I can believe that it’s not a trap.’

  Yehudah stared blankly at Sabinus and then slowly looked away.

  ‘I could have it tortured out of you, Jew,’ Sabinus threatened, losing his patience with the man’s lack of deference for Roman authority.

  ‘You can’t, quaestor,’ Paulus said quickly, ‘you’ll offend Caiaphas and the priests, who’ve asked you for help in apprehending a renegade. With more than a hundred thousand pilgrims here for the Passover, Rome needs the priests’ support to keep order; there has already been one riot in the past few days.’

  Sabinus glared at the squat little Temple Guard, outraged. ‘How dare you tell me, a Roman quaestor, what I can or cannot do?’

&nbsp
; ‘He’s right though, sir,’ Longinus assured him, ‘and it won’t do to refuse a request for help from the priests; it ain’t how things are done here, especially as we owe them a favour.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Straight after the riot that Yeshua caused they handed over the murderers of the three auxiliaries to us; one of them, another Yeshua, Yeshua bar Abbas, is almost as popular with the people as his namesake. The prefect condemned all three upon his arrival yesterday; they’re due to be executed tomorrow.’

  Sabinus realised that Longinus probably was correct: he had no choice but to acquiesce to Caiaphas’ request. He cursed Pilatus for having put him in this position by neglecting his duties through drink; but then reflected that it was probably the intolerable situation in the province that had driven him to it.

  ‘Very well then,’ he growled, ‘tell Caiaphas you may proceed with the arrest.’

  ‘He requests a Roman officer to accompany us,’ Paulus replied. ‘Without one we will be lacking in authority.’

  Sabinus glanced at Longinus who nodded his agreement to that assessment. ‘Very well, I’ll come with you. Where should we meet?’

  Paulus looked at Yehudah. ‘Tell him.’

  The Sicarius raised his head and looked disdainfully at Sabinus. ‘We will be eating the Passover meal in the upper city, there is only one staircase up to the room so it would be easy to defend and was purposely chosen as such; but later we will be meeting new initiates outside the city walls. Meet me by the Sheep Gate at the start of the second watch; I will lead you to him.’

  ‘Why not grab him in the street as he leaves the room?’

  ‘It will be quieter at Gethsemane.’

  ‘You let the Temple Guards take this rabble-rouser,’ Prefect Pilatus roared at Sabinus, slurring his words, ‘to be tried by his fellow Jews. Then you let his armed followers wander off to cause whatever mayhem they feel like at a time when this filthy city is crammed full of the most militant religious bigots that anyone has ever had the misfortune to conquer.’

  ‘The Temple Guards let them go once they’d secured Yeshua; their captain had had half of his right ear cut off and they didn’t have the stomach for a fight. I didn’t have any other troops with me.’

  ‘Why not?’ Pilatus’ bloodshot eyes bulged with fury, his bulbous drinker’s nose glowed red like a branding iron; droplets of sweat rolled down his saggy cheeks. Sabinus’ report on Yeshua’s arrest had, to say the least, disappointed him. His three dinner guests sipped their wine in silence as he slumped down on his dining couch and rubbed his temples. He reached for his cup, drained it in one, slammed it back down onto the table, staring at Sabinus malevolently, and then turned to an elegant, middle-aged man reclining on the couch to his left.

  ‘Herod Agrippa, I need your advice. The quaestor has let this rebel outmanoeuvre us.’

  Herod Agrippa shook his head, swaying his hair that hung in oiled ringlets to just below his close-clipped beard, framing a thin, firm-jawed face that would have been handsome had it not been for the large, hooked nose that protruded, like a hawk’s beak, from between his dark eyes. ‘You’re right, prefect,’ he said holding out his cup unsteadily to be filled by the slave waiting on him, ‘the priests walked into Yeshua’s trap without…’ He stopped as the slave poured wine over his shaking hand. ‘Eutyches! You’re almost as useless as this quaestor. Get out!’

  Sabinus stood, staring straight ahead, scowling and making no attempt to conceal his dislike for Herod.

  ‘In our country a man would lose his eyes for the quaestor’s incompetence,’ the elder of the two men reclining on Pilatus’ right observed, stroking his long, curled beard.

  Herod threw his cup at the retreating slave. ‘Unfortunately, Sinnaces, they don’t have the same freedom here to mete out deserved punishment to idiots as you do in Parthia.’

  Sabinus shot Herod a venomous look. ‘I would remind you, Jew, that I am a senator, watch your tongue.’ He turned back to Pilatus. ‘The priests offered us the opportunity to have this man arrested so I acted on my own initiative as you didn’t wish to deal with it, being…otherwise engaged.’

  ‘I was not “otherwise engaged”, I was drunk and now I’m even drunker; but even in this condition I would have known to bring that madman back here into Roman custody and not let the Jews have him, no matter how many fucking priests I upset. Fuck ’em all, quaestor; do you hear me? Fuck ’em all.’

  ‘But the priests will try him and find him guilty; it’s in their interests to do so,’ Sabinus argued.

  ‘They’re already trying him and are keen to pass a death sentence on him; in fact, they’re so keen to condemn him that they’ve even broken their Passover Sabbath to try him overnight. Caiaphas sent me a message asking me to come to the palace first thing in the morning to confirm their sentence before they stone him.’

  Sabinus looked at his superior uncomprehendingly. ‘So what’s the problem, then?’

  Pilatus sighed, exasperated; he closed his eyes and ran both hands through his hair, pulling his head back. ‘You’re new to this dump so I’ll try and explain it in simple terms,’ he said with more than a degree of condescension. ‘By your own admission, in your report, Yeshua organised his own arrest; he sent Yehudah to deliver him up to the priests because he wanted them to find him guilty, not us. Because of his popularity with the ordinary people he’s gambling that they will rise up against the priests and all the Temple hierarchy for condemning him to death as well as against Rome for confirming the sentence. In one massively naive blunder you’ve enabled Yeshua to drive a wedge between the people and the only power they respect: the priests, who owe their position to Rome and therefore have nothing to gain from a revolt.’

  Sabinus suddenly saw the depth of his error of judgement. ‘Whereas if we condemned him the priests would be able to appeal for calm and expect to be listened to; and that, along with a show of force by us, should be enough to stop an uprising.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Pilatus said mockingly, ‘you’ve finally got there. So, Herod, I’ve got to defuse this quickly before Yeshua’s followers start rousing the people. What should I do?’

  ‘You must go to the palace first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘To overturn the sentence?’

  ‘No, you can’t let this man live now that you’ve finally got him. You’ve got to reunite the priests with the people so that they can control them.’

  ‘Yes, but how?’

  ‘By turning a Jewish stoning into a Roman crucifixion.’

  ‘This man must die,’ the High Priest Caiaphas hissed at Pilatus through his long, full grey beard. Regaled in his sumptuous robes and topped with a curious, bejewelled domed hat made of silk, he looked, to Sabinus, much more like an eastern client king than a priest; but then, to judge by the size and splendour of the Jews’ Temple, Judaism was a very wealthy religion and its priests could afford to be extravagant with the money that the poor, in the hope of being seen by their god as righteous, pumped their way.

  ‘And he will, priest,’ Pilatus replied; never normally in the best of moods for the first couple of hours after dawn, he was striving to keep his fragile temper. ‘But he will die the Roman way, not the Jewish.’

  Sabinus stood with Herod Agrippa watching the struggle between the two most powerful men in the province with interest. It had been an acrimonious meeting, especially after Pilatus had, with great relish, pointed out the trap that Yeshua had set for Caiaphas and how he had been politically maladroit enough to fall into it.

  ‘To avoid an uprising,’ Pilatus continued, ‘which, judging from the reports I’ve had, Yeshua’s followers are already initiating, you must do as I’ve ordered immediately.’

  ‘And how can I trust you to do what you’ve promised?’

  ‘Are you being deliberately obtuse?’ Pilatus snapped, his temper no longer able to take the strain of dealing with this self-serving priest. ‘Because in this instance we are both on the same side. The preparations have been made and the orders given. Now go!’

  Caiaphas turned and walked, with as much dignity as he could muster after being summarily dismissed, out of the magnificent, high-ceilinged audience chamber, the centrepiece of the late Herod the Great’s palace on the west side of the upper city.