Pilate's Wife: A Novel of the Roman Empire (34 page)

Holtan shook his head, just beyond my grasp.

"Please don't leave me again," I begged, tears streaming down my face. I struggled to reach him, crying out as his form slowly faded. "Take me with you!"

An instant later Leah was at my side.

I stared at her in bewilderment. "The man who was here, where did he go?"

"
Domina
must have dreamed."

"It was so real."

"Nightmares often seem real," Leah said, blotting the tears from my face. "Would
Domina
like me to stay with her?"

"Thank you, no. I have nothing to fear from that dream. Go, please, I want to sleep again."

I closed my eyes, longing for death. Holtan waiting so near that I could almost touch him. Others, too, reaching out. Dear Germanicus, tall and handsome, armor gleaming. My joyous, laughing sister. Equals now in love, we have much to share. Mother, with her wise words and gentle warmth, is with me, and beside her
Tata
smiles proudly. How long since I felt the security of his embrace? Oh,
Tata,
I have missed you so! All the dear ones that I have lost. So close now. Holtan, dearest, I am coming...Somewhere far off the sound of sobbing. It is so good here, soft twilight, loved ones waiting to take me home. Why should anyone cry? Sobbing, still the sobbing. Who can it be?

And then I know.

A voice, strong and clear, echoes throughout the chamber
. No, Claudia, death is not for you, not now. Your days on this earth will be many. Go back to Jerusalem
.
Go now
.

The words of Isis. I know that, just as I know that it is she who has sent a vision of Marcella, the child of my body, still so small and dear, sobbing as though her heart would break.

It is dark when I open my eyes again to find Leah leaning over me. "You look much better,
Domina.
The banquet must be wearing off."

I looked at her, puzzled, then remembered. "Oh yes--all that wine. I am better, much better. Please bring me fruit and water."

"Anything else,
Domina
?"

"Yes, tell Gavius to ready a small guard and the fastest horses. At dawn I leave for Jerusalem."

T
he moon had been up for hours. Tired to the bone, I prayed silently as the palace gates swung open.
Isis, goddess of my faith, grant me the strength to do my soul's work
. Taking a deep breath, I urged my horse forward.

The courtyard was ablaze with torches as slaves ran to assist me. There was Rachel, waiting, wrapped in her night garb, a tremulous smile on her lips. "I have been watching for you from the parapet," she said, her voice choked. "I prayed you would return." Stiffly, I slid from the horse, all but falling. I clung to Rachel's sturdy arms, struggling to hold back the tears I had fought throughout the long ride. "Holtan is gone--dead."

"Domina!"
She held me closer, whispering. "Did
Dominus
find out? Did he...?"

I shook my head. "Holtan died of plague."

"Plague...so even he was not invincible. Are
you
all right?"

Fear flickered briefly in her eyes; I pulled away. "I am well--as well as I will ever be without Holtan. I want to see Marcella."

"
Domina,
is that safe? The plague..."

In my weariness, I snapped at her. "Do you think I would have returned if I there was a chance that I carried it!" Seeing Rachel's face, I softened. "For whatever reason, Isis chose to spare me. It was she who sent me home to Marcella."

We left the courtyard and entered the palace, eerily quiet in the predawn. "It broke my heart the way Marcella kept crying for you," Rachel said as we approached the nursery. "
Dominus
told her that you would be back soon. I was not so certain."

I watched my sleeping daughter from the doorway. Marcella's face was flushed and plump with health. She stirred and slowly opened her eyes. "Mama!" she murmured in a voice husky with sleep. I longed to rush forward, to sweep her into my arms, but held back. Tomorrow..."Yes, Mama's home," I said softly. "Sleep, my darling one." Her outstretched arms dropped slowly as she drowsed.

Once out in the hallway, I asked Rachel about Pilate.

"Herod Antipas has come to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.
Dominus
has gone to his palace to confer."

I wondered briefly what new crisis kept the two men up so late. They were not friends. Only a thin veil of civility covered their suspicious aversion to each other. Pilate held Herod in contempt while fearing his popularity in Rome. The Jewish tetrarch wanted nothing more than to get my husband out of Judaea so that he might rule the country without a Roman presence as his father had done.

"I hope Pilate's conference is serious enough to detain him all night," I said as we reached the door to my chambers. "How can I answer his questions? I have lost all but Marcella. What if he knows about Holtan, what if he banishes me?" I sank wearily to a couch. "I am not ready to see Pilate; I am exhausted. The roads are clogged with pilgrims, thousands of them. You cannot imagine the dust, the noise. It was a nightmare. I must rest first."

Rachel frowned as she undid the fastenings of my sandals. "Everyone is troubled this Passover season. So much has happened..."

"Please not now. The rumors can wait. I want only to sleep."

"It is more than rumor. The news reached us yesterday from Rome. The
Dominus
Sejanus has been executed. Everyone is talking about it, speculating about the future. What, who will be next?"

"I do not believe it!" I exclaimed, startled out of my fatigue. "The second-most important man in Rome--in the world! Tiberius dotes on Sejanus."

"No longer," Rachel insisted, her voice lowered. "Jealous courtiers managed to come between them. Whether their stories of betrayal were truth or fiction, I know not, but the emperor believed them. He ordered
Dominus
Sejanus's whole family killed."

I gasped as though I had been struck. "What! All of them? Even little Priscilla?" Priscilla with her merry smile and bobbing curls was hardly more than a child. "It is against the law to execute virgins," I reminded Rachel.

"She was not a virgin when the guards finished with her."

I slumped down on the couch. Sejanus had been a kind man, to me at least. How well I remembered good-natured Apicata with her quips and tittle-tattle...Warm friends lost to me forever. "How much more can I bear?" I murmured, shaking my head wearily.

"Better to worry about your husband--and yourself," Rachel advised. "The emperor is surely aware that
Dominus
was Sejanus's man."

A chill ran through me. Poor Pilate, as though he did not have enough to worry about already. Oh, Isis! What if it had been our child taken, our precious girl. No! I would not think about that, not tonight.

Rachel signaled to another waiting slave to prepare my bathwater. "The
Dominus
Sejanus's overthrow is not all that has happened in your absence."

"No more, please."

Rachel looked up, a worried expression on her face. "This concerns the
Domina
Miriam."

I caught my breath. "Very well, tell me."

"She has come to the palace three times this very night begging to see you. The last time the
domina
was sobbing openly."

"Strange." I turned away, unwilling to think what this new development might mean. I struggled to ignore the mounting fear. "What could Miriam want of me?" I wondered aloud. "I saw her riding with Jesus on the Jerusalem road less than a week ago. She looked like the happiest woman alive."

"Then you would not recognize her," Rachel murmured sadly. "Jesus has been arrested. It was Caiaphas's doing," she explained, slipping off my shift. "He and the other high priests are determined to get rid of Jesus."

Sighing, I slipped into the bath. The warm, scented water seemed to sink into every tired pore. "That does not make sense," I reasoned. "Why would those powerful priests bother with Jesus? He is merely an itinerant rabbi who possesses nothing and wants nothing."

"I do not know," Rachel said, shaking her head. "It is difficult to understand Jesus. He angers people because he confuses them. He had hardly entered Jerusalem before a crowd of Pharisees and Herodians accosted him. 'Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?' their leader asked him."

"Oh, Isis! There is no right answer to that one."

"No," Rachel agreed. "They wanted to trap Jesus."

"I see. If he says yes, he loses Zealots like Simon and Judas who believe he was born to fight their cause. If he says no, Pilate can easily have him arrested. I suppose that is what happened, why he is in jail."

"No, Jesus was clever. He asked for a coin and they gave him a denarius. Holding up the side with Tiberius's picture on it, he said, 'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's.' Then, turning the coin over, Jesus told them to 'Render unto the Lord that which is the Lord's.'"

I sat up in the tub feeling a little better. "That's wonderful!" I exclaimed, "so like him. Pay the taxes. They mean nothing. His kingdom, the kingdom of love and equality, is not of this world."

"It's wonderful unless you happen to be a Zealot," Rachel reminded me. "Jesus has done everything they expected of him, fulfilled each of the ancient prophecies, even to entering Jerusalem like the true messiah they believed he was. Then, just when his Zealot champions expected him to lead them into battle, Jesus vilified their cause before half the city."

Oh, Isis! If Jesus is not to be their messiah, would the Zealots then use him as their martyr?

Before I could voice my fears, Rachel continued. "It is as though Jesus wants to incite
everyone
. Two days ago, he caused a disturbance in the Temple. It's the talk of the city."

I tipped my head back and closed my eyes as she rubbed soapy water into my scalp. "In the Temple? How extraordinary! Were you there?"

"Yes, I was just passing by and heard a commotion in the courtyard. At first I thought it was just the usual--people swarming all over each other to buy offerings. Doves that sell for a few pennies going for twenty times that. Suddenly there was Jesus ranting and raving, overturning cages. Lambs were running in all directions, doves flying in circles. Then he went after the money changers."

"Really!" I exclaimed. Money changers were the lifeblood of the Temple, of Jerusalem itself. Everyone, including Pilate, left them strictly alone. Not so much as a beggar got space in the Temple without paying something to the Sanhedrin. The last thing Caiaphas would want was some upstart threatening his money changers.

Rachel shook her head in bewilderment. "Jesus kept shouting that the money changers had to get out of his father's house. Imagine calling the Temple his father's house."

I remembered talking with Jesus at the wedding, the reference to his
abba.
"That is what he believes," I told her.

"Caiaphas was furious."

"I can well imagine. What about my husband? Where does Pilate stand on all this?"

"The head guard told me that
Dominus
was far more concerned about another criminal, the one he sent from Sepphoris to be crucified."

"Barabbas?"

Rachel nodded. "He is the man."

"Miriam must have come here because she wants me to intercede for Jesus."

Rachel gave me a frightened glance. "If
Dominus
thinks that you have anything to do with Jesus or Miriam--"

Waves of anxiety and exhaustion swept over me. "I am so very tired, I cannot face Pilate tonight. How can I possibly pretend that nothing has happened to me...that I have not lost...everything!"

"Do not try, wait till you have rested," Rachel said as she helped me from the bath. She began to towel-dry my hair. "
Dominus
will want to see you, but I will tell him that you are tired from your journey and need to rest."

I waved the towel away. "Please leave me now. I need to be alone."

By myself at last, I sat quietly thinking about all that Rachel had told me. In retrospect, Jesus' fate did not seem so dire. Rome's worst complaint against the Jews was their reluctance to pay taxes. Now here was a popular leader--many believed the legitimate heir--actually advising people to pay their tax. Pilate was certainly not going to side with the Zealots against him. As for Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, why would the governor try, let alone condemn, an idealistic young man who actually spoke in support of Roman policy? A night in prison was not the end of the world. Jesus would be released in the morning. Pilate would need no urging from me to decide that question. Miriam would soon have her husband back.

As for me, I would never have the man I loved.

Reclining on my couch, I turned and tossed, unable to sleep. Finally, I rose and knelt before my statue of Isis. I would pray for another dream of Holtan. Please come to me, my darling.
Please
. Tears denied for long hours flowed freely as my mind filled with memories. Holtan, the victorious gladiator, Holtan on his deathbed. I returned to my couch but sleep eluded me. Where was he?

When it came at last, sleep delivered a dream more terrifying than anything I could have imagined. Isis sent not my love, but Miriam's. As the nightmare unfolded, my grief merged with hers until I became one with Miriam. Helpless, I watched Roman soldiers nail my beloved to a cross. I longed to rush to him as he begged for water. The hot sun beat mercilessly on his head, uncovered but for a crown of thorns.

Trapped in a spinning reality that would not stop, I saw Jesus at the front of a parade of tragic victims, their pitiful dramas followed by ever greater bloodbaths. Men with crosses emblazoned on their robes rode angrily into battle after battle. I saw women tied to stakes and burned alive, the stench of roasting flesh everywhere as their tortured shrieks mingled with chanting...I heard my husband's name repeated endlessly.
Suffered under Pontius Pilate. Suffered under Pontius Pilate. Suffered under Pontius Pilate...
My screams mingled with theirs as something held me. Struggling desperately to free myself from the dream, I watched Jesus' face fade until it disappeared. All that remained was the cross, superimposed over endless fields of flame-engulfed corpses. I sat up, the ghastly sight receding as I recognized the familiar confines of my room. The cross, of course, the cross that had haunted me for so long. Pilate was going to crucify Jesus.

"
Domina!
What is it? What is wrong?" Rachel stood beside me, her eyes wide with concern.

I looked about. Sunlight was streaming into the room. "That noise? The shouting! Where is it coming from? What's going on?"

"The priests have brought Jesus to the palace for trial. They will not go into the courtroom because of the statues of Augustus and the other gods.
Dominus
is going to try Jesus' case in the courtyard. It is filled now, mostly by members of the Sanhedrin. No one else can get in."

"Pilate is trying Jesus!" The words from my dream echoed in my head as I scrambled from the couch. "Hurry!" I cried, pulling at my sleeping tunic. "Help me to dress. I have got to stop him."

"They will not allow it." Rachel pulled the gown from my hands. "You cannot go down there!"

"I will find a way. I have got to find a way. I must see Pilate," I said, lowering a tunic over my head and shoulders.

Sandals slapping against the marble stairs, I descended, Rachel at my heels. Pausing once at a parapet, I looked down at the angry mob packing the courtyard. There was Pilate in his crimson magistrate's robes sitting above them on a dais. A path had been cleared before him. Dark-robed priests approached. I ran on down the stairs.

When I reached the anteroom, guards barred the arched entryway, hulking brutes who stood immobile, holding their spears upright. Beyond, I heard loud angry voices and heavy staffs thumping furiously against the paving stones.