The Last Disciple (19 page)

Except for the wind whistling through dried bushes, it was quiet. Vultures soared overhead, and Annas shivered at the sight.

So close to Jerusalem. Yet so isolated.

Would he have this opportunity again? The chance to destroy Ben-Aryeh in this manner?

No, he told himself. The old Jew hated to travel. It might be years before he left Jerusalem again. This, then, was so important that Annas knew he could not chance the slightest mistake. It was worth the risks to ensure the matter would be handled as promised.

So he turned his donkey off the road and moved along the gully, letting the donkey pick its way among the boulders and stones of the dried streambed.

And, as soon as he was out of sight of the road, Annas found himself surrounded by bandits armed with leers and curved swords.

At thirteen, she’d been forced into marriage with her uncle, and at twenty became a childless widow, moving back into the isolation of the palace of the Herods. Unkind and unverified rumors said that her brother wanted—or treated, depending on which rumor one believed—her as a wife.

She was Queen Bernice, great-granddaughter of Herod the Great, almost certainly one of the most beautiful women of the Jews, and even more certain than that, the most hated and least respected.

And, perhaps, the loneliest.

Without children. Without husband. Without a true friend who might listen to her thoughts or troubles. Along with any luxury that she might choose at a whim, her wealth and ranking had become a metaphorical and literal barrier to the common ground that humans beyond it shared in their joys, triumphs, and agonies.

There were nights—because during the days and evenings she could distract herself with social events and spending of wealth —that Bernice toyed with the idea of running away, pretending that she was an escaped slave, throwing herself into the maelstrom of life. But she knew those were simply fantasies, because she believed herself too weak to take such a leap over the barrier.

Yet the loneliness had gnawed upon her soul for so long that she’d made a religious vow, one of fasting and prayers until the Passover. She’d taken the vow because she hoped for a sense of spirituality, hoped for anything to ease the unease.

What she did not expect, halfway through the thirty days of religious vows, was a visitor at dawn in the Jerusalem palace, one that had awakened her with the point of a knife pricking into the skin of her throat.

He stood in front of her now, and when he pushed aside the cover over her window, she discovered a partial reason why he’d been able to move through the corridors of the palace undetected. He wore the uniform of a guard.

But he was no guard she’d seen before.

He was a young man, she guessed in his twenties. Bearded. A gaunt face, eyes lost in the sockets of his skull. Yet his body radiated fanatical power, as if an inner force gave him the energy of ten men.

In his right hand he held the knife he’d used to threaten her in the darkness. In his open left hand, he held a round stone hardly big enough to cover his palm.

He averted his eyes and coughed.

Bernice looked down. While her open gown had not exposed too much of her body, there was still enough bare skin to make the young man blush.

She took this as an encouraging sign. Along with the respectful salutation, he was worried about her modesty. Perhaps captivity and the judgment he had promised did not mean her death.

Bernice adjusted her gown as well as she could with hands hampered by bound wrists. “Why are you here? Whatever you expect to gain, the guards will eventually know about this. And then . . .”

“Then my execution?” His question came with a smile of sorrow. “My life matters less than what brought me here.”

“What is your name?” Bernice needed to make a bond with this young man. Needed to charm him. Whatever it took to save her own life.

He answered by putting the round stone in her palm and closing her fingers over it.

“What is your name?” she repeated.

“You will find out soon enough,” he said. “Hold the stone in front of you.”

Off balance, which was an unfamiliar sensation for her, Bernice lifted her hands and held them out in front of her.

“Heavy?” he asked.

“No.” Lifting and holding the stone took little effort. It was a small ball, with her fingers nearly covering it completely.

“Good.” He shifted his knife from one hand to the other. “You see, I have a simple task for you. If you fail, I punish you by taking your life.”

Again, an unnerving calmness. The light had grown, and the intruder’s eyes were no longer lost in the shadows of his sockets. She saw unwavering determination.

“And what is my task?” Bernice asked.

“You listen to my story.”

“That is all?”

“Continue to hold the stone out in front of you as I speak.”

“That is all?” Bernice asked again.

“That is all. But you must hold the stone aloft until I finish my story. If you drop it or fail to hold it in the air before I finish, I will become your executioner.”

Ben-Aryeh approached Vitas slowly. Ben-Aryeh was not yet an elderly man, but twinges in his legs from sitting motionless for so long reminded him that too soon would come the days when the light of the moon and stars would be dim to his eyes. It was good, Ben-Aryeh reminded himself as he began the task he had reluctantly accepted in Jerusalem, to serve God in a man’s youth, for when the silver cord was snapped, when the golden bowl was broken and the dust returned to the earth, a man’s spirit returned to God who gave it.

“You are the one,” the man said. Not as a question.

Ben-Aryeh stared back. Silent. Resentful. “‘I saw a fourth beast, terrifying, dreadful, and very strong,’” Ben-Aryeh said after a pause. “‘It devoured and crushed its victims with huge iron teeth and trampled what was left beneath its feet.’”

Ben-Aryeh had chosen this passage for the irony of it. Certainly this Roman could not realize he was quoting from a prophecy of Daniel, describing his own people and how they continuously devoured the Jews in fulfillment of the ancient words.

Ben-Aryeh added, “‘It was different from any of the other beasts, and it had ten horns.’”

“Greetings,” the man said. Without introducing himself. As if he, like Ben-Aryeh, was irritated by men who spoke to hear themselves speak. They each had the walking staffs with a red cloth. They’d each exchanged the passwords. There was no need for introduction, then, because each already knew of the other from the instructions they had received from different messengers.

Ben-Aryeh, of course, knew the Roman’s name was Gallus Sergius Vitas.

Who would know Ben-Aryeh’s name as well.

Ben-Aryeh’s instinctive dislike of the Roman lessened at the man’s quietness. Only slightly.

“You have something for me,” Vitas said.

Ben-Aryeh carried a leather pouch, held by a strap over his shoulders. Wordlessly, he reached inside and found the narrow and tightly bound scrolls. Both he’d been instructed to deliver to Vitas. He passed them to Vitas and again watched him.

Vitas glanced at both seals. Ben-Aryeh did not take it as an insult. A man who did not examine the seal of a message was a fool.

Ben-Aryeh expected Vitas to set the scrolls aside, perhaps step back to the man who tended the donkeys, and place them in one of the travel bags to read later.

Instead, Vitas broke the seal of the first, the scroll from Queen Bernice. He glanced through it and nodded.

Before breaking the seal of the second, he moved away from Ben-Aryeh for privacy and read the other scroll quickly. Then started again and read it more slowly. Finally, he rewound it and tucked it inside his tunic. “Thank you.”

Ben-Aryeh nodded his head slightly in acknowledgment, curious as to what Vitas had expected in the letter. Ben-Aryeh had his own guess about the second scroll.

While Queen Bernice had been the one to hand it to Ben-Aryeh, the seal bore the mark of the household of a Roman who lived in one of the most luxurious mansions in the upper city. An elderly man named Bellator. Rome’s auditor of the tax collections of the city, who had arrived in Jerusalem less than six months earlier. The same Bellator who, it appeared, willfully ignored rumors about his wife and an ex-gladiator who served as bodyguard in their household.

“I hope we can spend as little time as possible here,” Vitas told Ben-Aryeh. “I must leave for Jerusalem immediately.”

Now Ben-Aryeh truly was curious. If the scroll did not contain bureaucratic necessities from one Roman official to another—as Ben-Aryeh had originally decided—what kind of personal matter had become such an urgency that the man didn’t even bother to hide it?

In the gully, with the bandits surrounding his donkey and silently eyeing him like wolves surrounding a lamb, Annas forced himself to be disdainful of them. It was a way to keep his fear at bay. He noted the gaps in the teeth of many of them. He was downwind, and the smells of their bodies washed over him.

He could not entirely quell his fear and was very glad not to be in his priestly garments. Annas ran his fingers through his long thick hair, a subconscious gesture that, as always in stress, reminded him of his handsome appearance and calmed him.

“I am not the one you want,” Annas said.

“Don’t tell us what we want,” the biggest of the bandits growled. He was the largest man Annas had ever seen, and he tapped the side of his sword against his leg impatiently. “Perhaps we’ll tear you apart then search for gold and silver.”

The leader nodded, and three bandits moved forward. Before Annas could open his mouth to protest, they punched him across the legs and chest with a violent swiftness that toppled him from the donkey. He fell on his back, splayed across the ground.

Another put his foot on Annas’s neck and began to apply pressure. Sharp stones on the ground dug into his back.

Annas gagged and flailed, then realized his fight only ensured more pressure on his neck.

The leader ambled over to Annas and placed the tip of his sword on Annas’s belly. If he leaned into the sword, it would pierce Annas and pin him to the ground.

“Any gold?” the leader asked. “Tell me now and save us the effort of looking for it.”

Annas tried to speak, but the foot on his throat choked him.

The leader gave that bandit a look of irritation, and the pressure eased. “Any gold?” the leader repeated. “Speak now or die.”