The Testimonium (25 page)

There was a small security desk just inside the door, where each of them was issued a special badge that gave them access to the entire museum complex. After they had received their badges, Rossini walked them back to the main laboratory, where Dr. Guioccini was waiting for them. “Greetings, my friends!” he said. “Welcome to your new workplace! This is where you will tease out all the secrets from the treasure trove of information you have discovered. Let me show you around.”

He gestured to the large work area behind him, where stainless steel tables with magnifying viewers over them held many of the Capri artifacts. “This is where the solid pieces will be studied—the furniture, the sword and scabbard, the various coins and other items you recovered. You have banks of microscopes, numerous computer monitors and workstations, and full carbon-14 dating capability. Dr. Rossini and Dr. Sforza, you will be doing much of your work here.” He walked down a short corridor and opened the door to a much smaller lab. Numerous rehydration tanks of various sizes lined the walls, along with smaller worktables and trays, with magnifying viewers and enough computer equipment to conduct a moon launch, or hack into the CIA’s mainframe.

“This is our manuscript center,” he said. “Drs. Parker and MacDonald, this is where you will unroll the ancient scrolls you have found and transcribe their message. The two undamaged scrolls are rehydrating in those two tanks”—he pointed at the back wall—“and the fragmentary manuscripts are undergoing stabilization in these banks of drawers.” He indicated an area along the opposite wall. MacDonald and Josh looked at each other happily. This kind of work environment was something many historians and archeologists only dreamed of.

“Last of all,” Guioccini said as he escorted Simone Apriceno to the end of the hallway, “here is our paleobotany lab. All of your pollen samples are housed in those drawers, arranged according to the labels you placed on them, Dr. Apriceno. We have a full range of microscopic instruments, and C-14 dating capacity. I want a full and complete battery of tests run on every pollen sample you collected from the chamber, double and triple checked for stratigraphic integrity. Let us know if there is anything found where it should not be.”

After finishing the tour, he called all of them back to the main lab. “The press conference will be in the visitor’s gallery of the main museum at noon on Monday,” he said. “We want to show the world good, solid science—with a dash of theater thrown in. I want you to pick the artifacts you are going to show, and flag them so that we can move them to the facility. The more durable items should be no problem; however, the scrolls do not need to leave this laboratory until they have been opened and read. But I do want good, clear pictures and video of them to show to the press. I would like all of you to speak Monday, and explain those things that relate to your area of expertise. You have the entire day, and tomorrow if necessary, to put together your remarks. I would like to have a run-through this afternoon, so I can have an idea as to what you plan to say. Any questions?”

They looked at one another and shrugged. Each of them had already been planning what they might say, and what finds they might share, since they found out about the press conference, and they had shared some ideas the evening before and on the way over this morning. It was just a matter now of stringing it all together. Dr. Guioccini smiled and nodded his farewell, and left them to it.

It was a difficult day after that—not physically, but emotionally. Josh had never been the center of media attention before, but he did not have a terribly high opinion of the American press. MacDonald had acted as a Vatican spokesman on archeological matters for years, and was a natural in front of the camera. Simone Apriceno disliked public appearances, but she had worked as a university lecturer and knew how to keep her comments simple and interesting. Rossini would also be a natural, and Isabella, although she disliked this type of dog and pony show, was forceful and attractive enough to hold the attention of any audience. Little by little, they worked out which artifact each one of them would present to the press, what remarks they would make, and how to present the discovery of the scrolls. Time flew, and by three o’clock, they were ready to present their run-through to Guioccini and Castolfo. The two board members were duly impressed, and the long day came to an end shortly after six in the evening.

Josh joined the team as they walked back to the front of the museum complex. Isabella’s car had been in the museum employee parking lot for a week, and she bade them a fond good evening before heading for it. She knew her neighbor had been watering the plants and feeding her cat, but it was time for her to have a night at home. The museum’s van conducted the rest of them back to the hotel, and Josh took the time to enjoy a long, comfortable shower in the privacy of his room. His thoughts were still in an uproar about Isabella. He had never been this strongly attracted to any woman, and yet he knew she did not share his faith. How could he bear to share his life with someone he might not get to share eternity with? And yet her beauty made him weak in the knees—he had not felt this adolescent, even when he was an adolescent!

He felt like some exercise would do him good, so he went down to the gift shop and purchased an overpriced pair of swim trunks, then returned to his room and ran through some of the karate exercises, or
kata,
that he had learned during his four years of martial arts study in college. The blocks, punches, and kicks, exercised in perfect sequence several times over, helped clear his head. After an hour of vigorous exercise, he went down to the pool and swam for another hour, then ordered some food delivered to his room. He ate a light supper, to atone for the feasting earlier in the week, and was sound asleep before ten o’clock.

As for Isabella Sforza, she lay awake long past midnight, looking at the photographs of her lost husband, and then thinking about the young man she had met just a few days before. She thought long and hard about the two of them, unable to decide what move to make next. Finally, she got out of bed and padded through her apartment barefoot, taking Marc’s photos down and placing them in her dresser drawer. She would never forget him, never stop loving him, and never stop missing him—but it was time to move on.

Even after I had granted them their wish, Caesar, the Jewish priests were still not happy with my handling of the Galilean. I had just sat down to my noontide meal when I got word that one of Caiaphas’ secretaries wanted to see me. Once more I had to leave the Praetorium, since their ridiculous religion would not allow them to cross the threshold of a Roman. “What is it now?” I snapped.

“The inscription,” he said. “You wrote ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ It should read that he called himself the King of the Jews.”

I had had just about enough from these fools at this point. “I have written what I have written!” I snapped. “I will hear no more of this!”

It was a strange day after that. Within the next hour, the sky grew black as night, even though there was not a cloud in view. The light of the sun simply faded—not blotted out gradually, as in an eclipse, but all at once, and did not return to normal for three hours. At the third hour past noon, a huge earthquake shook the city. My centurion told me that it happened at the exact moment that Jesus died, and he was much shaken, babbling that we had murdered a living god—although he was quite drunk when he said it.

Not long after that, a very different sort of Jew came to see me. His name was Joseph, and he ignored religious protocol and entered the Praetorium to speak with me. He explained that, while he was a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish Senate, he had not even been informed of the charges against Jesus, or been present at his trial. He asked me for Jesus’ body, that he might give the Galilean a decent burial. I instructed my soldiers that he could take custody of the body, as soon as they had made sure that Jesus was truly dead. The least I could do for this harmless man I had failed to save was let those who loved him bury him according to their own religious rituals.

Josh would later remember that perfect April Sunday in Naples as one of the happiest days of his life. He rolled out of bed at seven that morning and pulled on his trunks, swimming a few laps at the pool, and then enjoyed a continental breakfast in the hotel’s luxurious dining lounge. He gave his dad a call, knowing it would be evening back home. After a pleasant conversation, he decided to look for a church to attend. He figured that Italy would not be rich in Baptist churches, and he was right. So instead he decided that the old adage ‘When in Rome. . . ’ applied to Naples as well, and headed to the largest and most magnificent cathedral in the city, the Duomo de San Genarro. The soaring Gothic structure was one of the most beautiful buildings he had ever seen, and the Latin mass was colorful, moving, and gorgeous to behold. He had briefly visited the gorgeous Cathedral at Amiens in France years before, and had seen many ancient churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, in Ephesus and other cities where he had worked and dug, but rarely had an opportunity to attend services at any of them.

Joshua’s feelings about Catholicism were mixed. He had a tremendous respect for the history and traditions that the Church had accumulated, and knew that both Christianity and Western Civilization owed the Church a tremendous debt for the preservation of both the Scriptures and the Greek and Latin classics through the turbulent early medieval era, which Josh still thought of as the Dark Ages. Josh had little respect for those fundamentalists in America who routinely portrayed the Catholic Church as the ‘great whore of Babylon’ and the Pope as an antichrist. On the other hand, though, the cavalier attitude the Church seemed to have toward the Bible was bewildering and frustrating to him. He understood the intellectual arguments used to justify the subordination of Scripture to tradition and Church Councils, but the idea that any cleric in the modern world, however learned, would place man-made traditions over the words of the Apostles themselves was incomprehensible to him. He also believed that whenever any church, Catholic or Protestant, abandoned the clear teachings of New Testament Scripture, they were riding for a fall. His arguments with Father MacDonald were partly good-natured fun, but also had a serious side—he respected the priest enough to hope that perhaps the man might at least come to understand his point of view. It wouldn’t reverse five hundred years of negativity between Catholics and Protestants, but in Josh’s book, anything that increased understanding between Christians was a good thing.

Once he left the Cathedral, he turned his cell phone on and saw that he had missed a call from Isabella. He called her back, and she sounded more relaxed than she had all week. A night at home, in her own bed, had apparently been exactly what she needed. She asked Josh to join her for lunch, and they met at a small bistro a few blocks from his hotel. The menu was mainly soup and salad, which was normally not Josh’s favorite fare, but after a week of Mrs. Bustamante’s rich cooking, he found it welcome change. Isabella looked positively radiant, her dark eyes flashing as she spoke.

“I thought this might be the last chance we have to dine out in anonymity,” she said. “I’m not sure how the press conference tomorrow is going to go, but I imagine it will be widely viewed. So let’s enjoy the day together!”

“You think we will be stalked by paparazzi after tomorrow?” Josh asked with a smile.

“I think paparazzi may be the least of our problems,” she said.

“I guess you’re right,” he responded. “So what do you want to do?”

She laughed. “How about a museum tour for starters?”

The museum was officially closed on Sundays, but minimal staff remained on the grounds, and the team’s credentials opened every door in the place. For the next three hours Josh was enthralled with Mesopotamian figurines, Egyptian mummies, Greek and Roman statuary, and ancient documents of all sorts. He had heard of the National Archeological Museum’s incredible collections, but the reality of it all, even on a brief tour, eclipsed anything he had imagined. After going quickly through the main floors, Isabella took him through a locked door that was intriguingly labeled “The Secret Collection.” Josh fled a few moments later, blushing a deep scarlet, when he realized that the Secret Collection was, in fact, the largest extant exhibit of Greek and Roman erotic art in the world! Isabella’s laughter trailed after him as she locked the door behind them.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, trying to corrupt the morals of a preacher’s son!” he gasped through his own laughter.

“Joshua, we are scientists!” she said, laughing. “We should not let outmoded moral codes from the past deter us in our quest for truth!”

“Truth?” Josh said. “The ancient Romans were perverts, and that’s the truth!”

Isabella laughed some more. “I wish I could disagree, but unfortunately, you may have a good deal of scholarship on your side there! This place has awkward memories for me, too. When I was a grad student, the professors thought it was an absolute riot to send a pretty female lab assistant to go fetch some item from ‘The Secret Collection.’ It is available for public viewing on request, and some of the patrons that made the request were . . . well, interesting characters to say the least!”

“And so you avenge your past humiliations by inflicting them on me?” Josh asked.

“Something like that,” she replied. “I guess in fairness, I should ask what you would like to do next.”

“I’d love to see the art galleries at the Museo di Capodimonte,” he said.

“I love Renaissance art!” she replied. “I haven’t been there since before. . . ” She paused. For the first time that day, she thought of her long-dead husband. Forgive me, Marc, she thought, and went on. “Since before I was married,” she finished.

Josh saw the brief memory of pain flash across her face, and paused in the street. “Isabella,” he said. “I know you must have loved him very much. It doesn’t bother me when you mention him, or remember him. He must have been a remarkable man to attract a woman as wonderful as you.”