The Master's Quilt (8 page)

With that, the four assailants disappeared
into the night.

Deucalion sat up and vomited.
So much for
the lamb and dandelion wine, he thought. Rich food and fine wine
are not for the likes of this soldier’s son
.

The weak attempt at humor did not ease the
pain coursing through his battered body. What hurt worse, however,
was the humiliation. And he knew that was what his attackers had
most wanted to accomplish.

Physical scarring was one of the hazards of
soldiering and was taken in stride by all who were in the Legion.
In fact, among some, it was a sign of status; the more scars, the
more one had embraced death and lived to tell of the encounter. His
assailants, however, had a more devious intent in mind. They wanted
to scar him emotionally and thought they knew him well enough to
accomplish such a purpose. The sting of the beating he had received
lay in the lack of opportunity for him to defend himself with
dignity, as befitted a member of Rome’s elite guard. Fighting one’s
opponent in a fair match was even accorded to gladiators in the
Coliseum, who were but slaves, trained to fight and die heroically
for the pleasure of Caesar and the crowd.

Well, his attackers had seriously
underestimated him. Oh, they might have known the man who had been
ordered to make sure the Galilean was dead, the same man who was
then sent out to guard his body. But what they could not know,
because he’d only just begun to realize it himself, was that he was
not the same man when he left the tomb three days later.

He’d gone to the tomb thinking only of
accomplishing an important task assigned him by Pontius Pilate.
Three days later he left the burial site thinking of nothing but
the light he had seen when there should have been no light. Light
that was brighter than fifty lanterns, yet soft and shimmering as
well. Light that had wrapped itself around him like a fine mist,
reminding him of the spray of water that surrounds a cascading
waterfall.

And the sound! There had been music.
Singing!
It had enveloped him in a cocoon, blanketing out
every sound but its own. The light was sound; the sound was light.
He had felt as if he were
hearing
the light and
seeing
the sound.

At first he thought he had fallen asleep and
was having a dream. Just as he was about to cry out to his men, a
voice spoke to him out of the light. It was of the same character
and quality as the music. Yet it was
different
. Something in
the tone set it apart from the rest of the music and singing,
almost as if sound itself had become a living entity.

“
Rejoice, for the light is come. The glory
of the lord is risen. The glory of the Lord is risen upon
you.”

And then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the
light was gone. . .The music ceased. . .The singing stopped.

There was nothing, save the eerie silence of
dawn.

He blinked several times when he realized
that the sun was only just starting to march upon the horizon. What
then had been the light he had seen? He watched in a daze as the
fibrous, yellow-red tendrils of daylight crept upward from the
purple-black horizon, seeking out the fastenings of darkness,
burning them loose and collapsing the curtain of night.

On that fateful morning, the evening play had
come to an end twice.

When he regained his senses, he looked around
at his men, curious as to whether they too had seen and heard. They
had. He could tell, because they had the same look on their faces
that he imagined he must have had on his own.

Some were rubbing their eyes. Others looked
at their companions in amazement. One asked if the sun had risen
early. Abruptly, Malkus had cried out in alarm. “Commander, over
here. . .Come quickly.”

The small contingent of soldiers gathered as
a group behind him and his second-in-command and stared at him with
questioning eyes.

The seal was broken on the tomb!

The stone had been rolled away!

There were murmurs of fear. The penalty for
falling asleep on guard duty such as this was
death
.

“Shall I check the body, Commander?” asked
Malkus.

He nodded woodenly.

Malkus entered the sepulcher while the entire
company of men stood transfixed, their eyes fastened on the gaping,
black entrance.

Malkus reappeared, his face drawn, a look of
surprise, or perhaps anger, was in his eyes. In his hands he held
the bloodstained linen the Jews had used to wrap the body of Jesus.
“The body is gone,” he said in a hushed, trembling voice. Then,
realizing what he had said, he added, “A thief has stolen the body.
Quickly. . .find him before he can escape. He can’t have gone
far.”

They searched until noon and found
nothing.

No thief. No body.

No, they don’t know me at all
, thought
Deucalion as he sat in the dusty street gazing at the stars and
remembering. When it was all said and done, he was not so sure he
knew who he had once been. But one thing he did know: the thought
of “fighting for dignity” made him want to laugh. What a
contradiction in terms!

He broke out into hysterical, wonderful
laughter. “Fighting for dignity, indeed,” he muttered, then laughed
and laughed and laughed.

• • •

In the early morning hours of the first day
of June, Joseph Caiaphas sat quietly and contemplatively in the
Hall of Hewn Stones, the apartment of the national temple, the
lishkath haggazith
. Somewhere in the darkness outside, a
cock crowed. The High Priest tilted his head and grunted, as if he
had just received a long overdue message from within the depths of
the Holy City.

Jerusalem, the city whose name meant
“foundation of peace,” had been anything but peaceful for him
lately—especially the past two weeks. He’d been preparing for
tonight’s meeting of the Sanhedrin, the most difficult task of his
long career.

He’d spent the time since his conversation
with Simon gathering as much information about the man from
Nazareth as was possible. Realizing that there were members of the
council who would like nothing better than to see him disgraced and
removed from office, he was determined to provide a thorough
accounting for his actions.

To that end he had summoned Helcias, the
keeper of the treasury of the Temple, the one who had given the
informant, Judas, his payment of silver. He swore him to secrecy
and charged him with the task of ferreting out as much reliable and
provable evidence of Jesus’ guilt as was available.

Much to his surprise, he found that there
were a great many unanswered questions about just who Jesus was,
and not surprisingly, that there were several conflicting accounts
of the circumstances surrounding His birth. One particularly odd
story was that His mother, Mary, had been a virgin.

Nevertheless, the more information he had
accumulated, the more he became convinced that he had acted
properly. He was also certain now that Pontius Pilate, whom he
detested, had not realized the true extent of the Nazarene’s
influence.

He sighed heavily, listening to Jerusalem
wake from her slumber.

Soon, he would find out if he was right.

J
une was being kinder
to Pontius Pilate than May had been. And May was most certainly
better than April. In fact, the single worst month of Pilate’s
entire life had been April.

By the gods what a month
, he thought
as he looked out over Jerusalem spread out before him, below and
around was the ostentatious palace Herod the Great had built.

From where he stood in the tower which Herod
had named after Mark Antony, he could look down upon the Temple. It
was claimed by the Jews to be the greatest and noblest of the
despot’s achievements. Pilate had been told upon his arrival to
Jerusalem that the Jews had a saying about the Temple: “He who has
not seen the Temple of Herod has not seen a beautiful thing.”

“What unmitigated garbage,” he mumbled.

Antipas, the only Jew Pilate could bring
himself to associate with on a regular basis, had confessed in one
of his drunken moments that, although it was commonly rumored his
“noble” father had rebuilt the Temple to in order to placate the
people who despised the ruler they felt had sold them out to the
Romans, it was not the case. No, Herod the Great was far too shrewd
a man to have such a single-minded, benevolent purpose.

Pilate remembered the conversation well. He’d
invited the tetrarch to partake of his private stock of fine
Sicilian wine, hoping the man would reveal his secrets.

Antipas had not let him down.

“Why is it you Jews are so preoccupied with
your place of worship?” he asked, genuinely interested. “Your
father spent a good portion of his treasury, and the better part of
his life, rebuilding a decaying monument to a God who has turned
His back on His people.”

The aging tetrarch did not answer
immediately. He stood on the porch, looking down at the splendor
below him. When he finally replied, his eyes held a glint of
cruelty and satisfaction, as if by revealing the truth of his
father’s motive he was at once betraying a family secret and
striking a continuous blow against a demon that had ridden his back
far too long.

“My father’s intent,” he snarled, letting
loose a resounding belch, “was to possess all of the public
genealogies collected in the Temple. Especially those relating to
the priestly families.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He intended to destroy the genealogy of the
expected Messiah, to prevent Him from being born, and then to usurp
His kingdom.”

Pilate arched his eyebrows at the mention of
a Messiah, but said nothing.

“To accomplish his purpose he went to extreme
lengths to make our people understand he was doing them a great
kindness. He funded the massive project from money taken out of his
own pockets—”

“Which had gotten fat by the taxes he exacted
under the guise of Roman mandate,” interjected Pilate.

Antipas turned from the window revealing a
malevolent smile accompanied by derisive laughter. “Oh, yes indeed.
My father was truly beguiling. He convinced the people that his
magnanimous appropriation of personal funds for such a holy purpose
would be atonement for the very abuse that made the gesture
possible.”

“And how did he accomplish such a fraud?”
asked Pilate, impressed by the man’s audacity.

Antipas filled his goblet with more wine and
shrugged. “He promised the priests he would not attempt to build a
new Temple, but would merely restore the ancient magnificence of
the one built by David’s son, Solomon. When the priests questioned
him further as to his intentions, he told them that the restoration
by Zerrubbabel, made upon the return of Israel from the Babylonian
captivity, had fallen short in architectural measurement, according
to Scripture, by some sixty cubits in height.”

“I see,” said Pilate, though in reality he
was just beginning to understand. “And no doubt your father, being
true to his title, promised to rectify that not insignificant
oversight.”

“He pointed out that the entire structure
evidenced substantial deterioration and compared it to rotting
teeth, scarred with decay, then argued persuasively that a Temple
whose purpose was to glorify God should not be allowed to remain in
such a cursed state of disrepair. I believe his exact words were,
‘A man’s mouth feeds his body so that the flesh will not wither and
die, and so it behooves him to keep his teeth in good condition
that he may partake of all the good things his Father has provided
for sustenance. Similarly, the Temple is the mouth of the
priesthood, the tithes of the people being the food on which it
survives.’”

“The priests agreed with his assessment, and
the Temple was razed down to its original foundation. My father
hired one thousand wagons to carry stones and ten thousand skilled
workmen to teach the priests the art of stone cutting, carpentry,
and metal-smithing. After eighteen months of nonstop labor the
Temple proper was completed. Although the work still continues and
although he did not gain possession of the public genealogies, my
father believed he had accomplished his purpose.”

Pilate snapped out of his reverie as the
six-week-old conversation died inside his head and looked out over
the Temple grounds. The huge structure stood as a constant reminder
of his calamitous and fateful appointment as Procurator of
Judea.

The Temple proper, where the Ark of the
Covenant was kept, was one hundred twenty cubits in length and
twenty in height. A great white dome, adorned with a pinnacle of
solid gold, sat atop the building. The first time he saw it, while
he was still some distance from the city, it had reminded him of
the snow-capped peaks of Mount Hermon.

However, the view that commanded his
attention of late was that of the avenue at the southwestern angle
of the Temple. The bridge that spanned the intervening Valley of
Tyropoeon was colossal. It was built upon huge arches, spanning
twenty-seven and a half cubits; the spring stones measured sixteen
cubits in length and were a third of a cubit thick.

He spent many a day during the last six weeks
standing on this balcony, staring at the royal bridge. Below him,
the city spread out like a map. Straggling suburbs, orchards, and
seemingly ubiquitous gardens dotted the landscape. His gaze
wandered to the horizon and became lost in the hazy outline of the
distant mountains. Inevitably, however, his eyes were always drawn
back to the bridge over which the Galilean had been led, in plain
view of all Jerusalem, to and from the palace of the High
Priest—the meeting place of the Sanhedrin. He shuddered with the
memory.