The Last Disciple

by Hank Hanegraaff

  They made eye contact, but Florus did not seem to recognize Vitas dressed in his simple garb. Florus opened his mouth as if to shout something. Then shut it. A royal guard yelled for retreat, and the moment was broken.

  Vitas spun his horse around and followed the others as they all fled the advancing Roman soldiers.

  Maglorius backed Valeria and Sophia and Sarai into a corner and walked forward to face the soldiers. “Please,” he said. “Go. Leave this household in peace.”

  “We leave it in death!” one answered and slashed downward at Maglorius, who leaped backward but grabbed the soldier’s arm as the blow continued to the floor. Maglorius kicked the soldier’s feet, and as the soldier fell, he slammed his right foot into the soldier’s head.

  Maglorius had not lost his grip on the soldier’s arm. He twisted it, using the soldier’s sword to block a blow from the second soldier. It was a small room, and that prevented both remaining soldiers from surrounding him.

  With a grunt, Maglorius yanked the sword loose from the fallen soldier and spun hard, blocking yet another blow. He parried once more, then jabbed.

  The second soldier fell, gurgling from a hole in his neck.

  Maglorius roared at the third, and with swiftness nearly impossible for Valeria to follow in the dim light, thrust and parried and overwhelmed the final soldier in a matter of seconds.

  The silence—after the ringing of steel against steel—struck Valeria with the same impact as the suddenness of the attack.

  “This . . . this . . .” Valeria could not find words to complete her sentence. She faltered as she noticed Maglorius’s head bowed in prayer.

  “Forgive me, Father,” he said, “for the deaths of these men.”

  Moaning drew her attention.

  Maglorius raised his head and stepped past Valeria.

  Sarai was on her knees, staring down with disbelief at the blood that gushed from her hands where she held her belly. In the violence and confusion, one of the soldiers had succeeded in breaching Maglorius’s defense.

  “My baby,” she said so quietly that Valeria wasn’t sure the woman had spoken. “My baby.”

  Maglorius knelt beside Sarai.

  “I am not afraid of death, Maglorius. But the baby. I want it to live.” Sarai began to weep. The blood flowed freely down the front of the woman’s dress.

  Maglorius closed his eyes briefly. “This is what they are doing across the city. May the Christos have mercy on the women and children.”

  Sarai sighed and slumped forward. Her eyes were open and she continued to breathe.

  “Hold her hand,” Maglorius said to Valeria.

  Blood. The intimacy of another person’s blood. And a stranger at that. Yet it flashed across Valeria’s mind: None are strangers in the presence of death.

  She knelt beside Maglorius, unheeding of the blood that stained her silk dress.

  The woman tried to smile at Valeria. “Good-bye, my baby,” she whispered. “May Christos welcome you home with me.”

  Maglorius placed an arm around Sarai’s shoulder and cradled her. She fell limply against it.

  “‘Don’t be troubled,’” Maglorius whispered. “‘You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you.’” He paused and stroked Sarai’s face. “Remember, these were His words. Take comfort in them.”

  Sarai’s eyes began to close slowly.

  Then opened.

  “I see light,” she said. She smiled. “My child. A boy! We are walking. He holds my hand with his tiny fingers. . . .”

  Sarai’s eyes widened, but she was looking past Valeria. She cried out in joyful greeting, “Christos!”

  The woman died with that smile on her face.

  Maglorius set her down gently.

  Valeria was transfixed by the woman’s smile and did not notice immediately that Maglorius had pulled a dagger from his cloak.

  He grabbed Valeria by the hair and pulled her head back so her throat was exposed.

  She was too startled to scream.

  The dagger came down and slashed through her hair.

  “Maglorius!”

  He ignored her struggle and hacked until her hair was as short as a boy’s. “No one must guess you are the daughter of Lucius Bellator. All Jews hate the Roman tax collectors, and to them he is the worst of all. After I leave, search for clothes here. Sarai’s husband’s clothes. He works at the sheep dip, and they will serve to completely hide who you are.”

  Maglorius reached under his tunic. With rapid movements, he untied a belt hidden beneath. “Here,” he said, holding it out.

  She took the heavy pouch.

  “Gold,” he said.

  “This is a fortune,” she said. “Where did you get it? Why? And why give it to me now?”

  “When you get to the tunnels—”

  “Tunnels!”

  He continued as if she had not interrupted. “Those who live beneath the city will kill for a few shekels. Find a place to hide this pouch. You can return to it as you need to, taking a little each time.”

  “You talk as if I don’t have a villa to return to.”

  “I pray you will,” he said, “but Florus is a determined man. And what I’ve been told makes me fear for the future of any who bear the Bellator name. If my precautions are unnecessary, it will be a simple matter for us to return for the gold later.”

  “And now?” Valeria asked. “Where do we go?”

  “We go separate ways. You must hide. Let no strangers know you are a woman either, for when lawlessness and bloodlust run in the city . . .”

  He didn’t complete his sentence. Valeria understood. And shuddered.

  “Sarai . . . ,” Sophia said, kneeling beside her friend and stroking her cheek. Valeria became aware of the other woman’s presence.

  Maglorius took a deep breath, finding strength to speak. “Each of us will sorrow for her later. And rejoice for her soul. But now is the time to attend to the living.”

  He moved to the doorway and stopped, a dark outline against the light from outside. “You cannot remain here. Down the street you will find a house with an entrance to the tunnel to the Siloam Pool. The house will be open and empty. I promise.”

  “How do you know this?” Valeria asked.

  “No questions. Listen!” He gave both of them instructions on how to find the entrance and made them repeat it so he was confident they understood.

  “Good.” He nodded. “I leave here first. Wait until I am safely gone, then hide inside that entrance. That is where I will return to you with Quintus and Sabinus. Wait until morning if you have to.”

  Maglorius stepped out, then immediately returned and filled the doorway again. “There is a temple priest. His name is Ben-Aryeh. You will find him among the high priests. If I never see you again, he has the answers.”

  “Never see you again?” Valeria asked. “Where are you going?”

  “To get Quintus and Sabinus. Even if it costs me my life.”

  The braveness of the beautiful young woman beside him touched Ben-Aryeh’s heart. True to her promise, she had fought to walk without needing much help. Anger burned inside him that she had been so brutally treated.

  He walked with her, and occasionally she would stumble and grab his elbow for support.

  “The brigands . . . ,” he said as they neared the city. “Did they . . . ?”

  “Yes. I told you they took my purity.” She began to weep, then bit her lip and forced the tears to end. Her voice quivered. “I am engaged to a man in Jerusalem. He and I had a fight. In a moment of foolishness I decided I wanted to be alone. Away from all people. And the men, they found me. Dragged me to a place where—”

  She began to weep again.

  “They will be found,” Ben-Aryeh said. “Justice will be done.”

  “I don’t want justice!” she wailed. “Not even their deaths will give me back what I lost.”

  “My child, my child . . . ,” he soothed
, “you still have your honor.”

  He did not have to explain. If this had happened to an unmarried woman within the town gates, she would be as guilty of adultery as the man, for it was her duty to cry for help during an assault. But in the countryside, where there was nobody to hear her cries, only the man—or men—would be found guilty. She would not be considered a woman of immoral quality. And the attacker would face death by stoning. This was prescribed by law.

  They continued to walk. Ben-Aryeh could think of no other words of comfort, and she lapsed into silence broken by the occasional tears.

  Nearer the gates, he could hear screams from the upper city.

  Florus and the soldiers!

  What had happened?

  And his wife, Amaris! Was she safe?

  He hurried the young woman forward until they reached the shadows of the city walls. The open gate beckoned. He could see the walls of the temple inside. Whatever was happening in the city had yet to spread to this quarter.

  “Here,” the young woman said, her voice clearer, “I cannot keep your cloak.”

  “Certainly.”

  “It is far too expensive. My dress will cover me.”

  They stepped through the gates and into the safety of the city. The street was not filled with crowds but at least a dozen men and women walked down the stones between the first houses.

  “I insist,” she said. “You have already helped me.”

  Reluctantly, Ben-Aryeh accepted his cloak.

  She then startled him. “Help!” she screamed. “Help! Help!”

  All the nearby people turned to them.

  Ben-Aryeh stepped back, dumbfounded.

  “Help!” the woman screamed again. She pointed directly at Ben-Aryeh. “This man has violated me!”

  Some of the men moved closer.

  “Help me!” she shouted. “Outside the city, he violated me!”

  A jumble of thoughts moved through Ben-Aryeh’s mind. It would be her word against his. Even if he wasn’t found guilty, the suspicion against him would remain for the rest of his life. And what of Amaris? How would this affect her?

  Ben-Aryeh knew the city as well as any man.

  He made his decision.

  If he escaped now, this woman would never be able to find him. The temple had thousands of priests, and if he remained in his mansion over the next days or even weeks, he would be safe from her.

  As a few men started to jog in their direction, Ben-Aryeh spun around and darted into the nearest alley.

  “Help!” she shouted. “That’s the man!”

  Twenty steps into the alley, there was a smaller one. Ben-Aryeh turned into it. He kept running, taking another turn and then another, losing himself in the maze of narrow, twisting alleys in this part of the city.

  Within minutes, he was safe from any pursuers.

  He began to sneak his way back up to the upper city.

  Where his wife waited.

  15 Av

  The Fourth Hour

  In one of the upper rooms of the mansion Alypia held the baby Sabinus on a cushion with one hand. With the other, she lifted a second cushion.

  Time now for the baby to die. Sabinus had served his purpose. First, he had brought Maglorius to her—the fool had been so delighted to discover he was going to be a father that he’d gladly signed on as a bodyguard for the household. But in recent weeks he’d said he could not continue the affair, that it was wrong in the sight of God. So the baby had become a burden to her in one way but useful in another, because he was her only leverage against Maglorius.

  During the previous night, she was glad for Sabinus. She’d slept with the little boy, prepared to put a knife against his throat and threaten to kill him if Maglorius appeared to harm her.

  But day had come; Maglorius had not. The baby had no more value to her.

  She would sell the property quickly, indeed had long before lined up a purchaser should Bellator die. And now he had. She had hidden in her room while the soliders had slaughtered the household. Now all it would take was a short journey up the street to a wealthy Greek trader.

  So, time to kill Sabinus. Especially with the convenient story that the soldiers had done so. She would leave the little boy’s body with some of the dead servants in the courtyard. That would speak plainly enough.

  She brought the second cushion down and pressed it against the baby’s face. No sense cutting the boy’s throat while he was alive. That would be too messy. No, when he was safely dead, she would place his body among the others and then run a sword through him as if soldiers had killed him.

  She pressed the pillow harder, surprised at her son’s strength as he squirmed for air.

  Because Sophia had been raised in a Jewish household, she was familiar with the laws of the prophets and the histories told by Moses and other great patriarchs. She certainly knew the chronicles of the kings of Judah, and among them had been taught about the acts of Hezekiah.

  She had learned how Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, cried out in prayer to God when King Sennacherib of Assyria threatened Jerusalem and mocked the Lord God. She had learned that the Lord sent an angel to destroy the Assyrian army with all its commanders and officers. How Sennacherib returned to his homeland in disgrace and was slain by swords wielded by his own sons in the temple of his own gods, proving yet again that the Jews were God’s chosen people and would have a Messiah delivered to them.

  Sophia had learned the acts of Hezekiah well enough to be able to quote a certain description of the king, provided and recorded by the ancients in the Chronicles: “He blocked up the upper spring of Gihon and brought the water down through a tunnel to the west side of the City of David.”

  The existence of Hezekiah’s Siloam aqueduct beneath the city then was not the surprise to her that it had been to her companion, Valeria.

  The Gihon was a natural spring that rose in a rocky cleft in the Kidron Valley. From it, water ran beneath the city; a primitive tunnel had been carved through the soft strata by the ancients, running nearly a third of a mile to the Siloam Pool. The tunnel was connected to other series of tunnels. It had many false passageways and more than a few secret entrances, known to the priests who fiercely guarded their knowledge. This Sophia had explained to Valeria once they were in the tunnels.

  The afternoon before, they had trusted Maglorius enough to follow his instructions. Because of it, they safely made it through the house that had been empty as promised, into a courtyard, and down through a trapdoor almost invisible because of the cunning inlaid pattern of mosaics.

  Sophia had expected darkness when the door closed and was surprised by tiny shafts of light that pierced through the floor above her, another part of the design of the hidden trapdoor.

  She’d seen steps carved into rock, descending into blackness beyond the reach of the shafts of light. The air was cool and vaguely damp. The echo of her breathing sounded harsh. Sophia and Valeria had rested on the top of the steps. Neither wanted to go farther into the tunnel.

  Their hopes for the quick return of Maglorius had faded as the light above them had darkened to night. They’d remained there the night, sleeping awkwardly against the wall, waking to the slightest noises.

  At dawn, Maglorius still had not appeared.

  So, after morning had passed, Sophia told Valeria to wait while she went out into the city.

  A man with a water jar. “When you reach the Siloam Pool, look for a man with a water jar.” Those were the instructions Queen Bernice had given her servant Hephzibah.

  Hephzibah had walked down from the palace, shaded from the early morning sun by the rise of buildings on each side of the narrow streets. Perhaps only fifteen minutes had passed for her to reach the lower part of the city, but, lost in thoughts, she’d been unaware of time.

  It seemed that everyone she passed on the streets shared that same daze of disbelief. Gone were the cries of shopkeepers hawking their wares, gone was the buzz of gossip and storytelling as the crowds moved f
rom shop to shop with good-natured jostling. Instead, the streets were nearly empty, and as people passed by others, it was in silence. A silence of mourning. A silence of dread. A silence broken only by wailing each time someone found the body of a mother, father, sister, brother, son, or daughter.

  Thousands had been slaughtered. Her queen nearly killed. Why had God abandoned them?

  Hephzibah averted her eyes from those kneeling beside the bodies of loved ones. Because yesterday’s slaughter had continued until nightfall, it was only now that the survivors were in the streets.

  As she neared the lower city, however, the streets became more alive. Crowds were beginning to move upward to the upper markets to gather in protest of the atrocities of Florus. More than once, someone had urged her to change direction and join them. Each time, she’d shaken her head.

  And now, with the pool in sight and the royal gardens just beyond as a backdrop, she looked for a man carrying a water jug. Among all the women near the pool, she saw him immediately, as it was unusual for any man to fulfill the domestic task of collecting the day’s water for a household. He stood at the pool’s edge, the large clay jar at his feet.

  Hephzibah hurried toward him. As she drew closer, she indulged her curiosity. Who was it that had the queen’s ear?

  When she looked into his face, she thought she understood. He was a large man with an air of confidence—not the challenging aura of someone who wanted the world to know he was bigger and stronger and smarter than any other man, but a quiet confidence that spoke well to her soul. The scars on his face and the sadness in his eyes seemed to tell her that he had earned the right to this confidence. It was no wonder that her queen was drawn to this man.

  “You are Maglorius?” she asked quietly.

  “I am,” he said. They stood in direct sunlight, and he squinted as he studied her face.

  “I am Hephzibah. The queen has sent me.”

  “Forgive my lack of trust,” he said. “Word for word, what was my message to her?”

  “‘Send someone you trust with a royal seal to the Siloam Pool to look for a man with a water jar.’”