The Painted Messiah

by Craig Smith

  'Maybe they didn't want Corbeau. Maybe they were looking to score some rare books.'

  'You want a few thousand bucks in rare books or paintings, there are easier targets, believe me. You want a cool million with no questions asked, Corbeau is the product.'

  'Not with thirty-five hired guns on hand.'

  Whitefield smiled and shook his head. 'Not these days.' He shifted in his seat and took a sip of his drink. 'I understand our flight out is at fourteen-thirty Tuesday.'

  'Glad to see the agency hasn't lost its touch.'

  'We do our best. I'll meet you in the first class wagon on the twelve-o-three out of the Zürich main station, if that's okay with you. You can catch the train at a couple of different points along the way, but let's make the pass before we get inside the airport. I'll carry it through the flight. Once we pass customs stateside, you can take it from there. Anything comes up, this is your phone.'

  Malloy checked the directory on the Tri-Band Whiteside handed him and found the numbers for Whitefield and Harrison already on the address book. He programmed in both his home number and Gwen's cell number as they talked. 'Any idea what you'll be carrying?'

  Whitefield gave a satisfied smile. 'They tell me it's safe to handle, compact, light, and extremely valuable to people who matter.'

  'We live in a democracy, Bob. Remember? Everyone matters.'

  Whitefield smiled and stood up, signaling the end of the meeting. 'Some of us more than others, T. K. Some of us more than others.'

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Caesarea April AD 26.

  The first of them appeared on the horizon just after dawn. They kept coming for the rest of the morning, a long ragged line of men walking at the side of the road from Jerusalem to Caesarea. They were not soldiers, apparently not even armed. Each man wore a filthy white robe, carried a blanket over his shoulder and a gourd on a rope, this last presumably filled with water. They possessed nothing else, nor was there any kind of supply train supporting them, as one would properly assume. They appeared to be headed for the city gates, but turned off and marched directly toward that point along the wall where the prefect's and his wife's apartments lay. As they arrived they continued moving their feet. Hundreds and then thousands joined them. All the while they chanted something in a language Procula did not recognize.

  'What do they want, Lady?' a girl's voice asked.

  Procula turned and saw one of her husband's lovers, a fourteen-year-old Egyptian slave, staring nervously toward the bearded men. 'You have nothing to fear, child,' Procula answered gently. 'They are unarmed.'

  ***

  That evening at dinner Pilate entertained ambassadors of Herod Antipas. They had come to ask the prefect's presence in Peraea to honour the tetrarch's sixtieth birthday. The men had been in the city for several days and were only now admitted to the palace. Pilate did not care to visit Antipas until Antipas should see fit to visit him, but it was not as simple as that. Antipas's father was Herod the Great, who had been friends with Augustus, and it was said that Antipas himself had visited Tiberius for several days only a year ago. Antipas did not answer to the prefect of Judaea, of course, nor did Pilate inform the tetrarch of his actions. They were equals, after a fashion: one a soldier in the service of Caesar; the other a prince and ally.

  As he indulged in wine Pilate became more cheerful, though he had still not consented to travel to Peraea. The ambassadors, not wanting to return to Antipas with a refusal, walked carefully around the issue of ten thousand Jews camped just beyond the city walls and talked of the pleasures to be found in the Orient. They spoke of how quiet the city of Tiberias remained, for example - not a single disturbance among its population. Their message was both subtle and clear: Antipas knew how to handle the Jewish population and could be a useful friend to an inexperienced Roman administrator.

  Pilate did not care for their smugness and responded with a question to which he already knew the answer. The lack of any kind of substantial Jewish population had something to do with the city being erected over a Jewish cemetery, did it not?

  The insult apparently scored nicely, for the answer that came back from the senior ambassador had teeth. 'Many things affront the most zealous of the Jews - even something as seemingly insignificant as a small bronze head.'

  Pilate gave a careless shrug of his heavy shoulders. 'It has been my experience that people adapt when they must. And not just the Jews! I myself awoke this morning to find my city under siege by two legions' worth of men who came with neither supplies nor weapons, determined to defeat me with prayers to their god.'

  'Will you speak to them, Prefect?' one of the ambassadors asked. He seemed genuinely curious.

  'I wouldn't presume to do so, but I am most anxious for their god to speak to me!'

  One of the ambassadors laughed. 'What exactly do they expect him to say to you that will change your mind?'

  It was Pilate's turn to laugh, 'One supposes an earthquake or bolts of lightning.'

  'They won't last long,' one man remarked. 'How can they, fasting as they are?'

  'I wouldn't be so sure,' another interjected. 'They are nothing if not fanatical, these Jews of Jerusalem.'

  'Let them pray until their voices turn to sand,' Pilate snarled. 'The imago standard I erected last week will remain in Jerusalem for as long as Tiberius lives. It may not make the desert god happy, but by the gods-that-matter it makes me happy!' The ambassadors lifted their cups and toasted the courage of Pontius Pilate. Making his victory complete, Pilate announced to the delegates he and his wife would be honoured to attend Herod Antipas's birthday celebration.

  The least discreet of them responded with spirit. 'You may march under your standards into Peraea, Prefect! We are not so sensitive as our neighbors to the south.'

  ***

  The Jews were there the following morning and, because Procula's bedroom provided the best view, or so he said, Pilate came to her and ordered his breakfast brought to him. It was a first in their marriage. 'We should enjoy this incredible view together!' he told Procula cheerfully. 'I can't imagine why I haven't done it sooner.' From Procula's terrace she could look west to the sea, south along the desert, and east toward the mountains.

  As they waited for their meal Pilate stood and directed his gaze at the early morning commerce inside the harbour - the only view he really enjoyed. Procula stood so that she could look out toward the sea and yet still watch the Jews. A fresh morning breeze swept in from the north keeping the heat of the morning in check, but the Jews caught none of it. They were in the sun already and murmuring their prayer like bees in summer.

  'What is it they say?' Procula asked.

  Pilate turned his gaze from the harbour and looked at Procula. 'What is it who says, my dear?'

  Procula glanced toward the Jews. 'Those men. They chant something over and over again. I can hear the words, but I don't know what they mean.'

  'Do not let them see you looking at them, Procula. It will only encourage them.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'They will leave when they understand the utter futility of their prayer.'

  'Of course. I know this. I was just curious.'

  'They say, "God, turn his heart from stone." One is to suppose I am the man with the heart of stone.'

  'All of this because of an imago standard in Jerusalem?'

  'The priests of the Temple haven't the courage to die for their god on a Roman cross, so they rally an army of fools and send them through the desert to pray to their god in my presence, thinking it will inspire me to remove a little bronze head from the central portal to Herod's palace. The thing is not the size of your fist, my dear. They can't even see it. They complain only because they know it is there. That is what this is about - pure nonsense!'

  Procula came out onto the terrace again at dusk. She told herself she wanted to see the sunset. Recalling her husband's advice, she did not allow herself to look at the suppliants. She was not sure how any of them could continue all day long, speaking the
same phrase in a low murmur. What was it exactly? She tried to recall her husband's words. Something about his heart being made of stone.

  Not long after they had moved to Capri Pilate had been talking pleasantly at dinner one evening, when he suddenly struck a slave who was serving them. With a fury she had never witnessed, her husband then rose from his couch and began kicking the boy. When he had finished, the slave lay on the marble floor bleeding and unconscious - close to death. After calling someone to drag the injured slave away, Pilate returned to his couch and began talking again in his normal tones. Later, when she was sure his temper had cooled, Procula asked her husband what the slave had done to warrant his beating. 'He looked at you longer than I thought appropriate.' Once the boy had recovered, Pilate ordered his castration and sold him on speculation to a merchant ship's captain.

  There would be weeks when he seemed an utterly, absolutely normal human being, the man she thought she had married, but it never lasted. Power seduced him, it seemed, and he gave in to its seductions with a fury that left her trembling. It arrived for the first time in Caesarea late one afternoon after Procula had gone to direct the work in the kitchen. She heard about it in the excited chatter of her slaves and walked out to discover the disemboweled body of a bright young Syrian boy attached to the cavalry hanging from the palace gates. His crime? The slaves said the boy had not translated quickly enough for the master.

  So it had returned after months of inordinate calm. It was no surprise really. Pilate had his feet under him now. That being the case, human life was cheap again.

  'God, turn bis heart from stone!' That was what the Jews whispered as the sun dipped into the sea. She did not care what Pilate said. He was not here to see it anyway. She turned and looked at them and did not pretend to do otherwise. They were shadows now, their voices like the chirping of nocturnal creatures. 'God, turn his heart from stone. God, turn his heart from stone.'

  She heard their prayers even as she lay in her bed. She could not sleep, not for a long time, but it was not the noise they made. It was the prayer itself. Like these strange Jews, Claudia Procula had begun to repeat the phrase over and over - a prayer for the impossible whispered by the oppressed.

  Pilate seemed irritable at dinner the next evening. He and Procula were alone for once, their engagements cancelled by Pilate without explanation. He wanted to know where the wine had come from. It did not seem up to standard. He was not sure the beef was cooked well enough. Had the fruit been imported from Egypt as he liked it, or was it from a Judaean field? When this last question could not be answered by his server, he demanded to see his steward. The steward came before the master nervously. Threats were issued. No beatings, however.

  Silence followed until Pilate offered the smile he used on diplomats and merchants he wanted to cheat as he asked Procula quite suddenly, 'Was your day pleasant, my dear?'

  'Very fine, sir.'

  The smile seemed to curdle, the eyes to grow colder, but the voice remained as strong and cheerful as if he were speaking about good weather. 'Our visitors from Jerusalem . . . are they disturbing you?'

  His courtesy had all the evidence of good training. In the first days of their marriage he had been less schooled and more genuine. 'God, turn his heart from stone,' Procula whispered to herself, first in Latin then in the Aramaic, or as close as she could approximate the sound. Then, for her husband to hear, 'I'm beginning to enjoy them. I think I will miss them when they are gone.'

  Pilate laughed because he imagined she had made a joke.

  'I thought this evening I could smell them,' he said, his smile simply disappearing. 'The wind had shifted, or the stink of them had simply saturated our apartments. I'm considering moving them further back from the city wall because of it.'

  'But they have a right to petition the prefect?'

  'They have the rights I allow them and no more!'

  'Is it such a very important thing, this image of Tiberius?'

  'It is a matter of principle. These people believe only their religion is important. I happen to believe my own is equally valid.'

  'They do not protest the imperial standards in Caesarea, sir. They ask only for an exception to be made in Jerusalem, as it has been since the friendship between Augustus and Herod the Great.'

  'Perhaps I should summon Cornelius and send him out to tell them their prayers are working. Pilate's wife defends Jews!'

  From her terrace the following morning Procula smiled at the sight of the Jews still murmuring the same prayer. God, turn his heart from stone. God, turn his heart from stone. They still marched in place with the weary patience of holy men. She watched them openly now, sending for her breakfast so she could stay outside and enjoy the sight of them.

  When Pilate's favorite asked about the strange men and what they were saying, Procula answered the slave honestly. 'They pray for your master because he is an important man.'

  ***

  At dinner Pilate entertained friends of Philip, the estranged half-brother of Antipas. They had already heard Pilate would visit Antipas and were urging him in the gentlest possible terms to reconsider his decision. Antipas was passionately disliked by the Jews, they said. A show of friendship could have devastating consequences on Pilate's ability to govern.

  'One need only look from one's window to see the kind of determination the Judaeans have when they are angry.'

  Pilate, who might under ordinary circumstances have played these men against the ambassadors of Herod Antipas, listened sullenly up to this point. Once they touched upon the subject of ten thousand Jews standing before his bedroom window, however, he could no longer keep his silence. 'Do you imagine Caesar's prefect fears the prayers of madmen?'

  The ambassadors seemed to understand their mistake and retreated to a more general discussion of Antipas's corruption. He had, after all, married his brother's wife. There was a time, of course, when Antipas had impressed Rome, but those days were past. He bore his father's name, they said, not his father's talents.

  Pilate asked Philip's ambassadors if they would have him insult Herod Antipas, a man who, only a year ago, Tiberius received graciously into his palace?

  'Before his sin,' one of them answered with an irritating confidence in his moral superiority.

  'I must honour the friends of Tiberius so long as they are his friends. You would do well to petition Tiberius for sanctions against Philip's brother, if that is your desire. For my part, I pray only for peace and prosperity in our time.'

  He left abruptly that they would know the subject was finished forever. He gave orders that the gentlemen might enjoy the evening in the prefect's palace. At sunrise they were to be shown the gate. He was not really angry with them. They were doing what ambassadors do. He had greater matters to worry about - namely ten thousand Jews at his throat! He could hear them at the banquet, in his bed, even in the great hall. It had been four days. They had not eaten in all that time, and he had not enjoyed a meal! Not a single moment of serenity! That night was the worst. They murmured incessantly, the sound coming as if from a single throat, and he could not sleep. At dawn he walked into Procula's bedroom as she stood on the terrace watching them - in spite of his instructions.

  'By my calculations, they have gone eight days without food,' he said.

  Procula blushed at being discovered in her disobedience, though she did not apologize for it. 'You startled me, sir.'

  'How did you sleep?' he asked. Procula stared out at the Jews as she answered him. 'I do not mind them, sir. Their prayer is like a song. I have grown very fond of it, actually.'

  'Its meaning or its sound?' She blushed but did not answer him. 'It does not matter,' he said. 'It cannot go on much longer.'

  'Perhaps you should give them what they want.'

  'Perhaps you should love your own life more.' At her look of surprise, he continued, 'I do not take instructions from slaves or women, Procula. Those foolish enough to offer it, do so at their peril!'

  'You asked me before any of
this began if I thought it was a good idea.'

  'You thought it was an excellent idea.'

  'You thought it was an excellent idea! I simply agreed. I think now I made a mistake.'

  'The mistake you make is resisting the will of your husband!'

  Pilate awoke early the following morning to the sound of the prayer. He summoned his adjutant before he even left his bed. Cornelius came into his presence still fighting off the effects of the previous evening's drunkenness and still stinking of his Syrian whores. 'I want a cohort of infantry in full battle gear, assembled in the great stadium, Centurion, with a second cohort of cavalry in support. In addition to that, I want a century to escort our visitors into the stadium, where I will give them my decision. Make sure all but the century remain concealed until I give the signal for you to prepare for attack. At that point I will give them one last chance. Should they refuse to accept my decision, we will end it there - killing every last man.'

  Cornelius answered that he would make the arrangements.

  Pilate proceeded to his barber, where he dictated a number of letters. Then he enjoyed his breakfast of wine-soaked bread, eggs, and mulsum, a drink made of honey and wine. At midmorning his slaves dressed him for military combat, and he rode his horse into the great stadium. His escort included a half a dozen

  servants and a squad of officers. Joining Pilate at the gates to the stadium, Cornelius informed him that everything had been arranged. As Pilate rode into the arena the Jews accosted him with the same droning prayer to their god, and he congratulated himself on calling an end to it. When he had settled his horse in front of them he commanded Cornelius to silence them.

  Cornelius lifted his arm. Slowly, inevitably the prayer ceased. 'You will tell the prefect what it is you desire of him!' he shouted in Latin.

  The command was translated, and one of the protestors stepped forward. He spoke Latin with surprising ease. 'We desire that no image - either that of man or beast or pagan god - reside within the walls of the holy city of Jerusalem. It is the place of our Temple, the place where our God resides, and His commandments forbid us to look upon such images.'