The Eighth Veil

by Frederick Ramsay

  She’d try to lift it to the surface for air. Of course.

  He leapt to his feet. He knew why and also how the woman had been killed. He paced around the table in a circle, once twice, and once again. Stupid, stupid, stupid. There had been no need. If only he’d had more time, had kept the loop to the other side of her neck. But that was about the time Barak had entered the corridor leading to the baths and he had to hurry…and the girl had died as a result. That had to be it.

  What next?

  The coins. What was it about those coins that had eluded him? They were not the prize the killer sought, obviously. Probably they were the means men used to lure servant girls to dive into the bath, laughing and splashing about, diving under the water’s surface to retrieve them, their tunics plastered to their bodies. That may have been the reason for the coins to be in the bath but that wasn’t the reason they called to him. They were tarnished but still glittered on the rough table’s surface. There was something else about those coins he was supposed to see. He spread them out and studied them again. He pushed them about with his finger, turned them over, made mental notes of their denominations. Nothing out of the ordinary, just coins, some quite old and worn. They had images embossed on them, a bearded Herod, some emperors—Augustus, Julius Caesar, and this latest one, Tiberius. A madman by all accounts. All of the coins had a profile, nobly carved on them. The Law forbade the worship of graven images and this was just such a one, surely. What were these doing in a nominally Jewish household? Nominally said it all. The Roman Senate had declared Augustus a god and to be worshiped. Why not emboss his profile on a coin? Sadly, more people worshiped gold and silver and with greater enthusiasm than they did the Lord.

  One coin especially caught his eye, a Roman coin well over a half century old. He held it up to the light…something. The image on this one? A good likeness of a Caesar, if you allowed for the fact that coins were stamped or cast and likenesses were more a function of approximation than reality. But there was no mistaking this one. Then he had it, knew its importance. It seemed unlikely but if he remembered the rumors correctly, the boy, the queen’s son…he would have been just a boy then, well a young man, but still, a long time ago.

  Menahem. That man keeps intruding into this business at every turn and there seemed no end to it. Always it came back to Menahem.

  Next, the pendant. He’d dismissed the headdress and undergarment as related but not importantly so and had discarded them for the moment. The fact the girl’s clothing had been removed was obvious. Now the two pendants—the original cleaned and waiting to be connected to the rest of the story, and its duplicate, Agon’s masterpiece. Side by side on the table. It had belonged to the girl. She wore it always. Someone wanted it badly enough to kill her for it. The inscription linked her to the line of Herod. How? Was she a child born in a misalliance and tucked away in Philip’s household to remove her from any claims she or others might make on the royals? The letters suggested something better, bigger. How did she come by the thing? She wasn’t indicated in the inscription, certainly, so…Someone gave it to her, clearly, and that someone had kept in touch with her over the last year or so. The likelihood that she was an off-line child did resonate with the rest of the facts. Which of the sons, grandsons, and by now greatgrandsons who shared a Herodian origin did she connect to? The House of Herod was not very creative when it came to introducing new names to its sons and daughters. Which one spawned this girl?

  And finally, where was Graecus? Who and where was he and, more importantly, why had he gone into hiding? If he had been only some sort of low level envoy, how had he come to be a guest in the palace? If he were something larger and more important, then who or what?

  Gamaliel resumed his pacing as he attempted to weave these threads together. He stopped abruptly and stuffed the false pendant, the seal and its box, Menahem’s knife, and the letters in his tunic and headed for the door. He needed to go to the palace. He needed to talk to the captain of the guard. He needed to press Menahem about why he and he alone knew the girl’s name.

  He needed to set a trap.

  Chapter XXXII

  Barak and Chuzas loitered in the corridor and each, like bright school children, seemed eager to tell him something. Before either could speak, however, Gamaliel greeted them and waved them into the interview room.

  They both began to speak. “Sir,” they said.

  “Wait, I will hear you out in a moment. Right now I need to know certain things and I have important commissions for each of you. Chuzas, there is the matter of a second interview with Menahem.”

  Chuzas tilted his head in the direction of the lattice. “We have friends in high places who are interested in what you will do today, Rabban. They wish to know if you have a lead into the death of the dead kitchen servant and other things.”

  “Very well, Chuzas, I understand. And there are some things I would like to be known as well, if you follow me. Find out for me how letters are received into the palace, how they are distributed, and who has that responsibility. If there is such a person or persons, I wish to speak to them immediately. Also, I want to know if it is possible to receive one any other way. That last part is important.”

  “I can answer that now. Letters are received at the gate. If they are for the king, the messenger waits to be dismissed or if there is a reply, to carry it back. Dispatches which come by any other means—”

  “Thank you, but you must tell me all this later, after you have explored the possibilities of alternate deliveries. Now, Barak, I want you to make queries about the dead kitchen worker, how often he went into the cellars, who else might also have visited them with him or went there separately and finally, when did the guards search the area for Graecus.” He turned back to Chuzas. “As to the question about the dead servant found there, you may report that I do have some thoughts about that.” Did he? That would depend on what Barak discovered. “Anything else, Chuzas?”

  “Menahem wishes to speak with you in private.” He rolled his eyes once again toward the screen.

  “And I him. Make arrangements for that to happen in some appropriate place. I understand he sometimes suffers a phobia about enclosed spaces. Perhaps in the courtyard or garden would be a better spot for an interview.” He did not acknowledge Chuzas’ suppressed smile. “Barak, you were about to tell me something as well. What is it?”

  “The captain of the guard says he has a report for you about Graecus.”

  “Does he indeed? He has found him at last?”

  “I think not, Excellency. The reverse I believe.”

  “Well, let us have his bad news then, send him in.” Barak left to find the captain, Chuzas to arrange the meeting with Menahem and to discover if there were alternate ways to receive messages. He knew there must be. What palace did not have its intrigue and conspiracies that required clandestine communications, messages secreted in and out, plots hatched and quashed?

  Gamaliel seated himself and with exaggerated gestures, withdrew the pseudo-pendant from within his tunic and placed it on the table beside him. Then he sat back and closed his eyes, or nearly so. He left a narrow gap between his lids which allowed him to watch the shadows behind the elaborately decorated wall to his right. He waited. Something moved. Something? More like someone had shifted his or her position back in its dim recesses. Did whoever lurked there see the pendant or did his bench become too hard for sitting and he had to shift his weight? These thoughts were interrupted by footsteps in the corridor and the subsequent entry of the captain of the guard.

  “Greetings to you, Captain. I intended to seek you out and here you are. Have you any news for me?”

  “Sorry, none good I’m afraid, Excellency. We have traced the movements of the dead man though.”

  “Have you? That is useful, I should think. Did you discover anything out of the ordinary? Anything that could shed some light on his murder?”

  “No, sir, sorry, but all we know now is pretty much what we knew before, other than
when he went into the cellars. I don’t know if that is helpful or not.”

  “Probably not, but you never know, do you. You are Geris, is that right?”

  “Some call me by that name.”

  Some call me by that name? What kind of answer is that? His name is or it is not Geris. Why not a simple yes or no? “Are you called by any other?”

  The captain shuffled his feet and averted his eyes.

  “You were once in an Auxilla Cohort, is that so? Stationed in the north?”

  “Yes I was. It has been years since.” He sniffed and ran his forearm across his nose. “Long time ago.”

  “Yes, I suppose it must. You joined the palace guards in Tiberias, I hear. Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  At the start of the interview Gamaliel had not had his guard up, willing to take the captain at his word. After his evasion regarding his name, Gamaliel wondered. He switched to his vetting a new student mode and listened for evasions and half truths if there were to be any. In the back of his mind he wished that once, just once, he could deal with someone from this palace and not think of them as suspect. Well, there was Barak, of course, one innocent lamb among a pack of wolves .

  “You served with the goldsmith, Agon, is that right?”

  “Agon? Oh yes. A fine soldier and companion. After he fell to a bandit’s axe on the Tarsus road, I feared he’d not recover.”

  “The wound was very bad?”

  “Oh, yes. I felt certain he’d end as a crippled beggar. We all did.”

  “So you have not seen him lately?”

  “Seen Agon?” The captain scratched his ear where it rubbed against his helmet, deep in thought. “No…wait, yes. From time to time I drop by his shop to catch up, you could say.”

  Gamaliel sat back and studied the man before him. He wondered what the captain would do when he visited Agon the next time now that he’d admitted knowing the goldsmith. Would he be bolder in seeking news to share with the other guards and servants, or would he be more circumspect for fear that Gamaliel could identify the source and perhaps have something to say to the king about it?

  “I am curious about your search of the cellars. You did search them?”

  “Thoroughly, Excellency.”

  “Do sit down, Geris.”

  “I am used to standing, sir.”

  “As you will.”

  Gamaliel shifted in his chair and toyed briefly with the pendant. Geris made a show of not noticing it.

  “So, you or your men searched the length and breadth of the cellars and found nothing? No sign of anyone, no evidence of, say, food crumbs, a sleeping pallet—nothing like that?”

  “No, none.”

  “Thank you then, for your efficiency. I am sorry. I interrupted. You meant to tell me something. I understand you do have some news for me.”

  “Yes, Rabban, I have. My men, on their own, mind you, have scoured the city and the hillsides outside the walls. They tell me the man, Graecus, has joined up with some of the foreign pilgrims in the Kidron Valley.”

  “Has he indeed? That is excellent news. Can you fetch him to us, Geris?”

  “I’m afraid not. It seems the pilgrims are leaving the city now, as you know, and he has slipped away with them.”

  “That is most regrettable. You’re sure?”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “If he is the girl’s killer, we will not be reporting any success to the Prefect. If not, well, we will soon know one way or another. So, we press on. With no motive or connection between him and the girl, it would be a stretch to link him to her murder, don’t you think? Anyway, if he’s been outside the walls all this time we will not be able to connect him to the kitchen worker’s death either. Well, thank you for trying, my son. And I will report your efficiency to the king when I see him next.”

  “I do my duty. But thank you.” The captain, who might or might not be named Geris, turned on his heel and left.

  “Barak, you heard. Tell me what you think.”

  “It is not my place to question so eminent a person as the captain of the palace guard, but…”

  “Yes? I think he shades the truth, Barak. Why does he do that, do you suppose?”

  “Sir, I…”

  “Never mind. Let us wander to the kitchens and see if there is any news of the dead man beyond what we have been told. You can tell me what you think of our captain on the way.”

  He scooped up the pendant from the table, tucked it back in his tunic, and led Barak out the door. A glance in the direction of the lattice work failed to produce a shadow or even a hint of movement. Perhaps his watcher had fallen asleep. Perhaps he didn’t exist at all. The complexity that pierced wall created had shifted his investigation from difficult to nearly impossible.

  Once in the corridors and out of earshot of a possible eavesdropper, he turned to the old man. “Yes?”

  “I have had reports…you understand, from the servants, who cannot be identified, naturally.”

  “Naturally.”

  “One is about the dead man. He sometimes met with one of the women servants in the cellars for…immoral purposes, you understand, and the woman in question said he told her that he’d seen and knew something. She said he thought it would be worth some money, but he did not tell her what it was he knew or saw.”

  “Do you think the captain told the truth about his search?”

  “Not entirely. Some of the servants said parts of the cellars were searched, but they were not sure they all were.”

  “Not all? It seems I was right, then. The captain is adept at lying. Why, Barak, do you suppose he said he had done a search if he hadn’t?”

  “Sir? Perhaps he did not know his guards slacked off when they had a chance.”

  “Yes, that is one possibility. Then he would not be the liar I thought. Possibly some of the cellars are inaccessible either for searching or hiding. We will have to sort that out later. Now, I must have my midday meal and afterwards I will speak with Menahem.”

  Chapter XXXIII

  But Menahem would have to wait. When Gamaliel gained the street he found a messenger from the High Priest accompanied by four Temple guards waiting for him. His day seemed to be filled with armed men. He found himself escorted to Caiaphas’ house which, mercifully, was a short distance south of the palace. He thought to protest. As mighty a position as the High Priest occupied, his was at least its equal in the larger scheme of things. But, he realized in the long run, broadcasting his personal pique in the Sanhedrin would only reveal another crack in the Nation’s leadership, one which Rome would gladly exploit. Better to live under the Lord’s Law, if only at the sufferance of Rome, than bow one’s neck to Lex Romana or whatever version of it their conquerors decided to impose.

  Once in Caiaphas’ rooms, he waited for the High Priest to work himself up into a state of sufficient irascibility. Everyone knew Gamaliel could best Caiaphas in any argument or disputation. The only way the High Priest could possibly prevail in such a confrontation was to shout the Rabban down. That took a certain level of anger. Thus the delay. Gamaliel asked for and received a cup of water to drink. The water in the city had always been suspect unless drawn from the well that gave David access to the city. He knew this water came from that well, now covered and linked to the pool of Siloam inside the walls by Hezekiah’s tunnel, built by that ingenious leader seven centuries earlier. Surely, he thought, if we could accomplish such a feat then, we can find the leadership to cast off this Roman burden now. But he could think of no one in the Nation who fit that bill. Certainly not the High Priest.

  As if this thought had summoned him, Caiaphas appeared in the doorway and bore down on Gamaliel like a Greek trireme in full attack mode. Gamaliel could almost see the wake he left behind.

  “High Priest, you wished to speak with me? I take it is a matter of some urgency or you would not have dragged me away from the task assigned to me by the Prefect himself.”

  “You are the Rabban. You are the one who can
say yea or nay to this upstart. Even your students report he is a blasphemer yet you report you find no fault in him.”

  “I assume we are back to discussing the rabbi, Yeshua ben Yosef. Blasphemy is not so easy to define, High Priest. If he speaks the Name, yes he blasphemes. That is the Law. But too many of our rabbis confuse sin with blasphemy. I would be careful how you throw that word around.”

  “Do not lecture me. I am not one of your students. Is it not enough that he consorts with the lowest sinners, tax gatherers, and the unclean? He does not observe Shabbat. His own people boast that Shabbat is made for the man, not the man for Shabbat. What does that mean except blasphemy?” Gamaliel opened his mouth to speak, but Caiaphas waved him off. “He healed a man of lameness two days ago—on Shabbat! He claims he can forgive sins. You tell me, what does that signify to you? Does he put himself on a plane with the Lord? What are we to do? Please do not tell me to wait and see. And another thing,” Caiaphas had slipped from his carefully prepared remarks. There is a downside to pumping up one’s anger and that is it often takes over and diverts you from your intended path, verbal or otherwise.

  “You had the man in your hands. You had a murderer and you let him go. If you had done as our queen asked, this murder nonsense would be done and over by now and we could concentrate on more important things.”

  “Like your annoying rabbi?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Is there anything else, High Priest?”

  “What? No, I need answers from you and now.”

  “Answers? Is it correct to assume your early remarks were aimed at the Galilean and the latter referred to Menahem?”

  “What? Of course the man who claims to speak to the Lord directly and the…of course.”

  “Answers, then. Here are a few that may or may not address your concerns, if I understand them. First, if we were to arrest and punish everyone who breaches Shabbat, half of Galilee would be in prison by nightfall. A condition, by the way, they would share with their king, the queen, and the princess, not to mention at least four members of the Sanhedrin that I know of. Are you sure you want to do that?’