The Eighth Veil

by Frederick Ramsay

  “What you will spawn here will and more, but not as you think, Rabban.”

  Menahem stood, bowed, and left. Gamaliel would never see the old man again, and years later would wonder at his last words.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Gamaliel remained rooted to his bench. He watched the old man disappear into the palace’s dim interior. Time seemed to stand still. The citrus that had wafted past them as they talked seemed to depart along with the old man. Gamaliel tried to wrap his mind around what he’d just heard. He knew the races from northern Africa, and Egypt especially, were given to claiming powers they neither possessed nor understood. One had only to have the most cursory knowledge of the area and its people to figure that out. Queen Cleopatra’s miscues, errors in judgment and bad alliances alone could fill a dozen scrolls ten cubits long. And everyone knew that the Jews in Alexandria, even the most faithful, insisted on reading Holy Scripture in Greek. Gamaliel mourned the fact that many of their rabbis could hardly read Hebrew at all, even if they had wanted to. They did not have the Word in the language of the Lord. But for this man to suggest no, predict the end of Jerusalem, King David’s city? Surely not. Foreign nonsense. He heaved himself to his feet and followed Menahem into the palace. He needed to speak to Chuzas one last time before he headed home.

  He found the steward in the kitchens having words with a servant who had dropped a salver of roasted quail on the floor. The king and his guests waited in the Great Hall while their dinner sat in an untidy but savory pile on the floor. The aroma of the seasoned game filled the room and made a difficult situation at least passable for Gamaliel while he waited. The birds were retrieved, wiped, re-spitted, and returned to the fire pit for a few moments more, presumably to restore them to a condition thought fit to be consumed by royalty. Gamaliel suppressed a smile. No one, it seemed, could avoid expediency, not even a king.

  When Chuzas had finally managed to set things moving in the right direction again, the food repositioned on a clean platter, wine in tall cruets, and all sent out and away, Gamaliel managed to draw him aside.

  “I need to leave some things with you, Chuzas. Have you a safe place where you could secure them?”

  The steward assured him that he did. He had access to the king’s strong box, not his personal one, of course, but the larger one in which various treasures used in the court were stored including the gold chalice used when the king thought there might be an attempt to poison his drink or when he wished to impress visiting royalty—sometimes both. Anything the Rabban left with him would be safe in that box. Satisfied, Gamaliel handed him the leather pouch containing the items he’d brought from his home, Agon’s pendant, the letters, the seal, and some of the coins.

  “Place these in the strong box for me and then I will need a decoy, Chuzas. I need a lure, if you will, to tempt a killer to show himself.”

  “You have already arranged a trap, Excellency. What now, another?”

  “Not a trap, a fishing expedition, a ruse. It is time to force our killer’s hand. If we do not catch him soon, another murder may take place. Also the king, the Prefect, and both their entourages, including you, are scheduled to pack up and leave the city soon. I am running out of time.”

  “Is that such a bad thing? Rabban, I do not wish to sound callous, but she was only a servant girl, as far as anyone knew. If her killer is not found and punished, it would be a shame, but beyond that is there any reason to press on if the household and the Prefect remove themselves from the city?”

  “Am I to assume that is the prevailing attitude in the royal apartments?”

  Chuzas nodded. He took the pouch. “I know it will not alter your thinking. Whether that of a king or slave, for you a life is a life, but I felt I needed to say it. What sort of lure will you require?”

  “Something moderately heavy and round, about the size of the dead girl’s pendant.”

  Chuzas cocked his head and thought a moment. “I can lay my hands on a bronze medallion which bears an image of the Temple on one side and a tetraskelion on the other. We give them to important visitors sometimes. Will one of them do?”

  “Perfect. Take this purse and bring me a medallion. Then I must be on my way.”

  Chuzas returned after a short pause and handed Gamaliel a bronze medallion which had a silk ribbon affixed to it. Gamaliel detached the ribbon and returned it to Chuzas. The metal bauble he slipped into a worn cloth sack he’d acquired from the kitchen when he’d gone in search of the steward. It still felt slightly oily from some greasy previous usage and smelled a bit rancid, but it would have to do. He bid Chuzas a farewell and stepped into the street. The walk east would take him no more than a quarter of an hour. His house sat nearly at the foot of the Temple in the Lower City and directly east of the palace. Antipas had a smaller palace closer by, but since his marriage to Herodias, he had taken to staying in the larger, and older one built by his father. Gamaliel measured his pace so that anyone who wished to overtake him could do so. That was the point, after all.

  He had crossed about half the distance to his house when the first two men made their appearance behind him. The walls that divided the Upper City from the old city of David were in sight when the attack came. As he had hoped, it was not violent. The first two men sidled up behind him; crowding him toward the curb A third man then approached him, his head down as if in deep thought. He collided with Gamaliel and at the same moment the man on his right jostled him so that he staggered into the man on his left. In the next instant he felt the quick searching fingers and heard the apologies from the men who’d bumped into him. If he hadn’t known what they were up to and, in fact, had done he would have thought their words sincere. The entire operation took only moments. He’d been relieved of the cloth purse and its medallion. What the killer would do when his accomplices returned with one of the king’s honorifics reeking of rancid grease, he could only guess. But now his prey knew where he stood, knew that Gamaliel knew the significance of the pendant, and that if he wanted it, he’d need to be bolder. It wasn’t just Gamaliel who was running out of time.

  He made it to his house without further incident and sat alone to eat his supper in the smoky light of his multi-wicked lamp. He felt very satisfied with his day’s work. Tomorrow, before he returned to the palace to set his trap and expose the killer, he would drop in on Loukas. There were aspects of this developing story that had serious gaps. The physician would know the history and could fill them in. He would need all the pieces if he had any chance in persuading the Prefect he’d discharged his assignment as ordered.

  For the next several hours, until his lamp died, he thought through what he needed to do, with whom, and when. He went over the plan repeatedly. So much depended on Chuzas. He wondered if he might have put too much reliance on the little steward whose loyalties were divided at best. He could not afford a slip-up of any sort. He drifted off into a troubled sleep shortly thereafter.

  ***

  As Gamaliel suspected, one man could barely contain his rage on viewing the prize his lieutenants brought to him. He threw the bronze medallion across the room where it bounced against the wall with a clang and rolled under a crate. He swore at the three men he’d sent into the streets to waylay Gamaliel. They had allowed that stupid old rabbi to make fools of them. The three apologized and shrugged their shoulders. After all, they said, they had done exactly what he’d asked them to do. They had followed and accosted the man, taken his purse, and brought it and its contents back as ordered. Surely he did not think they would stop and inspect the bag before fleeing or ask the old man if he would mind certifying the item they’d stolen was the one they’d been sent to retrieve?

  The man cursed them violently and told them to be still. He sat heavily on an upturned barrel and tried to think. Time was running out. The king would leave for Tiberias within days. The Rabban would turn whatever he had discovered over to the Prefect who, unlike the old Jew, would be smart enough to figure out the whole of it. Whether he would do anythin
g did not matter, the pendant would be lost to him and that would create another set of problems.

  His earlier reconnaissance of the Rabban’s house did not hold out much promise for a forced entry by anything less than a dozen men. He did not have a dozen men. He had only those three that he could employ without causing some difficulties. It was possible, of course that one or two of the other guards could be enlisted but that entailed risks—and costs. In any event he had no guarantee that the item was even on the premises. It could be with the goldsmith or locked away somewhere in the palace.

  He needed time and of course, that was the one thing he did not have. He pointed toward the stairway leading back to the main portion of the palace and sent the men away—all but one. He had no more use for them. Once out of earshot he turned to the one man still standing. “My old comrade in arms, you will take care of those fools for me?”

  “Of course. There is no need for witnesses to remain where they might become an embarrassment later.”

  “Good. So what do I do now?”

  “If the old man did not have the pendant with him, or the purse he normally used, isn’t it likely that both are still here? That he has hidden them in the palace somewhere?”

  “I considered that. Of course he has. He will have put it aside. But where? I cannot search the whole palace.”

  “The old man did not move about much so finding it could be possible. He did spend considerable time with the king’s brother Menahem. Is it possible he left it with him?”

  The man scowled, concentrating. He looked up. “Find out for me, Geris. Your reward is as dependent on a successful outcome as mine. You do understand that. Don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  Yom Sheni

  Chapter XXXIX

  Gamaliel stopped at Loukas’ house before putting into motion the series of events he hoped would deliver Cappo’s killer to him. He needed to know things about the politics and the satrap rulers of the various portions of the Empire. He’d been taught some bits, but residents of an occupied nation find it difficult to appreciate the history of their suppressors however glorious it may assume to be. Loukas, on the other hand described himself as a citizen of the world. He would know about these things and in some detail. At least Gamaliel guessed he would. He’d known Loukas only as an acquaintance and in a professional way prior to this business at the king’s palace. And until that event threw them together it was all he wished to know of him. But the last few days had made him curious about the man.

  He was at home when Gamaliel trudged from his house south of the Hulda Gates to the northern edge of the city.

  Once seated on benches outside he said, “Loukas, forgive me for my inattention. I thought I knew you but now I am not so sure. Our conversations of late make me doubt my first impression. I have always assumed you were a Greek in fact as well as inclination. Was I wrong? Are you Jew or Gentile? I ascribed your attitude as that of ‘Fearer of the Lord’ only. So I took you for a Greek and a pagan in search of learning.”

  “Did you? Well you might. For all intents and purposes I am as you thought, Greek. That is so only because of the happenstances of my childhood. My youth, you see, was wrenched from me as was my family. One day we lived together, the next we were scattered over the countryside. And as this happened to my family, no rabbi or priest came to deliver us. So, I am today what circumstances have made me. My early upbringing ceased to exist.”

  “I am confused. What sort of past? Are you saying you were Jewish at one time? Are you now?”

  “A fair question. Very well, I am a Jew by birth but a skeptic by inclination, if you follow me. But I have none of the fire or faith of my former co-religionists. My childhood circumcision marks me as one of the covenanted but little else. Do not look so shocked, Rabban. I am not unique in this as you must know.”

  “I am not shocked, only saddened and you are right, there are many like you. I worry how the Nation will survive because of it.”

  “The Nation? Come, come, Rabban, surely you know that more Jews live beyond the boundaries of Israel than within it. Alexandria alone rivals this city in its total of the children of Father Abraham.”

  Gamaliel did know but it was not something he liked to dwell on. The thought of so many Jews outside the immediate influence of Jerusalem and the Temple worried him as it did the Sanhedrin. Loukas drew a breath and launched into his narrative.

  “My family history is neither unique nor particularly interesting. Like many people, that is to say the marginalized of the Empire, my father was crushed by heavy taxes levied first by the Empire, then by local regents and governors, and finally, a host of agents and bullies. He was a leather worker, or tried to be. It was a skill passed on to him by his father. His survival depended on the tiny margin of profit between the cost of hides and the price he received for the goods he made from them. That margin grew smaller every year and when it finally disappeared, he could no longer pay his taxes. He borrowed from moneylenders against the hope of better times, but in the end, defaulted on his debts.

  “There is no mercy to be had from either tax collectors or the moneylenders. The former are a pox on the Nation, the latter worse, but at least with them there can be no illusion about what is expected. As my father had no assets to seize and no wealthy patron to turn to, his family, my sisters, mother, all of us, were sold into slavery. I was very young so that all I remember of that day was the wailing from my mother, sisters, and even father as we were carried off in as many directions as there were of us, to live and die in strange places. I have no idea where they were sent and I have never seen any of them since.”

  “This is true?” Gamaliel knew it probably was. People did not lie about those things—family being the cornerstone of the society. He also knew that this man’s story could be told a hundred times over on every street corner of the city and in every market place in every village and town across the Empire. There was only one relief from poverty. You sold yourself or you died.

  “Yes, but you see I was one of the lucky ones. My master turned out to be a physician practicing his skills in Antioch—that would be the Antioch closest to us, just to the north in Syria. We have a peculiar habit of using place names over and over. It can be confusing. At any rate my master, like many of the well educated of the day, maintained a tolerance to all religions and philosophies that might be foreign to his own and, indeed, sought them out for study and discourse. I must tell you, Rabban, he was severely disappointed when he discovered that I, though a Jew, knew so little of my faith.”

  “He was disappointed? Why did you know nothing of your upbringing?”

  “Please understand, my father was a Jew of the Diaspora, always living on the edge of poverty, and therefore little inclined to attend synagogue or instruct his son in the faith. I knew something of the Torah and the lives of David and Solomon, but not much else about the God of Abraham. What little I now know, I gleaned later, much later as I sought to settle the unrest in my soul.”

  They sat a moment. Gamaliel waited for him to continue, unsure if he intended to or not.

  “My life was spent in the homes of the wealthy and privileged citizens of the Empire safe by virtue of their status from the crushing oppression borne by the rest of us. It also meant they were blind to the suffering they and their kind brought on others. They were conditioned by their society and upbringing to expect privilege as an inherent right of citizenship and birth. Wealth, as I have said to you on another occasion, insulates one from one’s actions. It is an axiom of power, I think, and the cause for most of the suffering in the world. Can you imagine a world where the rich had to share the sufferings of the poor?”

  A picture, a very different picture of his friend began to form in his mind. “That is a very democratic thought, Loukas. You are a Greek after all. No, an Athenian. You are a student of…what’s his name…the teacher who is said to have drunk the hemlock for corrupting the youth of the city.”

  “Socrates? Not hardly. S
o, when I was in my thirteenth year, when I would have become an adult had I been raised in the faith, my master made me his apprentice. I was a good student and soon found myself constantly at his side. He taught me how to compound his potions from the extensive pharmacopoeia of the time. I soon learned the subtleties of diagnosis, the treatment of agues, fluxes, and the myriad illness and traumas that plague us. I became a better than average bonesetter. By my twentieth year, I was often sent to see the sick and suffering in my master’s stead, particularly those whose financial condition suggested they might not be able to pay the Healer’s Fee. When they saw it was me and not my master, they usually did not.

  “It was a good life, all things being considered. My only regret was that when that good man, in his turn, fell ill, I was powerless to save him. My inheritance, if you can call it that, was my freedom, his name, Lucanus in Latin, and his practice, such as it was. So, I accept no religion beyond that of Asclepius. I have no spiritual inclinations, nor have I received instruction in any of the many religious offerings of the day. But I retained, deep in my soul, memories of an angry Moses coming down from the mountain and despairing at the sight of the children of Israel worshipping a golden calf, memories of David and his sling dropping the mighty Goliath, and of a mysterious Isaiah singing about a new day and the Coming One. I read what I could find.”

  “Read? In Greek? The Septuagint?”

  “Indeed, the bits and pieces of it made available from time to time. Those books are costly to own, you understand, but much easier on the eyes than your Hebrew versions, if you must know. So there you have it, Rabban. I am, like so many living in David’s city, poised and waiting for what comes next, but not necessarily committed to it, whatever it may be.”