“Maybe. But it might be a way to draw Roland if he thinks I know something he doesn’t. He wants those Judas coins.”
“True.” He tilted his head. “Then by all means let’s stake you out. What’s a little risk? Millet might not cut off your head as he did Celine’s sister.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There has to be a way. I thought you’d be more reasonable.”
“More reasonable than Eve or Jock? Yes, they might object to you going to the Field of Blood and trying to add a little of your own to the mix.” He paused. “While I have an affinity for blood, don’t I?”
His voice was without inflection yet she was aware of a tension and something else. Anger? “It’s very reasonable that I’d expect you to be objective. You have less personal involvement.”
“Not less personal, just different.” He added, “You should understand that about me. You think everything about me is different, don’t you?”
She gazed at him in helpless frustration. What was she supposed to say? Caleb wasn’t like anyone else. She wasn’t sure at any given moment what he was feeling. Yet in this moment she thought she was seeing a flash of vulnerability. Dammit, she didn’t want to acknowledge that vulnerability. It was safer for her not to see anything in him that would make her respond emotionally. “Perhaps. At any rate, it seems you’re not going to help me think of something that will bring an end to this any quicker.” She started to get to her feet. “Good night, Caleb. Thank you for listening if not for—” She inhaled sharply as his hand closed on her wrist.
Heat. Tingling. Sexuality.
“Not yet,” Caleb said. “Don’t walk away from me.”
Her chest was suddenly tight. She was having trouble breathing. “Let me go, Caleb.”
“In a minute.” His thumb was slowly rubbing up and down along the sensitive inner flesh of her wrist. With every movement she felt a jolt of sheer primitive sensuality. “I want you to realize I’m not all that different. I have needs. I may even have a few other sentimental similarities to your other lovers.”
She stiffened. “Lovers?”
“Did I forget to tell you that I did a little research on you when I left the lake cottage all those weeks ago? You’re very discriminating. Your relationships are rare, and they have to involve something besides sex. You had one long-standing affair with a Mark Trevor, but you backed away before you committed. I was very happy that you did, but it didn’t surprise me. You’re afraid of commitment. I won’t ask for a commitment. I won’t ask anything from you that you don’t want to give.”
She stared at him in angry disbelief. “Why the hell would you pry into my business?”
“Because I knew that I wanted to be with you,” he said simply. “I was just waiting for the right time. And then you called me.”
Waiting.
She tried to pull away, but his grasp on her wrist tightened. “Let me go, or I’ll clobber you,” she said between her teeth.
He chuckled. “Delicate and ladylike as usual. Just give me one more minute.”
“Screw you.”
“I only wanted to say that the reason I’m telling you is that I want to be honest with you.” His lips twisted. “Which isn’t precisely true. I was planning on making a move, but you managed to goad me into doing it too soon. You have an unusual way of upsetting my control.” He released his grasp on her wrist. “Besides, I wanted to touch you. I’ve been wanting that for a long time.”
The wrist that he had released was throbbing, the pulse pounding, the skin exquisitely sensitive. She was shaking. Lord, he had only touched her for a moment, and she felt as if she’d gone up in flames. She had a sudden thought. “Did you—”
He smiled. “No, it’s just chemistry. I think we both knew it would be like this.”
She started to turn away. “Just stay away from me.”
“I can’t,” he said simply. “But I won’t touch you again until you’re ready for me.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It will have to be. I can’t keep my distance when I know that Millet may be around the next corner. Think. You’re going after Millet and Roland, and I’ll be valuable to you.” His voice was soft. “What difference does it make in the scheme of things if we want to go to bed with each other? We’ll just ignore it until the time is right.”
Ignore it? She was still feeling that deep throbbing sensuality, and just looking at him was causing her heart to pound, hard, harder. The sensation was more powerful than anything she had ever experienced, and it was frightening her. “It’s not going to happen.”
“No.” He smiled. “Not until you’re ready.” He reached down and let the water in the fountain slowly trickle through his fingers. The movement was inexpressibly sensual. “You’d better go to bed now. You’re tired. And you’re going to want to start planning and moving as soon as Lina gets done with the translation.” His dark eyes were glittering as he looked up from the water. “But I’m going to have to keep busy. I think I’ll go back to London and pay a visit to Roland. I thought I’d ask you what you want me to accomplish with the visit so that I can prepare. Just a conversation or something more final?”
“You mean you want to know if I want you to kill him. No, I’m not turning you loose to go hunting.”
“You don’t have to shoulder the responsibility. Just tell me what you need from Roland.”
How simplistic could you get? Of course, she would be responsible. “No, Caleb. Nothing has changed since we left him yesterday.”
“Yes, something has changed. I need distraction. Roland thinks he’s a hunter, but he only points the way. I could teach him what hunting is all about.”
Yes, Caleb knew every nuance of that skill. But what he proposed was incredibly dangerous for him. “You said it would be difficult and take a long time. Forget it.”
“But I can’t forget it. I’m a primitive soul, and I have to satisfy that side of me in some way. But I’ll put it off for a little while until you become used to the idea.” He got to his feet. “I’ve arranged for the helicopter to be on standby a short distance from here. He can be at the helipad in twenty minutes.” He passed her as he moved toward the front door of the castle. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”
She watched in helpless frustration as he disappeared into the castle. Dammit, he had told her to go to bed and get some sleep, but she didn’t see how she was going to do it. If she’d been wired before she phoned Caleb, she was doubly hyper now. Not only had she been caught up in an emotional upset when Caleb had mentioned talking to Eve about the dreams, but that upset had been followed by the sexual explosion that had rocked her to her core. Anger and resentment had been overshadowed by a physical response that had left her hot and weak and breathless. She was still experiencing the same sexual tornado even though he was no longer with her.
It was too strong. She had wanted to run as far as she could to get away from the bond that was tightening around her.
And he had known it and thrown her the one distraction that she couldn’t ignore. He had realized that she had been worried about his trying to manipulate Roland and had decided to use it. She should ignore that threat. There was more than one way to manipulate, and he was clever and perceptive enough for any sort of deviousness.
Why was she standing here in the middle of the courtyard and trying to decipher his motives? As long as she wasn’t deceived by anything he did, she didn’t have to understand him. As long as she wasn’t foolish enough to go to bed with him, that attraction might be strong but not overpowering.
He was right. He was a valuable commodity and might prove particularly valuable if she decided on going after the Judas coins. She would be stupid to send him away.
She started quickly for the front door. And, of course, she would sleep. She had told Caleb she could not control her dreams, but she had the will to block all the emotional upheaval and get some much-needed rest. She was beginning to feel the excitement stirring.
Steps. I
f she took the right steps, she’d be able to keep her head above water and survive.
The way to capture Millet was to use Roland to set the trap. To be sure of Roland, she had to get her hands on the Judas coins. To find the Judas coins, she had to locate the Field of Blood.
Field of Blood. She was suddenly shivering at the words. Foolish. It hadn’t bothered her at all when she had been researching. Yet now it seemed to cast a shadow of malevolence and evil.
Field of Blood . . .
SOMEONE WAS IN the room.
Jane’s eyes flew open, jarred wide-awake.
Caleb?
“I’m sorry.” Lina was sitting in the tufted red velvet chair across the room. “I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s still early. I was going to wait until you woke.”
It wasn’t yet dawn, judging by the pale light streaming in the window, Jane noticed. She raised herself on her elbow. “Is anything wrong?”
Lina shook her head. “Something is right. I finished the translation on the tablet.” She nodded at the papers on the table beside her. “I worked all night, and I didn’t want to go to bed until I went over it with you.”
Jane swung her legs to the floor. “Give me a few minutes to splash some water on my face, and I’ll be right with you. I’m still drowsy.”
“I thought you would be. You got to bed late yourself.”
She glanced over her shoulder as she started for the bathroom. “How do you know?”
“I was taking a break and opened the shutters to get some air. You were down in the courtyard with Caleb.”
Jane glanced over her shoulder. “You were watching us?”
“Don’t be silly,” Lina said. “Why would I waste my time? I just saw you before I closed the shutters again. I don’t care if you have a hundred rendezvous with Caleb. It’s your bad luck if you let him seduce you.”
“He wasn’t seducing me.”
Lina smiled crookedly. “He was coming close. He never tried it with me, but I always knew that he was capable of spinning a web to get what he wants. My husband never bothered to try persuasion, he always demanded and coerced. But when it comes down to the end, it’s all the same. Taking.”
“There are some big differences.” But Lina probably can’t see them, Jane thought. Almost from childhood, she had been abused and sexually exploited. “You can tear the web and get out.” She opened the bathroom door. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
Lina nodded. “I’ll pull up the text on the computer and get these papers in order.”
Lina was still frowning down at the computer when Jane came out of the bathroom. “I think I have every nuance right. I had to call the language institute in Tel Aviv.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“I’ve dealt with them before. We have a relationship.” She gestured to the chair on the other side of the table. “Sit down. I’ll pull up the translation on the computer.”
Jane dropped down in the chair. “I fully intend to read all of it, but set it up for me. Is it what we need?”
Lina nodded. “I think it may be. No, I’m almost sure that it’s what you want, providing Hadar wasn’t a liar. Why do you think that I was sitting here waiting for you to wake up?”
Because she was excited, Jane realized. Lina kept her emotions so well concealed that she hadn’t realized it until this moment. “Tell me.”
“First, it was written years after he reached Syria and had founded his religion glorifying Judas. It was a sort of a justification of all the atrocities he committed in the name of Judas. The first paragraph is just a sort of discourse on the injustices that had been inflicted on him as a boy and how Judas had come into his life and he had seen the light.”
“Not Jesus, Judas?”
“He mentions Jesus only fleetingly; it was Judas who was the center of his life. He rants and raves about the priests and the disciples who didn’t understand that Judas was only doing what God wanted in betraying Jesus. That Judas was only a divine tool to bring about the salvation of the world. That the condemnation that led to the suicide of Judas was an act against all the angels of heaven and should be revenged.” She looked up at Jane. “And the suggested methods of that revenge are pretty bloodthirsty. Crucifixion figured prominently. Boiling in oil was another. I don’t think there’s much doubt that Hadar was psychotic. He might have had a genuine affection for Judas, but it became a destructive obsession after his death.”
“He got all of that venom into one tablet?”
She nodded. “As you saw, the tablet was fourteen by ten, and the script was very tiny. I almost went blind trying to decipher it. And after those first paragraphs, it was all about why and how he fled Jerusalem.”
“The coins,” Jane prompted.
“He said that Judas tried to give them back to the high priest, but he was refused. The priest wouldn’t pick them up from the floor of the temple. Hadar offered to go back and get the pouch for Judas, but he wouldn’t let him. Judas ran away from the temple, and later Hadar heard that he had hanged himself. Hadar went crazy. He wanted to kill all the priests. He wanted to kill all the disciples. He was in a fury. He said that it was Judas who was the martyr and should be worshipped.”
“And so a cult was born.”
“At least the seeds were planted. But he got it into his head that the thirty pieces of silver were a symbol of that martyrdom. That Judas’s returning the coins to the temple had some sort of divine significance. Hadar was enraged that the priests were going to spend the money buying a field to bury strangers instead of preserving it as a holy relic.’
“So there was a Field of Blood?”
Lina nodded. “If you choose to believe Hadar. He was definitely unstable.”
“Did the priests actually buy the field?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t the field that they first intended to buy. It was some distance from the city. Hadar had evidently caused a huge scene in the temple, and the priests decided to keep a low profile among the citizens of Jerusalem. There was already too much uproar in the city about the crucifixion of Jesus. They decided to not let anyone know where the field was located.”
“But Hadar found out?”
Lina nodded. “The second day after Caiaphas purchased the field from Ezra, a potter, to the far north of the city. Hadar went there that night after the money had been exchanged.”
“And?”
Lina handed her the computer. “Read the translation for yourself. It will give you an idea what kind of man the founder of that cult really was. I pulled it up to the point where he’s approaching the hut.”
She already had an idea of Hadar’s character, Jane thought. It wasn’t pretty. She began to read the translation.
The night was dark. My master, Judas, must have interceded to make sure that no one would see me punish those greedy sinners. I stared in the window at Ezra, the potter, sitting at the table with his wife and two sons. They were laughing, joking, happy at their good fortune.
Blasphemers.
I knocked on the door and asked them to share their bread with a poor traveler. They gave me food and a blanket on the floor to rest for the night.
After they slept, I did my master’s will and slew them all. I left Ezra alive until I’d forced him to give me the pouch of coins. There were only twenty-eight. He had given two to his slave, Dominic, when he’d freed him and sent him on his way earlier in the day.
Gave those precious coins to a slave as if they were nothing? I could not bear it. I struck him in the heart with my dagger over and over until the blood ran red on the dirt floor. Then I dragged him out into the field along with his accursed family. It took several hours, but I mounted them all on crosses I’d made from tearing down the fencing. Then I lit the crosses and watched the crucifixes burn through the night.
Burn Blasphemers. Glory unto Judas.
But I could not risk returning to Jerusalem. The soldiers would be after me as soon as the potter and his family were found. I had let my a
nger be known by the priests. I could not even risk taking the coins in case they were found on me if I was captured. I sealed the coins along with Ezra’s copy of the writ of sale for that cursed Field of Blood in a fine alabaster bottle I had brought to hold the sacred coins. Then I fled north to leave all those hypocrites and liars behind me so that I could start a new life serving my holy master.
“He sealed the coins in a bottle?” Jane shook her head as she looked up from the laptop at Lina. “Then we’re out of luck. Too fragile. The coins wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving since that time.” She frowned. “Or maybe they would. Some vases and dishes survived in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. I remember seeing them while I was on digs when I was in college.”
“It depends on where he put the bottle.” Lina was smiling faintly. “And I think that there is a chance. Later in the document he talks of planning to go back and retrieve his holy coins. He gives exact directions to where he placed the bottle.”
Jane’s eyes widened. “Exact?”
Lina nodded. “Yes. This field he’s talking about isn’t the one where they take tourists. It’s too far north. And he buried the bottle deep in the clay in a cave on the south perimeter bordering the property. That was probably why it was forbidden for anyone to break the seal on his holy tablet. He didn’t want anyone else to know how to find the Judas coins. He never got around to going back for the pouch himself, but he wasn’t going to let any of his followers go after them and get all the glory.”
“He mentioned a writ of sale. If it specifically refers to them as the coins given to Judas, that would document the coins.” She grimaced. “But that would be expecting too much.”
“Not necessarily. Documents during that period could be very explicit. If the priests had refused the return of the Judas money, I’d think they’d be even more certain to have the writ very clear about whose money was being used for this purchase. It would be a form of self-justification. We’ll have to see.” She got to her feet. “But right now I’m going to go to bed and get some sleep. I feel so tired, I’m numb. Read the rest of the translation, and we’ll discuss it later.”
Eight Days to Live Page 25
