The Last Sacrifice

by Hank Hanegraaff

  Vitas shifted his balance, ready to make a dash.

  “So tell me, Aedinius Abito,” Pavo said, “what exactly did you do to incur the wrath of our emperor?”

  Aedinius Abito?

  Before Vitas could reply, Pavo’s attention turned away from him as two men stepped onto the deck of the ship, one of them a lumbering giant.

  “I guess I’ll find out when I get back to Rome to claim my reward,” Pavo said. “Here come the men from Nero now.”

  Vitas looked at the approaching men and stifled a gasp of astonishment.

  One of them was his brother, Damian.

  A lit oil lamp had been set well to the side, in the clearing that Lucullus had chosen, a clearing surrounded by low scrub bushes. This made it easy for Ben-Aryeh to sneak close enough to watch. He paid the oil lamp little attention—the rest of the scene was more compelling.

  Lucullus and the soldiers had set up a tall pyramid of four long poles, set wide at the bottom and leaning together at the top, with a tight circle of rope at the peak to band the poles solidly together. Another length of rope hung down from there, and Strabo dangled head-downward from this rope. They had bound his hands at his sides, and his head was barely a foot off the ground, hanging directly in the center of the makeshift pyramid.

  Lucullus stood nearby, facing Strabo and looking down on Strabo’s feet and body and holding a large jug of wine. “Here’s a vintage you should enjoy,” Lucullus said. The other soldiers, gathered outside of the triangle, roared with laughter.

  Lucullus nodded. One soldier stepped forward and held Strabo’s upside-down body. Another clamped a hand over the dwarf’s mouth.

  Lucullus began to pour the red liquid into Strabo’s nose.

  Strabo arched his back and shook his head violently, snorting and blowing through his nose in an attempt to clear it, which only made the soldiers laugh harder as the first two tried to contain Strabo’s kicking and bucking. His movement made the pyramid of poles sway, but true to the engineering tradition of Roman soldiers, their construction was too solid to collapse.

  It was quickly apparent that Strabo was at the point of drowning, and Ben-Aryeh was profoundly grateful that he’d ordered Zeno to stay behind with Akakios; no son should ever see his father humiliated in this way.

  Ben-Aryeh could not stand to watch it. He was about to stand and rush forward, even knowing it would be futile against the soldiers, when Lucullus stopped pouring wine.

  “I’ve got plenty left,” Lucullus told Strabo, “and this is so much fun. But I don’t want to forget that I’ve promised you the same treatment I gave your whore wife.”

  Lucullus pointed at one of the soldiers. “Bring the goat,” he barked. “The big, black male.”

  The soldier returned with the black goat at the end of a rope. The rope was tied to its horns, and it strained and bucked to get loose.

  “Now you’re going to become the butt of our jokes,” Lucullus said. “Right, boys?”

  More laughter.

  “Tie the end of the rope to the little man’s waist,” Lucullus said. “Let’s enjoy the show.”

  The soldier did as ordered. There was about three feet of slack in the rope—not enough for the goat to leave the circle at the bottom of the poles, but enough to give it some room to maneuver.

  The goat faced Strabo. It made a movement as if to charge.

  Strabo, upside down and with no place to go, bared his teeth and clicked them together in a biting motion.

  The goat stepped backward in fear and respect, pulling Strabo away from center.

  “Come on!” Lucullus roared. He took out his sword and jabbed the goat in the hind end, trying to provoke it. It jumped forward but did not attack Strabo.

  “Come on!” Another jab.

  The goat kicked backward, slamming a hoof into Lucullus’s shin. He roared in pain, then slashed the sword across the midsection of the goat, gashing its hide. Blood began to stream onto the ground.

  “Attack him!” Lucullus screamed.

  The goat darted away, bleating in pain.

  There was nothing comical about this to Ben-Aryeh. He saw no way to help Strabo. With the Roman commander going wild, Ben-Aryeh realized it was only going to get far worse.

  Another slash of the sword. This time, to sever the rope that held the goat to Strabo. With more bleating, it tried to run, but could only stagger its escape.

  “I want the oil lamp,” Lucullus yelled. “Now! Remember your wife?” he said to Strabo. “Remember what this did to her?”

  Strabo stared back at Lucullus. “Nothing you did or can do will ever destroy our love.”

  The reply incensed Lucullus. He kicked Strabo, sending the little man’s body high into the air like a pendulum.

  Lucullus stepped back, gulping for breath and self-control. “Let’s try this,” he ground out.

  He placed the candle on the ground directly below Strabo’s bald head. As the heat rose, Strabo arched in pain. He tried to swing himself back and forth, but soldiers held him in place until he screamed in agony.

  Lucullus pulled the candle away. “Now,” he said, “tell me about the woman. Where is she? Tell me, and I’ll spare you and your family.”

  Strabo blinked but remained silent.

  “I’m sure your wife told you how much I like the smell of burning flesh,” Lucullus said. “How about this?” He applied the candle flame directly to Strabo’s bare feet.

  Strabo screamed again.

  After five seconds, Lucullus removed it. His face had become dreamy, as if he was losing himself in the torture. “Where’s the woman?” The rage in his voice had disappeared. He was speaking almost seductively. “Come on, Strabo; tell me what I need to know.”

  Tears streamed from Strabo’s eyes, down his forehead to drip onto the ground.

  “Perhaps a leg,” Lucullus said. “I’ll get to your face last. Like I did with your wife.”

  Lucullus pulled Strabo’s body sideways so he could get a better angle to Strabo’s leg. “How’s this?” Lucullus asked gently, applying the flame.

  Strabo screamed.

  By the looks the soldiers were exchanging, Ben-Aryeh could see that they found their commander’s obvious enjoyment of this disturbing.

  Lucullus removed the flame.

  Strabo drew deep breaths but stopped screaming.

  “I’ve got all day,” Lucullus told Strabo in a soothing voice. “And little as you are, there’s still plenty I can burn. Unless you’d care to tell me where to find the woman.”

  Strabo bit his lip and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the worst as Lucullus moved the candle to his midsection.

  Ben-Aryeh could not endure it any longer. He burst from the bushes, gambling there would be only one way to ensure Sophia’s safety.

  “Stop!” he yelled in Aramaic. All the soldiers spun; all of them lifted spears in protection. He continued in Aramaic, striding forward, believing none would be able to understand him. “Leave him alone. You’re looking for me.”

  Lucullus did not appear surprised. “Sounds like a Jew to me,” Lucullus said, grinning. “What’s he telling us to do? Find him a pig?”

  The soldiers laughed.

  “See, men,” Lucullus said. “I told you this was the perfect place to put out the bait.”

  He spun and kicked Strabo in the belly.

  “Cut him down,” Lucullus snarled at his men. “I’ll let him wonder for the rest of his life when I’ll be coming back to finish this.”

  Hora Quarta

  Here he is, Jerome thought, the man whose death will save my children.

  Vitas and Damian were a few paces away from Jerome, in the shade of an inn that overlooked the harbor. The lighthouse of Pharos dominated the horizon. In front, hundreds of ships lined the shoreline. The harbor was full of activity, with ships arriving and leaving it at random.

  Jerome couldn’t help a glance at Vitas’s hands. At the signet ring that Jerome had been commanded to return to Rome.

&nbs
p; “How we found you,” Damian was saying to Vitas, “is a long but satisfying story.”

  Damian turned to Jerome. “Am I right?”

  Jerome nodded. Satisfying for Damian. To him, all of life was a game. For Jerome, there was nothing lighthearted about this, especially knowing he’d have to find a safe time and place to murder the man in front of him.

  “It was clever of me,” Damian said, “to deliver Pavo a false name, wouldn’t you agree? Aedinius Abito is protecting you, for no one in the palace will know that Gallus Sergius Vitas is alive and well.”

  Wrong, Jerome thought. Dead wrong. Someone does and they’ve sent me after him.

  He could not speak these thoughts, of course. Again, Jerome was overwhelmed by frustration at his inability to communicate. He had the strength of three men but was able to accomplish less than any child.

  “Pavo told me that you had a royal edict with that name on it,” Vitas said, remembering the conversation. “Signed by Nero.”

  “Simple forgery. You have yourself to thank for that.”

  “Me?” Vitas echoed.

  “In my household, there were plenty of official documents involving Nero that came from you.” Damian laughed. “I wish I could be there when your captain shows up in Nero’s palace, holding the letter and demanding payment.”

  “And what about your long and satisfying story?” Vitas said, smiling with Damian.

  “The pilot’s brother,” Damian said. “The one that was supposed to be dead. His name is Kaeso. Jerome and I persuaded him to speak freely. That’s the short of it. You’ll get the long of it after we find the Jew.”

  “John?” Vitas was clearly surprised. “You know he was with me?”

  “Searching for him led me to finding you,” Damian said. “In a way, then, you owe him your life.”

  “More than once. That’s why we need to find him.” Vitas told Damian about the slave girl who had taken the scroll from John.

  “Why do you want to find him?” Damian asked.

  “I owe him. Again. He had a short message for me, written in Hebrew. He translated it before making sure it reached me. That tells me he was more concerned about me than his own freedom. And I have the third message for him to translate. Once I have pieced them together—”

  “Messages?”

  “Later. We need to get him before the ship leaves. The slave girl who brought me the scroll told me which ship.”

  “On a ship. That means it has a crew, right?”

  Vitas nodded. “The slave girl tells me that she counted at least thirty men aboard.”

  “Thirty?” Damian grinned at Jerome. “What a shame. I was hoping this would be a challenge.”

  Lucullus and Chayim looked through the bars of the prison cell at the old man hunched in the shadows in the corner. It wasn’t much of a jail, just a walled-off area a few paces wide and a few paces long.

  “Must be an uneducated provincial,” Lucullus said. “Doesn’t know any Latin or Greek. He just jabbers at us, and we can’t understand a word of it.”

  The old man didn’t turn at the voice of Lucullus. He had his cloak over his head and sat hunched in apparent misery.

  It had been a few years since Chayim had spoken in Aramaic. He cleared his throat. “You’re the Jew who came on the island with the woman, right?”

  A shudder seemed to run through the old man. He twisted sideways and peered through his cloak. While he was in shadow, Chayim and Lucullus were easily visible in the light of the torch that Lucullus held.

  “Surprised, aren’t you?” Chayim said. “Probably didn’t expect anyone on the island to speak Aramaic. But trust me, it’s to your advantage, because if you help, I can make this easy on you and the woman.”

  “If it helps loosen his tongue,” Lucullus interrupted, “I can order hot irons prepared. Tell him that in your Jew talk.”

  “The man beside me is a stupid, wine-drinking pig,” Chayim said smoothly in Aramaic. “I’d be happy to see him impaled on a post. Let me take you and the woman off the island as soon as possible.”

  The old man shifted slightly.

  “This is what I know,” Chayim said to the prisoner. “You and the woman had help leaving Rome. Remember, I found the letter that sent you here. What I want to know is what you found on the island. Tell me, and I can let you and the woman go.”

  “Why are you here?” The old man spoke in such a quiet whisper that Chayim barely heard the words.

  “Did you ask why I am here?” Chayim repeated.

  The old man nodded from beneath his cloak.

  “I just told you.” Perhaps this old Jew was a stupid provincial, as Lucullus believed. “I found the letter stolen from you and the woman. I followed the same instructions that sent you here.”

  “No,” came a whispering croak. “Why you instead of anyone else?”

  “Me?” Chayim thought this was a ridiculous question, but he was prepared to humor the old man. “I’m a man Helius trusts. And that’s how I can promise to help. I have far greater power than this stumbling Roman soldier.”

  “You don’t sound like a Jew from Rome. Your accent suggests Judea.”

  Chayim was straining to hear the old man’s words. He shrugged. “I am from Jerusalem.”

  “Yet you serve Helius.”

  Lucullus interrupted. “What’s he saying? What’s he saying?”

  Chayim put up an imperious hand to silence Lucullus. “When he tells me where to find the woman, I’ll let you know.”

  “Words don’t work against people like this,” Lucullus said. “Flames and pain are much more effective.”

  “If I don’t get the answer when I’m finished with him,” Chayim snapped, “bring the flames. Until then, let me speak. Unless you have anyone else on the island who understands this language.”

  “No,” Lucullus said tersely.

  “Good then,” Chayim said.

  To the old man, he spoke in Aramaic again. “Yes, I serve Helius. He sent me looking for you. He wants the woman, but he wants her alive.”

  “Tell me,” the old man whispered from under his cloak. “How did you get from Jerusalem to Rome? You seem young to be an ambassador.”

  Chayim was fully aware that he was answering questions instead of getting answers, but that didn’t matter. It was the old man behind bars, and Chayim had time.

  “My father made an arrangement,” Chayim said. “I was an embarrassment to him. He was—is—ranked highly in the religious establishment of the Temple.”

  “Did he love you?”

  “He loved the Law.”

  “But did he love you?”

  Chayim blinked. “Yes.”

  “But he loved the Law and you did not.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What if it wasn’t the Law he loved, but the one true God he served by protecting those laws?”

  What kind of questioning was this?

  “Enough,” Chayim said. “Where’s the woman? I want to spare you torture, and believe me, from everything I’ve seen and heard, this Roman has a passion for it.”

  “Think hard,” the old man croaked. “Could your father have been zealous for God, for what was right in the eyes of God?”

  “Yes,” Chayim said. “He was.”

  “And you were not.”

  “No.”

  “Are you ashamed of your father?”

  “No,” Chayim said, surprised at his answer.

  “Was he ashamed of you?”

  “It didn’t matter. I did not want his ways.”

  “But he loved you, even though you did not want his ways.”

  “Yes,” Chayim said. “He was tough and unrelenting and self-righteous at times, but I know he loved me.”

  “Someday,” the old man said, “when you have a son of your own, you will understand how difficult it is for a man when his son chooses a path of self-destruction.”

  “Don’t judge me,” Chayim said. “You have no right.”

  The old man did not repl
y.

  “Where is the woman?” Chayim said. “Save yourself. She will be found on this island anyway.”

  Silence. The old man seemed to settle further into his cloak.

  “See?” Lucullus was smug. “Apparently the Roman way might be needed after all.”

  Chayim felt unsettled. He grabbed the torch from Lucullus. “Open the door,” Chayim said. “I’ll get the answer you need.”

  “Last chance,” Lucullus said. He fumbled with a key.

  Chayim stepped into the cell. He squatted in front of the old man.

  “Look at me,” he said to the old man. “I want you to see in my face how sincere I am about the danger you face.”

  When the old man didn’t respond, Chayim pulled the cloak off the man’s shoulders. He pulled the man’s hair and stared him in the face.

  And it seemed to Chayim as though all the breath had been pushed from his body.

  The old man stared back at him. His father. Tears were trickling down his face.

  “At least,” Ben-Aryeh said, “you know the truth. Your father does love you, despite the path you have chosen.”

  Chayim could not find words. He stood. It seemed he had to brace his legs apart to keep his balance. He was spared by the arrival of another soldier, who came running and shouting.

  “The woman has been found,” the soldier told Lucullus. “She gave herself up.”

  Hora Quinta

  Jerome held a lit torch as he followed Damian and Vitas, who both carried buckets in each hand. Jerome knew they were drawing stares as they walked along the wharf. He heard men mumble asides as they passed—after all, who would need a lit torch in daylight?—but no one was brave enough to mock their procession openly, undoubtedly because of Jerome’s menacing size.

  Damian stopped at one ship of dozens moored at this side of the harbor. It was medium sized, about twenty steps long. Blue encaustic paint—melted wax with color added—covered most of the hull. Its sternpost carried a relief, showing men carrying grapes on a pole between them, the grapes obviously exaggerated in size.

  Damian set down his buckets and flexed his fingers, groaning with relief to be relieved of his burden. Jerome noticed that, in contrast, Vitas stoically bore his buckets.