The Stones of My Accusers

by Tracy Groot

  To Jorah’s amazement he stopped and looked full in her face, searching her eyes with desperation. “Jorah—it was the most wonderful thing I have ever heard, and it was the most terrible thing I have ever heard.”

  “Nathanael’s last words?” she whispered.

  He sniffed, and drew his sleeve across his nose. Then calm returned. Not calm, really, more like resignation. “They were never Nathanael’s words. He was only saying what Jesus said.”

  Her lip curled. “Of course he was. It always comes back to Jesus.”

  While they were on the subject . . .

  Because he had been there, she would ask him. She would ask what she dared not ask her brothers, though they had been there too. She would ask of that day they had arrived in Bethany, on Passover. It was nearly noon, and the sky was notably blue. Blindingly bright, not a single cloud—not a single cloud, and that fact was terribly important.

  “Joab . . . that day we arrived in Bethany. Remember that? Remember the moment we arrived in Bethany? It was noon. Did . . . the sky really go dark?”

  Silence. Then, “Yes, it did.”

  “I mean black.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it was that way for a few hours.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  Eyes on the sea, Jorah nodded. “I thought so.”

  Seagulls wheeled and cried overhead. In the distance a ship came, heading for Herod’s Harbor. They watched the ship lift and fall in its passage to the shore, and said no more.

  Prometheus took a sip of wine, then hid his smile behind his mug. Pilate was weak. Prometheus could read him like a parchment, and today played him like a child’s pipe. Gods up-in-arms, it was easy. His favorite line today was “With every breath.” Brilliant. Pilate was his from that moment on, and it was only impulse that had made him say it, impulse that made him stare longingly to sea. “With every breath, Excellency.” Ha. He missed Spain, not Rome. Spain he looked to, past that stinking city with its ungrateful rulers.

  They had waited two abominably long hours on the wharf. Caratacus didn’t show, of course. He never would. Decimus Vitellus Caratacus, Primipilaris, was dead.

  Publius’s letter had arrived a week ago.

  To Prometheus Longinus, from your cousin Publius Cassianius, greetings.

  You may have heard by now of the death of Decimus Vitellus Caratacus. The gangrene took him, after a wound to the foot. He served twenty years in the Imperial Army only to drop a leaden tub on his foot and come down with the gangrene. They amputated, but it was too late. Too bad, too, he was a good fellow. Good soldier. Heard he was about to set sail for Palestinia. Did I ever tell you I served under him? Princeps.

  I know you stole my brooch, you old dog. You shouldn’t have been so interested in it. I don’t miss it, but I wanted you to know I know. Tell Pilate I said hello. How is the ambitious old fox? Did he ever marry Antonia?

  Curious, that Pilate did not know. He probably didn’t have any friends who corresponded with him—Sejanus had his troubles with Tiberius, and maybe Decimus was his only other friend. Maybe Decimus wasn’t high enough in the ranks to have his death published in the official posting from Rome. Especially if he died of something as inglorious as the gangrene. A shameful death for a distinguished military man.

  Pilate would know eventually, and until then, dear cousin Publius had given Prometheus enough to ingratiate himself to the prefect of Judea. And dear Orion didn’t know his position was now in jeopardy. His smile broadened, until he saw Raman’s waiting mug.

  Prometheus poured the greasy Raman another swallow from the amphora. “The scroll contained changes to the original plans for the granary. Who authorized the changes?”

  Raman considered the wine like a purveyor. “It must pay to be the undersecretary to Orion Galerinius Honoratus. This is delicious.”

  “I am undersecretary to Pontius Pilate.”

  Raman blanched and set down his cup. “That’s what I meant, of course.”

  “The scroll . . . ,” Prometheus prompted wearily.

  “Ah, yes. I do not remember the name of the architect who made the changes, but his signature is on the scroll. It’s all in order, sir.”

  “And Pilate approved it. The document had Pilate’s seal.”

  “Of course! I know Pilate’s seal.” Raman was righteously indignant. “We would not go ahead with the changes without it.”

  “I want the scroll. Bring it to me tomorrow night. Not a word of this to Orion Galerinius.”

  Raman glanced about the tavern. “Of course not, sir. I am to be trusted. They did not make me foreman for nothing.” His tone was carefully solicitous.

  His payment should have been having a drink with Prometheus Longinus, but Prometheus could not afford Orion finding out. He took a denarius, one of Augustus’s coins, and slid it across the table. He took his helmet and rose. “Leave in a quarter hour,” Prometheus told Raman.

  Raman nodded and lifted his mug. “Good-bye, my friend!”

  One table over, hidden from view by the broad form of the Roman soldier at his table, Janus Bifrons peeked out and watched Prometheus leave the drinking house. He shook down his bracelets and looked thoughtfully at the other man Prometheus left behind.

  10

  “HAS HE GIVEN ANY INDICATION what he will do?” Pontius Pilate asked as they trod down the stone steps of the stairwell.

  “Pardon, Excellency?”

  Pilate pressed his belly against his wide leather belt so Orion wouldn’t see it jiggle. When did he have time for the gymnasium? “The Jew, the stonemason on my Tiberateum. His holy day begins this evening.” The day after tomorrow Pilate would either hear squeals like a pig or the silence of compliance. He wasn’t sure which he hoped for.

  Thinking on the Tiberateum, it was time to hire a stonecutter for his dedication piece. Long had he worked on the right words for the cornerstone. He had two versions and couldn’t decide which was better.

  “. . . not exactly sure what he has decided.”

  “I need you to hire a stonecutter for the Tiberateum cornerstone. I’d also like you to take a look at what I have composed for it. It is to be stately but not pretentious. I have two versions and would like your opinion.”

  “Of course, Excellency,” Orion said.

  “Do you think I should attend the work site today? You can point out the stonemason. If he sees me, perhaps it will affect his decision.”

  They came out at the bottom of the stairwell, and Pilate stopped. Orion stopped immediately.

  “I am merciful, after all, Orion. I do not wish for this man to suffer. Perhaps seeing me will adjust his sensibilities.” And if Orion could not answer him, well, Pilate could understand. He merely kept his gaze on him a measure longer, then turned the subject again to the cornerstone.

  “I am thinking about something like this: ‘Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, has given this Tiberateum to the Citizens of Caesarea.’ Or something more like, ‘In Honor of Tiberius, from his servant, Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea, Governor of this Imperial Province of Rome, for the Citizens of Caesarea.’ What do you think?”

  Orion dropped his tablet onto his writing table. “What do I think? Why don’t you just call it the Pilateum?”

  “Orion Galerinius Honoratus?” came a timid voice at his door. It was Lucretia, one of the cook’s slaves, bearing a tray. “Cook sends this. He said you did not eat at breakfast and you did not eat at midmeal.”

  “Take it away and inform the cook I eat when I want to. Tell him to tend his duties, not my appetite.”

  “The cook would say your appetite is his—”

  “Take it away!” Orion roared.

  She jumped, and turned to run into—gods and goddesses—Janus Bifrons. The upset tray and all its contents bobbled between them, then clattered to the floor.

  “Forgive me!” the girl exclaimed. Her face went crimson, and she knelt and began to quickly clean up the mess. “Forgive me!”

  “No harm,” Janus assured. He
brushed the front of his vestments clean, then pulled the edge of his robe from the mess and knelt to help her.

  Orion stood at his writing table, hoping Janus would leave with the girl. When all was silent and he thought it was safe, he looked over his shoulder—and hastily at his desk again. Janus leaned against the doorway.

  “What do you want?” Orion said, with a grimace Janus could not see.

  “Would you rather have the slave girl stay?” Janus asked dryly. He didn’t wait for an answer. “I want to know why you are sore vexed these days, Orion Galerinius. And why you’re not eating.”

  Orion squeezed his eyes shut and leaned stiff-armed on his writing table. “I—have a case of distressed bowels.”

  “If Prometheus could cause distressed bowels, I would believe you.”

  Slowly Orion’s eyes came open. He peered over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  Janus leaned back to look up and down the corridor. He came in and shut the door and went to the corner stool, arranging his vestments as he sat. “Orion, you’ve sought me out for matters of delicacy before. I hope that means you trust me. I am here out of curiosity and out of concern. This little display with the cook’s tray deepens it. You are not a man given to outbursts of anger.”

  Bifrons’s manner had not a trace of flirtation in it. This was the Janus Bifrons he liked. Orion relaxed. Had it all been his fancy these past years? He took his stool. “What did you mean about Prometheus?”

  Janus’s graying pointed beard poked his necklaces as he regarded a little gob of barley on the embroidered edge of his vestment. His bracelets clattered as he scraped it from the golden fabric with a long fingernail. “I was at the soldiers’ drinking house on the quay last night. I overheard a conversation. Most of it. Why does Prometheus seek a certain scroll, Orion?”

  An arrow through his gut. Orion kept his face fixed. Bifrons’s lips moved, and he focused on them but the words were as easy to grasp as smoke. Orion blinked, tried to clear his head, tried hard to hear him.

  “. . . what a good man like you has to do with Prometheus Longinus . . .”

  The lips were moving, his gut was roiling.

  “. . . foreman at the granary going up in the southeast quadrant. He is a coarse man, singularly uncivilized and . . .”

  Raman. Sold by Raman. Rivkah’s tree will be cut down. And Pilate might attend the Tiberateum today. He said he might. He’ll know I didn’t give the order. Everything over, all at once.

  He looked about his room. What to take? He had to leave, now. Theron came yesterday and asked him to the Sabbath meal. He had to leave this moment, find the next ship out of Caesarea—could he leave without saying good-bye to Theron and Marina? He would never see them again.

  “Did I ever tell you how I got my name?”

  Orion wet his lips, shook his head to clear the daze, pulled his mind to the words spoken. “I don’t care.”

  Janus smiled reflectively and folded his arms, settling in for a tale. “Well. I was the firstborn, and my mother—”

  “Janus. Everything is over. My career . . . everything. My life.”

  “—wanted to dedicate her son to the god of beginnings—Janus. Now, if you will recall what you learned as a schoolboy, if you paid any attention at all, he is also the god of doorways.”

  “I could arrange my own murder. Visit a poppy tent first. I’ve never been.”

  “Orion, will you listen? Now. Just as a door has two sides, looking in opposite directions, so in that form is the god called Janus Bifrons. My mother liked the idea of her son being like a doorway.” The reflective smile dwindled. His eyes narrowed on Orion. “I fancy you are much like that, Orion Galerinius. More than I have ever been.”

  What was Janus churning out of his mouth? Gods, he had to think. He scruffed up his hair. “Why don’t you—will you just leave?”

  “You protect them.”

  Orion stilled.

  “You feed them Pilate’s leftovers. Don’t look at me like that—you think the young soldiers’ program is a secret around here? And the little boy is safe at the side of the laundress because of the mercy of one—you think that has escaped notice? Acts like that roll like thunder in this palace.”

  Orion put a hand over his eyes, pressed his fingers into them.

  “What is that you hold?”

  Orion looked down at his lap. When had he taken the box? He snorted softly. “This is what kept me here when I long wanted to leave.” He opened the box and took out the collar. He unwrapped it and handed it to Janus Bifrons. “That was fashioned for my father when he was a child.”

  Janus sent a swift look at Orion. “He must have made free for you to hold office. Or is that a nasty secret . . .”

  Orion watched as Janus examined the collar. “He made free. When he was taken a captive in Gaul at eight years old, he vowed to save every copper he could find, every copper he could earn to buy his freedom. And he did. He vowed he would only marry in freedom, and he did. He vowed his children would be born free, and I was. At the age of forty-seven, at his manumission ceremony, his name became Appius Galerinius Libertus—Freedman.” Tears came, and he worked his fingers over his eyes. When he could, he said, “He gave me the collar to remind me there was nothing I could not do.”

  “Hah!”

  Startled, Orion looked up in time to catch the iron collar Janus tossed at him.

  “Fine words, Orion Galerinius. Takes more than a collar.”

  Orion put the collar on his wrist and turned it around. “Yes, it does.” He would have never believed it before. He knew it for truth now. He never once thought of the collar to help him forge the granary plans.

  Janus rose and shook out his vestments. His lip curled as he picked off another bit of barley. “There is a man in the marketplace. I go and we talk of our gods. He has but one.” Janus smiled a little and lifted his eyes to Orion. “It is part of my duty to know the local gods, and his is an interesting one. The man tells me he is a jealous god, quite possessive of his people. I have been learning of him to add him to our own.” He fell into a frown. “Tricky, he is. Elusive. Unlike the gods we know. Some Jews believe he is connected to the Jew Pilate crucified; some say the Jew was his son. While, of course, the notion of sons of gods is not a new notion, this case is interesting because—” He caught himself.

  “Well. I sit with the man in the marketplace, and we eat bread and dates. I have been learning much. One thing I have learned from this man is that the god is pleased when kindness is shown, particularly to his own people, and I wonder if he has not heard the thunder in the palace. Orion Galerinius Honoratus, I believe more than a collar stays you to your task. I believe you are as a door. One side looks to Rome, and one side looks to a sorely vexed humanity.”

  He went to the doorway and paused before he left. “Whatever troubles you, be it Prometheus or Pilate, perhaps you have the favor of the god of the marketplace Jew.” He glanced up and down the corridor and added lightly, “And if you tell Pilate I am meeting with a Jew, I’ll cut off your temple offerings.”

  Janus Bifrons left. Orion listened to the clatter of wooden ornaments until it died away. He turned the collar on his wrist. The favor of the god of the marketplace Jew—Theron’s god. Well, Prometheus discovered the scroll—that was sore favor. And if Pilate visited the Tiberateum site this afternoon, he would hardly call that favor.

  To my beloved father, from your favorless son, greetings.

  I dance the bull’s dance, and they have daubed my middle with red. I have never known more fear than I have right now, and I am even wearing your collar. Janus Bifrons was right. It’s only metal.

  He smoothed his hand over the calendar. He could feel the slight spongy bulge from Theron’s documents beneath. He had to get rid of them immediately. If Prometheus did indeed have the scroll, anything could happen. If he found these papers . . .

  Treason, treason, the breath of the Furies singsonged.

  “Orion, come quickly.”

 
Orion jumped. Marcus’s burly form filled the doorway. He never heard the hobnails.

  “What is it?”

  “The two young apprentices of Theron.”

  “They are still here?” This morning Marcus had fetched him when they arrived.

  “I passed by the archway a moment ago and saw Prometheus with them—the young girl Jorah is weeping.”

  Orion tossed the collar on his table and left his workroom with the guard at the double step.

  11

  A WHOLE WEEK WORKING in the palace, and Joab could not get over the wonder of it. He wanted to tell someone. Write home to Mother and Father. After upbraiding him for working in a Gentile establishment, they would be proud. The Praetorium Palace, Herod the Great’s home! Their own Joab!

  The upper part of the palace, the Praetorium, was where government business was transacted. Judgments, decrees, hearings, assemblies. Even parties. Two days ago they had to conduct their work discreetly while Pilate entertained a group of dignitaries from Syria. Pilate brought them over to observe Theron the Great at work—most had heard of him—and they looked on while Joab tried his best to look professional.

  Jorah had felt the eyes too; she had assumed a superior air as she tamped in a tile board, giving it more critical attention than it needed, all the while seemingly unaware of the gaggle of people gawking. Once she had sneaked a glance at Joab, eyes dancing, and they both had to stifle sudden smiles. Only Theron did not notice. He wore his usual scowl and fumed about the inferior lighting in the corridor. He growled at Joab to remind him to speak to Orion about more sconces for the walls. If he noticed the crowd at the other end of the walkway, it was only because they blocked his light.