The Stones of My Accusers

by Tracy Groot

  “Prometheus is able enough, but cares only for expediency. He lacks Orion’s—what did you say?”

  “Things are not so different on my side.”

  Whatever Janus expected, it wasn’t that. “How so?”

  But the Jew drew himself up and gave Janus a haughty eye. “You think I will discuss with a Gentile what I have not yet discussed with my God?”

  Janus smiled, and there it was again. That certain pang that made him feel a little left out. This time it didn’t grate him as it had done before. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Go and consult with your god. Tell him I said hello.”

  The Jew’s eyes twinkled. Then he changed the mood and brightly said, “So. Back to that of which we are in common trade: religion. Tell me of your beliefs in Stoicism.”

  “I don’t believe anymore.”

  That belief he had left on the palace floor when Rhodinia took the little boy away.

  19

  PILATE AND PROMETHEUS trotted down the stone steps, Prometheus pressing notes in the wax as he went. Twice Pilate had to wait for him to catch up; he had to stop and hold the tablet against his knee to press the stylus better. He must have left the tablet open and so hardened the wax, a careless and inefficient thing to do. They had just turned the corner for the final flight of steps when Prometheus had to stop again.

  Pilate hated to hear sighs, but could not stifle his own. “I hope you will learn to use that thing more efficiently.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Next?”

  “Ah . . . the family of the magistrate who died last week—they wish to know if they can use the Praetorium Palace chariot for the funeral procession.”

  “And what did you tell them?”

  Prometheus’s eyes snapped from his tablet to Pilate. “I—”

  “That would never have made it to Orion’s tablet. Take responsibility and make decisions, Longinus. Do not waste my time.”

  “Yes, Excellency.”

  “Next?”

  “That’s all, sir.”

  Pilate tugged down the sides of his toga. “I am going to Jerusalem this morning. Ready my escort and pack my things. Send a dispatch ahead to prepare the palace staff there. Clear my schedule for four days.”

  Prometheus raised a surprised face from his tablet. He dropped the stylus and scrambled for it. “You’re going to Jerusalem, sir?”

  He kept the sigh in check this time. “Why do I always repeat myself to you, Longinus? Is it because you cannot hear, or because you are questioning me? Yes, I am going to Jerusalem. I’ve gotten back a few reports, and I hear his followers are still meeting. My sources say they share meals together, which is a particularly Essene trait. Possibly a new cult is on the rise.”

  “Perhaps that is to be expected, with a recent martyr,” Prometheus offered. “I wouldn’t worry about it, Excellency. You certainly did the right thing. He was a threat to Roman sovereignty. . . .” His voice died away when he saw Pilate’s hard gray stare.

  “He was no threat. He was never a threat. He was only a religious fanatic. And if you try again to assure me of what I have or have not done, if you give your opinion without my request for it, the auxiliaries will have a new mess cook.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  “Have you learned nothing from Orion?”

  “I—”

  “He conducted himself more like a Roman officer than I have seen from you yet.” Pilate trotted down the rest of the steps, saying over his shoulder, “Send the swiftest rider if the Primipilaris arrives.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” Prometheus called after.

  It would take the man another half hour just to press in the last sentence. Gods, how he missed Orion. Gone two, three days? He would have to be patient. It would take time for a new secretary to learn his ways. He hoped Prometheus was a fast study. He didn’t think so.

  Pilate went to the archival room himself because it would take Prometheus ten minutes to write his request down and another ten to execute it. He wanted some reading material on his way to Jerusalem.

  The material on Jesus of Nazareth was scanty for the three years he traveled about Judea and Galilee. Infiltrators had been sent from the beginning, when he began to draw crowds. They listened for key words that would alert them to possible seditious brewings. Words such as weapons, arsenals, tactics, any mention of names from the Hasmonean dynasties, and especially the Maccabees. The infiltrators were experts, and from the beginning saw no threat in the Galilean. The fact that he was Galilean gave the most interest, since Galileans were commonly known as troublemakers.

  The word kingdom came up a few times, and that had alerted the spies. But he had always used the term in some esoteric way. Pilate got the last earful. My kingdom is not of this world. His own benediction, lucky for Pilate. It inspired him.

  The flogging should have been enough. They wanted blood, Pilate gave them blood. It was a last-minute attempt to try and save his life, surely he must have known that. Surely he saw it for the true mercy it was. Pilate had watched for satisfaction when they saw the blood, but the Jews wanted more, and Tiberius said to keep the peace. Pilate wasn’t being humorous when he put “King of the Jews” over his head. He was defending his verdict. Covering his tracks. If blasphemy was a Jewish offense, declaring oneself king was a Roman one. If Pilate had to crucify him to keep peace with the hotheads, he had at least the man’s claim to kingship to make it legal.

  What were his followers up to? Had they decided his kingdom was indeed of this world? They were taking meals together, his sources found that noteworthy. What else were they doing?

  He was no threat. He was never a threat.

  The only reason Pilate was going to Jerusalem was for the benediction words: My kingdom is not of this world. Pilate would never say aloud what he had felt at the eerie moment those words were spoken. He’d never admit the fear—no, the force of those words. Never admit that at that instant he had known there was, indeed, a threat in the man.

  Muster to ships brought seamen from everywhere, staggering in from wherever they’d dropped at inns, brothels, and gaming rooms. It was a busy time on the quay, a time Orion usually enjoyed because he loved the sailing industry. Loved everything about it, had ever since he was a boy.

  Muster to ships was a time of on-loading and off-loading, of seamen giving orders and seamen obeying orders, of clamor and commotion and hustle and hurry, all with a backdrop of pleasant sounds: ship’s bells and seagulls and loud guffaws and ornery shouts and bare feet trampling up and down gangplanks and on decks. Many shouts from the officer seamen were in Latin, because most of the ships were from Rome and their rigging came with Latin labels. Many of the sailors, however, were not from Rome. From where Orion and Cornelius waited, against a smokehouse close to a dock, Orion watched in amusement as a few sailors puzzled through the orders. Some figured “check the rudentis” meant check the brails, and “once over the pedis” meant once over the sheets, and they were right. Orion watched as two Germanic-looking seamen received an order to haul in the pons. Their puzzled looks earned a contemptuous glare from the captain, who gave a jerk of his head to the gangplank.

  When Orion was small, his father had worked at a grain warehouse in Ostia. When on break from his duties, he and Orion would take packets of hot peas purchased from street merchants and an amphora of Father’s favorite fish sauce and go to the river mouth to watch the boats. The merchant ships could not travel upstream; they had to anchor at sea and unload to smaller vessels. The naves codicariae were the river barges that transported goods up the Tiber from Ostia to Rome.

  Sometimes Orion saw wild animals bound for the circus. One day a merchant vessel got too close and grounded in the dangerous silty mouth of the Tiber. One of the barges pulled up close, and Orion watched as an elephant was transferred by tackle to the barge. The mighty three-masted vessel was grounded for days in the Tiber mouth, while the same elephant barge shuttled back and forth between Ostia and Rome at least a dozen ti
mes. Orion suspected his father would not miss the chance to present the moral, and he had not.

  He smiled fondly now, remembering his father’s charge: You see the three-master? Not so powerful now. Consider the nava codicaria, my boy.

  “What are you thinking of, Orion Galerinius?” Cornelius asked at his side.

  “Naves codicariae.” And a beloved father.

  To my beloved father, from your Orion. Thank you for being the father you were. Thank you for being the man you were. I was so fortunate, so very fortunate. . . .

  “You won’t find any river barges around here,” Cornelius said. “See the two-master on the—soldiers, head low.”

  Orion ducked his head right as soldiers passed on his left.

  Cornelius exchanged greetings with them. When they passed, he murmured, “You have a lot of friends, Orion Galerinius. They recognized you instantly. Acted like they never saw you.”

  Astonished, Orion nearly turned around. He didn’t know anyone in the garrison except for the Praetorian guards. “Who were they?”

  “Tullus, Horatio, and Demas.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  To this Cornelius only chuckled.

  They waited until Cornelius received a prearranged signal from the captain of the two-master. With the soldier casting sharp but furtive looks about the dock, he made Orion walk ahead of him up the gangplank.

  He wasn’t wearing his dirty toga anymore; that was rolled up and stuffed into one of his sacks. Cornelius had made him buy a tunic in the marketplace on the way to the harbor. His sandals were stuffed in the bag too, though he wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. He slipped two or three times on the gangplank, slick with dirty wash water slopped down from the deck of the ship. His feet alone could implicate him to any soldier on the lookout—they were as white as temple marble from years of confinement in the palace. The only sun they got was at the very occasional chariot races he attended.

  He found himself smirking; Prometheus was a huge fan of the races. He was good friends with Laertes, the most popular charioteer in Caesarea. Prometheus was about to find out that one of his chief duties was to miss all the exciting events because he had to dash about seeing to the endless details that sustained them.

  This was a single-cargo ship, and Cornelius got him into the hold immediately, out of sight and stashed away with bags of grain. The captain attended them briefly, informing them they were due to put out in a few hours after they got the clearance from a dock warehouse to load a shipment of barley from Ziklag.

  Orion asked him where the ship was bound.

  “We put in first to Alexandria, then sail for Rome.”

  He felt the blood drop from his face, and slid a look at Cornelius. The soldier was perfectly impassive. The captain nodded to them both and left.

  “Rome?” Orion demanded. “How about a ship anywhere but?”

  “Do you think Pilate sent a dispatch of your fall to Rome? You think he’s going to admit his chief secretary was lost to the Jews? Not anytime soon. You’ve humiliated him. He’ll wait as long as he dares to report the change in personnel. My guess is you’ll be perfectly safe in Rome for at least a few weeks. I wouldn’t risk any longer than that.”

  Orion gazed at Cornelius, allowing the shock to abate and the implications to come. “I could see my father.”

  Cornelius smiled. “I thought you could do that.” He looked about the hold, cramped with grain bags and casks of watered wine for the crew. He had made Orion purchase food in the marketplace to cook for himself in the galley during the journey. Orion wouldn’t have thought of that.

  Other passengers were settling in or had been on board previously and were waiting to sail. Near the grain hold was a cramped area rigged with hammocks and a few small tents. People slept in the hammocks or ate or talked or stared back at Cornelius and Orion. He would have to get used to the smell, and fast. Greasy cooking odors, stale sweat, and the privy—a bucket in the corner, lashed to the hold with metal clasps. And an old smell of seasickness, as though it was soaked into the grain of the hull.

  “Cozy,” Orion murmured with a half smile at Cornelius.

  “It’s that.” The soldier returned the grin. Then he reached out, and the men gripped hands. “Hail and farewell, Orion Galerinius Honoratus.”

  “Hail and farewell.” Any attempt to thank the young soldier would be grossly inadequate. “Cornelius . . .”

  “The honor was mine. I hope you land well. Send word when you can.”

  “I could never use my name in correspondence with you. How shall I sign myself?”

  Cornelius thought on it, and grinned. “Sign yourself Judah the Maccabee.”

  Orion laughed out loud. “Orion Galerinius Honoratus might be safer.”

  “No, I like it. Fair winds, Judah.”

  Not for the first time he wished he had taken the time to get to know this soldier better. He would have liked to share a mug with him at the soldiers’ drinking house. “May the favor of . . . Theron’s god be upon you.”

  Cornelius touched his knuckles to his forehead, and was gone.

  Raman waited around the corner of the smokehouse to be certain. Soon enough the big Roman soldier came down the gangplank of the two-master, this time alone; he paused on the dock, bending as if to adjust a strap on his hobnail. The foreman watched his eyes closely. Yes, the man was looking everywhere, scanning for Roman soldiers, wondering if he was being watched. The eyes did not seem to look for civilian spies.

  There is no mistaking the sound of hobnail boots in cadence. He had heard enough military drills to know it.

  Orion had secured an unused hammock and rolled into it, sacks and all, the moment Cornelius departed. He was asleep instantly, and at the heavy footfalls above him on deck, instantly awake. Awake, but not quite coherent. How long had he slept? He only knew the sound above was a dreadful sound, for that is what filled him; and dread or just plain stupidity immobilized him. Later, he knew it would have done no good to hide. They would have lanced the grain sacks to find him.

  Prometheus led the group of six Praetorian guards himself. He chose the Praetorians because they lent more elegance and direness to the situation than garrison soldiers. Later, Orion learned it would have been more if Pilate had not taken his escort to Jerusalem. So many to incarcerate one short man.

  They dragged him from the hammock and put him in iron bonds and led him from the ship in the middle of the guard. He was still stupid from lack of any real sleep in the past several days, and gazed in confusion at faces staring at him. Later, he realized he was looking for faces he knew. Looking for familiarity as they marched him to the Praetorium Palace. He saw none he recognized, save one. That of the granary foreman whose name the bleariness could not produce.

  It was the smallest cell they put him in, the three-sided cell, last one on the left. It hadn’t been cleaned from its latest occupant, Orion knew the instant they pushed him in and clanked the door shut. The iron padlock slid into place, and he heard hobnails fade down the corridor.

  Incarcerated in the Praetorium Palace, and not in a decent toga. They’d relieved him of his two sacks. Orion stood for a while, swaying with fatigue, fingering the cloth belt securing the waist of this provincial tunic. It was a coarse weave and it itched everywhere, felt about as comfortable as the backing of a carpet. Orion considered the rolled-up pallet for a long moment before he conceived of its function. Then he took it and spread it out—it went up part of the wall.

  The place wasn’t fit for prisoners; he’d have someone check into it in the morning. He’d put Galen on it. Good servant, Galen, knew how to take an order, spoke perfect Greek, little bitty accent. Knew how to get things around the province, the coal Pilate liked. Best oranges. He’d talk to Pilate about making him a steward. Put it in his tablet, he’d forget if he didn’t. . . .

  He curled onto the pallet, back against the long-sided wall. Sconces for the walkway, they’d be in soon. Orion would measure them himself, he didn’t tr
ust this to the workers. He’d measure meticulously. Meticulously.

  20

  “YES, OKAY, I AM COMING,” Theron bellowed from the workroom at all the pounding. He came through the curtain and glared about for Marina. Then he remembered that she’d said something about a woman and a baby a couple doors down. Well, she should have heard this racket and come down to send the annoyance packing. Nobody bothered him this time of day, not anyone he knew.

  He opened the door and did not know the boy soldier there. At least, he wore the rig of the Roman soldier, but his features were all Judean. He had to be younger than Joab.

  “You are Theron?” he squeaked in an immature voice.

  “Yes, and you are bothering him.”

  He had been in the middle of pinching strips of lead that would line a tesserae ribbon. A nasty job, though if tortured he would admit that even the nasty jobs of mosaic—maybe especially the nasty jobs—brought immense satisfaction. He could complain himself blue to Marina about lead pinching, and show her his injured fingertips, but he had long ceased to get sympathy out of her.

  “Drillmaster Cornelius sends word: He has changed his mind about the pattern for his villa and would like you to bring a design from Ostia.”

  Theron held the door and squinted at the boy for a long moment. “Not good enough for him, eh?”

  The boy shrugged. “Do you have a return word?”

  “Yes. Ah . . . tell him he’s a barbarian for changing the pattern. Tell him I’ll be there in an hour.” The boy nodded and turned to go, but Theron called him back. “Where does your drillmaster want to meet? At his villa or . . .”

  “He is in the drillmaster office at the barracks; he’ll be there until sundown. You can bring the design there.”

  “Yes, okay. Tell him he doesn’t pay me enough for this.” Theron shut the door before the boy could respond.

  He rolled his lower lip in a pinch. Something was terribly wrong. Ostia had to mean Orion. Change in pattern, maybe that meant something changed between yesterday and today. Orion was supposed to be long gone from Caesarea. He was supposed to have left yesterday morning.