The Third Day

also preached that they should love their enemies, and not try to kill them. They didn’t care much for that.”

Pilate considered this for a moment. Then he held up a scroll and waved it at the commander.

“This report says that he destroyed the Temple marketplace three days ago.”

Volusus nodded. “Yes.”

“An odd form of love, is it not?”

Neither the commander nor Publius could muster a reply.

After a brief moment, one of the officers along the wall spoke for the first time.

“There may be some basis to this, sir. I’ve heard reports that he instructed the people to pay their taxes without complaint.”

Pilate’s eyes widened. “A Jewish prophet telling them to pay us?”

“That’s what they said.”

Pilate shook his head. “Impossible. Your agents must have misunderstood. If this prophet said that, any following he had would melt away in an instant. I’ve been around this accursed country long enough to know that.”

No one spoke as Pilate scanned a few more of the loose scraps. Evidently, he was still wrestling for a solution in his mind.

He fished through the reports once more.

“What’s this about a kingdom?”

Volusus sighed. “So many wild stories surround this fellow. We’ve had a hard time sifting through them all to find the truth.

“He hasn’t called himself a king, then?”

Publius smiled. “Oh, I think his ambitions run much higher than that. Last night, I heard one of the high priests complain that he declared himself to be God — not a god, mind you, but the God, their one and only.”

They all laughed for a moment; then Volusus turned serious.

“If you want my assessment, I’d call him a mystic — one of these starry-eyed dreamers who pop up every now and then, preaching universal brotherhood, surrounded by fantastical tales of healing and miracles and food falling from the heavens.”

“That was another reason the prisoners abandoned him,” said Publius. “If he had a kingdom, it was, how did they put it?”

“Not of this world,” said Volusus.

“If he gets enough of the wrong sort of followers, it will be,” grumbled Pilate.

“True enough,” acknowledged Volusus, “but we’ve had our hands full this week fighting the bandits. And if this prophet had any followers on the Temple Mount when he assaulted the merchants, none of them chose to join in. We had to focus on our immediate priorities.”

“Yes, of course. But here’s what I find so strange: you say in this report that he came back the next day and preached for over an hour. Yet the Temple authorities did nothing.”

“We know he has sympathizers in the Sanhedrin,” said Publius, “but these are rational, educated men, not ignorant peasants chasing after the latest craze. They have as much to lose as we do from any serious trouble, which was another reason we chose to exercise caution.”

Pilate didn’t reply. Instead, he stared ahead, lost in thought.

“That may be,” he finally said, “but even if he has backers in their council, I find it hard to believe that he could destroy one of their biggest moneymakers and walk out untouched; not to mention coming back the next day and calling them — ”

Pilate glanced down at the written report. “- ‘hypocrites, robbers of widows,’ and here’s my favorite — ‘whitewashed tombs, with their shiny exteriors concealing the rot and corruption within.’ Even with that provocation, they still failed to act. Why?”

Publius and Volusus glanced at each other but did not respond. They had asked themselves the same question without reaching an answer.

“I’ll tell you why,” said Pilate. “They’re afraid of him. He may be waiting for the right moment to give the signal.”

“We considered that,” said Publius, “but we have yet to uncover a single shred of evidence pointing to such a thing.”

“No, but we have no guarantee that this is not his plan, either.”

Pilate shuffled through more of his notes.

“I recall a report, about a year ago, that said so many people crowded in to hear him preach that he had to hop on a boat and speak to them from off shore. These sheep can believe the most preposterous stuff, as you well know.”

The others nodded as Pilate grew more animated.

“And if he turns them against the high priests, do you think for a moment that they will not rise against us? At best, our careers will be ruined. We may, in fact, be lucky to escape this place with our lives.”

“That’s true enough,” said Volusus.

“What, exactly, do you want us to do?” asked Publius.

“Arrest him.”

“Unless he comes back to the Temple, the most difficult part will be finding him,” said Volusus. “Once we have his location, perhaps the safest course will be to do away with him quietly, out of the public eye.”

Pilate looked down at the scrolls again; then shook his head.

“No; it’s too late for that. If we fail to make a proper example of him, the mob will conclude either that we implicitly accept this conduct or that we are too weak to stop it.”

“With all of the people in the city at the moment, if he truly is popular, then killing him openly could trigger the very uprising we’re trying to prevent,” argued Volusus.

Pilate stayed quiet, lost in thought, as the groans of several prisoners came wafting through a corridor.

“No, it won’t,” he finally said. “We’ll think of something.”

Chapter 42

I stood against the wall, so mesmerized with what I was hearing that I paid only limited attention to what was going on outside.

A guard, dressed like those we had seen in the dungeon the previous evening, stepped up to the doorway. He signaled to one of the junior officers, but Pilate saw him and beckoned him to come in.

The man saluted and stood at attention.

“You keep the prisoners?” asked Pilate.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I have one held in isolation, but I had no instructions as to whether he should be fed.”

I struggled to keep a straight face, hoping the governor would send the man away with a sharp command not to bother the officers with such petty concerns. But Pilate seemed curious as to why one prisoner had been separated from the rest. Decius was away, and none of the other Romans knew.

“Bring him here.”

The governor rose and walked around the table toward the doorway leading to the courtyard. A few minutes later, two soldiers dragged a very confused and frightened Markowitz up from the dungeon and threw him to the ground at Pilate’s feet.

The Roman stared at him, as if appraising an insect previously unknown to science.

“What is your name?” he finally asked.

Markowitz looked up, his face completely blank.

“He does not speak Aramaic or Greek,” said the guard.

“How do you communicate with him, then?”

“I’m told he has companions.”