spices to anoint Jesus’s body that morning.”
Now, I was really confused, and a glance at Bryson told me I wasn’t the only one.
Lavon continued. “A Jewish month begins when the first sliver of the moon appears following a new moon. In modern times, this is calculated mathematically so there is no question when a month starts. But Jewish astronomers didn’t do that until the fourth century. Before then, they did it the old-fashioned way: somebody — actually two somebodies — climbed up on the roof and had a look. If they agreed, the new month began.”
“What if it was cloudy?” I asked.
“You’re getting the picture. A particular month could be off by a day, as this one obviously is.”
Bryson stared ahead blankly.
“You didn’t know that, Professor?” said Lavon. “All the more reason I asked my original question: how did you pick
“No, I didn’t flip a coin. The year 29 was the most plausible candidate left once I ruled out 33.”
“How did you manage to do that?” I asked.
He just looked down at the floor and didn’t reply.
“You’ve been here before,” Lavon said.
“No, not
“Then what did you do? Where did you go?” I asked.
“Nazareth,” he finally admitted. “I thought it would be safer. The Bible implies that it was a dusty, insignificant little village, which is what it turned out to be. I only needed to be on the ground a few minutes — just long enough to find out whether anyone knew of Jesus’ whereabouts. I didn’t think it would be as hazardous as Jerusalem.”
I couldn’t argue with the logic, though I was struggling to believe his story, in spite of our current situation.
“How did you communicate?” I asked.
“I found a Biblical scholar in Washington. I paid him to write for me that ‘I seek Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, the carpenter’ in both ancient Greek and Aramaic. I went back before the Passover in the year 33 and showed my note to an old man.”
“And?”
“He just shrugged. He pointed up to the sky, and then to the east, toward the desert, as if he had heard so many crazy stories that he had no idea which ones could be true. That told me what I needed to know: whatever happened, it had occurred before the year 33.”
“Makes sense,” said Lavon.
“Here’s something even you can appreciate,” said Bryson. “The man must have been a carpenter by trade. After he took my note, he led me to his shop and gestured like he wanted to sell me a table. I don’t think he cared anything about religion at all. What seemed to excite him the most was that one of his competitors was no longer in business.”
Chapter 46
That thought led to a whole new set of questions I didn’t have a chance to ask. We heard footsteps tromping up the stairs, followed by a loud thump as the servant stationed in the corridor opened the heavy door. To our relief, our visitor was the centurion Publius, alone.
He wasted no time with ceremony.
“Your woman has been caught,” he said.
We all feigned surprise, since technically speaking, none of us were even aware that she had fled the palace.
Publius explained the details he knew, beginning with her slipping the blanket rope past the sleeping guard and ending with her discovery by a desert Bedouin whom Herod employed to track down the occasional escaped slave.
“Is she OK?” I asked.
Publius nodded. “I think so. The guards roughed her up a bit, but from what I heard, Herod is all the more eager to have her. Tell me: are the women of your country as resourceful in bed as they are outside of it?”
“Resourceful enough,” Lavon said. “Do you know where they caught her?”
Publius laughed as he poured himself a cup of wine.
“This is the best part: after dropping from the wall, she headed to the quarry northwest of the palace, looking for a place to hide, I suppose. But the cave she found turned out to be a tomb that the stonemasons had carved for one of the high priests.”
“A tomb?” said Lavon.
“Yes; for a member of their Sanhedrin — Joseph something, I believe.”
Lavon’s eyes lit up, despite his best efforts to hide them. Bryson’s did too, after Lavon had translated.
“Where is this tomb?” said the Professor. “Can you show us?”
Publius didn’t say anything at first. Instead he stared into each of our faces in turn.
“First I must ask you a question,” he finally said. “Who are you? And where are you really from?”
Lavon acted as if he were taken aback, though deep inside his bowels must have been dissolving. I know mine were.
“You know our names, and that we are from Norvia, a land far to north, beyond Germania,” he said.
Publius slammed his hand down on the table. “Do not lie to me!” he shouted. “You know this name, this Joseph of Arimathea.”
Bryson turned white after Lavon had translated, though the archaeologist himself managed to keep his composure.
“You recognized other names, too, that you would have no reason to know if you were truly from the other side of the world — like that squalid little village we passed through on our way to the city — or, as our informants told us, the old priest Nicodemus, there in the Temple.
“You even knew of that prophet who drove out the merchants the other day. I could see it in your eyes that you did, as much as you tried to conceal it. How is this so?”
“We have not lied to you, Publius,” said Lavon. “We have indeed traveled from a far country, beyond Germania. Look at our white skins. Do we resemble anyone native to this part of the world?”
“No, but that does not answer my question.”
“We have told you nothing untrue,” said Lavon.
“Then you have left part of your story out. What have you omitted?”
Lavon, to his credit, kept his cool and looked the centurion straight in the eye. “The part you would not believe, even if we explained it to you.”
“Try,” he ordered.
Lavon gestured toward me.
“All right,” he said. “Do you recall that bandage that he used to save your soldier after the ambush on the road?”
“Yes; his recovery has been remarkable. It worked almost like magic.”
“That’s right — magic; and in seven days, it will begin to melt away. In fourteen, it will disappear of its own accord. Within a month, your man will be fit to return to full active duty. By then, his wound will have healed so completely that aside from a small scar, no one who wasn’t already aware of his injury will be able to tell that it had ever occurred.”
Publius stepped back; his face reflecting an uncharacteristic alarm.
“Are you gods?”
Lavon laughed and pointed to Markowitz, who now lay curled up in the fetal position around a bucket reeking of vomit.
“Gods. Yes, I can see how some would conclude that we are gods.”
