consideration for the aged, he had let himself be bested by a pitiable and scrawny old knight, who had tried to disguise himself as a puissant woodcutter; and how he had come perilously close to being seduced by an ugly, all- rotted hag who had pretended to be a moist and frick maiden eager to swive and be swiven. And his amazed listeners were filled with wonder and envy.
For the rest of his days Sir Gervais was so affected by his term in the Forest of Other-Seemingness that he would take to belly none but crones and hags full of years and distort of feature. And although some envious knights belittled his choice of lust-targets, they were obliged to admit that he was much more successful plying his lance in the romantic lists than he had been before his enchantment.
Thus came it to pass that the knight's fame was sung down the corridors of time by bards and minstrels, in whose lays he was ever after clept: Sir Gervais! Swiver of Crones!
EASTER STORY
'Now then, young man, what have you been getting up to?' my master asked, smiling. 'You have certainly managed to draw the wrath of the religious establishment down upon your head. Mind you, perhaps it does them good to have their noses tweaked occasionally, if only as an exercise in humility.' I translated this into the Koine dialect of Greek, the marketplace lingua franca understood throughout the Levant. During his years of diplomatic administration on the barbarian frontier my master had developed a method for communicating on a comfortable, personal level to those whose language he did not speak: while I translated in a rapid undertone, he would hold his interlocutor's eyes with his own. This had the effect of removing me from the scene and allowing my master to make closer contact than one would imagine possible between a highly civilized aristocrat from Rome and a rustic Jew from this dusty, fly-blown outpost of Jud?a. As I translated the Procurator's words I tried to imitate his amicable, even jocular tone, but the bound prisoner kept his eyes lowered, making no indication that he had heard. I looked up at my master and lifted my shoulders.
Hiatus's smile faded; he spoke in a graver, sharper timbre. 'You'd be well-advised to cooperate, young man. You're accused of blasphemy towards their god—your god too, I suppose. I cannot help you if you won't speak to me.'
After I translated this, the accused lifted his head and settled his calm, deep-set eyes upon my master, and it was then that the Procurator saw his bruised cheek and cut eyebrow, evidence that the man's interrogators had tried to beat a confession out of him. His eyes winced away, and he glared down the long flight of stone steps to the waiting knot of priests and scribes. Their nervous shuffle revealed that they read angry displeasure in my master's stern features. As the embodiment of Roman rule in Jud?a, the Procurator was often obliged to order, or at least condone, such punishments as were necessary to keep the passions of this quarrelsome, litigious people under some semblance of control, but he had an innate horror of physical cruelty. It was not that he held strong moral views against physical punishment in principle; it was more a matter of his refined sensibilities. As he once explained to me, the fact that he dined on meat did not mean he chose to witness the slaughter of animals.
As it happens, he had been dining when the request came for him to adjudicate in yet another of these local religious squabbles. The truth be known, I doubt that he minded being interrupted, as he was bored with the company of the rough soldiers of his personal guard. A young centurion officer had just ruined the climax of his story by being unable to stifle his own anticipatory laughter, but weak though the joke was, his fellow officers barked out their guffaws and pounded the table in applause. Even the highborn Claudia Procula lifted her chin and showed her small, white teeth in a polite, if minimal, mime of mirth. The corners of her eyes were still crinkled in what her husband called her 'I'm-having-such-a-good-time' expression when she glanced across to see if, for once, he was playing his role as the congenial host, or at least feigning a little interest in his guests. Her smile hardened when she saw that he was engrossed in conversation with me, a humble slave who shouldn't have been sitting at the same table with officers of equestrian rank, much less at Pilatus's side, leaving her to entertain these course border soldiers whose idea of witty chat seldom rose above the scatological. Daughter of a patrician family, she accepted that one must make do in this least desirable of all colonial posts, one that Rome bestowed only on men who lacked important patrons or who, like her husband, had earned the displeasure of Tiberius. Even before marriage had united their ancient families, she had feared that young Pilatus's caustic tongue and cool intellect might prove lethal flaws in Rome, where advancement depended more upon a facile smile and flexible ethics than upon ability. But he had been young then and handsome, and the danger lurking behind the acid irreverence of his wit had thrilled her. Who could have predicted that his cynical observations and wounding slights would ultimately maroon them on this twilight rim of the civilized world? Jud?a, of all places! Land of superstitious goatherds and wild-eyed mystics, of jealous priests and suicidal zealots. What was it that Valerius Gratus had said when they arrived to replace him as Procurator? 'I don't envy you, my dears. They say that if the Gods ever decide that the world needs a purging, they'll inject the warm oil at Jud?a.'
Claudia resented not even being allowed to entertain the officers in the relative comfort of their official residence at C?sarea. No, they had been obliged to accompany reinforcements to this crowded, smelly, provincial backwater of Jerusalem to show the long, muscular arm of Roman authority in the hope of forestalling the civil disorder that invariably accompanied their primitive religion's principal annual festival, this... this.... 'What do they call this celebration?' she asked the table in general.
A grizzled, battle-worn officer sitting two places down (a risen ranker from the vulgar slackness of his vowels) offered the information that the locals called this period 'Passover'.
'Passover? And what is that supposed to mean?'
'Damned if I know, ma'am. But it's obvious that these poor bastards were
'Quite,' Claudia Procula's clipped diction was meant to remind the ranker of the social distance between them. 'But why would they celebrate having been passed over?'
The old soldier shook his head. 'Who knows? They're a queer people, ma'am, and that's the truth of it!'
At that very moment, at the far end of the table, I was expressing the same view, albeit with somewhat greater elegance. 'As my master knows better than anyone, it is pointless to attempt to understand the Jew in rational terms. For all his cleverness and intelligence, in his deepest essence the Jew is a creature of passion who draws energy from his enthusiasms and his delusions. An example of this is the fact that, although they have been conquered and enslaved by every people who have blundered into this dreary land, they confidently believe they are the chosen people of their god. Despite all evidence, they maintain this ludicrous belief. And they are maintained
'Hm-m.' Pilatus lifted his chalice, only to find it empty. But when the serving girl stepped forward to refill it, he waved her away with an annoyed gesture. He had been drinking too much of late. Out of boredom, he told himself. 'When first I arrived, I sought to understand their beliefs and superstitions. I discovered that in common with other Levantine cults, their god was originally a battle god. In fact, they still call him a 'God of Hosts', despite their many defeats. This war god consumed and replaced the rest of the pantheon to become their sole deity, but although there is no competition, he remains a jealous god, so uncertain of his power that he requires constant reassurance, praise, and glorification. Proof—if additional evidence were needed—that we make our gods in our image!' He chuckled.
I chuckled along, as befits the servant of a master of prickly temperament. 'Indeed, sire, their mythology contains a tale that illustrates your point. Once upon a time, their god, being in a particularly grumpy mood, decided to destroy a licentious city and all its inhabitants unless this prophet could find a certain number of good men among the inhabitants. There follows a passage in which the prophet and the god haggle about exactly how many good men would be required to save the city, the old prophet slowly whittling the god down! How delightfully Semitic a god! A god you can negotiate with! God as market stall merchant! But for all his touches of Levantine humanity, the Jewish god is a bloodless confection, compared to the colorful heroes (and rogues!) of our own pantheon.'
'Maybe, but he's not bloodless enough for me,' Pilatus said. 'He's a passionate god. A jealous god. A god of vengeance.' He half closed his eyes. 'Perhaps that's why I find these people so difficult to deal with. So opaque. So oblique. And so intriguing, too... in an irritating sort of way. Roman to my marrow, more Roman than our beloved emperor, I am a creature of reason and logic.'
I diplomatically ignored this reference to the emperor. Descended from the Sabine clan of the Pontii (hence his name), Pontius Pilatus's ancestors had been aristocrats when the forebears of Tiberius were still brawny sharecroppers, a historical fact my master seldom had the tact to conceal.
