On the walkway, agitated at the confrontation, Getorius asked, "Who are you? Do you speak Latin? Greek?"

  In response, the man grasped Getorius's tunic sleeve and guided him across the wet street, toward a bead seller's open booth under the opposite portico. Without speaking, he motioned him inside. Now what? The brute knows I have gold. Are his bandit accomplices in there planning to rob me? Or…or worse?

  A hissing of the word "Surgeon" caught Getorius's attention. Peering into the gloomy interior, he made out the figure of Mordecai ben Zakkai. The tanna student stood half-concealed in a cluttered back area, beckoning to him.

  "What are you doing here, Mordecai?" Getorius demanded. "That man appeared like a…a phantom out of the ether."

  "Indeed, Surgeon, I sent Ibzan to stand near the outside wall until you finished dining. I expected the Syrian to overcharge you, yet not become as greedy as he did."

  Getorius scoffed, "A Wisdom scholar now protects pilgrims from dishonest merchants? Moshe ben Asher is very distressed at your decision to leave him."

  Mordecai moved away from strings of hanging beads and merchandise. "Surgeon, we have need of your services."

  "We?"

  "The Nekhomim."

  "'Avengers of the Temple,' as Ruth called them?"

  "If you will," Mordecai replied. "A boy was injured in a fall. Judean physicians who came for the Sukkoth festival left immediately after the rioting."

  "My medical case is at the mansio. Where is he? How bad is his injury?"

  Mordecai complained, "This is wasting time and we have what you need. The mute, Ibzan, is my guide, or 'guard' I might better say so that I will not fail to return to Joshua, the Nekhomim leader."

  "And a mute guide cannot reveal a hiding place."

  "Exactly, Surgeon, nor will you."

  Getorius glanced at a light-indigo evening sky. "Where are we going? It's almost dark and I'm waiting for my wife."

  Mordecai snapped, "We follow Ibzan!"

  The two men fell in step behind the mute. He cut through an alleyway that led from the Emporia Maior, then turned towards the pool of Hezekiah, a cistern that stored water brought through a tunnel from the lower Gihon spring. It was part of the city's water supply. Beyond the pool, Ibzan followed the left side of a larger street that was deserted at this evening supper hour.

  When they reached a fortress complex on the west side of the roadway, Mordecai half-mocked, "Nazarite, this is the route your Messiah took on his way to crucifixion."

  "Here? How can that be? Christ was betrayed in Gethsemane to the north of the city. I saw the Mount of Olives today."

  Mordecai added, "Was he not taken to the house of the high priest, Caiaphas?"

  "True, as I recall the story."

  "Then to the procurator, Pilate, who condemned him. That stone citadel across the way, mistakenly called David's, was the old Roman praetorium. It is now a barracks for the city garrison."

  Getorius looked toward a walled complex of stone buildings and towers silhouetted against ragged, red-edged clouds on the western horizon. "I didn't realize that."

  Mordecai taunted, "Must a Hebrew teach a Nazarite his own history?" When Getorius kept silent, he said, "To leave the city, Ibzan will avoid the Zion Gate. Since the Sukkoth riot, guards are posted to intercept any Hebrews trying to enter or leave Hierosolyma."

  Beyond the fortress, near the south wall, the guide turned onto a goat path that led through a field of withered grasses and thorny scrub bushes. At the far end, in the protection of a shallow niche that indented the wall, Ibzan took away wood planks that concealed a small opening. The men stooped low to pass through and emerged on an upper slope of Mount Zion.

  The mute replaced the boards, then gestured toward Mordecai's face. He understood. "Surgeon, regretfully, I must tie a cloth over your eyes until we reach Joshua's camp."

  Once Getorius was blindfolded, Ibzan turned him rapidly around several times until he lost a sense of direction. Feeling nauseous as Mordecai guided him along a stony path parallel to Jerusalem's southern wall, he recalled that he had counted paces in a Ravenna sewer to estimate how far he walked. Now it was all he could do to tolerate the sickly turning in his head and not vomit.

  Stumbling despite Mordecai's firm hand on his arm, Getorius surmised he had walked about a half mile before stopping. He winced at an acrid stench of burning refuse and heard carrion birds quarreling in the distance. A door squeaked open. He was told to step over a high threshold block. After the portal closed behind him, Getorius smelled damp, musty air, and surmised he was inside a building somewhere outside the walls of a southern quadrant of the city.

  As he was led along a slippery, stone-paved floor, cool air reeking of mold gradually took on a pleasant scent of wood smoke and food being cooked. Hollow echoes from the three men's footsteps betrayed a vast interior space. After walking a short distance, Getorius heard a far-off gurgle of water and faint voices of women talking. The sounds passed after a few paces, replaced by those of men speaking in low tones. When Mordecai arrived, the men fell silent. Whoever is in here has seen us. Now I should find out where I am.

  "Zeh tov," Mordecai said, as he untied the blindfold.

  Getorius rubbed his eyes to look around. Ibzan was gone. The men who had been talking sat at tables in the center of an immense pillared hall, watching him and Mordecai by the light of a number of oil lamps. A forest of massive pillars continued to the right, marking a series of parallel bays that were lost in gloom. Overhead, squared timbers set in sockets at the base of rounded arches supported a wooden ceiling. In the adjacent bay, two of the beams and their overhead boards had collapsed; a pile of rubble, dirt, and dry brushwood lay beneath a gaping hole in the curved cement vault.

  The foremost man in a Bedouin headscarf that wrapped around the lower part of his face, to conceal his features, stood up and walked forward. Chain mail glistened beneath a camel-hair vest. Tufts of unkempt beard grew at his neck. Piecing blue eyes were sunken under shaggy eyebrows. Barelegged under a short tunic, the man's feet were shod in heavy legionary sandals. His makeshift uniform resembled pirated loot.

  Mordecai whispered the name, "Joshua," before the leader spoke to him in Hebrew, without looking away from Getorius. Seeing the scholar nod, he surmised that Mordecai had been asked if he were the expected surgeon. While waiting to translate a further Hebrew conversation, Getorius noted that Joshua's head, though wrapped in the scarf, seemed abnormally large, as did his gesturing hands and sandaled feet.

  Mordecai reported Joshua's comments. "Surgeon, Jair, a young recruit, fell through a gap in the ceiling, an opening on the Temple Mount through which Nazarites sweep trash. Bushes half-conceal the hole and the boy wandered into it at night."

  Getorius asked about his injury. "Head? Spine? Broken leg or arm?"

  "His leg. Jair is in the next bay."

  "What is this place where the 'Avengers' hide out?"

  Mordecai permitted himself a rare laugh. "Fools say these were the stables of King Solomon, but Herod built the piers and vaults as supports for a low area at the Mount's southeastern corner." When Joshua interrupted by shouting at Mordecai in anger, he flushed. "I…I tell you too much."

  "Joshua thinks you're talking about his plans? What will he do, attack the citadel garrison? Abduct Bishop Juvenal for ransom?" How could Joshua know what Mordecai was telling me if he doesn't speak Latin. Getorius had noticed Joshua's eyebrows rise at the second question and confronted him. "You do understand Latin. Why the deception?"

  Joshua replied in a guttural accent, "Fid my expression on hearing your remarks betrayed me?"

  "I already was suspicious when you reprimanded Mordecai for telling me about where I am. Was it Mordecai who told you I was in Jerusalem?"

  A hoarse laugh erupted from a seated man nearest Joshua. When he held up a flute and sounded a few notes, Getorius recognized the lame beggar who had played the instrument at the Anastasis stairs.

  Joshua said, "Gideon is my right hand. He sees every Nazarite, every official of the Sebastos, who comes to the city. All eventually visit the Sepulcher."

  "Gideon? Joshua? Your names are biblical," Getorius noted.

  "Surgeon, they are not names our parents gave us. Joshua succeded Moses as leader of the Israelites. The others have names of the twelve Shoftim…military leaders of Israel up to the mon…monarchy." The man stopped to look around, as if confused. "What were we talking about?"

  "Your biblical names." Getorius tried to find more about the rebel leader. "Even in Asia, Latin is the language of the Court. Yours is accented but correct. Is that where you learned it?"

  Joshua's blue eyes narrowed in suspicion. Rather than an answer, he demanded, "Will Jair recover?"

  "I haven't examined him yet."

  "Then go to him!" he screamed. "Go cure him!"

  Getorius glanced at Mordecai to signal that Joshua was acting irrationally.

  Mordecai ignored him and pointed to an adjacent bay. "Jair is over there. Come with me."

  Joshua beckoned to Gideon and followed the two men.

  The youth lay on a thin mat, his feverish eyes gazing aimlessly about. A flickering lamp on a stand revealed a dirty, bloodstained sheet wrapped around the fracture on his right leg. From the beardless face, Getorius gauged Jair to be no more than sixteen years old.

  "When did this accident happen?"

  "Joshua said seven days ago."

  Getorius shook his head in disbelief. "A week, Mordecai, and he's not been treated?"

  "Jair was given wine to ease the pain."

  "That is of no help."

  Gideon broke in, "Enough questions! Surgeon, treat his leg. That is why you were brought here."

  "You said you have medical supplies?"

  Gideon pointed toward a wooden chest at the base of one of the square piers that supported the vaulting. The wood box was weathered, its pine boards gray and scarred. Reinforcing corner irons had rusted.

  After Getorius wiped dust off the lid, barely discernable letters carved into the top identified the previous owner: LEGIO X FRETENSIS. "This belonged to that legion's medical staff. I'd be surprised if anything inside would still be of use." He glanced back at the boy. "I'll examine his leg."

  Jair winced even though Getorius was gentle as he pulled the filthy covering aside. A makeshift splint of two boards taken from the fallen ceiling was tied to each side of the injury. Three-finger-widths below his knee, a length of shattered tibia bone protruded from angry swollen tissues. The flesh had turned black far beyond the injury's edges. A gagging stench came from the suppurating wound. No maggots to clean dead flesh, soNot even flies can live down here.

  Joshua bent to look at the injury. "Well, Surgeon?" he asked, his voice calm again.

  "Hippocrates has a chapter on bone fractures, but I haven't read it in awhile."

  "Not read it?" Joshua straightened up and gestured wildly with his hands, shouting in Hebrew at Mordecai about bringing a Christian to their hideout. Gideon came and held on to him, speaking in soothing tones and stroking his arm until the rebel leader was quiet again. Gideon looked over at Getorius. "What can be done?"

  "If the break was fresh, two men could pull on the boy's torso and lower leg, to apply traction until the bones aligned again. Or I might have levered them into place and adjusted the opposing bones with the palms of my hands."

  Drooling from too much wine, Jair had watched the men. Now he vomited to one side and began choking. Getorius bent down to clear his mouth with a finger.

  Joshua abruptly pulled off his head covering, squatted on the ground, and sobbed. Getorius saw that the middle-aged Hebrew's head was enlarged, with a coarse-featured face and abnormally prominent lower jaw and nose. Enormous hands that covered his eyes were coarse-skinned.

  Gideon moved in front of Joshua to shield him. "Surgeon, what can you do now?"

  Getorius wiped his finger on the sheet and stood up. "To be honest, nothing. Not I or any physician can help Jair. The flesh is corrupted far beyond the wound itself. His black bile imbalance has advanced to a condition called gangraina. Your recruit will die in agony unless you dull his pain with opion."

  "We have none."

  Joshua heard. Still squatting, he wiped his eyes and looked toward Gideon, then calmly spoke to him in Hebrew. The flute player nodded, unsheathed his belt knife, and stood waiting.

  Alarmed, Getorius turned to Mordecai, "Wh…what is he going to do?"

  Joshua stood up, staring at them. His mouth twisted as he pointed a thick finger toward the entrance. " G…G…go back there, you two."

  Getorius insisted, "Why did Gideon un-sheath his knife?"

  Joshua laughed in an eerie, high-pitched voice. "To dull Jair's pain, as you wished. Now go back!"

  Horrified, sick in the pit of his stomach at what the rebel leader proposed, Getorius followed Mordecai to the first vaulted bay. Men were being served food at long tables by women who had prepared supper. Joshua entered after them, but went behind a blanket that hung from the ceiling to partition him off from the others. Sounds of weeping and the man babbling to himself came from behind the shelter.

  Getorius grasped Mordecai's arm and took him aside. "Joshua is very ill. That coarseness of skin, his enlarged features…head, hands…is a rare affliction. I've only read about it, but Greek physicians named it Acromegalia. The man could go blind or his heart may enlarge and literally burst."

  "Is there a treatment?" Mordecai asked.

  "No, but I'm more concerned about his mental state. You saw him go from being rational, to anger and weeping, depression, then gentleness again. Arcadia had been under a strain since we left Pergamum and behaved the same in a lesser way. Joshua's condition is chronic and much more severe."

  "Like epilepsia, surgeon?"

  He shook his head. "Rather than occasional isolated episodes, the condition will become more and more debilitating."

  Gideon returned, sheathing his knife as he went to the nearest unoccupied table. A thin, pale woman carrying an infant in her arms came to hold the baby out to him. His young daughter brought a platter of food. Gideon spoke softly in Hebrew, then gave the child back and began to eat.

  "May I?" Getorius motioned at the bench across from Gideon, who grunted an assent through a mouthful of bread. He waited for him to swallow before saying, "Your leader is very ill. What do you hope to accomplish through him?"

  Gideon unhsheathed his knife. "Perhaps nothing. Perhaps only an example to other Hebrews."

  "On how to die?" Getorius scoffed. "These men can't possibly succeed."

  Gideon cut bread off a loaf, then looked up, his expression resentful in the dim light. "Joshua is my brother. We worked in the tax office in Caesarea back when Theodosius's new legal codes were published. The officials who read them feared they would be censured for employing Hebrews. We were dismissed. Since then, the situation has worsened for our people. The Sukkotk riot, provoked by that monk—"

  "Bardanes."

  "Curse him! The riot proves that Eudokia is powerless to enforce her decrees. These desert monks are religious fanatics gaining in power and influence. Even your Metropolitan at Caesarea fears them. When they have the ear of Theodosius at Constantinopolis, we Hebrews will be legislated out of existence."

  "Surely you realize that a rebellion won't help your people survive. Theodosius or his successor would exceed both Titus and Hadrian in ruthlessness."

  "Then we have nothing further to talk about." Gideon put down his knife and resumed eating.

  Getorius was unwilling to be put off. "Was that was your wife and children?"

  Gideon nodded without looking up. "What will become of them when your rebellion fails? After he did not reply, Getorius asked, "May I go back to the mansio? My wife has been missing since this morning and might have returned."

  Gideon spit an olive pit on the floor. "Mordecai, take him backthere."

  With a final glance at the bay where Jair lay sacrificed, the two men left the rebel hideout. They retraced their steps in silence, Getorius pondering what he had seen and daring to hope that Arcadia was back. When they reached the citadel, he looked across at the massive buildings. By torchlight, he saw well-equipped guards patrolling the gate and ramparts. That ragged band of men under the leadership of a dying madman thinks they can attack this fortress and prevail? Insane!

  If Mordecai had the same thought, he did not reveal so. After they had passed, he said, "Ruth found an Egyptian surgeon who might treat Moshe ben Asher's eyes. I'll bring him to the Tanna in the morning. Whatever the outcome, I'll take him back to Tiberias in the Galilee."

  "You won't stay with the 'Avengers'?"

  "No, Surgeon."

  "What changed your mind?"

  "I recalled in the Book of Samuel, that when the spirit of the Holy One, Blessed be He, departed from Saul an evil spirit entered to torment the king. The symptoms are the same as Joshua's. David soothed Saul's mood by playing the lyre, as does Gideon with his flute."

  "It will take more than music to cure Joshua. Some still call epilepsia the 'Sacred Disease,' as if a god were responsible. Hippocrates scoffed at the notion, and I've yet to find an evil spirit as the cause of any humor imbalance. Truthfully, I know of no cure for Joshua's condition."

  Mordecai fell silent and glanced up at the eastern sky. A last quarter of setting October moon showed mottled-yellow above the Temple Mount. Perhaps, in his mind, the black silhouettes of the scrub trees and brushwood along its edge mimicked distant men frozen in a battle to save the Temple from destruction by the legions of Titus Caesar Vespasian. "Nazarite," he said quietly, "is it not written that there is a time for war and a time for peace? A time to pull down and a time to build up?"

  "There is, Mordecai, and also a time to lose and a time to find." Getorius was hopeful that Arcadia might bewaiting in their room.

  "Surgeon, in the Galilee the pen is only a fragile reed, yet perhaps its writing…its words…will ensure the survival of our people better than would the steel of a Damascene sword."

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33