Pontius Pilate mounted his horse and Ceint walked beside him. Several guardsmen completed the entourage, one holding the horse’s bridle, the others bearing spears.
“Where do you think he is?”
“Preaching in the Plaza of the Dead, most likely.”
“He’s popular?”
Ceint looked up at Pilate with a frown. “Quite popular, strangely enough.”
“He’d have to be to get the kohanim so riled up.”
Ceint pulled his long robes more tightly around his body. “He came into Jerusalem last night. I hear he was proselytizing out to the west, saying something about receiving a revelation from God.”
Pilate squinted—a habit of his whenever he was particularly wary about something. “How have people been responding?”
“Apparently, many in the city knew of his imminent arrival half a month ago. Some disciples of his, a group of twelve or so from what I hear, came to the city ahead of time to do some publicity.”
“Aggressive, aren’t they?”
“He’s calling his arrival ‘The Entry into Jerusalem,’ ” Ceint said with evident derision.
“Fancies himself some sort of great religious leader, then?”
Ceint nodded. “This is what has gotten the Jewish priesthood so, as you say, riled up.”
If the man was as big a braggart as it sounded, Pilate thought the kohanim probably had the right of it. This carpenter turned preacher was a fool, and worse, a popular fool.
The entourage made its way down the cobblestone streets, turning into the arcade that led toward the Plaza of the Dead. The merchants there, who had spread their wares so thickly upon the street as to block all but a narrow stream of foot traffic, panicked at the sudden arrival of the Romans and hurriedly gathered their wares and took shelter beneath the eaves of the houses. One who was late in pulling up his blanket received a whack on the back from the haft of one of the guards’ spears.
It was then that a bundle of greens tied with a hempen cord flew out of the crowd and struck Pontius Pilate directly in the chest. Pilate’s face went red, but before he could react further, Ceint stepped to the leader of the guards and whispered an order in his ear. The guard captain took three of his men and plunged into the milling crowd. The two remaining pointed the tips of their long spears toward the throng that had gathered around the horse.
“Prefect, they have caught the man responsible.”
Pilate looked to see his guardsmen dragging a young man out of the crowd by both arms. The man was wailing something, a look of torrid fear upon his face. An old woman clung to his shirttail and howled. It was hard to see her clearly in the dim light of the stone arcade, but her despairing cries were clearly audible above the noise of the onlookers.
Ceint strode over to the captive. He said something to the guard captain, who pointed the gleaming tip of his spear at the young man’s chest. The unexpected silence that came over the crowd in that instant planted a sudden black fear in Pilate’s heart.
The guard captain tensed his muscular arms. In a moment, the spear would surely pierce the captive’s chest.
“Wait!”
A sharp and yet oddly calm voice sounded from amidst the crowd behind Pilate’s horse.
“What?”
The Roman prefect turned his horse around to look.
A lone man stood in the middle of the street.
His face was gaunt, framed by a long beard and long hair that was gray with ash. His eyes gave off a piercing light. He held a gnarled stick of wood in his right hand as a walking staff.
“Will you not spare the life of this young man? Lord Pontius Pilate, great emissary of Rome, humbly, I beg your pity,” the man said with a reverent bow. His face and body were soiled and his bearing no better than a slave’s, yet something in his manner struck Pilate as earnestly noble.
“And who might you be?”
The man lifted his face. The clear look in his eyes made Pilate swallow despite himself.
“I am Peter, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, son of the Almighty . . . He whom you call ‘Zeus,’ our Father and Lord in Heaven.”
Pilate gritted his teeth. He couldn’t have met a worse person at a worse time. “Are you aware that this young man threw a bundle of filthy leaves at my person?”
“Lord Prefect, are these green leaves that were thrown to you not a token of God’s blessing upon this very land of Israel which you govern? It is God, after all, who has given us these life-sustaining grains and vegetables. God’s love be praised!”
Peter intertwined the fingers of his hands and knelt upon the cobblestones in supplication. The members of the crowd mimicked his actions, falling to their knees and bowing to Pilate atop his horse.
“May God grant his blessings to this young man, and may He grant His love which is higher than the blue sky above us and deeper than the sea to Lord Pontius Pilate, representative of Rome. Amen.” Peter’s resonant voice lifted above the heads of the crowd.
Pilate despaired. The bowing, praying throng completely outdid any display of authority he might have hoped to make. As it stood in that crowded street, Rome was losing much, while the poor people of Jerusalem had lost nothing—even when many of them would have been better off dead than live the way they did.
“Release him, Ceint.”
A look of defeat came over the advisor’s face.
“I said release him.”
Ceint whispered to the guard captain. Abruptly the burly soldier let go of the young man’s arm and thrust him away. The freed man stumbled backward into the crowd of bowing onlookers, where the sobbing old woman, near-delusional with relief, embraced and clung to him.
A moment later a cry went up from the crowd—a victory cheer.
“Let’s go.”
Pilate took his whip to his horse, flying over the stones of the arcade. All he could see around him were omens of Rome’s decline.