They did not speak of the incident until after they had stopped to calm their nerves with some refreshment. Then, as Pilate was climbing back onto his steed, Ceint drew close. “Prefect,” he said. “I am increasingly of the opinion that we should arrest this carpenter when we find him.”
Pilate frowned. “As representative of Rome, I really don’t want to get involved in local troubles. The Jews can do whatever they want—they can even start a new religion. It makes no difference to the Empire.”
Ceint shook his head.
“Ceint, as you know, it is the foremost duty of the prefect in Jerusalem to collect taxes from the land and send them back home. Next, I am to protect those Romans who work here from banditry and ensure a modicum of peace and order. Lastly, I am to ensure that the roads leading from Rome to this province are always kept in proper condition so as not to hinder the movement of our armies. These three things are expected of me. Beyond this, the representative of Rome has no business interfering in local affairs.”
The administration of Rome’s colonies had always hung on these three requirements. The Romans had never considered the vast territories that they held to be part of their own native soil—they thought of the provinces as barbarous lands belonging to uncivilized peoples. They had no desire to claim them as second homelands, nor did they invest much capital into developing the regions. Such was the Roman way of thinking, and it had succeeded in making a giant orphan out of Rome.
“Pax Romana!” the people shouted, yet in the echo of their voices, Pilate could hear the sound of an empire crumbling.
“Lord Prefect. Will you be returning to your quarters?” Ceint asked, his voice betraying a hint of mockery.
“Not yet. Let’s have a look at this man they call Jesus. Show me the way.”
Ceint prodded the shoulder of the servant who held the reins of Pilate’s horse.
The entourage proceeded down a crooked backstreet paved with bricks of fired clay. Tiny rooms were packed like crates along both sides of the narrow way, each providing living quarters for an entire family. In these cramped stone spaces, the inhabitants had laid out rugs of woven hemp and hung curtains to shelter themselves from the street. The rugs and curtains were so dirty and tattered that it was impossible to tell their weaves or patterns, and they spilled out over the bricks, occasionally catching the feet of people as they passed.
The air smelled like stewing vegetables and sweat. The clouds of flies were inescapable, and the swarms of children seemed equally numerous. Such were the backstreets of Jerusalem.
It was no wonder that the perfumes favored by the nobles of Rome had always been greatly coveted in the provinces. In the beginning, all Roman emissaries were members of the military, and they had spent their days eating the same food and breathing the same air as the dusty, sweaty locals. Their wives and daughters likewise spent their hours in the grime and sweat. Fresh water was a valuable commodity in the provincial cities; bathing was a rare luxury. Later emissaries had established a greater distance between themselves and the local populace, but there was nothing they could do about the living conditions—thus the high level of interest in perfumes. For those who live a wholesome life in a clean environment there is little need for masking fragrances.
The great baths of Rome and the fine quality of its perfumes might be a testament to the unsanitary conditions of Roman life—but they were also a sophisticated comfort unavailable to the provincial servants of the Empire.
“Two more years,” Pilate muttered. That was all he had left in his term as Prefect of Israel. He had been living here for three years already.
“Yes?” Ceint looked up from beside his horse, lifting an eyebrow.
“Never mind.”
Pilate wanted nothing more than to serve his last two years without incident.
After they passed through the brick arcade with its dust and its flies and its cacophony of voices, they emerged quite abruptly into a large circular plaza that seemed comparatively empty—though there were still a large number of citizens bustling about in the course of their daily activities. In the very middle of the open space stood an ancient royal poinciana with bright crimson flowers, looking like a pillar of flame. Pilate held up a hand to shade his eyes from the sun.
Ceint stopped in his tracks. “There. Over there.”
“Where?” Pilate followed his advisor’s gaze.
Ceint was staring with great intensity into a corner of the plaza. There, beyond the giant tree with its fiery petals, a dozen or so people were gathered near a wall of stone. Some members of the small crowd stood, some sat, others lay sprawled upon the ground, but all were looking upward at a lone figure standing atop the wall.
Pilate advanced his horse slowly. No fewer than twenty different streets opened into this plaza; it was a central meeting place and crossroads for this part of the city. Now the movements of the merchants going to and fro, the beggars along the edges of the streets, and the town officials surrounded by weary travelers struck Pilate with a strange sort of uniformity, like the movements of actors upon a stage. It seemed that the Romans’ sudden arrival at the plaza was spreading a very tangible ripple through the crowd. In the middle of the hubbub, the group standing beyond the poinciana seemed eerily quiet.
Fragments of garbled speech, thick with the accent of Galilee, reached the prefect’s ears.
“No matter how much man possesses, no Kingdom of God will he build . . .”
“. . . makes this . . .”
“. . . man must look back upon the deeds of the day . . .”
“. . . that is our Lord in Heaven, Jehovah . . .”
“. . . Jehovah will judge . . .”
“. . . and when He decides that yes, it is good, only then will . . .”
The man atop the wall looked like a farmer. He wore a grimy hempen robe sewn together at the sides like a monk’s—probably a gift from some Roman—and garlands on his feet in place of sandals.
“Jesus, carpenter of Nazareth,” Ceint whispered.
Drops of sweat gathered in the man’s sunken cheeks while his small eyes darted around, taking in the citizens gathered before him.
“It will come. Don’t forget it. That is—ah, that is to say . . .”
An old man hunched over at the foot of the wall lifted his face and said in a clear voice, “The Final Judgment, my lord.”
“That’s it! That’s right! The Final Judgment is what it is! Oh, and it is a truly frightening thing! Jehovah, our Lord in Heaven, will look at every one of our sins . . .”
Pilate strained to hear the words over the bustle of the plaza.
“. . . to the Kingdom of God. Those who are left will be burned in Jehovah’s fire, charred . . .”
“. . . which is why we must all make haste to . . .”
A breathy collective sigh emerged from the small crowd of listeners. Pilate frowned. To these poor, simple people of Jerusalem, the image of a final judgment at the hands of God should have been a nightmare vision of their own deaths. Why are they so enthralled?
“That’s why everyone has to pray to God. You get it? And praying isn’t about saying you want God to do this or do that. You have to make yourself ready! If you’re a drunk, stop drinking. If you are a gambler, stop gambling. Just for one day. And on that day . . .”
There was something about the man’s crude Galilean accent that perfectly matched the tone of his words. Pilate had to admit that the man’s voice was imbued with a certain unique passion, a strange intensity that was altogether unfamiliar to him.
Pilate urged his horse forward until he had reached the edge of the carpenter’s audience. He gazed over the heads of the listeners at the man who addressed them.
“Are you Jesus of Nazareth?” he asked, deliberately keeping his voice as low as it could be and still be heard. As one the crowd turned. Several grew pale and began edging their way toward the nearest alley.