The kohanim stood one after the other, black rage mounting in their faces. Their murmurs of fury were audible across the chamber.
“Silence!” Ceint’s voice cut through the air like a blade. He fixed the prisoner with a piercing stare. “Where? Where did you meet Michael?”
Jesus cast his eyes over toward the kohanim, then back to Ceint. “In the Jordan Valley. He came down from Heaven.” He lifted a finger on his right hand, pointing upward. For a moment, the face of the Nazarene was transformed entirely, filled with an unshakeable, ironclad confidence. His profile was as rough as if it had been hastily carven with a chisel, his eyes intoxicated and wild as briars. “Yes, I saw him,” he said. “I saw him!” He began to pace before the representatives of Rome, muttering loudly.
“There’s not much time left,” he continued. “It’s just a feeling I have. The Kingdom of God may well be at hand! The Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God—”
He put his hands to his head as though he were searching through murky memories for some clue.
“Only those who have received the permission of God may enter God’s kingdom. Heaven’s gates are very wide, but how many will be able to enter? His judgment is harsh—so harsh.” Jesus spoke in a monotone, as though relaying someone else’s words.
“What was that?”
“Stake him to the cross!” the kohanim shouted, their whiskers bristling with outrage.
“Death to the fool who does not fear God!”
“Death, death!”
“Prefect. Order this man to his death. The worst death possible!”
Pilate grabbed the glorious silk cape that hung over his shoulders and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“Your orders, Prefect?” Ceint asked, kneeling beside the sofa. Pilate crossed his arms and frowned.
“Death to him!” The echoing voices of the kohanim hit Pilate’s chest like a physical blow.
He stared at the man from Nazareth.
It would be so easy to give the kohanim what they wanted. He could think up any reason he required. This man might in fact be blameless, yet what did it matter? This was nothing more than a provincial squabble.
“Shall we return Jesus to his cell, Prefect?” Ceint asked softly, trying to read his master’s mind. They had resolved several similar incidents in the past by returning the accused to his cell and there ending his life by poison or assassination. Death by “illness” in prison had a way of stifling trouble before it started.
“Do you think that will satisfy the kohanim?” Pilate had already accepted the fact that the carpenter-turned-preacher would not be returning to the streets of Jerusalem alive. He scowled bitterly. “We could have let him go if he hadn’t gone on about meeting Michael like that. The fool!” A sudden anger rose inside him toward the man who had put the simple carpenter on the spot in the first place.
“Achaioi!”
He beckoned the High Judge to him. “What do you think of what this man has said here?”
Achaioi responded with his eyes downcast, one hand stroking his snow-
white beard. “I believe he has a sickness of the mind. However, there is a certain percentage of the folk in the poorer parts of town who actually believe him—they think he is their savior—and the number grows. In order to avoid needless entanglements between the representative of Rome and the—the unique religious issues in this province—it falls to us to be very wary of this sort of disturbance, and careful of how we handle the present matter.”
Pilate nodded and waved Achaioi back to his original position.
“Ceint. I propose we call a hiatus.”
Ceint shouted a few orders and the judges and the kohanim shuffled out of the courtyard, followed by the prisoner and his escort. When the last spear-toting guard had disappeared from sight, the heat of the day seemed to rush in suddenly to fill the empty space between the walls. There was silence outside; training was over at the garrison.
“Well, Ceint. What do you think of what he had to say?”
“You mean the bit about him meeting the Archangel Michael?”
“That too.”
Pontius Pilate and his advisor looked at each other for a long moment, neither saying a word. There was confusion in the eyes of both men.
“I don’t think much of it at all. But the town officials say that he’s been healing people—sick people waiting to die and those who cannot stand. He brings them back to health in an instant, and former cripples run like the wind. There are even some town officials who say they have seen these things for themselves.”
“Some kind of sorcery, then?”
“That is what the kohanim call it, for certain. They’re quite incensed. They see it as blasphemous.”
“What I want to know is how you see it, Ceint. Do you think the stories are genuine?”
Ceint put a hand to his head. He always did this when he lacked a response.
“Prefect,” he said after a long pause. “I wonder if some of these accounts might not actually be true.” Ceint spoke slowly, carefully selecting his words.
“Some of them?” Pilate leaned forward. “If even one of these stories is the truth, we have a serious situation on our hands.”
“Which is why, Prefect, I feel it is highly dangerous to allow this Jesus any more free rein.”
“Why, Ceint . . . it sounds as though you actually believe this man possesses some sort of mighty Heaven-sent power.”
Pilate’s adviser did not answer, but instead turned his face toward the sunlight that poured in through the windows. There was a sudden pallor in his visage. “If he—” Ceint began at last, then swallowed his words. Pilate saw his throat move with the effort. “If he has truly caused cripples to run and lifted those waiting to die from their sick beds, then I would have to say that he may truly be a—well, a god.”
“And someone says they’ve seen him do this?”
Ceint turned slowly back toward Pontius Pilate. “Prefect, if you saw him hand out a single piece of bread to a throng of the poor who came to hear his sermons, and you saw those who took the tiniest crumb and put it to their lips filled with joy and sustenance—if you saw this, what would you think?”
Tiny beads of sweat had appeared on Ceint’s face. Several of them joined together and ran down his cheek, forming a glistening droplet at the tip of his chin.
Pilate stared at his advisor. He didn’t move a muscle. He hardly even breathed. “You saw this, didn’t you?” he said finally.
Ceint gave no reply, but his silence was testament enough to the conflict in his heart.
“Miracles.” Pilate moaned. “Splendid. Who else but a god possesses such power?”