Her father and the rest of the aristocracy that made up the Sadducean class didn’t pay much attention to all of the formalities the Pharisees wrapped around the festivals, but this was one even they observed. She and Livia had gone through the palatial home just three days before, purging every cupboard, carefully sweeping out even the crumbs that had fallen on the floor.
“I won’t do it,” Miriam said.
“Miriam!”
“I don’t care what Father says. We are not bringing leaven of any kind into this house. Not this week.” And then she brightened. “I’ll explain it to Marcus. Surely he won’t be offended by our determination to observe our traditions. It’s not like we’re going to ask him to eat frogs or something terrible like that.”
Livia frowned. “Actually, the Romans do eat the legs from frogs.”
Miriam gave her a sharp look, hardly believing it, but not really thinking that Livia would tease her about something like that.
Then she pushed aside all thoughts of what her father would say when she disobeyed him. She stood and walked swiftly to the oak chest that half filled one wall and threw open the doors. “Can you come with me and help, Livia?”
The servant’s eyes widened in surprise—as if she had to request her permission! “But of course.”
Seeing her look, Miriam stopped. “What?”
Livia shook her head. In the last few days Miriam’s attitude toward Livia had changed noticeably. Where before she commanded, now she asked. Where before she told Livia what needed to be done, now she consulted her, sought her opinion, even in important decisions. And it was not just a surface courtesy. She seemed to really want to know.
The change had been evident enough that at dinner the previous evening, Mordechai had twice given Miriam sharp glances when she spoke to Livia so openly. Miriam, of course, hadn’t noticed, or if she did she had ignored them. Had the words of the Galilean Zealot about Livia being a slave so stung her mistress? That was when the whole change in her behavior had begun. Or was it that horrible experience with Moshe Ya’abin? Something had happened that day, Livia knew, that had been very significant for the both of them.
Well, Livia thought happily, it didn’t matter. All she knew was that she and Miriam were becoming more friends than associates, more sisters than servant and master, and she was happier than she had been for many years.
Miriam pulled down a dress made of the finest Egyptian linen and held it up. It was a soft blue and provided the perfect contrast for her long dark hair and dark eyes. “What do you think?” she asked.
“For shopping?” Livia laughed.
Miriam was momentarily flustered. “I thought if we left right now we could go up on the Temple Mount first. You know how I love it up there, especially during feast days. I love to see people from all over the empire.”
“That would be nice,” Livia answered. She loved going up there as much as Miriam. She didn’t like the crowds, but the temple complex was so awe inspiring, so lifting to her spirits. “Then, yes. If we are going to the temple, that dress is one of my favorites.”
“Good!” Miriam twirled around once, humming softly to herself.
“You wouldn’t be thinking of going by the entrance to the Antonia Fortress on the chance that you might see your father and the tribune, would you?” Livia teased.
Miriam waved airily. “One never knows where one’s feet might take her.”
II
Jerusalem, or Yerushalaim in Hebrew, sat squarely astride the hill country of Judea. As Miriam and Livia started down from the Upper City, Miriam took it all in, loving this view of her home city. Under the Jebusites, the city occupied only Mount Ophel, a narrow ridge that divided the Kidron Valley from the Tyropoean (or Cheesemakers’) Valley. When King David made it the capital of his new kingdom a thousand years earlier, it spread northward onto Mount Moriah. On Mount Moriah David’s son and successor, King Solomon, built the first temple. Over the generations the city had ebbed and flowed across the surrounding hills and valleys.
Now with a population approaching two hundred thousand, in addition to Mount Ophel and Mount Moriah, it also covered Mount Zion on the west, went as far as Mount Scopus on the north, and included two villages on the Mount of Olives to the east. These were Bethphage, or the House of Unripened Figs, which was right near the top of the ridgeline, and Bethany, the House of Dates, a little down the eastern slope. Both villages were now considered to be part of the city.
The temple of Solomon was supposed to have been a magnificent structure, built on the very spot where Abraham was said to have brought his son Isaac to be sacrificed. Six hundred years before, the Babylonians had destroyed that temple and sacked its treasures. When Cyrus, king of Persia, decreed that the Jews could return to their homeland seventy years later, they were granted permission to rebuild the temple. This was done under Zerubbabel, but the second temple was a mere shadow of its former glory.
Then came Herod the Great.
Thoroughly hellenized and romanized, Herod nevertheless wanted to do something that would keep his Jewish subjects at least somewhat pacified. The Herods were Idumeans, a cousin tribe that was looked upon by the Jews as being only one slight step above the detested Samaritans. Herod’s father, Antipater, had thrown his armies into alliance with Rome in battling with the hated Parthians to the east and had won himself a small kingdom as a reward. Using all of his shrewdness and cunning, a marriage to the royal Hasmonean family, and every other device that would propel him forward, Herod had eventually become king over all the province of Judea. His subjects hated him with unrestrained passion and feared him even more. He was brilliant, a gifted ruler, utterly ruthless, and completely without morals. Murder and betrayal were common stepping-stones to achieving and maintaining power in this age, but Herod raised such tactics to new heights. Even as he solidified his power with Rome, he estranged himself further and further from his Jewish subjects.
Then in the eighteenth year of his reign, he hit upon an idea that even his most virulent enemies could not demean. The temple built by Zerubbabel was an embarrassment. Herod’s own palace near the Jaffa Gate and many of the mansions in the Upper City were more glorious than the house of the Lord. Assuring the religious leaders that he would allow them to supervise the reconstruction at every hand so that no scriptural laws were violated, he began one of the greatest of all his construction projects.
First, he built massive retaining walls and hauled in enough fill to extend the temple platform to more than ten acres, or about twice its original size. In essence he took the narrow ridge top of Mount Moriah and made it like the top of a table. The temple itself and its immediate courtyards, magnificently wrought of Jerusalem limestone and marble, were completed in eighteen months, without any interruption of the daily sacrifice.
But this was only the beginning. He built a huge complex of courtyards, plazas, colonnades, staircases, gates, and bridges. He constructed covered galleries on three sides of the platform, but along the south end of the platform he constructed what he called the Royal Stoa, but what the people immediately called Solomon’s Porches. Larger than the temple itself, this was the crowning piece of the project. One hundred and sixty columns of solid stone were quarried and brought to the site. Massive monoliths, the columns were fifty feet high and so large that it took three men with outstretched arms to encircle one of them. Putting them in four rows of forty columns each, he constructed a covered colonnade that filled the entire south end of the Temple Mount. This was left open on the north side, providing access to the great plaza that surrounded the temple.
Always given to the grandiose and the lavish, Herod provided some spectacular entryways to the complex. The main entrance on the west was over a bridge that spanned the Tyropoean Valley to the Upper City. It was almost half a mile long and supported by arches more than a hundred feet high. On the southwest he created a massive staircase that opened into Solomon’s Porches. On the south, where the original royal city of David had once bee
n, the north end of Mount Ophel was cleared and a great plaza created. Here the towering walls were pierced by two entrances, one a double gate, and the other a triple gate that led through tunnels up into Solomon’s Porches as well. On the east facing the Mount of Olives was the Golden Gate, an entry thought by many to be so beautiful and so wondrous as to give a special blessing to any who entered there.
Since Miriam and Livia were coming from the Upper City, the shortest and easiest way for them to go onto the Temple Mount would have been to cross the great bridge and enter through the west gate. But unless she was in a hurry, Miriam preferred the southwest entrance. Her feet were completely healed now, but she was determined that never again would she be found vulnerable to her own softness. Since returning to Jerusalem, she and Livia took long walks every day. Climbing the great staircase, which had more than three hundred steps, was the ultimate test of their endurance.
As they finally reached the top, entering the coolness of the colonnade, the two women stopped to catch their breath.
“Do you want to rest here for a moment?” Miriam asked through her labored breathing. It was going to be a warm day, and she could feel the beads of perspiration forming on her forehead.
“It’s up to you,” Livia said automatically. She was leaning against one of the massive columns and taking deep breaths.
Miriam’s mouth pulled down as she gave Livia a warning look.
Apparently remembering the new order of things, Livia corrected herself quickly. “No, I’m ready to go on if you are.”
Miriam straightened. “I am.” She looked around. “Let’s walk down to the apse and see if the Council is in session.” On the east end of Solomon’s Porches, a large semicircular room had been built that was known as the apse. Here the Great Sanhedrin met to conduct their business. That was a ruse, of course. The Council did not meet on holy days, but it was unlikely that Livia would know that.
Livia poked at her. “Yes, perhaps your father will bring the Roman officer to the assembly.”
Miriam blushed, a little chagrined that she was so transparent. No Roman would be invited to attend the Sanhedrin, but she had wondered if her father might show Marcus where they met. It was an impressive sight. “I didn’t get to say good-bye to Papa this morning, that’s all,” she finally murmured.
“Of course,” Livia said. Miriam was grateful Livia hadn’t pointed out that those days when Miriam got to say good-bye to her father were more the exception than the rule.
They started moving eastward, working their way through the throngs. Though it was still early, Solomon’s Porches were already crowded, and Miriam knew that by midday the porches would hold a veritable crush of people. At festivals the population always swelled dramatically. But this was the beginning of Passover. The population of Jerusalem had probably quintupled in the last few days as Jews from all over the empire had come to observe this greatest of all the feast days.
Before they even reached the apse, Miriam could tell nothing official was going on. It was too noisy, too chaotic. The Great Sanhedrin was authorized by the Romans to keep their own group of temple guards—soldiers, in actuality—who were always nearby to keep order when the Council was in session or when its members were there talking informally. As they drew closer, Miriam could see that there were no guards present.
Disappointed, she changed directions. “They’re not there,” she said to Livia. “Let’s go to the market.”
Miriam headed for the Court of the Gentiles, as the great open plaza on the Temple Mount was known, a route that would take her around the east side of the temple, not the shorter, more direct route to the west gate. “You wouldn’t be going to the marketplace by way of the Antonia Fortress would you?” Livia asked wryly.
Miriam eyed her quickly, trying to decide if she could successfully protest her innocence. Then she laughed in surrender. “One never knows where one’s feet might take her.”
III
Mordechai ben Uzziel approached the two guards standing at the great double gate that blocked the entrance to the Antonia Fortress. Seeing his bold approach brought them instantly to alert. They stiffened, their spears coming forward so they could bring them into play in an instant if necessary.
“I have an audience with Tribune Marcus Quadratus Didius,” he said in a low growl, which only made his Latin sound worse. He found their wariness both amusing and irritating.
“Are you Mordechai the Jew?”
“I am Mordechai the Sadducee,” he snapped, “member of the Great Council of Jerusalem.”
The one nearest to a small wooden door beside the gate saluted and turned. “The tribune is expecting you. Follow me.”
Good, Mordechai thought. It was right that word had been left with the watch at the gate. It showed that Pilate was taking all of this seriously. Then the guard saw the package Mordechai was holding and hesitated.
Mordechai understood immediately. “It’s an extra tunic.” He unwrapped it and held it out for the man to see.
“Thank you.”
They entered the vast courtyard, and the legionnaire turned sharply to the right, headed for the main hall. Mordechai stopped. “I will wait here.”
The man looked at him in surprise, then shook his head, a little disgusted. Evidently he had dealt with these Jews before. “Yes, of course.”
As he walked away, Mordechai looked around. The rest of the temple complex was built on the narrow ridge of Mount Moriah. On three sides the walls built by Herod rose from steep hillsides, providing a natural defense. But on the north the ridge leveled out, making the entire complex vulnerable to attack from that quarter. With his usual eye for fortification as well as beauty, Herod had built a massive fortress on the northwest corner of the mount and named it for Marcus Antonius, who at that time was in ascendancy in the Roman power structure.
Mordechai smiled to himself. His people hated Herod with undiluted passion, but he would have loved to have met the man. When Antony was defeated at the Battle of Actium by Octavian, the man who would go on to become Augustus Caesar, Herod was caught in the embarrassing position of having backed the losing side. But with the adroitness of a cat dropped from a window, Herod switched loyalties and landed neatly on his feet. While Antony slunk off to Egypt to commit suicide with Cleopatra, Herod threw his powerful armies behind Octavian and helped him consolidate his power in the east. For that, he was given the kingship he so desperately wanted.
The Antonia Fortress was just that. Built of heavy stone masonry that could withstand battering rams for many days, it had four great towers on each corner to give its defenders a clear field of fire against anyone trying to besiege it. It had its own cisterns and several large storehouses built into the walls, where enough food to sustain a cohort for several months was stockpiled.
You couldn’t help but admire a man that shrewd, Mordechai decided. Not only was the fortress an important defense against any attack from the vulnerable north side, but Herod had been clever enough to attach it to the Temple Mount itself. He knew as well as anyone that if there was ever going to be trouble with the Jews, it would likely begin right here. Thus the Romans kept a garrison stationed here all the time, a garrison that was greatly strengthened during festivals like the present one. One sign of trouble and the legionnaires could pour out into the great courtyards and deal with it before it got out of hand.
He heard the crunch of caligulas on stone and turned. Tribune Marcus Didius was coming toward him, the guard following directly behind.
“Ah, Mordechai,” he said. “Thank you for coming. I was hoping it wasn’t too late for my message.”
To Mordechai’s relief, he spoke in Aramaic. It wasn’t as fluent as Pilate’s, but for being in the country only six months, it was surprisingly good. “There is no need for an apology.”
“Good. Come, I have some breakfast waiting in my quarters. We can talk there.”
Mordechai hesitated, looking away.
Marcus instantly understood. “Oh, yes. The
contamination factor.” It was said with dry humor.
“I find such practices highly offensive,” Mordechai said smoothly, “and hold no such feelings about Gentiles myself. To think that simply being in the presence of a non-Jew somehow defiles a man is so ridiculous as to require no further comment. However, there are those on the Council who would use the fact that I ate at the table of a Roman officer, especially during Passover, as a weapon against me. I apologize for the narrow-minded bigotry of some of our people.”
Marcus nodded. It was a point well made. “I understand. Even in the Senate of Rome we have those who watch eagerly for any excuse to pull down those who are stronger than themselves.”
There was a quick flash of gratitude in Mordechai’s eyes. If Marcus had insisted, he would have had no choice. “Shall we walk in the courtyard as we talk?” he asked, motioning toward the gate.
“Yes. This is my third time here in Jerusalem, and yet the press of business has kept me from seeing your great temple. I would like that.”
Again Mordechai hesitated, choosing his words. “I have no wish to offend, Marcus, but—”
Marcus had started toward the gate. He stopped and turned back. “I am not easily offended, Mordechai. Say on.”
The Sadducee withdrew the tunic from the package. “The temple courtyards are crowded today with the Passover. The people are used to seeing the soldiers, but a Roman officer walking around in full uniform will draw many stares. There is no danger, of course,” he added quickly. “I just wondered if you might be more comfortable with this.”