"I mark thy words. The Jew is bloody and hath a bloody god. Yet from among them ariseth one who doth preach a new Kingdom and a god that delighteth not in the shedding of blood."
"Where getteth thou thy knowledge?"
"From the eunuch thou gavest me, my Lord Pilate."
"Ho! ho!" and Pilate threw up his hands and shouted with laughter. "From a slave the wife of Pontius Pilate doth get learning? Ho! ho! Claudia wouldst be a disciple of a eunuch whose back bears marks of the scourge, whose arm is branded with deep burning and whose face beareth the scar of a Roman blade? Or wouldst thou be a Jew, my fair Claudia?" and he drained three cups of wine between times of laughter.
Claudia stepped before Pilate and threw her hands across her breast—"Nay—not a Jew would I be!" she exclaimed. "A woman of the Proculas I am. But under the royal robe that hideth the breast of Pilate's wife there is a heart, a heart, most mighty Pilate, that turns against blood and the quivering of flesh and the soul-sickening agony of death! A heart, my Lord, that cries out against this and doth ever hope for a power that doth not hate and torture. A Kingdom there shall be without the sword of Rome or the lamb's blood of Jerusalem; a Kingdom without the arena of Rome or the Temple sacrifices. And in this Kingdom shall man render unto man as he himself would be rendered unto. Of this Kingdom doth he teach who hath arisen from among the Jews."
Pilate poured another cup. "The lips of Pilate's wife do babble like a babe," he said. "Knowest thou not, my fair Claudia, that the coming of such a kingdom would mean naught save the passing of Rome?"
Claudia rested her hand on the arm of Pilate until he looked up at her. She said slowly, "And knowest thou not, my brave Pilate, that Rome is already passing? Aye, even the more that Rome doth enslave men, the more she doth bring to herself the weakness which death shall overtake, for no more do Roman women bear the sort of sons valor cometh of."
"Ho! ho! What thou shouldst say is that Caesar's wife is no more above suspicion."
"Of a surety, my Lord, since Rome hath no more Caesars. On that day when the populace stood weeping where flames from the funeral pyre did cast their somber smoke against Castor and Pollux, perished Caesar."
"Rome hath ever its Caesar."