“I would show only my determination to uphold Rome’s laws and procedures. If you wish this man tried, then bring him before me at the Procuratorium.” He bowed coldly. “And now, if the High Priest will excuse me....”
The High Priest stood up as though to leave. “Indeed, Excellency, I too am greatly fatigued,” he said, “but one more point detains me. A moment ago, Procurator Pilate, did I not hear you say that on the morrow you were sending Bar Abbas to the cross? If so, Excellency, have you not already convicted him?”
Pilate’s smile was contemptuous as he, too, rose to his feet. “I did say that, and I have no doubt that he will go to the cross. But not, O High Priest, until he has been given trial, before he has been confronted by witnesses who will testify to what they saw and heard as concerns those charges that will be placed against him. I presume that many will appear against this Bar Abbas and that he will be convicted. But I do not say now that he will. I say only that he will be given a fair trial.” He lifted a heavy fist and brought it forcefully down upon the surface of his desk. “And so, by all the gods, will your Galilean!”
43
... The knocking is insistent. Can it be that the Praetorian Guardsman has been there a long time pounding on the door between the atrium and the peristylium while I slowly awakened? Bona Dea, what can old Sejanus want this time? Will he never cease hounding Longinus and me?
... Longinus. By the Bountiful Mother, maybe it’s Longinus returned from Germania. Maybe he’s at the bedroom door opening on the peristylium....
“Just a moment, Centurion, until I get my robe!” Claudia sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, and shook her head to clear it. A narrow slash of natural light showed through the not completely drawn draperies. It was dawn. And burrowed in the pillow beside her was the close-cropped head of the Centurion Longinus.
Now the knocking had begun again. But it came, Claudia realized, from the other side of the door between her bedroom and Tullia’s. And though insistent, the knocking was not loud. “Mistress! Mistress! Oh, Mistress!”
She recognized her maid’s voice; Tullia was trying to awaken her without making too much noise in the early morning stillness of the Palace of the Herods. “Just a moment, little one,” she called out softly. At the door she slid back the bolt. “But, Tullia,” she demanded, keeping her voice low so that she would not awaken Longinus, “what are you doing back so early? It must be hardly daylight. Why, little one....” she paused, seeing the maid on the verge of tears.
“Oh, Mistress, he’s in grave danger!” Tullia burst out. “They’ve seized him. We fear great harm may befall him. That’s why I have come back to seek your help for him.” She was making an obvious effort to gain control of herself; somewhat calmed, she continued. “I started from Bethany at the first glimmering of light, almost as soon as we heard that he had been taken. We’re so afraid, Mistress, that great harm will come to him unless....”