In another moment the soldier was standing stiffly before the tribunal. “Soldier,” Pilate inquired, “did you bring this message from the hand of the Lady Claudia?”
“No, sir,” he answered. “It was handed to me in the courtyard over there.”
“By whom?”
“The Centurion Longinus, sir; he had just come, I understood, from the Palace of the Herods.”
A quick frown darkened the Procurator’s countenance. “And where is the Centurion Longinus now?”
“Sir, I think he went up to his apartment in the fortress.”
Pilate nodded and waved the man aside; his face was heavy as once again he read his wife’s message:
Hear me, Pilate:
Take no responsibility for that righteous man’s blood, for in the night I had a frightful dream concerning him.
What on earth, he wondered, could Claudia have dreamed about this Galilean fanatic? And how did she know that the man had been brought before the Procurator’s tribunal? Yes, and by all the gods, why had the message come from Longinus, and why, moreover, had Longinus not delivered it himself?