“Yes, it was my lance that did it. He must have been already dead, but I didn’t know. And I couldn’t bear for him to have to endure any more agony.”
“You did it in mercy, Longinus.”
“Yes, but I killed him, Cornelius. He’s dead, and I can never have his forgiveness. And I’m soiled, ruined, undone. I can never cleanse myself”—he studied his hands—“of this man’s death.” He lifted his eyes to stare at his friend. “Strange, Cornelius, but ... well you know what I’ve always thought of the gods, Roman, Greek, Jewish, any of them, and of the survival of the spirit or whatever you want to call it. And you know what I thought of”—he gazed a moment at the dead man stiffening above them—“him.... Well today I’ve been with him for several hours, long, terrible hours of torture for him, and for me, too.” He paused, trying painfully to choose his words. “Now I don’t know, Cornelius; I’m confused, my smug assurance is gone. I’m not sure any more. But he”—he looked up again—“by all the gods, Cornelius, he was!”
“Then you think now he may have been...?”
“If there are any gods, Cornelius”—he stared into the blood-drained face of the Galilean, and his voice was infinitely sad—“if there exists any being like the one your old Greek tutor spoke of, a good, all-wise, all-powerful one god, then this man must have been the son of that god.”
52
As soon as Longinus left the palace with her message, Claudia went back to bed in the hope of finding relaxing sleep after the terrifying dream. But sleep would not come; she was almost afraid to close her eyes for fear the nightmare would return. And even as she lay sleepless, staring wide-eyed at the high ceiling of her bed-chamber, she began to envision a pair of disembodied blood-red hands feeling their way stealthily around and across the intricate plastered figures and medallions of its surface.
“Tullia, it’s no use trying any longer,” she called to her maid, as she swung her feet around to stand up. “I just can’t seem to shake off the dream. Maybe if I dress and busy myself at something, I’ll think no more of it. Thank the gods, though, I sent the Procurator that warning.”
But as the morning hours went by the dream did not go away; it persisted in all its horrible detail in the forefront of her consciousness, and the harder she tried to dispel it, the more determinedly it stayed with her. “Why, by the Great Mother, little one, am I so disturbed by a dream?” she at length demanded of her maid. “I put no faith in dreams. I must have had thousands, and not one has ever before bothered me. I know they’re nothing but rearrangements, often fanciful and sometimes, like this one, frightening, of things that have happened to us, people we’ve seen, places we’ve visited. You can always explain them. Even this one I understand. You came in late from Bethany with the fearful news of the Galilean’s arrest and the High Priest’s plotting to have Pilate condemn him. Then soon afterward I went to sleep and dreamed about it. It’s simple enough to understand....” She paused, silent in thought. “Or is it?” she asked softly. “Are people ever warned in dreams? Is there really some power...?” The question was unfinished.
“I don’t doubt it, Mistress. Our ancient scriptures tell of many instances in which God spoke to His prophets in visions, which must have been dreams or the like.” She paused. “And there’s the story of Julius Caesar’s wife, you know.”