The startled attendant rushed in. “Yes, Excellency?” he asked.
“Go find the commander of Antonia and tell him I want every cross upright out there on the Hill of the Skull pulled down, and by great Jupiter, I want it done now!” Breathing heavily, Pilate sat again at his desk. “Wait. Before you go, draw those draperies. I’m sick of the sight.” Flavius went to the window and busied himself with the curtains, but when he had pulled one, he discovered that he could not draw the other all the way until the bronze stand and wine-colored vase on it had been moved. Quickly he shifted them to the western window a few paces away and almost directly behind the Procurator.
As he did so he saw that the sun shining through the vase shot straight outward from the delicate glass a band of red light that crossed the floor, climbed the back of Pilate’s chair, and went obliquely over his shoulder to split evenly the polished surface of the desk. Flavius turned back to the first window and pulled the curtains together, so that not even a sliver of sunshine came through. Then he came around in front of the Procurator. But Pilate said nothing, and Flavius withdrew quietly, closing the door behind him.
The Procurator leaned back in his chair; his arms were folded across his middle, and his eyes appeared fixed upon a spot above the door. But Pilate was not seeing the ornate panels; his eyes were being held instead in the calm and untroubled gaze of another pair of eyes....
Suddenly he shook his head, vigorously, as though to rid himself of this haunting vision. “What’s this?” he said aloud. “The man’s dead. Of course the guards dozed. Gods-come-to-earth, spirits, demons. Woman dreaming. Jewish fanaticism. Bah! Cornelius and Longinus wished to confuse and frighten me.”
... Even if he did walk from the tomb, he can cross no seas to haunt me with pitying sad eyes. In Gaul or Germania, anywhere but in this despicable land, I’ll be free of him. I’ll have escaped him. By great Jupiter, I, afraid of a Galilean carpenter. Imagine, I, a Roman soldier, I, by the gods, Procurator of Judaea....
“I’ll have an end to this foolishness, this child’s business,” he said loudly. He sat up straight. “The other day I washed my hands of that man’s death. Today, this moment, I wash them of him, his circlet of thorns, his slashed back, his searching eyes, his blood, by the gods of Rome. I’m free of him, do you hear?”
... And I’m not afraid to look through that window at his hill of death....
“Flavius!” he shouted. “Come draw aside the draperies. I want to see outside.”
He lifted his hands to the desk and, leaning forward, began to rise.