‘Yes, yes ...’ Pilate moaned and sobbed in his sleep. Of course he would. In the morning he still would not, but now, at night, after weighing everything, he would agree to ruin it. He would do everything to save the decidedly innocent, mad dreamer and healer from execution!
‘Now we shall always be together,’[149] said the ragged wandering philosopher in his dream, who for some unknown reason had crossed paths with the equestrian of the golden spear. ‘Where there’s one of us, straight away there will be the other! Whenever I am remembered, you will at once be remembered, too! I, the foundling, the son of unknown parents, and you, the son of an astrologer-king and a miller’s daughter, the beautiful Pila.’[150]
‘Yes, and don’t you forget to remember me, the astrologer’s son,’ Pilate asked in his dream. And securing in his dream a nod from the En-Sarid[??] beggar who was walking beside him, the cruel procurator of Judea wept and laughed from joy in his dream.
This was all very good, but the more terrible was the hegemon’s awakening. Banga growled at the moon, and the pale-blue road, slippery as though smoothed with oil, fell away before the procurator. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he remembered was that the execution had been. The first thing the procurator did was to clutch Banga’s collar with a habitual gesture, then with sick eyes he began searching for the moon and saw that it had moved slightly to the side and turned silvery. Its light was being interfered with by an unpleasant, restless light playing on the balcony right before his eyes. A torch blazed and smoked in the hand of the centurion Ratslayer. The holder of it glanced sidelong with fear and spite at the dangerous beast preparing itself to leap.
‘Stay, Banga,’ the procurator said in a sick voice and coughed. Shielding himself from the flame with his hand, he went on: ‘Even at night, even by moonlight, I have no peace! ... Oh, gods! ... Yours is also a bad job, Mark. You cripple soldiers ...’
Mark gazed at the procurator in great amazement, and the man recollected himself. To smooth over the unwarranted words, spoken while not quite awake, the procurator said:
‘Don’t be offended, centurion. My position, I repeat, is still worse. What do you want?’
‘The head of the secret guard is waiting to see you,’ Mark reported calmly.
‘Call him, call him,’ the procurator ordered, clearing his throat with a cough, and he began feeling for his sandals with his bare feet. The flame played on the columns, the centurion’s caligae tramped across the mosaics. The centurion went out to the garden.
‘Even by moonlight I have no peace,’ the procurator said to himself, grinding his teeth.
Instead of the centurion, a man in a hood appeared on the balcony.
‘Stay, Banga,’ the procurator said quietly and pressed the back of the dog’s head.
Before beginning to speak, Aphranius, as was his custom, looked around and stepped into the shadow, and having made sure that, besides Banga, there were no extra persons on the balcony, he said quietly:
‘I ask to be tried, Procurator. You turned out to be right. I was unable to protect Judas of Kiriath, he has been stabbed to death. I ask to be tried and retired.’
It seemed to Aphranius that four eyes were looking at him — a dog’s and a wolf’s.
Aphranius took from under his chlamys a purse stiff with blood, sealed with two seals.
‘This is the bag of money the killers left at the high priest’s house. The blood on this bag is the blood of Judas of Kiriath.’
‘How much is there, I wonder?’ asked Pilate, bending over the bag.
‘Thirty tetradrachmas.’
The procurator grinned and said:
‘Not much.’
Aphranius was silent.
‘Where is the murdered man?’
‘That I do not know,’ the visitor, who never parted with his hood, said with calm dignity. ‘We will begin a search in the morning.’
The procurator started, abandoning a sandal strap that refused to be fastened.
‘But you do know for certain that he was killed?’
To this the procurator received a dry response:
‘I have been working in Judea for fifteen years, Procurator. I began my service under Valerius Gratus.[152] I do not have to see the corpse in order to say that a man has been killed, and so I report to you that the one who was called Judas of Kiriath was stabbed to death several hours ago.’
‘Forgive me, Aphranius,’ answered Pilate, ‘I’m not properly awake yet, that’s why I said it. I sleep badly,’ the procurator grinned, ‘I keep seeing a moonbeam in my sleep. Quite funny, imagine, it’s as if I’m walking along this moonbeam ... And so, I would like to know your thoughts on this matter. Where are you going to look for him? Sit down, head of the secret service.’
Aphranius bowed, moved the chair closer to the bed, and sat down, clanking his sword.
‘I am going to look for him not far from the oil press in the garden of Gethsemane.’
‘So, so. And why there, precisely?’
‘As I figure it, Hegemon, Judas was not killed in Yershalaim itself, nor anywhere very far from it, he was killed near Yershalaim.’
‘I regard you as one of the outstanding experts in your business. I don’t know how things are in Rome, but in the colonies you have no equal ... But, explain to me, why are you going to look for him precisely there?’
‘I will by no means admit the notion,’ Aphranius spoke in a low voice, ‘of Judas letting himself be caught by any suspicious people within city limits. It’s impossible to put a knife into a man secretly in the street. That means he was lured to a basement somewhere. But the service has already searched for him in the Lower City and undoubtedly would have found him. He is not in the city, I can guarantee that. If he was killed far from the city, this packet of money could not have been dropped off so quickly. He was killed near the city. They managed to lure him out of the city.’
‘I cannot conceive how that could have been done!’
‘Yes, Procurator, that is the most difficult question in the whole affair, and I don’t even know if I will succeed in resolving it.’
‘It is indeed mysterious! A believer, on the eve of the feast, goes out of the city for some unknown reason, leaving the Passover meal, and perishes there. Who could have lured him, and how? Could it have been done by a woman?’ the procurator asked on a sudden inspiration.
Aphranius replied calmly and weightily:
‘By no means, Procurator. That possibility is utterly excluded. One must reason logically. Who was interested in Judas’s death. Some wandering dreamers, some circle in which, first of all, there weren’t any women. To marry, Procurator, one needs money. To bring a person into the world, one needs the same. But to put a knife into a man with the help of a woman, one needs very big money, and no vagabond has got it. There was no woman in this affair, Procurator. Moreover, I will say that such an interpretation of the murder can only throw us off the track, hinder the investigation, and confuse me.’
‘Ah, yes! I forgot to ask,’ the procurator rubbed his forehead, ‘how did they manage to foist the money on Kaifa?’
‘You see, Procurator ... that is not especially complicated. The avengers came from behind Kaifa’s palace, where the lane is higher than the yard. They threw the packet over the fence.’
‘With a note?’
‘Yes, exactly as you suspected, Procurator.’
‘I see that you are perfectly right, Aphranius,’ said Pilate, ‘and I merely allowed myself to express a supposition.’
‘Alas, it is erroneous, Procurator.’
‘But what is it, then, what is it?’ exclaimed the procurator, peering into Aphranius’s face with greedy curiosity.
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