False God of Rome Read Free

‘you’ve finally got there. So, Herod, I’ve got to defuse this quickly before Yeshua’s followers start rousing the people.
What should I do?’
    ‘You must go to the palace first thing tomorrow.’
    ‘To overturn the sentence?’
    ‘No, you can’t let this man live now that you’ve finally got him. You’ve got to reunite the priests with the people so that they can control them.’
    ‘Yes, but how?’
    ‘By turning a Jewish stoning into a Roman crucifixion.’
    ‘This man must die,’ the High Priest Caiaphas hissed at Pilatus through his long, full grey beard. Regaled in his sumptuous robes and topped with a curious,
bejewelled domed hat made of silk, he looked, to Sabinus, much more like an eastern client king than a priest; but then, to judge by the size and splendour of the Jews’ Temple, Judaism was a
very wealthy religion and its priests could afford to be extravagant with the money that the poor, in the hope of being seen by their god as righteous, pumped their way.
    ‘And he will, priest,’ Pilatus replied; never normally in the best of moods for the first couple of hours after dawn, he was striving to keep his fragile temper. ‘But he will
die the Roman way, not the Jewish.’
    Sabinus stood with Herod Agrippa watching the struggle between the two most powerful men in the province with interest. It had been an acrimonious meeting, especially after Pilatus had, with
great relish, pointed out the trap that Yeshua had set for Caiaphas and how he had been politically maladroit enough to fall into it.
    ‘To avoid an uprising,’ Pilatus continued, ‘which, judging from the reports I’ve had, Yeshua’s followers are already initiating, you must do as I’ve ordered
immediately.’
    ‘And how can I trust you to do what you’ve promised?’
    ‘Are you being deliberately obtuse?’ Pilatus snapped, his temper no longer able to take the strain of dealing with this self-serving priest. ‘Because in this instance we are
both on the same side. The preparations have been made and the orders given. Now go!’
    Caiaphas turned and walked, with as much dignity as he could muster after being summarily dismissed, out of the magnificent, high-ceilinged audience chamber, the centrepiece of the late Herod
the Great’s palace on the west side of the upper city.
    ‘What do you think, Herod?’ Pilatus asked.
    ‘I think that he’ll play his part. Are the troops ready?’
    ‘Yes.’ Pilatus turned his bloodshot eyes to Sabinus. ‘Now’s your chance to redeem yourself, quaestor; just do as Herod has told you.’
    The noise of a raucous mob grew as Sabinus and Herod approached the main entrance to the palace. Stepping out of the high, polished cedar-wood doors, they were confronted by a
huge crowd filling the whole of the agora before the palace and overflowing into the wide avenue at its far end that led up to the Temple and the Antonia Fortress.
    The shadows were long and the air chill, it being only the first hour of the day. Glancing up to his left Sabinus could see, on the hill of Golgotha beyond the Old Gate in the city walls, a
cross that was always left standing between executions as a reminder to the populace of the fate that awaited them should they seek to oppose the power of Rome.
    Caiaphas stood on the top of the palace steps with his arms raised in an attempt to quieten the crowd. He was surrounded by a dozen fellow priests; behind them, guarded by Paulus and a group of
Temple Guards, stood Yeshua with his hands bound and with a blood-stained bandage around his head.
    Gradually the noise subsided and Caiaphas began his address.
    ‘What’s he saying?’ Sabinus asked Herod.
    ‘He’s appealed for calm and now he’s telling them that, because of his popularity with the common people, Yeshua is to be pardoned and released from Jewish custody in a gesture
of mercy at this time of Passover.’
    A loud cheer went up from the crowd as Caiaphas stopped speaking. After a few moments the