The Redemption of Pontius Pilate Read Free Page A

you’re able to do the job, then I’m inclined to respect his judgment.”
    “Thank you, sir!” said Pilate. “I hope that I will not disappoint either of you.”
    The march through the three Gallic provinces proved uneventful. It was fall, the crops were being harvested, and the harvest had been good enough that the army did not lack for food. By the time they reached the land of the Belgae, though, they were entering the zone where the raiders from Germania had done the worst damage, and food became scarcer. The veterans tightened their belts and scrimped on their rations, and the new recruits did their best to emulate them, albeit with more grumbling.
    “ Legatus! ” called one of the legionaries as Pilate rode by. “When are we going to see some of those blond German Amazons the old-timers keep telling us about? Not to mention the famous German bread and mead?”
    “Idiot!” snapped his centurion. “You won’t see a German lass until you feel her dagger slip between your ribs!”
    Pilate nodded his approval at the centurion’s riposte, but then addressed the soldier anyway. “This province cannot feed us as well as the Gauls to the south, because the accursed Germans stole all their food, their livestock, and their women! So if you want bread, and mead, and meat, and women, you are going to have to beat the Germans to get them, son!”
    “Bring them on, then!” shouted the soldiers. “We’re getting hungry!” Laughter ran through the ranks, and Pilate allowed himself a tight-lipped smile before he rode on. They were good boys, he thought, and had the potential to become good soldiers. He wished he had the effortless ability to inspire love in his troops, as the great soldiers of previous wars had. A simple jest with the ranks taxed his social skills to their limit, but he knew from experience that such exchanges were worth the effort. Soldiers would die to please a general who treated them with respect and affection.
    Flavius Sixtus was such a general, and Pilate knew it. He studied the old veteran carefully as the army proceeded northward, determined to learn all he could from this man who had served Rome for over forty years. He noticed that Sixtus rarely rode for long when the army was on the march. He would ride to the rear of the legion and dismount, sending his horse back up to the vanguard with a servant, and then proceed to march alongside the soldiers, working his way up the legion, taking a moment or two to visit with every century, and calling every centurion by name. It might take him half the day, but when he was done, every member of the legion would be able to say that their general had marched alongside them and bantered with them. So, after a day or two, Pilate dismounted and made the walk with him, carefully learning the names of the legion’s fifty centurions in the process.
    The real wonder of the Roman army, reflected Pilate, was its ability to turn a rural meadow into a fully fortified camp in a matter of a couple of hours. Supply wagons hauled the portable timbers and joists, and when Tiberius spotted the site he wanted them to camp for the night, the legionaries went to work with a vengeance. Palisades were erected, trenches were dug, and tents pitched in perfect order. Guard towers were assembled, and watches posted for the night. In the morning, the same process was followed in reverse—the tents were packed away, the guard towers disassembled and their parts neatly stacked on wagons, along with the palisade walls, and in a matter of an hour and a half, 24,000 men were ready to resume the march.
    If the generals intended to occupy the same location for more than a night or two, the portable fortifications would be reinforced with timber felled locally, and the walls doubled in height. The site would be chosen based on the availability of water—usually the camp would straddle a spring or stream—and in a matter of a week, the army’s camp would be transformed into a