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alive for a week. Five thousand! There are ¬only four thousand Roman legionaries in all Judea. Now it’s all trickery, ¬I’m sure, but it’ll be just too bad for this Yeshua if too many come to believe it. Think, man! What will Rome do with someone who can feed an army out of thin air, heal their wounds, and even raise them from the dead? What? He’ll have to be crushed before deluded masses start marching in his name, whether he gives them permission or not!” Marcus nodded as he spotted Eglon question a group of priests who waved toward the sheepfold. “Trouble’s brewing. Herod’s buzzards. Circling.” He rose and strapped on his sword. “You know the ¬only vultures who dare to circle the Temple of this ¬Jewish God are the human type. You ¬don’t mind if I stay here and finish breakfast, do you?” Felix waved him away. “Besides, this is the best view of the circus.”
Marcus scrambled down the spiral staircase to the barracks. Where was ¬everybody? he wondered. He expected to lead at least a decuria of ten legionaries out to the sheep pens. Why were the Antonia’s barracks deserted? From the darkest corner of the bunkroom came a sonorous snore, like a camel bawling. On the bottom of a three-tiered rack of rope-lattice bunks was Guard Sergeant Quintus, sound asleep. Marcus poked his old friend with his foot. “Get up, you drunk! Thirty-nine of the best for sleeping on duty!” he bellowed. The old campaigner ¬didn’t fall for it. “Off duty,” he retorted, opening one eye. “After being up all night, as the centurion would know if he hadn’t slept so late.” “Where is ¬everybody?” “New order from Pilate. More pilgrims in town today than at ¬Pass¬over. Get ¬everybody out on the street in full uniform. Stop any trouble before it starts. So I gave the orders . . . and turned in.” “Well, turn out again,” Marcus demanded. “It’s just you and me, then.” The urgency in Marcus’ voice must have instantly alerted Quintus. It was an instinct that had kept him alive through wars against German tribesmen and Parthian archers alike. “What?” “Trouble right outside our own door. Come on.” “Armor?” “No time. Your sword.” Moments later the two soldiers were down the steps of the eastern exit from the fortress and ¬only yards from the sheep pens. The smell of sheep and sheep dung made the still, ground-level air thick to breathe. Marcus worried he was already too late. Had Yeshua been arrested by Antipas’

men . . . or worse? But no: There was Yeshua, hemmed in by a gesticulating crowd. “For judgment,” Yeshua said, “have I come into this world, so that the blind may see . . . and those who see may become blind.”3 The Teacher was flanked by Zadok the shepherd and two of the more reasonable Pharisees, Nakdimon ben Gurion and his uncle Gamaliel. On the other side of Yeshua was a handful of His talmidim, stout fishermen from Galilee. Opposite these was a semicircle of others, neither reasonable nor calm. “Are we blind then too?” Marcus heard one red-faced, fist-waving Pharisee demand. Marcus recognized him: Simon ben Zeraim, from whose house Miryam had been barred by an overzealous servant until Marcus intervened. And Eglon? Marcus spotted the ferretlike face of Antipas’ bodyguard on the far side of the sheep pens. He had posted a ring of his men around the animal enclosures and was closing in. “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin,” Yeshua replied to Simon. “But now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”4 A renewed uproar burst from the embarrassed and offended Pharisees. How dare this upstart preacher accuse them of sin and hypocrisy? They shook their fists in Yeshua’s face. His disciples looked anxious, Nakdimon angry, Gamaliel aloof and noncommittal. Zadok brandished his staff as if ready to bash the whole lot of Yeshua’s enemies. Able to do it too, Marcus judged. “Found the new riot, have we?” Quintus asked dryly. “No