The Last Temple Read Online Free PDF

but the flies kept returning in swarms.
    This was only the first five minutes of crucifixion.

Hora Tertiana
    The soldiers stepped away from the final victim but remained nearby, telling jokes as they threw dice, howling with laughter and pretended outrage at the results of each throw. They ignored the wailing of the mothers and daughters of the men on the crosses. Armed with swords and spears, they weren’t worried about anyone, let alone women, trying to take down the criminals. The Romans did not care that families often gathered around those who were crucified; in fact, they often encouraged it. Seeing the agony of this torture up close, hearing the strained death rattles and the pleas for mercy, served to deter others who wished to avoid a similar fate.
    The pain exhausted Vitas, and he dropped his head to his chest, ignoring the people who were walking into and out of Caesarea on this road. Time did not exist for him. A man could only acknowledge time when his mind was aware of hopes or dreads for the future, pleasures or regrets in the past. But the agony was so intense, it consumed all his senses and thoughts and kept him in the horrific present.
    Vitas’s head hung only a few feet off the ground, and he saw the movement as an old woman stepped up to him and touched one of his knees. She held a stick, a sponge, and a bucket.
    It was the ancient Jew, the woman from the market. She reached up and ran gnarled fingers over the spike in his hand, not flinching from the congealed blood.
    “The centurion promised they would not use spikes on your hands,” she told Vitas. “I paid to use rope.”
    “You?” When he spoke to the woman, it came out as a croak.
    “Because of your kindness,” she said. “I was able to bribe him with the money you gave me in the market. I am sorry that even one spike pierced you.”
    “There is nothing to be done about it,” Vitas said. Unless Damian appeared before Vitas succumbed to exhaustion and dehydration, Vitas was going to die. What did another injury matter, especially when his body was overwhelmed by other agonies? Even if the centurion commanded the spike be removed, the soldiers would likely break his fingers prying it out with a metal bar.
    Vitas was looking at the bucket and the sponge and the stick. He was no coward, but he hoped she was about to offer a small mercy worth more to a man on a cross than a person could comprehend. Water. Perhaps more.
    As if answering prayer, she dipped her sponge into the bucket and pushed it to his face on the short stick.
    “Drink,” she said. “I spent the remainder of the money on poppy tears, mixed with water and wine.”
    Vitas sucked at the sponge with greed. As a soldier in battle, when he’d required a surgeon to repair skin and muscle, he had never taken opiates. On the battlefield, he believed he needed a clear head at all times. Here, however, there was no reason not to drift along on the relief that would come with the opium. He was a dead man. Poppy tears were a gift beyond description.
    “Tell me your name so that I can thank you properly,” Vitas said.
    “My name is Arella,” she said. “But I’m the one who owes you. You defended me in the market. And gave me money. Men rarely show such kindness to an old woman.”
    “Arella,” Vitas repeated. He groaned as he placed weight on his feet. But he needed a foundation to be able to draw breath, and he gasped for air when he was able to move his diaphragm. “I know some Hebrew. It means angel .”
    “You know Hebrew?”
    “I was married to a Jewish woman.”
    “Yet you speak with the accent of a Roman.”
    “She was the best thing that happened to me.” Vitas felt the tears well, then stream down his cheek. He wondered why he hated showing this weakness, even when he was as helpless as any man could be. “Please take care of the man beside me.”
    Arella shifted a step sideways and also offered the mixture of wine and poppy tears to Jerome, who gulped at the