The Wolf and the Lamb Read Online Free PDF

Rufus translate if your friends insist on speaking Latin instead of Greek.”
    “And also to make sure that Rufus translates accurately?”
    “That, too, and I will need access to any and all who might shed light on the matter.”
    “Done. When can you start?”
    “This afternoon. Now, I must go and find Loukas. He will not be happy. You will bring the dead man to some place where it can be viewed and brief this Rufus person on what is happening.”

Chapter VI
     
    The boy told him his name was Marius . “After Mars, the god of war,” he’d announced. Gamaliel thought he did so somewhat too proudly. Romans and their love of conquest and violence, even when naming their slaves. Marius, Pilate said, would be his dirige .
    “My what? Prefect, you know my Latin is spotty at best. What is this boy to me?”
    “He is to be your guide. You may use him to send and receive messages. He will be, for the term of your investigation, your devoted servant.”
    “I will need a great deal more than this boy to do what you expect of me.”
    “At the moment, he will have to do.”
    Gamaliel and his dirige left the room and headed out to the fresher air of the Temple Mount. At least he hoped so. Gamaliel had no idea how to find his way out and left to his own devices he believed he would be lost forever in the lower reaches of the Antonia Fortress, his bones to be found after decades of fruitless searching. Who would search? His bones would never be found. They two had not gone more than ten steps when a figure loomed up from the shadows. So sudden was its appearance that Gamaliel’s heart skipped a beat. The boy stumbled and dropped to one knee.
    “Madam,” the boy stammered.
    Ah, it seemed the figure was a woman. Gamaliel could not be sure in the dim light and with many layers of fabric swathing the figure. Ignoring the boy, the woman stepped up to Gamaliel.
    “You are Gamaliel, the Rabban of the Sanhedrin?”
    “I am.”
    “I have heard of you.” She glanced nervously over her shoulder. “He must not know we have spoken.”
    “Who must not know, the boy or the Prefect?”
    “Cassia Drusus, who else?”
    “My apologies, madam, but forgive me, you are—”
    “I am Claudia Procula, wife to Pontius Pilate. Get up, boy. Rabban Gamaliel, I must speak with you but please, I…”
    The boy stood but kept his eyes averted. Gamaliel shuffled his feet. “What is it you wish to tell me?”
    This exchange made him uncomfortable. That he had been coerced into entering a pagan building was bad enough, but to speak to a pagan woman as well? He would have to think about all the transgressions now marked against his name when he spent time in his mikvah later that evening. This day seemed to be sliding downward at an ever-increasing pace. And it was still only the fifth hour.
    “You must help him, rabbi. I have had a vision.”
    “A vision?” Gamaliel was no stranger to visionaries. In his capacity of Rabban he’d had to judge the veracity of many of them. Most were blatant frauds. One or two seemed to be connected somehow with the spiritual world, but he did not know how or why. At one time or another he had consigned to be punished or exiled nearly all purveyors of omens. Most had then recanted and taken up less parlous lines of thievery. A few remained whose insights still nagged at him. The King’s companion, Menahem, for example, who’d shared his doomsday predictions of the Nation’s certain demise a few years ago and had thereby ruined the better part of an afternoon.
    “I saw who murdered Aurelius.”
    “You saw the murderer? Why did you not tell it to that person, what’s his name, Cassia Drusus? Then I would not be—”
    “I only saw him in the vision, Holy Sir. Cassia does not concern himself with visions. He is—”
    “A pragmatist. Aren’t you all? Very well then, tell me who killed your husband’s rival? Have I got that right—his rival?”
    “Rival? I suppose so. The murderer was a Tribunus cohortis