‘Yes, and don’t you forget to remember me, the astrologer’s son,’ Pilate asked in his dream. And securing in his dream a nod from the En-Sarid4 beggar who was walking beside him, the cruel procurator of Judea wept and laughed from joy in his dream.
This was all very good, but the more terrible was the hegemon’s awakening. Banga growled at the moon, and the pale-blue road, slippery as though smoothed with oil, fell away before the procurator. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he remembered was that the execution had been. The first thing the procurator did was to clutch Banga’s collar with a habitual gesture, then with sick eyes he began searching for the moon and saw that it had moved slightly to the side and turned silvery. Its light was being interfered with by an unpleasant, restless light playing on the balcony right before his eyes. A torch blazed and smoked in the hand of the centurion Ratslayer. The holder of it glanced sidelong with fear and spite at the dangerous beast preparing itself to leap.
‘Stay, Banga,’ the procurator said in a sick voice and coughed. Shielding himself from the flame with his hand, he went on: ‘Even at night, even by moonlight, I have no peace! ... Oh, gods! ... Yours is also a bad job, Mark. You cripple soldiers ...’
Mark gazed at the procurator in great amazement, and the man recollected himself. To smooth over the unwarranted words, spoken while not quite awake, the procurator said:
‘Don’t be offended, centurion. My position, I repeat, is still worse. What do you want?’
‘The head of the secret guard is waiting to see you,’ Mark reported calmly.
‘Call him, call him,’ the procurator ordered, clearing his throat with a cough, and he began feeling for his sandals with his bare feet. The flame played on the columns, the centurion’s caligae tramped across the mosaics. The centurion went out to the garden.
‘Even by moonlight I have no peace,’ the procurator said to himself, grinding his teeth.
Instead of the centurion, a man in a hood appeared on the balcony.
‘Stay, Banga,’ the procurator said quietly and pressed the back of the dog’s head.
Before beginning to speak, Aphranius, as was his custom, looked around and stepped into the shadow, and having made sure that, besides Banga, there were no extra persons on the balcony, he said quietly:
‘I ask to be tried, Procurator. You turned out to be right. I was unable to protect Judas of Kiriath, he has been stabbed to death. I ask to be tried and retired.’
It seemed to Aphranius that four eyes were looking at him — a dog’s and a wolf’s.
Aphranius took from under his chlamys a purse stiff with blood, sealed with two seals.
This is the bag of money the killers left at the high priest’s house. The blood on this bag is the blood of Judas of Kiriath.‘
‘How much is there, I wonder?’ asked Pilate, bending over the bag.
Thirty tetradrachmas.‘
The procurator grinned and said:
‘Not much.’
Aphranius was silent.
‘Where is the murdered man?’
‘That I do not know,’ the visitor, who never parted with his hood, said with calm dignity. ‘We will begin a search in the morning.’
The procurator started, abandoning a sandal strap that refused to be fastened.
‘But you do know for certain that he was killed?’
To this the procurator received a dry response:
‘I have been working in Judea for fifteen years, Procurator. I began my service under Valerius Gratus.5 I do not have to see the corpse in order to say that a man has been killed, and so I report to you that the one who was called Judas of Kiriath was stabbed to death several hours ago.’
‘Forgive me, Aphranius,’ answered Pilate, ‘I’m not properly awake yet, that’s why I said it. I sleep badly,’ the procurator grinned, ‘I keep seeing a moonbeam in my sleep. Quite funny, imagine, it’s as if I’m walking along this moonbeam ... And so, I would like to know your thoughts on this matter. Where are you going to look for him? Sit down, head of the secret service.’
Aphranius bowed, moved the chair closer to the bed, and sat down, clanking his sword.
‘I am going to look for him not far from the oil press in the garden of Gethsemane.’
‘So, so. And why there, precisely?’
‘As I figure it, Hegemon, Judas was not killed in Yershalaim itself, nor anywhere very far from it, he was killed near Yershalaim.’
‘I regard you as one of the outstanding experts in your business. I don’t know how things are in Rome, but in the colonies you have no equal ... But, explain to me, why are you going to look for him precisely there?’
