Page 30 of Unveiled Tamar’s Story (Mysteries & Wonders of the Bible #1)
“Lies.”
The glance Pilate sent to Caiaphas was condescending enough to deserve the fury sparking in the priest’s eyes. “So your theory about what happened this morning is…?”
Caiaphas jerked up his chin. “Your men fell asleep. The Teacher’s disciples snuck in and stole away the body.”
Another lazy, provocative blink from the governor.
“My men fell asleep? Are you aware this is a crime punishable by death in the Roman legion, and hence a crime so rare we only have to prosecute it once every several years? Yet you claim this crime was committed by not just one of my well-trained soldiers but by all three of them. And not only did they doze off, they slept so soundly that these disciples were able to roll away that enormous stone without waking them and then to carry a body past them?”
Caiaphas’s jaw ticked, he clenched his teeth so tightly. He nodded.
Pilate smirked. “That, my friend, is a far more preposterous theory than stories of angels and the dead rising. You are clearly not well acquainted with the training of a Roman legionary.”
Valerius had to press his lips against a smile. Leave it to Pontius to somehow acknowledge that God could work such wonders but insist in the same breath that the miracle was less impressive than Roman military might.
Pilate waved his fingers in a dismissal that had the priest’s face flushing redder still.
“I cannot stop you from spreading this interpretation among your people, but I will not participate in the lie and thereby sentence three good men, three excellent soldiers, to death. I take them at their word.”
Caiaphas surged forward a step. “My lord, you must report their crime! If you do not, then this dangerous deception will spread far and wide!”
Pontius motioned at the guards standing against the walls. “You had better get to work making your story more believable then, hadn’t you? Do show yourself out, Caiaphas. Unless you would prefer an escort.”
His eyes flashing between the governor and soldiers striding toward him, Caiaphas straightened his spine, nodded once in something that was certainly not acquiescence, and spun on his heel.
Only once Caiaphas had left the court did Pilate straighten again and turn to Valerius, motioning him forward. His face shifted from an expression meant to annoy the priest to one that could only be called worry.
Valerius took a knee beside the governor’s chair so that his head was closer to Pilate’s. “Yes, my lord?”
Pilate leaned close. “This is a dangerous tale you claim—and a dangerous counter tale Caiaphas has devised. I meant what I said, that I will not accept a report that all three of you fell asleep. But be honest with me, Valerius. How did this happen?”
Valerius met Pilate’s gaze. “Exactly as I said, my lord. A strange paralysis fell upon us all that we can only attribute to the hand of God. None of us could move. We were like dead men, except that we could move our eyes and breathe.”
Pilate’s eyes went unfocused. “I do not understand this God of the Jews. But it seems He isn’t to be trifled with.
I do not want to be guilty of angering Him any more than I already have done.
” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Claudia will be relieved at this report. Relieved to know that my inability to stop His death was, somehow, not irreversible.”
“Mariana will be relieved as well.”
His wife’s name made Pilate sit upright again.
“Of course. You will want to get home to her and tell her the news. Dismiss your men to their rest and find your own. I will send a message directly to your commander, alerting him to these accusations but assuring him I have examined you all and found you to be without deception or fault.”
“Thank you, Governor.” Valerius didn’t think that his commander would doubt his word, even given how difficult a story it was to believe.
Pilate wasn’t wrong. It was inconceivable to think all three of them would have fallen into such a deep sleep.
Such things simply didn’t happen. Even so, having the governor’s official backing could only help the report be accepted.
“I have known you many years, Valerius. What I said to the priest was the truth. You are a man of honesty and conviction, with nothing to gain by this story and everything to lose. But I know you to be clever too. If you were going to lie, you would have come up with a more convincing one. You would have claimed to have been overwhelmed by a larger force, you would have knocked each other over the head to fabricate evidence of it. No one in his right mind would claim such an act of God unless it was true.”
At Pilate’s wave of instruction, Valerius stood again.
He had to wonder whether another governor would have believed him so readily.
One who didn’t know him so well, one whose wife hadn’t become so fond of his own.
But then, a God who positioned each star just so in the heavens could also position men where He wanted them.
This particular governor for this moment in Judea’s history. This particular centurion to be guarding His Son’s tomb. What a humbling and heady thing it was, all at once, to be a tool in the hand of the Master Creator. To be part of a story so miraculous.
They said their farewells, and a moment later he was leading his men out of the palace and saying goodbye to them at the barracks.
He didn’t know what story they would tell their ninety-eight comrades, or if they would say anything at all about what they witnessed that morning.
But they would know that they could speak to him about it any time they needed to.
They had already arranged a time in a few days when they would join his family for dinner to learn more about God and Jesus.
For his own part, he hastened home, greeting the young doorkeeper with a nod and a smile but not pausing for conversation as he usually did.
Mariana ought to be waking now. The children likely had been up for an hour or more already, given their breakfast by their nurse and taken up to the roof to enjoy playing in the cool of the morning.
They would make their way down once they spotted him, and he would take them in his arms with that surge of love he’d been so surprised to find he could feel, the first time he’d held Livia.
But he would have a few moments alone with Mariana first, and he would relish those too.
He found her in her outer chamber, still bleary-eyed from sleep but dressed for the day, a cup of steaming chamomile tea in her hand. She rose when he entered, sliding the cup onto a table and holding out her arms.
He walked into them, closed his around her, and held her tight against his chest. Her hair smelled of flowers, and her arms felt of comfort. He buried his nose in her hair and whispered, “He lives, beloved. He lives. Even death could not defeat our Lord.”