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learned to value his interesting set of skills. When he was given a task, however, he stayed out of the wineshops until it was finished.
    Caleb explained the difficulties to Matthias and gave him his orders: “Bring Judah bar Isaac to Sepphoris and put him in the lower prison. I want him to have no idea where he has come to, or why.”
    To Uriah, his faithful servant and master of the lower prison, he also gave instructions.
    â€œYou will receive a new charge. You are not to molest him or injure him in any way. Yet it is necessary that he learns to fear you. Can you accomplish that?”
    Uriah’s answer was a grin of pleasure.
    In less than a week Matthias could report that Judah bar Isaac was safely installed in his cell.
    â€œHow did you do it?” Caleb inquired—not because he cared but because he knew the value of giving subordinates a chance to describe their accomplishments.
    But if Matthias took any pride in his work it did not show. His face was as impassive as if it were made of iron. Only his eyes betrayed him, for in them there was a hint of something like anguish.
    â€œHe had a favorite whore. I bribed her to drug his wine. He slept all the way here.”
    â€œAnd you are sure the whore won’t speak of this?”
    â€œThe whore is dead.”
    â€œI compliment you on your thoroughness, Matthias.” Caleb opened a box on his desk and took out a small pouch containing a small number of silver coins. “Here. Tavern money.”
    He tossed the pouch to Matthias, who snatched it out of the air—nothing moved except his hand, which might have been plucking a grape from an arbor.
    â€œThank you, Lord,” Matthias said, without emphasis. His gaze was directed at nothing in particular and his face was an unreadable mask.
    *   *   *
    Caleb had heard everything that Uriah had to tell him about the new prisoner, who had been in his care for two weeks now. Judah was probably ready for their first conversation.
    What had it been like for him? What had he thought that first day, waking up, naked and in chains on the stone floor of a foul-smelling cell, the only light a faint gray patch coming in under the bottom of the door? Probably that this was a jest arranged by his friends.
    Then gradually he would have realized the truth: that he had no idea who held him, or where, or why. But, whatever the reason, it was not a jest.
    Of course he had begun shouting—then screaming. Uriah had come in and, one way or another, made him understand that he was to remain silent. Probably only then had he begun to know real fear.
    After the first day, there had been no more shouting. During the first four days, there were fits of sobbing, but even these had subsided. Once a day Uriah came into the cell to bring food and take away the slop bucket. He never spoke. Sometimes the prisoner asked him questions, which Uriah ignored. Lately the prisoner had begun making remarks. He clearly did not expect any answer. He seemed merely to be amusing himself.
    Good, Caleb thought. Fear was beginning to subside. The mind possessed a wonderful capacity to adjust itself to anything.
    And the mind was what mattered. Any man could be broken by torture—well, perhaps not any man; the Baptist stood in Caleb’s experience as the one exception—but no matter how complete the surrender, its effects were not lasting. The point was to attack not the body but the mind. There was no shortage of prisoners in the dungeons of Sepphoris. For years Caleb had been trying out on them the effects of prolonged anxiety, arbitrary punishments and rewards, and the fear of abandonment that lurks in the dark corners of every human soul, and he had come to believe that these provided the keys to true mastery.
    If he could have had five months with John, perhaps the story might have had a different ending.
    â€œI will instruct the guards in the upper prison to bring one of their charges down to