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woodenly.
    Malkus entered the sepulcher while the entire
company of men stood transfixed, their eyes fastened on the gaping,
black entrance.
    Malkus reappeared, his face drawn, a look of
surprise, or perhaps anger, was in his eyes. In his hands he held
the bloodstained linen the Jews had used to wrap the body of Jesus.
“The body is gone,” he said in a hushed, trembling voice. Then,
realizing what he had said, he added, “A thief has stolen the body.
Quickly. . .find him before he can escape. He can’t have gone
far.”
    They searched until noon and found
nothing.
    No thief. No body.
    No, they don’t know me at all , thought
Deucalion as he sat in the dusty street gazing at the stars and
remembering. When it was all said and done, he was not so sure he
knew who he had once been. But one thing he did know: the thought
of “fighting for dignity” made him want to laugh. What a
contradiction in terms!
    He broke out into hysterical, wonderful
laughter. “Fighting for dignity, indeed,” he muttered, then laughed
and laughed and laughed.
     
    • • •
     
    In the early morning hours of the first day
of June, Joseph Caiaphas sat quietly and contemplatively in the
Hall of Hewn Stones, the apartment of the national temple, the lishkath haggazith . Somewhere in the darkness outside, a
cock crowed. The High Priest tilted his head and grunted, as if he
had just received a long overdue message from within the depths of
the Holy City.
    Jerusalem, the city whose name meant
“foundation of peace,” had been anything but peaceful for him
lately—especially the past two weeks. He’d been preparing for
tonight’s meeting of the Sanhedrin, the most difficult task of his
long career.
    He’d spent the time since his conversation
with Simon gathering as much information about the man from
Nazareth as was possible. Realizing that there were members of the
council who would like nothing better than to see him disgraced and
removed from office, he was determined to provide a thorough
accounting for his actions.
    To that end he had summoned Helcias, the
keeper of the treasury of the Temple, the one who had given the
informant, Judas, his payment of silver. He swore him to secrecy
and charged him with the task of ferreting out as much reliable and
provable evidence of Jesus’ guilt as was available.
    Much to his surprise, he found that there
were a great many unanswered questions about just who Jesus was,
and not surprisingly, that there were several conflicting accounts
of the circumstances surrounding His birth. One particularly odd
story was that His mother, Mary, had been a virgin.
    Nevertheless, the more information he had
accumulated, the more he became convinced that he had acted
properly. He was also certain now that Pontius Pilate, whom he
detested, had not realized the true extent of the Nazarene’s
influence.
    He sighed heavily, listening to Jerusalem
wake from her slumber.
    Soon, he would find out if he was right.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
     
     
    J une was being kinder
to Pontius Pilate than May had been. And May was most certainly
better than April. In fact, the single worst month of Pilate’s
entire life had been April.
    By the gods what a month , he thought
as he looked out over Jerusalem spread out before him, below and
around was the ostentatious palace Herod the Great had built.
    From where he stood in the tower which Herod
had named after Mark Antony, he could look down upon the Temple. It
was claimed by the Jews to be the greatest and noblest of the
despot’s achievements. Pilate had been told upon his arrival to
Jerusalem that the Jews had a saying about the Temple: “He who has
not seen the Temple of Herod has not seen a beautiful thing.”
    “What unmitigated garbage,” he mumbled.
    Antipas, the only Jew Pilate could bring
himself to associate with on a regular basis, had confessed in one
of his drunken moments that, although it was commonly rumored his
“noble” father had rebuilt the Temple to in order to