jerusalem by moonlight

Roger Butters

Description

Judea, 30 AD. The Prefect, Pontius Pilate, is trying desperately to maintain control over the most volatile province in the Roman Empire. Terrorists, or freedom fighters, are committed to the overthrow of Roman power by force. The knifemen known as Secarii are abroad on moonlit nights, slaughtering those they perceive as traitors sympathetic to the occupying power. And the Passover approaches: the time when Jewish national and religious feeling is at its height. What is the role of the man from Nazareth called Joshua bar-Josef, who preaches love, forgiveness of sin, and the imminent overthrow of all temporal power? Is he a force for rebellion or moderation?We see the events of this perilous year through the eyes of four people: Simon Zelotes, a disciple of Joshua who believes that the coming Kingdom of Heaven may need a helping hand by violence: Mary of Magdala, a wealthy widow running a refuge for abused women, irrationally convinced that she murdered her vicious husband: Pilate himself, a cold, hard man not without some idea of truth and justice: and the enigmatical figure of the Centurion, a German outsider and religious sceptic, trying to reconcile his duty to Rome with that to the woman he loves, and his own ideas of right and wrong.Though the characters and events of that year are long gone, the results are still playing out to this day.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 12 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781803139869
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

By the Same Author
LOOK ABOUT AND DIE
THE SNOWS OF YESTERYEAR

MURDER IN A CATHEDRAL CITY
MURDER AND THE SCOTTISH PLAY

KIDNAP OF THE KING
MURDER FOR MURDER
THE SUICIDAL SOLICITOR

ALL WIND AND PISTOL
ALL MOUTH AND CODPIECE

THE TROUBLE WITH MERCIA




Copyright © 2022 Roger Butters

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

Historical personages in the book are not fictitious.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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‘Doubt may be an uncomfortable position,
but certainty is a ridiculous one.’
(Voltaire)


Contents
Main Characters

Book I
Caesarea
According to Simon
According to Mary
According to Pilate
According to the Centurion

Book II
Jerusalem
According to Simon
According to Pilate
According to the Centurion

Book III
Palm Sunday
According to Mary
According to Simon
According to Pilate
According to the Centurion

Book IV
The Final Week
According to Mary
According to Pilate
According to Simon
According to the Centurion

Book V
Arrest
According to Mary
According to the Centurion
According to Pilate

Book VI
Crucifixion
According to Pilate
According to Mary
According to the Centurion

Book VII
Aftermath
According to Mary
According to Pilate
According to the Centurion

Glossary
About the Author


Main Characters
(Historical characters are in bold type)

NARRATORS OF THE BOOKS

Simon bar-Cleophas, called Zelotes, disciple of Joshua bar-Josef
Mary of Magdala, a wealthy widow
Quintus Pontius Pilatus, Prefect of Judaea
Tiberius Rotgarius Teutonicus, chief centurion, First Cohort, First Judaean Quingenaria

ROMANS AND THEIR ASSOCIATES

Ursula, Pilate’s wife, a freedwoman
Silvius, his chief scribe
Dio Syrianus, centurion and friend of Teutonicus
Publius Vulpino, lieutenant to Teutonicus
Gnaeus, servant to Teutonicus
Darius, a Greek auxiliary
Regulus, physician to the First Judaean Quingenaria
Dmitrios, a Greek physician
Maximinus, centurion, second Cohort, First Judaean Quingenaria
Sergius and Columbus, members of the Second Cohort

Jews

Joshua bar-Josef, aka Jesus of Nazareth, rabbi and preacher
Levi, called Matthew, tax-collector and disciple of Joshua
Simon, called Peter, Joshua’s favoured disciple
Jacob bar-Zebadiah, another favoured disciple
Johan bar-Zebadiah, his brother
Judas Secarius, a disciple, son of Simon Zelotes
Josef bar-Caiaphas, High Priest, Temple of Herod
Jethro, his deputy
Herod Antipas, Tetrarch (King) of Galilee
Herodias, his wife
Simon of Cyrene, a man from the country
Josef of Arimathaea, an honourable counsellor
Salome, slave to Mary of Magdala, and servant at the Roman camp in Caesarea
Miriam, landlady and mistress of Simon Zelotes
Nathan, a Pharisee, scribe to Herod
Elias bar-Abel, Zealot leader for South Jerusalem
Izaak bar-Lavan, another leading Zealot
Rayshan, captain of Herod’s palace guard
Malachi, an innkeeper of Bethany
Moshe, owner of some Upper Rooms
Aaron bar-Nahum, proprietor of the Fig Tree Inn, Jerusalem


Book I
Caesarea


According to Simon
IT DOES NOT often happen that on the way to an important meeting one comes upon a dead body. Possibly it may occur in Rome on occasion, but never having been there I cannot say. In Caesarea such a thing was all but impossible. Yet it had happened.
The man lay face down on the paving stones at the street corner. He was quite a young man; less, I judged, than thirty years of age, dark of hair and complexion, and in life not ill-favoured. His leathern helmet lay a few feet away, against the foot of the city wall. He had not been wearing it at the time of his death. His right fist was twisted backwards at his hip, as he had tried to draw his sword. For as is well known, Romans wear the gladius hispaniensis at the right side. This man was an auxiliary in full uniform. He had died on duty, and been taken unaware.
Not that I felt sorry. It is over a hundred years since the Roman curse fell on this holy land, and every moment of that time has been an offence against Almighty God. Surely the great Elohim (I dare not write the holy name, to be read by unbelievers and blasphemers) will not permit such a state of affairs to last much longer. The day of the Messiah draws near.
Whilst I may have rejoiced at the death of one of the oppressors of our country, the manner in which it had been achieved was perhaps open to question. Soldiers would assert that killing an enemy in combat is one thing, stabbing him in the back another. And this man had been stabbed in the back, from a point low in the left rib-cage upwards into the heart. He had died within seconds.
There had not been much blood. What there was had mostly run into the cracks between the paving-slabs, where it had congealed amidst the moss and tufts of grass. I could say with confidence that the body had lain here for at least an hour. Early in the spring month of Nisan, half an hour after sunset there was still some twilight left. It was inconceivable that none had noticed it meanwhile.
But that no-one had made it his business to report the matter was unsurprising. Any witness would have been dragged before the Prefect, accused of maiestas and murder, tortured to confession, and as like as not condemned out of hand. So far as Pilate was concerned, the essential thing was to cause fear and consequent obedience throughout the community. Convicting the right man was comparatively unimportant.
It occurred to me that such a risk applied equally to me. And my status as an Essene would tell against me further. I could hear footsteps and voices approaching. After an apprehensive glance around I turned away and, in the words of our Lord in his parable of the Samaritan, passed by on the other side.

*

THE IMPORTANT meeting I had was with my son, young Judas. I must concede from the outset that I have never felt towards Judas as a man should towards his only son. Things might have been different had his mother not died bringing him into the world. At the time I was guilty of wishing that he had died instead. And though I have tried to disguise it, I fear this may have coloured my attitude toward him ever since.
I tell myself that it may not be too late to rectify matters. He is but twenty years of age, and still in some ways immature, preferring words, and pretentious words at that, to action, much in the manner of students everywhere. Even as a student he had disappointed me, giving up his studies with the Pharisees to hover on the fringe of radical groups such as the Zealots. Were he truly committed to the Zealot cause, as I am myself, it would be a different matter, but I fear he lacks the stomach for it.
Sitting in a corner of the Fiveways Tavern, we must have made a curiously contrasting couple. A slim young fellow, in a w