Fifth Gospel(7)

A moment earlier the man who wore the silvered breastplate, the greaves and crested helmet of Rome, was sat upon his horse the colour of obsidian, observing the mountain’s rim-rock and the wheeling of the heavenly spheres towards the west.

The god of the sun, Mithras, was soon to awaken from his sleep and the centurion felt two things: an ache behind his eyes and something more – the restless souls of his men. Only a moment of worship, and soon the sun would light a path to their duty.

Only a moment.

Behind him and yet ahead of the others sat his optio Septimus, upon his own fine animal. The young man had brought his horse up and now made a whisper into the air between them, ‘You wait, Cassius?’

The Centurion did not look at his junior for the youth was not an initiate of Mithras and did not understand the moment’s divinity. Instead he stared ahead to where the light worried the shadows.

‘We wait,’ he told him, cold and significant. ‘The stars and planets have been on fire these nights. You see the combination of Gods? It is rarely seen…and now the Sun rises in the sphere of the Virgin.’ He gave the boy a speck of a glance. ‘I am no Magi, but I sense a portent in it!’

Septimus looked to the sky and grumbled happily, ‘Well, I hear Herod too has men watching the skies. It is said men from the east have come to whisper something in his ear that has caused us to have this charge. Why Roman soldiers must dance to that madman’s tune when he has his own dogs snarling at his feet is not reckoned in my mind.’

The centurion looked at the boy full in the eye this time, as he spoke, ‘The Legions of Rome do not dance to Herod’s tune, but to the tune of the Governor of Syria. This day, it seems, he is of the mind to stroke the madness of the Jew king by allaying his fears…and we are his instruments – that is all.’

‘You were born in this place, Cassius,’ the boy said merrily ignoring his vexation. ‘Is it the habit of Jew kings to fear children?’

Gaius Cassius Longinus quelled his vexation, ‘I was not born in Judea, but in Syria…and Herod is not a Jew but half-Jew, half-Idumean.’

The optio shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. ‘And there is a difference?’

The centurion drew in a breath. The boy was ignorant and too big for his skin. ‘It makes him despised,’ he explained to him, ‘and men who are despised look at their children, at their wives and servants, with suspicion and with hate. They fear auguries and portents, conspiracies and wicked designs. The Idumean part of Herod doubts the prophecy – that a child will come to topple him from his throne – but he knows his people believe it, so he must do something.’ He looked again to the horizon, ‘On the other hand the Jew part believes the portent and will not allow him to use his own dogs, but asks the governor for his legionaries – so that it may never be said in future times that Herod killed the Messiah of his people.’

Septimus grinned at these contradictions and Cassius suspected the smile was also for the contradiction that must live in Cassius, who was of both Syrian and Roman blood.

‘Well then,’ Septimus said to him, making light of it, ‘we shall be the butchers of Quintilius Varus if it please him.’

Cassius told him plainly, so that there might be no misunderstanding on the matter, ‘Only because it pleases the Governor.’

The optio’s stare gave way then and he nodded and smiled and nodded again, the very picture of deference. ‘It is as you say.’ But the smile continued to play at his mouth, and there was no respect in it.

Cassius ignored him and his contrivances to concentrate on the sun, edging the mountain. The air was full with the impending thrill of the regal splendour of dawn. This was the moment he longed for, before the first rays, when all of nature lay in a cool green sleep ready to be awakened.

As the fat round orb crept over the rise, these words escaped his lips in a gasp, ‘It is!’

By degrees the sun began to lean its body low over the world then, pouring out one luminous beam after another. Divine and pure, its light entered into Cassius’ soul and he yielded to its force, letting it mingle with the elements astir in his heart, in his organs, his muscles and sinews, his marrow and his blood, so that all of him fell to adoration of the one god, all-powerful and remote: the god that commanded water and fire, air and earth.

Sol Invictus!

The god arced a dagger of luminance, cutting a path over the dying stars, breaking over the back of the mountains, tearing the fabric of the world in half and dividing the shadow from its opposite, good from evil.

All plants and herbs, animals large and small, those that crawled over the earth, and those that swam or flew, all that was contained in an ear of corn, and all that was in the grain of wheat made bread by human hands, all that was from the vine to the cup – all of it was made and unmade for the glory of Mithras!