Chapter 20

The Proconsul was turning toward the door. Aulus, happy over the half-dozen sesterces clinking in his hand, called after him:

‘If you stop in the carriage-court, sir, the kitchen-girls will gladly bring you a bowl of hot broth. Might taste good after your long ride.’

Mencius told him he was going directly to Levi’s Inn and would have his breakfast there…He walked north and halted before the open doors of the noisy Embassy. In the street a score of Roman patrols leaned casually against their long lances, apparently under orders to give no attention to the clamour within the building.

Mencius ascended the steps. The spacious foyer was filled with unpleasantly scented men who apparently had been unable to gain entrance to the courtroom. Mencius joined them. They seemed to be inquisitive spectators rather than partisans, all of them shabbily dressed, probably tramps. The Proconsul wore no distinctive uniform; his credentials were in his pocket; but the loafers inferred from his bearing that he was accustomed to being treated with deference, and made way for him as he moved toward the door into the high-ceilinged auditorium.

The place was full of restless, clamorous civilians who seemed to have little in common but their exasperation over the proceedings of the court. A pompous, distinguished-looking man of fifty, in a black robe, presided; or, more correctly, was seated behind the massive table up in front where the magistrate would naturally be found. This puzzled man, with the frozen grin, was obviously the Tetrarch, and it was equally obvious that the trial had got completely out of hand. The affair had degenerated into a repulsive travesty.

The defendant was seated in a high-armed, tall-backed, throne-like chair, facing the audience, clad in a scarlet robe absurdly inappropriate to the man’s pale, dejected face and slumped posture. A thorn-bush, wound to imitate a crown, had been so roughly forced upon his head that slender streams of blood were coursing his cheeks and spattering the embroidered collar of his royal robe.

It was not difficult to guess what this undignified play-acting was about. The hapless captive was being mocked as a pretender to the throne. But what throne? Mencius could hardly believe his own eyes. Surely this supine young man, with the bearing of a teacher and the long, slim hand of an artist, could have no kingly ambitions. Apparently he had no following. Nobody championed his cause. Whose throne would he attempt to usurp, even if he had ten thousand troops behind him? Caesar’s? Nonsense! Could he have been plotting to supplant Pilate? Ridiculous!

But now the light broke for Mencius! The noisy persecutors who passed before the prisoner, with exaggerated bows of reverence, were satirically hailing him as the King of the Jews! That was it! The young prophet must have identified himself as the ‘Messiah’ who would restore the Kingdom to Israel.

The unhappy Tetrarch appeared now to have had more than enough of the farce. He rose and demanded order. Gradually the racket died down. The crowd seemed expectant of a judicial decision. It was high time, they grumbled.