Chapter 22

After a brief breakfast alone, Mencius left a note for Fulvius, before setting forth to the Insula.

‘I am leaving early,’ he wrote, ‘to attend a trial of peculiar interest in Pilate’s Court, the case of that young Galilean who has had the whole country by the ears and is now indicted for blasphemy, treason, and the Gods only know what else. I must see it. You have the Emperor’s letter in your baggage and I do not wish to disturb you. Keep it locked. I shall probably return within a couple of hours.’

The broad, marble-paved terraces leading to the imposing portico of the Insula were already packed with a scurrying crowd when Mencius arrived. Way was made for him as he advanced to the highest level, where the prosecutors waited impatiently with their haggard prisoner, still arrayed in the scarlet finery that had mocked his phantom kingship last night at the Embassy.

Apparently it was the Procurator’s custom to hold open-air court from the spacious porch, for it seemed to be the focus of interest, although still unoccupied. A huge desk served as the bar of justice; behind it stood a tall, throne-like chair, flanked on either side with orderly rows of less conspicuous seats.

On any ordinary occasion Mencius would have felt free—indeed he would have felt obliged—to enter the Insula and present himself. It would have been no presumption for a Proconsul to express fraternal greetings to a Prefect with the assurance of a cordial welcome. In terms of protocol they were of much the same rating. And should Pontius Pilate learn that Nicator Mencius had attended a session of his court without making himself known, he could consider it a breach of etiquette. But the extraordinary affair confronting the Procurator of Judaea would be sufficiently embarrassing, thought Mencius, without adding any more witnesses to Pilate’s discomfiture than were already available.

He surveyed the group of principals that clustered closely about the captive. There was quite a delegation of scribes, ostentatiously busying themselves with their papyrus rolls—a detestable breed of prigs and snobs wherever you found them, in any country. There was a sprinkling of priests, young ones mostly, none of them distinguished in appearance. Evidently the real prosecutors were represented only by proxies. Perhaps they had conveyed their wishes—and demands—by letter.

Presently a shout went up as the great bronze doors swung open and the impressive procession of dignitaries filed out into the portico, Pilate leading in his official robes, followed by a dozen Legates, Prefects, and other bigwigs. Mencius recognized only a few: there was Julian, who had been his instructor in tactics at the Military Academy in Rome; Julian was getting to be an old man, cropped hair white as a rat, wrinkled face brown as a boot; yes—and there was dapper old Menelaus, Governor of Petra; Mencius had sailed with him once…And of all things—there was Prefect Sergius of Caesarea, though why, in the name of every unpredictable God, Sergius should be in Jerusalem at Passover time, was beyond imagination. Mencius searched the faces for a youngish Legate who might pass for the obstreperous son of Senator Gallio, but couldn’t find anybody with the probable measurements…The court sat. The crowd quieted. Pilate, frowning darkly, puffed his lips as he studied the document which bragged of its importance with a clatter of dangling waxen seals. He pounded on the massive desk and looked down sternly at the prisoner. At length he spoke, in a tone so low that it was obvious he didn’t care whether the crowd heard him or not.