The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

of the Covenant and even the tabernacle itself. The various branches of Hebrews also are in accord in their belief that the freshwater well near Shechem, still famous for its health-giving properties today, was dug by their ancestor Jacob, and that upon arriving in this land he built his first altar at that spot.

It has also long been believed among Hebrews of all persuasions that these sacred relics would come to light at the dawn of the millennium following Moses, which they reckon by their calendar is very close. So last month, after a Samaritan prophet foretold that the objects would surface just at the time of the autumn equinox, a crowd of four thousand gathered and made toward the mountain.

Hearing of this, Pontius Pilate called up a garrison of Roman soldiers stationed at nearby Caesarea, and had them disguise themselves as pilgrims and go to the pilgrimage site. When the pilgrims began their ascent of the sacred mountain, by Pilate’s order the soldiers cut many down. Others, especially the wealthy and prominent among them, were afterwards taken hostage and carried off to Caesarea, where they were interrogated regarding the motive of the pilgrimage, and then summarily executed, also at Pilate’s command.

When questioned by this tribunal, Pilate maintained he was trying to prevent civil disturbance, having learned beforehand that many of the pilgrims would be carrying arms. But as Samaritans and others customarily go armed against the brigandry rife in the region, and as many of those massacred at Gerizim were unarmed women and children, this explanation was deemed unsatisfactory. The prefect has been remanded into confinement at Antioch pending further action.

The inquisitors of this tribunal were in agreement, based on accounts by Roman soldiers present during the interrogations of captured Samaritans, that the prefect Pilate’s real interest was to learn where the aforementioned objects of Hebrew lore might be buried. In view of this possibility, we ordered an auxiliary phalanx of the third legion into the region to search Mount Gerizim. Their report states they found numerous spots on the mountain where earth had been freshly turned. Since the pilgrims had not yet begun their ascent when they were set upon by Roman troops, clearly this work had been done by others, perhaps under order of Pilate himself. But the ancient, sacred relics were not found.

Rome: Spring, A.D. 37

THE VIPER

I am nursing a viper for the Roman people

,

and a Phaeton for the whole world

.

—Tiberius, speaking of Gaius

Let them hate me, so long as they fear me

.

—Gaius “Caligula”

“What fascinating little surprises life springs upon us, just when we least expect them!” the emperor Gaius remarked, with seeming pleasantry, to his uncle Claudius.

They were strolling arm in arm across the Field of Mars and along the Tiber toward the mausoleum of Augustus, its half-completed temple to Augustus the God left unfinished at Tiberius’s death. Gaius smiled to himself as if at a private joke. Deeply inhaling the scent of fresh spring grass, he went on:

“To think that only a month ago I was still regarded as ‘little Caligula’—Bootsie—‘born in a boot,’ raised by my father like a camp follower among soldiers,” he said. “And that at eighteen I was just another of those dancing-boys Grandpa kept for pleasure along with his harem on that dreadful rock of Capreae. Yet look at me today—at twenty-four I’m ruler of the whole vast Roman Empire! Wouldn’t Mother be proud?” Then his face suddenly clouded black with rage, and he snapped viciously, “If only she’d been permitted to live long enough to see it!”

Given the imperial family’s history, Claudius was hardly startled by this swift and violent mood change. He patted his nephew gently on the arm as they walked. Like the young emperor, whom everyone still fondly called Caligula, Claudius had spent his life wondering which of them, including himself, would be murdered next, and what other family member might be the one to arrange it.

It was widely rumored, for instance, that before Tiberius succeeded to the throne he’d murdered Germanicus—Caligula’s father and the brother of Claudius—in order to prevent Germanicus, as Tiberius’s legally adopted son who was favored by Augustus, from inheriting in his place. But that was the last family member whose cause of death remained merely a rumor—including Caligula’s own two brothers and his mother Agrippina, whom Tiberius had openly ordered to be exiled, beaten, and starved to death.

“Naturally, I’ll be suspected by some of complicity,” Caligula added, referring to the death of his adoptive grandfather. “It’s true I was there when Tiberius stopped at the country house in Misenum. I was there that night when he suddenly died. It was a case of indigestion following three days of banqueting along the road. But I admit it does look suspiciously like poison—and heaven knows I had as much motive as anyone to do the old goat in. After all, the man arranged the slaughter of nearly everyone he ever dined with.”

“Well, if that’s the case, and they all believe you did it,” said Claudius with a twinkle, “I wonder what wonderful awards the senate and citizens of Rome are planning to heap on you? Did you know, during your inaugural festivities there were mobs in the streets crying ‘To the Tiber with Tiberius’? Just like the good old days of Sejanus—what goes up must also come down.”

“Don’t say that!” cried Caligula. Pulling his arm away, he looked at Claudius with eyes strangely devoid of human expression. Then, with a smile that sent chills up Claudius’s spine, he said, “Did you know that I fuck my sister?”

Claudius was completely dumbstruck. Caligula had been known to have fits as a child, falling on the ground and frothing at the mouth, a symptom common to the Caesars. But now, as he stood there in the fresh air on the bright green lawn of the Field of Mars beneath the brilliant blue sky on this seemingly normal spring day, Claudius realized that this was no ordinary madness. He knew he must make