“By all the gods, Cornelius!” Longinus, who had been sprawled in his chair with his feet propped on the low rampart, sat up with a start. “What do you mean?”

Cornelius held up his hand. “Now wait,” he said calmly. “There’s nothing to be alarmed about. You won’t need to report to Sejanus about the carpenter. But since I saw you last he has gained a great following, even among some of the more influential people. You remember that beautiful woman Herod took with him to Jerusalem, the one called Mary of Magdala?”

“Who could forget her?”

“I agree. Well, she’s a disciple of the carpenter now, and a different woman, they say; she’s forsworn the Tetrarch’s bedchamber.”

“Maybe”—Longinus grinned—“that’s because Herodias has moved in.”

“Could be; I don’t know. But the report is that she’s given up all her amatory pursuits in order to follow him. All up and down the seaside, in fact, the people are swarming to hear him and beseech his help.”

“But insurrection, Cornelius....”

“Oh, it isn’t that, Longinus. The Galilean isn’t concerned with the government, as I understand his teachings, though I’ve seen little of him myself; I get my information from some of the Jews in the synagogue at Capernaum”—he smiled—“who secretly, I suspect, are followers of the man, though many others among the Jews are hostile. I think he wants to change people as individuals, not their governments; he wants to help them. I’m sure he’s never given any thought to fomenting rebellion against Rome.”

Longinus relaxed and sat back. “Then he’s just another of these religious fanatics, isn’t he? Well, I’m relieved to hear that, though Palestine seems to have more than its share of these charlatans.”

“Charlatan? I wouldn’t say that. Let me tell you a story, and then you can deduce what you wish. It happened only a few weeks ago. When you see Chuza, Herod’s steward....”

“I saw him today.”

“When you see him again, ask him to tell you what happened to his son. Everybody in this part of the country has heard about it; the news swept through Galilee like flames across a parched grassland.”

“Well, by the gods, Cornelius, what did happen?”

“Chuza’s young son had come down with a fever. In this low country along the lakeside, you know, fevers are pretty common, but they’re not often dangerous. So Chuza and Joanna—she’s his wife—weren’t alarmed at first. But when days passed and the boy didn’t improve—in fact, his condition grew worse—they became concerned. One physician after another was called in, and they exhausted all the treatments they knew how to give. But the child was failing fast, and Chuza and Joanna were frantic; it looked as though their son wouldn’t live much longer. The fever was consuming him. What could they do? Where could they get help?

“It happened that on the last day, when it appeared that the boy was about to die, a Jewish fisherman who had occasionally been supplying the palace came to Chuza. He and his brother and two other brothers with whom he frequently fished had made a heavy catch, and this Simon had come to inquire if Chuza would buy a mess for the Tetrarch’s household.

“But a servant came to the door and told him his master could not discuss business; the steward’s son, he explained, was dying.

“‘In that case, I must see him,’ the fisherman said to the servant. ‘I can tell him how his son’s life may be saved.’

“But the servant told him that the physicians had despaired of saving the child and that the parents were momentarily awaiting his death. He ordered Simon to leave.

“The fisherman, a headstrong fellow, insisted, however, on being shown into the chamberlain’s presence, and the argument grew so loud that Chuza heard and came out to discover what was taking place. The fisherman Simon then told the Tetrarch’s steward of the Galilean carpenter’s amazing ability to effect miraculous cures, and he suggested that a servant be sent on horseback to find this young man, whom Simon referred to as ‘the Master.’ ‘And when the servant finds him,’ he said ‘have him bring the Master here, and he will heal your son.’

“Of course Chuza protested,” Cornelius continued, “that skilled physicians had been unable to cure the child. ‘Only try the Master,’ Simon then implored him. ‘Only have faith in him and ask him to heal your son, and he will heal him.’

“And suddenly the thought came to Chuza that surely he had nothing to lose by seeking out the Galilean mystic. The child was already on the verge of death; certainly this Jesus ben Joseph, whatever he might do, wouldn’t further endanger the boy’s life. So he asked Simon where his master might be found and whether he would come at once to his son’s bedside.

“The Galilean was visiting friends at Cana, a village a few miles west of the little sea. And Simon assured Chuza that he would come.

“So Chuza decided to seek the carpenter’s aid. But he sent no servant for him. Instead, he had three horses saddled, one for Simon, one for himself, and one for this Jesus ben Joseph.

“‘As we rode westward toward Cana,’ Chuza told me, ‘I felt a growing hope that the strange Galilean might really be able to restore my son to health, and I was possessed by an overpowering urge to find the man. Soon Simon and I were racing along the dusty road. When we reached Cana and found the house, we discovered this Jesus seated with his friends at the noonday meal.’”

Cornelius got up from his chair, sat down again on the rampart, and looked out toward a small fleet of fishing boats coming in to shore with the day’s catch.

“By the gods,” Longinus asked, “what happened then? Go on; it’s a good story.”

“When he looked into the understanding eyes of the young man from Nazareth, Chuza told me, a strange warmth, not physical warmth from the hard riding but a sense of eased tension, of peace, perhaps, something he said he couldn’t describe to me and didn’t entirely understand himself, took possession of him. He knew then, he was utterly certain, he said, that the young man smiling at him had the power to heal his son, if he could but get him to Tiberias in time!”

Once more Cornelius paused in his recital to study a fishing boat unloading a heavy catch. Then he resumed the narrative.

“Chuza said he didn’t remember what he said to the man, except that he blurted out his plea for help and begged the stranger to return with him to the boy’s bedside. He and his wife loved their son so much, he pleaded, and the little fellow was dying. If only the carpenter would intervene to save him, he knew the child’s life would be spared.

“Then,” Cornelius went on, “the Nazareth carpenter said a strange thing. He turned his intent, kindly gaze from Chuza to glance at those at the table with him. ‘Always you must have signs and wonders,’ he said. ‘Can’t you believe without actually seeing these things done before your eyes?’

“Chuza didn’t understand the man’s words, but he didn’t try to find out what they meant. His son was dying, his need was desperate. Once more he begged the carpenter for his help. ‘O, sir, my boy is dying,’ he pleaded; ‘he won’t last out the day unless you go to him. Won’t you leave with us now, sir, and restore him?’”

Cornelius paused again. Longinus, his forehead creased in heavy concentration, seemed absorbed in the doings of several fishermen down at the water’s edge as they struggled with a heavy net. But he turned quickly to confront his friend. “Pluto blast you, Cornelius! Why do you keep stopping? Did the carpenter return with him or didn’t he?”

“No, he didn’t. He laid his hand on Chuza’s shoulder. ‘Return to your son,’ he said. ‘The fever has left him. He has been restored.’”

“And I suppose when Chuza and the fisherman got back, they found that the boy’s fever had actually broken?”

“Yes, he was fully recovered. And when Chuza asked Joanna what time it was when the fever broke, she said it was the seventh hour, which was exactly when the carpenter had told Chuza that the boy had been restored.” Cornelius smiled and stood up. “That’s the story, Centurion ... Chuza’s story, not mine. What do you make of it?”

“A good story, and ably told by you. I’d call it an entertaining account of a remarkable coincidence.”

“Only a coincidence?”

“What else could it be? Surely you don’t believe that this carpenter fellow, without even going to the sick boy, drove out the fever? You know that fever victims either get well or die and that once the fever reaches a certain point, it goes one way or the other; it’s either death or a very rapid recovery, and the odds are about the same.” He shrugged his shoulders. “After hearing Chuza’s story the carpenter probably calculated it was time for the fever to break, and he simply gambled on the outcome.” Then he was suddenly serious, his eyes questioning. “Cornelius, don’t tell me you believe the carpenter actually cured the boy?”

“I don’t know, Longinus. But I’ll say this: I don’t disbelieve it. And I do know that the boy is alive and well today.” Cornelius stood up and stretched. “After all, to Chuza and Joanna that’s the important thing. When you see Chuza, you might ask him what he thinks of the Galilean.”

“If that carpenter did cure the boy in the manner you described, Cornelius, then he’s bound to be a god. And would a carpenter be a god, and a Galilean carpenter, at that? To me the whole idea is preposterous. But I’m just a Roman soldier; I haven’t been exposed, like you, to these eastern workers of magic.”

“This Jesus is no magician. In fact, he seems reluctant to perform these—what did he call them—‘signs and wonders.’ But the sick and the crippled continually besiege him to heal them, and his sympathies for the unfortunate appear to be boundless.” Cornelius sat down again on the parapet. “Tell me, do you remember that day we were sailing down the Tiber, standing at the ‘Palmyra’s’ rail talking about the various gods, and you said that you could never comprehend a spirit god, something that was nothing, you said, a being without a body?”

“Yes, and I still feel that way.”

“But what about a god that does have a body, a god-man? If a god should have a physical body and be in every physical respect like a man, would that make sense to you? Could you comprehend such a god?”

“By Jove, Cornelius, you’ve been out here with these Jews for much too long. You’ve been listening to too much prattle about their Yahweh. A god without a body, a body that houses a god. Bah! I put no credence in any of these notions. As for that carpenter, I’d say he’s another Wilderness preacher, not as fanatical perhaps, not as desert-parched and smelling of dried sweat as John, but certainly no god—whatever a god is, if there is such a thing, which I most seriously doubt. A carpenter from Nazareth, that hillside cluster of huts! Cornelius, I’ve been to Nazareth, as I’m sure you have. I ask you, would a god choose Nazareth to come from?” He stood up. “Nevertheless, the story you told was entertaining. Maybe to some it would be convincing. To me, though....” He shook his head slowly. Then suddenly a wide grin lighted his grim countenance. “How is it that you and I inevitably get around sooner or later to a discussion of the gods? And where do we invariably end? Nowhere. Talk, that’s all. And talk is all it can ever be, isn’t it? It’s all too nebulous, intangible....”

“But, Longinus, if this all-powerful, all-wise, all-good god that old Pheidias envisioned, this supreme one god, in order to communicate with his earthly creatures”—Cornelius held up his hand to stop Longinus, who had been about to interrupt—“should decide to take the form of a man, an ordinary man....”

“By all the small and great gods,” Longinus did interrupt, “do you think then that he would choose to be a carpenter from Nazareth?”

Cornelius stared at the fishing boats, now pulled up on the beach; the lengthening shadows had already begun to obscure them. “I wonder,” he said.