Holy Smoke Read online

  Holy Smoke

  A Jerusalem Mystery

  Frederick Ramsay

  www.FrederickRamsay.com

  Poisoned Pen Press

  Copyright © 2013 by Frederick Ramsay

  First E-book Edition 2013

  ISBN: 9781615954285 ebook

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.

  Poisoned Pen Press

  6962 E. First Ave., Ste. 103

  Scottsdale, AZ 85251

  www.poisonedpenpress.com

  [email protected]

  Contents

  Holy Smoke

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  Gamaliel’s World

  Floorplan

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XXXIX

  Chapter XL

  Chapter XLI

  Chapter XLII

  Chapter XLIII

  Chapter XLIV

  Chapter XLV

  Chapter XLVI

  Chapter LVII

  Chapter XLVIII

  Chapter XLIX

  Chapter L

  Notes

  More from this Author

  Contact Us

  Dedication

  To: Kerri Sandusky

  When Susan sailed through seminary,

  you were the keel on her ship.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, a shout-out to the folks at Poisoned Pen Press. I won’t list them by name. I attempted to do that in the past and invariably left someone off the list. It’s enough to say, modesty aside, that they consistently publish the finest mysteries here and abroad. They do that because of their abundant enthusiasm, and professionalism, and because they really love what they do. Those of us who have the privilege to write for the Press can never thank them enough. So, to the gang over on Goldwater Boulevard and also to Loretta Warner, many thanks.

  Holy Smoke is the second in a trilogy set in first-century Jerusalem. The action in the first in the series, The Eighth Veil, took place in Herod’s palace. Holy Smoke is set in the Temple. I have appended a few notes at the end of the book which I hope will help readers make their way through the vagaries of that time and place and connect them with a few of its major players. Some of the words used in the text are transliterated Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. Most particularly Ha Shem, The Name; kohen, kohanim, priest, priests; Elohim, The Lord. I have italicized them even though many have made it into the English lexicon. I have done so to emphasize them and the place they held in the thought processes of the time. For the same reason I capitalized Law, when it refers to Torah, and Temple, the heart of the city and its peoples’ faith.

  Enjoy.

  Whoever did not see Jerusalem in its days of glory,

  never saw a beautiful city in their life.

  —Talmud: Succah 51b

  Map

  Gamaliel’s World

  Assyria: A Semitic kingdom on the Upper Tigris; today, northern Iraq

  Bithnyia: Bithnyia/Pontus, a Roman province lying along the south coast of the Black Sea; today, Turkey

  Cappadocia: a Roman province in Central Anatolia, capital Caesarea; today, Turkey (Kayseri)

  Egypt: still Egypt

  Khorasan: a country that straddled the trade routes into India and present-day China; today, Afghanistan

  Macedonia: a kingdom on the northeast of the Greek Peninsula that rose to great power under Philip II and Alexander; today, the Republic of Macedonia

  Judea: a Roman province; today, Israel

  Parthia: a political power in Persia; today, northeast Iran. Note: Gamaliel has trouble distinguishing between Assyria and Parthia

  Floorplan

  Jerusalem, 29 C.E.

  A= Holy of Holies

  B = The Holy Place

  C = Altar of Sacrifice

  D =Laver (water basin)

  E= Lepers

  F= Wood

  G = Oil

  H = Nazarenes

  I = Incense Altar

  J = Nicanor Gate

  K = Beautiful Gate

  Herod’s Temple

  This diagram represents what scholars suppose the Temple might have looked like in the early first century. It is offered here to help the reader visualize the relative locations of the places mentioned in the narrative. The thin vertical line between A and B is the Veil, a curtain the thickness of which has been the subject of debate. Some affirm it had to be thick and heavy, other insist it was a single layer of fabric. No one knows for sure. The four rooms at the right, frequently called the Treasury, were designated for their use, either to store material or deal with a particular issue common to the time.

  The Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, and nothing was built on the site until the seventh century, when Muslim Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik restored the city’s walls and the mount, and built the structure commonly known as The Dome of the Rock.

  Chapter I

  Because his cadre of kohanim had drawn this particular week to perform the priestly functions, Josef ben Josef would be the one to discover the body. Had he remained by the Altar of Sacrifice where he’d been assigned, had his curiosity not willed his feet across the porch and into the Holy Place, had he not paused and looked at the Great Veil, he might not have been the one to raise the alarm and cause the high priest’s face to turn as red as Moses. Also, he would not have lost his place on the roster of kohanim and ended his days in Bethlehem herding goats and sheep instead of remaining a priest in the service of Ha Shem. He had one glorious moment as a priest in the city of David, in the Temple, and then—finished.

  There could be no doubt about the body, although it had yet to be brought into view. A heavy cord of elaborate construction snaked out from under the Veil and, indeed, provided the only evidence of its existence, but what else could be attached to its other end? Josef’s cries of alarm at the edges of the Holy of Holies brought his colleagues scurrying into the most sacred area of Herod’s Temple. The steps of Nicanor Gate, which lead
from the Court of the Priests into the Holy Place, the antechamber to the Holy of Holies, seemed to be as far as they dared go. There they gathered, wailed, and seemed incapable of moving one way or the other. Instead, they stood like the pillars of salt one sees down by the Great Salt Sea, like Lot’s wife. Even after being joined by the high priest, Caiaphas himself, they remained inert, in a state of fearful confusion. That is until the rabban of the Sanhedrin arrived. His presence seemed to restore a small measure of order and calm. He paused, seeming to measure the mood of the moment, studied Josef, the other five priests, the high priest, and then asked for an explanation. Josef stammered his story as best he could.

  “Has anyone determined with certainty that there is, in fact, a body attached to the end of this cord? Pulled on it, perhaps?” the Rabban asked. The men glanced at one another and shuffled their feet, embarrassed. “No? Then doesn’t it seem reasonable to do so?”

  The kohanim turned to the high priest for confirmation. Holy Writ did not prescribe the lashing of a cord to the ankle of anyone entering the Holy of Holies, although there had been talk about it for years and many assumed it was part of Temple protocol. In any case, there could be no accompanying instructions as what one was to do if the worst actually happened, that is if some unclean person did, in fact, dare to enter the Holy of Holies, approach the Name-That-May-Not-Be-Spoken, and been struck down for his impiety.

  The high priest put his fists against his ears, clenched his teeth, and growled something in Aramaic that Josef did not catch. The rabban, on the other hand, had a half smile on his face that he did not attempt to hide. Did this most honorable man find this awful situation amusing? Perhaps his enjoyment derived from the high priest’s discomfort. Josef had heard talk. He had not paid it any mind at the time, but now he wished he had.

  “High Priest,” the Rabban said, “you will have to bring this dead person to light sooner or later. Let’s have it done now.”

  The high priest nodded. There were no precedents for this. How could there be?

  “And let us hope that it is, indeed, a man at the end of that rope and not one of your sacrificial animals gone astray.”

  An animal from the pens that held the bulls and rams: was that even possible? Again, it seemed to Josef that the rabban took some perverse pleasure in the high priest’s discomfort.

  “Or perhaps this is some pagan’s idea of sacrilege and he turned swine loose in there.”

  The image of a dead pig lying behind the Veil with the other end of the cord tied to its leg caused Josef’s stomach to turn over. He swallowed the vomit that formed in his throat. It would not do to add to the desecration by being sick, not now. He took a deep breath and forced the blasphemous image from his mind. The rabban, he saw, stood with his head cocked to one side, apparently waiting on the high priest. Time ground to a halt. Whatever lurked behind the Veil was too appalling for any of them to contemplate. But contemplate it they must.

  “Impossible, Rabban. What a thought!” Finally, it seemed, the high priest had found his voice. Turning to the priests he added, “All of you will go to the Laver and wash. Sacrifice an unspotted ram and dip your hands in its blood and sprinkle it on your tunic. You must pray the prayer of consecration as you do so. When you have done all these things assemble in the Holy Place and await my direction. You, Nathan, you climb into the observation room. It is early, but there may be enough light for you to see what lies at the end of this cord.”

  The priests hurried off to do as they had been directed. Surely Caiaphas would know what needed to be done. Had he not served as high priest longer than anyone in memory—recent memory at least? He had. Josef refused to listen to the talk in the streets of his corruption and political maneuvering. Caiaphas stood last in the line of Aaron, the one man closest to the Lord. Even Gamaliel, the rabban, did not sit so close as that.

  Josef rushed to catch up with his co-workers and begin the rite of purification the high priest decreed.

  Chapter II

  Gamaliel served the Sanhedrin as its rabban, the rabbi’s rabbi, so to speak, the final arbiter of what was, and what was not, an acceptable interpretation of the Law. In addition, and more to his liking, he trained young men in the art of disputation and reading the same Law. Because of those two undertakings, he found himself frequently in the company of the high priest. The two of them did not always agree on the nature and enforcement of the Law and were frequently at odds both publicly and, more often, privately. Even so, he would never have anticipated that he would spend the next several days dealing with the consequences of a corpse in the Temple.

  On awakening that morning at his usual early hour, he felt wearier than when he’d retired. He blamed Caiaphas for that. They had passed the previous night in disputation. Would the high priest never let the issue of the marginally heretical rabbis go? It seemed obvious to Gamaliel that proper instruction in the righteous interpretation of the Word by those capable of doing so should be sufficient to counter any of the eccentric interpretations being offered by the Nation’s wandering band of self-proclaimed rabbis, prophets, and would be messiahs.

  Gamaliel told the high priest that when he found the time, he made a practice of drifting along the edges of the crowds gathered around these well intentioned, but ignorant, teachers and almost without exception believed there could be no dangerous outcome stemming from any of their teaching. That is, with the possible exception of the tall one from Nazareth. Yeshua, he was called. That one had a very different view of the Nation, the Lord, and the Law.

  “That man seems to prefer teaching by telling stories or asking questions,” he’d said to Caiaphas.

  “He’s Greek? He’s studied Aesop or Socrates?”

  “I rather doubt it.”

  He did not add that after listening to him, Gamaliel had decided that with some formal training and a firm hand to guide him, this Yeshua might someday make a good teacher of the Law. At the same time he wondered whether the Galilean might have spent some time with the teachers from Persia or Parthia, which if true, could slow that process down. Gamaliel didn’t know a great deal about the tenets held by the worshipers of Mazda, the Zoroastrians, and had only heard of the Avesta. His most immediate experience had come at the hands of a bullying Roman Tribune who’d hawked Mithras as the one true way, not Gamaliel’s “angry god.” Gamaliel harbored some doubts about the connection between the Mithras the Roman worshipped, who seemed pretty punishing himself, and the Mithras the Parthians held to. What little he did know of their odd monotheistic sect persuaded him that on the whole it was not a bad thing to discuss so long as the declaiming rabbi eventually turned his listeners back to see Judaism as the final and perfected Way. If this Yeshua harbored any notions in that direction, he would doubtless understand that important distinction.

  In any event, Gamaliel had needed every bit of his reserve of patience. Someday, he thought, he would end up in a shouting match with the high priest—the sort that when it involved younger men, often led to blows. Gamaliel would never resort to violence, of course. He was reputed to be the calmest of men. Still, there were times when disputing with Caiaphas pushed him close to the brink.

  So, on rising after his restless night and still agitated by the high priest’s argumentative nature, he’d dismissed his students as they’d arrived and headed for the Temple. Merely standing near the Presence had a calming effect on him. And thus it was that on this soon to be historic morning, he strode through the crooked streets of the Lower City alternately assaulted by the chattering voices of men and women sharing the day’s ration of gossip, and the pungent aroma of spices, roasting meat, and excited humanity. It was only when he had mounted the steps to the Temple Mount that he stopped short, perplexed. Something was missing. He paused to stare upwards at the Temple walls. No smoke rose from burning sacrifices, no Shofars sounded to mark their procession to the altar. What could this mean?

  A
s he attempted to reconcile these anomalies, a frantic young man dashed up to him and began to babble. Gamaliel had to ask him to repeat the message twice before he could make any sense of it.

  “The Holy of Holies…defiled,” he gasped. “A man, unclean…dead.”

  From this, he assumed that death had somehow visited the Temple. He picked up his pace and hurried across the Temple Mount, through the Beautiful Gate, across the Court of the Women, then through the Nicanor Gate to the Court of the Priests. There, the rostered kohanim and their leader, all in a state of high excitement, chattered and gestured, glancing furtively at the Veil that screened the Holy of Holies from them. He listened as the youngest of them, Josef Somebody-or-Other, blurted out his story. With some trepidation, Gamaliel ventured into the Holy Place but only far enough to confirm the presence of the cord which disappeared under the Veil.

  The situation presented a certain irony and in spite of the obvious seriousness of the situation, he had to smile. The practice of attaching a rope to the ankle of the high priest when he entered the Holy of Holies had not been his idea. The possibility of having to retrieve a body thence, the result of the Lord’s anger at an unworthy entrant, had circulated in the vestry and palace for years. If he remembered correctly, it was first suggested during the time of the Maccabees as that complicated revolution wound its way through history and ended in the ascent of Herod, the builder of this gaudy Temple. Then, as now, the perceived distance between the appointed high priest and the line of Aaron had been called into question by some of the Nation’s more conservative leadership. Gamaliel did not know if their scruples made any difference in the first place—who could say after a lapse of four millennia how closely related to Moses’ brother-in-law, Aaron, anyone could claim to be, or whether the practice of attaching the rope had ever been instituted.

  The previous year when he suggested that it might be something to consider, his colleagues had shouted him down. There is no mention, they’d insisted, in any of Torah that could support such a thing. He’d replied that he knew that and suggested that if one thought about it, there wouldn’t be—that even admitting the possibility of an unprepared, unrepentant priest meant that the builders of Zerubbabel’s Temple and the drafters of Torah as they knew it had doubts about the Truth and the Way. No, they would not have written anything of the sort into the documents. But he asked them to consider their current situation.