Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 53 by John Joseph Adams

Author:John Joseph Adams [Adams, John Joseph]
Language: eng, eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Magazine
Publisher: John Joseph Adams
Published: 2014-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

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PART THREE: THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOSEPHUS

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Episode One: The Roman Agent

Those who undertake to write histories, do not, I perceive, take that trouble on one and the same account, but for many reasons, and those such as are very different one from another.

— Josephus Flavius, The Antiquities of the Jews

It is now time to depart, if only for a moment, from the events unfolding in the Galilee, and turn instead to my own involvement in the affair. The following period in the life of Jesus, he who was called The Christ, The Great Soul, The Buddha, is one of extensive travel and of what we may term adventure. It is a time of great interest to the keen historian, and we shall return to it momentarily.

But as to my own role. When I first met the wise men I was but a young soldier in the service of King Herod — and a more patriotic follower than I no king could wish for. Yet patriotic does not always mean that one is willing to die for one’s country. When I was twenty-six, I undertook a journey to Rome, and ever since I felt my life hanging in the balance of two allegiances: for I was a Jew and faithful to my people, but I had also seen the world, and knew the Romans to be its rulers, if only for the time being.

Rome! You may have seen, in the earlier parts of this narrative, something of the wonder that was Egypt. But Egypt’s was the wonder of barbarism, of declining grandeur. Rome was its opposite. It was noble and mighty, but also young, vibrant, like a royal son on the cusp of becoming Caesar. I can not begin to describe to you the wide avenues, the markets carrying the fruits and produce of every country in the known world, the atmosphere of intellectual curiosity one could so easily find, the libraries and theatres and the bronzed ladies carried down the road . . . but I digress. I was in Rome again at the time of this telling, and had been residing in the eternal city for some time, on an errand from Judea to the Caesar himself (with whom, it can be said, I had an understanding), and my life was, though of some pleasure to myself, on the whole uneventful.

That all changed with the arrival of the messenger from the east.

I was summoned to the palace one clear summer night. The stars shone over the black dome of the sky as if they had never seen a cloud. Everywhere was the smell of cooking foods carried on a summer breeze, and the streets were full of citizens sitting outside, enjoying the balmy weather.

It goes without saying that the Caesar was a commanding man. I was ushered through untold corridors into his office, a humble affair one would not think to associate with a ruler of the known world. When I came in, he was upright, pacing the room.

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