“Pilate,” I bluffed, “there were many in that crowd who saw your servant deliver a message to you while you were on the platform. The sender of the message is only an assumption on my part, but who else would dare interrupt the procurator while he was sitting in judgment, except his wife? What did the message from your wife say?”

“She had written, ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.’ ”

“Do you believe in dreams, sir?”

“Is there a Roman who does not? I believe, as Augustus did, that dreams are the means by which our gods most often communicate with us. When I read my wife’s message I could not ignore it, since there had already been many times, in the past, when the things she dreamt had come to pass. Then I remembered how Julius Caesar had been told by his spouse, Calpurnia, that she had been warned in a dream that Caesar must not venture forth on the Ides of March. He ignored her words, as you know, and fell that morning under the assassins’ daggers. Later in the trial, when I heard the high priest accuse Jesus of claiming he was the Son of God, I had him brought here to this room, again, as I told you, to ask him where he had come from. Because of Claudia’s dream I was no longer certain who he was or what he was.”

“Your wife is now at the palace in Caesarea?”

“No,” he said stoically. “She packed her trunks and returned to Rome four days after the crucifixion. She told me that she could not live another day with the man who had murdered the Son of God, and now that he had risen from his tomb she had no desire to be near me when he came for his revenge.”

“She knew about the empty tomb?”

“Claudia was with me when I first received that bad news.” He smiled ruefully, sitting up in his chair as if relieved to have finally unburdened his secret to someone after all these years, even to a historian.

“Concerning that tomb: late on the afternoon of the crucifixion, Joseph, as I understand it, came to you for permission to bury the body of Jesus, rather than have it thrown in a common grave. You granted his request?”

“Yes, but only after I verified that Jesus was dead. A crucified one very often survives for several days on the cross, and I was surprised to hear that Jesus had expired so quickly. I dispatched Cornelius to Golgotha while Joseph and I waited together, and he soon returned with the report that Jesus was indeed dead.”

“Cornelius?” I gasped. “By any chance would he be the same Cornelius who brought us here to your quarters from the gate?”