The old man nodded toward a large mound of loose dirt and stones on the city side of the hill. “That is where the common grave was established for those executed here whose bodies were not claimed. When the heavy rains come, many bones and skulls are often exposed.”

At last we were standing on the hill’s uneven crest. Joseph’s tired eyes swept back and forth across the drab ground beneath us. He reached for my hand and I gave it to him, following as he marched off ten paces and stopped. “Here is where Jesus was raised on the cross, facing the road, with another cross on each side.”

I crouched low to the ground, not for a better view but because my legs suddenly felt very unsteady. The soil was pliant against my knuckles, as if it had not yet recovered from all the wooden crosses it had supported through the years. Then I heard a voice—raspy, hoarse, and angry. It was mine. “Joseph, why have you and the others allowed this place to be desecrated? Why haven’t you, with all your gold, erected a monument on this spot?”

“Matthias,” he said, helping me to my feet, “you must not forget that the shame of a criminal’s death by crucifixion is still fresh in the minds of all who loved Jesus. Why should one recall the bad instead of the miracle that followed?”

“How many were in your party when you took Jesus down from the cross?”

“Four. Shem and myself, also Nicodemus and his son, Gorion. Shem, with his great height, removed the nails from the wrists of Jesus with the claws of the same hammer, borrowed from the soldiers, that had been used to drive them through the flesh and bone. He then held the body firmly against the cross while Gorion removed the nails from the feet of Jesus. Then they carried the body, already beginning to stiffen, to the garden and placed it near the tomb, on the grass.”

“Were there many onlookers?”

“As I recall, only Mary Magdalene and another woman. The soldiers paid little attention to us, after I had presented them with my order from Pilate, for they were hurrying to dispose of the other two bodies in the common grave so they could return to the fortress. Lying on the ground, near the cross, was the familiar red seamless robe that I recognized as belonging to Jesus. I retrieved it, while Shem and Gorion were removing the body, but one of the soldiers ran after me and tore it from my grasp, saying he had won it fairly in a game of bones. I told him that while I had no money on my person I would gladly pay him a gold aureus for it if he delivered it to my home later.”

“Did he?”

“He was waiting at my place when I returned from the burial.”