Free The Eighth Veil by Frederick Ramsay

in the city seeking one that could.
    Agon he knew from having briefly taught his son. He was a better jeweler than his son was a Talmudic student and by mutual agreement the son, after his very brief stint as a student, went to Caesarea Maritima to learn a more suitable trade. Study of the Torah was beyond his reach in spite of his genuine enthusiasm, and both parent and teacher knew it.
    “Agon, my friend, I have a question for you and I have precious little time to ask and receive your answer.”
    At the sight of the Rabban of the Sanhedrin, the three customers already in the store bowed and exited, whether from awe, fear, or respect he did not know.
    “Rabban, I am your humble servant as always. What is it you wish to know? I will answer if I can.”
    Gamaliel retrieved the pendent from the leather pouch at his side and laid it on the counter. “You see this pendant?”
    “Yes. What is it you wish to know about it?”
    “In the process of handing it to someone who shall be nameless, it accidently fell to the floor. You see here, at this point, some of the glaze has been chipped.”
    Agon picked up the piece and scrutinized it carefully. “Yes, I see that.”
    “You also see there appears to be metal beneath the glaze and something else as well?”
    Agon turned the piece over and back again. “May I inquire where this came from?”
    “My friend, for the moment my instinct tells me to withhold that information. There is a story, a bloody story, I fear, which is attached to that item. For your protection, it would be best that you not know where you saw this or what you may discover about it subsequently.”
    “I see.” After such a warning a lesser man might have shown at least some small indication of nervousness, but Agon had served as a soldier in one of the many noncitizen legions, the Roman Auxillae, before he took up the manufacture of precious trinkets. A painful limp and an ugly scar on his left leg attested to his service and its premature end. Gamaliel knew this and enough of the rest of the man’s life to know he could be trusted with the task he’d soon be handed.
    “What do you want me to do with this thing?”
    “I want to know everything about it that can be discerned from it. What do you see?”
    “The area where the glazing, if that is truly what this is…I doubt that, by the way…seems to have been engraved with some characters, possibly an inscription. I will venture a guess. It is only a guess, Rabban, be sure of that. This piece has been deliberately covered to disguise it from what it really is. Why, I cannot say. If I could read, I might be more specific. But it begs the question, does it not?”
    “Which is?”
    “Why would someone cover a golden pendant with this imitation glazing?”
    “Why indeed, unless, for some reason, he wished no one read what it says. If we uncover it, we may discover why.”
    “You wish me to remove this paste covering?”
    “Paste? Is that what it is? Maybe, a question first. Are you in possession of the skills necessary to replace it, exactly replace it, if I need to have it done?”
    Agon pulled the pendant closer, almost so that it touched his nose, and squinted at the break in the covering once more. “Near enough.”
    “Then let us peel it away and see what we have stumbled upon.”
    ***
    Herod Antipas had, by all accounts, his father’s imposing stature. His personality, however, could not match the genius of his mad parent. Where the elder was decisive, if emotionally erratic, Antipas waffled and wavered. He shared his parent’s lust for women, but had not the will or strength to cast the objects of his desire aside when they no longer pleased or were necessary. Thus, he now lived unknown and unloved in shadows created by the sheer magnitude of his late parent and exacerbated by the vaulting ambition of his new queen, his late brother’s wife, and mother of the now infamous Princess Salome.
    Gamaliel had returned to the room set aside for