To Kill the Christ! - Chapter Twenty-six: Avalanche in the Alps

The guides were right. The foehn hit as they expected. There was snow on the mountains—some of the passes had glaciers—but the winds from the mountains were hot, dry, and hard and made animals skittish and men short tempered.

The road has been laid by Augustus' troops two decades earlier, Marcus said, and it showed the careful engineering that marked the army's efforts. Marcus and Sertorius had not worked on that road, but they took justifiable pride in the quality of the work. It was crowned, water ran off into lined gutters, and all admired the beauty of the work, especially as the Roman engineers had built it 16-feet wide in a few places. Carl was amazed at the quality of the road work in such precipitous areas, but he was surprised at the steep incline Roman engineers accepted in building roads.

The deep snow he feared was met two miles from the summit, but there had been traffic over the road, trampling it into a fairly firm surface. The recent snow was about three inches deep, which presented no problem for the pack animals if the slopes had not been so steep, but they were steep, and drivers pushed, pulled, and cajoled the animals with threats and beatings. Riders led their horses.

As the guides had feared, the warmth of the foehn had unsettled the snow mass on the higher elevations and the slightest movement on the slopes triggered an avalanche. They saw an example the first night out when they camped below the source for one of the rivers, a lake that caught melting snow from the numerous rivulets coursing down the mountain sides that surrounded the basin. An avalanche broke loose on the steep slopes across the valley and crashed into a wooded area, uprooting and toppling large trees. It sounded like distant thunder, though the snapping of the trees was high pitched, like human cries of pain. It was a warning as to what could happen on the slopes above them.

For two days the winds had blown with intensity, though there was a drop in their ferocity as the caravan neared the summit. A horse in the last caravan became panic stricken, careening down a sloping valley wall until it plunged off the cliff into a deep abyss. It was another warning, this time to keep tighter control of the animals.

As the going became increasingly difficult and slow, the caravans strung out along the road. Carl's men stayed together in front, both to offer protection and to be free of entangling pack animals.

Alexander's caravan stayed close behind. Alexander was an imposing name for an unimposing figure, but the swarthy Greek had a twinkle in his eye that captured Carl's confidence. They had breasted the pass by noon of the third day and without pause began to file through the narrow pass.

Alexander caught up with Carl. They had become acquainted during the two days. "I have been this way before, and the road is narrower as it skirts the canyon."

"Worse than the canyon we passed earlier?"

"Yes, narrow and very deep. I'll go back and get my men to push the animals faster. I'm uneasy about the slope of that snow overhead."

In half an hour they would enter Italy, though there was neither border nor toll taker. The Roman post that kept watch over the pass was abandoned for the winter, perhaps at the first sign of snow. Which may be why so many people passed through after the snows had arrived, Carl thought. People are willing to risk nature's retribution because it's uncertain, unlike Roman tolls.

The road through this part of the pass was narrow, cut into the rock of a precipitous cliff, but they slowly started down into Italy. The road was even steeper on this side of the mountain, making it tortuous and, in spots, treacherous. The snow was still packed, though the foehn had made it wet and slippery. Speed was less important than caution.

Carl looked ahead to see a patch of green showing through the cleavage of two mountains—the Po River valley, he hoped.

Alexander was at the end of his caravan, urging his men forward when a loud crack high on the slope caught their attention. The guides and experienced travelers reacted without looking to see the awesome sheet of snow gathering speed and mass as it roared down the mountainside.

"Go, go!" Carl screamed to his men, who had not experienced such a fearsome scene in Britannia. He thought that the building snow mass might miss them, but they still needed to reach an area of greater protection farther down the road and allow room for the trailing caravans.

He looked back in time to see Alexander caught behind his caravan, urging the animals forward even as his caravan drivers fled toward Carl. The other caravans were far behind. They might with luck be missed entirely or, if unlucky, be engulfed by tons of snow moving at great speed. The three guides with the last two caravans had quickly urged those leaders, who otherwise seemed paralyzed, to back up, even as they themselves quickly fled the scene.

He focused on Alexander, who was cursing at his drivers, trying to be heard above the roar of the avalanche as he made sure that every animal escaped the onslaught of snow. In that, he succeeded, and it appeared that he would make it out of harm's way when he lost his footing and sprawled on the slippery surface of the road. Carl's last view was of Alexander scrambling like a crab into the shelter of the overhang and curling into a ball at the foot of the cliff, in the gutter of the road. Then the snow engulfed him and the road, obliterating every trace of his existence.

The avalanche continued over the road and into the ravine, but it took several minutes for the last of the snow to pass.

Carl fought uphill past Alexander's caravan, which was in disorder, yelling to his men to bring their shields. He tried to pin point Alexander's position against the lip of the overhang. If the trader had been standing upright when the avalanche hit he would have been swept from the edge of the road and over the cliff. If he had stayed upright he might have escaped entirely! Carl couldn't help arguing with himself even as he started pawing in the snow.

"Over here!" he yelled, and several men began digging with their shields. They had never used shields for digging in Britannia, but they knew intuitively why they had been told to bring them. Carl straightened up, walked quickly over to Pember, who was standing guard, and grabbed his shield.

"Good show, Pember." Their training had kicked in and one man guarded the pack horses, while Pember kept an eye out for brigands.

Damn. I'm so proud of these men!

Working in shifts, in a limited space, the men dug through at least six feet of snow, starting at where the overhang should be and then working down and back. After ten minutes their energy flagged, until one of them struck the soft form of Alexander.

"I've found him!" Willing hands scooped snow from around the curled figure, who was not so gently lifted to the surface.

"Over here," Carl commanded. "That loose snow could start again."

They carried Alexander several yards from the track of the avalanche and laid him on a pack from one of his mules. Carl gently slapped his cheeks, rubbed his neck and face, and gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation. He was rewarded when color returned to his cheeks, and Alexander coughed before visibly breathing on his own. By the time his eyes had opened, Carl had found a cloak with which to warm his body.

"Praise Yahweh, I'm alive!"

Carl started. Yahweh? He must be Jew, not Greek!

Before one of Alexander's drivers could aid in his recovery, one of the Long Reach diggers spoke broken Latin into his ear. "Don't thank Yahweh, whoever that is, but thank Carl of the Long Reach. He restored your breath."

The scene remained muddled for several minutes. Most of the men and animals in the caravans behind them evidently escaped the brunt of the slide, though now their only recourse was to turn back to Brigantium. Splugen was closed to caravans for the season.

The two guides who remained with Carl's group were relieved that so many escaped the avalanche, but now they were on one side of the pass and their homes were on the other. They would have to go the long way around to return to the valley of the Rhenus. They had been vindicated, however, as their warnings had proved accurate.

Carl could only nod in agreement. "You were right, we did need to fear an avalanche." An extra gift would assuage their wounded feelings.

At least the commandos were on the eastern side of the pass. While it would take two days to reach the valley and lacus Sebinnus, they were past the last great barrier, one that he had feared would be closed to their passage.

Alexander recovered quickly. His initiative in curling into a ball had created a small pocket of air which had lasted long enough for the rescuers to reach him. But it was the reminder of Carl's mouth-to-mouth resuscitation that caused him to stay close to his rescuer.

That night, Carl was sitting around a campfire with Marcus and Alexander, and the conversation, as so often happens among men, took off in directions none had expected.

Marcus started the digression with a typical Roman fatalism. Speaking to Alexander, he said, "Your life was not needed by the gods, at this time, so you were not fated to die."

Carl ruminated. I guess we're all the same in some respects. Raphael would have called it maktoob, it is written or fated to occur, and some of my Christian friends would call it predestined. Before he could speak his mind leaped to an image of his first meeting with Rebecca in the Oxford bookstore. When I entered that store I stepped upon a path from which there was no stepping aside, no turning back. Was that fate?

But it wouldn't be much of an argument if he didn't pursue Marcus' statement. "Maybe," he said, "Alexander's fate was not to die, but that also means we"—he swept his arm around to encompass the commandos—"we were fated to be here and to save him. Do you agree?"

Though the winds had died, the atmospheric conditions shortened tempers, and Carl was spoiling for an argument. He knew better, but he didn't fight the impulse.

"Well," Marcus drew the word out as though to ward off Carl's next comments. He was not a deep thinker about philosophical things, and he had never thought through some of the implications of his own religious beliefs, but he knew that often the best defense was an attack. He went right at Carl for he had spent time studying parts of the New Testament, as Teutius and Carl had translated it from English into Latin.

"How is it you can believe in Jesus Christ?" using the Greek Christos instead of Messiah. "He was crucified by Romans in . . . "

Carl interjected: "outside Jerusalem"

Marcus continued. "Only criminals, those who are enemies of the state are crucified. No God, or Son of God, would allow himself to be crucified. It's a shameful death." There, he had put the onus of belief on Carl's back and shed it from his own.

Paul was right, Carl thought. The crucified Christ was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greek. Paul might have added that the Romans in particular saw crucifixion as a stumbling block. Well, let's see how this "Greek" reacts to the concept.

Carl stirred the embers, poked a small log, shifting it so that fresh wood was exposed to the white hot heat of the embers, causing it to burst into flame. Religion is like this log, he thought. Sometimes a soul'll be singed by the embers of a church, synagogue, or mosque and will lie inert, slowly smoldering until moved just a little so that the fresh wood is exposed to the heat of the truth and the breath of the Spirit.

"Alexander, Marcus and I have had discussions about this before, so what he says probably doesn't make much sense, but let me summarize." He was counting on Alexander having some knowledge of the Old Testament, or at least the major concepts concerning the Messiah.

"Even as we speak, a situation is taking place in and around Jerusalem, in which a prophet, a Jew named Yeshua, will be brought before the Roman governor and will be executed by crucifixion. The Jewish leaders will not try to save him, in fact, they will turn him over to the Roman authorities along with charges that he claimed to be king of the Jews and had libeled the emperor. Pontius Pilate, the Roman who governs Judea, will acquiesce to these charges and, though he will claim not to have found anything wrong with Jesus, er, Yeshua, he will have him scourged and crucified."

Carl paused. Crucifixion was a distant reality when he had lived in the Twenty-first Century, even after Mel Gibson's powerful Passion of the Christ, but now it was a living reality and the crucifixion of Jesus meant something real and tangible.

Marcus interrupted. He had read the story and had heard it from Carl.  "He has not told you that this Jesus will rise from the dead the third day after his crucifixion to prove that he is God's son."

He smirked at Carl, who grinned back. That's as good a summary as I'd have given.

Alexander pondered the interchange. How much could he reveal of himself to these foreigners? Marcus was Roman and believed in multiple gods if he believed in anything. As for Carl, what did he know about the Jewish religion? He had never run into a Gentile who was even interested in Judaism, though he had heard that some had become proselytes.

"As you know," he began tentatively, then, giving in to his trader's gift of gab, he rushed forward. "I'm a Roman citizen. My father was Greek, but my mother was a Jewess, which makes me a Jew according to Jewish law. I have not been a religious man, though my mother taught me the Pentateuch and some of the Jewish prophecies."

With that he turned to Carl. "She taught me that there would be a Messiah who would set the Jews free," then, acknowledging the presence of a Roman, "though I do not understand why they wish to be free of Rome's rule, for everyone knows it is gentle and kind."

His sarcasm was not lost on Marcus, but since he was well aware of the extremes of Roman rule, he wasn't about to debate the subject, at least not now.

Carl interrupted. "How did you become a Roman citizen if you're Greek?" Let's take one step at a time.

"My father's father was captured at one of the many battles the Romans fought with the Greeks and made a slave, but since he had been a landowner and an educated man in Attica, he was sold to a Roman aristocrat who needed someone to supervise his farmland and to educate his children in Greek language and thought. After many years, during which he became almost like a father to his master's sons, he was set free and given land for himself. But he always remained close to his 'foster children' and when his own son, my father, was born, he raised him like a freeman. As a land owner he became a Roman citizen.

"My mother's parents came to Rome to escape strife in Bithynia. She was beautiful and intelligent, which made up for a small dowry. I've four brothers and two sisters, but I'm the third son, which is one reason I became a trader. There's no room for me on the farm.

"Since we are Romans it was necessary that I join the army when Augustus had his last enrollment to make up for the loss of troops in the Teutoberg disaster. I was in Corinth on business when the call was made, so my younger brother took my place. He is serving with the Eighth Legion in Gaul. When possible I try to visit him when I have business in that area, and, of course, I often have business there." He smiled at the thought.

"Did his enrollment replace yours?" Marcus was skeptical.

Alexander nodded and apologized for the oversight. "I neglected to tell you that I work for a very powerful senator who owns land in the Iridanus Valley, which I hope we will be reaching before too long.

"As you know," and he acknowledged Marcus with a glance in his direction, "senators make their money off of the land and the slaves who run the farms, and from the slaves they capture and sell as a result of winning battles."

It was a fact of life in Rome, and even Carl knew of it.

"Senators are not allowed to take part in trade and commerce, but they want the money that can be made in both, so they help traders such as me by keeping them out of the army if they are needed to make money." He paused and gave a beatific smile. "And I make money."

"Is that amber you're carrying?" Carl asked. It was a query from out of nowhere, and it caught Alexander by surprise. For once he was without words.

"I didn't think you would risk your life back there for the usual trade goods you get from the Gauls or Germans. And don't worry. We'll not steal your amber. We'll help you get it to your patron, if that's where you're taking it."

Marcus was as surprised as Alexander. Amber was a precious commodity, much like rare stones. It was light, expensive, and could be fashioned into jewelry and exotic crafts for the aristocracy and those who aspired to it. "But amber usually has a heavy contingent of soldiers with it," he said. "Why don't you?"

"I made it known that I was trading cloth and some metal ware from Germania that is so common that few tribes would risk the wrath of the Roman army for such goods. But when we got to Transalpine, I began to worry because having two other caravans together, even with some of their armed men along, would be a great temptation. Then you showed up, and after you chose the Splugen, simply because it was closer and not the pass chosen by the guides, and because you had two Romans with you, I decided to trust you. That's why I stayed so close to you."

He reflected a moment, staring into the flames as they diminished. "As it turns out, that was the wisest decision I ever made."

Carl grunted. It was time for Marcus to take watch, and he himself would take a watch later in the night. He slept with his men, ate the food they ate, and stood a watch as they did. It was one reason they followed him so faithfully. "You can trust us to get you and your caravan through, Alexander, but we need to hurry. Remember that Jewish savior I was talking about? A friend of mine is planning to kill him before the Romans can crucify him, and I must go to Greece and, perhaps, Judea, to stop him."

The absurdity of what he had just said caused him to chuckle. "Don't try to understand it. I'll explain more as the opportunity arises, but whatever you hear will require faith on your part, and I'm not sure that you believe in much of anything beyond fate."

"I don't."