Book Read Free

Stone and Steel

Page 25

by David Blixt


  Beside him was the city ethnarch, a wizened fellow called Nechum. “So many!”

  “Excellent news!” answered Yosef. “If they're here, they can't be out wreaking havoc upon Galilee. All we have to do is hold out through the summer months, then the Romans will withdraw.”

  “All we have to..?” Nechum repeated hollowly.

  Nechum's twenty year-old son Chalafta pointed to the mouth of the bowl. “General Yosef, what's that they're doing?”

  “Building a camp, I expect.” Already the engineers had men digging trenches and felling trees. I should have knocked down all the trees myself, thought Yosef. My first mistake.

  Chalafta pointed. “And those just coming up the road?”

  The boy had excellent eyes. Yosef had to squint hard to see what he was pointing at. “Siege engines, I think.”

  “Merciful heavens!” cried old Nechum. “We're doomed.”

  “Nonsense,” said Yosef cheerily. “Our walls are solid, our men eager and determined. We have food enough to feed every man in our army and theirs. Our water supplies are adequate, if rationed.” He patted the august Jotapatan on the shoulder. “Truly, things could not be better!”

  The old man looked as though he believed the opposite. “How long must we endure?”

  However long the Romans remain, thought Yosef. But the fellow needed assurances. He chose not a date, but rather a number his fellow Hebrews viewed as lucky. “Seven times seven. Forty-nine days. On the fiftieth day, the Romans will end the siege. They can't not!”

  Chalafta smiled. “I'm so proud you came here, general! That you chose Jotapata. We all are!”

  Chalafta's father did not look so certain.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  AT ANOTHER PART of the wall, Judah's band of nine were standing together – Phannius had unofficially joined their mess.

  “Lots of them,” said Pethuel.

  “Too many to count,” said Philip.

  “Fifty or sixty thousand,” said Asher.

  Phannius turned. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Count them so fast.”

  “Don't count the men, count the standards. Though isn't it interesting how the men alternate? Eight in a line, ten lines. Then ten in a line, eight lines.”

  Phannius made a disgusted noise, but Judah squinted. “Show me what you see.”

  Asher waved his hand in a chopping motion. “There's a full cohort, four hundred eighty men in all. Ten of those make a legion. But inside the cohort are six groups of eighty. They each have their own standard.” Suddenly Asher froze.

  “What is it?”

  Asher pointed. “That banner – that's the eagle of the Fifteenth.”

  Judah made a show of memorizing the banner. “I'll help you mete out a little retribution.”

  Eyes upon the eagle, Asher did not reply.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  AFTER A FULL DAY standing before Jotapata with his men, Vespasian grunted. “That's enough. Order the men back to camp.”

  The front cohorts withdrawing first, the Roman army marched smartly back to where their camp had sprung up through the daylight hours like the army of the dragon's teeth. This was not a marching camp, but a true fortification, complete with walls three times as tall as any man, ditches, moats, traps, and goads. There was space within for all three Roman legions. Vespasian placed his auxiliaries in a similar camp further north, blocking the exit to the bowl.

  No escape.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  “MAYBE SHE WENT to our cousin's house,” said Phannius.

  Judah was hunched in a corner of their billet, Phannius beside him. “What cousin?”

  “He's a mason in Tiberias.”

  “Why would she go there?”

  “It's in Galilee. It's near you. It's not stupid.”

  “I didn't say it was.” Every conversation with Phannius was defensive on some level. “Do you think she went there?”

  “No. She came to you. If she's not here, then I don't have any idea where she is.”

  They both avoided speaking the thought that was eating at them both. If she were captured by the Romans, she was young enough and pretty enough to become some soldier's plaything. That had both of them grinding their teeth.

  “Are you sure there was nothing—”

  Judah slammed his fist down on the straw rushes on the floor. “For the fiftieth time, I didn't ask her to come, I didn't tell her to come, I didn't even hint at her coming. I don't know why she left Jerusalem!” There were hot tears in his eyes and he had to blink fast to keep them from falling.

  There was a pause. Then Phannius said, in an unusually soft voice, “I was just wondering if there was anything at all in the letter that might have made her think she could help.”

  Seated nearby, Asher said, “Was this the letter where you said you were tired and – and wished you two could be together?”

  Judah frowned, thinking. “Yes. But I didn't mean…”

  “Of course not. But she might have…”

  Phannius shook his head. “I knew, I knew it was something you'd written!”

  “All I said was—”

  “You told her to—”

  “I absolutely did not!”

  “Quiet, both of you!” Asher kicked out a leg to prod the pair of them. “What's the matter with you? You'd think you were the brothers, not us. Judah, I know you like to argue and fight, but punching Phannius won't help Deborah. In fact, she probably wouldn't like it. Phannius, whatever Judah wrote, clearly he didn't ask her to come. She made up her own mind. So let's try and figure out a way to help her.”

  “How?” demanded Phannius angrily. “We're trapped in here, surrounded by the whole damned Roman army.”

  “Actually, that's good news. If they haven't found her yet, she should be safe. As long as we hold out, she won't face being taken by the Romans.”

  That sunk in. As advice went, it was fairly lame. But it was certainly better than anything the other two had come up with. Phannius shrugged. “I guess I'm here to fight. That's something.”

  “Oh yes,” agreed Judah. “We'll just put you on the wall and leave the Romans to you. Maybe I'll let you take an eagle this time, and not steal the credit for myself.”

  “Now look, I told you..!”

  “I don't want to hear it!”

  As their voices rose again, Asher rolled over and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

  XXV

  THE FIFTEENTH LEGION discovered that being commanded by the general's son had perquisites. They were billeted in a place of honour, between the front gate and the general's headquarters, on the right side of the via Praetoria. Close to the cooking fires, they would be the first to get meals. And whenever the army marched, the Fifteenth led. A great distinction!

  That first night at supper, legionary Curtus approached Barbarus. “What are we waiting for? Why not just attack?”

  The grizzled centurion bit into a hank of pork, speaking as he chewed. “The Muleteer is a crafty old warhorse, lad. He wants them to stew a bit. He wants them afraid. Not so they'll surrender, though it'd be nice. But to make them desperate enough to fight. Otherwise,” he shrugged, “we're in for a long siege.”

  Though most of his men were veterans, few had ever been involved in a prolonged siege. So Barbarus set aside his meal and instructed them on what to expect. “A siege, lads, is a seduction. Say there's this girl – pretty, but thinks she's too good for you. You make overtures, she rebuffs 'em. But you're determined to get under her skirts, neh? So you try again. She slaps your face, tells you 'no.' But there's a 'yes' in her eyes. So you tease her a little, get sly, talk yourself up to her friends. You try gifts. She takes them, but still won't give you a poke. So you try to heat her up. Still she refuses. So you show her your equipment. She recoils, but after that she can't take her eyes off it. All the time you're talking, lying to her, telling her you love her. Suddenly she shudders and you know you've got her. A minute later you're in, and eve
rything happens all at once. You've been so patient, so understanding, that you fuck her raw. Fuck her raw. And you know what? The day after, when you're marching away, you'll actually miss her a little.” He leaned back, smiling. “The wait only makes getting in more satisfying.”

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  THE CENTURION'S CRUDE analogy played out almost to the letter. The Romans sent heralds to demand the city's surrender. The Judeans shouted their defiance. Vespasian then had his foreign archers and slingers clear the walls while he led his men to a natural rise, hoping to gain the ramparts. Sensing danger, Yosef led his men to the spot, leapt over the wall, and charged the Romans. The struggle lasted until nightfall, ending with thirteen Romans and seventeen Judeans dead, with hundreds wounded on both sides. A very solid slap.

  It was in this scrum that Asher was finally blooded. To his mingled delight and chagrin, he proved his brother correct. When the time came he didn't shy from fighting, didn't cower behind the ramparts. After all the drilling with Zamaris and the private sessions with Levi before that, he stood firm and felt only the urgency of each breath. Alongside Judah, Phannius, and the rest of their unlikely cohort, Asher charged into the thick of the fighting and stabbed his first Roman, wounding him in the thigh. Absurdly, a quote from Euripides popped into his mind. Who knows but life be that which men call death, And death what men call life?

  He fought in the cohort's front line, alongside his tentmates. Stocky little Pethuel had planted his feet and was holding the flank, allowing thin Gareb and silent Deuel to lay about them with their long Judean swords. The brothers Philip and Netir were laughing as they fought, tossing off jokes as their blades scarred Roman shields.

  “Philip! What happened when the Roman put his head into a lion's mouth to count how many teeth he had?”

  “The lion closed its mouth to see how many heads the Roman had!”

  “Lucky for the Roman he had two, and the one on his neck the less important!”

  “Unlucky for him that we Galileans have more teeth than lions!”

  The giant Atlas owned the roughest accent, and could barely be understood as he laid about him with a double-headed axe. “Come on!! Come on, Romans!! Come and die!!” The Romans sheltered behind their shields and tried to stab him with their short swords, but his reach with the long-handled axe was too great. Some legionaries threw their pila, but Atlas was flanked by Philip's and Netir's shields, which deflected the missiles.

  Phannius wasn't yet used to fighting in a shield-wall, but with his height and long reach, he was a perfect person to be behind the line, protecting the heads of the men in front of him and jabbing with a spear. He was roaring out insults and banging the helmets of his allies, but each time he thrust his spear, it came away wet with Roman blood.

  But no one fought like Judah. He seemed to lose himself in the grinding, battering rhythm of it. Asher fought as he'd been taught, responding to the orders Judah was neglecting. When Judah rushed forward, pulled by the heat of combat, Asher took it upon himself to cover his twin's right side, while Zamaris of all people stepped in and covered Judah's left. He was no longer shouting insults at the 'hero'. His mouth was set in a terrible grimace as he laughed and called for more Romans to stab.

  Finally Yosef's trumpet signaled the retreat. The giant Atlas backed reluctantly away, still flanked by Philip and Netir. Judah, Asher, and Zamaris were the last of their century to withdraw. Though panting for breath, Asher was grinning. The word 'coward' could now be put away.

  But Judah was troubled. In the thrill of fighting, he'd forgotten his friends, his men, even his brother. He was not a good soldier. He was a warrior. He turned sheepishly to Zamaris. “Sorry.”

  Zamaris merely shook his head. “Either you'll fall or you'll be a great hero. There's no middle ground. Just don't get any of our boys killed and I'm happy. Besides, with you out there, the Romans are less likely to target me!”

  His inability to keep to the shield-wall wasn't the only thing bothering Judah. That night he was haunted by the face of the young Roman at Beth Horon begging for mercy. Fighting in daylight, Judah had seen not Romans, but faces. Individuals. Men with hearts and minds, hopes and dreams. He could fight them, kill them – but did they deserve to die?

  Snap out of it! They're not thinking of you as anything but a target for their blades!

  Yet Asher had been spared by Roman mercy. Judah had been asked for mercy, and offered none. What would the Lord make of that?

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  THIS HEAVY FIGHTING continued for five days, with the Judeans venturing out from behind their walls to force the Romans back time and again. Cannily, Yosef kept the fighting between buildings of the suburbs, never in the open places where the Romans might deploy properly. Judean slingers kept up a steady rain of lead pellets hurtling down from the walls. The Romans called these deadly missiles glandes because they resembled acorns. When the Judeans ran out of glandes, they made use of their endless supply of polished stones.

  “They're bringing up the ladders,” reported Chalafta to Yosef.

  “Redouble the slings! Keep them back!”

  Judah's men were within the walls today, and Yosef found himself faced by a breathless Asher, who had run all the way up to the tower's top. “Fenugreek! General, use fenugreek!”

  Yosef stared at him blankly.

  “It's slippery!”

  With sudden understanding, Yosef issued the orders. Minutes later, despite the heavy fire of slingstones from the defenders, a few Romans scaled the ladders and achieved the wall tops – only to slip and fall. The defenders had poured boiled fenugreek over the endangered ramparts. The handful of Romans who got to the top were all killed, and their comrades had to withdraw under the jeers of the Judeans.

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  AFTER A WEEK, Vespasian called his legates together. “There clearly won't be a quick finish, so let's settle in for the long haul. Fire the suburbs, begin felling trees. We'll build ramps to the wall's top.”

  To protect the engineers from Judean slings and arrows, Vespasian used wide shields of wood and hide. But the Judeans heaved stones to break the screens and used flaming arrows to set them alight. The Romans answered with 'gifts' of stones and bolts shot from one hundred sixty siege engines. With his Arabian archers, Vespasian made the walls such a terrible place that no Judean could even draw near.

  Instead of ducking behind the walls, Yosef's men ran out from the city and hacked at the engineers, setting fire to their constructions.

  Vespasian shook his head. “If anything, we're making them safer. They can take cover behind the husks of the ramps and fire at us from there.”

  “You've heard what our friend in there says?” remarked Trajan.

  “Forty-nine days,” replied Vespasian with a snort. A great deal of a siege was spent in shouted insults between ranker soldiers on both sides, and everyone had heard Yosef's prediction.

  “What next?” asked Titus.

  “Concentrate everything on one spot. We will put so many soldiers behind the screens that our wily Josephus will not dare attack our engineers.”

  “They'll know where we're coming.”

  “Oh yes. So we just have to squeeze tighter than a frog's anus and drive forward. Let's pick a spot.”

  ♦ ◊ ♦

  IT WAS GOING as well as Yosef could have hoped. His defenders had lasted twelve days so far. Only a handful of his men had died, and the city's resolve strengthened with each success.

  Now the Romans were clearly concentrating their efforts in a single spot. Yosef racked his brain to devise some way to counter this new assault. Directly attacking the new ramp would cost more lives than he was willing to risk. Unable to think of a bloodless solution, he humbly sought advice from all comers. After many hare-brained schemes and daring proposals, it was Judah who delivered the simple answer. “Why not just raise the wall?”

  Leave it to a mason to find such a solution. Instantly Yosef ordered houses in the nearby neighbourhood torn down and used
the rubble to add height to the wall across from the Roman ramp. Naturally he put his pet masons in charge of the new fortification.

  Working with mortar and heaving a slab of limestone, Asher was unamused. “I came to fight, not hew stone!”

  Using an old mason's trick to quick-bore a socket and fit two stones together, Judah laughed. “We are fighting.” An arrow hurtled inches above his head. “See?”

  “I'd like it better if I was shooting back!”

  After two hours of labour, Asher returned to Yosef. “We're being devastated!” Eighteen men had fallen to Roman missiles, four of them dead. “Can you put more slingers on the walls?”

  “Not without losing them. Let me think.” Yosef's eyes had a far-off look. “Pull everyone back. We'll eat well tonight.”

  When Asher relayed this comment to his twin, Judah asked, “What's he got in mind?”

  “No idea,” confessed Asher.

  That night Yosef commanded six of the city's largest oxen be slaughtered. “Take care of the skins,” he told the butchers. “In fact, make sure the tanners are there to watch. I want those hides intact. And fetch me plenty of salt!”

  When the animals were dead, the meat was divided first among the soldiers who had fought this day, then among the rest of the men, and finally to the women and children. Jotapata had plenty of food stored, so the evening became quite a celebration, with music and even a little dancing.

  “Hey, Atlas!” called Gareb, finishing his bowl of greens and meat. “Watch out or they might mistake you for an ox and skin you too!” Other men laughed.

  “Stop calling me that, beanstalk!” growled the giant. He sat with his tiny wife Chava on his knee. “My name is Eleazar.”

  “My fault,” said Asher in mid-bite. “Sorry.”

  “But it fits!” protested Pethuel. “Atlas bore the world on his shoulders. You carry us!”

  “You, at least,” said Zamaris, digging at the little man's height. Pethuel made a rude gesture. “See? Even your fingers are too short.”

 

‹ Prev