[Gaius Valerius Verrens 06] - Scourge of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  The gods only knew how many of the defenders remained trapped in the houses now being checked by squads of auxiliaries who’d followed the attacking cohorts. Certainly, not many had been killed on the battlements. A few smashed bodies lay like piles of bloodied rags as a testimony to the power of the Roman artillery, but most of the dead were civilians. Every roof and every window could hide a spearman or a slinger who would die happy if his last act was to kill Titus Flavius Vespasian. Serpentius couldn’t cover every threat, but he could stay close to Vespasian’s son. He edged his horse into the command group.

  Titus felt his presence and turned in the saddle. ‘Ah, my nursemaid is still with us,’ he laughed as they turned a corner into a wide market place from which narrow streets radiated in every direction.

  The Spaniard drew his sword. ‘You might yet have need of one.’

  With every street choked with soldiers, the legionaries filled the open ground seeking an exit.

  ‘Why aren’t we moving?’ Titus forced his horse through the mass of men, calling for the praefectus castrorum who’d led the attack on the walls.

  A centurion pointed to one of the streets, and the general pushed into the narrow entrance with two of his aides, shouting to the legionaries to stand aside. Serpentius managed to stay with him, but the escort struggled to keep up, hindered by hundreds of men whose only focus was joining their comrades.

  ‘You should wait for the escort, lord,’ the Spaniard insisted.

  Titus shook his head. ‘I have to find out what’s happening.’ They heard a roar from away to their left, but it was impossible to tell whether it signalled a triumph or a setback. Titus ground his teeth in frustration. ‘I must know what’s happening,’ he repeated. ‘Where’s my messenger?’

  ‘Somewhere back there.’ Serpentius pointed with his sword.

  ‘Where is your commander?’ the general called out to the soldiers they passed, but no man knew. Serpentius noticed with alarm that every door and shuttered window around them was closed. There could be only one reason. These streets hadn’t yet been cleared.

  ‘We have to get out of here, lord.’ He grabbed Titus’s reins and tried to turn the horse, only to be hemmed in by the crowd and baulked by the reluctance of its rider. Titus fumed at this personal outrage, but he recognized the urgency in Serpentius’s voice.

  ‘The doors,’ the former gladiator shouted. ‘They’ve blocked the street. It’s an—’

  A howl from the roofs finished his sentence and a hail of missiles rained down on the men packed into the streets below. A spear hurled from above pierced the neck of the tribune to Titus’s right and he slumped into the saddle, sheeting his horse’s neck with blood. Titus looked around in astonishment. Serpentius reacted instantly, reaching across to haul him bodily from his mount. As they fell he roared for the men around him to form testudo. The landing knocked the breath from him, but he picked himself up and covered Titus’s body with his own.

  ‘Testudo,’ he repeated. ‘Testudo to protect your general. Defend General Titus.’

  At last the big painted shields of a dozen men came up to form the protective carapace Rome’s tacticians had evolved for just this type of situation. It would take a fortunate throw to penetrate the locked shields. Titus was shaken and bewildered but unhurt, and Serpentius helped him up to crouch beneath the shields. They had a chance. Around them some units had formed their own testudo. Others hammered at the doors and shuttered windows in a bid to get at the enemy, only to be cut down from the opposite side.

  ‘General? We have to go back.’ Serpentius urged the man crouching beside him in the crush of fear-tainted soldiers beneath the shields to face the unsavoury reality. ‘Our only chance is to get out of this street.’

  ‘Retreat?’ Titus sounded as if the word were an insult.

  ‘They have all the advantages—’ An extra loud crash interrupted Serpentius, followed by the screaming of men who would never be the same again. ‘They can sit up there and kill us a few at a time,’ he continued, unperturbed, ‘but it won’t be long before someone decides it’s a good idea to start throwing burning oil out of those windows. They didn’t do this to pen us here. They did it because they think they can slaughter us. That means someone out there has a plan. If we don’t want to prove him right we have to go back.’

  Titus stared at him, but this time there was no argument. He nodded. ‘This is your general.’ His parade-ground roar pierced the clamour around them. ‘Pass the order that the cohort must withdraw to the market place.’ Perhaps fifty men heard the command, but they quickly passed it to those around them. The crush lessened as men took the first tentative steps backward. There was no way of warning those in the van, who Serpentius suspected were already fighting their own losing battle. They would have to fend for themselves. Foot by painful foot they made their way back, spears and rocks rattling on the shields above.

  ‘What the fuck’s he doing in the middle of this mess?’ Serpentius heard a man in an adjoining testudo protest. ‘This is no place for a fornicating general.’

  The Spaniard met Titus’s eyes and Vespasian’s son grinned. ‘I think he’s right.’

  They passed a felled horse, its eyes dull and two spears buried in its side. The commander of Titus’s escort lay crushed beneath it, his hands still twitching. Titus shook his head. ‘I failed them.’

  ‘No,’ Serpentius hissed, ‘you led them. Now you’ll have a chance to avenge them.’

  By the time they reached the square other units were retreating from the adjoining streets. Men carried their wounded comrades. Out of the bedlam appeared Phrygius, legate of the Fifteenth, sweat-stained and haggard. He gasped with relief as he recognized Titus.

  ‘Thank the gods you’re alive. We walked into a trap. The rebels ambushed both legions before they could reach their objectives.’ He lifted a water skin to his mouth and Serpentius noticed his fingers trembling. ‘We’ve cleared a route back to the breach. We’ll get you out now and make another attempt tomorrow.’

  ‘No.’ Titus’s face flushed crimson with the strength of his anger. ‘We hold what we have. I want the second wall pulled down piece by piece and every building in our control demolished. We will construct our own siege wall encircling the entire city. If the Judaeans want to keep us out, so be it, we will make sure they stay in and starve. Not a loaf of bread or a jar of oil will pass. Not a woman or child will be allowed to leave. Let it be known I will kill anyone who makes the attempt. How many prisoners?’

  ‘Four hundred, perhaps five.’ Phrygius looked perplexed.

  ‘Then they will be the first barrier. The refugees have been escaping by the north-west route since we took the wall and our soldiers have been allowing them to pass out of pity. No more. You will crucify one prisoner for every ten paces and anyone who tries to pass will join them.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do you deny me the right?’ Titus snarled.

  ‘No, lord.’

  ‘Then have it done,’ Titus said more gently. ‘They have brought this upon themselves. What they sow, so shall they reap.’ He turned to Serpentius. ‘You saved my life, Spaniard. This is no time to talk of rewards, but know this. If ever Valerius Verrens no longer has need of you there is an honoured place in the household of Titus Flavius Vespasian as long as he is alive to provide it.’

  Serpentius bowed his head in thanks, but said no words. It was a good offer. A man could live long and well with such patronage. But he doubted he would ever take it up. He would either die in the service of Valerius or, if the gods spared him, take the long road back to Hispania and the mountains of his youth and make old bones in the earth from which he had sprung. Such was the fate of Serpentius of Avala.

  XLIII

  One week later

  Simon bar Giora fought the despair that had been eating into him since the Romans built the siege bank that turned Jerusalem from a fortress into a prison. It was a despair shared by every one of the city’s defenders and seemed to pervade the very
stones around him. Before Titus’s wall, ingenious people found ways to get in and out of the city; ways to pass messages and sometimes even food. Simon smuggled out refugees fifty or a hundred at a time, relying on the humanity of the individual Roman soldier towards starving women and children. Surprisingly, that reliance often proved justified, at least in part. Now the Romans had shut those ways to all.

  An all too familiar stench hit him like a gust of wind as he passed a doorway in one of the big houses that lined the street. He knew what he would find if he looked inside. The Upper City was now the greater part of what remained of his holdings. These were the homes of wealthy people, but disease knew no distinctions of class or status. When he’d cut the rations for the final time the rich began dying more quickly than the poor. It seemed hunger ravaged those less accustomed to it in a shorter time than it took to weaken people who faced daily privation. That, of course, and lack of hope.

  Some days earlier a delegation of priests, landowners and merchants had appeared at the Hasmonean Palace. They came to protest against his men’s searching their houses for hidden food and gold, and to seek an assurance that, despite the siege, they would be treated with the respect their status deserved. Their message to Simon was that if he could not preserve their social distinctions he should hand over control of the city to John of Gischala. Or, and perhaps this was the true point of their visit, surrender it to the Romans.

  Simon had stared at them for a long time, until they began to shift uncomfortably. The bones in the cheeks of a few showed they’d experienced hunger, but most still wore the fleshy look of the well fed. He thought of the thousands willingly fighting and dying to keep the Romans out of the city, the hundreds of thousands sleeping on the streets who sought only to survive, and felt nothing but contempt for these people. Simon bar Giora was a large man and his anger showed, making the men closest to him step back.

  ‘God dictates my actions as he does yours.’ He allowed fury to pervade his voice. ‘It is God’s will that we are here fighting for our children’s future, and that of their children. We will no longer be subject to Rome, or we will die as free men. I need food so my soldiers have the strength to fight. From now on, any man who does not fight does not eat. I know you all,’ he’d looked at them one by one, ‘and I know you keep hidden food stores in your warehouses and your shops. I know your wives eat well while others go hungry. I know every house of yours contains a secret hoard of wealth, for you are the kind of men who would not willingly be parted from it. Well, I have a bargain for you. You have two days to bring all your food and a third part of your gold to me. If I believe any one of you has cheated me, I will have every house searched and your families put to the question. Till now I have not had the men to do this and hold the walls, but you will have noticed that my kingdom has shrunk in recent days. Now, I can give you the attention you deserve.’ They stared back at him with loathing and he smiled. ‘You should be thankful it is God’s will there are no longer poor Jews and rich Jews in Jerusalem, only Jews fighting for survival. I have made it easier for you to reach heaven.’

  John of Gischala also had a substantial hoard of food he believed Simon didn’t know about. Simon needed the merchants’ gold to purchase a share of it for his men. Since the attack on the Antonia fortress, John had moved into the temple complex and Simon was on his way there now. His route was complicated because the bridge connecting the temple to the palace district was sealed off. To reach the temple mount, he must go south to Herod’s Theatre, then descend into the Tyropoeon valley before turning north towards the temple’s main gate. On previous visits his only escort had been Zacharias, but today ten spearmen accompanied him. John of Gischala’s moods were always mercurial and unpredictable, but of late he’d become ever more erratic and deadly. Of course, if John decided to kill him ten men wouldn’t prevent him, but they might make him stop and think.

  They turned a corner into a street of steep steps Simon found oddly familiar. This was where he’d met the woman Judith and her little family. Suddenly it became very important that they survived. The spearmen carried food to bribe any guards who decided to make life difficult. Simon decided he would give it to Judith if she still occupied the same position. His heart quickened as he recognized the little makeshift shelter, but one look confirmed his fears. A pair of bony legs protruded from the entrance, the angle of the feet a certain indication of their owner’s status.

  He leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. No need to look, the situation was plain enough. But he wouldn’t continue without showing her this one last measure of respect. Suddenly, Judith represented all the hundreds of thousands of Passover refugees crammed into the city. He forced himself to pull back the cloth opening, careful not to touch the dead body. A single brush of the hand would require him to undergo ritual purification before entering the temple. A swarm of black flies greeted him and he closed his mouth because the stink was so thick he could almost taste it.

  Judith lay on her back with a child in each twig-thin arm, but not the Judith he remembered. All dead, of course; starved, and difficult to know which died first. There’d been a baby but he saw no evidence of it. The flies had laid their eggs in dark eyes now transformed into squirming pits of maggots. A face that was mere bone overlaid by desiccated flesh. He felt the urge to vomit, but managed to curb it. What was it she had said? The children of Israel will prevail. Where is your faith now, lovely Judith of Ephraim? A tear ran down his cheek and his mind cried out for support. God aid me, I cannot go on without your help. Give me a sign that what I am doing is right, and not just a matter of foolish pride.

  But of course there was no sign. He looked to where the gleaming roof of the temple was just visible in the afternoon sun. What if … No, he couldn’t afford to have doubts. If he was not strong, how could he expect others to be strong? He must believe. With a last look at what had been Judith he reversed out of the shelter.

  He turned to the escort commander. ‘Have four men take these people and find somewhere to bury them, Isaac. We have no priest, but say what words you feel are right over them.’

  ‘Lord, I …’

  ‘Just do it.’ The Judaean leader’s voice held a fury that made the other man flinch. ‘And when we are done with John, remove every body from the streets and the houses. It shames us that our dead lie for all to see.’ He saw the doubt on Isaac’s face. ‘Round up every man who cannot or will not carry a sword. They too can make a contribution. I know …’ he shook his head, suddenly death weary, ‘I know we cannot bury them all. But we must do something. Is the gate to the ledge above Gehenna still open?’

  ‘The Romans kill anyone who tries to use it.’

  ‘Then do it at night. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand that.’ Isaac met his gaze without flinching. ‘But not why you insist on meeting John of Gischala with only six guards. Are you so fond of death?’

  Simon’s expression didn’t change. ‘What is death to Simon bar Giora, ruler of a city of the dead?’

  No man could fail to be impressed by the Great Temple of Jerusalem. As he approached the Huldah Gates, Simon’s eyes were dazzled by the sun’s glare on the massive polished blocks of white sandstone. The beaten bronze covering the gates glowed like hot coals. Galilean warriors guarded the wide stairway, but word had been sent of his coming and they stepped aside. He passed upwards through the centremost of the triple gateways, overlooked by hundreds more of John’s men watching curiously from the walls above.

  The stairway opened out on to a broad court ranging the length and breadth of the complex. Massive columns supported a covered walkway. Like every Judaean, Simon knew they numbered one hundred and sixty-two. The walkway’s ceiling was a wonder of carved woods – mahogany and walnut, cedar and olive – depicting figures from the Torah. In the past, men selling cattle, sheep and doves for sacrifice would have filled the precinct. Now hundreds of tents of cloth and leather covered the court, temporary shelters for John of Gischala’s men. Da
rk patches and piles of ashes from the warriors’ cooking fires stained the once pristine paving of the Court of the Gentiles. The raw stink of fresh excrement indicated that the simple number of men had overcome both the limited latrine facilities and, more tellingly, their reluctance to defile the sanctity of this sacred precinct.

  Weary eyes followed his progress through the maze of shelters, but no man attempted to impede him.

  Towards the temple.

  Built a hundred years earlier on the instructions of the first Herod Agrippa, the sheer scale of the building inspired awe, as its creator intended. It was constructed of the same polished sandstone as the walls and stood on a raised platform in the centre of the court. As commanded by God, it faced east across the breadth of the complex, less a temple than a giant walled fortress with a great tower at its centre.

  Steps climbed to three doors in the long wall that faced him, but Simon’s progress took him to the main, eastern entrance. Ballistae strikes from the Roman war machines on the Mount of Olives had pitted the frontage. He was thankful he’d chosen a moment when the legionaries were conserving their ammunition. Temple guards stopped him at the base of the steps and sent word inside to John of Gischala.

  While they waited, Simon heard a regular sharp metallic clang and wondered what mischief his rival was up to. A few moments later a bearded officer appeared whom Simon recognized as the man who had explained John’s battle plans at their last meeting.

  ‘My commander begs your pardon, but he asks that you enter alone.’ The leader of Simon’s escort shook his head, but the Judaean raised a hand for patience. The soldier continued: ‘Naturally, he guarantees your safety and that of your men.’

  ‘Very well.’ Simon waved aside his guard’s protest. If he wanted to talk to John here it could only be on his terms. ‘I place my life in his hands.’