“What do you suppose that fox is up to?” Aaron asks. He too is watching the spectacle.
“It’s hard to say. But . . . it almost looks like he’s preparing for a parade. Unthinkable, isn’t it?” I squint into the expanse and notice that the legionaries wear polished tinned bronze helmets and mail shirts. Broadswords, in decorative scabbards, are belted to one side of their waist, a dagger to the other, while in their hands they carry long gleaming javelins. The highly polished metal boss on their wood-and-leather shields is almost blinding in the sun. Many of the soldiers sport medals and armbands. Officers wear red plumed helmets and polished armor. Some ride lavishly decorated horses.
“Aaron, it is a parade,” I say, barely able to comprehend the foolish sight before me. Then, as if to confirm my words, out comes Titus clad in a gold and red cape. And after he and his generals take their position, the troops begin the long, slow process of passing in review.
The man is insane. My spies tell me that the Roman pay wagons have arrived. Under the guise of dispensing the owed denarii to his men, Titus has continued this farce for four days. For four days soldiers by the tens of thousands—privates, decurions, centurions, tribunes and generals—legion by legion, have paraded in front of this madman, saluting and shouting his praises, then collecting their pay.
But Eleazar says Titus is not as mad as I think. He believes the parades—which force us to see this vast, mighty army in full regalia—were meant to intimidate. And they have. Our citizens are terrified. And renewed talk of surrender circulates through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, talk which John’s men have tried to silence with their swords. And my heart is grieved that once again, Jews slaughter Jews.
“Hungry, are you? Want a little of this?” a Roman shouts outside our wall just past the range of our archers. He takes a bite of something in his hand—a loaf of bread, I think. His comrades, who stand near him, also taunt us. Some hold up full round wine skins; others, large clusters of grapes. One takes what looks like a piece of cheese and throws it into the dirt, then grinds it beneath his boot, and laughs. He can afford to be contemptuous of such a treasure as fresh cheese—something we haven’t seen in weeks. Titus’ storehouses are kept full by the endless supply wagons from Syria.
“May Hashem have mercy on us,” Eleazar says, standing beside me.
We are in one of the Antonia towers viewing the Roman camps. Even at this height the stench is as thick as bark. The city reeks. Famine has struck Jerusalem. Hundreds lay dead on rooftops or in alleyways. People attack each other in the streets, hoping to find food in a scrip. Some kill their own neighbors. Others break into homes and torture the owners trying to force them to reveal hidden supplies. Still others eat bits of straw or leather from scrips or belts, or even their own sandals. Those not having straw or a piece of leather to chew go to their roofs or lock themselves in their houses and wait for death. Bodies by the thousands have been thrown over walls into the ravines, and lie decomposing in the sun. Flies swarm everywhere. Vultures, too.
“We can fight the Romans and even each other and survive, but we cannot fight hunger,” Eleazar says.
He looks shorter. I know it’s only because of his thinning frame and stooped shoulders, but it pains me to see him this way. “A spy tells me he saw Titus lift his arms toward heaven and call upon God to bear witness that this starvation is not his doing,” I say, not bothering to mention that the spy was my son, Abner, who continues to make risky sorties behind enemy lines. I don’t mention it because voicing it grips me with fear.
Eleazar laughs unexpectedly—a strange and pleasant sound amid all this unpleasantness. “If Titus is not to blame, who then?”
Rebekah’s words swirl through my mind—her pronouncements that God has forsaken us. “Maybe the next time that traitor Josephus promises generous terms of surrender someone should jump from the wall and kill him,” I finally say. There was no end to that man making appeals for Titus.
Eleazar strokes his white beard and looks at me sideways. “Then you don’t believe him? About the liberality of terms?”
“Oh, I believe. That’s why it pains me to hear it. He’ll be generous with the civilians. And if I had my way, I’d open the gates and let anyone who wants, surrender.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted this. Will Eleazar think me a traitor?
“Neither John nor Simon would allow that. They’d kill the people first.”
“Perhaps that’s why Titus can call upon heaven as a witness to his innocence. We are killing our own people, allowing them to starve to death rather than surrender.”
Eleazar touches my shoulder lightly. “You . . . would surrender?”
“Perhaps Titus will be kind to civilians, but no one believes he’ll be kind to us rebels. No, my friend, if we surrender, it means crucifixion. And since I have a choice, I choose death by the sword. I will fight.”
“Many of our citizens are escaping south, through the Essene Gate, rebels too, only to end up on crosses.” Eleazar sighs. “I too believe the time for surrender is past. The Romans have committed too many atrocities. There can be no forgiveness, no peace, no submission to their rule now.” He eyes me strangely. “Our path lies in revenge. We must avenge this devastation of our Holy City; this supreme insult to Hashem.” He clasps my shoulders between fingers that are thin and spindly but still strong. “Do you believe this?”
“Yes . . . I . . . suppose.”
“Of course you do, that’s why you and I will fight to the end.”
I feel strangely uncomfortable as I nod, and see, for the first time, something terrible in Eleazar’s eyes.
The Second Quarter has fallen. Its outer walls are rubble. We have been firing upon the Romans all day as they build a ramp toward Antonia. They’ve made great progress but it has cost dearly. Though they are covered in armor, and work beneath wicker screens and sheds, and transport their materials through leather covered passageways, hundreds lay dead. Our Benjaminites are weary from all the arrows they have fired, as are our spearmen and those who work the catapults. Still, the Romans refuse to quit or pull back. And they don’t shrink from our firebrands, either. Eleazar is sure Titus has promised them all a promotion if they survive, or the prized meed of valor if they perish. But I believe it’s something else altogether. I believe the 10th Legion has inspired the others to partake in their revenge. After all, revenge works both ways.
But we have not been idle. We are planning our own subterfuge. Even now, John and his men are digging tunnels beneath the Antonia to collapse the Roman ramps. They are all congratulating themselves for thinking up this mischief, but I’m not so optimistic. I fear our tunnels won’t stop the legionaries for long. The Romans are as men possessed. They fight like demons and stand their ground even in the face of certain death. Their determination to defeat us is terrifying.
Everything is moving swiftly against us. Titus has completed his wall around the city, and has strategically installed watchtowers and small forts along its perimeter. This has effectively closed up the southern end, the last opening through which meager amounts of food and supplies, have, until now, been smuggled. We are completely cut off, sealed, as it were, in our own tomb. Titus has also captured Jerusalem’s aqueduct, effectively cutting off our water supply. And inside our city, things are more dire than ever. So dire that in spite of the risk, people are fleeing Jerusalem by the thousands. Even rebels. Simon’s Idumaeans left first. Now, even John’s men are escaping. Those who stay shout curses into the wind and promise vengeance, but for my part, I fear we are all doomed.
A new forest has sprung up. A forest of crosses. Nearly five hundred a day are being crucified. In the midst of this, Josephus has again urged us to surrender; warning us not to try Titus’s patience any further, and threatening grave consequences if we do. He has panicked the city even further. People are jumping from walls only to be captured and gutted by the Syrian and Arab auxiliary units who are searching for swallowed jewels or coins. Inside our city and outside in the ravine
, the mountain of dead continues to rise.
And in the quiet of the night I weep.
Hashem, where are you? Will you let the buzzards pick our bones? Will you let the uncircumcised defile Your Temple? Where is Your mighty hand now? The mighty hand that fought for Joshua and David and Gideon?
I’m in deep despair as flames crackle and shoot from the roof of the nearby sixty-cubit-high Temple portico. Smoke curls between its massive columns and carpets the marble paving stones with soot. The smoke is so thick I can hardly breathe. It stings my eyes making it difficult to see. Blood trickles from the wound in my left wrist and drips off my hand. In the other hand I wield a sword whose hilt is so slick with the blood of my enemies it nearly slips from my grasp.
“This way!” Aaron shouts, pointing to the Court of Women with his dagger.
We are surrounded by mail-clad Romans. Everywhere I look I see their red metal-bossed shields. Like a plague of locust they swarm through every opening into the Court of the Gentiles. We are caught up in this plague, and if Aaron and I don’t get out soon we’ll both die.
It’s been days since the Antonia fell, and days since Titus leveled it and used the rubble to make a massive causeway into the Temple to bring up his troops and his battering rams and artillery engines. Now the unthinkable has happened. Titus has penetrated the Temple’s outer court.
I hack my way toward Aaron, and see that my other sons, Benjamin, Joseph and Abner are nearby brandishing their own weapons. Men fall on every side and litter the polished marble pavement. Our forces are retreating en masse from the Court of the Gentiles to the safety of the thick, forty-cubit high walls of the Court of Women. An arrow whizzes past and would have pierced my neck had I not stooped to pick up a fallen Roman shield. I loop my injured wrist through its back, then use it and my sword to force my way to my sons. The five of us fight our way up the Temple steps, then to the terrace leading to the eastern gate.
Benjamin is the first to reach safety. Then Joseph and Aaron. I follow, while Abner lags behind. When I reach the terrace I turn and see that Abner is still at the bottommost step, surrounded by three legionaries. His dagger is flashing in all directions. I bound down the stairs toward him, but two Romans prevent me from going the distance. Arms, shields, swords, all clash. I swing blindly, barely able to see through burning, stinging eyes. I know not where my sword strikes. More Romans appear.
I’m totally surrounded. Yet, over shoulders and amid flashing steel, I manage to make out Abner just as he is knocked backwards by a Roman. I see him go down; see a horde of legionaries descend upon his prone body. And while watching, my guard drops and in that second, a legionaries’ sword crashes against mine, making it slip from my hand and fly into the air. Now I have only the shield. With my good arm, I swing it wildly from side to side, knocking soldiers off their feet. But no matter how hard I fight to reach Abner, I’m blocked by wave after wave of red shields. And just as I think they’ll overwhelm me, I’m yanked backward, out of their reach. When I turn I see Aaron and Benjamin each holding fast to one of my arms. Next to them my son, Joseph, and three Zealots, all wielding their weapons, clear a path for our retreat.
“No!” I scream. “Abner is out there!”
“You can’t save him,” Aaron says, as he and Benjamin pull me to safety. “You have to let him go.”
“Thus says Titus: ‘This is your final warning! My benevolence is at an end. I have no wish to desecrate or destroy your Temple,’” Josephus shouts, atop his horse from a safe distance. Engineers have already heaved lead to determine how close he can come. “‘Why do you force my hand? Why do you pollute your own Sanctuary with the blood of the slain?’” He makes his horse trot a straight line, careful not to stray closer. “‘Why do you not listen to your own rabbi and countryman, and my spokesman, Josephus? He has laid out my terms for the last time. Why not submit to imprisonment rather than see the House of your God destroyed by flames?’”
“We’ll have more desertions now,” Eleazar says, turning to me.
I nod absently. It’s difficult to concentrate. I’m grieving for Abner. I have stood the entire night and part of the morning on the wall of the Court of Women, searching for his body among the slain littering the paving stones of the Court of Gentiles. Sometime before dawn, the Romans gathered their wounded and brought them to safety behind the massive Corinthian columns of the Royal Portico, the one running the length of the outer court’s southern wall and the only portico still intact. Could they have brought Abner there by mistake? Impossible to imagine. His fringed tunic, his brown leather breast plate, his bearded face clearly reveal him as a Zealot. From the wall, I’ve looked a hundred times at the place where he fell. He had to be dead. But where was his body?
Someone catapults a boulder causing Josephus’s gray steed to rear. When he brings it under control, he shouts his parting words, “Heaven will curse you if you don’t surrender now.”
Jeers and profanity follow his departure as our men wave their fists and weapons in the air. Their taunts are greeted by Roman heckling. Scores of legionaries lift their shields and javelins threateningly. Some pound swords against their metal boss. A centurion, with arms folded, stands to one side. After a few moments, he raises his hand and silences his men, then points to the fresh crop of crosses planted during the night.
“See to your fate, Jews of Jerusalem. Not even your generals can save you now. They can’t even save their own sons.” With that he spits on the ground and walks away amid a chorus of curses and taunts.
But I hardly hear over the pounding of my heart as I sprint across the top of the wall, scanning the forest of crosses as I go.
“What’s wrong?” Eleazar says, wheezing behind me.
I ignore him as I run, searching, searching, searching the anguished swollen faces of those who have been beaten, then crucified. Beads of perspiration dot my forehead as I gulp air through my tightening chest. And then I stop. No . . . this can’t be him. He is hardly recognizable—stripped naked, his manhood exposed, face swollen and battered, lips split and bleeding, body ripped and bloody from scourging. Flies swarm his wounds. I can almost feel their torment. His head droops against his chest. His arms are stretched. A plaque of wood covers each wrist to keep the nails that pierce them from ripping through the flesh. His legs are pulled up and each heel, also covered with a plaque, is nailed to the cross.
“Abner.” I choke saying his name. I’ve never felt such pain. It’s as if my heart has been clawed by giant talons. I pull my hair. I curse and pound my fists against the wall. Then I grab the bow from the hand of the rebel near me, pull an arrow from his quiver, and without using a bracer to protect my injured arm, I shoot the arrow at my son.
When it misses its mark I frantically grab for another arrow, but the man backs away, his face twisted in horror. I leap on him like a beast, and am about to wrestle him to the ground when strong, spindly fingers pull me away.
“No need, Ethan. No need,” Eleazar says softly. “Abner is already dead.”
“You sent for us?” My weary body tenses as I brace for Eleazar’s answer and the reason he has summoned us to the Court of the Lepers, the only place not filled to overflowing with exhausted rebels. Many wrongly fear the stain of leprosy is upon it. It is one of four roofless chambers nestled in each corner of the Women’s Court. The others, once used for storing wood and oil, are now packed with our men.
It’s nearly sunset, and both sides have ceased fighting to seek their own places of refuge. Our men are everywhere, resting, dressing wounds. A few have morsels of food they try to eat without being seen.
My sons stand near me, dirty, blood-stained. Their young faces are drawn; their once strong bodies lean and weak from hunger. I avoid their eyes, for in them I see how much they have aged. Why did Eleazar want my sons to come, too? It makes me uneasy.
Eleazar hovers by the large pool once used by lepers as a mikvah before presenting themselves to the priests for examination. “You summoned us?” I repeat.
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Eleazar puts a claw-like finger to his lips indicating we are to remain silent. The lamp in his hand casts an eerie glow across his face. The glow, his hollow cheeks, his wide, dark eyes, his matted white hair and beard, all make him look mad.
“Follow me,” he says softly.
And we do, out the court and up the steps to the Nicanor Gate, then through the court of Men, the Court of Levites, past the Chamber of Hewn Stone where the Sanhedrin once met, past the Altar of Sacrifice which no longer sends the smoke of its offerings to Hashem. Instead, it is surrounded by priests who wear armor and carry swords, priests who are prepared to defend the altar with their lives. They take no notice of us.
“I’d like to be among their number when the time comes,” Aaron says, lingering by the giant brass laver as he looks back at them. “I will pledge myself to the defense of the altar.”
“You will pledge yourself to whatever Eleazar instructs,” I say, putting an end to the matter. Aaron has more zeal than all of us. Rebekah faults me for this, but I’m blameless. I have only followed Torah’s instruction to diligently instruct my children in the ways of God. As Torah commands, I’ve spoken to them about our great Creator. And I’ve done this when sitting and walking, when lying down and rising up. I’ve spoken the holy words of scripture; imparted its wisdom and instruction and admonitions, but not its fire. That came from Hashem—a holy fire I dare not quench.
We step into the colonnaded enclosure which contains the living quarters for priests. Slowly, we make our way down its long corridor, careful not to trample any of the hundred reclining bodies that cover the paving stones. They are what’s left of John’s and Simon’s and Eleazar’s men; dirty, ragged, hungry, many wounded, many restless in anticipation of tomorrow’s battle, but some actually sleep.
Rebekah's Treasure Page 8
