M. Scott - The Eagle of the Twelfth

In between these, I told the story we had arranged, which was not all we knew, but close enough to ensure that other spies who brought their own tales would concur with all we said. All of it had been cleared with Vespasian before we left. He had been enthusiastically helpful. The more they know, the more they will fear us. Tell them all you can. Within reason, of course.

So we told again of the gathering legions, of the auxiliaries, of the rumours of the new commander, the second son of a tax farmer who had fought with astonishing success against the terrifying warriors of Britain; the governor who was soincorruptible that he made no money out of his governorship in Africa; the man who had offended Nero so greatly that he was lucky to be alive.

‘If he was any good, he would be dead by now,’ Horgias said in his barely comprehensible Thracian Greek, and we, astonished, spun to look at him. Encouraged, he went on, ‘Nero kills all the men who are good enough to oppose him.’

His accent was so thick that ben Matthias stared at him for a good dozen heartbeats before he broke into a hesitant smile.

‘Indeed. Nero does our work for us. We should send him gold in gratitude. Perhaps one day we shall do so. When we are our own nation again, under the protection of the King of Kings.’

We were merchants. We cared nothing for Vologases or Parthia. You could have fallen asleep, lulled by our boredom. ‘Does he buy horses?’ Pantera asked.

‘I’m sure he will do.’ Yusaf stood, clasping his hands to himself, as if warding off cold in the midst of a warm spring day. ‘I will ask his envoy when next I am called to meet him; soon, I think. In the meantime, you should return to your lodgings and see to your mares. I fear no one will come buying now; the time for trade is the first hour after dawn, and it is already beyond noon. In the morning, men will come to you. You might like to watch the parade of the Eagle again at dawn. There is always something new to be learned and Jerusalem is a place of constant change, particularly now, when we have your news of the forces ranged against us and the man who leads them. In the meantime, the day is yours and you have earned your gold.’

The coin spun, flashing. Pantera caught it, leering, and tested it openly with his teeth. Ben Matthias’ smile grew fixed and his eyes offended. ‘My best wishes in your endeavour,’ he said. ‘If we are fortunate, we may never meet again.’

We left the house alone; Nicodemus’ gang had gone and nobody came with us. As Pantera led the way, it became clear that he had not memorized the route as we came but knew it already in all its twisting, winding complexity.

‘How do you-’ I had sidestepped to avoid a dead chicken on the road and bumped into Pantera, so that my voice carried nowhere but his ears and his barely carried to mine.

‘We can’t talk now. We’re being followed. Yusaf is a man of great courage. That’s all you need to know.’ He cursed at me fiercely and pushed me away and I pushed back and tried to get the gold coin off him and he fought back again until Horgias came between us to keep us apart, and like that, wrangling, we returned to the inn of the Cedar Tree, there to spend the day tending to our horses, eating our meals, and arguing hotly over how to spend our unexpected windfall in full view of anyone who cared to watch.

We never saw who they were, but we all three felt their presence.

Another day, another dawn, another blurred wakening to a pinch on my toe; another scurry under a peach sky to the temple, there to wait and watch while men wearing a country’s ransom in gold and too-big jewels paraded themselves before the crowds.

There is always something new to be learned. So had said Yusaf ben Matthias, and Pantera said that he was a trusted agent, and so I watched, wondering what that new thing might be, awaiting the fall of a hand on my shoulder.

There was a moment when Horgias flinched and I thought he had fallen to a zealot knife, but he was whole, still gazing up at the Eagle, and before I had time to speak to him a large man with blacksmith’s shoulders and old, linear scorch marks on both arms wormed his way to my side.

‘You sell mares?’ he asked.

Turning slowly, I looked the prospective buyer up and down with a hauteur I remembered vaguely from my youth. ‘For the right price,’ I said, ‘we may do. Your name?’

He bared thick teeth. ‘I am Zacchariah. My price will be right. You show me now?’

In that moment, ten generations of horse-traders countedfor more than half a lifetime in the legions. I was my father made young again, itching to make a sale. Abandoning the Eagle — I was a horse-trader, what did I care for a gold bird on a stick, however venerated by the Hebrews? — I gathered Pantera and Horgias about me, and trekked back to the inn of the Cedar Tree.

Along the way, we collected Zacchariah’s well-muscled younger relatives, three other, unrelated, horse merchants who gazed at him with undisguised venom, a woman who claimed she could more accurately assess the sex of the foal our pregnant mare carried, a bone-setter who set to arguing with Horgias but gave up when his poor Greek met Horgias’ worse Greek — and Nicodemus and his seven zealots who stood about as we conducted our business, obviously waiting for a chance to inflict violence upon us.

Over the course of the next few hours, I sold the pregnant mares, the barren mares and eight of the twelve youngstock. The bargaining this entailed took up the better part of the day and I found I was enjoying myself more and more as time wore on and the haggling became faster, harder and more brutal.

It was only near the end, therefore, as we were sealing our promises with clasped hands and silver, that I chanced to see the tension on Horgias’ face and the urgency in his eyes.

I came back to myself and closed the deals, sending the men off with their mares, making excuses for why I was no longer able to grace their homes with my presence, declared myself bereft not to share their evening meal.

‘What?’ I asked, after the last one had gone. We were leaning against the all but empty stalls, seeming to count our money.

‘It wasn’t the Eagle,’ Horgias said.

I stared at him, my mind still full of sound hocks and good wind, and the relative worth of silver and horseflesh. Pantera, who had done little to help but had, as far as I couldtell, picked everyone’s pockets, examined the contents and returned them to their rightful owners untouched, said, ‘But yesterday it was?’

‘Yes. Yesterday it was the Eagle. Today, it was a replica cast in bronze and dipped in gold.’

‘How do you know?’ I asked.

‘There was a crack under the left wing. I had filled it with lead and burnished it, but you could still see it. I saw it yesterday as it passed over us. Today, no crack.’

‘They could have mended it,’ Pantera said.

‘No.’ Horgias was adamant. ‘This is a new Eagle. A counterfeit.’

‘Why?’ We asked it of each other and ourselves.

Pantera sat on the floor, juggling silver coins thoughtfully. ‘They’ve moved it,’ he said. ‘There was always a chance they would do so when they knew the legions were on their way.’

‘But where have they taken it?’ Horgias’ face was a landscape of despair. ‘It could be anywhere. We could search the whole of Jerusalem and-’

‘It won’t be in Jerusalem,’ Pantera said. ‘They’ll have taken it somewhere safe in the desert. Yusaf will know where; that’s what he was trying to tell us yesterday.’ Throwing down the silver, he lurched to his feet. ‘We need a fight,’ he said, and swayed back, roaring. When he came forward, he hit me.

We fought as men do who have earned too much silver and let it go to their heads. Horgias thrust himself between us, cursing, flailing his fists and feet and once cracking his head against my cheek, missing my nose by a finger’s width.