M. Scott - The Coming of the King

It did not come. They stood square and straight. The standard-bearer planted the end of his pennant on the rock. ‘I am Gnaeus Galerius, called Naso, optio of the fourth century, second cohort of the Fourteenth. I served in Britain under Paullinus. Did you march to Mona with him?’

His question was directed at Mergus. ‘I did. We marched there to fight the dreamers and back to the battle with the rebel forces and on down to the south to relieve the Second. Did you march with us?’

‘No.’ Naso sounded sad that he had not. ‘We left before that war. Gallus sent us to Claudius with a message after some small skirmish and Claudius kept us in Rome. When he died, the new emperor, Nero, kept us on. He sent us to Judaea less than a year ago.’ Naso smiled, thinly. ‘I believe it was a gift for good behaviour.’

‘You are not seconded to the Tenth?’ Mergus asked. The nine men who had gone were all of the Tenth legion, the marks on their belts had proclaimed it.

‘Not seconded to, not friends with, not particularly impressed by

… no.’ Naso picked his nose, thoughtfully. ‘And unlike the Tenth, who have been in the east so long they have begun to believe every rumour they hear, I have seen Nero, watched him as a boy and saw him come to a man. He is…’ Naso might have been close to death, but he was not stupid. He swallowed his opinion of Nero. ‘He is a man I would trust with the truth. And Mithras is a god I would trust with my life.’ He eased his blade from its sheath. To Menachem, he said, ‘Would you take our oath, to defend you at all times, from all harm, until death?’

‘We march next on Jerusalem,’ Menachem said. ‘The men of the garrison Guard are legionaries of the Tenth under Saulos’ command. Unless we can persuade them to abandon him — and I do not hold out much hope for that — we will attack them. Will you fight against your brothers?’

‘It would hardly be the first time,’ Naso said. ‘And I doubt if it will be the last. Caesar fought Pompeius with his legions and then Marcus Antonius fought Octavian who became Augustus. The legions fight for who pays them and whom they trust. I will trust you if you will trust me. And my men go where I go, all of them.’

‘Then I take your oath,’ Menachem said. ‘And, in turn, give you mine, not to send you into danger that is ill-thought or ill-judged, not to ask of you more than a man may reasonably give, and never to hand you to the authority of another, should your emperor decide that he does not wish, after all, to support these two, who carry out his orders.’

The five Romans knelt. As one, they spoke their oaths, in the name of Mithras and of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

Menachem spoke his own oath in Latin, Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew. The men behind him shifted at this last, but none of them spoke against it and at the end they parted to let the five men, newly of their ranks, step away from the cliff’s edge and oblivion.

Mergus kept close to them, as a father with children. He took them a little way apart, and brought them water. Slowly, the rest began to disperse, to find water, to gather weapons from the dead, to eat, to sit, to rest.

Watching, Menachem wiped the heel of his hands under his eyes, leaving paler streaks in the battle-dust. It made him look more savage than even the blood on his pale tunic. ‘That was well done,’ he said. ‘This is not a time for needless deaths.’

He was not alone in thinking so. From their place by the store houses, one of the Romans made a joke in sketchy Aramaic. Nearby, a Hebrew man laughed. Death fled from the air.

Pantera said, ‘Mergus will set the banner for Eleazir to see so that the rest of your men know we have victory. If you have doves that will home to the city, have the men send them now so the word is spread as widely as it can be. This is not a time for secrecy; let them know that we are going to drive the legions out of Jerusalem.’

‘And you and I?’ Menachem asked. ‘What are we going to do while the others act for us? Stand and watch?’

The blood on his arm was clotting now, the flesh already beginning to shrink around the wound. He was shaking all over with exertion and the shock of living when others had died.

Pantera, when he took time to look at himself, was exactly the same. It occurred to him that they had not slept in over a day, that they had just fought to the death, and that Menachem did not yet know what the lives and valour of his men had bought for him.

‘Come,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘Let me show you what Aaron died for.’

The sun was a sheet of spun gold, angling through a window set high in the vaulted roof so that the plane of its incidence fell square across the intricate patterns of red and blue, gold and green, black and white picked out in fine marble chips across the floor.

Menachem stopped at the edge; the brilliance held him back. ‘Herod was Greek, wasn’t he? Not by birth, obviously, but in his soul he worshipped the sun as the Greeks do.’

‘I think he worshipped wealth and power and what they could do for him.’ Pantera had seen the mosaic before. The impact was no less a second time. He said, ‘In this place, he has captured the sun. One does not imprison one’s god.’

‘No.’ Menachem looked down. ‘My feet are soiled.’

‘It’s blood, which is a sacred gift, and in any case, the floor will wash. We must go across. The greatest of Herod’s storerooms is on the far side.’

‘It’ll be locked.’

‘I know where the key is kept.’

Stepping inside, they left smears of old and new blood across the patterned floor, marring its beauty. At the far side, marble steps led down through a high-arched doorway. Beyond, water shimmered under sunlight.

‘Are these baths?’ Menachem asked, in wonder.

‘Have you never seen them?’

‘No. But that was not my surprise; rather that Herod should use water for bathing in a place where every drop is more precious than balsam.’

‘You swam through one of his cisterns and it was neither the largest, nor the nearest. The rock is riddled with others. When it rains here, water drowns everything. All Herod’s engineers had to do was find a way to catch and store it.’

‘They were remarkable men.’

‘They were Hebrews, as you are.’ Pantera stepped into the bathing room and, kneeling at the edge of the baths, ran his fingers along the under-ledge until he came to a recess and in that recess a ball of wax.

Bringing it out, he cracked it open between his hands, as he might crack the egg of a large bird. A four-tongued key glimmered in the centre.

Menachem was standing at the water’s edge, looking down at the mosaics in the pool. Here were gods and nymphs and fantastic beasts with wings and hooves and horns.

‘A golden key?’ he asked.

‘Polished brass.’ Pantera buffed it absently against his tunic. ‘The storeroom is here, by the door to the caldarium.’

The key held the surface shimmer of the wax. It turned the lock with a satisfying solidity. Pantera swung the door back and looked inside.

And looked.

‘Menachem?’ he said.

Menachem came slowly, still mesmerized by the water and the shapes beneath it. ‘I see why our teachers forbid images of men, of women, of beasts. They are too alluring. What have you got in here that could compare to- Oh! ’

Momentarily, he was a child, seeing gold for the first time. Or a starving man offered a banquet. Or the reality, which was a leader of two thousand men who lacked the armour and weapons with which to fight a war that was no longer avoidable.

Softly Pantera said, ‘Herod imprisoned the sun here, too, that it might burnish the arms and armour of his guard.’

Light blazed in from a dozen different windows. It tumbled down on to rack upon rack of mail shirts, of helmets, of greaves, of shield bosses, of sword hilts. It danced, dazzling from shoulder to crown to shin of a thousand imaginary guards.