M. Scott - The Coming of the King

She heard him give good evening to the parting guard, and exchange commiserations with the one who took his place, and then he was walking down the corridor slowly, unwilling, when she had expected brisk triumphalism.

He turned the corner. Surprised, she said, ‘Yusaf?’

He brought a small oil lamp, with a handle that spooned over his hand. The flame lit the lower half of his face, sending blurred beard-shadow sprawling upwards to cover his eyes.

‘Why you?’

‘I am a member of the Sanhedrin.’ His face tightened. ‘Better me than anyone else. I am to tell you that Saulos has ordered us to attend your deaths tomorrow.’

‘Our deaths?’ Hypatia felt her hands tighten on the bars and made them loose again. ‘All of us?’

Estaph said, ‘In the morning?’

‘Beginning in the morning,’ Yusaf said. ‘Estaph is to be crucified. Hypatia and the queen are to be ligatured about the neck, to hang on the cross, below his feet, one on either side. It will be faster.’ He did not say, Even so, they can make it last hours; they all knew that.

He would not meet her eyes. He said, ‘We tried to speak against it, but Saulos has taken the governor’s place and no one can stand against him.’

‘He will bring war to Jerusalem,’ Hypatia said.

‘I know. They say he wishes to raze it to the ground and rebuild it in the image of his god.’

‘He said exactly that of Rome before he burned it.’ Hypatia stepped back from the bars. ‘You should leave. Thank you for coming. Can you tell us what hour it is, and how long until… how far until morning?’

‘The guard will change twice more before they come for you,’ said Yusaf. ‘You have six hours left of peace. It is possible…’ He shook his head. ‘No. It’s not. I’m sorry.’

‘Say it.’

He opened his mouth and closed it again twice more, like a fish. ‘It is possible Menachem and Pantera may return by then. They have stormed Masada and emptied its armoury. They will be here within the day, and their army with them, but I fear not by dawn.’

‘Too late for us then, but perhaps not too late for Estaph if he is strong. Crucified men have been cut down before and lived.’ Hypatia reached through the bars, and laid her hand on top of his. ‘Don’t fear for us, Yusaf. We will not hold this against you.’

‘You may not, but I shall.’ He left them, as disconsolate as he had come, taking his meagre light with him.

In the night’s dark, a shadow stumbled where no shadow should have been. Pantera caught Gideon by the arm and dragged him off the path, one hand gripping his shoulder, the other covering his mouth.

‘Don’t speak.’

Gideon nodded, in so far as he could. Pantera let him go and eased down to a crouch.

The swiftest route back to Menachem saw them on a goatherd’s track running south-west from Jerusalem, through olive groves and sloping pastures. All around, forested hills made the land uneven. Stars scattered enough light to make out the rocks, the hills, the distant herd, tight-gathered in a fold — and the figure of a man walking up the path, fast, and frighteningly unquiet.

He passed them by, unseeing in his haste. Smooth as any hunting beast, Pantera rose from the shadows behind him. As he had with Gideon, he clamped his hand over the newcomer’s mouth, pulling him off balance. As he had not with Gideon, he laid the flat of his knife across the expanse of bearded throat. ‘Yusaf,’ he said, flatly. ‘You have news for us?’

Tight-voiced, Yusaf answered, ‘Estaph will be crucified when the sun first touches the hill behind the palace, that is at the third hour after dawn. Hypatia and Berenice will hang from ligatures beneath him.’

It wasn’t news, only confirmation of what they had feared. Pantera felt his heart clamp closed, and ignored it.

Stepping back, he slid his knife away. ‘Did Saulos send you to tell me this?’ he asked.

‘Not specifically.’ Yusaf gathered his dignity, smoothing his long-coat, his hair, his beard. In the grey starlight, his face was heavy with sorrow. ‘I was sent into the cellar dungeons to tell the prisoners. Afterwards… I didn’t consider it at the time, but Saulos let me go too easily. I think he knew I would try to find you.’

‘Which means in turn that he believed you knew where to look. Were you followed?’

‘No. That is, I don’t think so; you would know, would you not? But I should go back to the city. If Saulos doesn’t know that I have come

…’

‘He’ll know. If you go back, you will join Hypatia and the others in the cellars if you’re lucky. If not, his questioners will spend the night learning all that you know before you hang. Either way, you can be sure Saulos plans your death, only the time and the manner are uncertain.’

Yusaf chewed on his bottom lip. His nervous hands worked the silk of his sleeve-ends over and over through his fingers, gathering his courage. Just when it seemed he might never have enough, he raised his head. ‘May I join you and Menachem?’

‘It would seem you will have to.’

‘What will you do about Estaph and Hypatia?’

Pantera stared at the hard sky, at the unmoving stars, at the fast cloud sailing across. ‘It may be that we can be in the palace by dawn. If not, they will have to rescue themselves. If such a thing can be done.’

Two hours after Pantera had left it, Mergus arrived at Yusaf’s costly town house in Jerusalem, bringing five Romans who had sworn fealty to Menachem. They drank wine and ate Yusaf’s olives and bread and checked their weapons and stole away as softly as they had come.

When they left, Iksahra and Kleopatra went with them. Kleopatra wore a cloak over her mail shirt which, by happy chance, also covered the short stabbing sword at her belt. Mergus’ men took her in their midst and did not question her ability to keep up with them as they marched swiftly through the dark.

Iksahra led them and she was not like the others: she wore no armour, her knives were shorter than even the short gladii of Rome and her cat kept to her heels in a way that made the legionaries step away so that Iksahra had a bubble of ten feet about her into which only Kleopatra and Mergus dared step. She despised the others for that, and they knew it, and hated her the more. It was not a good start to the night.

Silently, Iksahra led her small group out to the city’s margins, towards the gate through which they and Pantera had entered. A new guard held it now, not the one who had seen them.

Within sight of the gate, but not within earshot, Iksahra moved sideways into an alley and had the group gather as close as they dared.

‘We need to remove the guards from the gates in such a way that they believe they have left of their own accord, so that they return to their barracks in fear, but not alert to danger. Such a thing requires stealth: Kleopatra and I will do this one. If it goes wrong, Mergus knows what to do.’

‘These are men of the Tenth,’ said one of the men. ‘They are small-minded and parochial, but they aren’t stupid. They won’t be frightened by two women. We will have to fight.’ His hair was white with age, his skin browned by sun and wind until he was as dark as Iksahra, nearly.

Iksahra gazed at him with liquid eyes. ‘Your name?’ she asked, mildly.

‘Gnaeus Galerius. My men call me Naso.’ His nose, Kleopatra thought, was big enough to warrant the name. His knuckles were pale as he held both hands tight, but he stood his ground. ‘The guards on the gates will fight; they won’t retreat. It is what they are trained for.’

Iksahra’s smile set them flinching. ‘They fight when they think they can win. I am here to prove to them that they cannot. Kleopatra will help me with the first one. Watch, and you will learn what must be done.’