M. Scott: The Coming of the King

‘Some of them do,’ he said. ‘I doubt if Saulos will be among them.’

The door to the king’s quarters in Herod’s palace at Jerusalem was not built to be knocked upon by human hand.

Cedar formed the frame for carob wood inlaid with ebony and ivory, with lapis lazuli and rubies set on its face in the same patterns as on the floor of the jewel house in the palace at Masada. The thinnest part of it was thicker than a man’s arm, and its scent, heady, aromatic, full of promises of wealth and power, filled the corridor for twenty feet in either direction.

It was a door that was built to be guarded, with a niche on either side to take a tall man and his helmet: here more than anywhere was visible Herod’s fondness for the Gauls. Nobody else was that tall, except of course Iksahra’s people, the Berberai, but nobody had ever yet enslaved a Berber.

No guards stood there now, slave or otherwise, but even so it felt improper to hammer on it with his fist.

Pantera took a moment to breathe, to be still, to remember who he was and why he had come, and what he had to do; he remembered fire and a man’s death, and a woman lost for ever, and then unthought each of these, because neither rage nor grief was useful to him here.

Filled with the clarity that comes sometimes in the midst of battle, he reversed the gladius he had brought from Masada and rapped its hilt on the hard wood.

The sound rang down the corridors, echoes rolling in the dust. He called out into the hollow emptiness.

‘Saulos! You can circle round those three rooms, but there’s no way out besides this door. I can sit here and starve you out, or we can end this now, face to face, with what’s left of our honour.’

He thought he had made a mistake, that it wasn’t Saulos he had heard, that he had sent Iksahra and Kleopatra into a trap, that he had fallen into one himself, that he had failed Hypatia…

The door swung open under his hand. Pantera sprang back from the expected blow, or arrow, or spinning knife, but none of these came; Saulos, too, had taken a step back and so they met at last, alone, face to face, blade to longer blade, for Saulos had a cavalry sword, of the kind given to the guards at the chamber doors, with a blade twice as long as Pantera’s legionary gladius. It looked fearsome, but was too long to use in a tight space.

The room into which they stepped was not a tight space; Kleopatra had warned him of that, but it was quiet, a place where sounds of battle rumbled softly, as from a city far away, where men and horses fought and died for other reasons than theirs.

Then Saulos smiled, and all Pantera could see was that same smile flashing in the black dark of Augustus’ temple in Rome, with fire all around and the stench of bodies burning, and all he could feel was the touch of Hannah’s skin against his own in the morning, knowing she must go.

He said, ‘You look weary. Are you as tired of this hunt as I am?’

‘A trick of the light.’ Saulos stepped back into the first of nine perfect panes of sun cast on the floor by the windows set in the high wall. Mosaic spirals wound round his feet in a living river of colour, a hundred times sharper than those at Masada, and better set. ‘I never tire.’

It was possible to believe that. He had taken time to change his clothes from battle garb to his sand-coloured silk, uncreased except around the hem, where it looked as if he had lain down for some time, and only recently risen.

Encased in his subtle finery, he looked joyful, like a hound that hears a hunt, while Pantera… Pantera had no idea how he looked. He was striving for calm and supposed that it showed.

He stepped into the room and felt the door swing behind him. He took a wide step to his left and another and they began to circle, slowly, lazily, with a marble fountain playing between them and the reclining couch behind. It was carved of ebony, padded with silk dyed to deepest porphyry. It sang, siren-like, drawing Pantera closer to sit, to lie, to sleep and never wake.

Saulos asked, ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I heard you when we were in the slaves’ corridors below, after Iksahra’s cheetah killed the second guard. Where else would you be but here, where the king will retire when he has taken his kingdom?’

‘He has to win the battle first,’ Saulos said. ‘Nothing is certain.’

The air smelled of cedar, and old incense, and wine and, near the bedroom, of balsam. They circled on. They were too evenly matched to take risks; each had too many memories of their last fight to be the first to step in.

Pantera said, ‘Does your god still require that Jerusalem be destroyed to bring about his eternal kingdom?’

‘Of course. The Kingdom of Heaven will rise from the ashes of two cities, Rome and Jerusalem.’

‘But you failed to burn Rome. Your prophecy required that first, before the destruction of Jerusalem. If you fail in the first part, what point in pursuing the second?’

‘I burned enough of it.’

‘And most of your men died as you did so.’

Saulos shrugged. ‘I have enough men. And they will glory in the kingdom God brings to them. You will see it from whichever rank of Hades you have entered.’

The room was exactly as Kleopatra had said: an antechamber, where visitors might be kept for long enough to reflect on the king’s wealth and their own insignificance. Windows opened along the heights of the wall opposite, nine oblongs of unblemished blue, casting their cool light in patterns on the floor.

Pantera passed them, and felt a draught of cool, fresh air, and yearned to sit and let it wash him. Not yet, though. Two doors lay behind him, one in the south, one in the west, both hanging ajar: the bedroom and the dining room that was once a bath room. He had an idea and set about testing it.

He leaned in and tapped Saulos’ sword with his own. The long blade swayed away and came back again, steady, firm, true.

Pantera stepped back. ‘You came here to kill Menachem, but you will fail. Everyone knows you are here; if I can’t kill you, others will, and then Israel will have peace.’

Saulos slashed at his face. Pantera felt the rasp of iron in the air, smelled the whet of its blade. He spun away out of reach.

Saulos said, ‘Not if the governor of Syria gets here in time with his legions. You know I have sent for him?’

‘Iksahra’s falcons took your dove from the sky. The governor isn’t coming.’

‘ Liar! ’ Saulos raged forward, through the haze of light from the windows. Their blades clashed and clashed again and they parted, each a little wiser. ‘I took the beastwoman prisoner before she could do harm. And Hypatia is dead. I had her throat cut before you could reach her.’

‘No. I would know.’

‘How?’

‘I would know.’ He was sure of that. Almost sure.

They came to a natural halt, facing each other across the fountain. The door was not locked. It swayed a little, caught by some unfelt current.

The air was thickening, braiding itself in ropes that drew taut between them, but they were further apart than they had been, each so wary now of the other’s assault that they kept to the margins of the room.

Pantera had measured the distance; thirteen paces plus a half. He had planned the two moves it would take, one to pull his knife from his sleeve, the other to throw it, and how much closer Saulos could be by the time of the throw.

And then there was the door, which had moved again, slowly, soundlessly, and was lying open by a hand’s breadth.

Pantera moved a pace to his right, so that the high windows’ light was not blinding him. ‘Yusaf ben Matthias came with me out of the city last night. This morning at dawn, he bore witness when Gideon the Peacemaker anointed Menachem as the rightful king of Israel. I thought you should know; Yusaf is the one who sent us the scroll that proved Menachem’s right to the throne. He will be the new king’s foremost counsellor.’