Simon Scarrow - The Eagle In the Sand

'With you as the mashiah, naturally.'

'Of course. I have inherited the role from Jehoshua.'

Cato was aware of something that had been said a moment earlier, and frowned. 'What did you mean, "before he weakened"?'

'Ah.' Bannus leaned forward and smiled. 'Why don't you ask your friend Symeon about that? About how it all ended? Now, please excuse me, but I really don't think that there is much purpose in continuing this discussion. If we ever meet again, Roman, then I will kill you.'

He stood up and strode out of the wine shop and across the forum. Cato watched him until he disappeared up a side street. A feeling of tired despair filled his heart like a lead weight. He had hoped to reason with the man and try, at least, to persuade him to release Yusef. All now depended on the will of the King of Nabataea.

That night, as they dined in Symeon's garden, Cato was nervous. For the rest of the day, he had dwelt on Bannus' remarks about Symeon and was determined to find out what lay behind the intense hatred between the two men. As Bazim cleared away the platters of mensaf, and brought them a jug of spiced, heated wine, the three men sat quietly for a moment staring at the stars that shone so brilliantly in the clear sky. A full moon hung over the dark outline of the cliff that towered over the royal palace.

Then there was a dull rap at the door and they heard Bazim's slow footsteps as he went to answer it. After a moment he emerged from the house and handed his master a small, hinged wax slate. Symeon flipped it open and scanned the message inside.

'It's from the chamberlain.The King returned to Petra at dusk. He is in session with the chamberlain and his advisers. Their decision will be communicated to us in the morning.'

'Good!' Macro thumped the cushion of his seat.'We'll have that bastard Bannus in our hands and we can settle the matter once and for all.'

Symeon looked at him.'You seem very confident that the King will decide in your favour.'

'Why shouldn't I be confident? He's got more to fear from Rome than Parthia.'

'That may be true, Prefect, but for pity's sake don't say such things in front of anyone else here in Petra. The last thing we need now is anyone stirring up anti-Roman hysteria.'

Macro was chastened and took a sip of wine. 'Just telling it the way it is.'

Symeon chuckled. 'Which is why you're an accomplished soldier, and not a diplomat.'

'And thank fuck for that.' Macro raised his glass. 'Sooner an honest fighter than a man who fights honesty any day.'

Symeon clapped his hands. 'An aphorism is born!'

'I spoke to Bannus today,' Cato blurted out.

The others stopped smiling and turned to stare at him. Macro recovered first.'What the hell did you do that for? You want to get us thrown back in that bloody cell?'

'No.'

'Well then.' Macro shook his head in exasperation. 'Why did you do it?'

'I tried to persuade him to hand over Yusef.'

'He said no, I take it.'

'He said that, and more.' Cato's eyes turned to Symeon. 'Bannus told me I should ask you what happened to Jehoshua, at the end.'

Symeon breathed in deeply and looked down into the dark red liquid in his glass. There was a long silence, in which Macro attracted Cato's attention and raised his eyebrows. Cato gestured to him to be patient. At length Symeon spoke.

'I'll tell you what happened, then you'll understand why there is now only a deep hatred between Bannus and myself. You already know that we were both followers of Jehoshua, but in those days we were also friends.The best of friends, like brothers really.There was a third friend, but I'll tell you about him in a minute.We joined the movement because Jehoshua held out the promise of freeing Judaea. As he drew more and more people to follow him some began to say he was the mashiah. He ignored them at first, but after a while he seemed to become attracted to the idea. I confess, I encouraged him in this. I am ashamed of it now, given what happened. Anyway, the prophecy of the mashiah is quite specific. He must liberate Jerusalem, assume the throne of David and lead Judaea to victory over the rest of the world.'

'That's a tall order,' Macro said quietly.

'Quite.' Symeon smiled faintly, and continued. 'So, with several thousand of our followers behind us, we set out for Jerusalem. It began well enough.The streets were lined with people who greeted us hysterically and showered blessings on Jehoshua.We managed to take over the precincts of the Great Temple. Jehoshua ordered that the moneylenders and the tax collectors be kicked out of the temple and their records destroyed.You can imagine how well that went down with the poor amongst his followers.Then we took over the armoury of the temple guards. At first we were carried away with the elation of it all. All that remained was to confront the Sanhedrin, persuade them to come over to our side and rise up against the Roman garrison.'

'What were they doing about it?' Macro interrupted. 'The garrison? Surely they would have intervened the moment you took over the temple?'

'They shut themselves up in Herod's palace. At the time the tensions between my people and the Roman officials were at breaking point. There had been riots a few years earlier, and the procurator did not want to risk inflaming the situation again. So they did nothing.'

Macro sat back with a look of disgust. 'I'd have sorted you lot out in short order.'

'I imagine you would. But you are not Pilate. Anyway, the Sanhedrin refused to come over to us. You have to understand that the high priests were drawn from the richest, most powerful families, and Jehoshua believed that Judaeans had to be freed from poverty and exploitation as much as from Roman tyranny. He had assumed that the Sanhedrin would place their nation before their purses, and was thrown aback by their refusal to cooperate.That's when he lost it. Suddenly, he said that we could not win by force of arms. We must win the argument. We must win the battle for the hearts and minds of our enemies.'

'Hearts and minds.' Macro laughed. 'Where have I heard that one before? Shit, when will people ever learn… Sorry, please go on.'

'Thank you.' Symeon frowned before he continued. 'When we heard him utter this new line, we were horrified. Bannus and I met in secret, and decided he had to go. The movement needed a more resolute leader or there would be no revolt. No new kingdom of Judaea. So we decided to betray Jehoshua. Hand him over to the authorities. They would surely execute him and we would have a martyr, as well as a new leader.'

'Who?' Cato asked. 'You or Bannus?'

'Me. Bannus would be my lieutenant.'

'Some friends you turned out to be,' said Macro.'With friends like you and Bannus what need had Jehoshua of enemies?'

'You don't understand, Prefect,' Symeon replied intensely. 'We loved Jehoshua. We all did. But we loved Judaea more. We had to save our people. What is the life of one man, however much he is loved, when weighed against the fate of an entire nation?' He paused and sipped from his glass. 'So we prepared a message, telling the authorities where they could find Jehoshua. There was only one man close to us whom we could trust to deliver the message, the third friend in our circle that I told you of earlier. His name was Judas. Even so, we did not dare to tell him what was in the message. So Judas took the message to the Sanhedrin. Jehoshua was arrested, tried, tortured and executed. His followers were stunned. Too stunned to react to events. Before the day was out the Roman troops were on the streets arresting the ringleaders and disarming and dispersing their followers. I managed to escape, with Bannus, through the sewers. Once we got out of Jerusalem we split up. He went north to continue the struggle. I went south, to Petra. For a while I was desolated, too ashamed of what we did, to care about anything. But slowly, I built a new life for myself and began to travel, to rebuild my connections with the surviving members of the movement, like Miriam. I did not realise at first that I had changed. I had been young and inexperienced and had never seen a battle in those days. To think that I ever believed we could beat the legions!' He shook his head. 'The romance of great causes and the folly of youth just leads to death. Eventually I came to realise that Jehoshua had been right in the end; we could not defeat Rome with swords, only with words, with ideas. Bannus never accepted that.'