Emperor of Rome

by Robert Fabbri

  The frame was pushed back to its original position so as not to lose any part of the strength of the weapon. With the roars of the officers urging them on, the men of The Brute grabbed hold of their charge by its many looped handles and steadied the great engine before, again at Titus’ command, they strained to withdraw it to its maximum before thrusting the head back into Jotapata.

  ‘You make progress, general; how pleasing it is to see that you do.’ The voice behind him oozed obsequiousness in a tone more suited to falsehoods than to the truth.

  Vespasian did not turn around. ‘I thought that I had forbade you from coming here and leading your men in battle, Herod Agrippa.’ He paused as another reverberating boom issued from the focus of all current martial endeavours. ‘In fact, I had the distinct impression that you were happier hiding in your temporary bolthole rather than coming near the army that you sent to aid me.’ The second, lesser crash sounded. ‘It was, after all, over forty days ago that I wrote to you refusing your presence in command of your men. In the absence of a follow-up request from you, I had developed the distinct impression that you had decided that you had done enough for honour’s sake and could legitimately stay safely away from the fighting.’

  ‘My dear Vespasian,’ Herod said, as his shaded litter was borne level with the general, ‘I would never in normal circumstances ignore an order from you. To do so would be as if to disobey the Emperor himself as you are his representative here.’

  ‘But you did so in this case.’ Vespasian turned and smiled with exaggerated warmth at the tetrarch. ‘And why now? Did it just take you a month and a half to pack?’

  Herod returned the smile with equal insincerity, his dark eyes, either side of his hawk’s beak of a nose, the legacy of his father, betraying an inner worry that pleased Vespasian. He gestured around the field of struggle. ‘There is much that needs to be organised before one joins an endeavour such as this.’

  Vespasian could not be bothered to goad the man any further as the work of his army was of far more interest. The Brute again collided with solid stone as the artillery kept up its barrage on the wall above it so that, still, none dared risk their head above it in order to rain missiles and fire down on the engine.

  ‘I trust that I find you well, general,’ Herod said after a while when it had become apparent that Vespasian would be venturing little in the way of conversation.

  ‘You do,’ Vespasian replied, deliberately not enquiring after Herod’s health.

  ‘That is most gratifying.’ Herod cleared his throat as if he were building himself up for a difficult question and arranged his loose, exquisitely woven white robes over his slender frame so that they hung to best show his form. ‘And Titus, your son, he is in good health too, I hope.’

  ‘Yes, as far as a man can be if he’s standing beneath the walls of a besieged town wearing a bright red cloak.’

  Herod gave a supercilious little laugh and then quickly corrected it to another clearance of the throat. ‘Indeed. Well, I shan’t take up any more of your time, general. I shall go to the camp and summon my captains for a briefing on the situation.’

  ‘You do that, Herod.’

  ‘I will; perhaps you will be kind enough to share my table this evening?’

  ‘This evening I intend to be feasting with my men in Jotapata. Perhaps you will join us instead?’

  Herod’s expression remained neutral. ‘It would be my pleasure; provided, of course, that you manage to take it by dinner time. My constitution is such that I cannot delay my repast. But, before I go, may I ask something?’

  Vespasian set his face in preparation for the question he knew to be coming. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I was wondering whether there had been any prisoners captured recently; I was thinking that if there had been it might be helpful for me to interrogate them as I know the way they think and would be able to question them subtly.’

  And find out whether they know of his communications with Yosef, Vespasian thought with an inner smile as another mighty boom of The Brute echoed around the hills. ‘There are a few, Herod; they were caught sneaking in and out of a gully disguised as sheep. But I don’t think that your kind offer is necessary as I believe that we’ve got everything out of them that we can; you know how persuasive we can be.’

  ‘But, general, you know how brave a Jew can be.’

  Vespasian made a show of considering this for a few moments. ‘I suppose you could be right, Herod; we did have a couple a few days ago who were less than keen on talking. One even went to the trouble of dying rather than revealing anything of interest; like who he was delivering his message from, for example.’

  Herod seized upon the bait that Vespasian had dangled. ‘There you are, general; give me the other one and I shall have all he knows out of him very quickly, before he dies.’

  ‘Would that I could, Herod,’ Vespasian said in a tone laced with regret, ‘but unfortunately the man escaped.’

  ‘Escaped! How could that happen?’

  Vespasian paused as he watched another brutal blow from The Brute shake Jotapata’s walls. ‘Very easily: I let him.’ He was careful not to look at Herod but felt the tetrarch cast a worried, sidelong glance at him.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘To see to whom he ran.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And the idiots who were meant to be following him lost him; I had the optio in charge broken back down to the ranks.’ Vespasian felt Herod’s relief as he let out a long breath. ‘The prisoner managed to give them the slip just to the north of here so we assume that’s the direction in which his master lives.’ Vespasian turned to Herod with a look of baffled innocence. ‘You live that way, Herod; you wouldn’t have any idea who would be communicating with the rebels from up there, would you?’

  ‘Ohhh,’ Herod blustered as the sound of another impact thundered up from the head of The Brute. ‘It could be a number of people. I’ve heard that the Jews of Damascus are getting restless as Malichus keeps on increasing the taxes they have to pay him. It might even be Malichus himself.’

  ‘Malichus is here, with his army, and, unlike you, has been since the beginning, because I deem him to be a useful man to have by my side. Interestingly, he said that it might have been you.’

  ‘Me? What would I want to have communication with Yosef for?’

  ‘Yosef? Who said the message was for Yosef? I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I just assumed that it would be, seeing as he’s the leader of the rebels.’

  ‘I suppose so; although it could just as easily have been to the town’s elders or rabbis that the message was addressed. But, anyway, I told Malichus not to have his prejudices and antipathy against you colour his judgement. It was you and your sister, after all, who tried to stop the rebellion right at the beginning. I think he accepts that you would never betray Rome.’

  ‘Quite. What did it say, this letter?’

  ‘Well, it was from someone calling himself “The Master of the Anointed”; he was very keen that Yosef should continue to hold out despite what a family member had said. It went on to say that the rebellion could always look to Parthia for help.’

  ‘Parthia?’

  ‘Yes, the actual wording is something like: look to the East. Anyway, it’s treasonous and I imagine the Emperor will want the balls of whoever sent it.’ Vespasian looked over to Herod, concerned. ‘You will put your mind to who it might be, won’t you, Herod? The Master of the Anointed sounds Jewish to me.’

  ‘I shall have my network of agents look into the matter with utmost urgency. Anything to help Rome, general.’

  Anything to help yourself, more like, was Vespasian’s unarticulated thought. ‘And ask your sister, Berenice; she seems to have a good grasp of the politics of the region.’

  ‘You can ask her yourself, general; she is on her way here. Although, naturally, as a woman she is unable to travel at the same pace as we can, being so encumbered with her baggage.’

  ‘Indeed, Herod. I�
�m still in shock at the speed with which you got here. Now, if you would excuse me, I have a town to capture.’

  *

  Again the ground shook as The Brute crunched into the walls of Jotapata and again the report resounded over the field and echoed back from the hills. Fiery substances poured down from the newly extended walls onto the soaking hides of the engine’s protective covering, here and there causing it to smoulder but, in general, they rolled or poured off the pitched roof causing little harm to those beneath its gables. Vespasian rode forward, with his staff in attendance, as much to rid himself of Herod’s company as to be closer to the breach when it opened.

  But the defenders had no intention of letting The Brute penetrate their town with impunity and, despite the continuous hail of missiles strafing the top of the wall, they managed to lower a device to counter the awesome power of the engine. It was an elegant solution, Vespasian had to admit to himself, as he realised that the huge bundle that Yosef’s men were deploying on two chains was nothing more than an enormous cushion, the size of four men in a row. With one man risking his head, peering down over the wall to shout guidance to the teams on the chains, the cushion descended. Three such spotters in quick succession fell back, their skulls shattered by multiple impacts as archers and artillery turned all their attentions to them; but each time one disappeared with a cry of agony and a spray of blood a new spotter replaced him to shout invaluable directions back down to his comrades. As The Brute surged forward for yet another thrust, the counter-measure, at a screamed order from the latest spotter a moment before two shafts powered him back, jolted down and the ram’s head thudded into the mass of blankets and straw. No noise emanated from the impact, deadened as it was by the cushion, and the wall suffered no damage. Its momentum stunned, The Brute did not recoil but, rather, remained embedded within the depths of the cushion.

  ‘Cut it down!’ Titus roared as all seemed to pause in shock at the effectiveness of such a simple gambit.

  An instant later, the centurions commanding the legionaries on either side of The Brute regained their focus and bellowed commands at the men closest to them. Forward they dashed, swords flashing, to hack at the device that had so easily nullified the mighty engine of war. However, it was chain that the cushion was suspended on, not rope, and so it was impervious to blades and the legionaries were forced to hack at the material itself, trying to separate it off. And this was what the defenders had been waiting for: boiling oil and supra-heated sand flowed down through the gap between the wall and the protective roof, slopping onto the cushion and splashing onto the faces and clothes of the men attempting to destroy it. With screeches of anguish they fell back, burning or blinded, as the cushion itself burst into flame with an explosion of fire. Fuelled by so much heat falling from above the straw and cloth within it combusted with the rage of Vulcan, igniting the boiling oil that had fallen through to the floor of The Brute’s housing. Within moments, a conflagration raged that set fear into the hearts of all who beheld it.

  Vespasian kicked his horse forward, knowing that indecision would lead to failure and thence to disgrace. Leaping from the saddle, he pushed his way through the scrum of men all desperately trying to get clear of what was now searing heat. ‘The hides! The hides!’ he shouted, pointing up at the protective roof. ‘Tear down the rearmost of the hides!’ He jumped up and grabbed the overhanging edge of one of the soaked hides at the back of the engine’s housing; pulling with all his strength he managed to dislodge it a fraction as an optio with a few men came to his aid. Together they heaved and tugged, pulling the hide from its nailed fixings; down it fell, sending Vespasian and his comrades tumbling to the floor as the two centurions realised what was being attempted and bawled their men into imitating their general.

  With the hide held before him, protecting him from the furnace, he ran forward and threw it down onto the burning floor. Within a few heartbeats, more of the fire-dampeners had been thrown onto the blazing wood, smothering the flames and quelling the heat so that hides could be flung over the head of The Brute to quench the fire that threatened to consume it.

  With the cushion destroyed, the chains were hauled up, their links too scalding for an attempt to pull them down, and Vespasian knew that it would not be too long before another counter was deployed. ‘Now man The Brute!’ he bellowed, seeing that the fire still raged on the oil sticking to the wall but no longer threatened the structure of the great engine. ‘Keep it working!’

  Reacting with military alacrity to the order, the centurions shouted their men back to their positions on the ropes. Back the huge ram was hauled; back as far as it could be, before, with a mighty grunt of exertion, it was hurled forward with rage and hatred. Almost majestic, it swung in a downward arc on its cradle, its massive weight accelerating it, bolstering its momentum until, with a glorious inevitability, it struck the wall once again through the fire that still clung to it. And it was with intense and concentrated power, through a billow of exploding flame, that it hit and Vespasian felt the shock course through his entire being and his eyes closed involuntarily. As they opened and The Brute rebounded, he peered through the fire to the point of collision; the heat had expanded the stone, weakening the wall’s construction, and a crack had appeared; not large but a crack nonetheless. Once more the brazen-headed war machine surged forward and thumped into the newly made wound; this time Vespasian kept his eyes open and was rewarded with the sight of the crack jagging further open.

  ‘Keep them at it, centurions!’ he shouted, his excitement at the imminence of the possible breakthrough raising his voice.

  The centurions exhorted their men to further effort; they hauled The Brute back even more than they had thought possible before flinging it forward with all their might and a massed roar of effort. With another fierce back-waft of roiling flames, the ram’s head thundered into the wall, crunching the loosening stone; chunks, large and small, still ablaze with raging oil, burst from the impact, hitting the legionaries at the front of The Brute and causing them to hunch and turn away, cheering as they did so, arms flung protectively over their heads. The great cedar of Tyre recoiled, leaving a deep rend that Vespasian could see was certainly the beginning of the end. He turned to seek out his son. ‘Now, Titus, now for your towers!’

  Titus acknowledged his father’s shout and, with his horse rearing and sword flashing over his head, summoned the two other great beasts of war from where they had been waiting out of bowshot. And forward they lumbered, hauled on by teams of lowing oxen and sweating legionaries as the archers and artillery kept a continuing flow of projectiles pounding the top of the wall, giving bloody execution to all foolish or brave enough to try to shoot down the trudging animals. But with only their lives to lose, lives that they deemed already lost, the Jews heeded not death and defied the missiles strafing them to launch shaft and stone at the oxen, as they came into range, felling a couple. With speed born of practice, their drovers cut the floundering beasts from their traces and put them out of their misery as the great towers rumbled towards them. Built on wheels the height of a man, the towers, wide at the bottom and tapering to the top, passed over the stricken oxen as, repeatedly, The Brute dealt carnage to the stonework of Jotapata’s weakening defences.

  In grim, silent ranks, the assault cohorts marched behind either tower, each man steeling himself for the ordeal to come, for they knew what to expect: they knew the claustrophobic confines of the narrow staircases within the engine, up which they would clamber, fleet of foot as speed would be crucial to the endeavour. They knew the dizzying height of the ramp that would be dropped across to the wall; there were no rails, just a sheer drop to the Ferryman or, worse, a life of crippled ruin. They knew, moreover, all too well from bitter experience, the ferocity with which the Jews would attempt to repel their assault and the soaring death toll of those first to storm the town; and they knew, too, that none of these factors would prevent them from entering the towers once they were rammed up against the walls.

&
nbsp; And Vespasian knew, as he watched the siege engines progress forward over ground flattened especially for them, that victory was now within his sights, although he did not fully form the thought for fear of the black humour of the gods that had afflicted him the last time he had done so. Another booming report took his attention back to The Brute; the fire on the wall was dying but it had done much self-inflicted damage. Masonry cascaded down as the bulbous, brazen head delved deep into the opening of its own forging. In it drove, each thrust widening the wound as the housing was moved, foot by foot to the right, in order that new segments of stone would suffer its attentions, so now the whole length of wall visibly shuddered with each virile plunge.