by M C Scott
I saw a flurry of movement at its height, where the wall met the steps, and a scurry of men, made small by the distance, and a spark of gold, warmer than the sun, and moving at the pace of a walking man.
‘The Eagle!’ I spun from the window and only as I spoke remembered to keep my voice low. ‘They’re parading it at the temple now!’
Horgias was already moving. Pantera stood in the doorway and blocked our leaving.
‘Slowly,’ he said. ‘We go there slowly and with a lot of staring at the markets, at other people’s horses, at anything and everything but the Eagle. There is no quick way out of here if they find we are not what we seem.’
He was serious then, and it was as if the stench of unwashed tramp dropped away only to return moments later with his black-toothed leer as he let Horgias pass and ran searching eyes over me. He nodded and handed me my own knife, taken from my pack and concealed somewhere on his person; up a sleeve, I think, although I hadn’t seen him take it.
‘Let’s go and explore the city,’ he said, in his nasal northern accent. ‘We can see if the Hebrews have silver enough to buy our horses. Don’t show your weapons unless you must.’
The Hebrew priests were the same as every priest of every god I had ever seen; small men, full of their own self-importance, wearing their god’s gold and jewels as if they were their own personal wealth. Today, they were at the forefront of the procession, and they bore themselves with more pride than they had done on the day of the funeral half a year before.
Gideon’s replacement as high priest was a nervous man, prone to much glancing at the crowd, which was not surprising given that he was the third to hold his post in the last twelve months and his predecessors had met summary, and not necessarily painless, ends.
He wore his gold as if it were armour, guaranteeing his life; a headdress so weighted with bullion that he must have had a neck brace to keep it upright, and on either breast, tablets inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel that clashed with each stride.
Jewels the size of duck eggs stitched down the front of his tunic glowed in the rising sun: emeralds, rubies, turquoise, amber; a walking melody of light and all of it irrelevant beneath the blistering wash of gold that was the Eagle.
The Eagle. Our Eagle; close enough to touch. We could have done that, I think – touched it – before Eleazir’s men killed us.
Instead, we watched it borne along behind the high priest, carried by a younger man with the now familiar bearing of a zealot, who wore no gold but held aloft the greatest prize any Hebrew army had ever won.
He blazed with the pride of the victor, but in our eyes, if no one else’s, the Eagle’s blaze was the greater, flooding the street below the temple, and the crowds that stood in silence, here in Jerusalem where there was never silence, even in the middle of the night. On them, that blaze lay like a blanket beneath the shimmering gold of the sun-touched bird and held even the children to wide-eyed awe.
We stood with the rest, feigning a paltry interest, and believed ourselves inconspicuous.
A hand grabbing at my shoulder spoke otherwise. I turned, schooling my face to avarice. ‘You have silver? You wish to buy a good copper-chestnut mare with a colt foal in her belly?’
I faced a drawn knife with its blade honed so fine the iron had turned blue. Behind it I recognized the flat eyes of Nicodemus, the leader of the Hebrew youths who had brought us to the city. He did not smile. He did not so much as lift his lip.
‘You will come with me.’
‘Only if you’re going to buy a mare,’ I said.
Pantera leaned across me, favouring the youth with a wash of garlic, setting himself between me and the knife.
‘Better go with him,’ he said thickly. ‘There are more behind. We’ll never sell anything if they make a fuss here.’
They were eight again, and I was beginning to be able to tell them apart: Nicodemus of the subtly bronzed hair and flat eyes; Levius and Gorias, the twins with identical dark hair, dark brows, dark eyes and a particular curl to their lips that made them seem to laugh more often than their cousins. Manasseh was the tallest, and the most silent; in many ways he was like Horgias and I counted him amongst the most dangerous. Matthias was his cousin, thicker set and duller of wit, while Yohan, Sapphias and Onias made another small sub-clan of brothers or close cousins, all with the same gingery lift to their hair, the same stubble on their not-yet-adult chins.
They led, we followed, only today we were not protected by our horses, not held to wide, open streets where murder might conceivably be harder, but drawn into the dark winding alleys that stooped down into the deep heart of this city where the priests never went, and the small markets became smaller and smaller and finally stopped.
On the edge of a slope, with the wall not far away, we turned left and then left again and came to a halt at a door. Nicodemus rapped a particular rhythm and then stood back as the door opened, sending us alone into a house whose interior was quite at odds with its modest location and appearance.
Inside was not modest by anyone’s standards, but not ostentatious either. In the best Greek tradition the wealth of its owner was evident in the subtlety of its restraint: the marble on the floor, the nine-branched candlesticks in silver, the wall hanging of velvet in deep midnight blue, the oak and cedar table, inlaid here and there with subtle cuts of ivory and ebony, the carp pool, and the pad of well-trained Hebrew slaves.
The master stepped smartly forward. ‘Gentlemen, welcome.’ His voice was smooth, soft, unthreatening. ‘I apologize for the way you were brought here, but these days I’m afraid we must proceed with the utmost care. Even now, when we are winning all our wars, there are men who would betray us to Rome. You are the leader, I am told?’
He passed the velvet hanging and came to stand at a certain place where the water light of the pool met candlelight from the many-branching candlesticks, and both met fine sunlight filtering in from the ceiling.
Harlequin shades played across his face and I could not see him clearly, only enough to say that he was of middling height, with a beard that grew far more fulsomely than did the hair of his head, that his nose was the most prominent part of his face, and that his eyes hugged his soul tight beneath brows black as drawn charcoal. He looked tense and trying to hide it.
Pantera, by contrast, looked more slack-lipped and disreputable than ever.
The master smiled pleasantly enough. ‘I am Yusaf ben Matthias, elder of the sanhedrin of Jerusalem. You are …?’
He was looking at me. Startled, I said, ‘Demalion of Macedon. My father was a horse-trader of great repute in our land. I, who am unworthy of his name, nevertheless do my best to honour it. We have brought a dozen mares of good breeding and one in foal to—’
‘Yes, yes. I have heard.’ Ben Matthias held up his hands. ‘They are fast as the wind and will go all day without rest. But you come also straight from Antioch. You will forgive me if I have little use for your mares, but my master Eleazir, who is king here now …’ his restless gaze settled on Pantera a moment, so that their eyes met in passing, ‘is interested in what you know. We will recompense you for your time here if you will but talk to me about all you saw of Rome’s preparations for war.’
At the mention of money, gold flashed between his fingers: a sun-spark in the dark folds of his velvet gown. Pantera leaned in towards it and Yusaf ben Matthias swept his arm back, towards his table.
‘Sit! Please, do sit!’ He smiled again, and it was no more real than the first time, with no less tension about his mouth. ‘I shall call for food and drink and you can tell me all you know.’
I spoke for most of the time, with irregular interjections from Pantera that wandered far off the point but appeared to be telling ben Matthias things he found interesting, plus the occasional grunt from Horgias when a name came up that he evidently recognized with his paltry Greek.
In between these, I told the story we had arranged, which was not all we knew, but close enough to ensure t
hat other spies who brought their own tales would concur with all we said. All of it had been cleared with Vespasian before we left. He had been enthusiastically helpful. The more they know, the more they will fear us. Tell them all you can. Within reason, of course.
So we told again of the gathering legions, of the auxiliaries, of the rumours of the new commander, the second son of a tax farmer who had fought with astonishing success against the terrifying warriors of Britain; the governor who was so incorruptible that he made no money out of his governorship in Africa; the man who had offended Nero so greatly that he was lucky to be alive.
‘If he was any good, he would be dead by now,’ Horgias said in his barely comprehensible Thracian Greek, and we, astonished, spun to look at him. Encouraged, he went on, ‘Nero kills all the men who are good enough to oppose him.’
His accent was so thick that ben Matthias stared at him for a good dozen heartbeats before he broke into a hesitant smile.
‘Indeed. Nero does our work for us. We should send him gold in gratitude. Perhaps one day we shall do so. When we are our own nation again, under the protection of the King of Kings.’
We were merchants. We cared nothing for Vologases or Parthia. You could have fallen asleep, lulled by our boredom. ‘Does he buy horses?’ Pantera asked.
‘I’m sure he will do.’ Yusaf stood, clasping his hands to himself, as if warding off cold in the midst of a warm spring day. ‘I will ask his envoy when next I am called to meet him; soon, I think. In the meantime, you should return to your lodgings and see to your mares. I fear no one will come buying now; the time for trade is the first hour after dawn, and it is already beyond noon. In the morning, men will come to you. You might like to watch the parade of the Eagle again at dawn. There is always something new to be learned and Jerusalem is a place of constant change, particularly now, when we have your news of the forces ranged against us and the man who leads them. In the meantime, the day is yours and you have earned your gold.’
The coin spun, flashing. Pantera caught it, leering, and tested it openly with his teeth. Ben Matthias’ smile grew fixed and his eyes offended. ‘My best wishes in your endeavour,’ he said. ‘If we are fortunate, we may never meet again.’
We left the house alone; Nicodemus’ gang had gone and nobody came with us. As Pantera led the way, it became clear that he had not memorized the route as we came but knew it already in all its twisting, winding complexity.
‘How do you—’ I had sidestepped to avoid a dead chicken on the road and bumped into Pantera, so that my voice carried nowhere but his ears and his barely carried to mine.
‘We can’t talk now. We’re being followed. Yusaf is a man of great courage. That’s all you need to know.’ He cursed at me fiercely and pushed me away and I pushed back and tried to get the gold coin off him and he fought back again until Horgias came between us to keep us apart, and like that, wrangling, we returned to the inn of the Cedar Tree, there to spend the day tending to our horses, eating our meals, and arguing hotly over how to spend our unexpected windfall in full view of anyone who cared to watch.
We never saw who they were, but we all three felt their presence.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER dawn, another blurred wakening to a pinch on my toe; another scurry under a peach sky to the temple, there to wait and watch while men wearing a country’s ransom in gold and too-big jewels paraded themselves before the crowds.
There is always something new to be learned. So had said Yusaf ben Matthias, and Pantera said that he was a trusted agent, and so I watched, wondering what that new thing might be, awaiting the fall of a hand on my shoulder.
There was a moment when Horgias flinched and I thought he had fallen to a zealot knife, but he was whole, still gazing up at the Eagle, and before I had time to speak to him a large man with blacksmith’s shoulders and old, linear scorch marks on both arms wormed his way to my side.
‘You sell mares?’ he asked.
Turning slowly, I looked the prospective buyer up and down with a hauteur I remembered vaguely from my youth. ‘For the right price,’ I said, ‘we may do. Your name?’
He bared thick teeth. ‘I am Zacchariah. My price will be right. You show me now?’
In that moment, ten generations of horse-traders counted for more than half a lifetime in the legions. I was my father made young again, itching to make a sale. Abandoning the Eagle – I was a horse-trader, what did I care for a gold bird on a stick, however venerated by the Hebrews? – I gathered Pantera and Horgias about me, and trekked back to the inn of the Cedar Tree.
Along the way, we collected Zacchariah’s well-muscled younger relatives, three other, unrelated, horse merchants who gazed at him with undisguised venom, a woman who claimed she could more accurately assess the sex of the foal our pregnant mare carried, a bone-setter who set to arguing with Horgias but gave up when his poor Greek met Horgias’ worse Greek – and Nicodemus and his seven zealots who stood about as we conducted our business, obviously waiting for a chance to inflict violence upon us.
Over the course of the next few hours, I sold the pregnant mares, the barren mares and eight of the twelve youngstock. The bargaining this entailed took up the better part of the day and I found I was enjoying myself more and more as time wore on and the haggling became faster, harder and more brutal.
It was only near the end, therefore, as we were sealing our promises with clasped hands and silver, that I chanced to see the tension on Horgias’ face and the urgency in his eyes.
I came back to myself and closed the deals, sending the men off with their mares, making excuses for why I was no longer able to grace their homes with my presence, declared myself bereft not to share their evening meal.
‘What?’ I asked, after the last one had gone. We were leaning against the all but empty stalls, seeming to count our money.
‘It wasn’t the Eagle,’ Horgias said.
I stared at him, my mind still full of sound hocks and good wind, and the relative worth of silver and horseflesh. Pantera, who had done little to help but had, as far as I could tell, picked everyone’s pockets, examined the contents and returned them to their rightful owners untouched, said, ‘But yesterday it was?’
‘Yes. Yesterday it was the Eagle. Today, it was a replica cast in bronze and dipped in gold.’
‘How do you know?’ I asked.
‘There was a crack under the left wing. I had filled it with lead and burnished it, but you could still see it. I saw it yesterday as it passed over us. Today, no crack.’
‘They could have mended it,’ Pantera said.
‘No.’ Horgias was adamant. ‘This is a new Eagle. A counterfeit.’
‘Why?’ We asked it of each other and ourselves.
Pantera sat on the floor, juggling silver coins thoughtfully. ‘They’ve moved it,’ he said. ‘There was always a chance they would do so when they knew the legions were on their way.’
‘But where have they taken it?’ Horgias’ face was a landscape of despair. ‘It could be anywhere. We could search the whole of Jerusalem and—’
‘It won’t be in Jerusalem,’ Pantera said. ‘They’ll have taken it somewhere safe in the desert. Yusaf will know where; that’s what he was trying to tell us yesterday.’ Throwing down the silver, he lurched to his feet. ‘We need a fight,’ he said, and swayed back, roaring. When he came forward, he hit me.
We fought as men do who have earned too much silver and let it go to their heads. Horgias thrust himself between us, cursing, flailing his fists and feet and once cracking his head against my cheek, missing my nose by a finger’s width.
I screamed abuse at him, at Pantera, at the innkeeper who came to see what was happening and left again swiftly. I was my father in his cups, but without the need for drink. I flailed with intent to injure, and did not care who I hit.
Pantera defamed my father, my mother, all three of my brothers and the memory of my dead sister in language that was barely Greek. Ducking under my punch
es, he grabbed the greater part of the silver that had been scattered on the floor and ran for the street.
Horgias held me about the chest, pinning my arms to my sides, until he was sure we were alone.
He released me slowly, warily. ‘Are you sane?’
I shook my head. The world became more solid, less threatening. ‘I think so.’
‘Let me buy you a drink. He left us some of the money.’ Horgias bent to the dirt and picked up the remaining silver, neat-fingered, finding the smaller coins where they had rolled into the empty horse stalls. Rising, he held his palm out in a flash of shining metal. ‘Most of it, actually.’
‘And Pantera? Do we wait for him?’ I was still sore where he had hit me.
Horgias, all solicitude, held up the flat of his blade for me to see the growing edges of a bruise reflected in its surface. He said, ‘We’re to wait until tomorrow’s dawn, and if he’s not back we’re to get out as fast as we can.’
He said it with assurance, as if he had orders in detail.
‘How do you know that?’
‘That last curse … every third word was Thracian.’
‘Very clever.’ I felt oddly deflated. My head ached. My fists ached. My belly screamed for food. I nodded towards the stairs that led to the upper dining rooms. ‘I didn’t know he spoke Thracian, too.’
Horgias shrugged. ‘There’s a lot about him we don’t know,’ he said. ‘But if he can find out where they’ve taken the Eagle, I won’t care how many languages he speaks. Or what he does with men’s purses.’
It was dark. Horses ate sweet hay from racks below us, and their breath smothered us; sweet exhalations, thick with memories of summer pastures, and foaling fields and sleep.
A hand fell on my foot. I jerked it away and sat up. Two hands caught my shoulders, pressing me back on my pallet. Lips near my ear, a voice behind them, so silent it had no character. ‘Get up. Dress. Come downstairs, silently. Wear your cloak. Bring your knife.’