[Gaius Valerius Verrens 06] - Scourge of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  Albinus roared with laughter at the suggestion he might win the Empire’s highest military honour. ‘On the day my wrinkled balls turn square. They only give them to generals. Maybe Lepidus will award it to himself? Come,’ he said, ushering Valerius towards what had once been one of the city’s richer houses, ‘let’s see if the traitorous bastards left us any decent wine and we’ll get these off.’ He pointed to the blood-soaked bandages that still covered Valerius’s caligae. ‘Besides,’ he reflected, ‘if they’d shut those gates we’d have been well and truly fucked. Let’s just be happy we’ve cracked this particular nut without having to bother the stone-heavers. Once we’ve settled with this rabble it’ll be straight to the real prize.’

  Jerusalem.

  XXII

  The rabble fought for every street and every building, but poorly equipped and without leaders they stood no chance against disciplined Roman legionaries. Valerius followed the progress of the battle through the bloodstained thoroughfares of Gamala, stepping over corpses amid the slaughterhouse stink from scattered entrails and torn viscera. He struggled to feel pity for the dead. Perhaps all the years carrying a sword had hardened him against the sight. But he knew it was more than that.

  This was no Cremona, where Roman had slaughtered Roman and women and children had suffered the same fate as the men. These were enemies who had rebelled against the rule of Roman law. Not soldiers, it was true, only civilians handed a spear or a sword and told to kill. But their fate was sealed from the moment their leaders defied Rome.

  Much of the place hadn’t been repaired since Vespasian’s attack three years earlier. Here the defenders had made their final stand within the blackened shell of a burned-out building where the charred rafters stood out like the rib bones of a sacrificed pig. Their broken and butchered bodies sprawled from the windows and hung from the roofs. What surprised him most was that so many of them were very young. The average age must have been less than twenty years and many were probably only fourteen or fifteen. It was only later he discovered exactly what Vespasian’s cleansing had entailed. The fathers of these boys and young men were all dead or slaves, torn from their lives to teach Galilee a lesson it would never forget.

  But they fought. And they died.

  By the time he reached the camel’s hump, between the two dips that had housed the bulk of Gamala’s population, the Tenth had hemmed in the survivors on a series of flat-roofed buildings overlooking the west cliff. In the distance, Valerius was aware of the glittering expanse of the inland sea, but he only had eyes for the drama being acted out below. Some of the Judaeans screamed defiance and brandished swords and spears at the men who surrounded them. Most, though, gathered in small groups praying or singing. For the moment, the Romans allowed them respite, but it was only a matter of time before they finished the job and everyone knew it.

  ‘I give you joy of victory, my friend.’ Valerius looked round to find Josephus behind him staring bleakly at the spectacle. ‘The next generation. The seed of Judaea’s future. I would they had stayed at home.’

  ‘They are rebels.’ It was an obvious truth, but Valerius knew his voice lacked conviction. ‘And you played your part in their defeat.’

  ‘But not so much as you, it would appear. I marked you as a soldier, but how could I have known your true worth? There is not a man here who does not talk of the one-armed tribune who led the attack on the gate.’ The flattery produced a snort of bitter laughter from Valerius, but Josephus ignored his scorn. ‘The men who followed you would have followed no other. No other man could have achieved what you did. Mark my word, Gaius Valerius Verrens, you will have your part to play in the days to come.’

  The words had a ring of prophecy that sent a shiver through Valerius, but he refused to respond to the assumption they raised. His eyes returned to the men trapped on the roofs below. ‘They ran like chickens before the farmer’s axe. If the rest of the campaign is like this Titus can leave the legions in their bases and his auxiliaries will do the job for him.’

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find himself the focus of smouldering dark eyes. ‘Do not underestimate your enemy. You surprised a band of young men barely old enough to wield a sword. It would have been different if they had stayed behind these walls. Yes,’ Josephus’s laugh was a hollow sham of the real thing, ‘your ballistae would have made short work of the walls, but if they’d been given time to organize a defence of the streets you would have seen their true worth. Did you know Vespasian almost died here? It is true. You’ve seen how narrow the streets are. The people demolished the upper floors of their houses to provide missiles they could hurl down upon the invaders. With the lower doors and windows barricaded the Romans were crushed and broken in their hundreds. Vespasian looked for a point near here to rally them, but he became detached from the main force. He told me later that if his bodyguard hadn’t formed testudo and dragged him out he would have been torn to pieces. He left it to Titus to take the city and before he was finished the son had to kill every man capable of bearing arms. You could not go from one house to another without stepping on bodies. This,’ he surveyed the carnage around them, ‘this is nothing. It will be at Jerusalem where you will see the true mettle of the Jews.’

  ‘Tell me about Jerusalem.’

  ‘As well defended by nature as this,’ the bearded Judaean waved a hand at the ravines on every side but one, ‘only greater, and the walls … Ah, yes,’ his voice took on a ragged edge. ‘I wondered. I was wrong. You will not have to wait till Jerusalem.’ He turned away and walked back down the hill, leaving Valerius alone.

  Below him, the men on the roofs had gathered in a crowd at the farthest edge, above the precipice. Valerius watched as they alternately bobbed their heads in prayer and looked to the heavens as if for forgiveness, or perhaps salvation. When the first threw himself off the edge and plummeted silently to the rocks below, Valerius felt his mind freeze. The act of self-sacrifice was so inconceivable it didn’t seem real. As he watched, the rest followed in little groups, holding hands or clinging to each other like brothers. By the time the thousandth made the plunge it seemed almost normal. Why did he stay? Why did he not look away? Respect for the defeated? A need to see the end of it? At the time he could not have provided an answer. It was only when he saw these men’s comrades defending Jerusalem’s walls that he discovered the answer. He needed to know his enemy’s mettle.

  He walked back down the hill towards the maze of houses. Oddly, though his body ached with weariness, his mind was clear and he realized that some part of him was actually happy. Not once had he faltered. He’d known exactly what was required and never hesitated over a decision. He’d defeated fear and when he’d thought he was going to die his only thought was of eventual victory. The little worm of doubt Paternus had planted had been driven from his soul. Gaius Valerius Verrens was a wanderer no more, but a soldier who’d proved himself again on the field of battle. When he approached Titus he’d do so with pride: as the man who breached the gates at Gamala.

  As he entered a narrow street that would eventually take him to the gate his thoughts turned to Tabitha. She would know by now that he’d taken part in the attack. Would she fear he was dead? And if he had been, would she have mourned him? He smiled. It didn’t matter, because he was alive and at some point they would be together again. The smile lasted another twenty paces until he realized that dead bodies lined the street and two legionaries rifling through the robes of the corpses had stopped to study him with an odd look. He nodded and carried on his way, but he felt their eyes on his back. Of course, they thought he was mad. Why else would a man in blood-soaked armour walk down a street of the dead, in a city of the dead, smiling as if he were in a summer’s meadow? For a moment images of gaping mouths spraying blood and wide terrified eyes flickered through his mind. His left hand twitched as he felt again the impact and the scraping sensation as the point of his gladius scored the inside of a man’s skull. Perhaps he was mad.

  His thoug
hts turned to Serpentius’s words of half a lifetime ago at the bottom of the mountain. Tabitha and Josephus. Why shouldn’t they know each other? Tabitha had said her mistress, Queen Berenice, travelled with Titus’s retinue. Josephus had been Vespasian’s hostage and now basked in the Emperor’s patronage: of course he would have mixed with Titus and his friends. Yet why should the Judaean give the impression they’d never met when he and Valerius rode together, and why the probing about his own background?

  He froze as he glimpsed someone slipping furtively through the ruins to his right. A flash of colour masked by toppled columns and collapsed roof beams, but it stirred a memory. Could it have been Josephus? The Judaean’s robe was certainly similar, but he couldn’t be certain. He hesitated, unsure whether to follow, but Josephus raised enough questions in his mind for curiosity to overrule caution.

  Valerius climbed the steps of what must once have been a palace or one of Gamala’s finest public buildings. A great oak door hung awkwardly on its hinges, the original copper sheathing stripped away, but the rivets that had held it in place still gleaming bright. Axe marks showed where someone had tried to chop it for a fire or building timber, but the ancient wood had defied them. Valerius ducked under it and into a room blackened by fire. One wall had been torn down and he could see men passing on the street outside. The place had once been covered with frescoes and painted plaster. Most was chipped away, or fallen in dusty heaps on the stone floor, but it was clear it had once been very fine. He winced as a roof tile crunched under his foot. Unlike most of the city’s flat-roofed buildings this had been tiled in the Roman fashion, but the supports were burned away and tiles lay everywhere.

  Stepping carefully, he moved to a door that opened out on to a courtyard with a cistern at the centre to collect rainwater. A walkway ran round three sides and to his left was another doorway, just a black rectangle in the stone wall. Hardly daring to breathe, he moved towards it and slipped through into the gloom, taking a step to one side as he entered. A soft fluttering sound stopped his heart and he had an image of a knife spinning through the darkness to pin him through the throat. He tensed for the strike, but nothing happened apart from another soft explosion accompanied by the gentle cooing of the dove roosting in an alcove above and to his left.

  Willing his heart to slow, he stood by the doorway until his eyes became accustomed to the murk, gradually becoming aware of a familiar throat-filling stench. Hundreds of scroll cases littered the floor and scattered amongst them were the contents, ancient texts now torn and crumpled into small balls of papyrus or parchment. The stink came from the human excrement that covered the floor in heaps and fouled the manuscripts. In places great smears disfigured the walls and even the scroll alcoves were dirtied. Somehow the desecration of the books had a greater effect than the slaughter he’d witnessed an hour earlier. What kind of man used a library as a latrine? The answer wasn’t difficult to divine. A soldier. Like every soldier, the legionary was obsessed with his bowels. Bodily movements were the subject of intense discussion, extraordinary scrutiny and even competition. There’d been nights when he’d heard eight-man leather tents rattle to the sound of farting contests. They’d compete to see who could pass the biggest stool. He could imagine them in here, laughing as they wiped their arses on books that had sometimes taken a lifetime to write. ‘Look, I’ve got Archimedes’ screw up my bum.’ The shit was old and dry – he guessed the result of Titus’s depredations or perhaps a more recent Roman push into the area – but it still stank. Gamala had been abandoned for much of the time since the city’s capture and destruction and the men who had occupied it recently either hadn’t had the time to clean it up, or more likely were unwilling to soil their hands on Rome’s leavings.

  Valerius was about to take a first careful step when he heard a muffled cry from somewhere close. There were no other doors or windows in the library. He guessed whoever had owned the books used the courtyard for reading and didn’t expose his treasures to the elements unless necessary. As he studied his surroundings he noticed a break in the random pattern of shit scattering the floor. In the far corner an area had been cleared. When he looked closer he recognized some sort of trap door. A heavy cabinet stood nearby and he guessed it had covered the hidden entrance until it had been moved. He crouched over the trap and with his left hand grasped the ring bolt set into the slab and heaved it up. It rose with a slight creak and in the opening he’d created he could see a set of stairs lit by a soft glow. He raised the door to its full extent and found, to his relief, that it had been designed to stay upright without any visible support. He ducked down to look inside and was greeted by a short chamber with doors to either side.

  Before he went any further he removed his sandals and placed them beside the trap. In such a confined space the sound of the hobnails on stone would be as loud as a trumpet fanfare. When he was ready he reached for his sword, then changed his mind. The stairs were steep and awkward, especially for a man with one hand, and the slightest chink of metal would give him away. He’d draw it when he needed it. He wasn’t even certain he would.

  One of the doors was open and he could hear the sound of a muted conversation followed by the clatter of metal, as if something had fallen. He moved slowly towards it and craned his neck to look inside.

  Josephus had his back to the wall with the knife that had been knocked from his hand lying at his feet. A tall man faced him, dressed in Judaean clothing, with a cloth wound about his head to conceal his features. The tall man spoke Hebrew and held a long spear with a leaf-shaped blade to Josephus’s chest, jabbing it to emphasize his words. Josephus said nothing, but Valerius could see no fear in his eyes, only calculation. Clearly he hadn’t reconciled himself to what appeared to be almost certain death. The Judaean hadn’t noticed Valerius yet, but that would change in a moment. He only prayed Josephus was sensible enough not to show any sign that would give him away. He stepped into the room and his fingers closed on his sword hilt. Josephus’s eyes widened slightly, but otherwise his face remained impassive. Valerius pulled at the sword as he moved silently across the floor. Nothing happened. It was stuck fast in the scabbard. Fool, his mind screamed at him, to sheath it covered in blood.

  No time to change that. He released the hilt and moved his left hand to his right fist. Less than three paces away the spearman heard the sharp click and whirled, lightning fast, to face the new threat. Too late. Valerius was already inside the spear point and he rammed the wooden fist into the man’s unprotected stomach. All the air left him in one coughing gasp and his eyes, the only part of his face visible, widened in shock. The spear clattered to the ground and his hands clutched at his midriff. He brought the right up to his face, staring in disbelief at the blood staining his fingers. Valerius faced him, his right hand raised ready to strike again, but with a groan like a toppled tree the Judaean fell forward on to his face.

  Josephus was staring at the wooden fist and the bloodied metal spike protruding from it. He took a deep breath, but otherwise the only sign of his ordeal was a slight paleness in his face. ‘A neat trick,’ he said seriously. ‘I’m very glad you didn’t experiment with it on me. Is he dead?’

  Valerius heaved the body over with his foot and a pair of sightless eyes stared back at him. ‘It seems so.’

  Josephus moved from the wall and crouched over the dead man, careful not to touch his body. ‘Please unwind the cloth from his face.’

  Valerius did as he was asked. ‘Do you know him?’

  The Judaean stared at the bearded features. ‘No.’ His eyes flicked nervously to Valerius. ‘Why should I know him?’

  ‘He followed you down here.’

  ‘A coincidence,’ Josephus shrugged, returning to the wall where a shelf held several dozen scroll cases. He picked them up one at a time, discarding some, but putting others to one side.

  ‘Why would he follow a fellow Judaean down into the depths of some palace cellar when there are several thousand Roman enemies he could have chosen from in
the rest of the city?’ Josephus didn’t answer. ‘You knew this was here?’

  Josephus looked up from his books. ‘Of course. Did I not tell you I designed the defences? This is the house of the High Priest. I was a guest here. I was naive then. I believed Gamala was impregnable, but I underestimated Vespasian’s ability to drive his troops across twenty miles of mountains to unlock the defences from the rear. Before I left for Jotapata I left some of my writings here. I hoped they might have survived, so I came to look for them. When I turned round this brute was standing with a spear pointed at me.’

  ‘You cried out.’

  ‘Did I?’ The Judaean’s face went blank. ‘I do not remember. I only had my knife, but he knocked it from my hand.’ He studied the offending appendage as if it had betrayed him. ‘You saved my life.’ He stretched out to take Valerius’s hand but stopped midway as he remembered it was wooden and had a vicious-looking knife protruding from the centre knuckle.

  ‘It was nothing. You can thank a young man called Dimitrios who runs the armoury in Emesa.’ Valerius placed the point against the top of the wooden table and pushed until the blade clicked back into place. He looked from the artificial fist to the man on the floor. ‘I wasn’t certain it would work.’

  ‘I’m glad it did,’ Josephus said with passion. ‘Mark my words, future generations will thank you for what you have done today. In these books lies the only comprehensive history of my people. Its loss would have been catastrophic.’ He bundled up the scrolls he’d collected in his cloak and set off for the trap door.

  Valerius stooped to go through the dead man’s clothes and came up with a curved knife that looked disturbingly familiar. He slipped it into his belt and followed the Judaean, pondering on the curious mix of scholar, soldier and spy: a man who could cheerfully reconcile patriotism and collaboration; a commander who surrendered without shame and justified it by citing his people’s interest, yet could look death in the face without flinching; a dissembler who lied without conscious thought and a priest who never prayed. When he reached the top of the steps Josephus surveyed the devastation and filth of the library with a look of something like sorrow on his face.