The Inquest

by Stephen Dando-Collins

  “What is your occupation?” Varro asked him.

  “Apothecary,” came the immediate rejoinder.

  “From where do you hail?”

  “From Jerusalem. Help me out of here, my lords. Judas put me in this hole so that I might not run away. I give my word, if you help me out, I won’t run.”

  “Will you answer my questions, about the death of the Nazarene?”

  “Of course. I will tell you all you want to know. Just help me out of here, good lords.” Smiling broadly, the man stretched up his left hand to Varro. But the questor, feeling that something was not quite right—precisely what, he could not put his finger on—held back. So the smiling Jew turned to Alienus beside him. “Give me a strong right hand, friend, and pull me out of here.”

  Decurion Alienus dropped to one knee. While holding the long scabbard of his cavalry sword in place at his side with his left hand, the Egyptian reached down to the Jew with his right. “Here, take hold.”

  The Jew wrapped his large, callused hand around Alienus’ right wrist, clasping it with an iron grip. “Pull away, my lord,” the man urged, grinning up at Alienus.

  As Alienus went to stand and haul the Jew from the pit, Varro, looking down at the man still, was overcome with a growing feeling of unease. The Jew had reached up his left arm, apparently because his right was weak or useless. He had grasped Alienus’ right wrist, on the decurion’s sword arm. Alienus was now prevented from drawing his sword. All Roman soldiers were trained as right-handed swordsmen, reserving the left arm for a shield. With this simple act of grasping his right wrist, the Jew had for the moment rendered Alienus defenseless.

  Yet, something else bothered Varro. Something about the Jew himself did not ring true. Even if the questor accepted that an apothecary could be tall and well-built, the man’s skin seemed oddly out of character. Surely, Varro now thought to himself, an apothecary worked indoors, making his potions and his preparations with his mortar and pestle and all the other equipment that an apothecary employed in his work. The skin of Saul ben Gamaliel, apothecary of Macherus, had been milk white. Yet, this man was so tanned by the sun his skin was like leather. This man had spent a lifetime out of doors. This man was no apothecary! “Wait, Alienus!” Varro yelled. “He is not Ben Naum!”

  Even as the words were leaving the questor’s lips, the Jew’s right hand, the hand that had been seemingly useless only moments before, reached beneath his cloak. A sword slid from a concealed scabbard. The weapon shone like new; a Roman legionary gladius, twenty-two inches long, double-edged, with the short sword’s distinctive sharp pointed end. With hate in his eyes, the grinning Jew thrust upward with the weapon.

  “No!” Varro bellowed.

  Alienus had no chance to escape his fate. As the point of the sword came up at him he drew back his head and tried to pull away. But the Jew’s grasp was like a vice. In a desperate and instinctive act of self-defense the Egyptian went to reach for the sword’s razor-sharp blade with his bare left hand. His fingers reached the blade as the blade reached his neck. With all his strength, the Jew pushed the end of the sword up into the decurion’s exposed throat. At the same time, he dragged on Alienus’ right arm, pulling him onto the sword. The blade penetrated beneath Alienus’ jaw. The decurion’s eyes bulged, his mouth gaped open. The Jew withdrew the sword. The cavalryman hung on the edge of the pit, open mouthed, wide-eyed. Blood spurted from the entry wound. The Jew tugged with the left hand, and Alienus tumbled into the pit. Alienus had been right; this was indeed his grave.

  All around the clearing, a victorious roar arose from a hundred throats. Varro looked up. Across the clearing, Judas ben Jairus and his two colleagues had dropped to their knees. They were scraping away loose dirt. Then they were rising to their full height once more, bearing swords and shields unearthed from hiding places at their feet. Judas was grinning at the questor. All around the clearing, scores of partisans were crashing through the trees, yelling at the top of their voices. Most did not have the luxury of armor. Many did not carry swords but were armed with simple spears, tree saplings with fire-hardened points. One or two were equipped with bows. Once in the open, the rebels came to a halt, and fell silent. Lining the perimeter of the clearing, they surrounded the five Romans in the same way that the Roman army surrounded the forest.

  “By the thundering spouse of Juno, touch us, and you are all dead men!” Martius declared, drawing his sword.

  “Yes, we are dead men!” Judas ben Jairus called back across the open ground in a rasping voice. “But we shall have the corpses of Roman officers to decorate our graves!”

  Members of the partisan ring yelled in concert. All expected to die; they would die happy if they could take a Roman questor, tribune, and decurion with them. Seeing a chance to escape to his comrades, Jacob now broke away from Martius, ran around the pit and toward Judas Ben Jairus. Martius bounded around the opposite side of the pit to cut him off. Jacob, focused on reaching his leader, did not see the tribune coming. Martius raised his sword on the run. He swung it in a slashing motion.. The middle of the cutting edge caught Jacob on the right side of the neck, just below the ear. Driven by the force of the tribune’s blow, the steel cleaved through flesh and bone as if it were butter. Jacob threw up his hands, and fell forward. Martius came to a halt, standing over the fallen Jew. Jacob’s head had all but been cleaved from his body. In his death throes, the arms and legs of the youth were quivering.

  There was an uncanny silence. The stunned partisans had watched the execution without a sound. Varro was the first to react. Turning to Publius the trumpeter, who stood beside him with a look of abject horror on his face, he grasped him by the arm, yelling, “Blow, boy! Sound ‘To Arms!’ Lose neither your courage nor your breath! Blow, boy!”

  “With all your might,” Martius added, “so that even the gods might hear you!”

  Prefect Quintus Crispus stood beside his horse. Behind him, Decurion Pompeius and his twenty-nine Vettonians also stood by their steeds, ready to mount up on the prefect’s order. In front of Crispus spread the ten cohorts of the 10th Legion in their battle lines. Away to left and right, three and a half thousand auxiliary foot soldiers, many carrying axes, stood in a line which circled the forest behind the inner line of mounted cavalry.

  Immediately in front of Crispus, Centurion Gallo stood with his eighty men of the 4th Scythica Legion. In ten compact rows of eight men, they were ready to go into the forest with General Bassus’ army when and if the order was given. Junior Tribune Venerius stood with the centurion. To Crispus’ right, between the 10th Legions last line and the camp entrenchments,, stood General Bassus’ chariot, its two horses waiting calmly in their traces with a groom holding the bridle of one. The chariot itself was empty. Soon after the questor and his companions had entered the Forest of Jardes, General Bassus had been hit by severe pain, and had been carried back into the camp.

  Crispus cocked his ear. The distant sound of musical notes wafted on the still morning air. A trumpet call, faint, but unmistakable. The legion call ‘To Arms,’ sounded over and over again. Crispus went cold. He was suddenly afraid. Not for himself, but for his questor. He whipped around to Decurion Pompeius. “You hear it?”

  “I hear it,” said Pompeius gravely, nodding.

  “Mount up!” Crispus ordered breathlessly.

  Hostilis, Julius Varro’s servant, had been standing close by, watching and waiting for the questor s return like everyone else. He came running, to help Prefect Crispus up into the saddle. Behind Crispus, the Vettonians mounted their steeds. The detachment’s standard-bearer reached to the white standard of the Vettonian Horse that stood planted in the earth, lifted it up, and raised it high.

  “Column of two’s!” Decurion Pompeius ordered.

  As the cavalrymen were forming up in pairs behind Crispus and Pompeius, several horsemen came galloping toward them from the front of the 10th Legion formation—Tribune Quintus Fabius and an escort. “Where do you men think you are going?” Fabius called a
s he rode up.

  “The trumpet call,” Crispus said urgently. “The questor’s signal for help!”

  “No one may enter the forest without General Bassus’ express order,” said Fabius.

  “But the general is not here,” Crispus returned, nodding to the empty chariot. “You can give permission in his stead, tribune. There is no time to waste!”

  Fabius shook his head. “Roman troops will only enter the forest when General Bassus gives the order,” he declared. “And General Bassus is currently indisposed.” There was a supercilious smile on Fabius’ lips.

  Decurion Pompeius now found voice. “We have our orders, from Questor Varro.”

  “I am giving you a new order,” Fabius retorted. “Do not enter the forest! I should not have to remind you that I am the senior officer here. And I say we shall await General Bassus’ instructions, whenever he is in a position to pass them on to us.” Roughly pulling the head of his horse around, Fabius galloped back the way he had come, to the head of the 10th Legion formation, with his escort flying after him.

  Crispus, astounded, looked at Pompeius. “I don’t believe it! That swine!”

  “We can’t leave the questor to his fate,” Pompeius returned.

  Crispus made a spur of the moment decision. “Wait here!” he commanded. Throwing his legs over the horns of his saddle, he jumped down to the ground. Holding his scabbard at his side, the prefect ran back toward the camp gate.

  Standing nearby in front of the 4th Scythica men, Centurion Gallo and Tribune Venerius had been witness to these exchanges. Now, as Crispus hurried back to the camp as fast as legs would carry him, Gallo saw a figure dash toward the general’s chariot. The man, wearing the red-striped tunic of a servant, leapt up into the chariot, freed the reins-in an instant, then lashed them along the backs of the pair of horses. The groom holding the bridle fearfully let go and jumped out of the way as the chariot lurched forward. Now Gallo recognized the driver. It was Hostilis, the questor s handservant. As the chariot came rolling along the front of the 4th Scythica formation, Gallo stepped out in front of the horses. Showing no fear, ignoring the risk of being run down, he grasped the bridles of both horses and planted his feet. The momentum of the animals’ progress dragged him a short distance until the chariot came to a halt.

  “Let go, Centurion!” Hostilis called angrily. “The questor is in trouble!”

  “What do you propose to do about it?”

  “In my native Britain I was trained to drive the chariot,” Hostilis earnestly returned. “I know what in am doing, centurion. Stand aside!”

  Gallo hesitated a moment. Then he turned to Venerius, standing just twenty feet away. “Get up in the chariot with the slave!” he called.

  Venerius stared back at him, aghast. “What?”

  “Get up in the chariot,” Gallo repeated. “The questor told me that he wanted you to lead any rescue effort if it became necessary.”

  “He did?” Venerius went white with fear. “You’re sure? He said nothing to me.”

  “You are wasting time, damn you, thin-stripe!” Gallo cursed. “Or do you propose to disobey the questor?”

  Venerius gulped. Many times he had wished that he had not come on this expedition, but never more than now.

  “Move, boy!” Gallo bellowed.

  His legs feeling like lead weights, his mind numb with fear, Venerius walked to the back of the chariot then pulled himself up behind the standing driver.

  Gallo let go of the bridles and quickly stepped back. “Go like the wind, slave!” he called up to Hostilis.

  With a slap of the reins and a cry of encouragement to his steeds, Hostilis set the vehicle in motion. The chariot went charging along behind the last line of the 10th Legion. When Hostilis saw an opening between cohorts which offered an avenue all the way to the front he tugged the reins to the right. The animals responded immediately. The chariot curved right, executed a bumping turn, then sped down the avenue.

  As Gallo walked back to his place at the extreme left of his detachments front row, Optio Silius called out to him from the ranks. “Did the questor really say that, centurion? Did he really tell you he wanted Soupy Venerius to lead his rescue?”

  “Something to that affect,” Gallo replied, unable to hold back a smile. “I can’t recollect his exact words, but I’m sure that was what the questor had in mind.” It had only taken Centurion Gallo a matter of weeks to have his revenge on Gaius Venerius.

  In the chariot, Hostilis was learning on the run. Apart from the fact that they possessed two wheels and were drawn by two horses, the British war chariot and the Roman biga were quite dissimilar. The chariot that Hostilis had learned to master was open-ended. He had knelt to drive, with a warrior standing behind him, on a rectangular wooden floor suspended by pliable leather from the chariot sides. The Romans only employed chariots for racing and as the private conveyances of the rich. Open at the rear, with closed sides rising to a high, curved, closed front, Roman chariots had no suspension and were uncomfortable to ride in and difficult to manage.

  Uncomfortable they might be, but Roman chariots were fast, very fast, as Hostilis soon found to his satisfaction. As he raced out through a gap in the 10th Legion line, members of Tribune Fabius’ mounted escort attempted to cut him off. He charged by and left them in his wake. Rather than try to stop him, the men of the auxiliary line parted to let him pass through, some even raising their javelins in salute and cheering, thinking the uniformed officer in the chariot with the driver must be General Bassus.

  Hostilis swiftly mastered the art of driving standing up. The techniques for turning horses were the same as he had learned back at home in the kingdom of the Iceni, although he realized after his first turn that in a Roman chariot the driver had also to lean well into the bend or risk taking the vehicle over on its opposite side. Balance; it was all a matter of balance. His passenger was not helping. Hostilis looked back over his shoulder. A white-faced Venerius was clinging onto the side rail. “Stand in the middle. Plant your feet either side,” Hostilis yelled to the junior tribune.

  Venerius gingerly complied, securing new handholds to left and right.

  “Have your sword ready!” Hostilis then called, focusing his attention on the fast approaching trees. He aimed for the same track that he had seen his master take only a short while before. He did not slacken speed, driving the chariot into the forest at full pace. The horses were fit, trained, and willing. They charged down the narrow thoroughfare between the trees, sending clods of earth flying from their pounding hooves. Hostilis glanced over his shoulder again, into the petrified eyes of the junior tribune. “Your sword! Your sword!” Both their lives might depend on Venerius’ swordsmanship.

  Venerius nodded numbly, and drew his sword, before clutching at the rail once more with his free left hand.

  The track inclined to a rise. At full pace, the chariot came up the gradient. At the summit, just where the track dipped on the other side and jagged away to the left, the vehicle became airborne. At the same time, Hostilis spotted the turn to the left. As he leaned hard left and drew on the reins, the chariot came back down, landing with a jolt on just its left wheel. The concussion sent the chariot up on its side. In the back, with sword in his right hand and only holding on with his left, and unprepared for the crashing landing, Venerius was jolted free. As the chariot tipped over, the junior tribune was thrown out, ejected like a drunkard from a tavern. The chariot teetered on one wheel briefly, then, lightened by Venerius’ departure, dropped back down onto two wheels and went careering on its way.

  Venerius turned over in the air, and landed heavily on his back. The wind was knocked out of him, the sword flew from his grip. Dazed, trying to catch his breath, he lay there in the middle of the grassy track. He heard the drumming of the chariot-horses’ hooves growing fainter. Rolling over, he looked down the track. There was no sign of the chariot. It occurred to him that Hostilis had been so engaged with the task of keeping the chariot upright that he had not e
ven noticed that Venerius had been thrown out. Either that, or the slave had deliberately left him behind.

  Fear gripping him, Venerius sat up. His head was spinning. He looked around. His sword lay ten feet away. Dragging himself to his feet, he stumbled the several paces to the weapon, stooped, and picked it up. He looked down the track, and then back the way he had come. He asked himself whether he should follow the chariot. It did offer a speedy means of escape. Then he told himself that the chariot had been heading into the forest, toward the enemy. Safety lay in the other direction, away from the enemy, toward the Roman lines. He took two steps back up the track, then stopped, wincing as pain shot from his right hip. He realized that he had probably dislocated or broken something in his fall. Cursing his luck, he resumed his progress, limping painfully up the track.

  As he broached the rise, he stopped abruptly. Ahead, three hundred feet away, between him and safety, Jewish partisans were coming out of the trees and standing in his path. Hearing a noise in the trees beside him to his left, he spun about. Several partisans bearing spears were emerging from the foliage, leering at him. Venerius turned, and began to lope along the track, heading deeper into the forest, following the departed chariot. “Hostilis!” he bawled. “Hostilis, come back!” The trees absorbed his cries.

  Then ahead, more partisans began to walk into the open. These men took up station in his path, smiling, and beckoning him to come to them. Venerius swiveled around, looking back up the track. The partisan’s he had first encountered were closing in on him from the east, closing the distance and picking up the pace of their steps. One Jew in the lead was energetically swinging a sword back and forth.

  Eighteen-year-old Venerius dropped to his knees. Flinging away his sword, he burst into tears. His entire body shook with his sobs. “The gods help me!” he wailed. A Jew came to stand behind him. From the corner of his eye, Venerius saw the flash of a sword. He lowered his head, and closed his eyes, and tensed for the blow he expected to come at any moment. “Please, I mean you people no harm,” he sniveled. “I am Gaius Licinius Venerius. I am the nephew of Licinius Mucianus, the most powerful man at Rome beside Caesar himself. I can pay you.” He remembered the valuable Equestrian ring on his left hand. “Here, my gold ring…” He began tugging at the ring.