Scourge of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  ‘Here.’ He held out his purse, solving her dilemma. The shop was a dressmaker’s and beneath the borrowed robe she wore only the hastily stitched, bloodstained remnants of her clothing. Of course she would want to replace it. ‘Take what you need and call it a gift.’

  After a moment’s hesitation she accepted the purse, her face breaking into a pleased smile that made the bottom fall out of his stomach. Whatever he’d been going to say next vanished from his head. Fortunately, she saved him. ‘It will take me an hour,’ her head tilted and she studied the shop front with more care, ‘perhaps two. You could pass the time in the baths and we could meet later in the market place by the elephant fountain?’

  Valerius looked to Ariston for confirmation and the Syrian shrugged. ‘There is merit in what she says. I prefer not to use the baths, but I would be happy to show you their location. I have business to conduct here, but the market is not far. I will take you there first and show you the meeting place.’

  Tabitha dismounted and passed Valerius her reins. ‘The elephant fountain in two hours,’ she repeated. He watched the diminutive figure almost skip up the steps as Serpentius rode up to join him.

  ‘I will stay with her,’ the Spaniard said.

  ‘You think she’ll be in danger in a dress shop?’ Valerius smiled.

  ‘Why take a chance?’ Serpentius growled. ‘Who’s to say those men last night are all there was? Besides,’ his savage features broke into a grin, ‘I might see something I like.’

  ‘We should leave her here,’ Ariston interrupted the Spaniard. ‘There is something not right about this.’

  Valerius laughed. ‘Am I travelling with an old woman who feels threatened by a pretty girl?’

  ‘A pretty girl who is much too familiar with this place for a servant who has spent the bulk of her days in Chalcis,’ Ariston scowled. ‘You will see.’

  Valerius ignored the dire prediction and spent a pleasant hour in the baths. He hadn’t removed the leather socket covering his stump for days and it was a guilty pleasure to have the mutilated limb massaged and oiled by a slave girl. He tried to recall if Tabitha had noticed the wooden fist. If she had, she hadn’t reacted and she was clearly too diplomatic to mention it. Later, when he lay face down to have the oil removed from his back by a metal strigil, an image of Domitia Longina Corbulo swam into his mind. Should he feel guilty that he hadn’t thought of her for days now? She had sacrificed her future to save him, but the moment she’d made her decision she had reconciled herself to a life without him. His recollection of that last day was of a woman utterly remote, as if his existence were no longer of any consequence to her. He still felt the pain of the realization. Yes, it might have been partly to dull the terrible emptiness of their parting, but he sensed there’d been something else. As if she could only endure her new life if she expunged the memories of the old. Whether Domitian’s assassins succeeded or not, he was already dead to her. They would never meet again.

  When he’d dressed, he walked south towards the market, stopping occasionally to look at a shop or a stall, but with one eye on the people around him. It seemed unlikely he’d been followed, but the cruel reality was that he wouldn’t see the dagger that killed him. Even with Serpentius by his side, one day there’d be someone who was faster or more cunning than those who’d tried before. A troop of exotically uniformed cavalry rode past, hooves clattering on the stone slabs. Valerius kept his head down and his wooden hand covered.

  Ariston waited by the fountain, which, as its name implied, was dominated by a statue of an elephant standing in a pool with water streaming from a lead pipe in its trunk. The fountain was at the centre of a paved square surrounded by columns. Beyond the columns houses and villas clung to a hillside where another pillared roadway snaked its way to a magnificent temple that reminded Valerius of one he’d seen in Athens.

  Ariston stared at him. ‘You have lost your charm?’ He pointed to the Roman’s neck where the wheel of Fortuna had hung.

  Valerius’s hand instinctively went to his throat, but he smiled. The slave girl had been delighted with her unexpected gift. ‘I decided I didn’t need it any more. Sometimes a man must make his own luck.’

  Ariston’s expression said he must be mad, but the Syrian shrugged. ‘You like Apamea?’

  ‘It’s very civilized.’ Valerius smiled. ‘But perhaps a little brash for my taste.’

  ‘You can blame my forefather, Seleucas Nicador.’ Ariston ignored Valerius’s look of disbelief at his unlikely claim to royal blood. ‘He was Alexander’s most successful general and named the city for his fourth wife, a Bactrian with the nature of a bad-tempered crocodile. He loved her despite this, and to prove it Apamea must be bigger and more impressive than Antioch and Palmyra. He ordered a channel constructed that brings sweet water all the way from Salimiye.’ He rose and reached out to slap the elephant’s enormous behind. ‘This was where he kept his five hundred fighting elephants, and those fields we passed with the sheep would once have trembled beneath the hooves of forty thousand horses.’

  Valerius looked up at the sun. ‘She is late.’

  ‘What do you expect?’ Ariston’s laughter echoed round the market place. ‘A girl in a dress shop, of course she’s late.’

  A few men and women appeared and began setting up stalls for the next day’s market. They worked quietly and efficiently, laughing and joking amongst themselves. Valerius noticed the moment several heads looked up in alarm, like deer sensing the approach of a wolf. A heartbeat later he heard the sound of approaching hooves and as he leapt to his feet cavalry troopers funnelled into the square from every side. Squat, narrow-eyed men with fish scale armour, pot helmets and strung bows tensed and ready to loose. Every viciously barbed arrow was aimed at the two men by the fountain.

  ‘It would be unwise to allow your hand to get any closer to your sword.’ Ariston glanced nervously as the circle of arrows edged ever closer. All it would take was one careless movement and …

  ‘Unstring your bows, unless you want to provide another reason for the king to take your stupid heads.’

  The order caused consternation among the mounted ranks as a familiar figure in a voluminous cloak forced its way through the ring of horses. Tabitha threw back her hood and glared until the bow strings loosened. Serpentius stood at her side, surveying the scene with a look of sardonic amusement on his haggard features.

  A cavalryman in a prefect’s sash dropped to the ground and ran to kneel at Tabitha’s feet.

  ‘My lady.’

  VI

  ‘Lady?’ As they rode at the centre of an escort to the Chalcidean camp outside Apamea, Valerius couldn’t hide his curiosity about Tabitha’s reception from the leader of the mounted archers.

  ‘A figure of speech,’ she assured him. ‘Gaulan thinks he can win my heart by flattery. He will sometimes be overly deferential no matter how much I chide him for it.’

  Her manner was so offhand and imperious that Valerius decided he pitied poor Gaulan. He’d find it easier to command his desert tribesmen than the woman he’d been entrusted with. ‘You must have many potential suitors,’ he teased her.

  Tabitha looked at him from below curved lashes. ‘Or perhaps it is my lovely new clothes that deceived him?’ She pulled back her cloak so Valerius could admire the crimson stola.

  ‘It was fortunate the seamstress completed her work when she did.’

  ‘Gaulan’s men would have done you no harm, I’m sure. They are very disciplined.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ the Roman smiled, ‘having been the focus of so many arrows I must give you thanks on behalf of myself and Ariston. What I don’t fully understand is how they managed to find us in the market place.’

  Tabitha considered for a moment. ‘My lady was so incensed the caravan guards failed to protect me that she insisted Gaulan and his men stay behind until they found me. She can be very forceful and she left them in no doubt of the penalty if they failed in their task.’

  ‘She must value her s
ervants very highly.’

  Tabitha’s eyes searched for any sign that she was being mocked, but Valerius kept his face expressionless and she continued her explanation. ‘One of his riders came upon the bandits’ camp and found their remains, along with some scraps of my clothing. When they could discover no trace of me, they decided I must have been killed and my body thrown to the wild beasts. They deduced from the tracks that the bandits had some sort of dispute and the survivors had set off in the direction of Apamea. Since the only way they could save their own heads was to provide proof that all the bandits had been killed, they followed. Travellers on the road gave them descriptions of our mounts. When they reached Apamea it was a simple enough task to check every stable until they tracked down the horses and obtained a detailed description of the men who had brought them. Gaulan sent soldiers to scour the town and they found you quite quickly.’

  ‘What happens now?’ Valerius asked, as they approached the colourful cloth tents the cavalrymen had set up on one of the lush meadows outside the city.

  ‘We will continue our journey at first light.’ She paused, the white pearls of her perfect teeth nibbling at her lower lip. ‘It is my hope you will accompany us as far as Emesa. It will be safer and you will travel more quickly with the help of their remounts. Is that acceptable to you?’

  Valerius bowed in the saddle. ‘I would be honoured to share the journey.’

  ‘Good.’ She kicked her horse ahead, smiling at him across her shoulder. ‘Serpentius assures me that despite your great age you are a warrior of repute among Romans. I have told Gaulan you will protect my honour should he prove incapable.’

  Valerius was still trying to work out whether to feel flattered or insulted when Ariston appeared at his side. ‘I told you she would be trouble.’ The Syrian shook his head gloomily.

  ‘She may have saved our lives,’ Valerius reminded him. He explained Tabitha’s invitation to travel on to Emesa with the column and Ariston’s expression became even more lugubrious.

  ‘I suppose this means you will no longer need my services?’

  Valerius had already given the matter some thought. He shook his head. ‘This land and these people are entirely unfamiliar to me,’ he said. ‘If I am to be of any use to Titus I need to understand how they think. How far from Emesa to Jerusalem?’

  ‘Twelve days, if the weather holds. Fourteen or fifteen if not.’

  ‘If you are willing to accompany us I will pay you for your knowledge of Judaea and for teaching me the rudiments of the language. You speak it?’

  ‘Of course,’ the Syrian bristled. ‘Hebrew is my second tongue.’

  ‘Then join us, and when we reach Titus you will have your reward.’

  The Syrian considered for a moment and then nodded his acknowledgement. ‘I will be happy to ride with you, even among these Chalcidean hellhounds and their vixen.’ He frowned and his voice took on a tutor’s solemnity. ‘First, you must understand that Judaea is not one country, but an amalgamation of several. Galilee is in the north …’

  By the time they reached Emesa two days later, Valerius had learned that the Judaeans were naturally rebellious, having previously fought both the Syrians and the Greeks. That despite their singular religion they were eternally divided, much as the tribes of Britannia had been and for all he knew still were. That the country wasn’t really a province at all, not being worth the attention of a governor of senatorial rank, but ruled by a mere procurator. ‘My knowledge of high politics is slight,’ Ariston had admitted. ‘But it seems to me that Rome’s only interest in the place is ensuring the Parthians have no influence there.’

  Emesa lay forty miles downstream from Apamea, on the east bank of the Orontes at the edge of a flat plain enclosed by hills on three sides, with blank, sterile desert on the fourth. During the journey, Gaulan had described it as a great metropolis, but Valerius considered it vastly inferior to the sprawling glory of Apamea. A massive mound topped by a palace complex dominated the city. Tight-packed houses surrounded the hill, hemmed in by the city wall and a scatter of suburb slums that lined the roads converging on it. The hilltop complex and a large temple apart, it looked a poor little place, and he said as much to Ariston.

  ‘Do not be deceived,’ the Syrian assured him. ‘Emesa may not be as lovely as Apamea, but it is more important by far. The palace you see is the seat of Sohaemus, the powerful king who rules here, and the temple to the south is the home of Elah Gebal, the sun god. Thousands come to worship during the great festivals and tributes, even from as far as Palmyra, which Sohaemus covets but cannot move against without Rome’s sanction.’

  Valerius was disappointed he’d had no opportunity during the journey for further contact with the mysterious Tabitha. He’d planned to impress her with the few Hebrew phrases he’d learned, but she’d ridden with the baggage train and he wondered if she was deliberately avoiding him. The feeling was strengthened as the soldiers set up camp and he watched her ride out towards the city with Gaulan and an escort, heavily cloaked and with a hood covering her dark hair.

  Serpentius appeared beside him. The Spaniard watched the riders. ‘I wouldn’t trust the Syrian camel thief to water my horse, but maybe he’s right and we’d be better off on our own,’ he scowled.

  ‘You seemed happy enough to talk to her a few days ago,’ Valerius pointed out. ‘You’re not usually so communicative with strangers.’

  The former gladiator gave a grunt of a laugh. ‘So she told you.’ He spat in the dust. ‘She asked and I answered, but only enough to make you sound interesting.’

  ‘Well, from now on keep your gossip to yourself. What do you think of our travelling companions?’

  ‘The cavalry? They’re well mounted and they can use those bows of theirs. I saw one of them put an arrow through a hare’s eye at a hundred paces. In fact the third squadron are getting ready to go hunting in the scrub along the river. A couple of them speak reasonable Latin. Maybe I should go along and see if I can find out a bit more. Not that it’ll make much difference. We won’t know if they have any fight in them until someone tries to kill us.’

  ‘Then let’s hope we don’t need to find out too soon,’ Valerius called after him. ‘And Serpentius?’ The Spaniard looked over his shoulder. ‘Stop giving Ariston your murderer’s stare. He knows his way around this country and I have a feeling we’ll need that knowledge. I don’t want him sneaking out on us one night because he thinks you want to kill him. In any case, I like him.’

  ‘Then he’d better look out for himself,’ Serpentius growled. ‘Because I’ve noticed that the people you like have a tendency to end up dead.’

  An hour later one of the escort returned across the plain to announce that King Sohaemus demanded Valerius’s presence at his palace in the city. The summons came as a surprise and Ariston shot him a glance of warning that Valerius acknowledged with a barely discernible nod. ‘Very well,’ he told the man. ‘I will accompany you once my interpreter and I are ready.’

  The cavalryman gave him a troubled look. ‘I was told to bring you immediately you were suitably dressed, lord, and to assure you that no interpreter will be required.’

  Ariston shrugged and wandered off to ready Valerius’s horse. Valerius went to his tent and returned a few minutes later dressed in his best tunic. The Syrian came back with a green cloak of fine wool provided by Gaulan’s servant and pinned it at Valerius’s neck in the Roman style. ‘Be wary,’ he whispered.

  ‘Why?’ Valerius demanded.

  ‘Is it not said that the patronage of kings is like the desert storm? It passes swiftly and leaves victims in its wake. In truth, I do not know: I am not in the habit of meeting kings. But this is a strange honour for a simple traveller. I had hoped to acquaint you a little more with this king’s character on the way to the city, but now you must discover it for yourself.’

  Valerius frowned. He’d suffered the accusing stares of emperors, but he’d never stood before a king. ‘Should I bow or kneel?’

 
‘You are a Roman.’ The Syrian’s eyes twinkled as Valerius pulled himself one-handed into the saddle. ‘He will be happy as long as you don’t take away his throne.’

  The closer they approached the city walls the more Valerius understood just how the great palace compound on the mound dominated Emesa. Massive fortifications and multi-columned buildings towered over the city like a giant sentinel. His mind automatically approached it as a military problem. First, any attacker would have to take Emesa’s walls, which were sturdily built and high. Even so, they’d pose no problem to any competent legionary commander equipped with catapults and siege towers. His problems would begin when they were breached. From the little he could see, beyond them lay a rat-trap maze of interlinking streets and alleys, many of them barely wide enough to allow passage to more than two or three men at a time. By the time the walls fell the defenders would have created two or three further lines of defence and those watching from the citadel would see the direction of attack. Their commander would use his interior lines to focus his men and resources on the most vulnerable areas. As long as the defenders could wield a sword or loose an arrow they’d be able to hold the attack at bay. Casualties would be high. And that was before the attackers reached the citadel itself. From his vantage point the entrance wasn’t visible, but the sides of the mound were near vertical and formed of smooth stonework. Anyone attempting to climb them equipped for battle would be swept away by a hail of spears and the slingshots he knew the Syrians delivered so lethally.