John Masters (9 page)

Dogs? If they were dogs, then so were the Judeans, his own ancestors, whom Rome was chastising at this moment. As a legionary he used to think that all the people he fought were ignorant savages; but the police action in Judea, which seemed to have started last year, made him think again, and deeply. His father used to pray for Jerusalem every day. His mother had wept on her deathbed because she was going to die without seeing the Temple. If Jerusalem meant so much to him and his people, then all these others, the barbarians, must surely have their own proper loves and prides, which ought to be respected.

A man to his right said, "Here they come!" It was just below the Great Cave. Perhaps the six Turdetani had thought to shelter in it, but they were out now, running, with a high, trembling scream. They came straight at Julius, and the watch closed in. The aedile called, "Try not to kill them, men. They're worth good money!"

But the fellow running bare-handed at Julius seemed determined to be killed, a wild-eyed, tall man with reddish hair and eyes as blue as Julius' own, naked but for a rag around his loins. Julius made to lunge with his sword, and as the man dodged sideways, snarling, he stepped back and hit him hard on the temple with the pommel of the sword. The man stumbled, and Julius jumped on him, hit him again, and cried, "Lie still, fool. You want to live, don't you?" For a minute the fighting was general, and Julius saw his son kill a tribesman with a neat spear thrust: but it had been necessary, he gave him that. Then suddenly it was over, and they had five battered prisoners and a corpse.

Julius took off his helmet and mopped his forehead. The watch began to rope the prisoners together. The aedile Octavius said, "For a moment I thought they'd gone around to the Eagle's Nest cave at the back of the Rock. It's a bad place to have to get them out of."

"Nearly impossible, aedile, I think," young Barak said importantly. "But there's no escape, either. They'd either have to surrender, starve, or jump. Seven hundred feet!"

"There's no escape anywhere on the Rock," the aedile said, "except perhaps in the Great Cave. No one's ever explored that. Some say it goes on forever."

"There's no escape from Rome anywhere, now," Julius said. "The Rock at least looks like a place where you can die with honor."

Then they started back for Carteia, the prisoners carrying their dead comrade, and the watch and the volunteers surrounding them.

"Walk with me, Julius," the aedile Octavius said. "They can look after themselves ... especially with your Fidus among them. A very capable young man. You know, if we spend a little money, I believe we have influence enough between us, with Marcus' help, to get Fidus appointed to the Seventh as a tribune, direct."

"He would be overjoyed," Julius said formally.

"I will speak privately to Marcus," Octavius said.

The two men fell silent and walked on together without more words. They were both near fifty; both had served over twenty-five years in the Twentieth Legion,
Valeria Victrix;
both had now been settled six years in Carteia, which special privileges and exemptions to veterans made a particularly desirable place of retirement; they were friends, liked and admired each other well, and in the years of campaigning had saved each other's lives and got drunk together more times than either could count and in the long British wars had shared several snub-nosed English whores. Both were married—Octavius recently and officially, Julius in Rome twenty-three years ago to a slim girl of his own faith; but as private soldiers were forbidden to marry, he had had to pretend through the rest of his army career that the woman who trailed along behind the legion as and when she could was only a concubine, like the rest of them.

For the rest, they were different as men could be: Octavius—Roman-born, cynical, immoral, brave only when he had to be but then amazingly debonair—the perfect camp prefect and politician; Julius—Carteian-born, son of a Judean ex-legionary, direct, courageous, devout, dutiful above all—the perfect centurion, farmer, and honorary, incorruptible head of the town watch.

Striding easily along together, as they had done so often, they turned the last angle of rock and passed from under the cloud into sunlight. The sandy isthmus curved away like a golden finger crooked below them. The sun shone on rippling blue water, and white clouds traveled like lambs across the mountains beyond. They could see the river mouth, a score of jetties thrust out into it, palm trees and the masts of ships; and in the town, houses of white and marble, the green of gardens, and all around golden wheat, rusty vineyards, gray-green olive groves.

The aedile sighed. "Peace, plenty, bliss. Or so it appears on the surface.... What do you hear of Horatius Naso?"

"The man who some of us hoped would succeed Galba?"

"Yes."

"Nothing. Why?"

"Well, as you know, Vespasian succeeded Galba and is our undoubted emperor. Nevertheless, it seems that many are still not content and are working in secret to elevate Horatius Naso to the purple. You know I went to Gades last week.... It was to learn more of this movement... to decide whether it would be wisest to denounce it or join it. I learned that it is strong, but not strong enough. It is supported by a number of discontented or jealous men and by the people of this new blood-drinking sect, the Nazarenes ... and by many of your co-religionists."

"Jews? Why?"

"Because of the severe campaign Vespasian's son is waging in Judea, I suppose."

"By God, in that case I could join this Horatius Naso myself," Julius said.

"And lose your land and your head! Listen to me, my friend. First, Naso cannot win. Understand that, grasp it!
He cannot win.
Second, the loyalists will use the conspiracy for their own advancement. To be safe, you must act on the winning side, and you must do it publicly. This is doubly important for you, as a Jew.... The conspirators are not quite ready yet, and we are going to strike first. In Carteia there are some thirty of us, all men of influence. Marcus is our leader, and though we hope we shall not have to shed blood, we are quite prepared to do so. We shall seize the chief places and people of Carteia—as our friends will be doing in Gades and Hispalis and other towns—in order to make sure that no local authority can declare for Naso. At the same time we'll imprison the local conspirators until it is clear that the rising has failed all over Hispanis ... or, if it
should
perchance succeed elsewhere, then they will be useful to us as hostages."

Julius said, "Why are you telling me this? I don't want to take part."

"You are the commander of the watch, are you not?" Octavius said gently. "Does it not strike you that you would be one of those we would have to seize unless you were on our side? Besides, your son is leading the assault group. He will be the one to take the other magistrates prisoners."

"Barak?" Julius cried. "He didn't tell me."

"Join us," Octavius said. "Marcus detests all Judeans as insolent rebels. And he's been trying to get your vineyard ever since you planted it."

Julius strode on along the sand, his head glumly bent. It was like the army again: will you have bread for dinner or bread? He said, "I'll come. But..."

"Midnight then, the third night ... We meet in your back garden. Fidus suggested it."

They were at the gate of the town and soon afterward parted. When Julius reached his house, his son Barak was not yet home. He'd have to talk to him tomorrow about this idea of getting a tribuneship right away. It was a great responsibility for an inexperienced youngster. Besides ... His wife Gavrielah put her hand on his arm and said, "You look worried. What is it?"

"I wish I could tell you," he said. She seemed older than her forty-one years. It had not been an easy life, following the legion and trying to raise a family on soldier's pay. She was almost as tall as he, frail now, some of her teeth gone, her hair gray and her skin wrinkled, but the eyes—deep, large, dark—had never lost their first magic for him. He looked solemnly into them now and saw that his worry had infected her. "Is it about Barak?" she asked.

"No," he said, then, "Yes. In a way ... And about Jerusalem."

"We'll be able to go next year, as we planned, won't we?" she said anxiously. "Surely the war will be over by then."

"It'll be over," Julius said grimly.

"You promised your mother you'd go to Jerusalem and celebrate Passover in the Temple and make the sacrifices."

Julius did not speak. The Temple at Jerusalem was a dream to him, yet as real as the Rock outside there. He was a Roman citizen, but his body and spirit shared two homes, mysteriously unified—the Rock and the Temple.

"I don't know," he said finally. "I'll have to do my duty, that's all."

The Naso conspiracy was not much of an affair, and two hours after the loyalist group had moved out from Julius' back garden, the forum, curia, temples, baths, and mint were secured and a score or so prisoners safe in jail, including two of the other magistrates and the quaestor. Julius himself had held the jail with six reliable men of the watch and received the prisoners as they were brought in.

His son Barak came early with the magistrates, went off, and returned half an hour later with half a dozen other dazed and frightened men.

Most of the prisoners started clamoring of their innocence before they were through the gates, but Shmuel Ben Zion, a short, fat old lawyer and the head of Carteia's small Jewish community, was defiant. "Stop whining!" he snapped at the others jammed into the little cell with him, as Julius bolted the door. "We should have struck earlier, that's all." He glowered at Julius through the bars in the smoky lantern light. "And may the plagues of Egypt afflict you and your fine son and all your family for what you have done tonight."

"I have only done my duty to my acknowledged and lawful emperor," Julius said angrily, for he felt guilt over the business. "He is your emperor, too."

"No more," Ben Zion said. "He is no emperor, but abornination."

"Hush, hush," the other prisoners hissed nervously. "Abornination," Ben Zion repeated. "Every stone of the ruined Temple cries out, 'Abomination!' "

Julius' head began to ache. "The Temple?" he said. "Of Jerusalem? Ruined?"

"Utterly destroyed, razed, not one stone left upon another. The ground plowed and sown with salt. The Ark of the Covenant taken to Rome for a triumph. All this by your Vespasian's son, Titus, in
his
name and with
his
approval."

"But, when ...?" Julius began.

The lawyer said, "Go, Julius Cohen-ki. No true Jew has anything more to say to you."

In the public baths next day Julius lay naked on the marble slab of the caldarium, his eyes closed. His son Barak occupied the next slab. They were sweating heavily as attendants scraped their skins with strigils.

"The Temple was destroyed, Jerusalem sacked, and all the Zealots killed on the ninth of Ab in your calendar," Barak said. "Nearly two months ago. The news was suppressed to give the authorities throughout the empire time to take measures against possible uprisings. Marcus and Octavian knew some time ago...."

The heat burned Julius' eyeballs through the closed lids. His hair was scorching, his very fundament burning. What law said a man had to suffer such torture? He sat up to go.

"They told
me
a week ago," Barak said proudly.

Julius sank back. It was willpower that had to be practiced and maintained. It was a man's duty to face the caldarium and the frigidarium. YHWH did not intend life to be one long doze in the baths under the hands of skillful catamites.

"Barak," he said, "do you feel ashamed that we helped, even so little, to keep Vespasian in power? I do."

"Finished," the attendants said. Julius and his son staggered into the next room and stepped down into the huge hot bath.

"I do not," Barak said. "And I am going to give up the practice of your religion. I no longer believe in it, and it will be a handicap to me in my career. Please call me Fidus from now on, as my friends have been doing for some time now."

It was strange how this very hot water felt quite cool after the caldarium, Julius thought. For a time, that is; soon the effects wore off, and you began to wish they'd pour some cold in.

"Marcus promised me last night that he'd get me a tribuneship in the Seventh," Barak said.

No, it was Fidus now.
Fidus,
faithful. Faithful to whom? To what?

"I had to worship Divine Caesar, of course," Julius said. "Everyone does. That's forbidden by our Law, but our priests win at it. Otherwise I never found being a Jew any hindrance to me. Rather the opposite for people like us, who are not Romans of Rome. Jerusalem and the Temple were strongholds—places of refuge—home for the spirit when it was oppressed."

"Time," the attendants said. They moved to the unctorium and lay down on two marble slabs. The perfumed attendants began to rub perfumed oil into their skins.

"My
spiritual home is Rome," Fidus said. "And you were only a centurion. Higher up, I think, to be a Jew would be a severe hindrance, even danger, to me."

He's twenty-two, Julius thought, and in a few months he'll be higher up in the army than I reached in twenty-five years of service. At the same time he'll gain equestrian rank. Then there'll be no limit to what he might become—tribune, governor, legate ... Caesar. Yes: do your duty, guard your back, obey orders, look out for the main chance, kill rivals, and any citizen could become Caesar.

He shook his head and muttered, "Impossible."

"What is, sir?" the attendant said.

He said, "Nothing. I didn't mean
impossible.
I meant
wrong."

He must talk to Gavrielah. He got up and headed for the apodyterium, where his clothes were. "Sir, you've missed the frigidarium," the attendant cried reproachfully. Julius swore under his breath, turned, and went to the frigidarium.

When he reached home, the younger boys and girls— there were five of them—seemed subdued, and Gavrielah's eyes were damp. He beckoned her to follow him up to the roof. He sat down there under the rush awning, and she stood before him, arms folded. "Marcus has ordered the execution of four of the chief conspirators tomorrow. Cneus the quaestor. Sextus. And two Jews—Jochanan the wine merchant and Shmuel Ben Zion. The rest he has fined and released."