The Redemption of Pontius Pilate (40 page)

He ordered his archers to ready their bows beneath the cover of the shields their companions were holding, and then had them fire a volley in the direction the arrows had come from. The Zealots were shooting from well-chosen cover, and only one or two arrows found their mark, but the volleys forced them to duck back, and Pilate used the opportunity to maneuver his own forces.

“Divide!” he shouted, and the one turtle formation became two, each group about 120 strong. He heard the familiar
thunk
of arrows striking wood and leather, and ordered his archers to prepare another volley.

“When I give the word,” he said to Marcus Quirinius, the senior centurion present, “we will launch a second hail of arrows, and then one century will charge up each hill. Don't slow, don't stop, and kill anything that shows its head. Once we are on top of them they won't be able to pick us off with bows. If we do not do this quickly, they will pin us down and send for reinforcements. If you can, try to take Bar Abbas alive.”

He waited until each century had received his orders, then raised his gladius and gave the command. “FIRE!!” he roared, and half a hundred arrows streaked toward each slope. As soon as the bows twanged, the men let loose a battle cry and charged for the two hills. Pilate led the way, gladius in one hand and pilum in the other, waiting for a Zealot to show himself. There! Fifteen yards in front of him, a bearded archer stood, taking aim at the oncoming Romans. Pilate launched his spear with grim accuracy, and it caught the bandit in the head, sinking deep into his eye and piercing his brain. The man dropped without a groan, and Pilate looked for another target.

The Zealots had obviously not expected the Romans to go on the offensive quite so quickly. Many of them were still trying to aim their bows, but the Roman pilum, a four-foot-long spear with a sharpened iron tip, was deadly at this range, and these Romans were well trained—and angry. One by one, the Zealots who were not skewered dropped their bows, drew their swords, and charged at the hated occupation forces. Soon two sharp skirmishes were being fought, one on each slope. Quarter was neither asked nor given by either side, and several legionaries fell with arrows piercing their torsos, or guts spilled by the curved blades of the
sicarii.

Pilate was in his element. Combat made him feel alive as nothing else could, and his blade sang in his hand as he cut down one Jewish bandit after another. Suddenly a pain like he had never felt before shot up his leg, and he looked down to see a feathered shaft protruding from his knee. The injured limb buckled beneath him, and he pulled himself onto a boulder so that the men would not see him on the ground. He waved the gladius over his head and shouted: “Don't stop, men! They are breaking! Keep at them!”

Indeed they were. Accustomed to ambush and stealth, the Zealots were not very good at pitched battles. Dozens of them had been cut down in the initial charge, and the others were wavering. One by one, they dropped their weapons and began to run for their lives. Pilate's auxiliaries launched arrows and pila after them, and several went down shrieking. For just a moment, at the crest of the hill, he caught a glimpse of a scarred neck topped by a swarthy face twisted with rage, before its stocky owner mounted his horse and took off at a gallop, with several others riding in his wake.

“That's Bar Abbas!” Pilate snapped. “After him, men! Mount up and bring him back to me alive!”

About thirty auxiliaries, led by Quirinius, leaped on their horses and took off after the fleeing Zealot leaders, while the remainder, still on foot, focused on killing those who still resisted. Now that the heat of the battle had passed, any who threw down their weapons, or were too badly wounded to fight, were taken into custody and bound hand and foot. The cavalrymen herded them into the clearing about halfway up the slope where Pilate still sat on a boulder, covering his wounded leg with a shield. It still hurt, but he would not let himself show pain in front of his own men, much less before these captured enemies.

He took a long drink from his water skin and wiped the sweat from his eyes with the sleeve of his tunic. Finally the senior cavalryman present, a Gaul named Silas Hirtius, approached with a scrap of parchment.

“Here is the tally of our losses and the enemy's casualties, pending the return of Centurion Quirinius, Prefect,” he said.

Pilate glanced at the crudely lettered list. Sixteen auxiliaries and twelve horses killed, another twenty wounded—with six not expected to live long. Over fifty Zealots were dead, with men still dragging bodies up from the brush. Eleven of the enemy had been taken alive, eight of them unwounded or only lightly wounded. It had been a bloody affair, and he disliked taking that many losses—but considering that they had been ambushed, things could have gone far worse.

“Let's head back down to the spring and make camp for the night,” he said. “Chain these dogs up and make sure they get neither food nor water this evening. Those two are likely too far gone to be anything but a burden, so go ahead and finish them off now. Set the men to gathering wood so that we can burn our dead—and stack the enemy's bodies up on top of the hill. Let their bleached bones be a warning to their companions!”

The cavalryman nodded, and before he walked off to carry out his orders, Pilate said: “After the prisoners are out of my sight and the men are set to work, come back here and bring our physician with you!”

Not long after that—at least, it didn't feel very long, although the shadows were lengthening by the time Hirtius returned—the Greek doctor, Aristarchus, was able to examine Pilate's injured knee.

“It's a bad wound, Governor, and no mistake,” he said after poking and prodding the already swollen joint and gently wiggling the arrow—which nearly caused Pilate to pass out with pain. “This thing has to come out, but pulling it will only aggravate the injury. The best way to deal with it is to push it all the way through, cut off the barbed point, and then pull the shaft out. I have some milk of poppy in my kit, and it will numb the pain a bit—but you cannot ride or walk until it begins to heal.”

“A commander must be able to ride!” Pilate snapped.

The Greek looked at him patiently. “Sir, with all due respect, if you do not allow this injury to heal properly, you could very well lose your leg—or your life. In time, perhaps, you can ride again. But you must allow me to treat you now.”

Pilate nodded, and several strong arms lifted him gently and carried him back toward the spring. A command tent had already been erected, and a cot was waiting for him. He drank a long swig of water and chased it down with some wine. His vision was clearing a bit, and he could see that the entire lower half of his leg was soaked with blood, some drying and some still wet. The shaft of the arrow pointed up at an angle, but its head was buried several inches deep into his knee joint. The slightest movements made him want to scream.

“Drink this, sir,” said the Greek, and held a small bronze ladle to his lips. Pilate drank, and immediately he felt a deep sense of relief as his senses were blunted. He lay back against the rough cushions, and Aristarchus nodded. Three large cavalrymen, probably the same ones who had carried him into the tent, came in. “I am going to have to push the arrow all the way through your knee,” said the physician. “If it were not so deep, I could use an arrow extractor, but it is so far through that letting it push out the back of your knee is the easiest course. You may lose consciousness from the pain, but you need to bite down on this so that you do not injure your tongue.” He handed Pilate a short stick, about the diameter of his thumb, wrapped in leather. “Make all the noise you wish, but try not to move your leg. These men will immobilize you as much as they can. Remember, the more you thrash, the longer this will take and the more it will hurt.”

Pilate nodded and took the wooden stick in his mouth. One large Gallic cavalryman held his shoulders down firmly, while the other two held his legs still. The physician carefully put both his hands on the arrow and studied its angle for a moment, then suddenly and sharply pushed with one hand while striking the butt of the arrow with the other. There was a ripping sensation, and white-hot pain shot from Pilate's wound to every nerve ending in his body. He arched his back and bit down so hard he felt the stick break in his mouth—or was it his teeth? He could not tell. Pain was his world, the dark, laughing god of his universe, a sea into which he had plunged, determined to find the bottom.

He barely heard Aristarchus as the Greek looked at the arrowhead protruding from the back of his leg. “No doubt this was the best course,” the little man said. “This is a double barbed point and would have done more damage coming out than going in.” He brought over a pair of iron shears and there was a loud snap as he cut the point off the arrow. “This should be nothing compared to what you have already felt,” he said, and with a brisk tug pulled the shaft out of Pilate's insulted joint. Despite his words, Pilate felt as if his leg were being torn off by a crocodile. He reached the bottom of the sea of agony, and lost consciousness.

When he came to, he saw sunlight rippling across canvas over his head. There was a sensation of motion, but he was lying on a linen blanket. His leg was swathed in a huge bandage. He raised himself slightly, and a warning tremor of pain shot up from his knee, so he lowered himself again with a groan.

“You're awake!” said Aristarchus. “Good!”

“Where am I, and how long was I out?” asked Pilate.

“Only a day and a half,” said the Greek. “Your wound bled extensively—the arrow must have nicked a blood vessel—and I had to alternate a tourniquet with spiderweb bandages to keep you from bleeding to death. The men commandeered this merchant's wagon from Jericho, and I rigged up this hammock to spare you the bumps and jostles of the road. We are on our way back to Caesarea with the prisoners, and our wounded.”

Pilate nodded. “How are the men?” he asked.

“Three of the wounded have died, and one I do not expect to last the day. The rest will recover, but two of them will never swing a blade again,” the Greek said matter-of-factly.

“Has Quirinius reported in?” he asked.

“Not yet,” said the doctor. “But Silas Hirtius has sent word to him that we are returning to Caesarea. Everything is in hand at the moment, Prefect. The best thing you can do is sleep and let your body heal itself. Sip a bit of this, and I will change your bandage and wash your wound.”

Pilate tasted the familiar flavor of milk of poppy, and then watched with some detached interest as the bandage was deftly unwound from his injured joint. The wound was ghastly—swollen and red and leaking blood and pus. But there was no blackness, and no angry red streaks running up his leg. He had seen enough battlefield injuries to know that he was very fortunate to have avoided infection thus far. With gentle hands, the Greek began washing the wound with vinegar and warm water. There was some pain, but the opium blocked it sufficiently that Pilate dozed back off before Aristarchus was done.

Sometime the next day Quirinius and his men caught up with the slow-moving caravan. Pilate was more alert, and listened with interest as the centurion reported the result of the chase. “There were about a dozen or more of them, sir, that mounted up and took off with Bar Abbas leading them,” he said. “They led us on a merry chase all the way from the Jericho Road to Mount Ebal. We were closing in and I could tell their horses were about to drop. Suddenly all but one of them dismounted, and turned to face us. They were heavily armed, and we had to stop and give combat. Turns out that they were all of Bar Abbas' top lieutenants, and they had agreed together to sacrifice themselves in order to let him get away. Two of my boys took off after him while we attacked the rest. They fought like lions, I will give them that. We only took three of them alive, but the battle lasted an hour and cost me four men killed and six wounded. Once they were dead or subdued, we went after Bar Abbas and found the bodies of the two men who had chased him down. But he took all three horses then and disappeared towards Salim and Aenon. We lost his trail in the wilderness there, and decided to bring his officers back with us so you could question them.”

Pilate swore. “I hate that the ring leader eluded us,” he said, “but I think we have crushed his insurrection. We will put these prisoners to interrogation when we get back to Caesarea—the officers at least. Go ahead and nail the others up outside the city gate as soon as we get there. Send word to Cassius Longinus to report for duty directly to me as soon as possible.” He shifted on his hammock and groaned as the pain shot upwards from his knee. “And tell that Greek to bring me some wine!”

They arrived back in Caesarea two days later, and Pilate was handed off to the loving ministrations of his wife. The leg still throbbed like mad but was growing more tolerable. It was the forced sedentary lifestyle that drove Pilate half mad with frustration. For the first three days, he was unable to move from his bed at all. Longinus took over the day to day command of the legionaries, and reported in every afternoon.

Bar Abbas' lieutenants held out for almost two days of brutal interrogation, but Pilate's men were very good at extracting information. Eventually they broke two of the men, although the third managed to strangle himself with his own long, shaggy locks in the dungeon cell where he was being held. Longinus summarized the confessions for Pilate late that afternoon.

“Bar Abbas had a total of one hundred fifty men under his command,” he said. “Of that total, we have now killed or captured some one hundred forty. They had a large network of caves in the wilderness, not far from where you engaged them near the Jericho road. I have already dispatched troops to search the caves, seize all weapons and loot, and burn what they cannot transport back here. Bar Abbas had sent a few men into Galilee to scout for a new hideout; he has probably joined them. But with such a pitiful force at his command, I would say we have eliminated him as a threat for the time being.”