Scourge of Rome

XXIV

Jerusalem.

Valerius joined Lepidus and his staff as they spurred their way to a height east of the city where the Tenth would construct their encampment. When they reached the summit they walked their horses through a tangle of ancient olive groves.

‘Venus’ withered tits, have you ever seen anything like that?’ The legate produced a growl of what might have been pain or admiration. ‘It makes Gamala look like a morning fornicating stroll.’

The entire metropolis was laid out before them like some gigantic child’s toy. Below, the ground dropped in rugged, fissured steps into a deep, rock-strewn valley, and beyond it the city sprawled across the far slope to fill the horizon. Smoke from thousands of fires formed a haze above it. Valerius could make out several huge public buildings among the claustrophobic warren of streets that populated most of the slope. His mind attempted to judge the scale of the massive walls.

‘Three of them,’ Lepidus confirmed what he was seeing, ‘and the outer one must be at least fifty or sixty cubits, perhaps higher in places. Thick too, I’ll wager. We won’t know until the engineers take a look, but I’m not sure how much damage our normal rams will do. We may need something special.’ The last was almost to himself.

‘I count fifteen towers on the part of the wall we can see,’ Paternus ventured, ‘so there can’t be fewer than sixty. Not so many on the inner walls …’

‘Plenty of wood for siege towers.’ Valerius tried to inject an optimistic note. Lepidus looked at the trees around them and grunted approval.

‘That’s the first thing we’ll do. I want the entire hilltop cleared and a defensive ditch dug by nightfall. Only post a small guard until dark; we’ll need every man we’ve got to get the work done in time. You’ll stay and help with the organization, Valerius?’ Paternus gave Lepidus a look of surprise, but Valerius didn’t argue. He’d planned to report directly to Titus, but the Tenth was short of tribunes and he couldn’t refuse his friend. The legate’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you make of the large building to the left in the walled compound? Almost a fort within a fort.’

‘That is the Great Temple.’ They turned to Josephus, who’d just ridden up. ‘The most sacred building in all of Jerusalem, but currently in the hands of the least religious of men. It is protected to the north by the Antonia fortress and to the east by the cliff you see. Even if all Jerusalem were to fall you would still have a fight on your hands to take it. John of Gischala and his Galileans will defend it to the last, may his black heart rot. Do I have your leave to report to General Titus? I have information he might find useful.’

‘Very well, Josephus.’ Lepidus pointed to a large hill a mile to the north-east. ‘He has his headquarters on the mountain. You can accompany the Emesan archers, but ask him if I can have them back at his pleasure. I’ll feel exposed here until we get the defences set up.’ The Judaean bowed and turned to leave, but Lepidus had one more question. ‘What do they call this place?’

The Judaean reached up to pick a green fruit from the tree that shaded them and displayed it in the palm of his hand. ‘Why, they call this hill the Mount of Olives, legate, and the valley down there is the Cedron.’

‘Well, it will be the Mount of Olives no more by the time my lads have done with it.’ Lepidus called for his aides. He nodded a farewell and rode across to where the Tenth’s vanguard had just appeared over the brow of the hill, leaving Valerius and Paternus staring out over the valley to Jerusalem.

‘Will they stand against four legions, do you think?’ the scarred tribune wondered. ‘Titus already has the Twelfth and Fifteenth in position, and the Fifth arrived an hour before we did.’

Valerius remembered the determined defence of Gamala and the little clusters of Judaeans throwing themselves to their deaths. You will see the true mettle of the Jews at Jerusalem, Josephus had predicted. ‘Yes, I think they will stand.’

Paternus touched his hand to his ridged cheek in a gesture Valerius guessed was born of habit. ‘Then I fear they will pay for it in pain and blood.’

‘You will be reporting to Titus?’ Valerius asked.

‘Yes. I’ll go with the Judaean.’

‘Please pass on my compliments and tell him I will seek an audience when he has time to see me.’

‘Of course.’ The right side of Paternus’s features twitched up in that curious emotionless smile. ‘It appears Lepidus values your services.’

Valerius could have admitted the truth, that he’d served with the legate in Armenia, but he decided Paternus hadn’t yet earned it. ‘He knows a proper soldier when he sees one,’ he grinned.

The smile froze. ‘Just so. I will ensure Titus receives your message.’

He disappeared off among the trees and Serpentius rode to Valerius’s side. ‘Lady Tabitha is leaving us.’ Valerius nodded distractedly. The Spaniard looked past him to the city walls. ‘So that’s Jerusalem. We won’t get in there as easily as we got into Rome.’

‘What makes you think we’ll be trying?’ Valerius stared at his friend.

Serpentius produced a bark of laughter. ‘If there’s any shit around someone always makes sure we’re the ones who’re in it.’

They spent the next hour sweating in the sun with three centuries of the First cohort, helping construct the camp’s fledgling defences. They began digging a proper ditch at the lower end of the site where it was most vulnerable to attack. From the slope above came the sound of axes as men cleared the dense olive groves, and the air was filled with the sweet scent of freshly hewn wood. Serpentius dug with the rest, but Valerius noticed that he kept glancing in the direction of the city.

‘You think something’s wrong?’ He’d long ago learned to trust the Spaniard’s instincts.

‘I was just noticing the walls are empty, apart from a few guards.’ Serpentius leaned on his mattock and stared towards Jerusalem. ‘If four legions appeared on your doorstep you’d be up there with all your mates, counting their numbers and hating the bastards.’

‘That’s true.’ Valerius followed Serpentius’s gaze. ‘Maybe the city council has told them to stay out of sight so we don’t get a chance to gauge their strength.’

‘Maybe.’ The Spaniard laid down his entrenching tool and stretched for the long sword that lay within reach of his right hand. ‘But I think I’ll take a look- Shit!’

A hundred and fifty paces down the slope thousands of Judaean rebels suddenly exploded from a hidden gully and raced up the hill towards them armed with spears and curved swords. The attackers had climbed the rocky gorge in complete silence, the shadowy depths and their dust-coloured cloaks making them invisible to the guards above. Now they raced screaming into the open.

Valerius yelled at a trumpeter standing nearby, hypnotized by approaching death. ‘Sound the alarm!’

Before they had time to react the guards posted on the lower slopes were either slaughtered or had turned and run. Valerius saw in a single glance that unless someone made a stand the whole camp was about to be overwhelmed.

Serpentius made a movement in the direction of the attackers, but Valerius grabbed his arm. ‘I need you alive with me, not a dead hero,’ he said.

The Spaniard glared at him, but obeyed, automatically moving to Valerius’s right side. As the strident calls of the alarm rang out across the hillside, the first instinct of the unprotected and totally surprised diggers was to reach for their weapons. Like Serpentius, all they had were swords and daggers. Their armour, shields and pila javelins were all neatly stacked much too far away in the centre of what would become the fort. From somewhere above Valerius heard cries of consternation and shouted orders which he hoped meant that Lepidus and his officers were already organizing a defensive position. That was all well and good, but these men would never reach them alive. There was only one chance.

‘Form orbis on me.’ He sprinted up the rising ground to a cleared area where it flattened out. Serpentius took up the cry as he matched Valerius’s pace and soon hundreds of men were converging on them. Centurions hustled them into the defensive positions they’d practised a thousand times, instinctively creating the circular formation Valerius had ordered. A few dozen more arrived from the rear, led by Albinus, and Valerius saw with relief that they were all carrying shields. He ordered them forward to create a solid barrier in the front rank facing the bulk of the attackers. The veteran centurion came to his side in the centre of what was now more an extended oval than a circle, but would have to do.

‘Not quite so much fun as Gamala.’ Albinus spat the words through gritted teeth, plainly furious that his cohort had been surprised in the open. The last survivors clawed their way into the formation and turned to face the enemy with their swords, but behind them the slow and a few brave men who’d offered their lives to delay the attackers died under Judaean knives. Their agonized cries reached the orbis and a growl went up from the legionaries.

‘Hold your ground, you bastards,’ Albinus snarled, ‘unless you want to join them.’

Valerius guessed a thousand men must be packed into the ring around him, but the Judaeans converging on the orbis numbered at least twice that. With no thought for their own lives the bravest immediately threw themselves against the outer ring, where Rome’s finest rewarded anyone who came too close with a sword in his gullet or a mattock across his skull. More dangerous were the spearmen, who could outrange the legionary’s short sword, but few were willing to hurl their weapons into the circle and leave themselves defenceless. The majority faced up to the outer rank, snarling threats and insults. Valerius allowed himself to relax a little. Although the perimeter rippled under an occasional foray he knew it was never likely to buckle unless under full-scale attack. The orbis was a classic defensive position where every man could support the next, but he prayed help would arrive soon. His only concern was that lack of armour and shields, and exposure to spears and slingshot pellets, guaranteed a steady stream of casualties. Apart from affecting morale, it increased the possibility that some blood-maddened section of legionaries would charge out of position and weaken the structure.

But help was close at hand.

In the centre of the crush it was difficult to see what happened. Valerius had a sense of the pressure fading, the growls of the legionaries turning to cheers and men sagging with relief as they realized they’d survived. Now it was the turn of the Judaeans to cry out in consternation and he saw the brandished swords and shields begin to waver, to draw back, and eventually to vanish as the men wielding them turned and ran. He risked a glance back up the hill and felt a surge of relief. Above the heads of his men he could see the signum standards of seven or eight cohorts bobbing down the hill towards the beleaguered legionaries of the First, the units they represented marching in compact squares across the rough ground.

From somewhere to Valerius’s left came the shrill blast of a trumpet – not a cornu, which the infantry signallers used, but a lituus, the lighter horn carried by auxiliary cavalry – and then five hundred horsemen appeared on the crest overlooking the Judaean attackers. In an instant the retreat became a rout. The rebels sprinted over the cleared ground and half-finished ditch in an attempt to reach the sanctuary of the gully.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Albinus shouted. ‘Finish the bastards.’

With a roar, the men of the First cohort unleashed all the pent-up anger and frustration of the last few minutes and charged down the slope. As they clawed at the fleeing Judaeans, a cohort of Thracian mounted spearmen smashed into the enemy flank, pinning the running men with seven-foot lances. The slowest were quickly overtaken and the air turned red as the legionaries struck at them with axes and mattocks or hacked at exposed backs with the gladius.

Valerius took no part in the butchery. He allowed the soldiers to stream past him while Serpentius remained dutifully at his side, twitching and growling like a chained hunting dog that scents blood. They watched as the last of the rebels tumbled into the gully, where their pursuers were happy to allow them to join the hundreds already streaming back into the city. Lepidus appeared at Valerius’s side, his square patrician features pink with anger and frustration, but his first words expressed his relief.

‘I thought we’d lost you there,’ he said. ‘Thank the gods we managed to salvage something from this disaster. I should have-’ Something caught his eye amongst the cavalry and he groaned as a section of men broke away and trotted up the slope towards them. ‘Merda,’ he hissed. ‘He’ll have my command for this, and maybe my head too.’

Valerius followed his gaze to where a tall figure in a gilded breastplate spurred his horse towards them at the head of his staff. Titus Flavius Vespasian drew up a few paces short of the three men. Lepidus’s fist smashed into his armoured chest in salute. Valerius followed suit, reflecting that the gesture didn’t have quite the same effect in a duststained tunic. An aide took Titus’s reins and the general of the Army of the East dismounted and removed his helmet, wiping his handsome face with his neck cloth. His focus had been on Lepidus, but a narrowing of the eyes signalled recognition as he took in the wooden fist of the man at his side. Valerius could feel the hard-eyed stares of the staff officers, including Paternus, who wore a sardonic half-smile on the untouched part of his heat-scarred features.

Lepidus awaited the inevitable storm with the look of a man on the way to his execution, but Titus turned away. He studied the little clusters of dead and dying rebels and the legionaries returning up the slope carrying their casualties or supporting the wounded.

‘I must apologize, general. I should have …’ Lepidus swallowed, struggling to continue. ‘A dereliction of duty, sir, for which I am willing to pay in full.’

Titus raised a hand for silence, his lips pursed thoughtfully as he continued to stare over the battlefield towards the city. Eventually he nodded to himself, and when he turned to face the legate of the Tenth his tone was surprisingly conciliatory. ‘My father always says that a lesson learned seldom comes without a cost, dear Lepidus. Let us just say that you have had an insight into the true nature of our enemies. These rats are not content to stay in their holes.’ His features twisted into a wry smile. ‘Why, they almost had me this morning, didn’t they, Tiberius?’ Valerius belatedly recognized the dark eastern features of Tiberius Alexander among the aides. His expression warned that here was a man who didn’t take his general’s brush with danger quite so lightly. Titus ignored the stony frown and continued his story. ‘We were taking a look at the north walls, near what they call the Women’s Gate, and they made a sortie and surrounded us. They dragged poor Didius out of his saddle and fairly hacked him to pieces.’

‘They might have done the same to you if the cavalry hadn’t arrived,’ Alexander growled. ‘Yet you insisted on getting involved in this skirmish and risking your life again. What would your father say about that?’

Titus’s hand went up to stroke his ear and Valerius almost smiled at the familiar, almost boyish gesture. ‘My father would say that an officer must always put himself in the position of best advantage, no matter how much danger he places himself in. Isn’t that right, Valerius?’

‘With respect,’ Valerius’s throat seemed to be full of gravel and he coughed and spat in the dust, ‘an army commander is not any officer, as I’m sure the Emperor would acknowledge.’ He heard Alexander’s mutter of approval turn to outrage as he continued: ‘But it does the men good to know that their general is as willing to risk his life for them as they are for him.’

‘Well said.’ Titus laughed and clapped Valerius on the shoulder. He leaned forward and spoke quietly into the other man’s ear. ‘I am glad you are with us, old friend, even though your arrival is not without its complications. We will discuss it later.’ He turned away with a smile. ‘Now, gentlemen, let us get back to the deliberations which were so rudely interrupted by these barbarians, safe in the knowledge that dear Lepidus has learned his lesson. More guards, I think, legate; a good watch on that gate down there, and in those gullies. The Judaeans use the ground like snakes.’

He remounted, and as the party rode off towards the crest Lepidus let out a long breath. ‘Lesson learned? I would rather fall on my sword than go through that again.’ He shook his head and turned away. ‘Albinus? Where in the name of the gods is my primus pilus? And post some guards on that gully in case the bastards come back.’

‘It’s good to know he hasn’t changed.’ Serpentius spoke for the first time since the skirmish had begun.

But Valerius had noticed lines around his old friend’s eyes and on his brow that had nothing to do with the year since they last met. ‘I’m not so sure. Alexander was right. What he did today was reckless. The old Titus was always brave, but never reckless.’

The Spaniard nodded slowly as a line of men staggered past them carrying Roman dead for burial. ‘I was thinking …’

‘What?’

‘We’ve been here less than one afternoon and we’ve lost a hundred men. How long do you think it will take?’

Valerius looked across to where Jerusalem’s walls had filled with thousands of jeering men and women. ‘How long is a lifetime?’