Scourge of Rome

XLVI

As Serpentius sat in the darkness trying to control the shaking in his hands, his mind tried to come to terms with the enormity of what had just happened. The voices in the passageway faded and finally disappeared altogether and he’d never been more alone. More alone, even, than when he walked out on to the bloody sand of the arena to take another man’s life in front of twenty thousand blood-hungry vultures. He felt a rush of revulsion for a people whose combined value as human beings didn’t add up to the life of the single brave gladiator who knew he was about to die. How many times had he walked into danger at the side of Gaius Valerius Verrens? And all he’d ever felt was pride that Valerius chose him, a Spanish peasant, to be his friend and comrade. Even as a slave he’d known that pride, but when Valerius made him a free man it grew tenfold. And now he’d failed him.

Serpentius of Avala did not experience fear, or at least not as other men experienced it. Something inside him had always distilled the essence of fear into an elixir of power: a quickness of hand and eye and a mental dexterity that allowed him to think four moves ahead when the very best he faced could think only two. The Romans would never have taken him but for the lust for revenge that made him stand fast when he should have run. In the arena, the combination of skill and speed made him feared and respected. When others tried to make an ally of him, even a friend, he despised them for their weakness. He preferred to be hated.

Valerius had rescued him from the arena when his stubborn refusal to entertain was about to get him killed, matched against fifteen or twenty in a contest with only one end. In his turn he repaid Valerius with loyalty, and by teaching him how to turn a talent for soldiering into a talent for killing. It had been as much of a surprise to one as to the other when comradeship evolved into a type of wary friendship, and, eventually, into something beyond friendship. He looked towards the entrance slab he’d just replaced. There was still time. Valerius needed him and all he had to do was remove the stone and walk down the stairs into the darkness. But the very thought of it made him feel sick and the shakes got worse. When he willed his legs to move nothing happened.

He was a coward.

Eventually he managed to raise himself up. He retraced his steps up the slope past the tombs and exchanged watchwords with the guards at the gateway of the Tenth’s camp. He found the tent with his equipment and sat with his head in his hands. Gradually, the terror faded and his mind began to clear. There was one way to erase the shame of what had happened earlier. Valerius hadn’t told him everything about tonight’s mission, but the Spaniard’s instinct was that his friend and Tabitha were going into great danger. Valerius had said to meet him at the temple. He would do better. He would be there waiting for him.

And there was only one way to do it. He would join the attack on the Antonia.

He retrieved his horse from the lines and made his way west. Lepidus had said the Fifth was the legion with the best chance of making a breakthrough, so it was to the Fifth he rode. His route took him through the rear ranks of the Fifteenth as their siege rams continued to batter the north flank of the fortress. At a point where a few buildings survived he dismounted and continued on foot, instinctively following the sound of fighting, reading every nuance in the ebb and flow of the battle. The houses and apartments around him subdued the muffled roar, but he knew he was going in the right direction. Wounded men passed him in a stream, stumbling, staggering and crawling the opposite way.

An increase in volume confirmed his suspicion that he was approaching the Antonia. A little later he reached an area where the engineers had levelled entire streets to allow the Fifth Macedonica to deploy. Illuminated by the light of a thousand torches the Fifth’s cohorts had packed into the confined space. Across their heads Serpentius could see that a combination of ram and mine had brought down the southern tower of the fort’s western frontage. Marked by the burning oil the defenders had poured down it, the rubble from the collapse had provided the Romans with a new, unplanned third ramp. In a stroke of good fortune it formed a narrow valley that led to not just the upper walls of the Antonia, but to the adjoining angle of the temple portico.

Cerealis urged his men forward, the centurions screaming at them to take the wall and reminding them of the plunder that lay beyond it. To Serpentius those walls meant Valerius, and this time he would not fail his friend. He pushed his way through the soldiers, only to be blocked by the sheer mass waiting their turn to face death in the assault on the fortress.

And death was what awaited them.

John of Gischala and his Galileans were as aware of the importance of the breach as the Romans they fought. He’d placed his best men there, including James, the Idumaean general he had once called enemy. With him came the hill warriors who’d been the shock troops of Jerusalem’s defence. Every Roman who ran the gauntlet of spears, darts and rocks to reach the top of the valley was driven back in a welter of blood. Serpentius saw that the only way to break the deadlock was by a concerted assault, but the centuries who made the attempt were always broken up before they reached the summit. Only the bravest would make the final climb to certain death, and many hesitated. Serpentius looked around, but he couldn’t find the men he sought. What they needed were archers to sweep the walls with their arrows and cover the next assault. But Titus had always been short of archers and their lack was blunting his best chance of taking the tower and the temple.

The Spaniard forced his way through to where Cerealis stood directing the attack with his senior officers. Titus was absent, and Serpentius guessed he would be with the Fifteenth. The legate’s guards stepped in front of him, but Cerealis recognized the whip-thin figure with the scarred head and welcomed him with a tight smile.

‘Ah, Verrens’ Spanish wolf. Where is your master? Our commander has been most concerned.’

Serpentius ignored the question. ‘If you could concentrate your artillery on what’s left of the tower and the angle of the temple wall, I’d be prepared to lead the next assault.’

The legate’s face went blank and he struggled to contain his anger at being advised on tactics by a lowly civilian. With difficulty, he regained control of his temper. ‘I fear you are too late. Oddly enough, I had already considered that.’ He waved a contemptuous hand towards the breach as the familiar chopping sound of a shield-splitter being launched signalled the start of a barrage designed to sweep the defenders clear. ‘The attack has already begun. I will ignore your impudence. Your suggestion is noted and your courage applauded. Now leave the professionals to get on with the battle.’

He turned away and Serpentius would have followed him but for the great roar that came from the foot of the breach. He looked round as a double century of the Third cohort launched a new attack up the rubble slope. A hundred and sixty men packed the breach, their progress impeded by the torn and blackened bodies of those who had preceded them. Above, the boulders and ballista bolts of a hundred catapults caused carnage among the defenders. Yet as quickly as one man fell, another replaced him and there was only the slightest diminution in the hail of missiles that hammered down on to the raised shields. The air rang with the rattle of metal on wood and the screams of dying men. Those screams took on a new pitch as a new river of fire poured down the centre of the valley scorching the legs of the attackers and incinerating the helpless wounded. The stench of roasting flesh carried on the soft breeze to the waiting cohorts and Serpentius could hear the sound of more than one legionary spilling his guts. Every man in the centre of the attacking column either fell to be devoured by the flames or fled. Only those high on the angled slopes survived to continue the attack, but even they quailed before the horror suffered by their comrades. All but one.

Serpentius recognized Apion even before he heard the Syrian’s rallying call. The young legionary charged up the rubble slope gathering perhaps a dozen of his comrades as he went. A new shower of boulders, darts and arrows rained down from the defenders to meet the assault. Serpentius was certain Apion must be swept away, but the Syrian raised his scutum to protect himself. In the same moment a volley of shield-splitter bolts cut down the men above and the attackers clambered up the last steep section of tumbled masonry. Serpentius heard himself screaming support as Apion called to the survivors who had held back, urging them to join him. Somehow the Spaniard found himself with the front ranks of the fresh cohorts waiting to make the climb.

‘Come on, you fools!’ He drew his long sword and pointed to the young Syrian. ‘This is your chance. Get enough men up there with him and the temple is ours.’ The legionaries, frustrated by their hours of waiting, stepped forward with a growl, but their centurion snarled at them to hold their ground, looking to Cerealis for confirmation.

Taking in the situation at a glance, the legate nodded and rasped out an order to his signaller. By the time the attack call blared out, the cohort was already on the move. The rushing men swept Serpentius up in their advance and as he reached the bottom of the rubble slope he picked up an abandoned shield.

‘All we want to do is kill these festering Jews,’ the man beside him growled as they climbed the ramp of dusty masonry. ‘They should have sent us in hours ago.’

But Serpentius only had eyes for Apion. When the legionaries reached the lip of the temple wall the ballista crews were forced to adjust their aim. The Judaeans instantly took advantage to launch a counter-attack. Serpentius saw the dark Syrian pushed back by two men, only to smash one aside with his scutum and stab the other through the body. For a moment their eyes met and Serpentius saw Apion grinning with the fierce joy of battle. A hail of missiles forced the Spaniard to raise his shield and amid the clatter of strikes he heard a cry that confirmed one had found its mark. When he looked again his heart stuttered. Apion was down, his body crumpled in the rubble. A killing rage rose inside Serpentius and he heard himself howling like the wolves of his native mountains. But Apion wasn’t finished. He forced himself slowly to his feet using his shield for support. Shaking his head groggily, he turned just in time to meet another attack. Most of the men who’d made the climb were already dead, but despite the efforts of the Judaeans more legionaries were joining the little band by the moment.

‘On!’ Serpentius threw aside the shield and challenged the men around him. The battle madness filled him to the point where he felt his whole body was going to burst. ‘Do you bastards want to live for ever? All the gold in Judaea is in that temple and it’s there for any man who can lay hands on it.’

With a growl Serpentius set off up the slope. Every man there knew the gold would go to Vespasian and Titus, but they would get their share in the end. The lure of all that gleaming metal quickened their pace. They’d reached the steepest part of the slope and they pushed each other on, barely noticing the deadly hail of iron and rock. By now dozens of Roman soldiers were fighting for their lives around Apion, but they were still not strong enough to make the decisive breakthrough. The Judaeans harried the heavily armoured legionaries like packs of wild dogs. Two, three and four men surrounded each victim and hauled him to be dispatched by a knife thrust through the eye.

Serpentius and the reinforcing cohort clawed their way over the last few feet and suddenly the balance shifted. Now, apart from a few small groups wholly intent on slaughtering a downed opponent, it was the Judaeans who fought for survival. Serpentius looked around for Apion and his eye fell on a lone figure struggling under the weight of three opponents.

‘Hold on!’ The Spaniard forced his way through a brawling ruck of men and swung his sword at the rearmost of the Syrian’s tormentors. The edge sliced into the Judaean’s neck and his head parted company with his shoulders, spraying a jet of blood over his comrades. A second man turned with a great flailing slash that would have spilt Serpentius’s guts if he hadn’t danced back out of range. A moment later the Spaniard lunged and the man screamed as the point of the spatha speared his heart. The third assailant lay slumped across the Syrian’s body with Apion’s blade in his chest, and Serpentius rolled him aside before falling to his knees beside his friend.

Two dark eyes stared up at him, but they were the only recognizable elements of the young Syrian’s face. Unable to pierce his armour the Judaeans had concentrated their efforts on their enemy’s head. From the nose downwards the once-handsome features had been chopped into a gory red mess, spikes of bone and shards of teeth showing through like pearls in a grape press.

A terrible anguished groan came from Serpentius’s breast as he knelt over his dead friend. Had it truly come to the point where death would be a blessed release? He shook his head. No. Not while Valerius Verrens still lived. He reached down and closed Apion’s staring eyes with shaking fingers.

When he forced himself to his feet he realized the fight was almost won and his disbelieving eyes registered dawn breaking over the eastern hills. Dozens of legionaries were pouring up the rubble slope on to the roof of the cloister surrounding the temple complex, a paved walkway perhaps fifteen paces wide. From where Serpentius stood at the angle of the north and west walls, the temple sat like an enormous stone galley in the centre of an extensive outer court. Men stared up from the court fifty feet below and the first spears began to clatter among the soldiers on the roof. On both sides of the breakthrough, John of Gischala’s men struggled to keep the Romans from exploiting their success. Some built barricades from bales of cloth that had appeared from some hidden storehouse. Centurions urged their men to attack before the makeshift defences could be completed as smoke began to billow up from below the walkway.

‘They’ve set the cloister on fire,’ someone screamed. ‘If we don’t break out of here we’re dead men.’

A centurion struggled to the top of the slope at the head of a dozen men carrying a baulk of timber. Without orders they formed up at the front of four centuries preparing to attack the flimsy barricade. Serpentius watched them dash at the barrier in a compact column ten wide and thirty deep and the hastily erected structure burst open at the first attempt. With a roar of triumph the Romans surged through, tossing the bales aside and hammering at the demoralized defenders with shield and sword. The survivors screamed for mercy, but the legionaries threw them over the parapet to smash on to the paving below or cut them down where they stood. Serpentius followed in the victors’ wake across the blood-soaked flagstones.

A hand caught his arm and he spun, ready to strike down his assailant. ‘You?’

‘I must reach the temple,’ Josephus gasped. The Judaean was sootstained and sweating after the exertion of his climb through the rubble and the bodies, but the hand that held his sword was steady enough. ‘There are certain items Titus does not want to fall into the hands of his soldiers. Will you help me?’

Serpentius hesitated. Valerius had never fully trusted the man, but the temple was where Valerius would be and the Spaniard had a feeling Josephus would get him there by the most direct route.

‘Very well,’ he nodded. Ahead of them the legionaries had cleared the walkway as far as the opening of a stairway fifty paces ahead. When Serpentius reached it he could hear the sound of fighting below. ‘Stay here until I check. Titus wouldn’t thank me for getting you killed.’ The Spaniard advanced warily down the first few steps until he saw that the soldiers had cleared the stair down to a pillared walkway. He gestured for Josephus to follow. By now the battle-hardened Roman cohorts must have broken through in several places because Serpentius could see the shields of three legions. Knots of men hacked at each other all over the great courtyard and the air rang with the clash of swords and the screams of the maimed and the dying. Women and children were cut down with the rest as they attempted to flee the fighting. To Serpentius’s left, the entire length of the north cloister was ablaze and the torments of men trapped in the stairways pierced even the maniacal clamour around him.

‘We must get to the temple,’ Josephus urged. ‘The entrance is on the east side.’

Serpentius searched the chaos for an obvious safe route, but could see none. ‘There’s only one way,’ he told the Judaean. ‘And that’s straight through the middle.’ Josephus looked at the scene unfolding in front of him with horror, but the Spaniard slapped his shoulder to get his attention. ‘Stay close behind me and sing out if you see any threat.’

‘But how …’

‘Just follow me,’ Serpentius snarled, ‘and do what you’re told if you want to live.’

They moved warily into the sea of fighting men. Serpentius led with his sword at the ready and his eyes flicking from left to right, instinctively knowing where a path would open up. His diagonal course took them towards the southern wall of the temple about twenty paces away. Josephus stayed close on his heels, almost touching the Spaniard’s shoulder and starting at every clash of arms. A rebel in close combat with a legionary stepped backwards into him and turned with a raised sword at the contact. Josephus brought his blade up, but the man’s face froze into a rictus of agony as the Roman slipped the point of his gladius beneath his armpit into his heart. As his victim dropped away the snarling killer would have turned on Josephus had Serpentius not stepped into his path and knocked his sword away.

‘The watchword is Cremona and he’s one of ours.’ Even that wouldn’t have stopped the man from slaughtering someone in Judaean clothing, but the look in Serpentius’s eyes was enough to make him turn away. ‘Stay with me,’ the Spaniard repeated.

A man reeled across Serpentius’s path with his jaw hanging off and the Spaniard dispatched him with an economic thrust that pierced his heart. A moment later he found himself facing a pair of Judaean rebels armed with spears, but after a few tentative thrusts which Serpentius parried with ease they exchanged a glance and stepped out of his path. Serpentius let them be. Josephus watched them carefully as he passed, but if they were going to die they were going to take Romans with them.

At last they reached the shadow of the temple. The great building stood on a raised platform surrounded by oversized steps. Serpentius bounded up with easy strides and turned to help Josephus. Three doorways entered the temple from this side, but all had been blocked up by the Judaean defenders. The two men were safe above the level of the fighting as long as no one else had the same idea. They made good progress along the sandstone walkway with Serpentius leading at a jog and Josephus struggling to keep up. Halfway along, a hulking legionary stepped into their path and took a swing at Serpentius with his gladius. The Spaniard calmly ducked beneath the blow and brought his foot up between his assailant’s legs, ramming him aside to clatter down the steps.

Moments later they reached the angle of the building. Serpentius ducked down to check what awaited them round the corner. Incredibly, the first person he saw was Gaius Valerius Verrens. The Roman disappeared inside the temple with Tabitha in his wake as legionaries struggled with men who’d been guarding the doorway. Others were already removing the temple treasures.

‘It’s Valerius.’ He half turned to grin at Josephus. ‘He’s got here fi-’

A bolt of white lightning exploded in the base of his spine and expanded to fill his entire being. Time didn’t exist any more in a world inhabited only by pain. Serpentius tried to push himself to his feet, but something seemed to be holding him down and his sword was no help because it had dropped from his fingers. He looked up to find Josephus standing over him with fear in his eyes and a bloody sword in his hand. As he watched the sword rise, the Spaniard’s pain-ravaged face twisted into a snarl of contempt. ‘Traitor.’

‘Hey you?’ Two legionaries armed with spears eyed Josephus suspiciously from the base of the steps, uncertain whether he was friend or enemy. Before they could decide, the Judaean darted past Serpentius and disappeared into the doorway of the temple. Serpentius watched him go until the world closed in on him: a mother’s smile, a woman’s touch, the scent of an old hunting dog and a final plunge into a pit where eternal darkness reigned.