The Coming of the King

Chapter Three

Mergus counted thirteen crosses marking the eastern entry to Caesarea; seven on the south side of the path that led to the closed gates, six to the north. Old bodies hung there, desiccated, scentless bones held together by tags of tendons, too dry now for the vultures.

Before the front riders reached them, the gates opened and a detachment of the city Watch rode out; fifteen armed and armoured men on fresh horses, who spread out in a row across the sand.

Ibrahim’s train halted, smoothly. Even the camels, who had smelled water, made no effort to forge through the line of polished iron.

At the rear of the column, Mergus and Pantera leaned forward on the pommels of their saddles showing every sign of weariness, hunger and thirst — all of which were genuine — and of boredom, which was not.

‘If Saulos knows we’re here…’ Mergus murmured.

‘He will clear one of the crosses for each of us,’ Pantera said. ‘Try to get one facing the sun. Death comes faster that way.’

Pantera kept his quiet gaze on the camels ahead; in this guise, he was a Nabatean archer of limited imagination and no particular fear of Rome. Mergus, who had seen the scars on his body, and had spoken to some of the men who had made them, cursed and spat and hunched his back against the dead, and made sure he knew the fastest route to freedom.

Best to go left, he thought, south, towards Jerusalem where the Hebrew zealots, however mad, might take in a renegade centurion and his half-breed friend if they could prove themselves useful with weapons.

But no shout came, no hands fell on their shoulders, no blades were thrust in their faces with threats and menace. The camels, horses and men of Ibrahim’s train were inspected by a decurion, who introduced himself as Gaius Jucundus, commanding officer of the city Watch. He greeted Ibrahim affably enough and commiserated with the men for their wounds as he rode slowly down the line.

‘There’s still time to leave,’ Mergus said, as he came closer. Just. Maybe. If their horses were not too tired. If the Watch were slow to see them go.

‘Not yet,’ Pantera said. ‘Let your sleeve come up. See if they know who you are.’

Obediently, Mergus made as if to stifle a yawn and, in doing so, let his right sleeve rise a little. On his forearm above the centurion’s baton, the twinned XX of the Twentieth legion had recently been extended by new lines to form the double Vs of the name Valeria Victrix, given after the bloodbath of Britain’s rebellion. Above the legion-sign, older, a lion stood over a bull, and both were topped by a raven.

The inkwork of the god-mark was poor, blued almost to invisibility against Mergus’ olive skin, but a man did not rise to the rank of Watch captain without sharp eyes and a sharper mind and a working knowledge of the gods who held the legions close.

Jucundus spun his horse neatly, bringing it to stand just in front of Mergus. His men might have been Syrian, but he was a Roman of equestrian stock, with the hooked nose and prominent brow that marked such men, as if they were all cast from the same mould. His eyes, when he raised them, held a frank, friendly curiosity.

‘If I tell the men what you are,’ he said, ‘they’ll drag you from your horse and ply you with wine and whores. Shall I?’

‘Later, maybe.’ Mergus shrugged a shyness that was only partly feigned. His past with the legions was the reason he had been taken on as outrider in the first place; he had no intention of hiding it. ‘I’ve given my oath to see Ibrahim’s camels safely sold and we’ve already lost the best to bandits. I’d hate to be carousing while the rest were stolen.’

‘Camels are hard to hide,’ Jucundus said. ‘In Caesarea, small men steal small things; the coins and gems that can be swallowed and retrieved two days later, or denied with plausibility. If anyone steals your camels, it’ll be the governor claiming them as tax.’

A brief pause held them a moment. ‘He’ll take a tax on the beasts before they’re sold?’ Mergus asked.

‘It’s his new way, started this spring. He’s a Greek, which means he’ll extort more of whatever you’re trading if you’re selling to the Hebrews rather than the Syrians, who count themselves almost wholly Greek. Take that as fair warning, and if you pass it to Ibrahim, don’t say it came from me. But for now, you have an escort. The Watch will keep you safe until you reach your inn.’

‘Are we in danger?’

Jucundus pulled a wry face. ‘Take it as a sensible precaution,’ he said. ‘The autumn riots have started early. Nobody’s safe.’

At which he raised his arm in signal and the detachment that had blocked the path split apart and rode down to join the train, half on either side so that Ibrahim and his camels passed through the city’s gates to the chime of chain mail and the tread of different horses, and the crowds gathered to view them with silent awe, as if they were royalty.

*

Caesarea was whiter than a pearl. It gleamed bright as a diamond in the sun, with the sea a mirror of aquamarine behind, and the sky only two shades quieter above.

Pantera was mounted on the bay colt he had set his eyes on after the battle. It was a pleasure to ride, answering easily to heel and hand with a forward, fluid gait in the open desert and a solid one in the city. He set it now to follow the mare in front and, in the guise of Afeef, Nabatean archer, observed what he could of the city.

First, he studied the gangs of sullen, brooding youths who gathered on the street corners to watch their passing and decided that the Syrians were more numerous than the Hebrews, but that the latter looked more desperate and therefore more dangerous.

After, he looked about in apparent awe at the bright white polished stone from which the whole city was fashioned; at the width and regularity of the streets — none of the haphazard twists and turns of Rome here; at the tented podiums set at each street corner for the benefit of the Watch, living testament to the fact that Caesarea had been designed to remain under constant occupation; at the rows of houses built all the same, in the Greek style with their stairs inside, but with many-coloured flower gardens on the rooftops and in vessels by the front doors.

The flowers were a riot in their own right, with scarlet vying against cerise and saffron, magenta and violet, rust, lime and midnight blue, each trying to outdo the other with the sheer violence of its hue.

Elsewhere were signs of human violence: of smoke stains and broken doors, of blood swept into gutters and the moans of the newly injured from behind shuttered windows. And one sign of fresher violence, not far in front of the train.

Pantera leaned a little towards Mergus. ‘Ahead,’ he murmured in Greek. ‘Three streets forward on the right. Fresh blood on the road. Wait a moment before you appear to see it.’

He watched as Mergus counted nine paces then, as if seeing the gore for the first time, lifted himself high in the saddle and, swearing, threw up his hand.

‘Jucundus! Ahead! The street with the green dolphin! Fresh blood!’

Jucundus had seen action in battle, Pantera would have bet his life on that. The officer swung his horse even as the first word reached him. His orders spilled out in Greek, too fast to follow, but they brought Ibrahim’s camel train to a ragged halt. A dozen men of the Watch cantered up the line in tight formation, three men across, four deep, unslinging their shields as they rode, drawing their cavalry blades.

In a block, they came to the street marked by a soaring dolphin painted on the white gable end. In itself, that marked it as a Syrian district: the god of the Hebrews did not allow images of men or animals in his domain.

They didn’t dismount. After a brief flurry of horses dragged to a hard halt, of heads thrown and hooves belling on the hard stone, the leader dragged a spear from his second and, leaning down, brought something up on its tip. After a moment, on Jucundus’ command, he turned, holding it high, so that the men behind could see.

‘Gods alive!’ Mergus sank down in his saddle. ‘It’s a crucified cat.’

‘Of course.’ Pantera glanced at the dangling mass of bloodied fur as if it were a minor novelty. ‘Don’t show any interest,’ he said. ‘We have no reason to care.’

Mergus converted his choked oath into a curse at his horse. Under his breath, he said, ‘It’s a spotted cat. One of those from the temples in Alexandria. It looks like a miniature leopard.’

‘And I’ll wager the cost of tonight’s meal that the arrow pinning its chest to the upright post bears the same tip and fletchings as those of the men who hunted us in the desert.’

Mergus said, ‘Were you expecting this?’

‘Something like it.’ Pantera let his gaze slide past the cat for a second time. The fletchings were, indeed, the same as those of their attackers. ‘Saulos wishes us to know that he can do what he wants.’

‘What do we do?’

‘What we were going to do anyway: watch, listen, learn. Do our best not to die. You might spit against bad luck as we pass. I can’t, it’s not a thing a Nabatean would do.’

The train moved on at a brisk pace. They passed the cat and found that, for a mercy, it was dead, and had been before it had been nailed to the wood. More men than Mergus spat for luck as they reached it and the train was uncharacteristically quiet as they rode on.

Presently, Ibrahim took a right turn and led his men into a Hebrew part of the city where the flowers were planted in other patterns and the decorations painted on the gables were of olives and vine leaves, not animals or men. Amidst the lines of quiet order, one street was in disarray: scaffolding rose along half its length and a builder’s mayhem of bricks and sand and wood and iron cluttered the empty lots.

In the centre of the chaos stood a synagogue, tall, brilliant, clad in white stone, with yellow flowers all along the paved path that led to it. The scaffolding pressed it on all sides.

Jucundus had disposed of the cat and was riding up along the side of the train. Mergus caught his attention as he passed. ‘Are they building the synagogue bigger?’ he asked. ‘It’s already larger than anything in Alexandria or Rome.’

‘I think you’ll find it’s not the synagogue that’s being built,’ Pantera murmured. In Jucundus’ presence, he spoke Greek with a sluggish eastern accent and professed to know no Latin. ‘Ask him who’s building other properties so close to the house of the Hebrew god. And why. And ask him where are the worshippers. It’s the Sabbath tomorrow; they should be preparing the house of god.’

Mergus asked. And nearly asked a second time when Jucundus kept his face forward and did not seem to have heard. When the decurion spoke, it was not an answer, but a question spoken in a low voice, with his eyes fixed ahead.

‘How long are you planning to stay in Caesarea?’

Mergus stifled a glance towards Pantera. ‘We’ll leave when we next find work.’

‘Make it soon.’

‘You wish us to leave because of the synagogue?’ Mergus asked. ‘Or the gangs of youths?’

‘Because of the havoc the Hebrews of all ages will wreak at the synagogue if the building work around it doesn’t stop. Or what the Syrians will do if they are made to stop. Both are unsafe.’

Jucundus kicked his horse hard. He reached the front of the train as they turned a final corner and Ibrahim called a halt before a large, well-appointed inn, built in the city’s white stone with a symbol of five vine rods laid side to side hanging above its door.