The Eagle of the Twelfth

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Another day, another dawn, another blurred wakening to a pinch on my toe; another scurry under a peach sky to the temple, there to wait and watch while men wearing a country’s ransom in gold and too-big jewels paraded themselves before the crowds.

There is always something new to be learned. So had said Yusaf ben Matthias, and Pantera said that he was a trusted agent, and so I watched, wondering what that new thing might be, awaiting the fall of a hand on my shoulder.

There was a moment when Horgias flinched and I thought he had fallen to a zealot knife, but he was whole, still gazing up at the Eagle, and before I had time to speak to him a large man with blacksmith’s shoulders and old, linear scorch marks on both arms wormed his way to my side.

‘You sell mares?’ he asked.

Turning slowly, I looked the prospective buyer up and down with a hauteur I remembered vaguely from my youth. ‘For the right price,’ I said, ‘we may do. Your name?’

He bared thick teeth. ‘I am Zacchariah. My price will be right. You show me now?’

In that moment, ten generations of horse-traders countedfor more than half a lifetime in the legions. I was my father made young again, itching to make a sale. Abandoning the Eagle — I was a horse-trader, what did I care for a gold bird on a stick, however venerated by the Hebrews? — I gathered Pantera and Horgias about me, and trekked back to the inn of the Cedar Tree.

Along the way, we collected Zacchariah’s well-muscled younger relatives, three other, unrelated, horse merchants who gazed at him with undisguised venom, a woman who claimed she could more accurately assess the sex of the foal our pregnant mare carried, a bone-setter who set to arguing with Horgias but gave up when his poor Greek met Horgias’ worse Greek — and Nicodemus and his seven zealots who stood about as we conducted our business, obviously waiting for a chance to inflict violence upon us.

Over the course of the next few hours, I sold the pregnant mares, the barren mares and eight of the twelve youngstock. The bargaining this entailed took up the better part of the day and I found I was enjoying myself more and more as time wore on and the haggling became faster, harder and more brutal.

It was only near the end, therefore, as we were sealing our promises with clasped hands and silver, that I chanced to see the tension on Horgias’ face and the urgency in his eyes.

I came back to myself and closed the deals, sending the men off with their mares, making excuses for why I was no longer able to grace their homes with my presence, declared myself bereft not to share their evening meal.

‘What?’ I asked, after the last one had gone. We were leaning against the all but empty stalls, seeming to count our money.

‘It wasn’t the Eagle,’ Horgias said.

I stared at him, my mind still full of sound hocks and good wind, and the relative worth of silver and horseflesh. Pantera, who had done little to help but had, as far as I couldtell, picked everyone’s pockets, examined the contents and returned them to their rightful owners untouched, said, ‘But yesterday it was?’

‘Yes. Yesterday it was the Eagle. Today, it was a replica cast in bronze and dipped in gold.’

‘How do you know?’ I asked.

‘There was a crack under the left wing. I had filled it with lead and burnished it, but you could still see it. I saw it yesterday as it passed over us. Today, no crack.’

‘They could have mended it,’ Pantera said.

‘No.’ Horgias was adamant. ‘This is a new Eagle. A counterfeit.’

‘Why?’ We asked it of each other and ourselves.

Pantera sat on the floor, juggling silver coins thoughtfully. ‘They’ve moved it,’ he said. ‘There was always a chance they would do so when they knew the legions were on their way.’

‘But where have they taken it?’ Horgias’ face was a landscape of despair. ‘It could be anywhere. We could search the whole of Jerusalem and-’

‘It won’t be in Jerusalem,’ Pantera said. ‘They’ll have taken it somewhere safe in the desert. Yusaf will know where; that’s what he was trying to tell us yesterday.’ Throwing down the silver, he lurched to his feet. ‘We need a fight,’ he said, and swayed back, roaring. When he came forward, he hit me.

We fought as men do who have earned too much silver and let it go to their heads. Horgias thrust himself between us, cursing, flailing his fists and feet and once cracking his head against my cheek, missing my nose by a finger’s width.

I screamed abuse at him, at Pantera, at the innkeeper who came to see what was happening and left again swiftly. I was my father in his cups, but without the need for drink. I flailed with intent to injure, and did not care who I hit.

Pantera defamed my father, my mother, all three of my brothers and the memory of my dead sister in language thatwas barely Greek. Ducking under my punches, he grabbed the greater part of the silver that had been scattered on the floor and ran for the street.

Horgias held me about the chest, pinning my arms to my sides, until he was sure we were alone.

He released me slowly, warily. ‘Are you sane?’

I shook my head. The world became more solid, less threatening. ‘I think so.’

‘Let me buy you a drink. He left us some of the money.’ Horgias bent to the dirt and picked up the remaining silver, neat-fingered, finding the smaller coins where they had rolled into the empty horse stalls. Rising, he held his palm out in a flash of shining metal. ‘Most of it, actually.’

‘And Pantera? Do we wait for him?’ I was still sore where he had hit me.

Horgias, all solicitude, held up the flat of his blade for me to see the growing edges of a bruise reflected in its surface. He said, ‘We’re to wait until tomorrow’s dawn, and if he’s not back we’re to get out as fast as we can.’

He said it with assurance, as if he had orders in detail.

‘How do you know that?’

‘That last curse… every third word was Thracian.’

‘Very clever.’ I felt oddly deflated. My head ached. My fists ached. My belly screamed for food. I nodded towards the stairs that led to the upper dining rooms. ‘I didn’t know he spoke Thracian, too.’

Horgias shrugged. ‘There’s a lot about him we don’t know,’ he said. ‘But if he can find out where they’ve taken the Eagle, I won’t care how many languages he speaks. Or what he does with men’s purses.’

It was dark. Horses ate sweet hay from racks below us, and their breath smothered us; sweet exhalations, thick with memories of summer pastures, and foaling fields and sleep.

A hand fell on my foot. I jerked it away and sat up. Two hands caught my shoulders, pressing me back on my pallet. Lips near my ear, a voice behind them, so silent it had no character. ‘Get up. Dress. Come downstairs, silently. Wear your cloak. Bring your knife.’

I am a legionary. I follow orders, particularly when they are given by Pantera in that tone.

In the horse barns, my blue roan filly was already saddled, her colour dulled to slate under the light of a starved moon. Horgias was mounted on his burnt-almond gelding. Pantera was a dozen paces behind me. He still had the black on his teeth, but he no longer slouched; rather he padded past on silent feet, lithe as a lion.

‘Where to?’ I was awake suddenly, my head clean, clear, sharp of mind and ear.

‘Out of the city first. Then east to the sea of floating, which is death to drink. There are caves set high in the rock at the sea’s edge, looking down towards the water. The Eagle is held there by Eleazir’s men; it’s their last refuge in case Vespasian takes the city.’

‘Yusaf ben Matthias told you so?’

‘He did. Could you appear to be drunk, do you think? Particularly if we are stopped. Don’t show your knife unless you must.’

With which Pantera smiled his crooked smile and mounted in one smooth movement and that was the last I saw of his face, for he led us out of the city into the black and quiet night.

We travelled in single file behind him, stoop-shouldered and swaying and watching every unlit side street for a gang of eight young Hebrew zealots and their stone-throwing friends.

When we passed under the gate and out into the open pasture beyond, the air felt cleaner, the sky less oppressive. It was easier to see, although still not perfect. Pantera sat up straight in the saddle.

I pushed my filly up beside his. Horgias came up on his other side. We rode abreast, and the freedom lit my heart, so that I pushed my horse faster, and faster, and they theirs, until we were running under the starlight, over the rising and dipping ground, letting the horses have their heads, and the wind clear the last of Jerusalem from our hair.

In time, we slowed, and came back to a walk. ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.’

‘East,’ Pantera said. ‘And east and east, until we see the water of the killing sea. Then we rely on Horgias to find out which caves hold men.’

‘What is the chance that we’re riding into a trap?’

‘There’s always that chance.’ Pantera turned in his saddle. He was a vague shape under the poor starlight, but as he looked at me his teeth were white. The shock of seeing him with a whole mouth set me silent. ‘Yusaf owes me his life,’ he said. ‘He’s cleaving close to Eleazir because I asked it of him and so I trust what he tells me, but if you wish to leave now and go back into Jerusalem you’re free to do so.’

‘Do I look that tired of life?’ I laughed, loosely, and found that it was real, which made me stop.

Pantera looked at me a long moment, but said only, ‘Good. If we ride hard, we’ll be at the shore before dawn.’