‘So you told your people to kill him and his followers.’
‘We didn’t tell them to do anything. There was an agitator in the crowd, someone we’d never seen before; he started it when Shimon made another even more blasphemous claim.’
‘Well?’
‘That after Yeshua was executed he came back to life three days later as proof of the resurrection of the righteous.’
‘What nonsense. And you did nothing to try and restrain your people?’
‘After this claim the agitator addressed the crowd. He got them so worked up that they wouldn’t listen to us; he said that the shortage of grain and failure of the silphium was God’s judgement on us for listening to Yeshua’s lies.’
‘But that’s been failing for years.’
Menahem shrugged. ‘They’re poor people made poorer by the failure of the crop and now can’t afford the high grain prices so they’re happy to blame any scapegoat. They threw themselves at Shimon’s supporters while the agitator urged them on, shouting that they should get the woman and her children who are always with Shimon. She escaped with the children while Shimon’s supporters held back our people, and since then there have been running battles in the streets as this agitator looks for them.’
‘And so now they’ve barricaded themselves into the Jewish Quarter until they find them, I suppose?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Menahem agreed sadly, looking towards the auxiliary centuries that had now managed to form up. ‘This man is a fanatic; he’s caused the deaths of a lot of our people already and a good few more will die before the day is out.’
‘What does he look like?’
‘He’s quite short with bow legs and has half an ear missing.’
‘Well, we should be able to recognise him from that. But tell me, Menahem, what has this man got against the woman and her children?’
‘He said that in order to purify God’s chosen people in Cyrene, so that He would make the silphium grow again, Yeshua’s bloodline must be wiped out; he claimed that they were Yeshua’s children.’
CHAPTER VII
The sun had burst over the horizon and there was now enough light to be able to see any ambushes that may be lurking up the narrow alleys to the left and the right of the barricaded road. Looking ahead to the barricade of overturned carts, barrels and broken-up furniture, Vespasian could see a mass of men behind it; a few heads peered over, back towards the Romans. The houses beyond them were more dilapidated than in the rest of the city, attesting to the poverty of the Jewish Quarter.
‘Order the advance, Festus,’ he called to the auxiliary prefect standing next to him at the head of the first century, formed up eight abreast.
Magnus handed him an oval auxiliary shield. ‘I can’t believe that they’re going to be stupid enough to resist us.’
‘They’re desperate — since the silphium started to fail they’ve been getting poorer and poorer. Now they believe this liar who tells them that if they kill two children then all their woes will disappear as their god will restore the crop.’
A cornu blared out four, deep, rumbling notes, and the signiferi of each century dipped their standards; the attack began.
‘Shields up!’ Festus shouted.
Fifty paces from the barricade Vespasian heard the tell-tale hiss of a volley of arrows.
Vespasian tightened his grip on his shield and hunched down behind it so that he could just see over its curved rim; he felt the auxiliary behind him raise his shield over his head and prayed that the man was experienced enough to hold it firm. An instant later came the staccato hammering of many iron-tipped arrows thumping into the leather-covered wooden roof above the century’s heads. A few screams from within the ranks confirmed the lesser effectiveness of the oval shields in forming a perfect cover and the inexperience of some of the auxiliaries holding them.
The pounding of the soldiers’ hobnailed sandals striking the paving stones in step reverberated off the brick walls to either side and around the makeshift wooden box encasing them.
‘The fucking racing factions never shot arrows at us,’ Magnus grumbled loudly beside him as two barbs from a second volley slammed into his shield with a sudden, double, vibrating report.
Vespasian felt the wind of a shot passing between the curved rims of his and Magnus’ shields; with a gurgled cry the auxiliary behind him collapsed to the ground, his shield striking Vespasian’s helmet with a ringing blow as he fell. He shook his head to clear it; a moment later he sensed another shield being thrust over him as the file behind closed up to seal the gap.
With twenty paces to go a third volley buffeted the century.
‘Javelins ready; aim over the barricade,’ Festus shouted as the last shots pounded into them. ‘Shields down!’
The auxiliaries hefted their javelins overarm, ready to throw.
‘Release!’
Seventy or so sleek missiles soared away from the advancing century, most clearing the top of the barricade, to rain down upon the unshielded defenders as they reloaded. Although not as heavy as a legionary pilum, the auxiliaries’ javelins crunched through unprotected chests and skulls and skewered arms and legs, hurling men to the ground with bursts of blood and howls of pain.
A ragged volley of arrows followed without doing any damage to the advancing Romans.
‘Charge!’ Festus yelled over the screams of the wounded.
Drawing their swords, the auxiliaries broke into a trot, hunched behind their shields held firm before them.
Vespasian closed his eyes with the shock of impact as his shield crashed into the barricade; the auxiliary behind thrust his shield into his back pushing him forward as the weight of successive men down the file was added to the momentum. With a rasping of wood grating roughly over stone, the barricade shifted back a few feet, and then suddenly splintered apart as the century behind added their impetus to the heaving scrum. Gasping for breath, Vespasian was hurled forward among the flying debris of the disintegrating obstacle; his feet became entangled with a plank, sending him sprawling forward. He just managed to duck under the wild sword thrust of a bellowing defender and rammed the raised plume of his helmet into the man’s groin. Clattering to the ground, Vespasian felt the auxiliary behind him thrust his sword into the exposed chest of his screaming adversary as he stepped past to fill the gap that his fall had created.
All around him Roman legs surged forward as he tried to regain his feet in among the chaos of the breakthrough. The yelling auxiliaries did not notice him in their eagerness to close with the poorly armed defenders, and his arms and legs suffered kicks and stampings before he was finally able to heave himself up and then move on to rejoin the surge.
Clearing the shattered barricade, he kept moving forward and realised that the enemy must have fled under the onslaught. His thought was confirmed a moment later by the low boom of a cornu sounding ‘halt’.
He pushed through the panting auxiliaries, up to the front of the first century where he found Festus looking at a dozen or so prisoners kneeling fearfully on the ground amid the bloody litter of their dead comrades.
‘Ah, quaestor, there you are,’ the prefect said, looking relieved to see him, ‘what do you want me to do with these? I was just about to have them executed.’
‘No, leave them alive, prefect; if the Jews see that we’re taking prisoners they might think it sensible to give up this ridiculous affair. Detail one of the less steady centuries to guard them and then let’s fan the other ones out through the quarter and get this over with. Let all the centurions know that from now on I want as little killing as possible, and no women or children are to be harmed under any circumstances.’
As the first century moved deeper into the Jewish Quarter the scale of the killing became increasingly apparent; bodies lay everywhere either in groups marking the position of a fight or singly as if cut down in an attempt to escape. Most of them were male of varying ages but Vespasian saw a few women and children; however, none looked to him like the ones who had accompanied Shimon.