‘I’ll speak to Flaccus and try to get him to arrest Paulus,’ Vespasian said, before realising that Alexander had done exactly what Flaccus had predicted: got him involved.
Alexander smiled and handed him the receipt for Ataphanes’ gold. ‘Thank you, Vespasian, I would appreciate that; but he needs to do more than arrest him, he must execute him.’
Vespasian looked into the piercing blue eyes of the Alabarch and saw that he was in earnest. He was genuinely afraid of this new sect. ‘Very well, I’ll suggest that, Alexander,’ Vespasian agreed, getting up and proffering his arm. ‘I should go now; I’ve a busy day ahead. Would you be able to tell me where I can find the late Lady Antonia’s steward, Felix?’
Alexander grasped his forearm across the desk. ‘He’s in the city at the moment; you’ll find him at Antonia’s house right next to the south side of the Gymnasium.’
Vespasian followed the Alabarch out into the courtyard; the reading stopped immediately and Alexander’s two sons stood in the presence of their elders; they were both in their teens.
‘Senator Vespasian, this is my eldest son, Tiberius,’ Alexander said, gesturing to the taller of the boys who looked to Vespasian to be about seventeen, ‘and his brother, Marcus.’
The boys bowed their heads.
‘Your father keeps you hard at your studies,’ Vespasian observed.
‘He seems to find pleasure in our suffering,’ Tiberius replied with a grin.
‘Either that or he’s trying to numb our minds with pointless repetition,’ Marcus suggested; he was a couple of years younger than his brother.
Alexander smiled with pride at his sons. ‘For that cheek you can learn an extra fifty lines. I shall test you at sundown.’
‘You’ll have to find us first,’ Tiberius said, quickly ducking a playful clip around the ear from his father.
‘Enough of this,’ Alexander said laughing, ‘back to your studies. I shall see you out, senator.’
Despite being carried, Vespasian was sweating profusely as they progressed west back along the Canopic Way; even though it was not yet midday the dry heat and the still air combined to make the conditions almost intolerable, especially when wearing a woollen toga. Unlike Cyrene, which was built upon a plateau overlooking the sea, Alexandria did not seem to benefit from a cooling breeze.
‘How do you cope with this, Hortensius?’ Magnus asked, sweltering even though he only had on a tunic. ‘Your helmets and armour must be cooking you alive.’
‘You get used to it, mate,’ the optio replied in a friendly way, ‘once you’ve been here for ten years or so.’
‘You mean you just stop caring.’
‘You’re right, mate,’ Hortensius concurred with a laugh, ‘ain’t he, lads?’
His men agreed good-naturedly. Vespasian could tell that Magnus had used the time waiting outside the Alabarch’s house to fine effect and had got on good terms with their guards.
‘Looks like Paulus has been moved on,’ Vespasian commented to Magnus, seeing the arena where he had been preaching was now empty.
‘Did you find out from the Alabarch what he’s doing here?’
‘I did, and you won’t believe it-’
A series of shouts and the hard stamp of many running feet cut him off. A couple of Jews came pelting across the street, from south to north, followed by a howling mob of Greeks waving improvised clubs and hurling stones at their quarry.
With a sharp, curtailed cry the hindmost Jew was brought down with a direct hit to the back of his head; crashing forward on to the paved road he skidded along for a couple of paces tearing the skin off his face. His colleague ran on into the Jewish Quarter as the chasing mob surrounded the stricken man, hitting and kicking him as he lay motionless on the ground.
‘With me, lads,’ Hortensius shouted, drawing his gladius, ‘line abreast, two deep, shields up and use the flats of your swords.’ He broke into a run with eight of his men on either side. Women in the street screamed and the men drew back, hurling abuse or encouragement depending on their race. Vespasian stepped out of his chair and, with Magnus and Ziri, followed slowly as the legionaries charged into the mob, who were so intent on beating their victim that they did not notice the threat until nine interlocked shields punched into them, cracking bones and hurling men to the ground. Burnished iron flashed in the sun as the legionaries brought the flats of their blades cracking down on the heads of the closest men still standing, felling them.
Those who could turned and ran, leaving the legionaries kicking and stamping on their fallen mates.
‘That’s enough, Hortensius,’ Vespasian shouted, ‘call your men off.’
It took a few moments for the legionaries to respond to their optio’s orders but eventually, after a couple more arms were snapped and another skull cracked, they pulled back, leaving a half-dozen blood-stained bodies on the ground. A couple of them were shrieking in agony but the rest lay either unconscious or rolling around clutching shattered limbs and groaning with pain.
‘Have a look at him,’ Vespasian ordered Magnus, pointing to the blood-spattered Jew who lay motionless.
Magnus stepped over a couple of bodies and knelt down, turning the man over; one look at his glazed eyes told him all he needed to know. ‘Dead,’ he announced as men and women came rushing from the Jewish Quarter.
Hortensius formed his men up in a protective wall around the dead and the injured. ‘Stay back!’ he warned as the first of the Jews drew close.
‘That’s my brother,’ a middle-aged man shouted, stepping forward from the crowd.
Vespasian recognised him as the Jew who had been running with the murdered man. ‘Let him through, Hortensius,’ he ordered, ‘and get these injured men locked up; they should be tried by the prefect for murder.’
The legionaries parted, letting the man through to his stricken sibling; he knelt and, taking the lifeless head in his hands, wept.
‘Why were they chasing you?’ Vespasian asked.
‘There’s been a preacher of heresy in the city; he was here again this morning. My brother and I went to argue against him but he doesn’t listen; he just insists that God loves all people whether they follow the Torah or not, and the way to God is through eating the body and drinking the blood of the man he claims was God’s son, Yeshua. It’s blasphemy.’
‘Eating his body and drinking his blood? That’s ridiculous; Yeshua’s been dead for five years or so.’
‘He says he turns bread and wine into his body and blood.’
Vespasian struggled to understand the concept. ‘Do you mean literally?’
‘I don’t know; I can only assume so, why else would he say it? After the meeting was broken up the preacher told his followers that he would perform this ceremony; my brother and I followed them to find out what happens. They went to a house by the Lake Harbour, a few hundred paces away; we managed to climb onto the roof and look down through a crack in the tiles but before we saw anything we were spotted and had to run for our lives.’
‘From the preacher’s followers?’
‘No, from ordinary Greeks; we Jews are not welcome anywhere in the city outside of our quarter at the moment. They chased us away but they’ve never done anything like this before.’ He indicated to his battered brother’s corpse and started to sob.
‘Take his body for burial,’ Vespasian said, sympathy colouring his words. ‘Tell me, what is your name?’
‘Nathanial,’ the distraught man answered through his tears.
‘I will ensure that his killers are brought to justice for this, you have the word of a Roman senator who owes your Alabarch a favour for a service he’s just rendered me.’
‘Thank you, senator,’ he replied, lifting his brother with difficulty. He looked at Vespasian with bloodshot eyes. ‘I don’t think that my brother is going to be the last person killed in this city just for being Jewish.’