Domitus shrugged. ‘No idea. The only thing I know is that he disappeared when he should have been on guard duty. That’s a capital offence.’
I stretched my back and walked across to where the horses were tethered to a tree. I untied Remus and led him to the small stream we had camped by. It brought clear, fresh water from beneath the parched hills to the east before it was tainted when it entered the Salt Sea. Domitus walked with me.
‘What are you going to do?’ he pestered me.
The others were also stirring by now, wrapped in their cloaks to keep away the cool of the early morning.
‘If Aaron has absconded there is little I can do. This is after all his country and if he has decided to stay here then that is that.’
‘He should be taken back to Dura in chains and then executed.’
I let Remus drink from the stream as the others brought their horses to the water. I rubbed my stubble-covered chin.
‘Aaron is not in the army, Domitus, so you cannot have him executed.’
‘He put us all in danger by disappearing like he did. That alone is enough to place a noose around his neck.’
I squatted down and scooped up some water with my hands to wash the dirt from my face.
‘Where is Aaron?’ asked Malik.
‘Where indeed?’ said Domitus.
I stood up and stretched my back again. I must have slept on a stone because the ache would not go.
‘Aaron has gone, Malik,’ I replied.
‘Deserted, more like,’ added a furious Domitus.
Malik looked around at the barren hills that surrounded us. ‘Deserted to where?’
‘Jericho.’
Alexander had sauntered over to where we stood.
‘Jericho?’ I was confused. ‘What’s that?’
He bent down and scooped up a handful of water to drink.
‘A town about ten miles northeast of here. Aaron grew up there, though his father is long dead and there is no family business now.’
‘Why would he go back, then?’ I asked.
Alexander smiled. ‘His beloved lives there. To be so close to her was too much for him to bear, I think. I would wager all the gold I have that at this very moment he is at her mother’s house in the town. The young idiot!’
‘Idiot and deserter,’ said Domitus.
‘Why an idiot?’ I asked.
Alexander looked to the north. ‘Aaron, son of Jacob, is well known in Jericho, well known for being a senior figure in the faction that supported my father. There is a large reward on his head, just as there is on mine. By visiting Jericho Aaron has signed his own death warrant.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we had better go and get him back then.’
Domitus, his mood already sombre when he had awoken to discover Aaron had absconded, got even more gruff and snappier when I announced that we would go to Jericho to rescue Aaron. After we had groomed and fed the horses and checked their shoes, and then eaten a meagre breakfast of hard biscuit and salted mutton, he cornered me. I was checking my saddlecloth for insects that might have embedded themselves in the material and which might be an irritant to Remus when he was saddled.
‘I say we should leave him to it. These Jews are more trouble than they’re worth.’
‘You are being uncharitable, Domitus. Aaron was as good as his word was he not, regarding the gold, I mean?’
‘Be that as it may, there is no point in getting involved in their little civil war. Look around. You have no cataphracts or horse archers to back you up if things take a turn for the worse, and my legions are back at Dura.’
I smiled at him. ‘I thought they were my legions.’
He was not amused. ‘Don’t get smart. How are you going to fight a Roman garrison with only Malik and me? Byrd is not a soldier and I don’t trust Surena.’
‘He is fearless, Domitus.’
He nodded grimly. ‘That is exactly what I mean. He’s fearless and also reckless and headstrong and quite capable of getting us all killed.’
I laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Then it is a good job that I have worked out a plan that will get us Aaron back without having to fight, hopefully.’
‘Do we want him back?’ He mumbled before stalking away.
I asked Byrd and Malik to ride into Jericho to scout the town to find Aaron and bring him back before he was arrested. Alexander drew a rough plan of Jericho in the dirt using his dagger, indicating where the house of Aaron’s sweetheart was located. He said he could not accompany them since his face was too well known in the area. Even though the region contained a large number of his supporters, the adherents of Hyrcanus and their Roman allies also lived in the town. We would wait until they returned, hopefully with Aaron. Surena also wanted to accompany them but I refused his request. Byrd had a talent amounting to genius for moving unseen through the countryside, cities and crowds; Surena had a habit of drawing attention to himself like a roaring lion in the middle of an empty square. Instead I sent him on foot into the hills with Alexander to bring us back some fresh meat to eat, leaving Domitus and me in camp.
For the first hour Domitus said nothing but amused himself with sharpening his sword on the stone he had brought with him. At first I occupied myself with stringing my bow to test the tautness of the bowstring and then inspected every one of my arrows. Then I oiled the blades of my spatha and dagger and all the while he watched me like a falcon observes its prey.
‘You have something to say, Domitus?’
He stopped running the stone along the keen edge of his sword.
‘You are making a mistake. We should be on the road back to Dura by now. Aaron clearly wants to stay in this land so let him. It’s no great loss.’
‘I suspect my dear Domitus that Aaron prefers Dura to Roman-occupied Judea and has let his heart get the better of him in this instance. I would have done the same if Gallia had been but a stone’s throw away.’
He shook his head and returned to sharpening his sword, mumbling to himself as he did so. Mid-morning Surena and Alexander returned to camp with a slain gazelle Surena had shot. Alexander told me that the beast had been brought down with a single arrow at a great distance, which a gloating Surena had great delight in telling Domitus. This served only to further sour my general’s mood, though he was able to take out his frustrations on the dead gazelle. The sun was high in the sky now and the day was dry and hot. While Surena and Alexander stripped off and cooled themselves in the stream Domitus gutted the dead animal away from the horses so the smell of blood and guts would not alarm them. He made a small hole in the ground and then slit the animal’s throat to bleed it, the blood gushing into the depression.
He had obviously decided that discussing Aaron further was futile and only served to raise his wrath, so he brought up another topic.
‘After Silaces and his men are equipped,’ he rolled the carcass onto its belly, ‘you will march against Mithridates and Narses once more?’
‘Yes, their assassination attempt on me must be avenged lest I appear weak.’
He nodded approvingly and rolled the beast onto its back. ‘Makes sense. You will always be looking over your shoulder while those two bastards are still in the world.’
He cut the animal’s skin with his dagger from the tailbone to just under the chin and then from foreleg to foreleg and then hind leg to hind leg, being careful not to cut the thin membrane enclosing the entrails.
‘And once they are in the same position as this animal, then what?’
He began skinning the carcass, lifting the skin and using his dagger to peel it away. He then slit its belly and turned it on its side to roll out the entrails.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
He turned the animal on its skinned side and began again on the opposite side.
‘The empire will need a new king of kings, that’s what.’
I shrugged. ‘That will not be my concern.’
‘It will be if you don’t have someone you think is suitable to fill the position, bearing in mind that your father is not interested. Killing kings is easy, finding their replacements less so.’