Ballista looked at the cliff, the slope, the valley below, and the opposite cliffs. The latter were too far away — nothing of use there. He turned and regarded the clifftop: the few bent trees, the village of well-built houses, a synagogue at one end.
'We could starve them out,' suggested Rutilus. 'Although,' he added, 'we do not know how well they are provisioned.'
'No,' said Ballista. 'Sitting here doing nothing seems weak. If we show weakness, every bandit in Galilee will be on us.'
They stood, gazing down at the pitted rocks, the dry bits of vegetation that offered no safe handholds. Suddenly Ballista laughed. Rutilus looked inquiringly at him.
'The village — tear it down, have the men collect all the timber, anything of a decent length. Have you sent for the horses? Good. When they come, send men down to the town of Tiberias on the lake. It is a port of sorts. There must be ropes and chains there. Collect all of them. And gearing oil and pitch, get a lot of pitch. Also send men back to Caporcotani. Collect bows from the arsenal in the legionary fortress. Not many, about forty or fifty. And a mobile forge — Legio VI should have more than one.'
'We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.'
'We are going to build two or three cranes up here on the top of the cliff. We will lower bowmen down in cages. They will burn the brigands out with fire arrows.'
Now Rutilus laughed. 'Dominus, that is brilliant.'
'Yes, it is. Unfortunately, it is not my idea. A client king of Rome had trouble with bandits — it must have been here or nearby. Josephus in his History of the Jewish War tells us what he did. You see, a man who reads history is often prepared.' It took eight days for the preparations to be complete. In the end, available materials dictated that only one crane was built. None of the soldiers was in a hurry to volunteer — it was amazing how few of them admitted any skill with a bow — until Ballista announced that the men in the cage would get a cash incentive comparable to that given to those in a storming party at a siege.
Ballista had never suffered from a fear of heights. That was just as well. The cage rocked horribly as it was swung out over the void. The rockwall looked sharp and unforgiving. The valley was a long way down.
Not a sound came from the well-oiled winches, but inevitably the timber creaked and the ropes seemed to hum with tension as the cage began its jerky descent. Once, a gust of wind threatened to smash the flimsy wooden cage against the cliff face. Ballista clung grimly to the bars. The five soldiers with him cursed or prayed as the mood took them.
Ballista glanced down at the vertiginous drop. Ant-like figures were scurrying up the paths. With luck, the brigands in the caves would be too distracted by the soldiers arriving from above like a deus ex machina to interfere with the ones below.
The mouth of the first cave was a rough black oval in the pink-grey rocks. It was too dark to see far inside. Ballista half-saw movement. He ordered his men to shoot. Moving cautiously, they handed round the one guttering torch and lit the pitch-soaked rags tied around their arrowheads. A word of command and the missiles streaked away. Before the thin, oily trails of smoke had dissipated, there were screams from the cave.
'Surrender,' Ballista yelled in Greek. 'Any old men, women, children will be spared.'
There was no answer. Ballista tried again in Latin. Still no answer. He indicated for another volley. He glanced down. The ascending troops still had a very long way to climb. Looking back, he noticed a faint glow in the cave. Something in there must be alight.
A figure emerged from the depths of the cave. Ballista indicated to his archers not to shoot. The man — in middle age, smartly dressed — looked contemptuously across at the soldiers. He had a drawn sword in his hand.
'Lay down your weapon,' Ballista shouted in Greek. 'Give yourselves up. Women, children, the elderly — all will be spared.'
The man actually laughed. 'Is nowhere safe from you Romans — not even the humblest village, the most remote cave?' He spoke in educated Greek. 'Even your own writers admit that you create a desert and call it peace.'
The incongruity of it struck Ballista — he was dangling halfway down a cliff and a Jewish brigand was quoting Tacitus to him in perfect Attic Greek.
'Show yourself a man,' Ballista called. 'Give yourself up and save your loved ones.'
'I will show you I am a man.' He turned and shouted back into the cave in a language Ballista did not know — presumably Hebrew or Aramaic.
A woman came out, leading a boy, no more than ten. The man took the boy's hand. The woman fell to her knees, alternately clutching at the boy and the man's knees. Sobbing, she implored him in the language he had used.
The man spoke brusquely to her, waved her away. Reluctantly, she shuffled backwards.
The man ruffled the boy's hair. He talked tenderly to him. Then he seized the boy's chin, yanked it back. The sword flashed. It is not easy to cut someone's throat. The boy tried to wrench free. The man had to saw the blade across his neck repeatedly. Blood soaked the child, the man's arm. The boy writhed and then slumped. The man pitched the pathetic corpse out into the abyss. It fell, thumping into the cruel rocks.
Ballista and the soldiers stared in silent horror. This Jew was like no bandit they had ever encountered.
Once more the man shouted into the cave. He was answered by wailing. He shouted again, angrily.
The fire in the cave must have spread. This time, as the woman led out another, younger child, they were backlit by a hellish orange glow.
Ballista whispered to the soldier next to him: 'Shoot him.'
The man tried to force his wife away. She clung on. He tore her hands from the child. Still gripping her wrists, he swung her around, her sandals off the ground. One push and she was gone. The scream was cut off when she first hit the cliff.
Next to Ballista, the archer waited to get a clear shot.
The little boy — too young to understand — wobbled on immature legs. Allfather, he could only be two — the same age as Dernhelm. The father reached for him.
Intent on his murderous defiance, the man did not see the arrow coming. As he straightened up, it hit him square in the chest. He was pitched backwards, hands clutching at the fletching protruding from his body.
Ballista yelled up to the crew of the crane, some fifty foot above his head. 'Take us in!'
For long moments nothing happened. The child teetered, terribly near the drop. The fire burned in the cave. The cage jerked as the pulleys bit. It swung towards the cave mouth.
Ballista climbed up on the rail. He waited, judging the moment. He did not look down. A couple of paces away, he jumped.
The wind was knocked out of Ballista as his stomach hit the lip of the cave. His weight, that of his armour, began to pull him backwards. His fingers tore at the rocky ground, feet scrabbling a shower of stones. The child shied away from him — the little feet inches from oblivion.
Ballista hauled himself up, lunged across the cave mouth, grabbed the boy around the waist.
The wooden cage bumped against the rockface. The soldiers leapt out. Drawing their swords, they went into the cave.
'Only the men,' Ballista shouted. 'Only the men.' He hugged the wailing child.
Julia was standing by a window in the imperial palace on the island at Antioch. It was nearing the end of a gentle spring night. The stars were not yet paling, but soon the eastern sky would start to lighten.
It was the night before the ides of May. It should have been more than warm enough to leave the windows open, yet there was a chill to the breeze blowing down the Orontes. Julia could feel it drying the sweat on her body.
She was tired. She took a last look around. The moonlight rendered the room almost two-dimensional, tried to make it unreal. But she knew it would always have a terrible reality in her memories. She would never be able to forget this night before the ides of May.
As quietly as she could, Julia crossed the room and slipped through the door. Outside, expensive lamps in niches gave a soft light. She ignored an imperial a Cubiculo. She blushed as she felt the chamberlain's eyes on her, sensed his prurient interest. Some way down the corridor, beyond the guards, Anthia, her maid, was asleep on a
