lost comrades or the hardships that they have faced on this ill-considered mission that you led them on.’
‘Take the camels and sell them and use the money to raise replacements,’ Vespasian offered, ignoring the jibe.
‘Very well.’
‘You are welcome to spend the night here and dine with me before you return to Barca.’
‘Thank you, quaestor, but I prefer to choose my own dinner companions.’ Corvinus turned his mount. ‘You’ll be hearing from me one day, Vespasian,’ he said menacingly as he kicked his horse and cantered away; his men followed with the camels.
‘You were right,’ Magnus observed, ‘he really doesn’t like you.’
‘Sod him,’ Vespasian said, mounting the steps. ‘I held out the olive branch to him and he didn’t take it. If he wants to be my enemy let him.’
‘Let’s hope that you don’t come to regret that.’
‘Quaestor, thank the gods that you’re back,’ Quintillius, the quaestor’s clerk, said rushing over to Vespasian as he entered the atrium.
‘What’s going on, Quintillius?’
‘The Jews have been fighting among themselves for the last three days; there have been hundreds of deaths all over the city.’
‘Where are Marcius Festus and his auxiliaries?’
‘He’s managed to contain the fighting now, just to the Jewish Quarter.’
‘Have him come here to report to me and get the doctor to attend to my wounds.’
‘We’ve managed to put most of the fires out but there are a couple still burning in the area controlled by the rioters,’ Festus reported, holding an oil lamp for the doctor to see better in the fading light. ‘There’re a couple of thousand of them but we’ve bottled them up into eight streets in the Jewish Quarter; they’ve built barricades, which I plan to storm at dawn tomorrow.’
‘So you’ve no idea what started the violence?’ Vespasian asked Festus through gritted teeth as the doctor swabbed out his shoulder wound with vinegar.
Festus shook his head; in his late thirties he was a career soldier who had worked his way up from the ranks. ‘No, quaestor, not for certain but it seemed to start in the lower city’s agora. There’s been a young man preaching there regularly and more and more people have been coming to hear him. I’ve watched him a few times but he never says anything against Caesar or Rome so I’ve ignored it as you ordered.’
‘What does he preach?’
‘I don’t know; stuff about their Jewish god. I’ve heard him say “redemption at the End of Days” a few times but I don’t really pay much attention; he always has a young woman with two children with him but she never says anything.’
‘Ah yes, I remember seeing him a couple of days before I left for Siwa; do you know who he is?’ Vespasian grimaced as the doctor began applying stitches to his shoulder.
‘All I know is that he arrived on a Judaean trading ship just over a month ago.’
‘What sort of trader?’
‘Tin, according to the port aedile’s records.’
‘Tin? Is the ship still here?’
‘No, the records show that it left the day after the violence started.’
‘Right, we’d better crush this outrage tomorrow and then find that preacher. If he’s the cause of all this, I’ll send him to the Governor to have him nailed up. Quintillius!’
‘Yes, quaestor?’ the clerk said, bustling in through the door.
‘A Jew by the name of Yosef will be asking for an interview; I need to see him as soon as he arrives.’
‘Yes, quaestor.’
‘And find out where that woman who came to see me, Flavia Domitilla, is staying; I would like her to come to dinner tomorrow, once this Jewish problem has been resolved.’
‘Yes, quaestor. Will that be all?’
Vespasian flinched as the doctor began cleaning the gashes on his thigh; he waved a hand, the clerk bowed and retreated.
‘Thank you, Festus, you’ve done well, return to your men; I’ll come down at first light to assess the situation before you storm the barricades. Have the Jewish elders arrested and brought there to explain their people’s behaviour; I want to know if there’s any reason to show these rioters mercy.’
Vespasian strode through the atrium in uniform before dawn the following morning eager to quash the riot, as he was keen to turn a clear mind to the seduction of Flavia Domitilla that evening.
Magnus was waiting for him, sitting on the edge of one of the clerks’ vacant desks. ‘Good morning, sir, how are you feeling?’
‘Much the same as you, I expect: stiff,’ he replied, rubbing his heavily strapped thigh. ‘But at least my shoulder’s stopped throbbing. What are you doing up? You don’t have to come.’
‘And miss out on a nice bit of street fighting? Bollocks; I was in the Urban Cohorts, if you remember? We used to love it when the racing factions rucked with each other after the races. They were the only fights we’d get; great fun they were, unless we had to lay into the Greens, in which case I’d ease off a bit, if you take my meaning?’
‘Well, there won’t be any Greens among this lot.’
‘Right, I’ll imagine that they’re all Reds then, the bastards.’
‘Quaestor,’ Quintillius said, coming through the main door, ‘that man Yosef is among the petitioners waiting outside.’
‘Good. Did you find Flavia Domitilla?’
‘No, quaestor, there wasn’t enough time last night but I’ll send some more men out as soon as it’s light.’
‘Do that.’ Vespasian stepped out into the cool pre-dawn air.
The crowd of petitioners immediately started waving scrolls in his face and calling out the requests and boons that they desired of him.
‘Wait here until I return,’ he shouted, brushing away the supplicating hands, ‘I’ll deal with you then.’ He spotted Yosef at the back of the crowd and pointed at him. ‘Yosef, walk with me.’
‘Yes, quaestor.’ Yosef broke off from the crowd and fell in next to Vespasian as he descended the steps to the Forum. Magnus shoved away the last couple of persistent supplicants.
‘Did this man to whom you were giving passage to Apollonia have a young woman with two children accompanying him?’
‘There was a woman with two children on the ship but she wasn’t accompanying Shimon; she was making her own journey to southern Gaul to escape the persecution she faced in Judaea at the hands of the priests.’
‘Well, she seems to be accompanying this Shimon now; she’s been with him while he preaches his insurrection.’
‘Shimon wouldn’t preach insurrection.’
‘No? Then explain to me why the Jewish Quarter of this city is in uproar.’
‘That’s not Shimon’s doing; he preaches peace, as do I. We follow the true teachings of my kinsman, Yeshua.’
‘Was he the man who you said was crucified?’
‘Yes, quaestor. He was a good man who believed that we Jews should have love and compassion for one another because the End of Days is close at hand and only the righteous will be saved on that Day of Judgement.’
‘Saved from what?’ Vespasian asked as they left the Forum; debris from the last three days of fighting littered the ground.
‘Eternal death; they will live forever, along with the resurrected righteous, in the earthly paradise under God’s law that will follow the End of Days.’
‘And this just applies to the Jews?’
‘Any man can convert, provided he follows God’s law as set down in the five books of the Torah and accepts circumcision.’
