‘I want to avoid having to kill any of you. What’s your name?’
‘Isodorus; but that is no secret, Flaccus already knows me.’
‘And Flaccus has given you permission to kill and burn as you please?’
Isodorus smiled coldly. ‘The prefect has made us no promises, but neither has he moved to stop us trying to rid this city of the canker within it that refuses to acknowledge great Caesar’s divinity and yet wants equal status with us, his law-abiding subjects.’
‘That is quite evident; but I am not Flaccus, nor am I under his authority. I was sent to this province by the Emperor and it’s to the Emperor that I will report when I return to Rome. So you have two choices, Isodorus: come and kill me and see how many of your people we cut down with our swords before you overcome us with your sticks and eating-knives, or hand over the prisoners that you took from that temple before we come and get them.’
‘You’d never make it.’
Vespasian hardened his eyes. ‘Try me, Isodorus; we’ll easily kill ten of your rabble for every legionary, that’s over three hundred and you’ll be the first.’ He looked around the crowd. ‘Which of you brave shopkeepers, tavern owners and thieves are willing to be one of the three hundred to die with Isodorus in order that you can keep your prisoners?’ He pointed his sword at a fat, balding man with blood on his hands and tunic. ‘You, perhaps?’ The man slunk back into the crowd. ‘What about you?’ he shouted, pointing to the fat man’s neighbour who also moved back. ‘It seems like you have a problem, Isodorus, your brave townsfolk are keener to live than they are to hang onto your prisoners so that you can rip the skin off their bodies. Your decision, Isodorus; now!’
The Greek looked around at his ragtag mob of poorly armed townsfolk and, realising that they would not have the stomach to face the well-drilled blades of the legionaries, stepped aside.
‘Very wise,’ Vespasian sneered. ‘Square! Forward at the walk.’
The legionaries moved on again at a slow deliberate pace so that those not walking forwards could keep formation, hunched behind their continuous wall of shields. The mob parted for them, pulling well back, out of reach of the blades bristling between every shield ready to kill or maim.
‘I don’t fancy our chances if they suddenly sprout a communal set of balls,’ Magnus muttered as they neared the middle of the mob.
The cries of anguish from the prisoners within had subsided and there was an unnatural quiet broken only by the steady steps of the soldiers.
Suddenly a scene of disgusting carnage appeared before them: hanging naked from a sturdy wooden frame, suspended by the wrists so that their toes just reached the ground, were three men and a woman. Their heads slumped onto their chests, which heaved with the effort of breathing and the pain of their hideous wounds. They were in various stages of being flayed. The man nearest seemed to be the luckiest; just one strip of skin, a hand’s breadth wide, had been stripped from his back to hang limply from his waist as if it were the end of a blood-soaked belt. The others had not been so fortunate; skin hung from their waists in abundance, flapping gently, like ghastly skirts, as their bodies writhed. In the middle of the frame staring with disbelieving eyes, first at the Romans and then back to the victims, was a group of male prisoners awaiting their turns under the knife; in their midst Vespasian saw Alexander squatting with his arm around his youngest son, Marcus.
‘Surround this area!’ Vespasian ordered.
The square dispersed as the legionaries formed a circle around the frame. The mob made no attempt to interfere and, in fact, shrank back from their erstwhile victims, looking on sullenly, as if the Romans’ arrival had broken the spell of their hatred and they now felt shame at their actions.
‘I did not think that Nathanial would get through,’ Alexander said, urgently pointing to the least hurt man. ‘Cut him down, quick.’
With one sweep of Vespasian’s blade the man’s bonds were cut and he slumped into Alexander’s arms. ‘Oh my son, my son,’ Alexander wept, ‘what have they done to you?’ He sank to his knees, taking the man’s head in his lap, and Vespasian saw that it was not a man but a youth: Tiberius, Alexander’s eldest son; he was moaning quietly.
‘He’ll be all right, sir,’ Magnus said, ‘I’ve seen this before in Germania when we rescued some mates from the locals. Them that has just a bit torn off them, like him, will live.’ He looked at the other two men and the woman, all mostly raw lumps of meat. ‘The others, though, not a hope; we should finish them now and then get the fuck out of here.’
‘Very well, but I will do it,’ Alexander said. ‘Marcus, help your brother.’ He eased Tiberius’ head into his brother’s lap and stood. ‘Give me your sword, Vespasian, my friend.’
‘You must be quick,’ Vespasian told him as he handed over the weapon.
Alexander nodded and approached the unconscious woman; the skin from her chest was missing and only one breast remained. He whispered into her unhearing ear before thrusting the blade through her yielding flesh up into her heart; a soft breath escaped her.
‘Philo,’ he said to an old grey-beard in his sixties, ‘you and I will carry her.’
‘We haven’t got time to take the bodies with us,’ Vespasian said.
Alexander glared at him. ‘She was my wife, I will not leave her here; my brother and I will bear her.’
The two men were despatched with similar swiftness and their bodies taken up by the remaining prisoners.
‘He was here, you know,’ Alexander said as he returned the sword, ‘it was him and his followers who urged the people into such cruelty.’
‘Paulus? I know. But why? He’s a Jew.’
‘Not any more, he’s not. He follows his own religion, remember, which hates us Jews.’
‘Where is he?’
‘He and his followers slipped away as you arrived.’
‘Animals they were,’ Philo spat, ‘they whipped us with lashes like common Egyptian peasants from the fields; they didn’t give us the dignity of the rod as befits our rank. The men wielding the lashes were the lowest class of Greek; it was a disgrace.’
Vespasian looked at him with a disbelieving frown and then turned to Hortensius. ‘Optio, form a hollow square, two deep, facing forward; we march out of here like Romans, not scuttle out like this murderous rabble.’
Within moments the legionaries had formed up with Alexander and his compatriots in the middle. Nathanial helped Marcus with his brother who had now regained sufficient consciousness to realise that he was in great pain.
Vespasian gave the order to advance and they moved forward with swords drawn at a quick march.
‘We’d better be getting a move on,’ Magnus said as they turned right out of the avenue, ‘Felix is going to be in position soon.’
‘He’ll have to wait,’ Vespasian replied, ‘I’ll not be seen running away from an area that is theoretically under Roman law.’
Magnus shrugged and glanced over his shoulder. ‘They don’t seem to be following us, I suppose they’ve gone to find some other poor bastards to undress.’
‘They may have, but some other bastard seems to have different ideas,’ Vespasian muttered as, in the flickering flame-light, four hundred paces ahead, scores of shadowy figures started to pour out of side streets and form a deep line blocking the road. Judging by the flashes of reflections from their midst they were armed with more than clubs and knives.
‘I’ll venture that you could put a name to that particular bastard,’ Magnus commented as he took in the threat.
Vespasian smiled grimly. ‘I think I can, the odious, bow-legged little cunt.’
Fifty paces away from the opposing force, Vespasian brought the legionaries to a halt. Leaving the safety of the square he walked forward. ‘In the name of the Emperor, let us through and none of you will be harmed,’ he shouted so that all could hear.
‘We acknowledge no one higher than God and his son our Lord Yeshua, our saviour, the Christus; in his name we demand that you hand over the leaders in this city of the race that put him to death,’ a recognisable voice shouted back; Paulus stepped forward through a whiff of smoke.
‘You are in no position to make demands, Paulus, get out of our way.’
The use of his name shocked the man and he peered forward.
