Rome 2: The Coming of the King (31 page)

The air was tactile, teasing, feeding her facts. She knew Saulos was round a corner to her left, that he bore blood-wet iron in one hand, that he was afraid, and desperate, and yet … she snuffed the line of wind that carried news of him to her and found that he was not alone. She sat back on her haunches in surprise, and cocked her head and heard him laugh and speak a name: hers.

Hypatia
.

In the dream’s mirage, she saw a glint of sunlight on metal, and smelled the stink of Saulos’ exultation. She hated that. Her
tail lashed. Biting down on her tongue, she made herself wake up.

‘Hypatia?’

A hand touched her shoulder. Her eyes sprang open and met other eyes, cat eyes, gold and black in the soft light of morning. Hot, meaty breath warmed her face. Whiskers pricked the fine skin of her neck. Behind them stood Iksahra.

She pushed herself up. Iksahra’s hand remained on her shoulder for a moment, and then withdrew. ‘You called out,’ she said. ‘I came.’

She did not say how she had been close enough to hear, or why she had come; they had fought together in battle, had each saved the other’s life more than once. The exertion of that, the physicality, the stretching of one’s soul to the ends of existence – all of it was as intimate in its own way as the bedchamber and it moved them beyond the need to ask obvious questions.

Iksahra had been near, she had heard Hypatia call out.

And now she was here. In Hypatia’s bedchamber, which held, after all, its own intimacy, different from the battlefield.

‘What did I call?’ Hypatia asked.

‘Saulos. You called Saulos by name. Is he close?’

Hypatia shut her eyes. The dream hovered over her, fine as morning mist and as hard to hold on to. She pressed her fingertips to her eyelids, and caught at the wisping memories. ‘Not close to here, to this palace, but close to success. He’s sending a message-dove that he believes will help him.’

‘He’s sending for reinforcements.’ Iksahra gave a soft laugh. ‘He has the entire garrison Guard with him in the Antonia. We have Jucundus’ detachment from Caesarea. Does he still not feel safe?’

‘He may have news by now of Pantera and Menachem. If he thinks there’s a chance Menachem can arm his men and march them into the city, he won’t feel safe.’

Hypatia rose as she spoke, and only thought afterwards that
she was unclothed. Iksahra did not step back, or look away, but sent the cheetah off to the room’s edge with a crook of her finger.

They stood face to face in the dawn’s peach light, close enough to touch, to breathe in the other’s outbreath, to smell the layered wildness of horses, of hay, of hunting cat, of healing scars. It occurred to Hypatia that this was the first time another woman had been in her bedchamber since … Since Alexandria, which was not a safe memory. Since Hannah.

She took a step back. ‘Can you hunt Saulos’ message-doves as you once hunted ours?’

‘With pleasure.’ Iksahra’s smile caught Hypatia somewhere under her ribcage, leaving a sharp pain. She reached for a robe to cover herself. ‘Take Kleopatra,’ she said. ‘See if you can keep her away from the palace long enough for the council to meet this morning. It’s not safe for her here.’

‘She won’t want to come.’

‘It will do her no harm to find that she cannot always have what she wants.’ On impulse, too fast to let herself think, Hypatia reached for Iksahra’s hand. ‘Stay safe.’

‘I am always safe,’ Iksahra said, and squeezed and let go and was gone to the beast gardens to find her falcons and her horse and the princess who did not want to be with her. Her cat paused in the doorway and gazed back with baleful yellow eyes.

Hypatia stood until it had gone, then dressed with care for the day ahead.

The sun was twice its own height over the horizon when Hypatia, the royal family and their closest attendants met in the audience room of the palace, which had become, perforce, their war room and council chamber.

They were grouped on dining couches; Berenice and Hyrcanus on one, Drusilla on a second with a gap where Kleopatra might have been. Agrippa, on the third, was at the head, with Polyphemos directly behind him. Hypatia took the fourth.

Estaph stood behind her, a solid presence, carved from
mute flesh. He alone wore no silks, and kept his war axes at his either side. His parting from Mergus had been painful to watch, and Hypatia had said more than once that he should go with Pantera, to guard him, but the Parthian had his own path and had sworn himself to her protection for Pantera’s sake; he would not leave.

Hypatia had doubts as to what one man could do in the nightmare that Jerusalem had fast become, but she felt safer in his company than without it, which was a thing rare enough to be cherished.

They breakfasted on dates, olives and flat bread, and drank watered wine. Slippered slaves came and went, silently, with only the occasional anxious glance to show how far it was from being any ordinary day.

Then Jucundus brought eight armed guards, four more than had been at any of their previous daily meetings, and destroyed the illusion. He stationed them at the doorway, half on each side, with the door, a hand’s breadth of solid cedar, closed and barred between.

Before he had walked the breadth of the room, Berenice said, ‘Have you word that we are under assault?’

The officer came to a halt within the half-circle of their dining couches. He saluted, crisply, as he had each of the past eight mornings since the king’s retinue had found themselves confined to the palace, unwilling to stay, unable to leave. He met Berenice’s eye and then Hypatia’s, and last the king’s.

‘Not specifically, lady, but Saulos has had the Guard search the entire city for Pantera and not found him. This palace is the only place to which he cannot gain access. He knows Pantera is not here, because people saw him being carried from the city, but still he will want to look, and in looking he will want to fix his hold on power.’

Agrippa still held the throne in title, if not in fact; they deferred to him, let him speak first. He stood, thinking it made him more royal. His silks were of sun-yellow, with red at the margins; they made him smaller than did the gold of
his public appearances, or the plainer white he favoured in private.

Presently, he turned to Jucundus. ‘Are you suggesting we invite him into the palace?’ he asked. ‘The usurper who would take a city and destroy it?’

‘Avowedly not, sire. But he has two and a half thousand men of the garrison Guard and we have five hundred Syrian cavalry not accustomed to siege warfare. They are all sworn to give their lives in your majesties’ service, but they will not live long if we are assaulted directly.’

‘Then we should assault them. Gain the advantage of surprise.’ For a moment, with the kind morning light behind him, with gold on his head, with iron in his voice, Agrippa sounded like a commander, and a king; only his words undid him for their lack of strategy.

The silence lasted a heartbeat too long. Hypatia held the queen’s gaze, until Berenice, too, stood.

‘My dear lord,’ she said, ‘I have no doubt our soldiers and yourself would fight with great courage in any assault, whether of our choosing or our enemy’s. But it remains the case that the numbers are overwhelmingly against us. You would die bravely, but you would still die, and all your men with you. And then, if we were lucky, we, too, would die – your women.’ She swept an arm that took in herself, Drusilla, Hypatia, the gap for Kleopatra. ‘If we were not lucky, we would be sold as the spoils of war, sent to the highest bidder, or to Rome, at Nero’s pleasure.’

‘There is also’, Jucundus said, with a note of apology, ‘the possibility that our assault may start the war we have striven so hard to prevent. Your subjects will not take well to seeing their king slaughtered in the streets with less care than a Passover lamb. They will fight, and once they start they will not be stopped, even if we are all dead.’

‘Which is precisely what Saulos intends,’ said Hypatia.

Agrippa closed his eyes against the sun’s soft touch. ‘We are a small nation; Rome is vast, with greater resources than any we
can ever garner. Set against them, we cannot prevail.’ His eyes sprang open. ‘What then is your counsel? Should we leave this place? Flee to Antioch in Syria? To a Roman governor who will glory over our discomfort?’

‘Your majesty is ever wise.’ Jucundus bowed his relief. ‘The governor of Syria is not foolish. He will see the advantage in granting succour when it is most needed; he will know that this situation cannot last, that Saulos must be made to give up his hold on the city, and that when that happens he will be rewarded both by yourself and by the emperor for his grace.’

‘When should we go?’

‘Tonight, if it please your majesty, under cover of darkness. The gates to the east of this palace are held by our men, and even now I have auxiliaries scouting the countryside under pretence of a hunt. We shall have a safe route by nightfall.’

Agrippa paced the breadth of the room. Polyphemos tried to follow, but soon fell still, and stood winding his hands round each other until Hypatia wanted to choke him.

Mid-stride, Agrippa paused. ‘What if Saulos has already petitioned Syria for help? The Twelfth legion is there. It may yet be that he could call them here on a pretext, to help him secure his hold on our city.’

‘I believe he may have endeavoured to do so, majesty,’ Hypatia said. ‘But the message-birds fly only in daytime, and in daytime Iksahra’s falcons can hunt. She and Kleopatra are out now with them. He may send a courier by horseback: that we cannot stop. But I believe he will not succeed in calling aid by any faster route.’

‘Good!’ Agrippa smiled for the first time that morning. ‘We are well served!’ He clapped her on the back as if she were one of his captains, until Estaph stepped forward, alarmed at the assault on her person, and the king moved back.

Jucundus bowed as he left the room. ‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘At the dark of the moon. Be ready to leave when I call for you.’

WITH MERGUS RIDING
at his shield side, Pantera led a hundred men on a moonlit ride far more exacting than the one from Caesarea to Jerusalem. Near midnight, he brought them to the foothills south and east of Masada, leading them to a place where they could find shelter from the ruinous wind.

They tethered their horses in care of one boy to every twenty mounts and, wrapping their faces against the grit, came as close as one hundred men reasonably could to the base of the vast, flat-topped bluff that was Masada. Menachem, Mergus and eleven hand-picked climbers moved forward to gather round Pantera.

‘Masada is a diamond shape …’ Pantera took up a stone and drew a rhomboid in outline on the flat piece of rock at his feet. He felt clear-headed again, as he had on first entering Jerusalem. This time, newly, he felt the presence of the god, close as a lion’s breath behind his right shoulder. Mergus held the left, quiet as a ghost, viewing every Hebrew as a potential threat.

Pantera closed his eyes and took his mind back to his childhood and, with the shapes fresh in his mind, drew his stone in a line along the map.

‘The rock’s long axis runs north to south. Herod’s three-tiered
hanging palace lies here – at the north end, sheltered from sun and wind: we will not attack that, nor near the water gate on the west side. To the east, the snake path runs up to a narrow guarded gate: the Romans believe this is the only way men can enter. Moshe—’ Moshe stepped forward, the only man of the eleven in armour. ‘You will lead your men up this path as soon as night falls. You will need to walk with care, one foot in front of the other, feeling out the route. A misplaced step will spell your deaths.’

‘Such a death would not be quiet,’ Moshe said, frowning. ‘If we scream, the legionaries will hear us.’

‘When Alexander had his men climb the fortress of the Sogdian Rock, they stuffed their mouths with silk scarves so that they might not scream and alert the defenders. I took the liberty of bringing some.’ Eighteen silk scarves spilled from Pantera’s saddle bag. Black, fine, perfect.

Moshe stared at him. He was a small man with arms furred like a goat, perfect for climbing. Stony-faced, he said, ‘Alexander paid the first man to the summit an entire talent of gold.’

‘You will have weapons enough to take Jerusalem.’ Mergus’ voice came out of the dark. ‘Would you rather have gold?’

In silence, Moshe took the scarves, noosed them on his arms and returned to his team. Pantera watched the other men, who did not have to climb the snake pass in the dark, and did not know yet that it was the easy route.

He said, ‘The gate at the top of the pass is guarded by two men at any one time. They will not sleep on duty, you can depend on that. Therefore, keep out of sight until you hear us. Menachem has already told you the signal.’

‘If Moshe’s men wait on the only route up, how are the rest of us to gain access to the top?’ asked Aaron, who was older than most, balding all the way to a line that crossed behind his ears, so that it looked as if he shaved the front half of his head. Nevertheless, he sat at the head of the ten decade-leaders who sat in the moon-shadows beneath the bluff; by their silence, he had their respect.

‘We will gain entry in the south, here.’ Pantera marked a circle on his map. ‘The palaces and guardhouses – and their storerooms – are all north of the east-west line. The south is minimally guarded, if at all.’

‘There is no access from the south,’ Menachem observed quietly; the first time he had spoken since their arrival. ‘Which is why it is not guarded.’

‘The garrison believes there is no access from the south,’ Pantera said. ‘But my father was part of the garrison here and he brought me to Masada when I was twelve years old, not long after my mother died. We were here for three months and he set me the task of imagining how I might assault it. I chose the south. And I tested it.’

‘Did your father tell anyone of your success?’

‘Not that I know of, but I left Jerusalem soon afterwards. Which is why I will go first. If I’m wrong and he shared what we found, or if someone else has discovered the same route, then I will die, but the rest of you will have time to withdraw and to call back Moshe’s men from the snake path.’