‘The nine hundred we will leave behind when we ride for Masada. We can take no more than one hundred with us. You need to pick those among your warriors with the best head for heights, but also the most experience of combat. If you have any with experience of combat?’
‘I have men who have fought each other in practice. They have killed when they had to, but in small numbers and always with the advantage of surprise. They have never faced trained legionaries in full battle.’
‘If I play my part right, we will have the advantage of surprise. As to trained legionaries… my father was never clear who was sent to Masada. As a child, I thought it was a place of punishment, where men were sent to march away their time stranded on a rock in the noonday heat with the wind that can flay a man’s skin in an hour and the rains that come twice a year if you’re lucky.’
‘And now? What do you think now?’
‘I have begun these last days to wonder if it was not perhaps a place of reward. Herod’s three-tiered hanging palace is there. It is said to surpass anything in Jerusalem for luxury. There are baths, and a gymnasium, and food to keep a thousand men for ten thousand nights. For men who dream of Rome-’
‘It would be a posting given by their gods; safe, secure from attack and free from the daily harassments of the city.’ Menachem began his long-limbed pacing. ‘If you are right, then are these men old, about to retire? Or the best of the garrison, sent to rest and recover?’
‘I don’t know.’ Pantera found his nerves strung newly tight. He folded his arms across his abdomen, and looked south towards Masada. A young moon was rising, made yet pale by the old sun’s gold.
He said, ‘Do you know the story of how Alexander of Macedon took the Sogdian Rock?’
‘Tell me.’
‘The Sogdians were vicious mountain people, who had a mountain fortress that was said to be impregnable: easy to defend, impossible to assault. When Alexander’s troops first approached it, the defenders laughed at him, and said he would need to teach his men to fly if he were to reach them.’
‘Let me finish.’ Menachem gave his rare smile, which lit his face. ‘Every boy learns this story, even here. Alexander ordered that three hundred of his best climbers go up in the dark, past the Sogdians to the summit. They lost thirty men on the way but the others succeeded. When they reached the top, they unfurled the silk banners that had been wrapped round their waists and let them fly in the wind. Alexander called up to the defenders that he had, indeed, found men who could fly. The Sogdians surrendered without a fight, thinking him god-blessed.’ Menachem looked away from the moon. ‘Are we, too, going to fly to the summit of Masada?’
‘No, we will climb, and if necessary we will stuff our mouths with silk as Alexander’s men did, so that if we fall, we will not cry out and alert the sentries. But then, if we are lucky, they’ll think we have flown. You should tell your men this story before we leave. Surprise is the greatest asset in any assault, but in this it is doubly so, for if we succeed, we will have done what everyone believes to be impossible: we will have taken Masada without a thousand-day siege.’
‘Shock can weaken even the hardest of veterans,’ Menachem agreed. ‘I will tell the tale to the men who are coming with us. But what about those left behind? What do I tell them?’
‘Tell them to be patient until tomorrow’s noon. If they see the white banner, they can ride in and collect their weapons. If they don’t — if we fail — they can do whatever you think best. If you were to ask my advice, I would suggest they send runners into Jerusalem saying that you have succeeded and that you’ll fall on the city like a flight of locusts. Half of a battle is won in the hours before it starts. If they’re lucky, panic will spread among those who have most to lose and the garrison commanders will pack up the royal family and carry them to safety at Antioch, leaving the city open for your men to enter, with or without you at their head.’
Menachem turned to the rising moon. ‘If we fail in Masada, I will leave instructions for my men to do as you say.’ He bowed from the waist. ‘But we are makers of luck, you and I. We will not fail.’
Chapter Thirty-Three
In her dream, Hypatia was a lion, stalking her prey. By scent she knew him, by the subtle changes of his fear; he was Saulos, and he knew that she was coming.
Pad on slow pad, with the taste of blood sifting past her teeth to her tongue, she advanced down a darkened alley. Or perhaps it was a fissure in some distant mountain; the part that knew she was Hypatia, and so knew that she was dreaming, could not tell where she was, except that the air smelled of new rainwater and man-urine together, and someone, or something, whispered in a tongue she did not know.
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.’