Everything I heard about Eleazir portrayed him as a giant of a man.
‘Eleazir will destroy Judaea. He wants nothing more than war with Rome.’
‘Eleazir will open the gates to Vologases within a half-month. He will make Judaea a client kingdom of Parthia, and then Nero will be forced to send in the legions. We will not have the power to stop him.’
‘Eleazir kills men by slow degrees for the pleasure of it; he’s not fit to rule Jerusalem, still less the whole of Judaea and Galilee.’
‘Eleazir could have led the charge today, but he had heardthe prophecy and chose not to. Do you want a coward as your king?’
This last stung an answer from Gideon. ‘I don’t want a coward to take the throne, nor one who revels in the pain of others, but I am no more courageous than Eleazir, nor do I have better strategies. The only point in my favour is that I am committed to building a peace with Rome, and there are few left after today who will see that as a benefit. Perhaps if Queen Berenice were to return we might-’
Pantera cut him off brusquely. ‘The queen is safe in Alexandria with Iksahra and Kleopatra. She may return when we’re sure there is no risk of attack, but for that we need you to be on the throne.’
‘Berenice will return to be queen of her land, but not until Eleazir is dead. Menachem trusted you. In that is your strength. If the people will accept you, will you not give them the leadership they need?’
So spoke Hypatia of Alexandria, Chosen of Isis. To listen to her was like listening to water flow in a desert, if water had the power of prophecy, if it could turn the day cold and cause the sky to shimmer with the numbers of listening dead. I would have found it hard to argue against her: what man wants to argue with a woman who can foresee death?
Certainly not Gideon, for I heard him say, ‘Very well. If the people will accept me, I will take the crown.’
Thus did Gideon ally himself to Pantera and in doing so became my enemy, just as Eleazir, enemy of my enemy, was my friend.
Soon after this exchange, I had an idea — a gift from Tears, I am sure — of how we who were left of the XIIth legion might yet destroy Pantera and all he stood for.
I shuffled back from my viewing gap and turned a little, so that I came to rest with my bound legs behind Horgias. It took only moments for him to understand what was needed, although the execution took nearly an hour. We had time, though. We had plenty of time.
Eleazir and his men brought the Eagle up the long hill slowly. They were hampered at first by the shifting, grieving crowd, but there came a point near the place where the nut trees ended and gave way to tended gardens, when the air of incipient violence caused movement to falter; when the men, women and children ceased to throw flowers and lay down palm leaves and simply waited, and looked up to their fallen king with tear-washed faces. Thereafter, the procession was able to move more swiftly, unexpectedly so, and I found myself struggling to kneel, that I might not be caught unawares when the clash came, as it must. At my side, I felt Horgias do the same. Together, we saw Eleazir for the first time as he stepped up on to the plateau at the head of his men.
He was not a giant of a man, for all that he was clearly kin to the dead king; they shared a lean face, dark hair, strong brows, and clear, if sunken, cheeks. But Eleazir was the lesser in all ways; slighter, with a narrower visage, so that thin brows made flapping gull’s wings over a nose that was too narrow to be noble.
Even so, he was not a man to face lightly. He walked as a lion walks, watching its prey, and although he bore no visible weapons I would have bet my life that he had knives strapped on to the inner parts of both arms, for that is the only reason I have ever seen a man hold himself the way he did, as if the touch of his arms might taint his body.
And he was angry; if ever a man seemed bent on battle, my friend Eleazir was that man.
He stood almost alone on the summit: Pantera and his small group had moved back to stand in the dark mouth of the cave-tomb, shaded from the sun and invisible to the mourning masses. They had the look of men waiting inambush who do not know how long they might have to wait; relaxed, but sharply vigilant.
Gideon, high priest of Israel, remained alone to stand clearly beside the body of his fallen lord, his white robes dyed a dozen shades of saffron and citrus by the sinking sun.
Alone, he stepped up to meet Eleazir and the lesser priests.
Alone, he spoke the words in Hebrew that sent the dead king to his god, although I knew, because I had seen it on the battlefield, that Menachem had already crossed to the lands of the dead and met whatever judgement awaited him.
Gideon it was who roused the people to bid one last farewell to their king. Menachem lay flat, with gold coins on his eyes, and his arms at his sides, for the Hebrews think it sacrilege to cross a man’s arms over his chest as we do, sometimes, in death.
His sword lay at one side and his knife at the other and in the centre, on his chest, lay the filet of gold that had encircled his helmet as his crown.
On possession of that thin gold wire now rested the fate of a nation.
I saw Pantera move, I think, before anyone else; I had kept him in my line of sight so that when he stepped out of the shadows and lifted the thin gold crown I was ready, pushing myself up from my knees, slowly, hidden by the thorns.
The binding cords dropped away from my wrists and ankles. That was the gift Tears had sent me: the understanding that, although neither Horgias nor I could free ourselves, each could free the other while everyone’s attention was elsewhere.
We had no plan, no weapons, nowhere to go but down the hill, and there awaited a hundred thousand enemies, but I was ready even as Pantera raised the filet of understated gold and held it high over Gideon’s head so that it must seem tothe crowds as if the crown had appeared from nowhere and was choosing its rightful owner.
‘ People of Israel! ’
His voice boomed out, louder than any normal man’s, and I saw that he had turned his head and was using the echo of the cave, and thought that Hypatia had set him to do that.
‘See now your rightful-’
Eleazir’s knife flew after I moved. To the end of my days, I will swear that: no man can move faster than a thrown knife and I reached Gideon before the blade took his throat, so I must have been moving first.
In a tangle of limbs and oaths, we tumbled together on to the raw earth, leaving Pantera, who stood behind Gideon, as the hurtling knife’s new target.
He dodged. The knife missed, and clattered in the back of the cave-tomb. As I freed myself from Gideon’s flailing limbs, I saw Horgias dive towards it.
I had no time to look for him; I was caught in the midst of a fight, unarmed and unarmoured, with Pantera on my left and Eleazir on my right.
The crown lay on the dirt between us. All three of us launched ourselves at it, clawing and grasping, fighting like curs over a bone, while all around us was pandemonium.
Gideon fell beside me, caught by another thrown knife. He died gasping, with blood foaming from his mouth and throat.
I ignored him. Two things mattered: the crown and the Eagle. Scrabbling, clawing, reaching, my fingers found the first of these, wrapped triumphant round the thin, cold wire ‘Demalion!’ Horgias grabbed my shoulders. ‘The Eagle!’
I rolled to my feet. Somebody dragged the crown from my hand, but my attention was all on the Eagle, twenty paces away and retreating, protected by eight of Eleazir’s men.
Around us, Pantera’s few were using their advantage of height to good effect, but from below another fifty of Eleazir’s men were running up to overwhelm them while the Eagle was heading downhill to the safety of the crowd.