Rebekah's Treasure (12 page)

Even now my insides quiver with this fear, and so I grab Aaron’s arm before he can run toward the New City. “Stay here and help the wounded,” I bark.

Aaron, holding an oval spiked-boss shield in one hand and a dagger in the other, pulls against my clasp. The bloody cloth wrapped around his head and left eye is loose and ready to fall off. I resist the urge to secure it.

“We cannot let the Romans breach the wall of the Second Quarter,” he says. With a fierce jerk he frees himself and pushes through the sea of fleeing people.

“You’re needed here,” I shout, trying to catch up. How swift he is! Even with his grievous wound. “Come back!” But he pays no heed. The space between us widens. “You’ll lose your eye if you continue,” I blurt, exposing my fear. I’m running now, and lunging forward I’m able to catch his blood-stained tunic. “You must allow time for it to heal.”

The cloth around his head conceals the gash on his forehead and injured left eye. But his right eye looks at me sharply and I see his shock. “You speak like a father.”

“I
am
a father!”

“In another lifetime, yes,” Aaron says, pulling me to him with his shielded arm. For a brief moment we linger in this tender embrace, his bleeding forehead pressed against mine. “But now you are a soldier,” he says backing away. “And so am I.”

With that we both run toward the shrieks and cries and billowing smoke of Bezetha to join the rebels that remain there, among them— my other sons.

Titus has once again moved his camp; this time into Bezetha, the New City. It was here that King Sennacherib’s Assyrian army set up their camp nearly seven hundred years ago when they came to conquer Jerusalem.

Titus has destroyed homes, leveled more ground. Those who escaped have brought tales of slaughter and looting. All who did not heed the command of our generals to evacuate before Titus’s largest battering ram broke through the wall—the ram called “Victor” by our men—have fallen by the sword. Men, women, children, all were slaughtered without mercy. For more than a day, the Romans slashed, looted and burned without restraint. Scores of fresh crosses appeared outside our walls, testifying to the fate of those rebels caught alive. Their corpses are rotted now. Most have fallen away from their crosses and lay in stinking heaps upon the ground. The air reeks from them,
and the sky is so full of flies and birds of prey it appears that dark clouds hover overhead.

The Romans are employed in other tasks now. They have already cleared the approach to our wall that surrounds the Second Quarter, and are busily constructing new siege works in addition to repairing their towers and battering rams. They’ve nearly finished the trench-and-berm perimeter around their new camp. Soon Titus will attempt to breach our wall. If successful, he’ll set his sights on the Antonia, and from there . . . the Temple, for the Antonia has direct access to the Temple porticos.

But we have been busy, too. Using the city’s underground tunnels and sewers, our raiding parties continue to penetrate Titus’s lines, striking work parties and supply columns and carrying off the spoils. It has kept us in food and fresh weaponry. But the cost has been high. Those caught are crucified. But these days, rebels are not the only ones crucified. Ordinary citizens who are found sneaking from the city at night in search of food also meet this fate; at least the men. Women are spared crucifixion but are mistreated in other shameful ways. It makes me grateful that Rebekah and Esther are no longer here. I pray to
Hashem
for their safety.

But as crucifixions increase, so does our resolve. Titus hopes to demoralize us by placing the crosses so near our wall. He thinks it will make us lose heart. But he’s wrong. It makes us more resolute than ever. We’re all determined to die as men, as soldiers in battle.

But
Hashem
has been merciful. My sons and I still live. And only Aaron has been wounded. His wound, which has been sealed by fire, is nearly healed, but he has lost the sight of his left eye. Still, Aaron is strong and says he’s ready to take up arms. I hold my tongue and say nothing. But my gnawing fear persists.

The eerie calm that has hovered uneasily over us this past hour is suddenly broken by Roman trumpet blasts and the banging of drums. All
morning we have waited for the legionaries to attack, but they haven’t. Only that traitor, Josephus, ventured out and spouted new terms of surrender, shouting out Titus’s promise of leniency, which no one believed, at least not the rebels. But that was earlier, and nothing has happened, until now. In numb silence I watch from my place in one of the Antonia towers. The earth rumbles and quakes as thousands upon thousands of feet kick up dirt, forcing clouds of dust to plume overhead. Titus’s men march in flawless lines, and according to rank. It takes a minute for me to realize they do not move in battle formation.

“What do you suppose that fox is up to?” Aaron asks. He too is watching the spectacle.

“It’s hard to say. But . . . it almost looks like he’s preparing for a parade. Unthinkable, isn’t it?” I squint into the expanse and notice that the legionaries wear polished tinned bronze helmets and mail shirts. Broadswords, in decorative scabbards, are belted to one side of their waist, a dagger to the other, while in their hands they carry long gleaming javelins. The highly polished metal boss on their wood-and-leather shields is almost blinding in the sun. Many of the soldiers sport medals and armbands. Officers wear red plumed helmets and polished armor. Some ride lavishly decorated horses.

“Aaron, it
is
a parade,” I say, barely able to comprehend the foolish sight before me. Then, as if to confirm my words, out comes Titus clad in a gold and red cape. And after he and his generals take their position, the troops begin the long, slow process of passing in review.

The man is insane. My spies tell me that the Roman pay wagons have arrived. Under the guise of dispensing the owed
denarii
to his men, Titus has continued this farce for four days. For four days soldiers by the tens of thousands—privates, decurions, centurions, tribunes and generals—legion by legion, have paraded in front of this madman, saluting and shouting his praises, then collecting their pay.

But Eleazar says Titus is not as mad as I think. He believes the parades—which force us to see this vast, mighty army in full regalia—were meant to intimidate. And they have. Our citizens are terrified. And renewed talk of surrender circulates through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, talk which John’s men have tried to silence with their swords. And my heart is grieved that once again, Jews slaughter Jews.

“Hungry, are you? Want a little of this?” a Roman shouts outside our wall just past the range of our archers. He takes a bite of something in his hand—a loaf of bread, I think. His comrades, who stand near him, also taunt us. Some hold up full round wine skins; others, large clusters of grapes. One takes what looks like a piece of cheese and throws it into the dirt, then grinds it beneath his boot, and laughs. He can afford to be contemptuous of such a treasure as fresh cheese—something we haven’t seen in weeks. Titus’ storehouses are kept full by the endless supply wagons from Syria.

“May
Hashem
have mercy on us,” Eleazar says, standing beside me.

We are in one of the Antonia towers viewing the Roman camps. Even at this height the stench is as thick as bark. The city reeks. Famine has struck Jerusalem. Hundreds lay dead on rooftops or in alleyways. People attack each other in the streets, hoping to find food in a scrip. Some kill their own neighbors. Others break into homes and torture the owners trying to force them to reveal hidden supplies. Still others eat bits of straw or leather from scrips or belts, or even their own sandals. Those not having straw or a piece of leather to chew go to their roofs or lock themselves in their houses and wait for death. Bodies by the thousands have been thrown over walls into the ravines, and lie decomposing in the sun. Flies swarm everywhere. Vultures, too.

“We can fight the Romans and even each other and survive, but we cannot fight hunger,” Eleazar says.

He looks shorter. I know it’s only because of his thinning frame and stooped shoulders, but it pains me to see him this way. “A spy tells me he saw Titus lift his arms toward heaven and call upon God to bear witness that this starvation is not his doing,” I say, not bothering to mention that the spy was my son, Abner, who continues to make risky sorties behind enemy lines. I don’t mention it because voicing it grips me with fear.

Eleazar laughs unexpectedly—a strange and pleasant sound amid all this unpleasantness. “If Titus is not to blame, who then?”

Rebekah’s words swirl through my mind—her pronouncements that God has forsaken us. “Maybe the next time that traitor Josephus promises generous terms of surrender someone should jump from the wall and kill him,” I finally say. There was no end to that man making appeals for Titus.

Eleazar strokes his white beard and looks at me sideways. “Then you don’t believe him? About the liberality of terms?”

“Oh, I believe. That’s why it pains me to hear it. He’ll be generous with the civilians. And if I had my way, I’d open the gates and let anyone who wants, surrender.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted this.
Will Eleazar think me a traitor?

“Neither John nor Simon would allow that. They’d kill the people first.”

“Perhaps that’s why Titus can call upon heaven as a witness to his innocence. We are killing our own people, allowing them to starve to death rather than surrender.”

Eleazar touches my shoulder lightly. “You . . . would surrender?”

“Perhaps Titus will be kind to civilians, but no one believes he’ll be kind to us rebels. No, my friend, if we surrender, it means crucifixion. And since I have a choice, I choose death by the sword. I will fight.”

“Many of our citizens are escaping south, through the Essene Gate, rebels too, only to end up on crosses.” Eleazar sighs. “I too believe the time for surrender is past. The Romans have committed too many atrocities. There can be no forgiveness, no peace, no submission to their rule now.” He eyes me strangely. “Our path lies in revenge. We
must
avenge this devastation of our Holy City; this supreme insult to
Hashem
.” He clasps my shoulders between fingers that are thin and spindly but still strong. “Do you believe this?”