Rebekah's Treasure (13 page)

“Yes . . . I . . . suppose.”

“Of course you do, that’s why you and I will fight to the end.”

I feel strangely uncomfortable as I nod, and see, for the first time, something terrible in Eleazar’s eyes.

The Second Quarter has fallen. Its outer walls are rubble. We have been firing upon the Romans all day as they build a ramp toward Antonia. They’ve made great progress but it has cost dearly. Though they are covered in armor, and work beneath wicker screens and sheds, and transport their materials through leather covered passageways, hundreds lay dead. Our Benjaminites are weary from all the arrows they have fired, as are our spearmen and those who work the catapults. Still, the Romans refuse to quit or pull back. And they don’t shrink from our firebrands, either. Eleazar is sure Titus has promised them all a promotion if they survive, or the prized meed of valor if they perish. But I believe it’s something else altogether. I believe the 10
^th
Legion has inspired the others to partake in their revenge. After all, revenge works both ways.

But we have not been idle. We are planning our own subterfuge. Even now, John and his men are digging tunnels beneath the Antonia to collapse the Roman ramps. They are all congratulating themselves for thinking up this mischief, but I’m not so optimistic. I fear our tunnels won’t stop the legionaries for long. The Romans are as men possessed. They fight like demons and stand their ground even in the face of certain death. Their determination to defeat us is terrifying.

Everything is moving swiftly against us. Titus has completed his wall around the city, and has strategically installed watchtowers and small forts along its perimeter. This has effectively closed up the
southern end, the last opening through which meager amounts of food and supplies, have, until now, been smuggled. We are completely cut off, sealed, as it were, in our own tomb. Titus has also captured Jerusalem’s aqueduct, effectively cutting off our water supply. And inside our city, things are more dire than ever. So dire that in spite of the risk, people are fleeing Jerusalem by the thousands. Even rebels. Simon’s Idumaeans left first. Now, even John’s men are escaping. Those who stay shout curses into the wind and promise vengeance, but for my part, I fear we are all doomed.

A new forest has sprung up. A forest of crosses. Nearly five hundred a day are being crucified. In the midst of this, Josephus has again urged us to surrender; warning us not to try Titus’s patience any further, and threatening grave consequences if we do. He has panicked the city even further. People are jumping from walls only to be captured and gutted by the Syrian and Arab auxiliary units who are searching for swallowed jewels or coins. Inside our city and outside in the ravine, the mountain of dead continues to rise.

And in the quiet of the night I weep.

Hashem, where are you? Will you let the buzzards pick our bones? Will you let the uncircumcised defile Your Temple? Where is Your mighty hand now? The mighty hand that fought for Joshua and David and Gideon?

I’m in deep despair as flames crackle and shoot from the roof of the nearby sixty-cubit-high Temple portico. Smoke curls between its massive columns and carpets the marble paving stones with soot. The smoke is so thick I can hardly breathe. It stings my eyes making it difficult to see. Blood trickles from the wound in my left wrist and drips
off my hand. In the other hand I wield a sword whose hilt is so slick with the blood of my enemies it nearly slips from my grasp.

“This way!” Aaron shouts, pointing to the Court of Women with his dagger.

We are surrounded by mail-clad Romans. Everywhere I look I see their red metal-bossed shields. Like a plague of locust they swarm through every opening into the Court of the Gentiles. We are caught up in this plague, and if Aaron and I don’t get out soon we’ll both die.

It’s been days since the Antonia fell, and days since Titus leveled it and used the rubble to make a massive causeway into the Temple to bring up his troops and his battering rams and artillery engines. Now the unthinkable has happened. Titus has penetrated the Temple’s outer court.

I hack my way toward Aaron, and see that my other sons, Benjamin, Joseph and Abner are nearby brandishing their own weapons. Men fall on every side and litter the polished marble pavement. Our forces are retreating en masse from the Court of the Gentiles to the safety of the thick, forty-cubit high walls of the Court of Women. An arrow whizzes past and would have pierced my neck had I not stooped to pick up a fallen Roman shield. I loop my injured wrist through its back, then use it and my sword to force my way to my sons. The five of us fight our way up the Temple steps, then to the terrace leading to the eastern gate.

Benjamin is the first to reach safety. Then Joseph and Aaron. I follow, while Abner lags behind. When I reach the terrace I turn and see that Abner is still at the bottommost step, surrounded by three legionaries. His dagger is flashing in all directions. I bound down the stairs toward him, but two Romans prevent me from going the distance. Arms, shields, swords, all clash. I swing blindly, barely able to see through burning, stinging eyes. I know not where my sword strikes. More Romans appear.

I’m totally surrounded. Yet, over shoulders and amid flashing steel, I manage to make out Abner just as he is knocked backwards by a Roman. I see him go down; see a horde of legionaries descend upon his
prone body. And while watching, my guard drops and in that second, a legionaries’ sword crashes against mine, making it slip from my hand and fly into the air. Now I have only the shield. With my good arm, I swing it wildly from side to side, knocking soldiers off their feet. But no matter how hard I fight to reach Abner, I’m blocked by wave after wave of red shields. And just as I think they’ll overwhelm me, I’m yanked backward, out of their reach. When I turn I see Aaron and Benjamin each holding fast to one of my arms. Next to them my son, Joseph, and three Zealots, all wielding their weapons, clear a path for our retreat.

“No!” I scream. “Abner is out there!”

“You can’t save him,” Aaron says, as he and Benjamin pull me to safety. “You have to let him go.”

“Thus says Titus: ‘This is your final warning! My benevolence is at an end. I have no wish to desecrate or destroy your Temple,’” Josephus shouts, atop his horse from a safe distance. Engineers have already heaved lead to determine how close he can come. “‘Why do you force my hand? Why do you pollute your own Sanctuary with the blood of the slain?’” He makes his horse trot a straight line, careful not to stray closer. “‘Why do you not listen to your own rabbi and countryman, and my spokesman, Josephus? He has laid out my terms for the last time. Why not submit to imprisonment rather than see the House of your God destroyed by flames?’”

“We’ll have more desertions now,” Eleazar says, turning to me.

I nod absently. It’s difficult to concentrate. I’m grieving for Abner. I have stood the entire night and part of the morning on the wall of the Court of Women, searching for his body among the slain littering the paving stones of the Court of Gentiles. Sometime before dawn, the Romans gathered their wounded and brought them to safety behind the massive Corinthian columns of the Royal Portico, the one running the length of the outer court’s southern wall and the only portico still
intact. Could they have brought Abner there by mistake? Impossible to imagine. His fringed tunic, his brown leather breast plate, his bearded face clearly reveal him as a Zealot. From the wall, I’ve looked a hundred times at the place where he fell. He had to be dead.
But where was his body?

Someone catapults a boulder causing Josephus’s gray steed to rear. When he brings it under control, he shouts his parting words, “Heaven will curse you if you don’t surrender now.”

Jeers and profanity follow his departure as our men wave their fists and weapons in the air. Their taunts are greeted by Roman heckling. Scores of legionaries lift their shields and javelins threateningly. Some pound swords against their metal boss. A centurion, with arms folded, stands to one side. After a few moments, he raises his hand and silences his men, then points to the fresh crop of crosses planted during the night.

“See to your fate, Jews of Jerusalem. Not even your generals can save you now. They can’t even save their own sons.” With that he spits on the ground and walks away amid a chorus of curses and taunts.

But I hardly hear over the pounding of my heart as I sprint across the top of the wall, scanning the forest of crosses as I go.

“What’s
wrong
?” Eleazar says, wheezing behind me.

I ignore him as I run, searching, searching, searching the anguished swollen faces of those who have been beaten, then crucified. Beads of perspiration dot my forehead as I gulp air through my tightening chest. And then I stop.
No . . . this can’t be him
. He is hardly recognizable—stripped naked, his manhood exposed, face swollen and battered, lips split and bleeding, body ripped and bloody from scourging. Flies swarm his wounds. I can almost feel their torment. His head droops against his chest. His arms are stretched. A plaque of wood covers each wrist to keep the nails that pierce them from ripping through the flesh. His legs are pulled up and each heel, also covered with a plaque, is nailed to the cross.

“
Abner
.” I choke saying his name. I’ve never felt such pain. It’s as if my heart has been clawed by giant talons. I pull my hair. I curse and
pound my fists against the wall. Then I grab the bow from the hand of the rebel near me, pull an arrow from his quiver, and without using a bracer to protect my injured arm, I shoot the arrow at my son.

When it misses its mark I frantically grab for another arrow, but the man backs away, his face twisted in horror. I leap on him like a beast, and am about to wrestle him to the ground when strong, spindly fingers pull me away.

“No need, Ethan. No need,” Eleazar says softly. “Abner is already dead.”