To the Death (3 page)

Amal had been expensively and carefully trained in Memphis. She had cost Eleazar a fortune but he had never regretted the cost. She knew his moods, his needs. She listened to plots and kept his secrets. She often advised him on a course of action, or counselled caution when he would have been reckless, or boldness when he would have held back. It was Amal who now greeted him on his arrival. She stood quietly while he rinsed his hands in the bowl held by a slave. He looked at her appraisingly from beneath drooping eyelids, eyes still bright from the morning's drama. She smiled and held out her hand, leading him from the entrance hall to a comfortably furnished room where the wine steward and the housekeeper waited deferentially for instructions.

After signalling for wine to be poured, Amal dismissed them with orders to bring the midday meal. Eleazar grinned at her, lowering himself onto a couch, taking a long pull on his wine and rolling his head from side to side to loosen the muscles in his neck. Amal, kneeling behind him, began to massage his neck and shoulders with perfumed oils. Her mother had been a valued Egyptian slave, mistress of the governor of Egypt, Pompeius Planta.

When Amal was old enough to understand, her mother had told her “The blood of Idumaean kings flows in your veins, for I was bedded by Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee”. Amal knew there had never been any question of Antipas ever admitting paternity to any of his many bastard children, particularly a girl born of a slave, but that didn't stop her from dreaming. She knew that being Antipas' bastard made her cousin to Queen Berenice and her brother King Agrippa II, a client king the Romans had appointed to rule Upper Galilee and part of Jordan. He was also given oversight of the Temple with the authority to dismiss and appoint the High Priest of all Israel. In addition, the King was made custodian of the high priests' vestments, without which they could not officiate at religious festivals.

Eleazar grunted with pleasure, closing his eyes and giving himself up to the woman's probing fingers. When Amal judged him to be sufficiently relaxed, she removed his sandals and washed his feet. While she was doing this, slave girls carried in trays of food and set out an array of dishes on low tables. He stretched luxuriously and ran an appreciative hand across the buttocks of one of the serving girls.

Laughing, Amal dismissed them and leaning over Eleazar's half naked figure, began to feed him. “He is dead?” Eleazar, his mouth busy with a breast of chicken nodded. “Will the Romans cause trouble?”

Eleazar frowned while he considered this. He swallowed enough food to make a reply. “Possibly, though the High Priest thinks not”.

Amal wiped his beard to which scraps of chicken were clinging. Eleazar was neither a tidy nor a silent eater. “And you?”

Eleazar shrugged and said dismissively, “The Romans have got too much on their hands at the moment to bother about another Jewish prophet”. Swallowing the last of the chicken, he took a gulp from his cup, careless of the wine he slopped down his front. “There is unrest”, he grated, “throughout the region. Every day the Romans are harried by the nationalists. Meanwhile Rome has an emperor gone mad”. He paused to take another mouthful of chicken, smacking his lips appreciatively, before continuing, “Gaul, Germania and the Spaniards, sensing Rome's weakness, are growing increasingly restless”.

Amal, who was every bit as ambitious as her master and every bit as intelligent, didn't reply. Eleazar had given her much to think about. Instead she continued to ply him with food, ensuring his wine cup was never empty.

Eventually, relaxed and replete, Eleazar was ready for a different feast, but first he would sleep. Sprawled across the brocaded couch, his head supported by a cushion, he began to doze. When he awoke it was lamplight. The windows were un-shaded and opened. He could see the stars of the night sky. Incense spiralled lazily, its fragrance mingling with the scent of garden flowers carried on the warm air.

Amal held out a wine cup. He drank greedily and struggled to his feet, farting loudly. The smell was appalling, but Amal ignored it. She knew that to Eleazar, she was simply a possession. Possessions don't have feelings or sensibilities. Not that Eleazar ever bothered over much to consider others. It was only in the Temple that he behaved in a circumspect and respectful manner.

Eleazar headed for the bath house that he had had installed - an innovation that he had taken from the Romans. Not that he was concerned with cleanliness; matters of cleanliness were religious. Purity was a thing of the spirit, not the flesh. Such matters involved ritual; they had nothing to do with dirt, grease or sweat. He bathed because he enjoyed the relaxing heat of the perfumed water, followed by the expert attention of a skilled masseur whose probing fingers eased the knots and tensions of the day, stretched cramped muscles and eased aching joints.

He bathed alone. In Eleazar's mind pleasures of the flesh were kept for the torture chamber or the bedroom, where he knew Amal would be waiting for him, with a body that took his breath away every time he saw it naked. Amal had sexual skills that no well-bred woman, Jewish or Roman, had ever heard of, let alone could practice.

When Eleazar entered the bedroom he was naked. She was waiting for him standing by an immense low bed wearing a filmy gown tied at the throat and loosely belted. She knew that Eleazar was as fascinated by the pale apricot of her skin as the firm abundance of her breasts. Amal was so slender he could almost encircle her waist with a double hand span.

He took one of her hands and placed it between his legs. She smiled and drew him to her, her perfumed chestnut hair against his face. She kissed him on the lips, the shoulders and the breast. Roused, he lay with her on the bed. One of his fingers sought her sex, gently stroking. He made no move to mount her, but continued to fondle her. Amal rolled over and straddled him, all the fluids of desire flowing down the golden shadows of her thighs.

She moved slowly, the violin shaped hips rising and falling, with the gentle soughing sound of a wave spending itself against a sandy shore. She felt his body begin to tremble, his mouth gaped redly in his dark beard, gasping for air. She stopped moving. Slowly his meaty fingers, like fiddler crabs, with their tufts of coarse black hair sprouting along their joints, began to patrol her body, seeking the places which pleased her.

As he became charged with desire, blood began to beat in Eleazar's temples; he was breathing hard. Amal raised her legs, hooking them over his shoulders. The kneeling man drove himself into her, to hammer frenziedly against the hill of her rounded buttocks. Amal screamed with pleasure - a wild ululation, a primitive tribal sound from a desert past. She beat her fists in ecstasy against his bowed shoulders, her golden body convulsing with the force of her emotions. Eleazar's body stiffened before he collapsed against her, spent, sobbing for breath. They lay entwined breathing heavily, their lips gently brushing.

The room darkened as the lamps burned low. They drifted off to sleep in a tumble of arms and legs, bodies pressed close, their breath mingling. When they awoke it was dark. Amal couldn't see Eleazar's face, but she knew he was awake.

He was lying on his back, one arm under her body round her shoulders, the other folded loosely, the palm of his hand on his chest. She could feel a tremor as his fingers absentmindedly drummed his breast bone. Amal burrowed into his side and gently nibbled the lobe of an ear, whispering “What are you thinking my love?”

The priest didn't reply at once, but the movement of his fingers stilled. She waited patiently while he thought about replying. He often confided in her, but he wasn't to be hurried. “Rebellion”.

The single word, dropped like a pebble down a well, caused her to draw her breath and hold it for a few seconds. The word echoed in her mind. Before she could say anything the man continued, “The whole country is in turmoil. It bubbles with dissatisfaction like a spring of hot mud. The Roman pig is pricked on every side. Troops ambushed, murdered, maimed; weapons and stores stolen. Taxes go uncollected”.

“But surely” Amal replied, “Rome will send more troops and crush those who dare challenge its authority?”

Eleazar chuckled, though there was no humour in the sound. “The dog's breath of Babylon”, (this was an unflattering reference to Nero) “is an abomination to his own people as well as ours. Along every border of the empire, Rome's enemies see this weakness. They're plucking up the courage to test Rome's strength. Troop reinforcement to Israel will become a low priority”.

Amal mulled this over before venturing, “Surely this is nothing more than border skirmishing. It goes on all the time. Not even the Gauls would dare mount a full scale rebellion”.

With a grunt Eleazar propped himself up. “Wine woman; you talk too much”.

Amal hastily swung her legs off the bed, gathering a robe loosely around her shoulders.

After relighting a lamp she poured some wine, and as she handed Eleazar a cup she persisted, “Who in Judaea would dare a mount an outright rebellion? More importantly, who would follow him?”

She would have continued, but he placed a finger across her lips. “There will never be a better opportunity. Rome is weak. She is also short of money, thanks to that dog's vomit Nero. The legions are under strength. Many haven't been paid for months. The nations she has conquered and forced to submit are growing increasingly restless. If Judaea rises now, it will be a signal to the others. Rome will be attacked from all sides”.

Amal shook her head in bewilderment. While it was true that the numbers of Roman troops garrisoned in Jerusalem and in strategic towns throughout the region were relatively small, they were well armed, well trained, and experienced fighters. They could also call for reinforcements from neighbouring Syria. And who, Amal thought to herself, would join the uprising? Would the High Priest of all Israel accept a field marshal's baton and place himself at the head of an army? “Lord, I fear for you”, Amal murmured.

Eleazar eyed her across the rim of his cup. She was sitting on the huge bed cross legged, rouging her nipples. Her posture exposed her sex. He felt himself getting hard again.

“Nationalist groups throughout the country are under orders to step up their skirmishing. The Romans are going to have a guerrilla war on their hands. Working in small groups they will ambush and kill the Romans and those who support them; striking and slipping away. There will be no set piece battles until we are ready for them”.

Amal noticed the ‘we' but kept her council. “How will”, she nearly said
you
but changed it to “
they
deal with this?”

Eleazar's interest in the control and management of rebellious nationalists was waning as he became aware of the size of his erection. “Come here”, he growled, sitting with his back propped against the wall, his short thick hairy legs thrust straight out, his now furiously erect member grasped firmly in his left hand.

Amal crawled across the bed to face him and straddled his engorged penis. Sinking on to it Amal sighed with pleasure, as she slowly raised and lowered herself, rising almost to the point of withdrawal before lowering herself to grind fur against fur.

Eleazar's meaty hands clasped her hips to catch the rhythm of that delicious cushioning. “They will be executed as traitors, their possessions confiscated” he suddenly and rather breathlessly blurted out. Amal almost missed a beat at this sudden outburst. For a moment she was utterly confused, until she remembered her earlier question. She now realised that the nationalists, whatever their political persuasion, had given themselves the authority to murder anybody if it suited their purposes. This would be done in the name of freedom and the cause of ‘home rule'.

Hoarse shouts of encouragement from her steed broke through Amal's reverie. With a grin she lowered herself in the saddle and rode hard and fast, her sweating mount bellowing his encouragement.

Sated, Eleazar lay on his back. Amal had withdrawn to the edge of the bed. Like a cat she curled up against a pile of cushions. “Lord, the Sicarii are growing increasingly bold. They will surely bring down the wrath of the Romans”.

Eleazar lifted an eyelid and peered at her grating “That cunt Menahem and his scum are planning something big. And it will happen soon”. This was a reference to Menahem ben Jair, leader of the Sicarii and grandson of Judas of Galilee, the founder of the Zealot party, of which the Sicarii were a part.

“How soon?”

“Within the next week or so. My spies know that much, but nothing more”.

Amal thought for a moment before asking “And you my Lord, what will you do? What will the Romans do?”

“The Romans will retreat to their strongholds and send to Rome for help. In the meantime there will be a civil war.” Eleazar wriggled into a more comfortable position. “I will lead those Temple priests who will follow me, to join with my many followers in the city. Together we will overthrow the High Priest of all Israel and take the Temple over”.

“But the Romans …?”

“I will not attack Rome. By the time Roman reinforcements arrive, I will be High Priest of all Israel and command the Temple”.

Amal almost stopped breathing. Eleazar had announced the removal of Ananus as casually as ordering a lamb to be sacrificed. Keeping her voice neutral she ventured, “King Agrippa will be coming to Jerusalem to meet with his sister Berenice, who is due to arrive in the city within the next few days. He is a favourite of Caesar and will back the Romans”.