The Seven Hills

CHAPTER SEVEN

Titus Norbanus watched his men as they practiced maneuvers with Jonathan's army. The Judeans had nothing like the professionalism of the Romans, but they were spirited and had the appearance of brave men, though only the test of battle would prove that. Best of all, they had never adopted the rigid Macedonian phalanx, so he would not have to break them of the habits inherent in that obsolete combat formation.

The bulk of Jonathan's soldiers were peasants who fought as spearmen, providing both light and heavy infantry. The shepherds of the hill country fought unarmored, with small shields, javelins and curved knives. They were excellent scouts and skirmishers. Best of all, the country abounded in slingers and archers, arms in which the Romans were weak.

The wellborn young men provided Jonathan's cavalry. They were excellent horsemen and their mounts were surprisingly fine. This was an added bonus, for the Romans were at best indifferent cavalrymen, despite the splendid horses of Noricum. The hilly, wooded terrain of Noricum did not favor cavalry warfare, and the Romans had never emphasized its arts.

"We can put together a finely balanced expedition force with these men as our allies," Norbanus said to his subordinates.

"At least until we've taken Manasseh's kingdom and given it to his brother," Cato said.

"Of course," said Norbanus. "Then, it will be time to renegotiate." He swept his commanders with his blue-eyed gaze and he approved of their appearance. Gone were the rags and grime of their desert crossing. Jonathan had been generous with his new allies and had given each officer rich clothing in accordance with the man's rank. Nor had the legionaries been neglected. They wore fine new tunics, and their helmets sported colorful crests and plumes.

The king had given Norbanus an extravagant purple cloak heavily embroidered with pure gold, and he now rode a horse so blindingly white that it might have been albino except for its fine black eyes. In concert with his already splendid uniform, patterned after Alexander's, he looked like a war god's statue come to life. Most men would have looked ridiculous in such a rig, but Norbanus had the swagger and presence to carry it off. His officers refrained from comment lest they appear envious.

"Lentulus Niger," Norbanus said.

"Yes, General?"

"I want as many of our men as possible to train on horseback at every opportunity. Let's not waste time trying to train them to fight from horseback, but I want them able to ride whenever necessary. That will give us a flying force in future operations. From all indications, most of the land in our immediate line of march favors mounted troops."

"Very good, sir," said Niger. "The Gallic boys are already good riders. They can help train their German and Italian friends who think horses are for pulling chariots in the Circus."

"When we've beaten Manasseh, I'll demand all his horses as part of our reward." Norbanus touched his horse's flank with a small golden spur and the animal leapt down the slope before him. His soldiers waved their heavy javelins and cheered as he rode along the front line, shouting praise or disapproval as he passed each unit.

Niger spat on the ground and snapped his fingers. The soldier detailed as his orderly ran up to his stirrup and handed him a wineskin. He took a drink and handed the skin across to Cato. "Do you think he'll demand one of the royal ladies as part of his reward, too?"

Cato grinned and raised the skin, directing a stream of rough local wine into his mouth. He passed it to the officer on his left and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "Reward? Jonathan will demand he take them, just to get the bitches off his hands!" This raised a laugh from the knot of officers.

Their commander had proven to be a great favorite with the women of the royal household. The king's wives and daughters were kept secluded in a women's wing of the palace, but his numerous sisters and aunts had the run of the place, and court manners proved to be quite different from those of the populace. The royal family wore their religion lightly, and observed its many taboos and strictures only as suited them.

Holy men from the hinterlands, known locally as prophets, sometimes came to Jerusalem and inveighed against the loose morals of the palace. Jonathan usually found it politic to ignore them. The priests of the temple were far more accommodating.

The most aggressive of the royal women was Tamar, Jonathan's aunt. She was a great beauty and only a year or two older than the king himself. A woman of great force and passion, she might have shocked the Romans had they not already encountered Zarabel, princess and priestess of Carthage. The king's half-sisters, Glaphyra and Roxana, were twins. Their mother was Babylonian, and they were rumored to be addicted to unnatural practices. All three paid extravagant attention to the dashing Roman commander, and these were only the most notable of the palace women.

"I wonder if Manasseh's court has all the royal sons," Niger said.

"If so, I hope his luck in battle isn't as good," Cato commented.

When Norbanus had finished inspecting his troops, he rode back into Jerusalem through the Joppa gate and through the narrow, winding streets to the upper city. Above the smoky, tumbledown structures of the lower city, the wealthy had their dwellings. Finest among these was Jonathan's palace, a rambling mansion far more modest than the royal dwellings of Carthage and Alexandria.

Norbanus rode up the steps to the terrace and drew rein as servants rushed to take charge of his horse. He dismounted and surveyed the city. On higher ground stood the Temple. He still found it difficult to understand a nation that had but a single temple to house its solitary god.

The Temple was magnificently adorned, but like the palace it was of no great size. The successor kings who had followed Alexander had set the style for grandiose building projects, and like them the Jewish kings had longed to build an ostentatiously huge temple to aggrandize themselves and their city, but Jonathan had explained that ritual law thwarted them. Their holy scriptures specified the dimensions of the Temple down to the last cubit, and it could be built no larger. So the kings had contented themselves with adorning the Temple and building a vast terrace of interlocking courtyards to surround it. Much of the hilltop was surrounded by a great retaining wall to support the foundations of the spectacular terrace.

Norbanus turned from the view and strode into the palace, past the Greek mercenary guardsmen who saluted with their spears, into the cool interior. Here the walls were frescoed and the floors inset with colorful mosaics, the designs drawn from Greek mythology, in violation of the local cult's strictures against representations of living things.

The rooms of the palace were not large, for they saw little use. In this part of the world, most social life was carried on in gardens and under rooftop bowers. Even dinners and banquets were often held outdoors. He knew from Jonathan that the Judeans had once been desert wanderers and pastoralists, and they had not strayed far from their nomadic roots. They preferred a fine garden to the finest house.

He went to the great formal garden on the eastern end of the palace, where the royal family usually congregated after the sun had passed its zenith. Up the garden walls climbed ivy and along their base grew myrtle. Huge jars were planted with silphium, hyssop and other medicinal herbs. There were date palms and fig trees and grape arbors, but the greater part of the garden was in the Persian style. This meant that the many raised beds were planted with flowers, cultivated for their color and beauty alone.

In the center, near the largest of the garden's many fountains, Norbanus found the Lady Tamar, attended by her women. There were other men and women of the household lounging about the garden, but Tamar had seized this particularly attractive spot as her own and she held it against the other women. Norbanus suspected that a variety of Forum politics prevailed within the palace, with alliances, power blocs, and perhaps the occasional judicious assassination to determine rank and preeminence.

Tamar's clothing left little visible save her face and hands. Even her hair was covered by a veil. The voluminous gown that draped her body fell in graceful folds that revealed little of the shape beneath, yet she possessed the art of making even this over-modest attire subtly provocative.

"Good afternoon, General." At her gesture, servants brought a chair for Norbanus. With studied art he sat, sweeping his cloak to drape over the chair's arms in graceful folds. He opened a hand without looking and a slave placed a fine goblet in his grasp.

"Will you be marching against Manasseh soon?" she asked.

"I would prefer more time to organize and train," he told her. "Otherwise, your nephew's army and mine cannot act with cohesion."

"My nephew's army," she said, "had better cohere, and quickly, because my other nephew's army is on its way."

Norbanus cut a calculating look at her. "You've had word?"

"I have my sources." She favored him with a bland smile.

"What else have your sources told you?"

"That Manasseh has been assembling his army near Megiddo. That he has requested help from Parthia."

"Has such help arrived?" This was astounding. Unless the woman was weaving her story from whole cloth, she had spies within Manasseh's court, and couriers to keep her in contact with them.

She smiled again. "There has hardly been time for that. Manasseh is headstrong and has already begun moving his army south. But I think you had better move rather quickly now. Parthians ride much faster than our own soldiers march, so he could have his reinforcements by the time he joins battle with you."

"Roman soldiers march faster than most ride," he assured her, but inwardly he was not so sanguine. This Manasseh was clearly a man of quick decision. "It's a risky thing, asking for Parthian assistance. Once the king has his soldiers inside Manasseh's land, he may want to keep them there."

"This is something we needn't fear from you Romans?" She smiled as she said it but he felt the sting, as was intended.

"We are most meticulous in observing our treaty obligations," he said.

"Those treaties never seem to specify a date by which allied troops should be off our territory."

"Because our allies find us so valuable. They often manage to get into another war immediately, relying upon our aid." He took a sip. "But we shall be on our way as soon as we've crushed Manasseh, and his allies, if need be. We have to get back to Rome."

"And it might be a good idea for you to move your army away from Jerusalem very soon," she said.

"Move my army away? Why?" He was instantly suspicious. It was basic sense for a general to stay close to his men. An attempt to separate him from his troops usually meant treachery on the part of an enemy or even an ally. Especially an ally.

"There are some new prophets in town. These are from the North, from Galilee. They heard of this foreign army and came to look for signs of corruption."

"Corruption?" Norbanus said, mystified.

"Exactly. The prophets make it their special duty to see that the people are not tempted to follow foreign ways. That, you see, leads to worshipping foreign gods."

"What harm does it do to honor the gods of other people?" he asked. "We are always careful not to insult the gods of others."

"It is all too easy to insult the god of the Jews without intending to. For instance, these prophets, led by one Joshua ben Joshua, are complaining about the idols your men carry before them."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"The eagles and bulls and scorpions and so forth that the men dressed in animal skins carry on poles before the troops."

"You mean the military standards?" he said, incredulous. "Your prophets object to our standards?"

"Yes. They are graven images, you see. Our religion forbids the making of any object that imitates a living thing."

"So I've heard. What about those lion-things with wings and human heads that flank the entrance to your temple? Or the bronze bulls that support the big water bowl in front of it?"

She smiled again. "There is of course an exception for the holy objects of the Temple. There is no exception for foreigners like you. When the Syrian Antiochus tried to introduce Greek statues and Greek rites in our holy places, there was war."

He folded his hands and leaned forward earnestly. "You do understand, don't you, that you people are quite insane?"

"If so, it's what our god requires of us. And these prophets are raising the people, haranguing them to rise against you and against Jonathan."

"And the king permits this? They are probably agents sent by Manasseh. He should have them killed."

"Prophets are sacrosanct," she said, sighing. "No matter how troublesome they may be."

"Oh. Like tribunes of the people?" He thought for a minute. "Why don't I just send some of my men to kill them? Jonathan can hold me responsible. And keep his own hands clean."

"That would be a good thing, but there would be a riot anyway."

"Then we could just massacre the rioters and peace would be restored. Jerusalem can easily spare a mob or two."

"Or you could just leave. Then they'd have nothing to complain about."

"Oh, please don't run him off so soon," said a voice behind Norbanus. He did not need to turn around. One of the twins had spoken. He knew that both would be there. He had yet to see the two of them separated by more than a few feet.

"Please join us, ladies," Tamar said, smiling without affection.

The twins drifted into Norbanus's field of vision. It was the only way he could think of to describe their motion: They drifted. They seemed as languid and boneless as a pair of somnolent eels, and as difficult to distinguish. Like Tamar they wore modest gowns, but their curly black hair was uncovered and they wore elaborate jewelry. Their faces were high cheekboned and full-lipped, their eyes emphasized with kohl. They looked, Norbanus thought, exactly like what they were: the final, decadent offspring of an ancient and corrupt civilization. Glorious Babylon had long disappeared, crushed beneath the boots of a succession of conquerors, but her wickedness seemed to be imperishable. Even in the rather relaxed court of Jonathan, the two were tolerated mainly for their mastery of Babylon's gift to the world: astrology. Their mother had been a star reader much valued by Jonathan and Manasseh's father.

"Are you going to tell us what the stars have to say about our guest's future?" Tamar asked warily. Norbanus knew that Tamar despised the twins, but like everyone else she was intimidated by their command of the arcane art. It surprised him that, despite their incredibly exclusive religion, almost all of these people had faith in Babylonian star augury.

The twins were attended by their own women, and as they sat, slaves slid a chair beneath each. "But of course," Glaphyra said. At least, Norbanus assumed it was Glaphyra. Her bracelets and other jewelry were studded with coral, and Glaphyra favored red stones: coral, carnelian, ruby. Roxana preferred blue: lapis lazuli, sapphire, amethyst. Of course, he realized, there was nothing to keep them from swapping jewelry to confuse people. Roxana raised her hand and a woman placed a scroll in her palm. She unrolled it with a flourish. "Our friend is a man of glorious promise, it seems," she announced. Her voice was identical to her sister's.

"What does your art tell you?" Norbanus asked, perhaps a little more eagerly than he wished. In Egypt, he had toured the splendid Temple of Hathor at Dendera and had been shown the Babylonian zodiac carved upon its ceiling in the days when the foreign art had penetrated even to the priesthood of that unthinkably ancient land. The priest had explained to him the significance of its signs and constellations.

This was an art very different from the auguries and haruspices of the Romans, and from the various divining arts of Norbanus's Celtic-Germanic ancestors. These only determined the momentary whims of the gods at a given time, and provided no long-range forecasts nor predictions of individual destiny. He was interested to hear what the twins had found.

"Titus Norbanus was most fortunate in the day and hour of his birth," Roxana said, "since it is not the custom of his people to take note of such things, being ignorant as they are in celestial matters. But he was born upon the night a certain comet appeared just above the rising crescent moon-"

"Itself a circumstance of greatest significance," Glaphyra interjected smoothly.

"— and this was noted by the Roman augurs," Roxana went on, "who usually take omens through lightning, thunder and the flight of birds, but who also note extraordinary phenomena such as comets and showers of falling stars."

"With this intelligence," Glaphyra said, "we were able to discern with great precision the stars and planets governing our guest's destiny. We think they are the most propitious to be seen since those of Alexander, almost two and one half centuries ago."

Norbanus's cup hand remained steady, but the other tightened its grip on the chair arm. This was what he wanted to hear, but he cautioned himself against credulity. These two were schemers from the womb they had shared, but the king and nobles of this court put much faith in their craft, so it could not all be trickery.

Roxana spread the scroll upon the table. The papyrus was covered with symbols and lettering that meant nothing to him. The two pointed out each, naming planets, signs, stars. They spoke of ascendancy, of declination, of precedents and fabled conjunctions, each twin taking up her sister's narration in a bewildering rhythm that kept him looking back and forth from one to the other until he was dizzy. Their presentation, he understood, was an art as polished as that of any Forum politician's.

"These are the signs of conquest, of mastery," Roxana said.

"But there is another," said Glaphyra, sweeping a gilded fingernail over a line of symbols that he thought resembled Egyptian picture writing and might as well have been, for all he could make of them.

"Another?" Norbanus said.

"Yes," Glaphyra informed him. "There is another, lesser person, born near you, with signs that are similar but not as propitious. He bears the attributes of envy and jealousy. He will be your enemy all your days."

"But you are the greater," Roxana assured him. "You will always prevail."

Scipio, he thought. It must be Marcus Scipio.

"You see," Glaphyra said, "how your sign entered the House of the Lion. Alexander's did the same. It meant that he was to take mastery of a foreign civilization and make it greater than ever before. Born in barbarous Macedon, he took up the cause of glorious Greece and spread its culture throughout the world."

And my forbears were Gauls and Germans, he thought. But it is my destiny to make Rome master of the world. It is true. It all fits. They are not frauds. How could they know this otherwise?

"What do the stars say of Manasseh?" Tamar asked. "A battle of kings is in the offing. Surely there are signs."

"The squabbling of petty monarchs are little noted in the stars," Glaphyra said, smiling. "Not like the fortunes of one such as Titus Norbanus."

"Indeed," Tamar said through gritted teeth.

Norbanus decided that he would have to keep these two close to him from now on. He would need to consult with them frequently. No doubt he could work something out with Jonathan, along with the business of Manasseh's horses.

Never forgetting, he reminded himself, that they were still a pair of scheming bitches.