The Wooden Sword Read online

  The Wooden Sword:

  The Rudius

  EDWARD EASTON

  Copyright 1970 Edward Easton

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9781520629025

  DEDICATION

  For my grandchildren, Holly and Scott

  Prologue •••

  He shifted in his saddle, trying to ease the chafing of his centurion's breastplate and hard leather tunic. Of all the places in the Empire, he thought, I have to get stationed in Palestine! As he looked back over the line of march of his century of horse, he thought of the countless number of villages they had passed through so far-villages filled with ragged, half-starved skinny urchins and emaciated adults glaring hatefully at his outfit.

  Dispatched the week before on the orders of King Herod, they were to proceed to Damascus to arrest one Simon Bar Simeon and his son Jonas, animal contractors who supplied Syrian lions and other wild beasts for Herod's yearly quota to the Games in Rome. They had already passed out of Judea, through Samaria and Galilee, and were traveling through the desert to Damascus.

  "Mrymex!"

  He turned his head to see what his second-in-command wanted now. A young man in sub-altern's armor galloped up to his side on a lathered horse. He was sweating profusely.

  "Mrymex! In the name of Mars! Let me give the command to doff helmets and loricas! The sun is cooking our brains inside these steel pots!"

  Mrymex eyed the young man stonily. He had considered this, but thought it a bad risk in these desert hills. Being a disciplined centurion with twenty years’ service in the legions, Mrymex was fully aware that bands of zealots and siccarri, the dread fanatical daggermen, holed up in hills like these to ambush small Roman patrols. More than once he had seen men get an arrow in the back or have their brains spilled by a well-aimed stone from a slinger's pouch. This much he had learned in his five years in Judea, helping to maintain the Pax Romana in Herod's client kingdom. He had explained this to the young man before, although he knew that nothing would drive it home like experience, if the fool lived through it. He dismissed the thought and began to scan the sun-baked hills, thinking that the oasis was overdue and the water skins dangerously low. Out here a man could not last more than a day without water. "Drusus," he said gruffly, "bring up that dog of a camel driver!"

  He had commandeered the services of a wine-soaked caravan guide back in Chorazin by the Sea of Galilee to lead them to waterholes along the way. He jerked his tired mount to a halt and held up his arm to halt the column as Drusus wheeled his horse to carry out the order. He returned in a moment dragging a burro upon which was seated the camel driver. The bony old man had a disease of the eyes which made them constantly watery. He seemed never to cease weeping. The desert sun had long since sobered him and he was in mortal fear of his life, for the oasis he had thought was in this vicinity had not yet been spotted. Was it here, or wasn't it? He'd been drunk so much lately he didn't know for sure.

  "I warn you," Mrymex threatened, "if we don't come across this water soon, we'll stake you out here to die!"

  The old man rolled his eyes in evident terror and burbled something about a little further. ahead. Mrymex wondered at his own wisdom in dragging this besotted wretch along as he spurred his horse to the top of a rise. Ah, he thought, the dog had not been that drunk after all. There it was, scarcely five hundred yards away, looming green and beautiful like an island in an ocean of sand and parched rock. He gave a hand signal to his men and galloped toward the oasis, wheeling his horse in time to catch Drusus leading a pell-mell, disorderly rush to the precious water. After shouted commands and the breaking of some heads with the flat of his sword, he got his soldiers into an orderly column again. Drusus sat his horse in a pique after a dressing down by the centurion. He would be the last to drink for his inability to keep order in the ranks. The water would be a muddy sludge after the horses had their fill and the men were done splashing around.

  That night, a few hours later, the men were bivouacked around the waterhole and Mrymex saw to the needs of his soldiers like the professional he was. He had relented and let Drusus fill his skin with the rest before the water got too muddy. He thought perhaps he'd been too hard on the boy. He had to be careful of that whenever an aristocratic young scion was given into his charge. He resented the fact that Drusus was awaiting his appointment as a tribune with the Tenth Fretensis in Gaul. He had seen them come and go--a few months to learn basic camp discipline under an old, experienced centurion, then poof! automatic appointment to field-grade status. Drusus was a Senator's son, no doubt sent to this hellhole because of an indiscretion at home. Even so, within another six months he would wear the plumed, embossed helmet of a tribune and be in command of a cohort. And I, thought Mrymex bitterly, will still be only a centurion when I retire! He glanced at the boy, standing some ways off by the mess section.

  "Drusus! Come here!" he called suddenly.

  The young man put his eating utensils down near his saddle and came striding cockily over to where Mrymex was seated. The centurion watched his approach with a growing impotent bitterness. He was bothered by that condescending omniscience, that awareness that the need to be ruled by a lowly centurion of freedman class was only a temporary expedient that must be borne. Most of these young pups never knew till they carried a general's baton that the centurion was the backbone of the legion. All their victories, Mrymex thought, their awarded triumphs at Rome, are due to men like me.

  Sit down," he commanded. Drusus smiled and sat down.

  "Drusus, suppose for a moment that you are in command of this unit, and right about now a force of some thirty or forty zealots attacked. What would you do?"

  Drusus thoughtfully stroked a beardless chin before replying.

  "I'd take the men and beat them off."

  "What battle order would you use?" Mrymex pressed intently.

  Drusus looked confused. Then his face lit up confidently. "I'd form the hollow square! Dismounted with shields and lance-points all around the waterhole." Mrymex began to think that here was one who might do; so far, so good. He led further. "All right, you've beaten them off. Now what?"

  "I'd take half the men and round them up. Then I'd crucify the survivors near the waterhole as an example!"

  Mrymex perked up triumphantly. "You'd break the square! You fool! It would never cross your mind that it was funny that such a small number would attack a well-equipped century of horse? You wouldn't send a scout to see if there were any more of them hiding over one of these hills, just waiting for you to break the square! Oh, you'll make a dandy tribune!"

  Drusus stood quickly, his face flushing with indignation. "And I suppose the freed son of a common gladiator, a slave gladiator at that, would be a better candidate for the rank'?" he retorted hotly.

  Mrymex stood as if struck; one hand reached for his sword hilt. Before he could react, the young man interrupted with an apology.

  "Mrymex ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean .... "

  "Get back to your rations."

  The fact that he was truly sorry for the unkind words did not lessen their impact on Mrymex. He tried to forget his base origin, but the army wouldn't let him. He loved Rome; he loved the camp life of the legions. Every time the promotion lists went up, he ran to look eagerly for his name. It was never there. Why? he always thought bitterly; he'd proved himself as a leader, in Gaul, in Germany, in Iberia, with all his wounds in front to show for each campaign.' Commendations from generals, but never a promotion! He sank limply back under a palm tree, running his fingers despairingly through his graying hair. He was approaching fifty and his time had gone by, he thought to himself. He began to ruminate on the circumstances that had brought him to Judea five years before.... Past forty he was then and holding the same r
ank as Drusus did now. He was stationed at the Campus Martius outside Rome, fresh from a Gallic campaign to reduce the rebellious tribes there. They had put him under a stupid young tribune, an aristocrat, Gnaeus Lentulus Piso, last scion of the fabulously wealthy Lentulae clan. After ten years in the ranks, he had finally been promoted to a commission, and it was just his luck to be put under that idiot Piso, who owed his tribunate to influence and to being born into the Senatorial order. Mrymex was very lucky to get even a sub-altern's commission, considering his birth. Piso was always taunting him about it. One day it had been too much and Mrymex had struck him. If it hadn't been for the garrison commander hating that tribune also, he'd have straightaway been hung on a cross. As it was, the commander, recognizing a potential good officer in Mrymex, had given him hastily written orders to ride at once for the port of Brundisium, there to take ship for Palestine.

  So... for the last five years he had been farmed out to the man called King Herod the Great, everywhere but in his own kingdom. There they spoke in low tones. in the marketplaces of the "accursed Idumean." All this time, he thought, doing Herod’s dirty work. If he weren’t so close to retirement and a pension, he would never have obeyed the order the year before to accompany the Household Guard when they massacred all the children in Bethlehem. After that, he felt he could be made to do anything. He wondered how the old king slept at night. There was no crime at all of which Herod was not guilty.

  This time Mrymex had been sent to arrest his own close friend Bar Simeon, whose only crime was that he'd been sent to do an impossible job-to supply a certain number of lions from Syria for Herod's yearly quota for the Games in Rome. Jupiter's Balls! There were hardly any lions left in Syria. and Herod had demanded a hundred delivered to Jerusalem, giving the trapper and his son six months in which to do it.

  The Games, the opiate of the people, were necessary to draw attention from the fact that Augustus was in reality setting up a dynasty. A vicious circle, he thought. Augustus was the slave of the Roman mob, Herod was his slave, and I'm Herod's -- I who sprang from the mob.

  He thought again of his father, who died the favorite of the Roman populace from the spear thrust of a retiarius. He had made fortunes for those who bet on him to win, and still he died a slave, without the freedom he had always worked for, and without a denarius to his name. His mother, a Greek slave-girl, had obtained her mistress' promise that Mrymex would never know that life. But when the great lady's husband finally learned of the father's identity, the promise received short shrift. After all, the owner had reasoned, a son of the great Phylax might also have a champion's mettle; so, it was off to the Great School for Samnite training. Mrymex had been eager to go. He was proud of his father's prowess in the arena and wanted to emulate it, much to the dismay of his mother. Then it happened.... That speedy young retiarius with his tricky maneuvers, the hush in the stands. Then Mrymex saw how loyal the fans were to champions. He cried like a baby when the thumbs turned downward and his father was killed. The fight had gone out of him then. When his owner died some weeks later, the mistress finally made good on the promise and Mrymex was freed. He knew no trade but the sword, and the arena was an anathema to him, so he joined the legions as a common foot soldier.

  He glanced around a last time at his bivouacked unit drawing his woolen tunic around him keep out cold night air of the desert. Everything was well. Mrymex had all his life attended the savage school of barbarism and was in complete accord with the cruelty of age, but as he closed his eyes to get much needed rest, heard for the thousandth time the screams of the mothers in Bethlehem.

  Chapter I …

  Jonas Bar Simon wiped the sweat from his brow and leaped nimbly out of the ever-deepening pit. It lay close to a waterhole and not far from the main camp. The hired men, currently taking turns at digging, liked the way he worked alongside them, rather than over them, as most taskmasters were wont to do. As more and more of their hired men were mauled in handling the cats captured so far, Simon Bar Simeon and his son had to take over more of the work. There had been no time to hire professionals, and even if there were time, such men were indeed scarce, most of them having been lured away by the Emperor's own expeditions. If only it would help meet the deadline, he thought. Only fifteen of them in six months! How would his father explain to the king that there weren't any more lions left in Syria?

  But at least the hard work helped relieve the ache in Jonas’s loins. He missed Sarai and the coolness of her flesh on a hot summer night--ah, it would be good to get home again. He made a few more savage chops with his at the rocklike desert earth to cool his rising passion. It happened to him each time he let his mind dwell on her for more than a moment. He put down his shovel and grabbed a water-skin, lifting it high with his muscular forearms, letting the water run over face and down into his tunic. After a few gulps to assuage his thirst, he put it down and began a last futile scan over the barren, sun-scorched landscape. It was a mystery to him how there could be any lions here in the first place. He'd give anything to see the Games, as they were called, but his father had always forbidden it. In all his twenty-one years he could not remember a life other this one, traveling through the various provinces of Empire, following the ever-diminishing big game. Imperial trapping stations of late had always arrived before his father’s outfit and had fairly well picked the places clean.

  In spite of never having seen the Games, he'd heard plenty from those who had. Lions and tigers were so difficult to come by these days that they were almost always an even better chance to win in the combats than the men who fought them. Imperial caravans were going all the way beyond the Indus River for tigers. Any magistrate in Rome putting on a show with these rare cats was sure to get himself re-elected.

  As Jonas started back to camp he noticed a column of dust on the Damascus road, heading for the camp. Couldn't be more supplies, he thought; we're scheduled to take what we have and head back to Judea in a few more days. The digging of this last pit was no more than a desperate move to try for at least one more lion of the few remaining. They would cover it over with sand and stake a goat on it, counting on luck.

  So far in this business Jonas had been lucky. His spare muscular frame was possessed of a remarkable agility. He had been mauled only once through carelessness and lightly scarred a few times in the process of changing water dishes in various cages. Still, his father the lucky one, having been torn in half almost a score of times and still not disabled at fifty-five years of age. At times he wished he had not inherited his mother's slight frame, preferring instead the titan like proportions of father. He had heard it said of him in his early boyhood by his father's friends that he had inherited his father’s strength, seemingly superimposed on his mother's small frame. It gave him a very muscular appearance that stood him in good stead with the marketplace girls in later years. Most respectable Jewish boys of his age were married already, but Jonas had had neither the time nor the inclination. To him a woman was merely a woman, whose only duties were to cook, wash and make clothes and, if young enough, to spread her legs once in a while. God and time would see to the continuation of the race.

  As the column of dust drew nearer. Jonas turned to study it. It was no caravan of supplies, he could see that. It was moving too fast and had a regular cadence about it. Soldiers! Roman soldiers! At least a century .... What would they be doing here? He broke into a run as he recognized Mrymex's heavy, squat form emerging out of the dust clouds, mounted on the lead horse.

  "Mrymexl" he shouted. "What in the name of the One God do you here?

  To Jonas, Mrymex was almost like a second father and had spent many an hour teaching the young trapper the rudiments of swordplay. He had found the young man a fast learner with a superabundance of agility. By the gods! Mrymex had thought, what a gladiator this one would have made! He had never voiced such an opinion; however, he had seen and learned enough in his time to know that such a life expectancy was short, even for a highly trained fighter. He would not wish that so
rt of life on anyone, let alone the son of an old friend. Jonas was too easily impressed with the life-and-death drama of the arena. Although Simon ruled his headstrong boy with an iron hand, he would have done well to let the boy see a few spectacles to get it out of his system.

  As Jonas jogged back to the oncoming column, he could tell from his friend's countenance that something was wrong, dreadfully wrong. The centurion's face was normally dour, but today there was more than a hint of mixed anger and sorrow in it.

  “Where’s your father, lad?" He wanted to break the news as soon as possible.

  “At the main camp," Jonas replied, "a little further up. What’s wrong, Mrymex? Trouble for us?"

  “Hah! You don't know yet what trouble is, younker. The king heard from a peddler last week that you've not got his quota for the Games."

  The coIumn had halted and now Mrymex bawled orders to get it moving again, signaling Drusus to keep it formed up. Jonas fell in besides, trying to get the grizzled centurion’s attention again.

  “But Mrymex, my father told the king when he was ordered up here that one hundred lions in six months was out of the question! A trapper would be hard put to gather that many even beyond the headwaters of the Nile!"

  “What’s to explain, boy? Herod is old and sick in the head. He'll believe any accusation against anyone."

  Mrymex looked down, seeing perplexity in Jonas's young face. He realized suddenly that Simon and the boy could not know that the peddler had accused them of making a side deal with Quirinius, the procurator of Syria, for seventy-five lions, and at a price far higher than Herod was to pay. By the time they reached the camp, Mrymex explained that anything touching Herod's relationship with the Emperor was considered by the "Fox," as the old king was known, to, be of the utmost importance. The failure of one hundred lions to reach Rome on a consignment from Herod would be viewed by the Emperor with slightly less disfavor than if he'd been told that Judea was in open revolt, so important had the wild beast shows become in Rome's present situation.