Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [26]
The door burst open and Simeon turned to find himself facing a trio of armed adversaries stepping from the shadows.
'What business have you men within my house?' he asked without raising his voice. Yewhe ignored him, instead reaching behind the sackcloth curtain that separated the main room from a bedchamber to the right. He dragged Rebecca, spitting and kicking, from her hiding place behind the curtain and forced her to drop to the floor the scythe that she held in her hand.
`There shall be no good sport for you this day, my pretty,'
Yewhe said, kicking her viciously in the stomach and throwing her down.
Simeon flung himself at Yewhe but a blow to the side of his head from Benjamin sent Simeon sprawling to the ground beside his wife.
Benjamin stood over Simeon's prone body and drew back his foot. It impacted with the side of Simeon's head which juddered under the power of the blow. Benjamin did it again and this time, there was no movement at all from Basellas's brother.
`Simeon,' screamed Rebecca. She scrambled towards her husband, but Yewhe's arm around her throat dragged her backwards.
'Silence, you piteous and mewling sow,' he spat. 'So endeth the lesson, and so perish all of those who oppose the will of our leader, thy brother,' Yewhe continued as he withdrew a knife from his belt and slit the woman's throat in one casual movement before letting her slide from her knees to the floor. He turned to Benjamin and the third man, Dimodis, who were about to ransack the house. Yewhe grabbed the ear of his young fellow freedom-fighter and twisted it, causing Benjamin to cry out in pain and, like Rebecca, drop to his knees.
'What do you think we are, Benjamin?' asked Yewhe angrily as Dimodis looked on, terrified. 'Are we thieves? Do we covet what is within our neighbour's house?'
'No,' screamed Benjamin as the pressure on his skin tightened. `Stop it!'
Yewhe put his blood-soaked and razor-sharp knife to Benjamin's throat. 'Know you the substance of the ten commandments handed down to Moses from God?' asked Yehwe.
Benjamin didn't reply quickly enough and Yewhe moved the knife away and struck him, viciously, across the face with the back of his hand. 'What say you, Benjamin?'
`Yes,' the boy replied, as the knife returned to its threatening position. 'Yes. I know them all. For strong is my devotion to them.'
Yewhe released his tight grip. 'Tell them to me...'
Benjamin stared at him, open-mouthed. Another blow to the face brought a swift response. 'Take not the name of the Lord thy God in vein. Honour thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not...'
'Yes,' said Yewhe, quickly. 'Thou shalt not...’ He stopped and bid Benjamin rise up. Yewhe pointed to the two dead bodies on the floor next to each other. 'They did not observe the word of the Lord,' he said. 'And behold what sorry and infamous fate befell these wretched sinners.'
Benjamin looked, firstly, at the bodies of Simeon and Rebecca, and then at Dimodis. And finally at Yewhe, who had the madness of killing within his eyes.
`We do the Lord's work,' Benjamin said, flatly. 'And nothing else.'
`Good,' said Yehwe, heading for the door. ‘Let us return from whence we came and tell Matthew the good news of that which has been done here in his name.'
Meanwhile, within the market-place itself in the aftermath of the riot, Gaius Calaphilus and his tribunes, including Marcus Lanilla and Fabius Actium, and various ranking centurions, were surveying the carnage about them.
There was a furious, if mute, atmosphere about the Roman party as they stared at the bodies of their soldiers amongst the trampled remains of dead townspeople.
The Romans knew, of course, exactly who was responsible. A branch of the revolutionary Zealots, known as the sicarii, thèknife-men', had been using tactics just such as this for more than twenty years. They would mingle in a crowd on festival occasions