Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [27]
And now they were amok in Byzantium. A chilling thought.
Things like this were not supposed to happen to Roman soldiers. Anywhere, but least of all in a free city.
One stiff-backed and regal-looking centurion, walking amongst the dead and the dying, turned over the fallen corpse of a crimson-clad soldier and, upon seeing who it was, let out a wail of despair, turning to his colleagues with a disbelieving look on his face. 'Sergeant Gatalius,' he shouted angrily. 'Dead and accounted for. Tell the surgeons they will not be needed here, this day.'
`What a sad and sorry mess,' Calaphilus said at last. Then he let his subordinates know, in no uncertain terms, that he blamed the praefectus's weakness for the catastrophe. `lf that indolent full-ofhimself clown in the Villa Praefectus would have allowed me to deal with these Jews in a right and proper manner, we could have stamped on these maggot-ridden scum and squashed them flat beneath our feet like slithering things. Instead we watch mute and bewildered as they waste the lives of a generation of Romans. I will not allow this to happen again.' He paused and shook his head at the silence around him 'I want the Zealots infiltrated, weeded out, dragged from their homes, publicly tried and shamed as an example to all others and then executed whilst they beg for mercy. What say you? Does any man here have reasons why this should not be done?'
Again, there was silence until Marcus Lanilla loudly proclaimed, 'We all stand behind you with our swords at the ready, general.'
Gaius gave his tribune a withering look of contempt and turned his back on him, as if offering the young officer a first stab. ‘Mark you well,' he told the rest, 'this day has seen the beginning of the end for organised resistance to the might of Rome. The subhuman things whose acts of wanton violence and mayhem have produced this sight. abhorrent in our eyes, shall rue the day that they sought to usurp the power of the empire. Let an awesome vengeance begin.’
He climbed onto his horse and was through the market gates and riding back to the barracks with a flank of the guards before anyone could speak.
`You heard the general,' shouted an eager junior tribune.
'He wishes vigilante justice upon these dogs. Let us start with the burning of a few Jewish homes and see if that loosens their tongues as to the whereabouts of Basellas.'
As most of the soldiers left, Lanilla and Fabius stood to one side, by the towering steps of the temple, looking at the littered market-place with undisguised glee.
Ànother stitch in Thalius Maximus's funeral shroud, I should have said,' noted Marcus eagerly.
Òf that there is little doubt,' Fabius added. `Calaphilus has a few uses and one of them is the way in which he will report this outrage to Rome. We have a state of martial law declared without the praefectus's knowledge or permission.
In my opinion, I should be surprised if Thalius survives with his reputation any higher than a snake's gut.'
Marcus clearly agreed. His laughter filled the almost-deserted market-place and caused the few of the Roman soldiers still involved in the clearing up of the bodies to look at him sharply. And then to quickly turn away when they realised who it was that was laughing. 'But the old man is losing his grip. He thinks that Byzantium needs no one save him. He is wrong.'
Just as they too, were about to leave, a captain leading the body-clearance detail strode across the square and informed the two tribunes that one of those presumed dead was actually still alive.
'He looks Roman,' said the captain, turning Ian Chesterton's bloodied face towards them.
EPISODE TWO
FOUR SIDES TO THE CIRCLE
Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.
Mark 12:17
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