Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [3]
`Very good, sir,' said the captain disinterestedly, turning to the closest legionnaire and barking a command to carry out the centurion's order. The legionnaire, Marinus Topignius, picked up his short pilunz lance and, without ceremony, speared Jacob bar Samuel through the ribs like a hot knife sinking into butter. The victim's eyes bulged open fully and a final choking cry of pain and a prayer for vengeance from beyond the grave escaped his lips. And then his guts spilled onto the parched earth beneath him and he was dead.
'Agitators and terrorists. This land is full to bursting with such as they,' snapped Crispianus Dolavia bitterly, taking a mouthful of wine from his flask. He swilled it around his dry mouth and spat the wine onto the ground. 'If not the Zealot Jews that wickedly defy us, then it is the Greeks. And if not them, then the Macedonians, or the Samarians... A plethora of petty and vicious races who do not have the capacity to realise when they are well off. We bring them peace, bread, prosperity and a place in the empire and what do they present to us for our gifts in return?' He paused and gazed at the crucified man who was now being wrenched from the execution place by Marinus and his legionnaire brothers.
'Wonder you why these flea-ridden wretches seem so content to die for such a ridiculous cause, Captain?'
'Cause, sir?' asked the captain. 'He was just a thief...’
' Not the condemned, specifically,' the centurion replied, wearily. 'I mean, generally?'
The captain, Drusus Felinistius, shrugged. 'I am but a mere soldier, sir, and as a consequence of this, not paid to think.’
Crispianus Dolavia shook his head. 'Bury his bones, captain. Bury them deep and salt the earth.' He watched as the thief's broken body was thrown into a dirt pit at the side of the hill. One of the legionnaires began to shovel the blood away from the base of the stauros pole, but the centurion called for him to stop. 'There is no time for that now, soldier,'
he said miserably. 'We have another three of these troublesome scum to exterminate before sunfall.’
By all of the gods in the heavens, Crispianus Doiavia hated Byzantium.
Chapter Two
There Are Seven Levels
How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God!
Mark 10:23
All of the civilian executions have been carried forth this day.'
Tribune Marcus Lanilla sat without being asked in the general's quarters and wore the look of someone who took great satisfaction in a job well done.
'Were there any incidents to report?'
'None to speak of,' Marcus told his superior, a smug and thoroughly-pleased-with-himself expression on his rounded and handsome face. 'Of course, I personally did not expect that there would be.’
General Gaius Calaphilus was not a man who took that kind of implied rebuke lightly. Not that Lanilla had actually said anything that could be construed as insubordination or misconduct. But both of the men were astute enough to know sarcasm when it presented itself. Calaphilus's eyes blazed beneath his battle-scarred, furrowed brow, topped with a thinning mat of grey hair. 'When you have been in as many occupied territories of the empire as I have, boy, you might be in a position to question my authority. Be that understood?'
The young tribune blanched at the general's reply for a moment, but Marcus Lanilla quickly recovered his composure. Far too quickly for Calaphilus's liking.
Once upon a time Gaius Calaphilus could have terrified the act. of Marcus with a mere glance, such was his reputation for swift, decisive and majestic retribution on those subordinates who tried his patience and questioned his authority.
But Marcus had the arrogance