Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [85]
History that made people want to go out and create history of their own.
That thought cheered Barbara as much as her love of irking the purists always did.
Barbara turned, and started to make her way through the crowd full of a bewildering variety of races, with half a tear struggling for release. She fought to keep it inside herself and seemed to be winning the fight when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She spun around quickly and found herself facing a Jewish couple, both of whom she was absolutely certain that she had never met before.
'Hello,' she said, trying to smile in a please don't kill me way. 'I'm sorry, do we know each other?'
The couple looked at one other for a moment and then returned the smile to Barbara. 'We have not been introduced, but we were within the temple when rabbi Hieronymous saved you from our madness during Taanith,’ said the man in a friendly and cordial manner. 'We simply wished to apologise to you for this occurrence.’
'Oh,' said Barbara with a mixture of relief and surprise. `That's all right, I imagine most people were very scared at that time, what with the terrible events in this square and everything.’
The man nodded. 'My mother named me Elisha, so that all the world would know it. And this is my wife, Rebecca.'
Ì'm Barbara,’ said Barbara, before she remembered that she had introduced herself to Hieronymous at the temple.
`Yes, said Rebecca. 'Your fame has gone before thee.’
`Really?' Barbara replied, cautiously Ì wasn't aware of that.'
Elisha laughed, reassuringly. 'Every Jewish man, woman and child in Byzantium knows of you. Hieronymous has blessed thee with his protection, Barbara Wright. You are in an enviable position.’
Barbara wasn't certain whether her position was really that enviable but at least this indicated to her that Hieronymous's influence was continuing to act in her favour. She thanked the couple with a simple blessing from the Torah and hurried away from their slightly unnerving, simultaneous smiles.
'I have heard it said of me that I am one who takes the responsibility of torturing a man under my command, even unto death, either lightly or casually.'
General Gaius Calaphilus picked up a lethal-looking flagellum, a wooden-handled whip with several thongs of leather, each weighted with metal balls to make the scourging of prisoners more painful and effective. Gaius swished the instrument through the air where it gave a satisfying rush of noise. 'Requirements and circumstances make such an abhorrence to me a necessity,' the general told Edius Flavia. 'But I want you to know, before I flay you to a bloodied pulp, that this need not be. Not so as to assuage my own conscience, you must understand, for I have none where you are concerned, tribune. But, rather, to save you from your own blind stupidity.’
Despite a reputation that sometimes suggested otherwise, Gaius Calaphilus was neither a cruel nor an unnecessarily violent man It was true that, under him, the lower ranks were regularly beaten, but no more so than under any other Roman general, and considerably less than many. Executions among Calaphilus's legions, too, were far less common than in those of his numerous contemporaries. Gaius Calaphilus only used force against Roman soldiers when he considered that there was no alternative. He flogged the odd man, here and there, and even the odd legion, as an example to others to do what they were told and do it