Symeon chuckled. 'Which is why you're an accomplished soldier, and not a diplomat.'

'And thank fuck for that.' Macro raised his glass. 'Sooner an honest fighter than a man who fights honesty any day.'

Symeon clapped his hands. 'An aphorism is born!'

'I spoke to Bannus today,' Cato blurted out.

The others stopped smiling and turned to stare at him. Macro recovered first.'What the hell did you do that for? You want to get us thrown back in that bloody cell?'

'No.'

'Well then.' Macro shook his head in exasperation. 'Why did you do it?'

'I tried to persuade him to hand over Yusef.'

'He said no, I take it.'

'He said that, and more.' Cato's eyes turned to Symeon. 'Bannus told me I should ask you what happened to Jehoshua, at the end.'

Symeon breathed in deeply and looked down into the dark red liquid in his glass. There was a long silence, in which Macro attracted Cato's attention and raised his eyebrows. Cato gestured to him to be patient. At length Symeon spoke.

'I'll tell you what happened, then you'll understand why there is now only a deep hatred between Bannus and myself. You already know that we were both followers of Jehoshua, but in those days we were also friends.The best of friends, like brothers really.There was a third friend, but I'll tell you about him in a minute.We joined the movement because Jehoshua held out the promise of freeing Judaea. As he drew more and more people to follow him some began to say he was the mashiah. He ignored them at first, but after a while he seemed to become attracted to the idea. I confess, I encouraged him in this. I am ashamed of it now, given what happened. Anyway, the prophecy of the mashiah is quite specific. He must liberate Jerusalem, assume the throne of David and lead Judaea to victory over the rest of the world.'

'That's a tall order,' Macro said quietly.

'Quite.' Symeon smiled faintly, and continued. 'So, with several thousand of our followers behind us, we set out for Jerusalem. It began well enough.The streets were lined with people who greeted us hysterically and showered blessings on Jehoshua.We managed to take over the precincts of the Great Temple. Jehoshua ordered that the moneylenders and the tax collectors be kicked out of the temple and their records destroyed.You can imagine how well that went down with the poor amongst his followers.Then we took over the armoury of the temple guards. At first we were carried away with the elation of it all. All that remained was to confront the Sanhedrin, persuade them to come over to our side and rise up against the Roman garrison.'

'What were they doing about it?' Macro interrupted. 'The garrison? Surely they would have intervened the moment you took over the temple?'

'They shut themselves up in Herod's palace. At the time the tensions between my people and the Roman officials were at breaking point. There had been riots a few years earlier, and the procurator did not want to risk inflaming the situation again. So they did nothing.'

Macro sat back with a look of disgust. 'I'd have sorted you lot out in short order.'

'I imagine you would. But you are not Pilate. Anyway, the Sanhedrin refused to come over to us. You have to understand that the high priests were drawn from the richest, most powerful families, and Jehoshua believed that Judaeans had to be freed from poverty and exploitation as much as from Roman tyranny. He had assumed that the Sanhedrin would place their nation before their purses, and was thrown aback by their refusal to cooperate.That's when he lost it. Suddenly, he said that we could not win by force of arms. We must win the argument. We must win the battle for the hearts and minds of our enemies.'

'Hearts and minds.' Macro laughed. 'Where have I heard that one before? Shit, when will people ever learn… Sorry, please go on.'

'Thank you.' Symeon frowned before he continued. 'When we heard him utter this new line, we were horrified. Bannus and I met in secret, and decided he had to go. The movement needed a more resolute leader or there would be no revolt. No new kingdom of Judaea. So we decided to betray Jehoshua. Hand him over to the authorities. They would surely execute him and we would have a martyr, as well as a new leader.'

'Who?' Cato asked. 'You or Bannus?'

'Me. Bannus would be my lieutenant.'

'Some friends you turned out to be,' said Macro.'With friends like you and Bannus what need had Jehoshua of enemies?'

'You don't understand, Prefect,' Symeon replied intensely. 'We loved Jehoshua. We all did. But we loved Judaea more. We had to save our people. What is the life of one man, however much he is loved, when weighed against the fate of an entire nation?' He paused and sipped from his glass. 'So we prepared a message, telling the authorities where they could find Jehoshua. There was only one man close to us whom we could trust to deliver the message, the third friend in our circle that I told you of earlier. His name was Judas. Even so, we did not dare to tell him what was in the message. So Judas took the message to the Sanhedrin. Jehoshua was arrested, tried, tortured and executed. His followers were stunned. Too stunned to react to events. Before the day was out the Roman troops were on the streets arresting the ringleaders and disarming and dispersing their followers. I managed to escape, with Bannus, through the sewers. Once we got out of Jerusalem we split up. He went north to continue the struggle. I went south, to Petra. For a while I was desolated, too ashamed of what we did, to care about anything. But slowly, I built a new life for myself and began to travel, to rebuild my connections with the surviving members of the movement, like Miriam. I did not realise at first that I had changed. I had been young and inexperienced and had never seen a battle in those days. To think that I ever believed we could beat the legions!' He shook his head. 'The romance of great causes and the folly of youth just leads to death. Eventually I came to realise that Jehoshua had been right in the end; we could not defeat Rome with swords, only with words, with ideas. Bannus never accepted that.'

'And Judas?' Cato asked. 'What became of him?'

Symeon bowed his head in shame. 'As soon as he realised what had been contained in the message, he hanged himself.' Symeon's voice trembled. 'I've never been able to forgive myself for that…So now you know my story.' Abruptly, he rose from his couch, bowed his head and quickly walked back into his house.

Macro watched him go, then turned to Cato with a pitying expression. 'This place is one endless bloody tragedy.The sooner we finish the job and get out of here the better. I've had enough of it. I'm sick of them. All of them.'

Cato did not reply. He was thinking of Yusef. Now he was more determined than ever that the boy must be rescued from Bannus and returned to Miriam. Only then could that small fragment of the cycle of destruction and despair be broken.

The messenger came early in the morning. Macro and Cato were eating a breakfast of figs and goats' milk when Symeon emerged from the house with a smile.'The King has agreed to hand Bannus over to us. The Parthian prince will be returned to his kingdom. Soldiers are already on the way to the house where Bannus and his friends are staying, with orders to arrest them.'

Cato felt a lightness in his chest. 'Then it's over.'

'Yes.' Symeon smiled. 'It's over, and there will be some peace in Judaea, for now. The King has asked that we come to the palace to formally conclude matters, as soon as we receive the message.'

Macro jumped up, rubbing the sticky remains of his meal on the folds of his tunic. He beamed. 'Well? What are we waiting for?'

They were shown into the chamberlain's hall once again, and this time provided with chairs. A few clerks and officials sat with them, waiting for the chamberlain and the King to appear. For a while Macro sat contentedly, then he became slowly irritated by the growing delay and started tapping his foot, the sound echoing faintly off the walls, until Symeon reached over and held his knee still.