Quintus was aware that his comrades to either side were also fighting. Shouts, curses, cries of pain and the sound of iron striking iron rang in his ears. A man wielding an axe replaced the smith, swinging his weapon from on high down at Quintus’ head. It would have split Quintus’ helmet in two, and with it his skull, but he met the blow with his shield. Pain lanced up his left arm from the massive impact; there was a sound of splintering wood; Quintus ignored both. He looked around the side of his shield and thrust his sword deep into the man’s armpit. The axeman was dead — the large blood vessels in his chest sliced to ribbons — before Quintus pulled it free. Mouth agape, pink froth bubbling from his lips, he collapsed on top of the smith. He left the axe buried in Quintus’ scutum.
By some small twist of fate, the hastati had pushed forward a few steps. There was no one immediately facing Quintus. Bellowing at his comrades to close up the line, he fell back a little and, having no earth to stick his sword into, used a body. Upright and by his side, he could grab it if needs be, whereas sheathing it could prove fatal. A moment or two of sweating, and he had freed the axe from his scutum. The shield was ruined, but it would suffice until the battle was over.
The slaughter, he corrected himself.
Urceus had just slain Simmias. Most of Simmias’ followers had vanished from sight, either slain or injured. The remainder of the townsmen were not warriors. Dismayed, they turned and tried to flee. Except there was nowhere to go, other than the centre of the agora. They were trapped like a shoal of tuna in a fisherman’s net. The hastati pursued them with fierce, eager cries. Quintus moved to join them before his heart stopped pounding and reason came back into the equation. There was no avoiding what had to be done now.
Thersites! his conscience shouted. He is here! A modicum of sense returned, yet there was nothing he could do. No way to stop the madness, no way to find Thersites and bring him to safety.
Afterwards, Quintus would recognise the time that followed as his most horrendous experience since joining the army. Among his comrades and the other legionaries, all sanity had been lost. What mattered was to kill, something that they were expert at. In an enclosed space against unarmed victims, their skill was terrible to behold. When it was done, the only living beings would be Romans. Shorn of everyone who could fight, the townsmen shoved and scrabbled to get away from the legionaries’ hungry blades. They punched and kicked at one another, trampled the weakest underfoot and called on their gods for help. None of it made any difference. Quintus, his comrades and the rest of the garrison closed in, a lethal cordon of curved wood and sharp metal.
Punched from behind by shields, the townsmen sprawled forward, easy targets to stab in the back. Any that hadn’t been mortally injured could be stamped on or run through again as the legionaries pressed on. Those few who turned to face the hastati fared no better. They died pleading, shouting that they were loyal subjects of Rome, that they had wives and children. Pierced through the chest, the belly, the neck; losing arms, legs and sometimes heads. Blood showered the air, misted over the living and slain alike. Soon the legionaries’ right arms were red to the elbow, their faces daubed in crimson, their shield designs obscured by a glistening, scarlet coating. At one point, Quintus tried to wriggle the numbed fingers of his sword hand and found he couldn’t, thanks to the gluey layer of blood that coated his entire fist. He shrugged and continued killing. His comrades were also beyond noticing their appearance, beyond caring if they had seen. Any person who came within reach of their blades was fair game.
When the slaying in the agora was done, the hastati ran down the nearest streets, yipping like wild dogs. The officers did not stop them; indeed some gave encouraging waves. Quintus was about to follow, his intention to participate as well. Then, at close range, he saw two hastati run a boy of no more than ten through, over and over. The boy shrieked and wailed, twisted and spun in his efforts to get away. All the while, he bled and bled, like a stuck pig. Quintus stopped in his tracks, aghast with horror. Thersites was dead — he had to be by now — but what about his daughters? Quintus’ mind began to spin. It was bad enough that the innkeeper had perished. He could not leave Thersites’ innocent daughters to their fate as well. Dropping his cracked shield, he ran alone in the direction of the Harvest Moon.
The carnage was spreading fast through Enna. Every street, every alley rang with the sound of doors being kicked in and the inhabitants’ screams and pleas for mercy, which were all too often suddenly cut short. Mutilated bodies lay everywhere in the dirt: a slave with a spilled basket of bread and vegetables; an old cripple with a makeshift crutch; a small girl who still clutched a doll in one hand — ordinary people who had been going about their business when death arrived. Quintus saw a matron of his mother’s age being pursued from her house by four legionaries. They caught her and ripped off her dress. Then, laughing, they urged her to run naked. When she would not, they slapped her with the flat of their sword blades until she did. Quintus averted his gaze and ran on, praying that the matron had a swift end, though he knew that was not what the legionaries intended for her. A few steps on, new horror confronted him. A woman of about Aurelia’s age threw herself from the top of a three-storey building rather than be caught by a group of jeering hastati. After she’d broken her neck on the street below, they leaned out of the window and called down to Quintus: ‘You can screw her first!’ Nauseous, he didn’t answer; instead, he put his head down and began to sprint.
As he reached the Harvest Moon, however, his heart sank. The door was ajar, and from within came the sound of smashing pottery and screaming. Quintus wished that Urceus were with him, but he was alone. Time for a deep breath, a moment of calm. He needed to take great care if he wasn’t to end up oozing his lifeblood on to the inn’s floor, as so many innocents were bleeding throughout the town. Pillaging soldiers did not much care whom they killed. Watch over me, great Mars, he prayed. With a tight grip on his gladius, he entered.
Only a couple of lamps were burning within. The room appeared empty, but Quintus did not let down his guard. Within a few steps, he came upon one of Thersites’ daughters, on her back in front of the bar. Just beyond the slack fingers of one hand lay a rusty hammer. The floor around her was slick with blood. On tiptoe, Quintus approached. The girl was younger than Aurelia. He peered, gagged. Her throat had been cut. At least she had died before her assailants had had time to violate her, he thought.
The same didn’t apply to Thersites’ other daughter, assuming that it was she who was screaming. The thin, distressing sound was coming from behind the bar. He stepped over the eldest girl’s body, feeling sick at what he was about to discover. She wasn’t in the first chamber — the storeroom — which was filled with laughing hastati. Some were moving along the racks, smashing the necks off amphorae and sticking their open mouths beneath the tide of wine that flowed as a result. There was far too much for them to swallow; they were soon drenched in it, which seemed to amuse them even more. No one even noticed Quintus. He moved silently on to the second room. From the hanging pots and pans, oven and workbench, it appeared to be the inn’s kitchen. At the far end, several more hastati stood over the bare arse of one of their fellows. Underneath him, Quintus could see a girl’s legs.
Steeling himself to spill Roman blood, he stole forward, placing his feet down softly so that his hobs didn’t give him away.
‘You stupid bitch! This for your trouble!’ snarled the soldier on the floor. There was a soft, choking sound, such as someone makes when their throat fills with blood, and Quintus knew with a horrible certainty that he had come too late.