Suddenly, Ballista could breathe. With his sword hand, he tore away the material from in front of his eyes. The Goth was being hauled away by his companions. Ballista was tottering back, a hand on his shoulder guiding him, his legs all unsteady. Someone supporting him, as he gasped for air.
Seven or eight paces of trampled ground. Broken shields, a discarded sword, incongruously beautiful. Three ugly, trampled bodies. The Goths hefting their shields, steadying their line. The saffron standard snapping in the wind.
As if complicit in some unspoken rule, both sides stood, getting their breath back. It was quiet here; the noise of battle distant, oddly irrelevant.
Seven or eight paces. Ballista knew he could not cross that terrible space. There was no breaking these Goths. The Norns had led him to this place. He thrust the tip of his sword down into the ground, leant on the guard.
‘Fuckers,’ shouted Maximus. ‘Arse-fucking cunts.’
Screened by his sworn companions, the big reiks threw back his white furs, lifted his hands to the skies. ‘War-loving Teiws, thundering Fairguneis!’ He called the gods of his people, offered his enemies to them. Deep in their chests, the Goths began the barritus.
‘Vandrad!’ Maximus was shouting. Diocles and others joined in. ‘Vandrad! Vandrad!’
Ballista felt his spirit lift. Heart and courage. Wyrd will often spare an undoomed man, if his courage is good.
Ballista found himself yelling with the others. ‘Vandrad!’ He pulled his sword from the ground, raised his shield. In time with the swelling chant, he beat the flat of his blade on his shield-boss. ‘Van-drad! Van-drad!’
The barritus opposite faltered. A tremor ran through the comitatus. Goths were looking over their shoulders, shouting incomprehensible things in alarm.
‘Warhedge!’ The hearth-troop was quick to obey. They shuffled to ring their reiks with shields. Already it was too late. A solid mass of warriors was surging back out from the town gate. Like a river in spate, it hit the half-formed circle of shields. Men were swept away from the rear of the comitatus. The flood rushed at those at the foot of the saffron standard. Their solid ranks checked it for a moment. Above the turmoil the proud banner swayed, eddied, looked to fall. The reiks held it aloft in one hand. With the other he pointed across at Ballista. The Tervingi chief was shouting, his words lost in the inhuman din of the rout.
Nothing human could withstand the torrent. The comitatus began to break up. Warriors disappeared beneath the stampede, their courage to no avail against the trampling feet. The saffron standard was borne away, bobbing like flotsam, glimpses of snowy-white fur beneath it.
‘Shieldwall. Brace yourselves.’ Ballista locked shields with Maximus and Diocles, thrust his blade out.
The tide of humanity veered away, fanned out over the plateau. The seven paces of trodden earth were transformed from a place of terror to a gods-given thing of safety, an invisible rampart. Ballista drew a ragged breath. His left leg hurt. There was blood on the hilt of his sword.
Beyond the rout, dreamlike through the dust and smoke, Ballista saw the last ladder topple away from the wall.
The tide of running men ebbed. The gate was blocked. The Goths’ numbers were telling against them in that narrow space. Tripping and falling, they were clambering over their own. Maddened by fear and the proximity of safety, they turned their blades on each other.
As Ballista watched, a small group ruthlessly hacked their way through the human logjam. Again the horde spilled out. Now among them were men on horses, long blades slashing down. At their head was a slight figure in a Roman helmet. Like some vengeful daemon, indefatigable and awful, Castricius cut down the defenceless Goths.
Again Ballista leant on the crosspiece of his sword. It had worked. Pelted with missiles from the roofs, disordered and wedged in the confined street, the Goths had been unable to stand the charge of armed men on horseback. The battle was won. Ballista knew he should be exultant, but all he felt was weary.
Part Two
X
The Hypanis River
When the little boats paddled out on to the Hypanis river, Amantius the eunuch was surprised at his own reluctance to leave Olbia. He had felt no particular affection for the decrepit, backwater polis while staying there, and it had nearly been the scene of his death. If the barbarians had stormed the town, he had no doubt the ruins of Olbia would have proved his tomb. Apparently, they had come within a hand’s breadth.
Amantius had seen nothing of the battle. When the Goths had arrived he had rushed to the lodgings of Zeno. The imperial ambassador was not to be found. His two slaves had gone as well. Scattered possessions testified to the hasty evacuation. Amantius’s courage had failed. With his boy, he had fled through the narrow streets of the acropolis to the small temple of Hygeia. There he had kept vigil — through the day, the long night and the following interminable day — praying incessantly to the daughter of Asclepius. The close confines of the temple had been crowded. Women and children had moved and muttered in the incense-laden gloom; at times, they wailed. As far as they could, the women had kept apart from Amantius. They had scolded the children away from the eunuch; away from the exotic thing of ill omen.
The goddess was indistinct. Only her extremities were visible. Apart from face, hands and feet, she was festooned with dedications; swathes of material, and innumerable tresses of women’s hair. For his safety, Amantius had offered her his precious things: his scarlet cloak of Babylonian silk, his golden rings, the ones set with sapphires and garnets.
The goddess may have been half hidden in the dark, but the Most High Mother had heard his prayers. Against all probability, the Goths had been routed. The pious saw the hand of a deity in it.
Many Goths had been killed. The gatehouse was littered with them. Several dozen, unable to escape that killing ground, had been captured. Somehow, Montanus, the strategos, had managed to cool the bloodlust of his fellow townsmen. After the initial euphoria of revenge, the corpses had not been further desecrated, and the remaining captives had not been butchered. They had been deployed in the negotiations which the first archon, Callistratus, had held with the Goths. For the return of both the living and the dead, and a substantial treasure as bloodprice for the latter, the barbarians had agreed to leave. They had not just departed but sworn great oaths to their unpronounceable gods not to return. Unless the annual tribute, now set at a substantially higher rate, was not forthcoming, the Tervingi would never again bear arms against the walls of Olbia. If they did, let the sky fall on their heads.
Even if they had set the payment at a rate that the Olbians could not meet — and Amantius strongly suspected that was the case- the point was that the Goths would not return for at least a year. Until next spring, Olbia was the safest place to be found in the wastes of barbaricum north of the Euxine. It seemed foolish to leave.
To someone thoughtful, such as Amantius, there was more to it than just that: the implications ran deeper. Neither Ballista nor any member of the imperial embassy had taken any part in the negotiations. They had remained out of sight, and Callistratus said he had avoided all mention of them. Amantius did not know if the barbarians were aware of their presence. But, as they were recounted, it was evident that the oaths taken by the Goths only covered the city of Olbia. They did not preclude anything against those outside the walls, let alone anyone unwise enough to venture deep into the country along the rivers. The Tervingi could do what they liked to such improvident voyagers, with no fear that their angry gods would bring the sky down upon their heads.