The priest turned and led them up to the room from which the window opened. All the weapons that could be found had been heaped there. Ballista and the men of war began to sort through them.
‘It should not be like this.’ The voice of the hypochrestes was plaintive. The youthful aide spoke to everyone and no one. ‘It is the fifth year, the year of the great festival. Athletes, musicians, singers, men from across the world – all should be coming to the Didymeia, coming in peace. Why has the god deserted us? Have we not offered enough wine and incense, enough hecatombs of shambly footed cattle? Why, despite our piety, has the god turned against us?’
‘Enough.’ The voice of the prophetes was firm. ‘Apollo has not deserted us. Just as at Troy in the ancient days, the gods are divided. Warlike Ares has brought this plague of Scythians. The Lord Apollo will not submit. He who rejoices in song will not abandon those who pray to him and offer him hymns with pure and open hearts.’
The young aide seemed close to tears. ‘How can that be? Are not Apollo and Ares but parts of the eternal, uncreated, undying Supreme God? Why would the timeless, immovable being…’
‘Enough!’ The prophetes was commanding. ‘Enough of Plato, and the prattling of his foolish followers; this is a time for true religion, antique religion unsullied by speculation. Ares guided the barbarians here; the Lord Apollo will crush them.’
Ballista had taken up a huge old shield. It had been set apart, some cobwebbed dedication from a forgotten time. He hid his smile behind it. The gods aside, multiple or singular, he knew what had brought the Goths here. Obviously, there was the well-founded rumour of wealth. The renegade Chrysogonus would have told them all about that. But there was something else, something much more specific and much sharper. Revenge and honour: the true soul of the north, the blood that bound together that unforgiving land. Ballista had killed Tharuaro to create a bloodfeud with the Tervingi. With the corpse still fresh, where he went the Tervingi would follow, and the Borani with them. Those two groups would be enough to sway the whole hansa of the Goths. He, Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, the man the Romans knew as Ballista, had brought Scythian Ares after him, like a dog tied to a cart. And only Maximus and himself knew it, and only they knew why. If the Goths were at Didyma, they were not at Priene. Ballista’s sons, his wife, old Calgacus – all would be safe.
Ballista noticed the silence. Both the prophetes and his aide were staring at him. He looked back blankly.
‘The shield,’ began the prophetes.
Ballista turned the ungainly thing. Leather and bronze; one of the straps had rotted and come away.
‘You know who carried that shield?’ The priest was strangely hesitant.
‘No.’
‘Euphorbus, the Trojan hero who first wounded Patroclus. In revenge, Menelaus killed him, and dedicated his shield here.’
‘It is very old.’
The prophetes gave him an odd look. ‘Euphorbus was reincarnated as the holy Pythagoras.’
‘Yes.’
‘The sage recognized his shield from his former life. Later, the soul passed to the diviner Hermotimas. He also pointed to the shield in your hands.’
Withdrawn into a corner, the aide was muttering, possibly a prayer.
Ballista laughed. ‘I doubt a Trojan hero, having been one of the seven sages, would choose to be reborn as a warrior from Germania.’
‘The gods choose,’ said the prophetes. Inconspicuously, his aide warded off evil, with his thumb between his first two fingers.
A shout rang out from somewhere above: fire – the Goths are here.
Ballista pointed to the nearer of the two staircases set in the side walls. A roof terrace, Selandros told him. Ballista led the dash. The stairwell doubled and redoubled back on itself, replicating the labyrinth pattern on its ceiling.
As they emerged into the bright light, a flock of sparrows took wing from a nearby roof. A thought, bird-like, fluttered just out of Ballista’s grasp. Sparrows, Didyma, a lesson in impiety… something like that. If they both lived, he would ask Hippothous. He was different, that Greek: a living encyclopaedia who enjoyed killing.
A knot of men in a jumble of ill-fitting archaic armour was looking to the north-west. Ballista followed their gaze. There were men moving around the gate through which he had ridden, lots of men. They surged in and out of the surrounding buildings. As Ballista watched, the first thin tendrils of smoke writhed upwards. The temple of Artemis, someone muttered. Others took up the words, some started praying. The smoke bodied out as the east wind tugged it away.
Sounds of commotion floated up from below, from the entrance of Apollo’s temple. A local, a man with an air of competence despite his ludicrous assemblage of outmoded armour, crossed the terrace and peered down. ‘Fuck,’ he said simply.
Ballista joined him. Figures were appearing from the front of the temple. They were brandishing makeshift weapons – scythes, flails; a few had swords. They were rushing around the corner of the podium, heading towards the fire. Ballista looked questioningly at the man next to him. ‘The stupid fuckers think to save the temple of Artemis,’ the man said.
For a moment Ballista was dumbfounded. ‘But the Goths will massacre them.’
‘Yes,’ said the man.
‘Heracles’ hairy arse,’ said Maximus. ‘You cannot save people from their own stupidity.’
‘No,’ agreed Ballista, ‘but we will have to try.’ Calling for Maximus, Hippothous and the four soldiers to follow, Ballista set off back down the stairs.
At the foot of the steps, Ballista turned towards the entrance. He slid to his arse, propelled himself down and through the great window, and ran through the avenue of columns.
A crowd jostled in his way. He shouted for them to move. They took no notice. He drew his sword and swung it. The flat of the heavy spatha hit a man on the side of the head. He fell. Ballista swung the sword again. A man struck on the shoulder reeled away. The crowd parted.
Reaching the entrance, Ballista turned. His men crushed in behind him. Ballista flashed the blade in a fast, complicated pattern. Its edge shone, evil in the light. The crowd drew back.
‘No one leaves the temple. All of you, go back to the adyton.’
Their courage deflated, the mob melted away.
‘What about the ones outside?’ Maximus asked.
‘They are fucked,’ said Ballista.
It took nearly two hours for the Goths to plunder their way to the temple of Apollo. Enough time for Ballista to improvise some sort of defence. A shieldwall of eight in the gap between the columns: Ballista himself, Maximus and six soldiers. Eight close-lapped shields, two levels of four, protecting them from missiles. One soldier up on each side of the roof, trying to ready the locals to hurl things down on to the attackers. Hippothous also on the roof, tasked with going wherever he might be needed.
Ballista studied what was in front of him. Fourteen steep steps. Beyond, a flat area of beaten earth across the front of the temple, maybe twenty paces deep. Just in front and to the right of the foot of the steps, a big cone of solidified ash held by a low circular walclass="underline" the main altar. There were other altars, statues and inscriptions dotted here and there, but not enough to give the Goths much cover. They would have to cross the open ground and then attempt the steps.
The waiting before combat was always hard. The soldiers were silent, their kit creaking as they shifted their weight. Maximus whistled tunelessly, then launched into a lengthy monologue about a girl he had had in Miletus. His tone was one of mock outrage that a girl would initiate such depravity, and him an innocent boy from a distant island. It was a good job he was broadminded and had excellent stamina.