cry and a vicious diagonal cut down to the neck. Ballista raised his shield. Respa fluidly lowered his stroke. Ballista got his shield down just in time to prevent his left ankle being severed. Even as the wood splintered and the impact ran up to his left shoulder, Ballista struck overhand, a short-edge thrust to the face. Respa caught it on the rim of his shield, forcing Ballista’s sword arm up and wide. Like a steel serpent seeking hot blood, the Goth’s blade flickered across at Ballista’s exposed right arm. A lifetime of training saved Ballista. Without conscious thought, he brought his shield up, round and forward, crunching into Respa, trapping the reiks ’s blade between the linden boards and his own chest. For an instant their faces were together, their breath mingling. Ballista ducked, heaved; his knees bent, he shoved the Goth backwards. Panting, a little apart, both gathered themselves. The whole exchange had taken no more than two seconds.
The Goth who had gone for Maximus was down, moaning in pain. His companions grabbed his feet, dragged him clear. He left a bright smear of blood on the marble flagstone. Another took his place.
‘Give my regards to your brother,’ goaded Ballista.
Bellowing incoherently, Respa hurled himself forward, swinging a mighty overhand cut. Ballista did not flinch. Somehow he kept his nerve. Eyes on the sword, the heavy steel slicing down towards the top of his skull. At the last instant, Ballista stepped to his left, bringing his shield up and across. The metal shieldboss buckled with the blow. It almost forced Ballista to his knees. But he twisted, got his shoulder behind his shield, his whole body weight. Twisting and pushing, he drove his assailant’s sword off to the right, exposing the Goth’s unguarded side. There was nothing for Respa to do now but die.
With all his strength, Ballista thrust, low and underhand. There was momentary resistance, then the sharp cracks as metal rings snapped, and the wicked tip of the blade was sliding through soft tissue.
Respa screamed. His spatha rang on the stones. Ballista turned the blade, once, twice. The blood splashed hot on his arm. Locked in a ghastly, intimate embrace, Ballista glanced over the shoulder of the dying man. None of the Goths had a clear strike. Bracing with his shield, Ballista withdrew his blade, and pushed Respa away.
The big reiks tottered back. He dropped his shield. His hands went to the rent in his mail shirt; a futile attempt to staunch the blood. The gore pulsed down the Goth’s legs, puddled by his boots.
A frozen moment, and then Respa fell backwards down the steps. The man behind tried to catch him. He was knocked down. A third Goth was swept down in the tangle.
The warrior facing Maximus was stepping back. His shield was hacked, his face horror struck.
Now the men on the roof were doing their duty. Tiles, stones, scraps of metal were raining down on the steps. Sharp shards and splinters sang through the air. The Goths had their shields up, trying to cover their fallen leader, themselves. They began to pull back, dragging their dead and injured.
‘ Testudo! ’ yelled Ballista. He and Maximus stepped back, as the six soldiers locked their shields across the entrance.
‘Are you all right?’ Ballista asked.
‘Never better,’ said Maximus. ‘I am – what was it you once called me?’
‘Demented?’
‘No – I have it – hideously exultant.’
‘Not usually a good thing.’
‘Certain, it is for me.’ Maximus roared, ‘I am hideously exultant!’
The soldiers laughed.
Ballista peered through the shields. The Goths had drawn back out of sight. The steps were covered with debris. An idea occurred to Ballista. He looked around, unconsciously flicking the blood in a spray off his blade. Selandros was close. The prophetes looked queasy.
‘Selandros, get some people breaking up rocks – small, no bigger than a fist.’
The priest looked back, uncomprehending.
‘I want them scattered on the steps. Make the footing as treacherous as possible. I should have thought of it before,’ Ballista added reflectively.
Selandros nodded, but did not move.
‘The Goths are not skilled at sieges,’ Ballista continued. ‘With food and water, we can sit it out in here indefinitely.’
The priest looked unhappy.
‘What?’ Ballista asked.
Still Selandros did not speak.
‘You did get food in? The sacred spring will give us water.’
‘There is food, and a few barrels of water.’ The prophetes stopped, obviously uncertain what to say next.
‘The spring?’
Selandros cleared his throat. ‘The waters of Mykale have ceased to flow.’
Now it was Ballista who stared, uncomprehending. The mountain range of Mykale was, at a guess, a good twenty miles away. Priene and his familia were there.
‘The divine water from Mount Mykale flows under the plain and the sea, to rise here at Apollo’s holy place. Or it did. The spring has been dry for some years.’
XII
Ballista sat in the shade at the top of the high steps and looked down on the walled square of the temple of Apollo at Didyma. He moved the pebble in his mouth from one cheek to the other. The pall of dust made it hard to see across the adyton. The bright sunshine turned the fug a dirty yellow, rendered it opaque. The little inner sanctum at the far end was almost totally obscured. There was no wind. Trapped, great waves of dust slowly coiled back from the high outer walls of the sanctuary. Ballista knew the men with picks and shovels down on the ground would be finding it hard to breathe. It could not be helped; they were only slaves.
It was hot. Everyone was tortured with thirst. Despite careful rationing, the few barrels of water had run out two days after the Gothic attack. That had been the day before. They were still encircled by the Goths. No one could go outside. No one had drunk anything for more than twenty-four hours.
Ballista had been wrong in his assumption that the waters rose in the inner sanctum. The sacred spring had been just outside its doors. As soon as he had been given the news about its failure, he had got the temple slaves to work digging down to clear the channels, discover where the water had gone. So far, the Sacred Boys had found nothing.
Ballista shifted the pebble with his tongue. He was unsure if it did any good, but he could not tell how thirsty he would have felt without it. The tip had come from Mamurra, years earlier. Mamurra had been an old hand on the eastern frontier. Every time he came into Ballista’s mind, there was the guilt. Mamurra, the good friend he had left to die, entombed alive in Arete.
Just as certainly as Mamurra had been trapped in the siege tunnel, so now they were all trapped in this temple. Ballista wondered if the messenger he had sent from Priene had got through and, if so, had Maximillianus, the governor, acted on it. If not, they were all doomed. The Goths need only wait for thirst to drive them out – and they would have to wait no time at all. For distraction, Ballista asked Hippothous about the sparrows of Didyma.
In a husky voice, Hippothous told the story. The Lydian rebel Pactyes had fled to the Greek polis of Cyme. The Persian king demanded he be surrendered. The Cymeans had asked the oracle here at Didyma what to do. Apollo had said to hand him over. Giving up a suppliant had seemed wrong to the men of Cyme. They had sent a second embassy to Didyma. It received the same answer. Now, on the embassy was a man of wisdom; Aristodicus was his name. He took a long stick and with it he went around the sanctuary knocking down all the sparrows’ nests he could reach.
Ballista looked up at the towering walls. It must have been a very long stick.
As Aristodicus was about this, Apollo himself spoke in the adyton . How dare this man drive these suppliants from the temple? Aristodicus was not stuck for a reply. How could Apollo defend his suppliants but order the Cymeans to give up theirs? The god replied it was to hasten the impiety of Cyme and bring on its destruction; to
