Ballista and Isangrim clasped hands, clawed to their feet. They could see Maximus’s back vanishing into the gateway. High on the pediment above the Hibernian’s head, the statues of Augustus and the first imperial dynasty shifted and moved – a sinister, stiff ecstasy of primitive priests about a macabre blood ritual.
‘Come on!’ Ballista shouted.
Together, father and son ran into the shadow of the vaulting – a terrible crashing behind – on under the colonnade. And then… And then they were clear; out in the open spaces of the commercial forum. Nothing here to threaten them. Keep away from the equestrian statue of the emperor Claudius in the middle, and there was nothing but wooden stalls little higher than a man. Nothing to fear.
Calgacus and Maximus had pulled up in a clear space. They were doubled over, panting like animals, hugging Dernhelm. The little boy was wide eyed, silent. Ballista and Isangrim joined them.
Ballista kissed both his sons, and looked around. Hippothous and one of the maids had joined them. Julia? He looked around again. Where was Julia? He directed his gaze further afield. People everywhere: standing, milling, some running. No sign of her.
‘Isangrim, stay with Calgacus.’
‘No,’ shouted Maximus. ‘I will go back.’
‘No, look after the boys.’
Ballista headed back, against the gathering flow of humanity. Still no sign.
The din was deafening: shouts, screams – humans and animals – the horrible grinding as the works of man fell in ruin. But now the ground was still. For how long?
Back under the colonnade. Ballista shouldered his way under the gateway. Allfather, where was she?
A man ran blindly into Ballista. He was shrugged aside. Ballista fought through to the other side, desperately scanning the square.
There! Off to the right. Julia was kneeling by a fallen statue, and under the statue lay the maid Anthia. Dark blood pooled out.
Touching Julia’s shoulder, Ballista said something. She took no notice.
Ballista let his bunched-up toga drop. The white folds fell in the blood. He reached down to see if the girl was alive. What if she was? He could not lift the solid marble statue. He felt for a pulse. Guiltily, he was relieved she was dead.
Ballista started to straighten up. He stopped. Had his fear overcome his senses? He looked up. Another statue was poised on the very edge of the gate. He remembered another gate, another city. The great temple at Emesa, the statues turning in the air, rigid as they fell; the heavy, brittle impacts; the carnage among his men; the slicing pain in his leg. Now, the ground in Ephesus was still. For how long?
Again he bent down, felt for a sign of life.
‘She is dead. Come.’
Julia did not move. Inexplicably, she began to recite Latin verse:
‘Why, victor, celebrate?’
Ballista put his hands under her armpits.
‘This victory will destroy you.’
Ballista got his wife to her feet.
Quid, victor, gaudes? Haec te victoria perdet.
Half-carrying her, Ballista pulled Julia away.
Back in the agora, they reached the others.
Nearby, above the cacophony, came the sound of a hymn: Poseidon, Earth-holder, steadfast stabilizer; Avert your anger, Hold your hands over us.
Fools, thought Ballista: wrong reason, wrong deity. The gods had chained Loki deep in the earth, suspended the serpent above his head. Loki’s good-wife caught the venom in a bowl. But the bowl must fill, must be emptied. And then, in the dark, the poison gathered on the fangs, balled out and dropped on the Evil One’s unprotected face. Loki screamed, and hopelessly fought the chains and the rocks that secured them.
No point in praying. Nothing to be done.
II
It was dark in the agora. Well past dawn, and darkness had returned. Thick clouds of dust and smoke had rolled under the gate, billowed down past the theatre from the mountain. The sun could not break through. The choking yellow-brown fog had turned the Tetragonos agora, the commercial heart of Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia, into something from beyond the Styx.
The ground had stopped moving, but in the crowd some still staggered like sailors trying to recover their land legs. Near to Ballista, a man clutched a market stall and vomited. The tradesman made no objection; like many, he just stared blankly, overwhelmed by the enormity of what had happened. Here and there, individuals screamed incoherently or ran pointlessly, their wits unhinged. From the gloom came snatches of hymns: Poseidon, Earth- Holder…
‘ Dominus.’ It was Calgacus. ‘ Dominus, the house, the rest of the familia. We must get back.’
Ballista tried to get his thoughts in order: the house, Constans, Rebecca and Simon, the others… the horror. Of course Calgacus was fearful – Rebecca.
Hippothous drew near. His sandy hair was dusty, his blue eyes shot with red. ‘ Dominus, with an earthquake this severe, there is never just the one shock. All the subterranean wind cannot force its way out at once. Air is bound to be left in the narrow places of the earth. The ground will shake again as it escapes.’
Ballista stroked the heads of Isangrim and Dernhelm. He tried to think.
‘The boys’ – Hippothous gestured – ‘the women, they will be safer here in the open. If you go with the men, I will look after them.’
Ballista looked around through the thick, jaundiced air. There were no buildings, and it was flat here, all the way down to the harbour. ‘After a shock, there can be a tidal wave.’
Hippothous nodded, an oddly calm and judicious nod, as if he were discussing a proposition in a philosophical school. ‘Not always, and we are hundreds of yards from the sea. There is only a tidal wave if there is an onshore wind opposing the escaping air. The sky is calm today.’
Ballista did not reply at once. He looked at the crowds standing vacant, occasional eddies of imbecilic motion in the murk – all irrational, possibly dangerous. He could not leave his sons here. He would not be parted from them now.
‘We will all go,’ Ballista said.
The Gate of Mazaeus and Mithridates loomed out of the gloom. On its top, some statues still stood. Ballista eyed them suspiciously. The square beyond the gate was a deserted shambles. To the right, tendrils of smoke issued from the facade of the library of Celsus. Ahead, the big Parthian war monument had collapsed; the barbarians and their conquerors, both indiscriminately hurled to the ground. Ballista quickly led the group away to the left. He hoped the boys had not noticed the fallen statue and the crushed body of Anthia.
Emerging into the Sacred Way, they saw the scale of the destruction and its inhuman randomness. Some buildings stood pristine; next to them, a whole block had imploded. The temple of Hadrian and the Varius Baths appeared untouched. The block opposite, the insula of their rented house, had given way.
‘Gods below…’
The street itself was partly blocked. Clambering over the debris, they reached the foot of the slope where the rented house had stood.
Ballista took stock. There were people here, many rooted in shock, but others moving more purposefully. Scurrying like ants over the ruins – rescuers or looters, you could not tell. The familia closed up around Ballista. They were waiting, except Julia, who continued blank-eyed with shock. Why could someone else not take the decisions? Ballista pushed aside the childish thought.
‘Isangrim, stay with your mother.’ Ballista turned to the remaining maid. ‘Rhode, take good care of Dernhelm; stay close to your domina. Hippothous, guard the women and children. Keep out of the lee of the buildings, try to stay in the middle of the street.’
