Smoke swirled around the monuments of Hellenic piety. There was a lurid yellow quality to the light, a reek of destruction. Not far away, people were screaming. Maximus kept talking.

The first Goths materialized through the smog of their own making. Helmeted, bearded, they slowly coagulated into groups.

‘Come on, you little piggies,’ called Maximus in the language of the raiders. ‘Come and get skewered.’

Ballista reflected that the obscenity did not translate well from the Greek. As far as he was aware, in the Gothic dialect of the language of Germania, ‘piggy’ was not a synonym for ‘cunt’.

A solid shieldburg of warriors had formed facing the temple. A warrior took a couple of paces forward. He kept himself well covered by his shield.

‘I am Respa, son of Gunteric, of the Tervingi. The murdered Tharuaro was my brother. You in the temple, give up the oath-breaker Dernhelm, son of Isangrim, the skalks the Romans call Ballista, and you have my word you will be spared.’

Ballista laughed. Gunteric could call him oath-breaker, slave, anything he wanted. With the exception of Ballista himself and Maximus, it was most unlikely anyone in the temple understood any of it, apart from his Roman name.

A voice called in Greek from the midst of the northmen, slightly muffled but audible. Presumably it was Chrysogonus. When Respa’s words had been translated, there was murmuring in the dark corners of the temple. It was cunning, but Ballista was not unduly worried. Even should they desire it, these Milesian civilians did not have the balls to try and give him up.

‘I know you,’ shouted Maximus. ‘Respa, the one they call Cocksucker. You must miss your brother’s sword in your mouth.’

‘And I know you, the foul-mouthed Hibernian catamite of Dernhelm.’ The big Goth raised his sword hilt-up to the sky. ‘Fairguneis the Thunderer, all you high gods of the Goths, I pledge two fine stallions and a dozen oxen, if you grant Dernhelm Oath-breaker and the foul Hibernian fall beneath my sword.’

Ballista snorted derisively. ‘You are long on words, but short on courage. Here we are – come and try your luck.’

Respa did not reply. At his gesture, a dozen or so warriors shook themselves out of the shieldburg. Big men, in helmets, shields, mail coats, swords, all sporting a surfeit of golden arm-rings. Men to be considered. Their reiks led them warily forward.

They halted, spread out by the circular altar. Respa spoke to them, too low for Ballista to hear. A single tile dropped from the roof. It shattered harmlessly. The Goths laughed, an unpleasant, wolfish sound.

Ballista silently cursed the Milesians on the roof. How much nerve did it take to throw things from a position of complete safety? What the fuck was the soldier up there doing? Where was that posturing Greek Hippothous? The Goths should be advancing through a hail of missiles.

Respa and another warrior took the lead. They reached the first step. The others fanned out behind.

‘Open order,’ Ballista shouted. Everyone apart from Ballista and Maximus fell back. The two of them shuffled into position, alert to the need for room for their swordplay.

Respa and the other champion came up the steps.

‘Now!’ said Ballista. As one, Ballista and Maximus took three paces back. Only a fool would make a stand at the top of a flight of stairs – your legs were exposed; it was further for your sword to stretch down. They both dropped into the ‘plough guard’: shield out, its leading edge pointing at the enemy, sword held underhand, low to the side.

Respa bounded over the top step. With horrible speed, he took two quick paces, unleashed a deafening war 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 teach them never to ask such a question again.

Sat overlooking the adyton, dependent on the god’s house for his safety, Ballista thought it was not the place to voice his doubts over either the piety or the logic of Apollo’s words. ‘What did the Cymeans do?’

Hippothous smiled. ‘They sent Pactyes to Mytilene. When they heard the men there were going to give him up, they shipped him to Chios. The Persians bribed the Chians with the territory of Atarneus on the mainland. The Chians hauled Pactyes out of their sanctuary of Athena and gave him to the Persians.’

‘What happened to Pactyes?’

Hippothous paused, thinking. ‘I am not sure if Herodotus recorded that. But nothing good.’

‘And what happened to the Chians?’

The Greek frowned. ‘For quite a long time, they would not use barley from Atarneus in offerings to the gods, or sacrificial cakes.’