The Caspian Gates

XI

Ballista knew Hippothous had not been happy at leaving Miletus – not happy at all.

Why, the Greek had complained, why had Ballista decided to do such a thing? The gods knew, said Hippothous, he was no coward but, largely by their own efforts, the northerner and his familia had saved Miletus. So, why – just two days after the Goths had been repulsed – why leave the relative safety of its walls and ride to Didyma: a place that meant nothing to them, which may well be indefensible, and to which the Goths could easily follow them? It was completely irrational; it was barbaric.

Maximus, who knew, had looked dubious, but said nothing.

Ballista, who had spent the hours before leaving closeted with Macarius, the asiarch of Miletus, had not felt like explaining.

For the journey, Ballista, Maximus and Hippothous had been accompanied by ten mounted soldiers and three able-bodied slaves: one Ballista’s, the others belonging to the soldiers. Yet even so, it had not been without its tensions. Having left Miletus through the Sacred Gate in the southern wall, they had not long passed the tomb of Neileus, the founder of the city, when they had seen the Goths. There were small groups of the raiders scattered here and there, looting and defiling the suburban villas and temples. The Goths had not attacked, but ceased from their pleasures to stand and watch the cavalcade.

Far from slipping out unnoticed, Ballista had openly courted attention. He had had a white draco hurriedly made. His personal standard, its roughly hammered metal jaws snarling, had hissed and snapped as they rode. The trooper carrying it had flourished it proudly. Ballista had wondered if the man, an auxiliary called Patavinus, would have been quite so happy if he had known what had happened to most of his predecessors. Romulus, Antigonus: they had been good men, but it had not saved them. So many violent deaths. Ballista had not chosen his trade; he often thought he would have been happier in a quieter, more sedentary life.

They had ridden easily, keeping the horses in hand. There had been no danger of losing their path. The Sacred Way ran, broad and paved, up into the hills. Punctuated with milestones and rest places, it crossed the scrubby high country of laurel, box and stunted evergreen oak. Sheep and goats, abandoned by their shepherds, had looked up from their rough grazing. Once, in the distance, a pack of wild dogs loped away.

After some nine miles, the Sacred Way had dipped down to the sea at Panormos. There was no settlement there. But, in better times, boats would have been tied up to the jetties, disembarking pilgrims bound for the oracle at Didyma. There would have been a bustle of guides and hucksters vying for their money. Panormos had been deserted.

Ballista and the others had sat their horses, high on a bluff. The wind had tugged at their clothes, the smell of the sea in their nostrils. They had gazed out into the Aegean. Sure enough, across the shimmering surface, hazy, but at no great distance to the north, had been the distinctive double-prowed shapes. The Gothic longboats were no more than an hour behind.

They had ridden the last two and a bit miles south-east flanked by seated gods and priests in marble, by great crouching lions. The weathered faces of the statues, man-like and bestial, expressed the complete indifference of antiquity.

At Didyma, there was an arch with a gate across the Sacred Way. But there were no walls. The holy site was delineated merely by boundary stones. The god had not protected it from Persians or Gauls: Ballista doubted he would make a better fist of it with the Goths.

A strange deputation was waiting under the arch; a mix of robed priests and locals with makeshift weapons.

‘Health and great joy.’ The leader wore a wreath of bay leaves bound with white cloth. He carried a wand.

‘Health and great joy.’ Ballista dismounted, handed the reins to his slave. ‘I am Marcus Clodius Ballista, and I have come with my amici and these soldiers to help you against the Goths.’

The priest beamed – an unusual reaction for a civilian encountering soldiers, a certain sign of the terrible fear abroad. ‘Welcome, Marcus Clodius Ballista. Welcome indeed.’ Perhaps he was partly reassured by Ballista’s equestrian gold ring and his excellent Attic Greek, or it could be simply that a small party of Roman soldiers was indeed welcome in the face of a large horde of barbarian warriors.

‘I am the prophetes of the Lord Apollo at Didyma. My name is Selandros, son of Hermias, of the Euangelidai.’ The annual high priest was from one of the oldest and most prestigious families of Miletus. ‘This is the hydrophor of Artemis, my daughter, Alexandra.’ The virgin priestess was not veiled, but she kept her eyes demurely down. She was beautiful. Well, thought Ballista, the prophetes will fight – his worst fear would be a gang of hairy barbarians taking turns on top of his daughter. Pausanias’s description of the Gauls sacking Delphi came into Ballista’s mind. Worse even than the Persians, they had raped women, girls and boys to death. In one of those very rare flashes of total insight, Ballista knew that Selandros had read the same passage, that it had been in his thoughts also – poor bastard. Ballista felt a sudden quickening, his mind running back to his youth and the girl in the village of the Rugii when he was in his father’s war band, back a couple of years to Roxanne, the Persian king’s concubine at Soli. He savagely suppressed the atavistic urge. Years before, in Arelate, he had known a woman, a Corinthian whore, who had claimed that all men were rapists. He had thought her mad; now he was not so sure. Possibly the Greeks and Romans were not totally wrong endlessly to preach self-control. Ballista knew he had done bad things, had condoned many others, but a man can change. He was not tied to his nature or his fate like a dog to a cart.

‘And this is the hypochrestes, and the paraphylax.’ The former, Selandros’s aide, smiled ingratiatingly. He was nothing but a frightened boy. The latter, the head of the temple guards, was older. He looked at Ballista as if he had been expecting someone else, someone better. Ballista instantly dismissed him as of no account.

‘Unfortunately, the tamias could not come. He has much to do.’ There was no surprise there, thought Ballista. The treasurer, who actually ran Didyma, would have his work cut out preparing the defence, if these were the other men of position at the sanctuary.

‘The Goths will not be long,’ said Ballista. ‘We should go.’

Beyond the gate, there were buildings on both sides of the Sacred Way: minor temples, baths, porticos, shops and houses – all empty. Although only a village under the rule of Miletus, the settlement was of some extent. It stretched off to the right.

After a distance, the road doglegged to the east. The buildings on the right gave way to a grove of bay trees, which curved around the western end of the main temple.

The first sight of the temple of Apollo at Didyma was overwhelming: a towering phalanx of columns, a fitting home for one of the Olympians. Many had held it should have ranked as one of the seven wonders of the world.

The horses were led away, and Selandros conducted Ballista around the temple. Set in a hollow but standing on a high, stepped podium, the building was an enormous rectangle, surrounded by a double line of columns. There was only one entrance, from the east. Selandros explained how, at the first news of the Goths at Ephesus, the tamias had ordered the Sacred Boys – the temple slaves – to build an extra wall to narrow access.

It was a strong site. Just the one way in. There was open ground on all sides. Admittedly, if they got close, attackers would be sheltered by the partially finished roof over the columns, but the walls were at least sixty feet high and far too thick to breach except by prolonged siege works, and men in the eaves could drop tiles and stones, which would turn the space into a killing zone. The Goths might try to burn the defenders out of the temple, but that would probably destroy the plunder they were after, and the great stone building did not look particularly combustible. All in all, Ballista was relieved; it was much as Macarius had described it back in Miletus.

Before going into the temple, Ballista studied the emergency wall. It was made of well-cut blocks of stone, presumably dismantled from some nearby building. The construction looked solid enough. It closed eight gaps between columns at the previously open eastern end of the temple. The one opening still remaining was only three or four long paces wide. At the top of fourteen steep stone steps, it should be possible to hold it with four determined men in close order, maybe with just two in open order, if they had the skills. Ballista posted six of the soldiers there.

The first area inside was a forest of massive, fluted columns. Set in the inside wall was a strange big window or door, its base five or six feet off the ground. Selandros explained that it was from there that the prophetes gave the responses to those who consulted the oracle. ‘Come.’ The priest smiled. ‘We will follow the pilgrim way.’

The temple was laid out like none Ballista had seen before. Selandros led them to a narrow passage against the right-hand wall. It was vaulted, dark and steep. At the far end, they emerged from the gloom into dazzling sunshine. There was a great square, open to the sky.

At the further end was a small temple. Through its open doors could be seen Apollo in bronze, naked, a stag in one hand, a bow in the other. The priestess and the sacred spring whose waters inspired her must be inside as well. The deity and his shelter were dwarfed by the huge walls around them.

Everywhere in the open were other statues: emperors, kings, priests, officials, men of honour. Hanging on the walls were innumerable desiccated wreaths of bay and, arranged below, other offerings: bowls, vases, censers, cups, pots, tripods, wine coolers – all manner of vessels cunningly wrought in precious metals. But what took Ballista aback, almost stultified his senses, were the people: men, women and children – hundreds of them – sitting, standing, a multitude of refugees, all silent and dejected.

Selandros gestured to the square. ‘Usually only the servants of the temple set foot on the holy ground but, with the barbarians coming, the Lord Apollo in his love of mankind said to welcome the suppliants into his adyton. In settled times, those seeking divine guidance stand here and put their questions to the prophetes and he then consults the inspired priestess in the inner temple. Those wanting answers return the way we have come and wait at the front below the window. It is my honour to relay the divine words.’

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 wall: 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.

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.’