Hannibal: Clouds of War (37 page)

‘Give us the keys!’ A youth – a friend of the fig-thrower? – moved to stand by the bodies of father and son. ‘The keys, you murdering bastards!’ Without warning, he flung a stone at Pera.

Pera ducked behind his shield, and the piece of rock shot over his head and out of sight. Up came Pera like a striking snake. He grabbed a javelin from one of his soldiers and threw. At such close range, he could not miss. The youth went down, skewered through the chest, and the crowd screamed their fury.

‘You stupid fool!’ said Quintus under his breath.

Three, seven, a dozen stones were thrown, and then it was as if a dam had burst. The air went dark with the number of missiles. The legionaries scarcely needed to hear the order ‘RAISE SHIELDS!’ Every Roman in sight was being targeted. Vegetables, stones, bits of broken pottery, cracked roof tiles banged and thumped off scuta. Mattheus went down, struck by what had to be a slingshot bullet. Quintus and the rest roared their anger, and Urceus, who was nearest to their friend, began roaring, ‘Mattheus! Mattheus!’

There was no answer. Quintus still hoped that Mattheus had only been injured, but when Urceus straightened, he just shook his head bitterly. ‘It caved in his forehead. You fuckers!’ he roared.

Over the rim of his shield, Quintus also stared across the agora. It’s Pera’s fault, he wanted to scream. Mattheus is dead, and it’s all that bastard’s fault! There was no way that Pinarius could have heard him, however. Even if he could, thought Quintus, the outcome would have been the same. Bloodshed was inevitable, and while many innocents would die, part of Quintus was glad. Mattheus was gone, and for that, men had to pay.

Their garrison commander had climbed to the top of the temple steps. His trumpeter stood alongside, his instrument at his lips. A word from Pinarius, and a clarion set of notes issued forth. It was the signal to attack. In the same moment, Pinarius clenched his right fist by his waist and screamed something that was lost in the general uproar.

Corax was ready. ‘READY JAVELINS!’ His order was being echoed to left and right of their position. ‘AIM SHORT. LOOSE!’

The enraged legionaries drew back and threw their pila in a flat trajectory. Quintus did the same. This close, the javelins were deadly. They flew towards the densely packed mass of people, taking little more than a heartbeat to travel fifteen or twenty paces. They made soft thumping sounds as they landed. The townsmen had no armour or shields to protect them; they were cut down in droves. Scarlet flowered on dusty chiton and clean white robes alike as labourers and rich men bled and died together. Wails of pain and anguish rose from the injured and those whose friends or family had been hit.

Some stones and pila were thrown in retaliation, but they were few in number. The townsmen were reeling.

‘SECOND JAVELINS, READY. AIM SHORT. LOOSE!’ cried Corax.

Another cascade of pila went up; another wave of destruction followed. Old and young men, cripples and whole-bodied, it didn’t matter. Whether screaming their defiance at the legionaries or begging for mercy, they were scythed down by the devastating close-range volleys.

Next came the order to draw swords, to stay close, to advance at the walk. Quintus followed the orders as if in a dream. As he had so many times before, he could sense the man to either side of him, could feel the top of his shield touching his chin and the reassuring solidity of his wooden sword hilt in his fist. The knowledge that they were not facing enemy soldiers but civilians was there, floating around his mind, but it was being swamped by fear, the desire to avenge Mattheus, and the will to survive.

‘Murderers!’

Quintus hadn’t seen the grain merchant Simmias until that point, but he recognised his distinctive voice. Thickset, with muscled, hairy arms, he still looked like the farmer he had been before turning to the more profitable buying and selling of grain. Gone was the friendly mien that Simmias had displayed on every previous occasion that Quintus had seen him. Simmias’ face was dark with rage; his tunic was spattered with blood. A cloak had been wound around his left forearm in place of a shield, and in his right hand he clutched a sword. Close behind him came ten or more men, similarly armed. The crowd cheered their arrival, and Simmias levelled his blade at the line of legionaries. ‘They’re murdering scum, the lot of them!’

An incoherent, rumbling growl of anger left the throats of the nearest townsmen.

‘Arm yourselves, men of Enna. Pluck the javelins from the flesh of your brothers,’ ordered Simmias. ‘KILL THE ROMANS!’

‘Forward!’ Corax yelled. ‘Put the arse-lovers in the mud. All of them! Otherwise they’ll do the same to us.’

A disorganised, writhing mass, the mob swept towards Corax’s hastati.

Quintus was glad that Simmias had rallied his fellows and led them to the attack. They might be in the confines of a town, but this felt like war.
That
was easier to deal with.

A man in a smith’s apron came running straight at Quintus, a pilum clutched in both fists like a harpoon. Quintus braced and met him head-on. The javelin punched through his scutum and skidded off his mail. The smith’s momentum carried him forward until he collided with Quintus’ shield: so close Quintus could smell the garlic on his breath – and see shock flare in the smith’s eyes as he stabbed him in the guts. The blow would have felled most men, but the smith was built like a prize ox. With a roar, he tugged on the javelin so hard that it came free of Quintus’ scutum. Time stopped as they stared at each other over its iron rim. Both were panting: the smith with pain, and Quintus with battle fever.

There wasn’t time to withdraw his blade, so Quintus twisted it. Viciously, with all his strength. The smith groaned in agony, and his right arm dropped away. Quintus wrenched back his sword and stabbed the smith twice, less deeply this time, one-two. Down he went, screaming like a baby taken off the tit too soon.

Quintus was aware that his comrades to either side were also fighting. Shouts, curses, cries of pain and the sound of iron striking iron rang in his ears. A man wielding an axe replaced the smith, swinging his weapon from on high down at Quintus’ head. It would have split Quintus’ helmet in two, and with it his skull, but he met the blow with his shield. Pain lanced up his left arm from the massive impact; there was a sound of splintering wood; Quintus ignored both. He looked around the side of his shield and thrust his sword deep into the man’s armpit. The axeman was dead – the large blood vessels in his chest sliced to ribbons – before Quintus pulled it free. Mouth agape, pink froth bubbling from his lips, he collapsed on top of the smith. He left the axe buried in Quintus’ scutum.

By some small twist of fate, the hastati had pushed forward a few steps. There was no one immediately facing Quintus. Bellowing at his comrades to close up the line, he fell back a little and, having no earth to stick his sword into, used a body. Upright and by his side, he could grab it if needs be, whereas sheathing it could prove fatal. A moment or two of sweating, and he had freed the axe from his scutum. The shield was ruined, but it would suffice until the battle was over.

The slaughter, he corrected himself.

Urceus had just slain Simmias. Most of Simmias’ followers had vanished from sight, either slain or injured. The remainder of the townsmen were not warriors. Dismayed, they turned and tried to flee. Except there was nowhere to go, other than the centre of the agora. They were trapped like a shoal of tuna in a fisherman’s net. The hastati pursued them with fierce, eager cries. Quintus moved to join them before his heart stopped pounding and reason came back into the equation. There was no avoiding what had to be done now.

Thersites! his conscience shouted. He is here! A modicum of sense returned, yet there was nothing he could do. No way to stop the madness, no way to find Thersites and bring him to safety.

Afterwards, Quintus would recognise the time that followed as his most horrendous experience since joining the army. Among his comrades and the other legionaries, all sanity had been lost. What mattered was to kill, something that they were expert at. In an enclosed space against unarmed victims, their skill was terrible to behold. When it was done, the only living beings would be Romans. Shorn of everyone who could fight, the townsmen shoved and scrabbled to get away from the legionaries’ hungry blades. They punched and kicked at one another, trampled the weakest underfoot and called on their gods for help. None of it made any difference. Quintus, his comrades and the rest of the garrison closed in, a lethal cordon of curved wood and sharp metal.

Punched from behind by shields, the townsmen sprawled forward, easy targets to stab in the back. Any that hadn’t been mortally injured could be stamped on or run through again as the legionaries pressed on. Those few who turned to face the hastati fared no better. They died pleading, shouting that they were loyal subjects of Rome, that they had wives and children. Pierced through the chest, the belly, the neck; losing arms, legs and sometimes heads. Blood showered the air, misted over the living and slain alike. Soon the legionaries’ right arms were red to the elbow, their faces daubed in crimson, their shield designs obscured by a glistening, scarlet coating. At one point, Quintus tried to wriggle the numbed fingers of his sword hand and found he couldn’t, thanks to the gluey layer of blood that coated his entire fist. He shrugged and continued killing. His comrades were also beyond noticing their appearance, beyond caring if they had seen. Any person who came within reach of their blades was fair game.

When the slaying in the agora was done, the hastati ran down the nearest streets, yipping like wild dogs. The officers did not stop them; indeed some gave encouraging waves. Quintus was about to follow, his intention to participate as well. Then, at close range, he saw two hastati run a boy of no more than ten through, over and over. The boy shrieked and wailed, twisted and spun in his efforts to get away. All the while, he bled and bled, like a stuck pig. Quintus stopped in his tracks, aghast with horror. Thersites was dead – he had to be by now – but what about his daughters? Quintus’ mind began to spin. It was bad enough that the innkeeper had perished. He could not leave Thersites’ innocent daughters to their fate as well. Dropping his cracked shield, he ran alone in the direction of the Harvest Moon.

The carnage was spreading fast through Enna. Every street, every alley rang with the sound of doors being kicked in and the inhabitants’ screams and pleas for mercy, which were all too often suddenly cut short. Mutilated bodies lay everywhere in the dirt: a slave with a spilled basket of bread and vegetables; an old cripple with a makeshift crutch; a small girl who still clutched a doll in one hand – ordinary people who had been going about their business when death arrived. Quintus saw a matron of his mother’s age being pursued from her house by four legionaries. They caught her and ripped off her dress. Then, laughing, they urged her to run naked. When she would not, they slapped her with the flat of their sword blades until she did. Quintus averted his gaze and ran on, praying that the matron had a swift end, though he knew that was not what the legionaries intended for her. A few steps on, new horror confronted him. A woman of about Aurelia’s age threw herself from the top of a three-storey building rather than be caught by a group of jeering hastati. After she’d broken her neck on the street below, they leaned out of the window and called down to Quintus: ‘You can screw her first!’ Nauseous, he didn’t answer; instead, he put his head down and began to sprint.

As he reached the Harvest Moon, however, his heart sank. The door was ajar, and from within came the sound of smashing pottery and screaming. Quintus wished that Urceus were with him, but he was alone. Time for a deep breath, a moment of calm. He needed to take great care if he wasn’t to end up oozing his lifeblood on to the inn’s floor, as so many innocents were bleeding throughout the town. Pillaging soldiers did not much care whom they killed. Watch over me, great Mars, he prayed. With a tight grip on his gladius, he entered.

Only a couple of lamps were burning within. The room appeared empty, but Quintus did not let down his guard. Within a few steps, he came upon one of Thersites’ daughters, on her back in front of the bar. Just beyond the slack fingers of one hand lay a rusty hammer. The floor around her was slick with blood. On tiptoe, Quintus approached. The girl was younger than Aurelia. He peered, gagged. Her throat had been cut. At least she had died before her assailants had had time to violate her, he thought.

The same didn’t apply to Thersites’ other daughter, assuming that it was she who was screaming. The thin, distressing sound was coming from behind the bar. He stepped over the eldest girl’s body, feeling sick at what he was about to discover. She wasn’t in the first chamber – the storeroom – which was filled with laughing hastati. Some were moving along the racks, smashing the necks off amphorae and sticking their open mouths beneath the tide of wine that flowed as a result. There was far too much for them to swallow; they were soon drenched in it, which seemed to amuse them even more. No one even noticed Quintus. He moved silently on to the second room. From the hanging pots and pans, oven and workbench, it appeared to be the inn’s kitchen. At the far end, several more hastati stood over the bare arse of one of their fellows. Underneath him, Quintus could see a girl’s legs.

Steeling himself to spill Roman blood, he stole forward, placing his feet down softly so that his hobs didn’t give him away.

‘You stupid bitch! This for your trouble!’ snarled the soldier on the floor. There was a soft, choking sound, such as someone makes when their throat fills with blood, and Quintus knew with a horrible certainty that he had come too late.

‘Hey!’ cried one of the spectators. ‘I hadn’t had my turn.’

‘You can fuck her now. She’s still warm!’ With a dirty chuckle, the soldier wiped his dagger on the girl’s dress and sheathed it. He got to his feet, oblivious to Quintus’ presence behind him.

‘It wouldn’t be for the first time,’ added another hastatus.

Everyone except the thwarted man laughed.