Doctor Who_ Byzantium! - Keith Topping [93]
As he said this, both his eyes, and those of Daniel, moved to the trio of Roman soldiers sitting in the shade of the temple, a dozen paces to the right of Nikos’s stall. One of the Roman legionnaires raised his head at the sound of heightened voices but, after a second of seeking out the source of the brief commotion, he lowered it again and returned his attention to his wine and his comrades. Too tired, and too hot, to be bothered with such trivialities.
Run, Nikos silently mouthed under his breath, as he looked back towards Daniel, only to find the young man rooted to the spot in sheer terror. ‘Run like the wind, Christian,’ he whispered, knowing that his words would not be heard by anyone, least of all those for whom they were intended.
For a second, there was complete and awesome silence within the market-place. An unnatural calm as though time itself had become trapped in amber. The three legionnaires were all staring into the half-distance, their thoughts on good wine and cheap women to bed. Nikos looked at them and, for an instant, he seemed to leave his own body, looking down on the market-place from above as if he were a bird. Or an angel.
And it was in this curious and unnatural state that he saw, clearly, the young man with the sicarii knife slip into position behind Luke Panathaikos, the publicani tax collector of great infamy who was pausing as he crossed the square to straighten his robes.
Despite the contemptuous reputation that Panathaikos had acquired amongst his own people, Nikos quite liked the publicani and certainly didn’t wish to see any harm come to him. ‘No,’ he cried in a disembodied wail and, in the blinking of an eye, he was back staring across the square from his own vantage point as the knife sank between Panathaikos’s ribs and was then removed, cleaned and pocketed in one slick and rapid movement.
‘Stop! Murder!’ he cried, pointing an accusing finger at the Jewish youth of seemingly no more than sixteen years, who turned, startled, and with hatred in his eyes stared at Nikos as, behind him, Luke Panathaikos slumped to the ground.
‘Murder! Murder!’ shrieked Nikos. From the corner of his eye, he could see Daniel, still glued to the ground, looking at the fallen body of the tax collector with horror on his face. But then any attention to the Christian was lost as the square erupted in blur of noise and movement.
Somewhere, a woman screamed and, at exactly the same time, a small clay jar was dropped at the pottery stall next to Nikos and smashed on the mosaic tiles of the forum floor.
The murderer was turning and running, pushing those too slow to move out of his way. Someone made a grab for him and the thick-bladed knife flashed through the air again.
A second later, there was much blood and a cry of pain.
As this occurred, all across the square, those in authority began to react. The three legionnaires sprang to their feet and were sprinting across the forum like Olympian runners.
Other Romans and citizens were joining in the pursuit. Nikos, in a moment of madness, found himself leaping over his bread-stall and taking a couple of half-hearted paces in the direction in which the assassin had fled.
Then he looked at the slain body of Luke Panathaikos, encircled in a rapidly widening pool of red, and came to his senses, turned around and went back to his stall, his thoughts of heroics rudely shattered by a sudden vision of his own mortality.
The chase was on, the quarry scampering towards the mazy labyrinth of the Jewish quarter and, if he was lucky, sanctuary. Behind him closed running, shouting, armed men, their breathless cries gibberish to the assassin’s ears. A pilum, the short-armed spear of the Roman infantryman, flew past the assassin’s head and thudded into a wooden door where it shuddered with a satisfying burr of vibration. Another followed, again narrowly missing the young man.
Benjamin, the Zealot, his hatred of Romans undimmed by time or experience, almost turned and gloated at his pursuers’ poor marksmanship. He wished that he could; wished that he could stop