Cato pursed his lips. Despite what Macro said, the legionaries had had no difficulty in driving off the sortie that the enemy had made in the hour before dawn. They had made it as far as the breach and been held there while reinforcements were rushed forward to drive them back into the temple. None of the bolt throwers had been damaged. At dawn the legate launched the second attack in person. He stood in the breach, in full armour, sheltering behind a shield, as he bellowed the order for the bolt throwers and archers to commence bombarding the walls of the temple. This time the missiles were loosed at close range and the legionaries made short work of any Arabs who showed themselves on the walls of the temple and on top of the pylons.

Safe from the danger of arrows, Macro led the First Century forward again. A section of auxiliary archers advanced with them, ready to shoot any defender who risked rising up behind the barricade to try and dislodge the assault ramps. The legionaries trotted up the ramp and fell on the defenders behind, cutting a path through their ranks until they emerged into the courtyard. After that it had merely been a question of finding and cutting down the small groups of survivors who made their last stand in the temple’s more easily defended chambers. The last group, led by one of Ajax’s gladiators, an African, held out for over an hour in the main pylon, gradually being forced back up the narrow staircase and on to the platform. The gladiator, mortally wounded, had thrown himself off the top of the pylon rather than be taken alive.

‘Shame you missed it.’ Macro looked at his friend closely. Cato had been too dazed to join the attack and Macro had found Hamedes and told him to take care of the prefect in his absence. The priest helped Cato prop himself up against the trunk of a palm tree to watch the assault. Once the nausea passed and a surgeon’s assistant strapped up his arm, Cato had dismissed Hamedes and made his way inside the temple to find Macro. The latter continued in as sensitive a tone as he could manage. ‘I know you wanted to be there when we finished off that mad dog, Ajax.’ He paused. ‘It’s funny, I always imagined that it would end in a straight fight between him and either you or me. I didn’t think he would be cut down in some bloody skirmish like this. Just one of the faceless dead.’

‘We haven’t found his body yet,’ Cato replied quietly. ‘Until we do, it’s tempting fate to assume it’s all over.’