Altar of Blood

9

‘I’m starting to have the feeling that my fleet has come to be regarded as little more than a means of transporting soldiers of dubious origins …’ Prefect Varus shot his cousin a grin. ‘Present company excepted, of course … to places where they can do their utmost to piss off the locals, thereby leaving my command to cope with the risk of anything from the odd sly arrow from the far bank to outright enmity and open attack.’

He folded his arms and stared down at Tiro, who returned the gaze without the slightest sign of being intimidated. Behind him waited his fleet navarchus and over a hundred sailors, summoned in readiness to drag whichever vessel was deemed appropriate for the new mission’s requirements from its boat shed and down the muddy slipway to the fleet’s basin, a lake by the side of the river.

‘Whereas, Prefect, in reality the emperor’s provincial fleet of the Rhenus is nothing more or less than a tool of imperial foreign policy. Most of the time that policy consists mainly of sailing up and down the river, demonstrating that the empire has eyes on its borders, and will not suffer any form of incursion without exacting a stiff price. That, and endeavouring not to sail into the bridges if it can possibly be avoided, of course. Occasionally that role requires you to act in support of the army, carrying troops and providing artillery support to actions that occur close to the river. And, even more rarely, the emperor’s will is that you should use your powerful ships and undoubted naval skills to further the less orthodox aspects of that foreign policy.’

‘And this is one of those rare occasions? Less than a day after the last one?’

The freedman smiled up at him.

‘Quite so, Prefect. After all, you know how this sort of thing works just as well as I do. You wait decades for such a thing to come to pass and then, before you’ve even had the chance to sigh with relief that the whole ghastly business is done with, you’re being asked to do it all over again.’

Varus shook his head slowly in evident resignation.

‘Very well, but only if they take their boots off. My navarchus is still giving me shit about the mess their hobnails have made of the Mars’s deck.’

He turned away and spoke briefly to the aforementioned senior captain, who stared at him for a moment before turning away and issuing a string of orders in a tone bordering on irascible.

‘He’s not happy.’

Tiro turned to Dubnus, his smile if anything broader.

‘Imagine if you were in his place. Indeed the description I had of you tells me that you have been, more or less? You were senior centurion of a legion cohort, were you not, when your own first spear was promoted to run the Third Gallic legion in Syria, under Tribune Scaurus?’

‘I was.’

‘Then simply imagine your disgust if I had appeared out of nowhere, unexpected and most certainly unwanted, and told you that your duty for the next few days would be to set your men to digging up onions, in their full equipment mind you? No man likes to see the command he’s worked hard to bring to a peak of efficiency in its defined role turned to something he regards as less than appropriate, especially if doing so risks degrading the perfection to which he has elevated it. I doubt that having a gang of dirty soldiers roaming the decks of his ships …’ He broke off, looking over the Briton’s shoulder at the ship that was emerging from the nearest of the fleet’s sheds. ‘Ah, not a cargo vessel, Prefect. Where we’re going we’ll need something rather more imposing to back up a somewhat interesting negotiation.’

Waiting until the Bructeri hunting party had ridden out of view, the detachment remounted and rode north in silence. After a mile or so Cotta called forward to the scout, who was trotting his horse at the column’s head.

‘Where are you taking us now, Gunda?’

The German allowed his mount to drop down the column until he was riding alongside Marcus and the veteran soldier.

‘To an old fortress that was built by your people in the time before the battle that destroyed three of your legions. It was used after the disaster to support the war to punish the tribes, but then for some reason, when it seemed that all hope was lost for our peoples, your armies left and never came back.’

Scaurus joined the conversation from behind them, his voice betraying the weariness that made him slump in the saddle despite a full night’s sleep under the influence of Gerhild’s medicinal tea.

‘There was a new emperor on the throne. Augustus died two years before we had our revenge on Arminius and his followers, and once the traitor was dead at the hands of his own people, and the tribes had been beaten back into their place, his successor Tiberius decided that pacifying Germania was a step too far for the empire.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his saddle, clearly favouring the wounded side of his body. ‘My Greek tutor was of the opinion that Rome can only easily conquer peoples whose way of living is focused on towns, making them easy to control and indoctrinate to the imperial religion, whereas in the absence of organised slave labour and large estates most of your tribes’ peoples are distributed across the country to farm their land, making them hard to influence to our way of thinking. Perhaps he was right, but whatever the reason the decision was made to leave the Germans to stew in their own juices, weakened by internecine warfare and the occasional military expedition, and overseen by a succession of ambassadors and spies to prevent any attempt to unite their forces.’

He shifted again, his eyes slitting with the pain.

‘This fortress you’re taking us to, Gunda, what is its name?’

‘It was called Aliso, in the days when it was occupied.’

‘And why there?’

‘Because it is from there that the wooden road your people called the long bridge once ran to the north east. It is the fastest way that we can travel to the Angrivarii’s lands across a wasteland of marshes.’

Cotta looked at the scout for a moment.

‘How can you be sure that this other tribe will welcome us with open arms? Aren’t they just as likely to take the opportunity of a small party of Romans to have their fun with us?’

Dolfus spoke up from the front of the column.

‘That all depends on whether my master gets there before us. Roman gold can be a powerful motivator.’

The veteran raised an unconvinced eyebrow.

‘And if he doesn’t get there in time?’

The decurion shrugged.

‘Then we might be as well not announce our presence too loudly, for fear that we’ll be screaming it at the sky shortly thereafter.’

Dubnus and Varus looked out over the prow of the Mars at the riverside community that was the warship’s evident destination, the Briton shaking his head at the meagre scattering of buildings lining the river.

‘We’re going to land there? It looks like a complete shithole.’

‘It is.’ They turned to find Tiro standing behind them. ‘And while it isn’t the closest landing place to their tribal capital, it’s suitably small for our purposes. This land is controlled by the Marsi, a tribe with whom Rome’s relationship is, shall we say, ambiguous at best?’

‘Ambiguous?’

Varus smiled at his fellow centurion.

‘I think what our colleague Tiro is trying to say without actually saying it is that we’ve played the roles of both friend and enemy to this tribe on so many different occasions that they won’t know whether to greet us warmly or take us by the throats. Which means that coming ashore somewhere where there aren’t hundreds of warriors sitting around with nothing to do but dream of gutting Romans can only be a good thing?’

Tiro nodded.

‘I told you, you’re a natural for this line of work, Vibius Varus. That is exactly my reason for choosing this place to come ashore in the land of the Marsi. And this is what I plan to do, once we dock next to that particularly disreputable-looking fishing boat …’

Wide-eyed fishermen stared up at the warship as the navarch bulled his vessel in towards the dock through the scattered boats that were working the river’s waters. Both bolt throwers were manned, cranked and ready to shoot, while half a dozen archers lined each side of the vessel with their weapons very evident. Tiro looked out at the cowed Germans with a grim smile, nodding his approval of the highly visible precautions.

‘There’s no harm in a bit of a show of muscle when dealing with any of the tribes. For one thing it’s all they respect, and for another you can never tell when some stupid bastard might take it into his head to take us on single-handed. Experience has taught me that a man who’s been ripped apart by a heavy bolt is the best possible deterrent to anyone else harbouring the same idea. Are your men ready, Centurion?’

The warship coasted in towards the shore still carrying rather more momentum than the men lining the rough wooden quay thought was safe. Backing away from the dock with expressions of consternation they watched in awe as, with the bellowing of a string of commands, the warship’s rowers abruptly backed their oars to kill the vessel’s momentum in half a dozen strokes, another order turning her until she was drifting onto the wooden pilings at less than a man’s walking pace. As the ship’s side touched land, men leapt ashore at bow and stern with ropes and strained to control its last vestiges of momentum, while the Tungrians disembarked with less grace but equal purpose amidships, axemen planting themselves in a short but ugly line of muscle and iron, eyeballing the nervous Marsi with expressions that promised violence at the slightest provocation. Tiro was the last man off the warship, strolling past Dubnus’s men with an insouciance that was calculated to communicate his utter confidence with the situation. Pointing at the nearest of the bemused Marsi, he barked out something that sounded very much like an order in the man’s native tongue, then turned away and looked up and down the line of axemen with a satisfied expression.

‘Very good, Centurion. I can see that your men have been practising their forbidding expressions for long enough that they come naturally and without any conscious effort. Whatever else we achieve today at least we’re not likely to lose one of the emperor’s more fetching warships to attack by a few dozen indignant fish-gutters.’

He waited in the morning sunshine until the village’s head man arrived in the company of several poorly armed and somewhat intimidated spearmen, all of whom, to judge from the aroma they were giving off, had been preparing their catch only moments before. Pacing forward with nervous glances at the Tungrians, he raised an admonitory finger and essayed an attempt at taking the initiative back from the Roman before him, but before the first word was even formed in his mouth Tiro stepped forward and pressed a small leather purse into his hand.

‘Greetings, and my humblest regards to your most exalted position as the ruler of this hub of the local fishing industry! Here is a small expression of Rome’s gratitude for your kindly allowing us to moor our warship alongside your dock, a few meagre coins but hopefully enough to express our thanks to you.’

The German opened the purse, his eyebrows rising at the sight of the gold within. Tiro leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially.

‘I included a few silver denarii as well, just in case they might be useful in persuading your comrades to aid our cause.’

The head man looked up at him with new-found respect, nodding his head in agreement.

‘We pleased to host you visit! But you do not come to see fish, I sure …’ His expression changed to one of calculation. ‘Tell we, how we help you?’

Tiro smiled, inclining his head in apparent respect for the other man’s swift perception.

‘I see you’re ahead of me. We wish to travel to your tribal capital, for an audience with your king. And, I can quickly assure you, given that I have another larger purse for him, he will wish you to assist us in our travel. Indeed the only possible way you can incur his wrath is to be seen to hinder our swift arrival before his throne.’

‘You want to go city. Meet king.’

‘Indeed I do, and I wish to take with me several of my companions. Which means that apart from granting me free travel across your land, I will need you to sell me some horses.’

He looked back at Dubnus and Varus with a knowing expression. The head man’s smile broadened until it seemed the top of his head might detach itself from his jaw.

‘Sell horse? I sell you best horse in all Marsi land! Wait here, new friend!’

He hurried away, and Tiro watched him go with amused patience.

‘What will follow now is, for those of you who’ve never purchased a horse from a German, a swift but unavoidably painful negotiation, conducted with smiles and good nature on both sides, at the end of which I will have reduced his price for a handful of decidedly average beasts from the downright outrageous to the simply extortionate. He knows I have no choice in the matter, and that my only negotiating point is the fact that my not buying the horses from him may come back to him in a painful manner, were his king to find out who prevented the gold I’ve promised from reaching him. We’ll be on horseback within the hour gentlemen, and in the tribal capital by nightfall, the gods willing.’

‘This was a legion fortress, nearly two hundred years ago. Now look at it.’

The remnants of burned and decayed timbers poked out of the ground along the one-time camp’s defensive perimeter, while the buildings that had once crowded the interior behind the palisade were identifiable only by the darker lines of their foundations. The ruins of a small vicus told their own story, of a civilian population that had accompanied the legions, drawn by love, money or simple duty, but which had either retreated back down the river Lupia with the soldiers when the decision was made not to hold territory in Germania or had paid a high price for staying. Dolfus had taken Gunda and his men on up the road to the north to scout their path, leaving the remainder of the party to snatch a short rest from the rigours of the march and water their horses.

Scaurus sighed wearily, even though the afternoon was still young.

‘We’ll rest for a short time, then press on. The Bructeri won’t be far behind us.’

He climbed down from his horse, but as his feet touched the ground it was as if a sword had been plunged into his injured side. Groaning in pain he sank to one knee, holding a hand to his wound in a vain attempt to stem the agony he was so clearly feeling. Marcus and Arminius ran to him, catching him as he slumped forward in a dead faint. Gerhild hurried to join them, putting a hand on the tribune’s forehead and nodding as if her expectations had been fulfilled.

‘Get his mail off, I need to see the wound.’

Pulling the heavy iron mail shirt over Scaurus’s head, the two men watched as she peeled away the bandage that covered the tribune’s head. Where the perforation in his flesh had been an angry red it was now more of a dirty yellow, the skin around the wound swollen and discoloured.

‘The wound has gone bad, I thought as much. He must rest, and have it treated.’

Marcus shook his head.

‘You heard what he said. If we stay here and the Bructeri find us, then we’re all dead.’

She looked up at him with a quizzical expression.

‘Do you want this man to die, Centurion? I can replace the bandage to allow us to ride on, if you think he can stay in the saddle for very much longer, but if I do not treat him then his death will come swiftly. You choose.’

The two men exchanged glances.

‘We cannot simply press on and have him die in the saddle.’

Marcus nodded slowly at the German’s words.

‘How long will you need?’

Gerhild looked around her.

‘Long enough to build a fire, heat water, gather some fresh lavender if it is to be found, grind it into a little of the horse feed and then mix what you Romans call a pultes. I must draw the infection from the wound before we can consider moving him.’

The Roman nodded decisively.

‘Arminius, get the men working to do what she needs as quickly as possible. I’ll take the Hamians and watch the ground to the south. At least that way we’ll have some warning if the Bructeri have found their way across the river and are at our heels.’

‘I have found a way through the reeds, my King.’

Bowing his head, the hunter waited for a rebuke, or worse, at the number of attempts that had been required to find a crossing point that would allow a horse to wade the river unimpeded, but Amalric’s anger at their seemingly interminable delay had long since exhausted itself.

‘Good. Lead us across.’

The older man turned back to the river with his dogs capering beside him, eager to resume the hunt, and the young king watched as the first of the men of his household nudged their horses into the water, following the huntsman’s lead into the field of reeds that choked the river’s bed.

‘They will be long gone by now, I expect.’

Gernot was silent for a moment.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that, my King. Consider where they can run to, in reality. To the west are the Chamavi, our enemies it has to be said, but no great friends to Rome either. To the east are the Marsi, neutral to Rome but allied with ourselves and so unlikely to knowingly allow a party of fugitives to enter their land. But between them are the Angrivarii, forever our enemies, and if I were this man Dolfus, and whoever it is that stands behind him, I would be looking to them to provide me with shelter from our anger.’

‘And that means …?’

‘If I were running for our border with the Angrivarii, my first stop would be their ruined fortress at Aliso, to use the road of wood, or what little remains of it.’

Amalric stroked his chin.

‘It would be something of a gamble to assume that this will be their route. If they realise how obvious it seems, then surely they might pick another road to throw off our pursuit?’

Gernot shrugged.

‘They may not have any choice in the matter. If this Dolfus has been told to make for the frontier with the Angrivarii, he has no option but to ride in that direction. If we ride swiftly we may yet take these Romans unawares.’

‘These Marsi clearly don’t trust their neighbours.’

Tiro nodded his agreement, leaning back in the saddle that had been provided as part of the price of the horse he was riding to ease the pain in his buttocks. Leaving the remainder of the detachment behind them to safeguard the warship, Tiro and the two centurions had ridden north for most of the day. Now the Marsi capital was before them, heavy earth walls protecting the city from any potential aggression from the tribes that bordered their land.

‘There isn’t a single tribe on the eastern bank of the Rhenus that trusts any of the others. Fortified cities like this are commonplace for the protection of their major settlements, and a symbol of status as well. It is a continuing mark of the ignominy to which the Bructeri were subjected after their war with the Angrivarii and the Chamavi that they still are not allowed to build similar defences.’

The village’s head man had sent one of the younger men riding ahead of them to warn the tribe’s chief of the Romans’ approach, and a party of warriors resplendent in red tunics and wearing swords were waiting for them, drawn up in a line across the road that led to the city’s main gate. Tiro turned in his saddle to face the two centurions.

‘We should now dismount, to show the king the appropriate respect. And take your swords off, both of you.’ They climbed down from the horses, and Dubnus pulled a pained face as he lifted his scabbard’s leather strap over his head, moving his hips in discomfort much to Tiro’s amusement. ‘Piles, Centurion? Perhaps when we meet the Bructeri woman she can make you an ointment for them, I hear she’s quite the healer.’ He saw the king approaching, and raised a finger to them. ‘You two concentrate on keeping your expressions respectful, and I’ll do the talking here. The men with the swords are mainly there for show, and to let the king tell his people that he doesn’t roll over to have his belly tickled when the big boy from across the river turns up, but a few words out of place might just give them cause to air their iron. And if it looks like getting aggressive, whatever you do, don’t react. If this lot decide to kill us then let’s face it, we’re dead whatever happens.’

He dismounted and strode forward, stopping at a respectful distance from a man clad identically to the warriors on either side, but whose size and bearing immediately marked him out as their leader. Bowing deeply, the Roman spread his arms to indicate that he was unarmed.

‘Greetings, King Sigimund. I come before you without sword or shield, empty-handed in the pursuit of a peaceful resolution to a dispute between Rome and the Bructeri tribe!’

The king looked back at him for a moment before speaking, and when he did respond his tone was sardonic, reflective of an apparent amusement at Tiro’s unexpected appearance at the gates of his capital.

‘So, Tiro, once again you arrive unbidden, and doubtless seeking a “small favour” from the Marsi. And whatever this request entails, I feel certain that were King Amalric here he would even now be railing against you. Word travels swiftly when you Romans decide to interfere in the affairs of any of the tribes, because what you will do to one of us today will become your accepted way of keeping us all in our place tomorrow.’

Tiro shrugged, apparently unabashed.

‘What can I say, your Highness? Kidnapping the woman Gerhild would not have been my favoured approach to the problem.’

Sigimund laughed.

‘I’m sure it wouldn’t! Your way would have involved a few well-placed bribes and a small but deadly dose of poison, I expect! So, now that you know that I’m already very well aware of your theft of Amalric’s seer, what is it that you want from me?’

‘Only a small thing, your Highness. I ask permission for my comrades and I to cross your land as far as the point where the Angrivarii hold sway.’

Sigimund raised an eyebrow.

‘And that’s the full extent of your request? I’m surprised, given that my headman’s messenger told me that you have a bag of gold with which to purchase my favours.’

Tiro conceded the point with a gracious half-bow.

‘As ever, King Sigimund, you have seen through my attempts at diplomacy. I do have a small gift to offer you, a token of Roman friendship with the Marsi, although there is a good deal more than this to be had …’

He passed across the purse, watching hawklike as Sigimund weighed it in his hand. His disappointment on forcing Scaurus’s chest open had been evident, finding only sufficient gold to pay off the local head man at their landing point and fill the purse he had just handed to the Marsi king.

‘I wish to enter the kingdom of the Angrivarii in order to welcome a few of my men who have chosen to ride north from the Bructeri land, rather than-’

‘No!’ Sigimund shook his head in amazement. ‘You mean to tell me that your kidnappers are bringing the Bructeri woman out to the north, across their own land? Even I am amazed at the lengths you people will go to in order to put an enemy back in his place. Amalric will be humiliated in the eyes of his people and those of the tribes that surround them, when the news of such audacity becomes public. Having lost her to the unexpected intervention of your ships would have been one thing, but this? This is something much, much worse. Such a loss of face could see the man killed by his own nobles just for the shame of it.’

He walked out of the line of his warriors, gesturing for them to stay in their places, stepping to within a foot of the Roman and bending to speak more quietly in his ear.

‘And if you need me to grant you leave to ride across my land in one direction, surely you’ll need the same favour to come back the other way with your men?’ He paused for a moment. ‘And with Amalric’s witch, I presume?’

Tiro stared back at him unflinchingly.

‘You have the nub of it, Your Highness. In return for which I am empowered to offer you a further payment of one hundred gold aureii.’

The king looked away for a moment, considering the offer, then raised his voice indignantly, poking a finger into the Roman’s chest to emphasise his point.

‘You ask me to betray the friendship of a fellow king! For a purse of gold? You should have a higher regard for the Marsi, an honourable people!’

He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a whisper that was loud enough to be obviously venomous while too quiet for the words to carry, continuing to stab his finger at Tiro’s chest as if to reinforce some dire threat.

‘Two hundred. And fifty. To be paid before the woman leaves Marsi territory. The woman not to be visible to my people, and to travel by boat for as much of the distance as possible. I must be able to tell Amalric that her feet never touched Marsi soil, understood?’

Tiro nodded almost imperceptibly and, stepping back, Sigimund struck a decisive pose.

‘I will, for the sake of good relations with our powerful neighbour in the west, accept your offer of gold for the Marsi treasury, but that is as far as I can go in the name of our mutual friendship. You will be allowed to cross our land until you reach that of the Angrivarii, and after that your welcome here will be at its end. Do you understand me?’

Tiro bowed deeply again.

‘Completely, King Sigimund. My humble apology for having made such a gross assumption that your goodwill could be bought, and my thanks for allowing myself and my companions to cross your land. I would be grateful for the chance to feed and water our horses, and perhaps take a bite to eat and sleep for a few hours, if that were possible?’

Sigimund nodded regally, waving a hand at one of his men to make the arrangements, and Tiro turned back to the watching centurions with an inscrutable expression, speaking quietly as he took the reins of his horse from Dubnus.

‘And that, gentlemen, is how business is done with the Germans. They’ll stab a brother in the back for enough coin, but they always want to be able to tend his wounds afterwards, and offer their heartfelt condolences. So not a twitch of the lips from either of you, eh? Just remember that we’ve just been soundly embarrassed, and we’re not happy. Bear that in mind while we’re inside those walls, unless you want some bad-tempered Marsi warrior asking what the fuck you’re smiling at?’

‘He’s still sleeping?’

Gerhild looked up at Marcus from her vigil over the tribune’s comatose body, swathed in several layers of blankets despite which his body was trembling as if chilled by a cold wind.

‘He is fighting the infection from the wound. Until he either wins this battle or loses it we cannot move him.’

Dolfus walked up, his gait and expression bespeaking a man whose patience was close to exhaustion.

‘We have to leave now! The Bructeri can’t be far behind us, and I’m under strict orders not to allow her to fall back into their hands.’ He paused for a moment, one hand clenching at his side. ‘I don’t want to take a sword to you, lady, but if I have to …’

Gerhild smiled up at him.

‘Do not worry, Decurion, it will not be your hand that takes my life, on the field of bones and gold.’

The Roman stared at her for a moment in exasperation.

‘Leave him here, if he can’t ride. I’ll take you north to the Angrivarii, and the centurion here can protect Scaurus.’

She shook her head again with a gentle smile.

‘I cannot leave him. The point will come, sometime in the night, when he needs protection that none of you men can give him.’

Marcus and Dolfus exchanged looks before the former spoke.

‘We could make you leave him. I won’t harm a woman, but you could not resist us if we chose to take you north by force.’

She stood, her eyes hard with determination.

‘You won’t.’

She looked down at Scaurus, cocking her head as if she were listening to something faint and far away. After a moment she looked up again, her expression deadly serious.

‘I have been blessed with three gifts from the goddess, as foretold by my tribe’s holy woman at the time of my birth. The least of these, sometimes unreliable, is on occasion to manipulate the minds of men, as you saw at the river of reeds when the king’s huntsman failed to see the path across the river.’

Dolfus shook his head in disbelief.

‘You expect us to believe that you prevented him from seeing the-’

She cut him off with a curt gesture, a subtle flicker of fingers that seemed to leave him abruptly speechless.

‘I am also gifted, or possibly cursed, with an ability to see what is to come, days or years from the present, in my dreams. It is by this means that I know only too well that neither of you will raise a hand to me. The other, the gift I treasure over everything else, is my ability to heal both body and mind, sometimes with nature’s remedies, sometimes with the touch of my hands, and sometimes with the help of the goddess herself, acting through me. With your tribune’s wound I am going to have to use all three, so we must all both stay here until the moment comes for me to act.’

She stared up at him with flint-hard eyes.

‘Understand me clearly when I tell you that the man shivering and twitching beneath these blankets will play a role in events that are yet to occur that will shape the destiny of your empire. He cannot be allowed to die here.’

Dolfus frowned.

‘Events that are yet to come? What does that mean?’

Marcus shook his head at the decurion.

‘Were you not listening? The lady believes that she sees the future in her dreams. And you’ve seen the tribune in those dreams, have you, madam?’

The seer nodded solemnly.

‘Yes, Centurion, I have. When five men claim the ultimate prize, he will be the man who holds the balance between the final two contenders.’ She waved her hand again, and Marcus felt giddy for a moment, Dolfus taking an involuntary step back at the same moment. ‘But I’ve said more than enough on the subject. You will both forget my words, but you will remember, and believe, that his time to die has not yet come.’

‘We must camp for the night, my King. Without the light of the moon I can no longer follow the trail.’

Amalric shook his head in frustration at the supplicating hunter who was cringing in the expectation of a blow for his temerity.

‘Your dogs still have the scent?’

‘Yes, my King, but …’

‘Then we can still follow their trail! By the light of torches if need be!’

Gernot leaned out of his saddle to whisper in the king’s ear.

‘Perhaps we would be better halting for the night, my King? The light of torches would be visible for miles, and might enable the Romans to set up an ambush. Their archers could take a heavy toll of our numbers were we to be so illuminated, and perhaps even threaten your own life.’

The younger man looked at him for a moment, then came to a decision.

‘Very well, make camp.’

He climbed down from his horse and strode away into the half-darkness to relieve himself, the men of his household busying themselves hobbling the horses and gathering firewood while there was still a vestige of light in which to do so. Walking back into their midst he stood and watched their hurried preparation for the night, aware that most of them were avoiding his eye for fear of his evident ire.

‘We’ll catch them, never fear. They have wounded, we know that much, and the last time your man had their trail we were still finding blood spots every hundred paces or so.’

Amalric nodded at the truth in his uncle’s words. His huntsman’s dogs had been wild with excitement at their detection of the first of the blood drops, and the marks had provided them with a reliable guide as to the fugitives’ direction of travel which, as Gernot had predicted, was clearly heading for Aliso.

‘How far are we from the Roman fortress?’

Gernot called the huntsman across and repeated the question.

‘An hour’s steady ride, my King, less if you were to put your heels to the horses.’

‘So close …’

Dismissing the tracker with a smile of thanks the nobleman leaned back, watching as his men worked to build up the fire that they had coaxed out of twigs and leaves. When he spoke again his voice was almost smug with certainty.

‘So close that their escape is almost impossible, my King. Consider this: they have at least one wounded man, and have chosen not to abandon him. Any man losing blood during a day in the saddle will have needed treatment, and while we both know that Gerhild will insist on healing him, even her abilities cannot repair that sort of damage in one night. With such a burden they will be easy enough to find in the morning.’

Amalric nodded morosely, watching as the fire took hold of the logs that had been placed across the initial blaze, sending sparks into the dark night sky in a series of pops and cracks as the wood split in the blaze’s heart.

‘Sound counsel. But I burn with the need to do something. My tribe’s honour has been spat on and trampled into the ashes of a fire set on our sacred altar to Wodanaz, and here I sit powerless to do anything other than wait for the dawn.’

Gernot looked pointedly across the clearing at their captive, sitting between a pair of men who had been set to guard him on pain of their lives.

‘If you need to demonstrate your vengeance, my King, why not do so with the Roman?’

The king’s gaze rose to dwell on the prisoner, and his eyes narrowed at the thought of bloody revenge.

‘Bring him to me.’

He pulled out the hunting knife that lived on his right hip while Gernot crossed the encampment and gestured for the Hamian to be brought before the king, testing its edge and point against the heel of his palm. The prisoner was pushed to his knees in front of him, staring into his eyes with a disconcerting lack of fear.

‘You presume to stare at the king as if you were his equal? Avert your eyes!’

Gernot raised his foot to stamp on the kneeling Roman’s leg, but Amalric shook his head and raised a hand to forestall him.

‘No, my Lord. Obeisance given under duress is no obeisance at all. Allow the man his moment of defiance, he will regret it soon enough.’ He stared back into the Hamian’s eyes with a trace of amusement. ‘So tell me, Roman, what it is that gives you the right to eyeball me with such insolence? Don’t you know that I am a king, and the chief priest of my tribe, anointed by the gods?’

The captive centurion wearily leaned back on his haunches, still staring directly at Amalric.

‘I respect your position as the leader of your tribe, King, although much of that respect has been beaten out of me over the last two days. But I cannot claim to respect your position as a priest, for it seems to me that the gods have long since forsaken this world, if they ever even existed in the first place.’

Amalric looked up at his chamberlain, who shook his head and shrugged.

‘The man is godless. We should end his misery and kill him now. Unless, of course, he lies in the hope of avoiding death on the altar of Wodanaz.’

Qadir laughed softly and shook his head.

‘I never lie. I have this past year come to question the existence of the goddess to whose service I have been sworn since boyhood. And as to the imperial deities … They were men, no more and no less.’

Amalric leaned forward, evidently fascinated by the man before him.

‘Why? Why should a man like you, a centurion sworn to the service of your emperor, betray everything that he believes in, everything that makes him what he is? How can you spit on everything that your life has been built upon?’

The Hamian looked him in the eyes for a moment, then lowered his gaze.

‘Truly, King, it feels to me more as if everything I have built my life on has betrayed me. I have watched men die in such a variety of manners, and for such meaningless reasons, that I no longer find it possible to discern any pattern to our lives. If the gods do exist then they are too savagely cruel for me to consider them as deities worthy of my worship. And if that results in my being killed for the crime of godlessness, then I will accept that death as a means of achieving peace from this world’s incessant horrors.’

Amalric stared at him for a moment, then stood, gesturing to the captive.

‘This man is not to be beaten. He will eat the same food that we eat, and will be allowed enough privacy to empty his bowels without being leered at by his guards. It seems me that any man who will abandon his gods and his people so easily would make a poor sacrifice to Wodanaz, but I will hold him prisoner until such time as my new priest is able to make an opinion on the subject of how best to sacrifice a godless man who lacks even the dignity of loyalty to his tribe. Unless of course his death will return my eagle and my seer to me. In which case I will say the prayers and cut his throat myself.’

‘An escort, your Majesty?’

Sigimund nodded, taking a swig of beer before answering. Tiro and the two centurions had been invited to join the king at his high table, and the envoy had accepted the invitation on their behalf without a second thought, breezily reassuring the two centurions.

‘As I told you, if he wanted us dead there would be a dozen easier ways to make it happen without resorting to poison.’

The king wiped his mouth, gesturing with the half-eaten rib bone of the wild boar that had been roasted for the feast.

‘I’m willing to tolerate your presence on my tribe’s soil, Roman, but I’m not likely to allow you free rein to go wherever you fancy, am I?’

Tiro bowed his head in acceptance of the German’s decision.

‘Of course, your Majesty.’

Sigimund raised a jaundiced eyebrow at him.

‘I think you miss my point, Tiro. I’m allowing you to ride to the border of my land with the Angrivarii, and then make the return journey back to the great river, but you will always be under the eye of my sons and their warriors. Any attempt to deviate from the route you have asked to follow will result in your being placed under arrest and returned here. Any attempt to re-enter our land at any point other than that where you left it, where my sons will await your return, will, when you are inevitably captured, result in your execution as oath breakers. This is one occasion when you will not be able to play your usual high-handed games with us, Tiro. Because to even attempt to do so will have the direct of consequences, both for you and these men who ride with you.’

Tiro nodded and bowed.

‘As you wish it, King Sigimund. And now, if you will forgive me, I will sleep. We have an early start in the morning.’ He turned to Varus and Dubnus. ‘I would recommend the same for you both, gentlemen. Tomorrow will be a long day, and just as hard in the saddle as today was.’

He winked at Dubnus, who raised an eyebrow in return.

‘I will take to my bed shortly, thank you, Tiro. A little more of the king’s excellent wine might numb the pain in my backside to the point where I will actually be able to sleep.’

‘Sit here with me for a while, Centurion, and help me watch over your friend.’

Marcus sat down on the other side of Scaurus’s body from the seer, stretching out his legs wearily and accepting the bowl of meat stew that Husam placed in his hands, the archer having used the opportunity of scouting to the south to hunt and kill a boar, whose meat he was busy cooking in batches in the woman’s iron pot.

‘You saw nothing on the road, I presume?’

‘No madam. It seems as if your king has encountered a good deal more difficulty in crossing the river than we did.’

Taking his turn at watching the road that led out of the south to the ruined fortress the Roman had seen nothing to excite any suspicion, passing the hours introspectively huddled into his cloak and pondering the previous few weeks’ events.

‘He will be across the water by now, and close at hand.’

He stared at her in the light of the fire, the sun having sunk below the western horizon an hour before.

‘You seem very confident that our delay here will not result in our capture.’

Gerhild smiled back at him.

‘I have told you, Centurion, that this is not my place or time to die. Or yours, for that matter.’

‘I know. This is not your field of bones and gold.’

She nodded.

‘Just so. See how your initial scepticism has become a grudging acceptance of my prediction?’

‘I didn’t say I believed your words, simply that I remember them.’

‘And nevertheless, you want to believe. You are a seeker of truth, Marcus Valerius Aquila-’

He shook his head in bafflement.

‘Why would you call me that when my name is Corv-’

‘Because it is the name your parents gave you.’ Her tone was patient as she interrupted him, warm with amusement. ‘You may wear the name of the crow, but you do so unwillingly, as the price of survival. And as I was saying, you are a seeker after truth, and justice, although I sense that you have found that the justice you have administered of late has borne only bitter fruit.’

He looked at her for a moment, chewing on a mouthful of stew.

‘I sought revenge for my father’s murder, and took the lives of men who were instrumental in the fall of our family from grace, but the cost was too high.’ Gerhild stared at him, her question unspoken but as clear as if she had shouted it at him. ‘I … we … came to the attention of powerful men, and were sent to the east. And while we were there …’

He paused for a moment, on the edge of unburdening himself, then shook his head.

‘I cannot speak of it. I lost the most precious thing in my world.’

‘And the wound will not heal.’

Marcus looked up at her, his face bleak with loss.

‘The wound will never heal.’

‘But it must. Everyone experiences the death of a loved one at some time.’ She leaned forward across the sleeping tribune and took his hand. ‘May I call you Marcus?’

He nodded, lost in his misery.

‘Marcus, the time for grieving varies with each of us, but the one undeniable truth is that it must come to an end. For a man to spend the rest of his days mourning the loss of a loved one is not right. Life must be lived, not simply tolerated in the absence of the one who brought life and colour to the days that went before. You will find a way to put her loss behind you, a better way than taking your fury out on men whose death will serve no purpose, other than to sate a lust for blood that will end with your losing yourself in wanton murder.’

He looked up at her empty-eyed.

‘I cannot even mourn her properly. I’ve never once shed tears over her loss.’

‘And you feel like an empty shell of the man you were. It will pass.’

She looked across the fire at the sleeping Lupus.

‘Tell me, the child, has he too suffered loss?’

He nodded, relieved at the change of topic.

‘First his father, lost in a battle in Britannia, then a soldier to whom he had grown close. Arminius is the closest thing he has to a father now, and my wife was the closest thing to a mother, until …’

‘I see. But I sense there is more?’

Marcus nodded as the memory of Lupus’s unexpected kill jumped into his mind.

‘He was blooded in the battle to escape from your people. A man ran onto his spear and died so close to him that the boy saw the life leave his eyes.’

‘And none of you has spoken to him of it?’

Marcus shook his head unhappily.

‘None of us has the words.’

Gerhild stared at him in disbelief.

‘You all have to go through it. You all kill for the first time, and learn to deal with the horror of taking a man’s life, and yet none of you seem to have the wit to use that experience to help those who come down the same road behind you. If you’ll excuse me, you can watch the tribune for a while. I have work to do.’

She got up and walked across to where the boy lay, shooing Arminius to one side and taking a seat next to him. Then, with a tenderness that was at odds with her evident irritation, she eased the sleeping Lupus’s head onto her lap and placed a hand on his temple, covering both of them with her cloak. Closing her eyes she became almost motionless, only her lips moving as she looked out across the fire’s flickering light with eyes that seemed blank and unfocused.

‘They were here.’ Amalric looked down at the embers of a large campfire in disgust. ‘Still warm. Someone was sitting here tending that fire only an hour ago. And now they run for the arms of our enemies.’

The Bructeri had been mounted and ready to ride before dawn, the young king casting anxious glances at the sky until enough light had crept into the eastern horizon to enable them to start their pursuit afresh. An hour’s ride had covered the distance between their campsite and the ruined Roman fortress, but their eager haste had been in vain.

‘They would have been mounted and away from here at much the same time we were.’ Gernot had dismounted, and was examining the ground around the fire. ‘Which means that they are only an hour ahead of us. Nothing has changed, my King, as long as we retain our hunger for revenge.’

Amalric looked back at the Hamian captive.

‘Surely if we are to follow the Romans down this road of wood then we will make ourselves vulnerable to an ambush?’

The noble nodded.

‘Possibly so, although any man who stays behind to launch an arrow at us is likely to pay a high price for his opportunity. But, to ensure that any such attack fails, I suggest that you ride at the rear of our party.’

Amalric shook his head with a hard smile.

‘Your concern for my safety is gratifying, Uncle, but I cannot throw my men into the way of danger without accepting a share of it myself. I will ride in the front rank of horsemen. Now, we go!’

‘I thought you said this was a road of wood? It’s not much better than bog.’

Gunda twisted in his saddle to look round at Cotta, who was staring down at the surface of the path that stretched out before them in something akin to horror. Once a broad walkway of rough planks, suspended above the bog on split logs laid lengthways beneath them, and anchored with wooden stakes, built by invading Roman legions to allow them to penetrate the swamps that limited their ability to manoeuvre in the German interior, it had decayed badly in the years since the empire’s retreat from the eastern side of the Rhenus.

‘This road was built so long ago that the means by which it was kept above the water has long since failed, but the wood itself has not become rotten despite sinking into the marsh. Perhaps the water in the ground here protects them, but whatever the reason it is still there, just beneath the surface, and intact for the most part. Our horses can walk on the wood, if we take it slowly.’

‘So we can only proceed at a walking pace?’

The guide shrugged.

‘Yes, but then the same will be true for the men pursuing us. I’ve ridden this road before, and walked the marshes on either side. We could leave the road, but we’d have to abandon the horses, and if you think this is unpleasant then trust me when I tell you that you really wouldn’t want to attempt the alternative.’

‘So this is the pontes longi.’

They all turned to look at Scaurus, who was holding himself in the saddle by what appeared to be an act of will. Marcus, riding alongside him, asked the question that was on every man’s lips.

‘Tribune?’

The wan-looking senior officer raised an eyebrow at him.

‘The long bridge. It is the wooden road that Ahenobarbus built. Forgetting your history lessons again, are you, Centurion?’ He winced as his horse stumbled slightly on the uncertain footing, then regained his composure. ‘Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus was one of a long line of distinguished men who were nearly all consuls during the republic, and continued to be part of the ruling class under the emperors. He was the Emperor Nero’s grandfather, which might explain a few things. He built this wooden road to allow the legions to deploy forward at speed from Aliso as far as the river Albis, during the conquest of Germany that made Augustus believe that a province of Magna Germania was possible, with all of the lands as far north and east as the Albis under Roman rule. It must have worked, because he got a good deal deeper into the country than anyone before him. He was a bit of a bastard, as it happens, made eminent men and women perform on stage like common actors and actresses when he was consul, and staged such bloody gladiatorial contests that Augustus had to publicly reprimand him. Which, given his successes as a general, must have been a bit tricky for both of them.’

He looked down the track’s watery ribbon, then back at Gunda.

‘Anyway, shall we get on with this? It isn’t going to get any easier by our talking about it.’

He had awoken shortly before dawn, coming back to consciousness like a man surfacing from deep water an inch at a time, lying on his back with his eyes open but neither moving nor speaking for a while, eventually managing a question.

‘What happened?’

Gerhild had been asleep at his side, waking as if on cue as his eyes had opened, and she had bent over him with a cup of water.

‘You slept, Roman, like a dead man. Which, after all, is what you so nearly were.’

‘The wound?’

‘Was infected. I drew the poison from it with a pultes, then fed you a strong potion of herbs to let you sleep.’

He had digested the seer’s statement for a moment before speaking again.

‘My dreams.’

Gerhild had smiled, shooting a knowing look at Arminius who had spent most of the night watching his master.

‘Yes?’

‘I saw a woman. Beautiful. Terrible.’

‘That was the goddess I serve, Hertha. She came to you in the night, to beckon you back from the underworld.’

He had stared at her in partial disbelief for a moment before rolling onto his side with a grunt of discomfort.

‘In which case she seems to have done the job well enough, for as you see I live to suffer through another day of your mystical nonsense.’

Climbing to his feet with Arminius’s help he had called for his mail, resisting her attempts to stop him from donning its burdensome weight, and had only allowed himself the indignity of being helped onto his mount when the two centurions had insisted upon it.

‘How far is it to the border with these Angrivarii, Gunda?’

‘Forty miles or so, Tribune.’

‘And we can do no more than a walking pace on this surface, whether it be safer than the marshes to either side or not. Two days more march then?’

The scout nodded dourly.

‘I would say so.’

‘And what are the odds of the Bructeri overhauling us, do you think?’

Cotta leaned forward in his saddle to pose what he clearly thought was an obvious question.

‘Surely they’re subject to the same restrictions on their speed as we are, aren’t they sir?’

Scaurus shook his head, too weary even to give the veteran the smile that was his usual accompaniment to a correction.

‘You need to think less like a rational military officer, Centurion, and more like a desperate king who’ll stop at nothing to recover his prestige, in the form of the witch and the eagle. We have one horse per man, and can afford to lose precisely none of these beasts to exhaustion or injury, since each horse lost equates to a man dead or captured, which are much the same thing. Whereas Amalric of the Bructeri has, by the estimation of the keenest eyes in our party, thirty horsemen. He can afford to lose ten of them and still have double our fighting strength, on top of which I am clearly unlikely to take part in any combat that may be required if and when he catches up with us, which he will know from the blood trail I’ve been leaving for the last day and a half. I’d say that the moment for him to gamble on those odds is upon him, wouldn’t you?’

‘It doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere without an escort, does it?’

Dubnus eyed the waiting Marsi horsemen dubiously, but Tiro spared them no more than a glance.

‘See it from his perspective. He’s going to allow us to cross his land, in return for a small fortune in coin and one or two favours, which have been left carefully unspecified, but the last thing he wants is for us to leave here and vanish off into the wilderness to perpetrate who knows what and who knows where. So yes, he’s detailed two dozen of his fiercest warriors under the command of his two oldest sons to make sure we behave ourselves until we’re off their hands and somebody else’s problem.’

‘And there’s something that prevents them from killing us all out of hand once we’re far from civilisation?’

The older man looked up at him with a straight face, lowering his voice so as not to be overheard.

‘Not really. For a start, young Varus, nobody knows we’re here apart from us. I couldn’t exactly leave a note for the governor saying “we’ve gone to recover the missing seer, come and find us if we don’t come back”, because for one thing that would betray my position in the province, and, to be brutal about it, if the king were to have decided to do away with us then there’d be very little left of us for anyone to find. And rather a lot of barbarian Germania to search even if anyone were minded to do so. I suspect that the significant amount of gold I’ve promised him upon my safe return will be an incentive for them to keep us alive, but in the end we both know that things sometimes just don’t work out the way that we plan them.’

He looked about their escort, flashing a broad grin at the unsmiling princes waiting on their horses at their head.

‘And let’s face it, my profession is, when all is said and done, not for the faint hearted. Of course I do everything I can to minimise the risks of being discovered by the officials I’m set to watch over, and to ensure that these sorts of jaunts into the unknown don’t end up with my bones being picked clean by the crows on the side of some unnamed mountain, but in the end it’s all a bit of a gamble. And we both know that you’re a gambler, don’t we? Why else would you have come here in the first place? And now it’s time to go, I think. There’s still a hundred miles of rough country to cover before we reach the edge of the Angrivarii lands.’

He extended a hand towards their horses, which had been fed and watered and now awaited them with their saddle bags already in place, then raised a finger to forestall the younger man as one last thought occurred to him.

‘And from now, young man, consider this before you speak or act. At least one of these barbarians will speak Latin well enough to understand everything we say to each other. Our bags will have been searched while we were at the feast last night, and every word we say will have been overheard, considered and reported to the king. So relax, Vibius Varus, and give them no reason for suspicion that we’re anything more than we’ve told them. If it helps you, tell yourself that you’re riding out to hunt in these magnificent hills.’

‘Is that what you do?’

Tiro laughed quietly.

‘Gods below, no it isn’t. The difference between us is that you’re still young, with ambition and an eagerness to serve, your life ahead of you. Whereas I am older, my skin thicker and my perspectives those of a stoic, like the last emperor. After all, everyone dies eventually, so why not here, on a sunny hillside with the birds singing?’

He winked at Varus.

‘Just don’t say so in front of these barbarians, eh? They might take the sentiment literally.’

‘You’re quiet this morning.’

Lupus looked over at Arminius, who was riding alongside him.

‘I slept well. All the things that have happened in the last few days seem … far away. I fell asleep with that German’s face in my mind, all screwed up in pain as he ran onto my spear. But when I woke up I couldn’t remember what he looked like.’

The German turned and looked at Gerhild, who simply stared back with her usual small smile.

‘What else did you dream about?’

‘My mother.’

Arminius raised an eyebrow.

‘Your grandfather told me that your mother died when you were very small, and that you were brought up by her mother.’

Lupus looked at him levelly, his expression untroubled.

‘It was my mother. I don’t know how I knew it, but I was sure of it in my dream. She was with another woman, who brought her to me and then walked away. She held me, and told me she loved me.’

Arminius felt a tear pricking at his eyes, feigning a cough to wipe it away.

‘Of course she does.’ He looked at the spear held across the boy’s body. ‘We’re a long way from being out of danger, Lupus. If the Bructeri find us then we’ll have to fight again.’

The young Briton stared back at him, then raised the weapon to an upright position between their horses.

‘You want to know if I can stand in line and use this to defend myself again?’ His mentor nodded silently. ‘I’ve been thinking about the moment I killed that man …’

Arminius prepared himself for whatever the boy might say next, ready to reassure him that not every man was a warrior, and that there was no shame in taking a life only to discover that doing so had deterred him from ever wanting to experience the terror of the experience.

‘And I can see that I was lucky. My parry was good, but after that I just stood there looking at him. He should have killed me, Arminius.’ His face hardened, and again the German had the feeling that he was watching the man beneath the boy’s skin asserting his presence. ‘And it won’t happen again, I’ve promised myself that. From now we practise twice a day, mornings and evenings, whenever we can. The next time my spear takes a man’s life, it won’t be luck.’

‘They went that way.’

The king’s huntsman pointed north, down an apparently arrow-straight line of open ground just wide enough for a pair of horsemen to ride along.

‘The Roman road of wood. I remember coming here with my father when I was a boy, and wondering at the sheer single-mindedness that led them to build it. He told me that when it was new the wooden surface was a foot above the marsh, and that a horse could be ridden down it with never any danger of losing its footing. And now …’

‘And now the wood is just below the water, but still there, my King. If we take it steadily no harm will come to our mounts.’

Amalric stared up the road’s visible length, stretching to the horizon in a glinting, watery ribbon that reflected the morning sun’s rays in flashes of brilliance.

‘But if we take it steadily, Gernot, will we catch the Romans before they fall into the arms of our neighbours, the Angrivarii?’

‘My King?’

The younger man pointed to the road’s wet surface.

‘If we travel slowly enough to avoid the risks of a horse slipping on the wood below the surface, which must be coated with the bog plants that grow in this part of our land, then surely our enemies will maintain the lead that they were gifted by our inability to cross the river of reeds?’

‘Whereas if we attempt to progress more quickly it is more than likely that we will lose horses to falls on the slippery wood.’

Amalric shook his head.

‘You miss my point. I have thirty men at my back, whereas the Romans are not only less than a dozen in number, but have at least one wounded man. All we have to do, Gernot, is overhaul them with only twenty men and the fight will be over before it really begins. So whereas the loss of a dozen horsemen would leave us in no different a position than we enjoy now, even a single man unhorsed presents our enemies with a problem to which they have no solution, a rider without a mount who must either be left behind or slow them yet further. You were going to counsel that we should walk our horses, to allow them to cope with the conditions underfoot?’

The noble bowed his head in agreement.

‘And you, my King, would have us move faster than that?’

‘I would. A trot, and no faster, a calculated risk. If we lose too many horses too quickly then it will be easy enough to revert to a safer rate of progress, but not to take the risk is to guarantee our failure.’

Turning his horse, he walked it to the head of the war band’s column, calling a command out across the waiting riders.

‘We will ride this road of wood at a slow trot, fast enough to allow us to overtake these Romans and yet not so fast that our beasts will be unable to control their footing. Follow me!’

‘Do you feel that?’

Cotta looked around at Gunda, having dismounted with the rest of the party to give their horses a brief rest before pushing on to the north.

‘Feel what?’

The guide looked down at his feet, an inch deep in the water that coated the wooden boards, clad in light leather boots, then at the Roman’s heavy nail-studded military footwear.

‘A tremble in the wood.’ He knelt, putting a hand to the road’s surface beneath the water that barely covered the split logs. ‘There, I can feel it properly now.’

He got to his feet and mounted his horse, looking back down the path.

‘I can’t see them, but the king’s men are back there and they’re not walking their horses.’

The veteran centurion walked swiftly up the short column to find Scaurus still mounted, unable to get down from his saddle without troubling his wound needlessly.

‘The Bructeri are closing on us, Tribune. The scout can feel their hoof beats on the wooden road, and though he can’t see them yet it can only be a matter of time before they overhaul us if they’re risking a trot.’

Scaurus looked past the riders behind him and down the length of road they had already ridden.

‘Which leaves us without any option. We’ll have to follow suit.’

The older man nodded grimly, then smiled slowly as a thought occurred to him.

‘I’ll warn the rest of the party. And I’ve just thought of something that might slow them down a little.’