Rome's executioner

CHAPTER VI

A thick cloud of grey smoke hung over the ancient fortress of Sagadava. At first Vespasian and his companions were worried that Poppaeus had already made his attack and they had arrived too late, but as they drew closer it became apparent that the smoke was the issue of the Roman fires and mobile forges crammed into their siege lines surrounding the beleaguered Getae. Although the scale of the siege was nothing compared to the huge, four-mile-long fortification that Poppaeus had built to pen in the Thracian rebels four years previously, it was still an impressive sight, even from a distance.

The fortress had been constructed with great slabs of brown stone almost four hundred years earlier by the Getic king Cothelas, a vassal of Philip II of Macedonia, to protect his western border from attack by river. It was set on the spine of a sharp ridge at its junction with the equally steep slope that ran parallel to the river 150 paces from its bank. Another ridge thrusting inland, two hundred paces to the west, not only made attack from that direction extremely hazardous but also funnelled a frontal assault from the south into a flat killing ground before the main gate in the west wall at its junction with the south wall; it was a formidable refuge. Great walls, three hundred paces square and twenty feet high, surrounded an inner keep on the northeast corner, which towered over the river. In its heyday catapults would have been mounted on its wide, flat roof that would have been able to sink enemy shipping without receiving any return fire; but now the roof was empty, the catapults having rotted away long ago, as the Getae’s power to the south of the Danuvius faded after the Gallic invasion and they withdrew across the river, making way for more primitive tribes without the technology to repair them. When the Romans, under the general Marcus Crassus, grandson of the triumvir of the same name, had conquered Moesia in the early years of Augustus’ reign they had found the fortress in a dilapidated state and had easily overcome the remnants of the Saci tribe sheltering within it. They made a few repairs to its fortifications but, because its strategic significance had been overshadowed by the great Lysimachid fortress at Axiopolis a few miles downstream, they had since garrisoned it only with a nominal force of low-grade auxiliaries who had been no match for the Getic horde that had descended upon them.

Vespasian and his comrades paused a mile from the Roman lines on the crest of a hill, stripped of trees by the besieging army to build the siege wall, and looked down upon the bustling hive of activity that was a siege in progress. A two-mile-long horseshoe-shaped wooden wall, with each end abutting the river, enclosed the castle and a fortified settlement that had grown up next to it, in the lee of the other ridge to its west; between these hundreds of horses milled aimlessly.

Three gates had been built into the siege wall, close together, at its central point; behind each stood a massive, newly constructed, wheeled siege tower, thirty feet wide at their base, tapering to ten feet at their summit. Each had a long ramp attached to their top levels; the ramps had been hauled vertical by pulley systems in readiness for the slow, manhandled journey across no-man’s-land which would end with them crashing down upon the walls of their objective and disgorging hundreds of assault troops from the bellies of the towers.

Behind the Roman lines, set back just far enough to be able to shoot over the wall when the order to attack came, dozens of stone-throwing onagers and bolt-shooting ballistae were being assembled. They, along with the Cretan auxiliary archers advancing with the towers, would provide the covering fire, peppering the walls of the fortress — just within range over four hundred paces away — with lethal missiles in an effort to prevent the Getic bowmen from causing too many Roman casualties.

In amongst all the siege apparatus scurried thousands of legionaries working as carpenters on the towers, as navvies levelling the ground for the artillery pieces, as smiths in the mobile forges, hammering out iron bolts to feed the hungry ballistae, or as masons chipping away at chunks of rock, rounding them off so that they would fit snugly into the slings of the onagers. The sound of their ceaseless labour blended with the shouts of their officers in a cacophony so loud that it was plainly audible from where Vespasian and his group sat on their horses.

‘Ain’t that just typical of the army,’ Magnus said with a wry grin. ‘They’ve got the whole of Moesia to run about in but they decide to cram as many people as possible into one small corner.’

‘But I don’t think that they’ll be here that much longer,’ Sabinus observed. ‘To my eye they look to be almost ready. Pomponius’ guess was right, they’ll be going in tomorrow.’

‘We’d better get on with it, then,’ Vespasian said, kicking his horse forward. ‘We need to find Faustus in amongst all that.’

Faustus was easier to find than expected. The first cohort was stationed at the middle gate, putting the finishing touches to the huge siege tower parked a few paces behind it. The din of scores of legionaries working wood with hammers, saws and chisels, constructing the staircases and staging platforms in the bowels of the tower, was intense but not quite loud enough to drown a familiar voice.

‘It just has to be fit for purpose, not a fucking work of art; you’re not going to live in it with your sweethearts, no, you lucky sods are going to fight from it. Now get a move on. If the Fifth Macedonica finish their tower before we do I’ll lose ten denarii to their primus pilus and I’ll be forced to send every tenth one of you back home to your mothers without any balls.’

The noise of construction intensified as Faustus stepped out of one of the tower’s entrances, brushing sawdust off his shoulder.

‘Centurion Faustus,’ Vespasian called as he dismounted.

Faustus looked up and immediately snapped a rigid salute. ‘Tribune Vespasian,’ he said, grinning all over his face, ‘and Magnus, you old dog, have you come to join our little war? Thracia must be very boring if you’ve been forced to travel all this way to see a bit of action.’

‘Thracia is indeed boring,’ Vespasian replied, clasping the centurion’s heavily muscled forearm, ‘but we haven’t come to help you enjoy your war, we’ve got a little battle of our own to fight before you go killing every Geta that you can find. This is my brother Sabinus and this’ — he indicated Artebudz and the Thracians — ‘is our army.’

‘Ah, now let me guess, you’re on the hunt for that weasel-faced priest. I won’t ask why but I assume that you want to find him before Poppaeus does; in which case you’ll have to get him tonight as it’s an open secret here that we attack tomorrow night.’

‘Very astute, Faustus. Now we need your help to get some Getic clothes and a boat.’

Faustus looked hesitant. ‘Poppaeus has started to make things very difficult for me since his return; I can turn a blind eye to what you’re up to but as to-’

He was interrupted by a shout from the centurion of the century stationed on the walkway along the wall. ‘Incoming! About five hundred of them. Get down, lads. Pila ready.’

His men up on the walkway immediately crouched down, hefting their spears into a throwing position.

‘Shields,’ Faustus shouted, ‘then get yourselves under the wall.’

All around the legionaries dropped their tools, grabbed their shields and ran for safety in the lee of the wall.

‘Get your men and horses to the wall, sir, you’ll be safe enough there. The stinking horse-botherers do this once an hour or so, trying to set fire to one of the towers; it seems that it’s our turn again, although I wish they’d pick on the Fifth Macedonica more often as I’m desperate to win a bet.’

Shrill, ululating war cries filled the air and the sound of hundreds of hooves pounding the earth drew closer as Vespasian and his comrades reached the wall. Moments later came the sharp hiss of multitudes of flaming arrows streaking over it, leaving trails of thin smoke in their wake; they thumped into the tower with a seemingly never-ending staccato beat. The sudden impact caused a lot of the burning rags attached to the arrows to come off and fall, like flaming rain, to the ground, but more than a few remained intact and the tower started to burn in dozens of places.

A century waiting with a pump and water-filled buckets beneath the tower reacted immediately to douse the flames on the lower parts of the tower; but further up, out of reach of their efforts, the fire started to spread as another huge volley of fire arrows careered in, augmenting the damage already done.

‘Get that fucking pump working properly, you come-stains; that fire is not sacred to Mithras, it’s the sort that needs to be put out,’ Faustus hollered, waving his vine cane threateningly at the group of legionaries desperately pushing and pulling the see-saw pump handle up and down in an effort to get the device up to a high enough pressure to reach the top of the tower. The threat of their primus pilus bearing down on them in all his wrath worked wonders for the pumping legionaries and the stream of water from the nozzle of the hose, held by two men, burst into a jet that reached up to the flames beyond the range of their bucket-wielding comrades.

A new threat came flying over the wall; the Getae had got close enough to hurl the resin-soaked torches some of their number carried to light their comrades’ arrows. Dozens thundered on to the tower, scraping flaming resin down its side that carried on burning despite the water being flung at it. The firefighters renewed their efforts as, from above, Vespasian heard the centurion shout the order to release pila at the now in-range Getae. The war cries from the other side of the wall turned into screams as eighty pila slammed into what Vespasian imagined would be by now a tightly bunched body of cavalry. A scream from above him caused him to look up as a legionary came tumbling, head first, off the walkway to fall at his feet. Even if the arrow embedded in his jaw had not killed him, the fall on to his head certainly had; his necked lolled at an unnatural angle, indicating a severe break. Young but lifeless eyes stared up at Vespasian; the lad could not have been more than seventeen.

‘Poor bugger,’ Magnus said from beside him. ‘He just learnt the hard way that you don’t stick around to see whether you’ve hit anything once you’ve chucked your pilum.’

Vespasian nodded in rueful agreement as another volley of pila was ordered above. This time the Getae were ready for it and another couple of legionaries, with arrows protruding from their necks or faces, crashed to the ground accompanied by a roar of triumph from the other side of the wall.

‘That’s it, they’re going,’ the centurion above shouted.

‘And about fucking time too. Artillery!’ Faustus roared.

The crews of the ballistae and onagers stationed with the first cohort rushed out from the wall and began to frantically load their weapons.

‘Two hundred paces; two fifty,’ the centurion on the wall called down. He was waiting for the enemy to be far enough away for the missiles not to overshoot them because of the trajectory they needed to use to clear the wall. ‘Now!’ he yelled, flinging himself down so as not to have his head taken off.

Fifteen assorted artillery pieces released simultaneously with a loud rasp of metal grating on wood followed by sharp cracks from the wooden arms of the machines slamming into the restraining beams as they released their projectiles.

Faustus came strolling up to Vespasian as the volley flew over the wall. ‘We hardly ever hit any of them with the artillery, I just consider it to be good manners to send a few bolts and rocks after them as they go,’ he said grinning, ‘and besides, it’s good fun.’

‘And good practice for the crews,’ Sabinus observed. ‘They had their weapons loaded very quickly. I’m impressed.’

‘Well, don’t tell them, it’ll go to their heads and they’ll slow down.’

‘I won’t, my brother in light.’

Faustus raised his eyebrows. ‘So you heard my slightly profane reference to our Lord Mithras, brother? I’m sure he will forgive it, but, to make certain he does I will do my utmost to help a fellow believer. A boat and clothes you say; not a problem.’

Faustus turned his attention to his men. ‘What are you all looking at, you idle buggers?’ he bellowed. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a steaming siege tower before? Get back to work, the lot of you; the Fifth Macedonica didn’t stop in all the time we were under attack so jump to it and clear those bodies up.’

The reaction was instantaneous; shields and buckets were downed and the men returned to their tasks. Once he was satisfied that all was proceeding as quickly as possible he returned to Vespasian and his comrades. ‘Well, gentlemen, the Getae have solved the clothes problem. Rather than me having to get eight of the prisoners and executing them, there are probably dozens of already dead ones just beyond the gate. We’ll go and take a look when it gets dark, but first let’s find you a boat.’

‘From what I know of this sewage drain,’ Centurion Faustus said, pointing to a crude diagram of the fortress lit by a single oil lamp, ‘it’s just to the west of the keep, which means that it will open up into the main courtyard.’

‘Shit, that isn’t going to be very private,’ Magnus exclaimed. ‘It’ll be packed with Getae.’

‘Yes, two thousand or so, the rest are in the fortified settlement,’ Faustus replied. ‘However, if you go in the dead of night there’s a good chance that they’ll be asleep.’

‘A good chance you say, but not definite?’ Vespasian asked, scratching his crotch, which had been playing havoc with him since donning Getic clothes.

Faustus shrugged. ‘Who’s to say what these fuckers get up to at night, they do keep a few horses in the fortress. Anyway, if you get in, the priest will probably be found in the keep itself. According to the few auxiliaries who managed to escape when the fortress was overrun, the most comfortable rooms are halfway up, on the third floor; I would guess that the Getic commanders will commandeer them.’

‘This is getting silly,’ Sabinus observed. ‘Even if we do manage to tiptoe past all these sleeping savages, make it up three flights of stairs and find Rhoteces, we’re bound to make some noise getting hold of him. So how do we get back down and out again through all that lot? Not even the Lord Mithras could spirit us past them.’

‘You don’t go back down, but you will need our Lord Mithras’ help.’ Faustus grinned. ‘I’ll give you some rope and you can leave through the windows, it’s fifty feet down straight on to the riverbank. I’ll lend you two or three of my lads to stay in the boat and they can pick you up as you come out.’

Vespasian nodded. ‘I suppose that give us the best chance of escape, but, no offence, Faustus, I would prefer if you would give me the three lads who were transferred from the Thracian garrison to man the boat; one owes me his life, they’ll have more reason than most to hang around when it starts to get dangerous.’

With a shrug Faustus acquiesced. They were hunched around a table in a small, ill-lit hut built up against the siege wall, which Faustus used as the headquarters for the first cohort. The air inside was barely breathable owing to the stench of the disguises they had ripped from the dead Getae three hours before.

Vespasian looked at Sabinus and Magnus, who nodded reluctantly, then around at Sitalces and the rest of the Thracians crowded behind him, peering at the map. ‘Well, Sitalces, what do you think?’ he asked the huge Thracian.

‘We have a saying in Thracian: “A faint-heart never fucked a pig.”’

Vespasian joined in the general laugher. ‘I’ll remember that one. Well, gentlemen, we’ve got a Titan of a pig in front of us, let’s give it a fucking that it won’t forget.’

‘What do you think the chances of success are when you storm the place tomorrow?’ Vespasian asked Faustus as they wove their way through the crowded siege lines towards the river. They had drawn some questioning looks from the legionaries still at work in the torchlight, but the sight of their primus pilus and an escort of a heavily armed contubernium — a unit of eight men — led the soldiers to the assumption that it was a group of Getic deserters being taken for questioning. They had removed their weapons which, along with their regular clothes, Vespasian’s uniform, a couple of crowbars and the ropes, were in a hand-cart being pulled by Varinus and his two mates Lucius and Arruns.

‘It’ll be a hard slog but we’ll get there. The key to it is timing. We need to contain the thousand or so enemy in the fortified village so that they don’t take the towers in the rear in the half-hour that it will take to push them to the walls, or, once we’re there, burst through the siege lines and escape whilst we’re busy trying to get over the fortress’s walls. That’ll be the job for the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth cohorts, whilst we and the sixth take one tower, the third and fourth take another and two cohorts of the Fifth Macedonica take the third, leaving their other two cohorts to guard the gates. I’ll give Poppaeus his due, he does think things through and he knows how to conduct a siege, which is more than can be said for some of the twats that I’ve served under.’

‘What time is the attack set for?’ Sabinus asked.

Before Faustus could reply a horribly familiar voice interrupted. ‘Faustus, where the fuck did you find these savages?’ Centurion Caelus loomed out of the darkness accompanied by two torch-bearing legionaries. ‘If you’re taking them to the general for questioning then you’re going the wrong way.’

‘Piss off, Caelus, and mind your own business,’ Faustus growled. Vespasian and Sabinus lowered their heads in an attempt to hide their shaven un-Getic faces; Magnus retreated behind Sitalces.

‘Prisoners are the general’s business, and I make the general’s business my business,’ Caelus replied, taking a torch from one of his legionaries and thrusting it towards Vespasian. ‘They don’t seem too keen to be seen, do they?’

‘Keep back,’ Faustus warned as he tried to step between Vespasian and Caelus, but Caelus was quicker and he grabbed Vespasian’s chin and forced his head up.

‘Well, what have we here?’ he drawled, staring coldly into Vespasian’s eyes. ‘A tribune disguised as a Getic warrior.’ He looked around at the rest of the party and recognised Sitalces and the other Thracians. ‘All of you dressed the same… not really messengers from the Queen, eh? Spies, more like.’ He turned back to Vespasian. ‘I knew you were up to something with these hairy bastards back up in the pass when you gave them orders. You hadn’t spoken to them once on the journey yet you knew Sitalces’ and Artebudz’s names. Now I understand why you put all our lives in danger, you’re on a secret mission for someone that couldn’t wait. The general will be very interested, I’m sure, when I tell him what’s going on.’

‘Centurion, you will do no such thing,’ Vespasian ordered futilely. ‘Faustus, grab him!’

Caelus jumped to his right, away from Faustus as the primus pilus made a lunge for him, and swung his torch round, narrowly missing Faustus’ face, causing him to back off. Then, with a sneer, he sidestepped between his two accompanying legionaries and sprinted off into the night.

‘You two get back to your century,’ Faustus ordered Caelus’ two legionaries, ‘and don’t say a word about this to anyone unless you want to spend the rest of your service on latrine duty and having the skin whipped off your backs at regular intervals.’

The two men, looking suitably terrified at the very real threat, nodded quickly, saluted their primus pilus and beat a hasty retreat.

‘Bugger it,’ Vespasian snapped, ‘he’s going to cause us a shitload of trouble.’

‘Yeah, but what can Poppaeus do? He might guess that we’re going to try and enter the fortress but he doesn’t know how, and by the time Caelus reaches the camp we’ll be getting in the boat,’ Magnus pointed out.

‘You’re right, I suppose; we’d best get a move on.’

Vespasian scrambled down the steep riverbank towards the eight-oared, flat-bottomed oak boat, twenty paces long and three across at its widest point. It was moored on a jetty amongst the reeds at the bottom of the bank and guarded by two of Faustus’ men. It was mainly used for transporting supplies to and from the ships stationed out in the river; their stern- and bow-lamps could be seen, bobbing lethargically in the oil-dark night, sending sparkling ruby reflections in thin, rippling lines across the gently flowing water.

‘Get the gear stowed as fast as you can, Varinus,’ Vespasian ordered as the three legionaries brought the hand-cart down the slope accompanied by much swearing.

‘I’ll have some men waiting a couple of miles or so downriver from our camp, with your horses and one for the priest,’ Faustus informed them as they started to clamber into the boat. ‘They’ll have torches so you can see them. From there Tomi is one day’s hard ride; you will need to follow the river until the old fortress at Axiopolis where it bends sharply to the north, leave it there and head towards the coast just south of east.’

‘Thank you, my brother,’ Sabinus said, taking Faustus’ hand in a strange grasp. ‘May our Lord keep you in his light.’

‘And you also, brother,’ Faustus responded as Sabinus turned to go.

‘Live through tomorrow night,’ Vespasian said, clasping the centurion’s forearm.

Faustus smiled. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me; it’ll take a lot more than a pack of horse-fucking savages to send me to the warmth of Mithras’ light.’

‘I’m sure it will.’ Vespasian turned to get into the boat. As he took his place in the stern next to Sabinus at the steering-oar a series of bucina calls broke out from the Roman siege lines above them.

‘Shit!’ Faustus exclaimed.

‘That’s “all cohorts to stand to arms”. What is it, do you think?’ Vespasian asked.

‘Well, either the Getae are attacking the whole wall instead of one section, which is unlikely and we would have heard their heathen war cries by now, or Poppaeus has just brought forward the assault to tonight, If he has he’s mad, it’ll go off half-arsed and will be an almighty fuck-up.’

‘Shit,’ Sabinus spat, ‘he’s guessed what we’re doing from what Caelus has told him and he means to beat us to the priest.’

‘I’d better go,’ Faustus called back to them, as he scrambled back up the bank followed by his men. ‘If it is the assault I’ll still make sure that your horses are waiting for you. Poppaeus has just helped you unwittingly; if we are attacking now, the Getae will be manning the walls and the courtyard should be clear.’

‘Yes, but every one of the buggers will now be wide awake,’ Magnus grumbled, ‘and where will the priest be?’

‘I can’t imagine that slippery little shit defending the walls if he’s got a nice warm room to hide in,’ Vespasian said, grabbing the steering-oar. ‘Cast off, Varinus.’

‘Aye aye, trierarchus,’ the grizzled veteran called back with a grin as he loosed the mooring rope and pushed his oar against the jetty. Vespasian frowned at this over-familiarity but knew better than to reprimand a man to whom he was shortly going to entrust his life for a bit of harmless banter.

The boat eased out into the flow of the river and began to glide downstream towards the fortress half a mile away. Although all the oars were manned Vespasian did not order the men to start pulling; the current was doing the work for them and the efforts of eight untrained scullers would, in all likelihood, have hindered rather than helped their progress. The half-moon was obscured by a thick layer of cloud and, even though they were only ten paces or so out into the river, it was almost completely dark now that they were away from the torch-lit Roman lines. On shore, to their right, the high-pitched blare of bucinae gave way to the deep bass rumblings of cornua, horns used by the army to give battle signals, their deeper tones being more easily heard over the sharp clash of weapons and the shouts and screams of men in combat.

‘That’ll be the attack starting,’ Vespasian whispered to his brother beside him. ‘The bastard brought it forward and a lot more of the lads will die because of the chaos.’

‘When cornua blow, blood will flow,’ Sabinus said, quoting an old legionary truism.

Vespasian peered towards the shore trying to get some measure, from the noise, of what was going on. He could make out a soft, orange glow that silhouetted the riverbank and guessed that it was the torches in the fortified settlement a hundred paces inland. ‘Faustus said it will take half an hour to roll the towers forward but they wouldn’t start until that village was secured.’

‘Assuming they stick to the original plan, which at the moment they most certainly aren’t,’ Sabinus pointed out. ‘Anyway, it’s pointless worrying about it, it’s out of our hands; we’ve got to concentrate on our own problems, the first of which is where are we going to land.’

Vespasian nodded and turned his attention to keeping the boat going in a straight line. He felt a knot begin to develop in his belly and realised that the wound he had received in the Succi Pass was the first time he’d had blood drawn in combat and, although only small, it had made him far more aware of his own mortality; if he had not been wearing a breastplate he would in all probability have been killed. He was not wearing a breastplate now and he was feeling decidedly vulnerable. Images from his childhood working on the family estates flicked through his mind and for a few moments he longed to be safely home, where the most he had to fear was a kick from a belligerent mule. He banished the thought, knowing it was futile; he had made his choices and they had led him far from home to this boat. All he could do now was steel himself to face the oncoming danger and override the fear of death by trying to concentrate on the practicalities of the task in hand.

Looking ahead, he saw that a few small points of light from the fortress keep’s windows were now visible; they were getting close. When they were about level with the centre of the fortress he started to ease the boat towards the shore in an effort to find, in the deep gloom, a spot where the reed beds thinned out and he could get the boat adjacent to the bank. The wall, 150 paces away, appeared as a long slab of intense darkness haloed by a thin light from the few torches burning within the courtyard. At its extreme left the keep towered over them, its shape only definable by hints of torchlight that rose from the courtyard reaching partway up the inner wall and the odd glimmer of light from open windows in the outer wall that fell to the riverbank.

In the distance the rumblings of the cornua continued.

Eventually the boat hit the solid earth of the bank. Varinus secured the mooring rope to the base of a scraggy bush as Vespasian and his party scrambled out on to dry land. Lucius and Arruns passed them the crowbars and ropes and their Getic weaponry: bows, quivers of arrows, sleek knives and the long-handled axes, with six-inch blades and spikes on their reverse, which the tribe favoured for fighting hand to hand on horseback. Sitalces and his Thracians had also brought their rhomphaiai, which they strapped to their backs. Artebudz and Sabinus each slung a thick coil of rope over their shoulders.

‘Hide the boat amongst the reeds, Varinus,’ Vespasian whispered, attaching a quiver to his belt. ‘We’ll come back to this spot as quick as we can.’

‘Right you are, sir, good luck.’

Vespasian grunted something unintelligible, turned and led his men off, crouching low as he cautiously made his way up the bank. As he neared the summit the sound of movement close by, dead ahead, caused him to stop suddenly.

‘What is it?’ Sabinus hissed next to him.

‘Something’s moving at the top of the bank,’ Vespasian replied, pulling an arrow from his quiver and straining his eyes to peer through the gloom; as they adjusted he began to make out two or three shapes, then a few more, on the ridge of the bank. He notched the arrow; behind him he sensed his comrades doing the same. One of the shapes moved fractionally. Vespasian did not dare to breathe; then he heard a soft, flaccid-lipped exhalation followed by a snort and a couple of hard stamps on the grass-covered ground.

‘It’s just horses, lots of them,’ he whispered, lowering his bow and breathing a sigh of relief. He moved on cautiously up the hill. The others followed.

The tightness in his stomach that had been growing since they had got in the boat was now excruciating and, despite the chill of the night, he had begun to sweat with fear. It was a fool’s mission that they had embarked on and he began to resent the ease with which Antonia, from the safety of her sumptuous villa back in Rome, could expect him and his brother to accomplish it. Then he remembered his grandmother’s words of warning: do not get involved with the schemes of the powerful because they use people of his class to do their dirty work and then tend to dispose of them once they knew too much and were of no further use.

‘Having second thoughts about this, sir?’ Magnus asked, as if reading his mind as they crested the bank and paused; ahead of them the forms of countless horses at rest fell away into the darkness.

‘What makes you ask that?’

‘Well, stands to reason, don’t it? Here we are about to take on thousands of savages who anyone in their right mind would steer well clear of, in order to get a disgusting little man whom, having made his acquaintance once, no one with any sense would ever want to meet again; and all for what, I ask you?’

Vespasian smiled in the darkness. ‘Well, I suppose we’re doing it for Rome.’

‘Rome, my arse! You may be doing it for Rome but I’m doing it because you’re doing it and I’m obliged to go with you because of the debt that I owe your uncle; that’s why I was wondering whether, by any luck, you’d come to your senses and were having second thoughts.’

‘Are you two going to sit and chat all night?’ Sabinus hissed from the gloom.

‘That sounds like a much better option to me,’ Magnus muttered, only half to himself.

Buoyed by the fact that his friend was evidently as scared as he was, and surprisingly reassured by the presence of his brother, Vespasian pulled himself together. Remembering Sitalces’ Thracian adage with a half-smile, he led the group, zigzagging carefully, through the hundreds of resting Getic horses that, recognising the smell of their Getic clothes, parted slightly for them and, with the occasional whicker or snort, let them pass.

It took a while to cover the hundred paces over the rough ground through this living obstacle to the steep slope below the fortress. As they reached the foot of the slope, they could hear, from above them, shouts and the sound of hundreds of feet running.

‘Sounds like they’re all awake now,’ Magnus complained.

‘But they’re up on the walls,’ Vespasian said, feeling that they might have a chance after all. ‘Let’s find this sewer outlet.’

They made their way up the slope to the base of the wall and began to follow it towards the keep.

They smelt the sewer long before they saw it. Nearly four hundred years’ worth of sewage had poured out of it, creating a reeking, septic marsh below its discharge point.

Eventually they heard the trickle of flowing liquid and they stopped by a circular grill, three feet in diameter, emitting an even worse stink than the marsh.

‘Pluto’s unwashed arse, that smells even worse than these clothes,’ Magnus gasped; he had just about got used to the stench of his disguise.

‘A good choice of expletive, my friend,’ Vespasian observed. ‘I think it is Pluto’s unwashed arse and we’re just about to climb up it.’

‘Imagine how we’ll smell when we get out the other end,’ Sabinus said, trying not to retch.

‘Sitalces, Ziles, bring the crowbars over here and get this thing off,’ Vespasian ordered, realising that there was no point in delaying the inevitable.

Seemingly impervious to the reek, Sitalces and Ziles placed their crowbars under the lip of the grill. With a couple of powerful wrenches it came loose from the wall and Drenis and Bryzos pulled it free.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ Vespasian muttered, drawing a deep breath and forcing himself inside the pitch-black tunnel.

There was only enough space to crawl and for the first time since he had put on the oddly unfamiliar and constricting trousers he felt thankful for them; they protected his knees from the centuries of shit that coated the tunnel floor. But his hands had no such protection and squelched through the slimy effluence clinging to the rim as he eased his way up the dark, narrow passage.

After what seemed like an age of breathing in the noxious gas produced by decomposing faeces, but was in fact only the time it took to cover fifteen gruelling feet, Vespasian heard harsh voices ahead and could make out a faint flicker of orange light at the end of the tunnel. Torn between his desire to get out into the open air quickly and his fear that the exit was guarded, he kept going at the same pace: as fast as was possible. Upon drawing closer to the end, he realised that the light was not coming directly into the tunnel but was in fact reflecting off a wall a few feet from its opening. He forced himself to slow down and came to a halt three feet from the exit; he felt Sabinus bump into his hindquarters, then the added pressure of the man behind pushing him forward and so on down the line, as they all came to an unexpected, concertinaed halt in the bowels of the sewer.

Vespasian craned his neck forward in an attempt to see out of the tunnel and over the wall beyond; he was rewarded by the sight of two very hairy Getic arses in action, their owners talking vigorously as they perched on top of the wall, which was one of three that surrounded the sewer’s exit, forming an open and well-used latrine. Another arse appeared over one of the side walls as the first two came to their noisy finale and were withdrawn, to be replaced, almost instantaneously, by two more.

‘What the fuck’s going on? Why have we stopped?’ Sabinus hissed from behind.

‘Not surprisingly we’ve come out in their latrine and a few of them are taking the opportunity to have a last shit.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, how long are they going to be?’

‘How should I know?’ Vespasian whispered, craning his neck again. ‘There’re now five of them up there at the moment; two of them seem to be quite scared,’ he added with a grin.

A few moments later the unmistakable sound of a bollocking being administered along with a couple of cuffs around the ears caused the arses, two of which were still in full flow, to hasten away. Vespasian counted to one hundred and, when no more appeared, deemed it safe to move forward and out of the sewer. Despite squatting calf-deep in fresh turds he felt like a new man as he sucked in the comparatively fresh air above the open latrine and wiped the shit from his hands on to his trousers. It had fallen unnaturally quiet. He edged closer to the front wall, peeked over and found, to his surprise, that he was surrounded by horses; they had been corralled in the northeast corner of the courtyard to keep them as far away as possible from the gate and out of the way of the main fighting. They were all displaying an understandable reluctance to get too close to the latrine. Looking beyond the horses, as the others started to emerge from the sewer, he could see that the south and west walls were crammed with Getae, two or three deep, almost shoulder to shoulder, bows at the ready, staring out towards the Roman lines with the still silence of men watching their fate coming inexorably towards them.

Sabinus joined him. ‘That’s a bit of luck,’ he whispered as he took in the situation.

‘I’ve never heard someone standing knee-deep in shit consider themselves lucky,’ Vespasian observed, ‘but yes, it is. Let’s go.’ He looked around at the others to make sure that they were all present and then started to creep over the wall.

A deep cornu signal rumbled through the air.

‘Shit,’ Sabinus hissed pulling him back, ‘that’s “artillery open fire”. Get down.’

All eight of them squatted behind the wall. The distant hiss of many approaching fast-moving projectiles suddenly filled the air; it quickly intensified before exploding into a series of shattering impacts as rock and iron missiles crashed into the fortress; some punching men, sometimes whole but more often in pieces, back off the walls, others striking stone, in a shower of sparks, and sending a deluge of sharp chippings cascading down to hit the ground, kicking up puffs of dust. Above the screaming, the Getic chieftains roared a series of orders. The defenders raised their bows and began to release volley after volley into the night sky at a speed that astounded Vespasian.

‘Shit, if they’re firing back it must mean that the towers are getting close,’ Sabinus exclaimed, pulling his axe from his belt. ‘Stop gazing around, little brother, we don’t have much time.’ He leapt out of the latrine and ran towards the keep, twenty paces away to the left, hugging the wall, not because he was worried about stealth any longer, as the defenders were by now far too busy to notice, but in an attempt to keep clear of the now panicking horses. Vespasian and the others followed him as a huge storm of arrows flooded in from the advancing Romans and rained down on to the walls and into the courtyard, felling dozens of men and a score of their already terrified mounts. This was too much for the beasts and they surged towards the crude fencing that corralled them in and broke through with ease to go bucking and rearing around the corpse-strewn courtyard.

Vespasian, axe in hand, caught up with his brother at the door to the keep. He was burning with shame at Sabinus’ rebuke because it had been the truth, he had hesitated and now Sabinus had taken charge.

‘On the count of three, little brother,’ Sabinus said, putting his shoulder to the locked door. ‘Three!’

They rammed their bodies in unison against the solid oak.

It held.

‘Shit! Sitalces, Ziles,’ Sabinus yelled above the din, ‘where’re those crowbars? Fast as you like, lads, there’ll be another artillery volley pretty soon, those crews were quick.’

Sitalces and Ziles ran straight up to the door and quickly jammed their bars between it and the frame. But not quickly enough; another series of crashing impacts caused them all to duck involuntarily as the second artillery volley smashed in. Two onager stones hit the keep wall a few feet above the door, shattering on impact in a myriad of sparks. Large fragments of stone ricocheted down over them, striking their crouched backs and the ground around like sharp, heavy rain, leaving them bruised but uninjured.

Sitalces was the first to recover; he hurled his huge body on to the end of a crowbar; with a splintering crack the door came loose but not open. Ziles rejammed his bar into the widened gap, Sitalces swept his rhomphaia from the sheath on his back, nodded at him and they forced their combined weight on to the two crowbars. This time the door flew back and the huge Thracian went tumbling through, his momentum sending him crashing to the ground. Ziles leapt in after him and jerked immediately back through the air, as if punched by a Titan, with a half-dozen arrows in his chest. Before the dead Thracian had even hit the ground Vespasian hurled himself through the opening, darting to the left as a mighty roar came from within. He arrived in time to see Sitalces, in the torchlight, leaping through the air, sweeping his rhomphaia two-handed from above his right shoulder, towards a line of six Getae who were struggling, under the pressure, to reload quickly. A flaming flash of iron arced into them, severing two heads and half an arm in a welter of blood and speed. As the huge Thracian crashed into the right of the Getic line Vespasian flung himself, bellowing, towards the left-hand Geta, who had dropped his bow and was drawing a long-bladed knife; an arrow from the door felled the man next to him. The knife coursed through the air at chest height towards Vespasian, who had the presence of mind to duck as he noticed the deft flick of his opponent’s hand. It skimmed over his head, which, an instant later, pounded into the solar plexus of the man, thumping the air from his lungs and him to the ground with Vespasian on top of him. With an animal howl Vespasian heaved himself to his knees, raised his axe and swiped it down repeatedly on to the choking Geta’s face, cracking it open in an eruption of bone, blood and teeth, then mashing it to a pulp with his frenzied attack. A strong grip caught his wrist and he swivelled round to see Magnus straining to hold his arm back.

‘I think you’ll find he’s dead now, sir,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘In fact they all are.’

Vespasian blinked a few times and began to relax; the whole room came into focus for the first time since he had charged. The six Getae lay dead, in various states of dismemberment, and Sitalces, Bryzos and Drenis were busy trying to wedge the battered door shut whilst Artebudz and Sabinus were covering the narrow, stone staircase leading to the next floor. He started to breathe deeply to bring himself back from the primeval part of his nature to which, he was now realising, his fear of death had taken him.

‘You’ve got to watch that, sir,’ Magnus said in a hushed voice, pulling him to his feet. ‘They only die once and you can easily get killed yourself as you’re trying to kill them a second, third or, in your case, a sixth time.’

‘Thank you, Magnus, I’ll try to remember that,’ Vespasian replied, slightly more curtly than he intended. ‘Sorry, I was shit scared,’ he added by way of an apology. He noticed a bloodstained rhomphaia in his friend’s hand.

Magnus caught his look. ‘I borrowed it from Ziles, he won’t be needing it no more. It’s a lovely weapon, much nicer to fight with than against, especially if it’s wielded by the likes of Sitalces, if you take my meaning?’

Vespasian certainly did.

Another crashing volley of artillery projectiles battering the keep’s wall brought him back to the matter in hand. He joined Sabinus at the bottom of the steps.

‘Any noise from up there?’ he whispered, just audible above the shrieks and shouts of the Getae on the walls.

‘Nothing,’ his brother replied.

Sitalces rushed over from the door. ‘That’s the best that we can do, but it won’t last long.’

‘Best get going, then,’ Sabinus said, taking one of the brightly burning torches from the wall. ‘Bring the other torches; we’ll leave it dark down here. Artebudz, with me.’ He began to swiftly climb the stairs with Artebudz, bow drawn, next to him. The noise from outside remained at a steady level and easily masked their light footsteps.

Vespasian grabbed a torch and, with Magnus at his side, followed. His heart was beating fast; he was still afraid but his fear of death had been overshadowed by another, stronger, more positive emotion: the will and desire to survive. He felt much calmer now and also grateful to his brother for taking the lead when his own actions, as he was well aware, had been found wanting.

A creak of a wooden floorboard told Vespasian that his brother had reached the first floor. Sabinus and Artebuduz moved cautiously ahead; Vespasian followed. They were in a storeroom that extended the full length and breadth of the keep. It was windowless as it was still below the height of the fortress’ walls. In the middle of the room was a sturdy-looking wooden staircase leading up to the next level. Dotted around in the gloom were piles of grain sacks, stacks of amphorae and water barrels. Hanging on the walls were what Vespasian first took to be dead bodies but on closer inspection turned out to be deer and sheep carcasses.

‘Looks like we’ve found the Getae’s dinner,’ Sabinus observed. ‘Quick, lads, pile a load of those sacks around the stair-case and see what’s in those amphorae. Let’s hope it’s oil, fire will be our friend.’

It was the work of moments. As they finished by pouring the contents of the amphorae, which had indeed proved to be oil, over the pile of sacks, the level of noise from outside suddenly changed; the shouting grew louder and mixed in with it now was the unmistakable clash of weapons.

‘That’s our boys on the wall, we’ve really got to hurry,’ Sabinus said, giving his torch to Drenis and grabbing an unopened amphora. ‘Take an amphora if you can, lads, we may need fire upstairs. Drenis, wait until we’re all on the next floor and then set light to the sacks.’ He dashed up the stairs with Vespasian pursuing, hot on his heels.

They burst on to the second floor; again it was a single large room, but with a staircase at the far end, and with windows that looked out only over the river, not the courtyard. Piles of bedding scattered around the floor indicated that it had been used as a dormitory for those of the Getae important enough not to sleep outside. Sabinus and Vespasian ran towards the next staircase; four arrows smacked into the floorboards just before them, bringing them to a sudden, almost overbalancing, halt. They pulled back immediately as Magnus, carrying two amphorae, and the rest of their comrades cleared the second staircase.

‘There’s a reception committee on the next floor. Artebudz, Sitalces and Bryzos: pump some arrows up those stairs,’ Sabinus ordered. ‘Vespasian, we’ll follow.’

As Artebudz, Sitalces and Bryzos slowly moved forward, shooting alternately so there was always an arrow fizzing up the stairs, Sabinus followed with his amphora of oil and Vespasian with his torch. Drenis came crashing up the stairs behind, the smell of burning travelling in his wake.

Ten feet from the stairs, Sabinus sprang forward and hurled his amphora up them; it disappeared with a crash on to the next floor. Vespasian paused as a few more arrows were pumped up the stairs, then he ran forward and hurled his torch after them. The intense heat of the torch caused the oil to ignite almost instantaneously; the fire soon engulfed the third-floor landing and drips of burning oil flowed, like flaming tears, down between the gaps in the stairs.

‘Artebudz, Bryzos, bows first; Magnus, Sitalces and Drenis after us,’ Sabinus shouted, drawing his axe; they all nodded. Sabinus turned to Vespasian and grinned. ‘This is more fun than arse-licking back in Rome but it’s going to hurt, little brother. Go!’

Artebudz and Bryzos hurtled up the stairs and disappeared into the inferno, with Vespasian and Sabinus speeding after them as gushes of liquid splattered down on to the burning oil, evaporating immediately into a thick, foul-smelling steam. This, along with the flames, blinded Vespasian for a few steps but his vision returned as he emerged through the fire and on to the landing at the far end of a long corridor running back along the width of the keep to another set of stairs. It was punctuated with four, evenly spaced doors on either side. He spun round to his left, Sabinus to his right, both taking care not to slip on the burning oil, as an arrow bisected them and slammed into the wall beyond. Feeling grateful to his trousers for protecting his legs from burns, Vespasian looked up to see, by the light of the flames, Bryzos and Artebudz both releasing arrows at two Getae, one about to shoot, one reloading, halfway down the corridor; two more lay dead at his feet, slop-buckets at their sides. Both arrows punched into the shooting man, hurling him to the ground as his shot thwacked harmlessly into the wooden ceiling. Vespasian and Sabinus charged forward as the second Geta fired; Artebudz recoiled on to his back with an arrow in his chest as they surged past him. With no time to reload the Geta turned, pelted down the corridor and leapt up the staircase, disappearing with a sharp cry and a well-aimed arrow from Bryzos through his calf.

The corridor was clear but was now starting to fill with smoke as the oil burned off, leaving the wooden floor and stairs aflame through which Magnus, Sitalces and Drenis appeared, smouldering and singed. From outside the sound of fighting had grown closer.

‘Sounds like our boys are pushing them off the walls,’ Sabinus shouted. ‘Bryzos, cover that far staircase with oil. If anyone tries to come down torch it.’

Magnus handed Bryzos his amphorae and Drenis gave him his torch and he hurried off to obey his instructions.

‘Right, let’s get searching these rooms,’ Sabinus continued, ‘and Sitalces, get that rope from Artebudz.’

‘It’s all right, I can carry it,’ Artebudz said, raising himself painfully to a sitting position. ‘I don’t seem to be dead, just a bit bruised.’ He pulled at the arrow, which was embedded in the coil of rope; that and the thickness of the Getic topcoat had saved his life.

‘Well, you’re a lucky bugger,’ Sabinus said. ‘You and Sitalces come with me: we’ll do the right-hand rooms. Vespasian, you take Magnus and Drenis down the courtyard side. We’ll do it alternately so we don’t get caught in any crossfire. Get moving.’

The heat from the fire was intensifying as Vespasian kicked the door nearest to it open and pulled himself back quickly behind the wall, out of shot. No arrows hissed out, but a huge draught of air from an open window was sucked in to feed the oxygen-craving fire, which started to burn with renewed vigour. Drenis twisted into the room, bow at the ready.

‘Clear!’ he shouted a beat later. They moved on to the next door. Behind them Sabinus’ group crashed open their first door.

By the time both groups had got to their last doors the smoke, gradually filling the corridor, was forcing them to stoop in order to breathe with relative ease. Heat from the fire on the floors below was rising through the floorboards.

‘Rhoteces had better be in one of these,’ Vespasian said to Magnus as he braced himself to kick it open, ‘I don’t fancy going up another level.’

A cry from Bryzos stopped him mid-kick. Vespasian spun round to see the ginger-haired Thracian, feathered with arrows, drop his torch and fall at the foot of the stairs, from the top of which appeared the feet and legs of a charging posse of Getae. Sitalces, Drenis and Artebudz immediately started pumping arrows into the attackers, sending the foremost tumbling and slithering down the oil-slick stairs. With a desperate last burst of energy the dying Thracian reached for the torch and with the tips of his fingers flicked it towards him. Vespasian and his comrades watched it roll with a slow inevitablity, into the pool of oil; the burning pitch caused it to fizzle and smoke, then, reaching its flashpoint, it burst into flames, engulfing Bryzos and the dead Getae piled around him; his screams grew with the intensity on the fire. Unable to get through the conflagration the surviving Getae withdrew, trapped on the floor above.

With the smell of burning human flesh assaulting his nostrils and Bryzos’ dying screams reverberating around his head, Vespasian kicked open his final door. Again Drenis wheeled in and again the room was clear. Vespasian rushed over to the window and risked a quick look out. Files of legionaries were spewing on to the south and west walls from the left- and righthand siege towers. The central one, nearest the gate, was on fire; men, some burning, some not, were hurling themselves out of the inferno. Something had gone badly wrong. However, down in the courtyard the Getae were being split up and becoming encircled in small groups, as fresh legionaries poured down the steps from the wall to bolster their comrades already embroiled in savage, hand-to-hand combat. Directly underneath him a couple of contubernia broke down the keep’s door; flames gushed out and they immediately withdrew towards the fortress gate, led by the easily distinguishable figure of Caelus.

Knowing in his gut that Caelus was coming for them, Vespasian ran back towards the corridor as Sabinus kicked open the final door; two arrows whistled out, narrowly missing Vespasian as he cleared the doorway. Artebudz and Sitalces jumped from their places either side of the door and returned fire, bringing down the two Getae inside.

Sabinus rushed in. ‘Fuck!’ he shouted. ‘He’s gone.’

Vespasian ran in and joined his brother by the window. A taut, vibrating rope, attached to a ceiling beam, led out of it. The brothers stuck their heads out of the window; ten feet below them was a Getic warrior and beneath him, twenty feet from the ground and just visible in the orange ambient light cast by the burning siege tower, was the recognisable figure of Rhoteces.

‘Quick, pull,’ Vespasian shouted, grabbing the rope. Magnus and Sitalces joined the brothers heaving on the rope. After a couple of sharp tugs the Getic warrior appeared, wide-eyed with fear, at the window. Artebudz sent an arrow into his open mouth and he fell with a shriek. The rope went suddenly slack and they all fell back into the room.

‘The bastard’s jumped,’ Vespasian bellowed as he picked himself up and darted to the window. He grabbed the rope and without pausing leapt through the opening and started to slide down.

Vespasian descended quickly; the rope burned his hands, but the thick trousers protected his legs. As he passed the second-floor window he caught a blast of heat from the fire now raging within. From below came the sound of whinnying and neighing; the fire and noise had spooked the Getae’s horses and they were surging, like an undulating black cloud, east, along the flat ground between the river bank and the slope leading up to the fortress walls.

Vespasian hit the ground; Sabinus arrived an instant later. The horses continued to thunder past just below them.

‘Rhoteces couldn’t have got through this lot,’ Sabinus shouted to his brother as Magnus and then Sitalces joined them. ‘He must have gone along the walls, but which way?’

‘Away from the horses,’ Vespasian replied. ‘Once they’ve passed he’ll cross behind them and head for the river; it’s his only chance of escape.’ He darted along the wall, against the tide of the horses, as Artebudz and Drenis made it to the ground. Above them flames burst out of the keep’s windows.

The din of the battle raging in the courtyard, on the other side of the wall, intensified as they left the lee of the keep. They crossed the path of the sewer outlet as the rear of the stampede passed them by. To their right they could see the dark shapes of scores of dead horses who had floundered in the foul-smelling sewage marsh to be trampled over by their fellows.

There was no sign of the priest.

‘We’ll skirt around the marsh to the riverbank and then work our way upstream,’ Vespasian shouted as he raced right, down the slope.

They were halfway across the flat ground to the riverbank when a shout caused Vespasian to pause.

‘There they are, lads; up and at ’em.’ Caelus and the sixteen men that he had used to try and break into the keep had rounded the west wall, a hundred paces away, and were sprinting down the slope towards them, silhouetted by the siege tower burning like a huge beacon.

‘Shoot on the run,’ Vespasian ordered, unslinging his bow and notching an arrow. They each had time to release three or four shots apiece before they came to the steep bank leading down to the river. The resulting fire brought down none of Caelus’ men but forced them to raise their shields and slow down to a trot so as to keep them level and firm. Vespasian and his comrades turned and pumped volley after volley at them but they came on, flamelight flickering off their helmets and shield rims, impervious, behind their shield wall, to the arrows loosed at them, until they were almost within pilum range.

‘That’s it,’ Sabinus growled, ‘we’ve got to get out of here.’

‘You’re right, brother,’ Vespasian agreed, ‘back to the-’ He was cut off before he could complete the order.

‘Men of the fourth century, third cohort, Fourth Scythia, I command you to halt!’

The powerful and unmistakable voice of their primus pilus, bellowing from behind, brought the line to a sudden stop thirty paces from Vespasian.

Caelus spun round.

‘About turn!’ Faustus yelled.

With the discipline honed from years of obeying orders unconditionally they turned their backs on their supposed Getic enemies and faced Faustus, who came running out of the shadows. With a roar Caelus threw himself at him, sword pulled back for a deadly thrust to the groin. At the very last moment Faustus deftly stepped to his left and, as Caelus overbalanced past him, brought the hilt of his gladius crashing down on the back of his neck, sending him sprawling, semi-conscious, to the ground. Faustus quickly relieved him of his weapon and turned to address the bemused legionaries.

‘This piece of filth was using you to sabotage a Roman mission,’ he bawled at them. ‘Those men are ours; they had no choice but to fire at you. Tribune Vespasian, bring your men forward.’

Vespasian led his comrades up to the legionaries and pulled off his Getic cap.

‘When I saw Caelus leading his men back through the gate I knew he’d be after you so I legged it over here,’ Faustus told him as the legionaries recognised Vespasian and started to mutter amongst themselves.

‘Thank you, my friend,’ Vespasian replied, ‘I’m afraid we missed the priest though, he’ll be well away by now.’

‘Well, we’ve all had a bad night then; the attack was a fucking shambles. We didn’t seal off the village properly and almost a thousand of the Getae broke out and torched our tower as it reached the fortress walls, killing a lot of my lads, before forcing their way out through the gates in the siege-wall. But at least we’ve dealt with the rest of them, the fortress is ours.’

‘Come on, little brother, we’d best be going,’ Sabinus said. ‘There’s still an outside chance of catching Rhoteces if he’s taken a boat downriver.’

Vespasian sighed. He was exhausted, but knew that even if there was just the smallest of hopes they should try. ‘What are you going to do with him?’ he asked quietly, looking down at Caelus, who was just starting to come round.

‘Well, I couldn’t kill him in front of the men,’ Faustus replied in a low voice, kneeling down over Caelus. ‘One of them would talk and Poppaeus would have me for murder, so I’ll take him back to the fight and finish him off there.’

A quick series of shrill whinnies caused them both to turn. The air filled with the rumble of hooves.

‘Shit! The horses are coming back,’ Vespasian cried.

‘Form a wedge, shields both sides,’ Sabinus yelled. ‘Pila to the front!’

The confused legionaries, aware that there was a danger fast approaching but unaware of its nature, quickly ordered themselves around their erstwhile opponents into a pilum-bristling V-formation as the first of the horses appeared out of the night, surging towards them.

In the confusion Caelus took his chance; he whipped his pugio from its sheath and rammed it into the side of Faustus’ neck; as the blood spurted from the jugular vein he leapt to his feet and pelted towards the fort. Vespasian made to run after him but one glance left, towards the dark tide of terrified beasts now only feet away, checked him. He let the doomed centurion go and instead knelt by Faustus, desperately trying to stem the gushing stream of blood.

The stampede reached the wedge.

An instant before contact the leading horses, perhaps sensing more than seeing the solid-looking, spike-ridden obstacle in front of them, veered right and left to avoid it; the rest followed their lead and the stampede flowed around the wedge like a river streaming around an island. From the relative safety of the interior Vespasian, hands pressed to Faustus’ neck, glanced back to see Caelus flick a terrified look over his shoulder and put on another turn of speed before disappearing, with a curtailed shriek, under the torrent of hooves.

The legionaries stood firm as the stampede washed around them; the ground shook with such force they were obliged to loosen the tension in their knees to soak up the shock waves pulsing up through the earth. The cries and the hoofbeats of the maddened, wild-eyed, foaming beasts enveloping them were deafening as they passed not an arm’s length from the shields; some animal instinct kept them just clear of the pilum points.

Finally the tip of the wedge appeared through the tail of the stampede and the last horses passed either side to be sucked together again, sealing the rend in the herd as if it had never existed.

They were clear.

It was a while before anyone moved.

‘Fuck me! I think I shat myself,’ Magnus said eventually in a hoarse whisper, ‘not that you’d be able to tell over the smell of these trousers. How’s Faustus?’

Vespasian looked down at Faustus who smiled weakly. ‘I told you the horse-fuckers wouldn’t get me,’ he whispered. ‘My Lord awaits me.’

His eyes glazed over and he was gone. Vespasian closed them with the palm of his blood-soaked hand and stood up. ‘Take Centurion Faustus back to the camp with honour,’ he ordered the legionaries, ‘and scrape up that lump of shit as you go,’ he added pointing to the battered and raw body of his friend’s murderer lying in a mangled heap a few paces away.

The dazed legionaries gave a few ragged salutes and lifted their primus pilus on to their shoulders. Sabinus touched Faustus’ chest and muttered a few unintelligible words over him, and then, without a word, they walked slowly away.

As he watched his friend being borne away Vespasian’s eyes were drawn to the fortress walls. They were now clear of Getae. Small squads of legionaries sauntered along them with the nonchalance of soldiers who have survived the rigours of battle and have nothing now to fear. A small, solitary figure appeared and looked out towards the river; his high-plumed helmet and crimson cloak glowed in the firelight. Vespasian knew that it was Poppaeus; the general raised his gladius and shook it at them. Whether he could see them or not Vespasian did not know or care.

‘Let’s go,’ he said to nobody in particular, and started to trudge towards the river.

It took a while to find the place where they had left Varinus and his mates in the boat.

‘Varinus,’ Vespasian called softly.

The prow of the boat appeared out of the reeds with Lucius and Arruns rowing; Varinus steered it to the bank.

‘We might have what you’ve been looking for, sirs,’ Varinus said with a grin as Vespasian and Sabinus stepped aboard.

‘What?’ Sabinus asked absently.

‘Well, we was watching the keep and then after a while we saw fires in the windows. Then suddenly a rope came out of a window and two men climbed out, then one was hauled back in but the other one jumped; then you all came sliding down. So I decided to modify my orders slightly and Lucius and me, we crept ashore; it weren’t long before we caught him about to get into a little boat hidden just downstream.’

Vespasian was suddenly alert again. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘Well, I figured that if you’d gone to all that effort to find him I should leave that pleasure to you.’ Varinus replied, flicking back a piece of waxed material at his feet. Under it, bound hand and foot, eyes brimming with hatred, lay the priest, Rhoteces.

‘You!’ he spat when he recognised Vespasian. ‘You should be dead. I sent men to do the gods’ work and kill you,’ he snarled, baring his sharply filed front teeth.

Vespasian crashed his fist into the priest’s face. ‘That’s for all the lads that you managed to kill instead.’ He pulled back his arm and punched the stunned Rhoteces again. ‘And that’s for Decimus Falens.’

Vespasian felt a restraining hand clasp his wrist as he went for another blow.

‘I think that it would be a pity to beat him to death, sir,’ Magnus whispered in his ear, ‘especially after all the trouble we’ve been to.’

‘You’re right,’ Vespasian replied, taking a rapid series of shallow breaths. He jerked his arm free, looked down at the unconscious body of Rhoteces and spat in his bloodied face. ‘But I do loathe the little shit.’