The Fort

XIII

PISO WAS NOT dead, at least not yet, but his breathing was faint and he would not wake. The medicus had examined him, found no other injury apart from the wound to the head. It was slighter than Ferox had suspected, for head wounds always bled like stuck pigs, but the medicus’ opinion was that more severe was the force of the blow.

‘Will he live?’ Hadrian had asked when he visited the hospital early the next morning.

The medicus shrugged. ‘Perhaps? Perhaps not? And perhaps he will have some life, some of his wits, but not all.’

‘When will you know?’

Another shrug. ‘I cannot say, my lord.’ The medicus added the title, because even the authority of his rank in his hospital ought to defer a little to a senator and senior officer. ‘I have attended to the wound and bound it. He sleeps without the need of poppy seed or any other comfort, so he does not feel any pain. The tribune may sleep for hours or many days and he may never wake. At the moment there is no more that can be done for him apart from keeping him warm and comfortable and making an offering to the gods.’

‘See to it.’

The other casualty, a Brigantian struck so hard that the back of his skull had collapsed, was most certainly dead. Found under a pile of debris from one of the buildings when the fire was well under control, the death might have been an accident, but Ferox had not had the energy to investigate in any more detail as yet for there had been so much to do. Hadrian had not slept until the fire was extinguished, by which time the night was more than half spent. Ferox had kept awake even longer, and finally got a little sleep on the cot kept in the hut behind the main gates. Even then, he only gave in to exhaustion on the promise that he be woken at the slightest sign of trouble inside or outside the fort.

An hour before dawn, Philo appeared with fresh clothes, and managed his old trick of shaving Ferox while the centurion slept. With less than half an hour to spare he had shaken his master awake.

‘Mongrel,’ Ferox had croaked at him, but the freedman was persistent and the centurion knew the signs.

‘The legatus, the noble Aelius Hadrianus, wishes to see you, so you must look your best.’

Ferox grunted his opinion of that, but knew how the army worked and also how relentless Philo was bound to be. By his own standards, if not the much higher ones of his servant, he was smartly turned out by the time he stood waiting in the main office of the principia. Hadrian appeared just as the trumpets sounded the end of the night and the first watch of the day, and looked as if he had slept twelve hours on a feather mattress, before bathing and taking a leisurely breakfast.

They talked for an hour, just the two of them, or rather Hadrian asked a lot of questions and each answer prompted even more queries. Then they toured the fort, talking all the time, but now attended by several officers and clerks. Apart from the hospital, Hadrian watched as the guards were replaced at the gates, before visiting the debris from the fire.

‘We were lucky,’ the legatus told them. ‘Without the rain…’

They paused while the legatus had a light breakfast served in the principia, during which he issued orders for his escort and essential staff to prepare. After that he spoke to all the men from I Minervia not on other duties and, after dismissing the others, ordered Ferox to come with him and inspect the ground outside the rampart. They looked at the ditches, the pits and obstacles, wandered through the canabae past the bath house and down to the river. The questions kept coming, and they always were apposite. Ferox had met plenty of senior officers, and the senators even more than the equestrians liked to hear their own voices, but with Hadrian there was a grasp of detail that was unusual. It was a considerable relief to have undertaken so much work on the defences, for he suspected that the criticism would have been far harsher if the inspection had occurred when Ferox had only just arrived. Even so, there were suggestions that were effectively orders to do more, and Ferox could not really resent them. On the whole, the legatus was right.

‘This is not an easy task,’ Hadrian said as he strode across the planks of the bridge. His escort was still waiting inside the fort, and only two troopers had accompanied them and they sat their horses well out of earshot, for he wished to speak to Ferox alone. ‘That blaze was deliberate, no doubt about it. Do you think it was some of your Britons?’

‘No, my lord. I don’t see what they would gain. The sling shot lobbed at me most likely was, unless it was whoever attacked the noble tribune.’

‘Not much noble about that sod. No restraint or wisdom, little honesty and randy as a stoat.’

Ferox forbore to suggest that this was surely fairly typical of Rome’s ancient families.

‘Cannot say that I’ll miss him,’ Hadrian said. ‘Saw him slide his hand onto your wife’s arse more than once.’

‘He would regret that,’ Ferox said without thinking and did not explain, just in case Hadrian decided that Enica or her people had anything to do with the attack.

Hadrian’s brow furrowed, as if trying and failing to read the centurion’s thoughts. ‘Have you seen your wife yet?’

Ferox shook his head.

‘My apologies, for I have kept you too busy. She has travelled a long way to be with you.’

The tone implied surprise at such determination for so small a prize, or perhaps that was Ferox’s imagination. He was no longer sure whether he and Claudia Enica were married and was still wondering what her appearance meant.

‘I am truly sorry,’ Hadrian said, ‘but let us talk instead of the assault on Piso. Any idea who might have done it?’

‘No, my lord.’ Ferox suspected that the legatus was more likely to guess what had been behind the attack. ‘I had never heard his name until last night. Perhaps there is someone with a grudge against the family, but it seems improbable. And I cannot help wondering whether the dead soldier was killed by whoever attacked the tribune.’

‘Unless that Briton had a go at Piso, and then had a roof fall on him…’ Hadrian hesitated, and that was striking in so suspicious a man. ‘Or he was the one who tried to kill our tribune, and some pious citizen saw it, stopped him from finishing the job and then made sure that the would-be assassin would not have the chance to make any more trouble?’

‘Perhaps, my lord.’

‘Well, it would fit the facts, would it not? Robbery, hatred of Rome or even mistaken identity. If he was also the incendiary, then disposing of an officer would be an added treat for his Dacian paymasters.’

‘I shall see what I can find out,’ Ferox said, although he could sense that the legate knew a good deal more about the whole affair.

‘As you wish,’ Hadrian said. ‘See what you can discover, but some sense tells me that something very much like that happened. As long as there is no one else here in the pay of the Dacians, the danger may be over.’

Like hell, thought Ferox, but said nothing. He would investigate even though he suspected that only Hadrian or someone working for him knew what had happened and had no intention of telling him.

Hadrian grinned, his neat teeth very white. ‘Well if Piso wakes up he will be your problem and there is nothing I can do about that. But what can I do for you?’

‘I could do with more men,’ the centurion said, ‘more food to replace what we have lost, and assurance that help will come.’

Hadrian walked to the far rail and tossed a pebble into the flowing water. ‘A legatus of a legion scattered in dribs and drabs in several provinces cannot command much. I shall do my best for you – and for my men serving here. But I cannot command and dispose as I will. And perhaps we are starting at shadows and seeing enemies where there are none? What do we have – rumours, suspicions, disgruntled men in an outpost. And the thought that Decebalus wants a new war and will attack as he has done before, and that he might attack here because then he could drive on unmolested, take our own bridge, damn his impudence, and invade our provinces while we do not have enough to stop him. In Rome that would all sound very wild.’

Ferox said nothing.

Hadrian stared down at the river, surging beneath them and almost bursting its banks from the snow melting on the far mountain tops, and waited. ‘Just a little river,’ he said after a while, ‘and just a little road leading to a great river and a wonderful bridge. What would the enemy gain – that is if they are the enemy? But if they are not the enemy then why does Decebalus send his men among the Roxolani?’ Ferox had told him what he had learned from his visit to their camp. ‘And I hear on good authority he has sent men and gold among many peoples and tribes, and why does he keep luring over our deserters to serve him? And why does a well-built and kept granary in our only fort on this route get set on fire?’

And why send Ferox and the troublesome Brigantes as its main garrison in the first place? Ferox thought, but did not say.

‘It cannot all be chance,’ Hadrian resumed. ‘There is too much to be a false trail, so somewhere the wild boar is lurking, waiting to charge. Then again what would he gain? We would win in the end. You were there weren’t you when Oppius Sabinus was killed?’

Ferox nodded, surprised that the legatus knew this for it had happened twenty years ago, when the Dacians plundered Moesia, and he had been a newly minted centurion.

‘And with Fuscus, and then with XXI Rapax?’

‘I was.’

‘That’s three big disasters, and yet here you stand as large as life – and as miserly with your words as Atilius Crispinus warned. Yes, yes, I know him, and he is much recovered in case you are interested. There is even talk of fresh offices in due course.’

That explained some of the knowledge, for Crispinus had been a tribune in Britannia and spent a lot of time in the north. A clever young aristocrat, perhaps too clever, life had become complicated and dangerous whenever the tribune had appeared – indeed it had been quite a surprise that he had not turned up at Piroboridava. Still, during the rebellion of the Brigantes, Crispinus had played a dangerous game and presumably lost, for he had ended up a prisoner of the rebels, paraded in chains like an animal, beaten and brutalized. Ferox had never learned the truth of all that had happened and where Crispinus’ true loyalties had lain. Hadrian was enough of a friend to know about this and speak of his recovery, although not enough of a friend to avoid mentioning it at all. From what Ferox had heard, the former tribune’s family had done their best to cast a veil over his ‘illness’.

‘So I know something about you, centurion, much more than you guess, and since no one else up to now has bothered to have you dismissed from the army, I will believe that the good things are true and that gives me hope. You are a hard man to kill, and you have the knack of winning against the odds. … And please don’t try to make a joke of this and assure me that you are still young and can easily make a fresh start.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.’

Hadrian glared at the rigid face for a long while. Then he stared over Ferox’s shoulder, but the centurion remained at attention and did not follow his gaze.

‘Very well,’ the legatus said at long last. ‘We will all have to do our best.’

‘Can I tear up the bridge, sir?’

‘Why?’

‘The fort is here to guard the road, and especially the bridge. It’s the route that matters, nothing else. Let’s say they come with an army. With luck, the fort may hold out – at least for a while. If it does, what’s to stop them leaving a couple of thousand men to keep us honest and sending the rest off to Dobreta. They could be there before the alarm has been raised, and certainly before a decent force can be concentrated. But without the bridge—’

‘Nothing big can get through,’ Hadrian cut in. ‘Not much in the way of supplies, no artillery – at least not decent sized stuff – and without those they’re not well placed to take Dobreta or anywhere else by storm or siege.’

‘So if we pull up the bridge they might not come at all, unless they’re looking for a cheap victory by taking one of our most vulnerable posts, stuck out on its own and unsupported.’

It was Hadrian’s turn to lapse into silence for a while, before shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said at long last. ‘It won’t do. Not proper for a Roman officer to flinch at rumours. And if you rip it up and they change their plans and do not come then that’s what it will seem – a nervous officer who cannot even control his own soldiers panicking and destroying a perfectly innocent bridge.’

‘We’d be alive though,’ Ferox suggested.

‘Still,’ Hadrian went on, clearly giving little weight to that point, ‘have a word with the Greek and see if he has any ideas of how to make their life difficult if they do come.’ Ephippus was to stay at the fort, as were all but the legatus’ most important staff – and now Sulpicia Lepidina and her household, at least until Hadrian had seen the lady’s husband and found out his situation and whether or not it was safe for her to join him.

Hadrian shaded his eyes from the sunlight as he stared up the slope at the fort as if measuring the distance. ‘Have you thought of reaching this spot with a ballista on top of the gate towers?’

‘They say it is too far, sir.’

‘Talk to Ephippus. He’s been trained by one of the best there is and strikes me as thorough. Maybe an extra storey to one of the towers would give more height and a longer range? There’s usually a way if only you can find it.’

‘My lord,’ Ferox said flatly so that the words could mean anything.

‘Yes, Crispinus told me you were insolent. Let us hope he was right in his other judgements.’ Hadrian whistled to attract the attention of one of the two cavalrymen and then gestured at the fort. The man rode away to summon the escort, while the other brought over the legatus’ horse. Hadrian nuzzled its face with great fondness. ‘I must leave,’ he said.

‘Are you sure that you do not want a larger escort, my lord? It is a long way to Sarmizegethusa.’

‘Then better to travel fast. If they kill a Roman senator in time of peace then the princeps would be implacable and destroy Decebalus and his kingdom.’ Hadrian snorted. ‘He might even thank me for the chance! But I don’t think any harm will come to thirty well-armed soldiers. Not yet at least.’ He swung himself easily up into the saddle. ‘And I do love a hard ride. Reminds me of when I was a tribune and…’ He seemed to decide that Ferox was not a worthwhile audience for the story. ‘No matter.’ The escort were trooping out of the main gateway. ‘Time to leave. Good fortune to you, Flavius Ferox. Let us hope we meet again, eh!’

‘Sir.’ Ferox saluted and Hadrian gave a wave in return as he put his horse into a trot.

‘Come on, lad, they can catch us up!’ he called to the other cavalryman and headed away up the valley. Ferox stood on the bridge and watched them pass – twenty-nine troopers, half a dozen mules, and five civilians, one of them the surly freedman, Sosius. He stared at Ferox, eyes cold and confident. If anyone on Hadrian’s staff knew more about the fire, the dead Brigantian and unconscious tribune it was surely him, but he was going and Ferox suspected that it would take a lot of coercion to break a man like that even if he had the chance.

Once across the bridge they broke into a canter to catch up with the already distant legatus. Ferox stared at the little column as the figures grew smaller, revelling in a solitude that was unlikely to be repeated for a long time. When he was young he might have thought of riding away in the opposite direction, although he would not have done it. Now, not even the thought occurred because he knew that he had to go wherever the army sent him, for he had no other life or home. Finding a pebble, he tossed it into the water. Then he took a deep breath and prepared for the first great battle.

A wood-gathering party passed him on his way up the slope, with forty men and three waggons, making him wonder whether he needed to increase the size of such detachments, or at least the proportion fully equipped to fight if necessary. Probably this was too soon, but it might do no harm to err on the side of caution. Ephippus already had plans, and most would require more timber. There was also the question of repairing the demolished ends of the barracks and finding space for all the stores they had saved.

Sabinus was waiting for him behind the gateway, as was Petrullus, the centurion who had come up with the newly arrived contingent of Brigantes. He was tall and slim like most Brigantes, with a lean, sneering face, and hair and moustache so blond that they were almost white. He was the eldest son of an important chief, head of a clan which had stayed loyal to Rome and to Claudia Enica, and he was said to be brave and capable. Ferox had met the man for the first time that morning and already found him irritating. Therefore it was no surprise that Petrullus had come to complain, for he had done as much and more to Hadrian, then complaining about the billeting of men and horses in the belief that the existing garrison held more than its fair share of the barracks and stables.

‘There are no servants,’ Petrullus said. ‘My warriors were promised servants when they arrived at the garrison.’

‘Not by me,’ Ferox said flatly. There was no sense in letting his anger spill out. ‘Nor at any time to my knowledge. They can keep anyone that they have brought with them, but otherwise no slaves to be brought or purchased while they are here.’ He just stopped himself from adding families to the restriction, not because it was not also true, but because Enica was now here. While it was unlikely that any sane woman would travel all the way from northern Britannia to drag herself and her children to be with her man, you never knew. If any appeared, then they would deal with the problem at the time. ‘No more slaves. And while you are here and under my command, everyone works – everyone.’

‘My men are warriors not labourers.’

‘They’ll be dead warriors if we don’t all work our hands to the bone.’ He sighed. ‘I will meet with your warriors as soon as I am able, but know that they must train as hard as the rest of us for the fight that is to come.’ Ferox noticed Sabinus’ doubt, but could deal with that later. ‘Tell them that this is now their dun. Here we will live or die, but I have no doubt that the blue shields of the Brigantes will ring with new honours whichever it is.’

‘We will serve the queen,’ Petrullus said, apparently sincere.

‘And she will be proud and generous,’ Ferox replied, knowing that the first was certainly true and wondering about the second. He left them and pressed on down the via praetoria. Ephippus was taking a reading from a groma, the staff resting on the road and one of the four arms with its lead plumb weights pointing at the left-hand tower of the gateway. He wondered what the Syracusan was up to, but there was no time for that. He nodded affably, and asked the engineer to see him in two hours’ time.

‘Yes, my lord.’

Ferox was a little early reaching the praetorium. It still did not feel like his house, but at least now it felt and sounded like a home as he caught the excited shouts of the children, no doubt playing in the open garden in the centre. Philo was waiting for him, with that predatory look that suggested he was poised to brush at his clothes and make a fuss.

‘She’s seen me before,’ Ferox barked. ‘She isn’t about to be fooled if I’m clean.’

‘It cannot do any harm, my lord,’ Philo replied, and as expected raised a little brush.

‘No. And you do not have to call me, my lord. Sir will do, and none too often.’

‘It will not, my lord.’ Ferox had long since grown used to the boy’s disappointment in him. ‘The queen will see you in the afternoon room. You are a little early.’

‘This is my house – or was anyway. And I know the way, so be about your business.’ Ferox went through the porch, continued through the reception room and out into the garden. It was a glorious afternoon, the sun already warming up, so that the shade was welcome.

An arrow whizzed noisily past his head. A second followed, wobbling in the air because it had a blunt tip and flights made deliberately too heavy. Ferox snatched it as it passed and pressed it to his chest before reeling in mock agony. A deluge of children swamped him, screeching with excitement. There were three boys, the youngest a dark-haired and blue-eyed ruffian, and all three grabbed him around the waist. Ferox staggered, taking them all with him and then let himself be borne down onto the ground.

‘You are a shockingly bad influence, Flavius Ferox, as I have said many times before.’ Sulpicia Lepidina had her hands on her hips, but was smiling. They had been lovers, briefly and secretly, years before and the dark-haired boy was her child and his, unlike the other step-children, although she loved them all. She was a senator’s daughter, beautiful and intelligent, as well as another man’s wife, so they had never had any future, and then later she had sent him to what could easily have been his death. None of that seemed to matter, and he felt her to be a true friend as well as the devoted mother to his son.

‘Better not linger,’ she said. ‘So you must all let him go until later!’ With some reluctance, the children broke free.

Ferox stood up, brushing himself down and glad that Philo could not see. He looked at Lepidina, her hair gleaming in the sunlight and wearing one of the pale blue dresses she favoured. ‘What do you think are my chances?’ he asked.

The clarissima femina held up her right arm, thumb outstretched and wavering like the president at the games deciding the fate of a fallen gladiator and trying to gauge the crowd’s mood. After a moment she spread fingers and thumb wide and smiled. ‘What do you think?’

Ferox did not know, so with a mock scowl back at the children to make them giggle, he walked to the far side, under the veranda and found the room. Two low stools were in it as well as a little round table, and he was not sure whether or not this was an encouraging sign. This was one of the better decorated rooms, although the painter shared the obsession with fauns and nymphs and the rooftops of distant towns.

The note passed to him by Philo that morning had said the fifth hour of the day and he knew that he was a little early, so he sat on one of the stools, finding it too low for comfort. There were two doors in this room, one leading to the garden and the other to a corridor and he guessed that she would come that way. He also guessed that she would be late and make him wait, so he waited and wondered whether being treated in this way was another unexpected aspect of commanding a garrison. After a long while, he stood up, and studied the paintings as there was nothing else to do. He had never looked that closely before, and noticed for the first time that wherever there was a nymph or group of such beauties exercising, playing or bathing, they were always watched from cover by a satyr, just visible from his horns or hoof as he hid behind a bush, tree or wall.

She came from the garden and at first he did not turn, wondering whether she would cough or speak, but she did not. Was this a test? He waited and the silence stretched on and on. The Silures raised a boy to cherish silence, but he doubted that his grandfather and the other elders had ever anticipated a situation like this one. Probably they would despise him for creating it.

‘You know,’ Ferox said at last and started to turn, ‘I’d never noticed…’ He stopped.

Claudia Enica stood like the statue of a goddess. Memory is a fragile thing, often vague, and if he had known that she was beautiful that was not the same as seeing her just a few feet away. Her dress was green silk, shimmering in the light of the open door behind her and just hinting at the elegant lines of her legs and body. She liked green, feeling it set off the vivid red of her hair, which today was piled high and dotted with tiny pearls in what was no doubt her own adaptation of a current fashion. It suited her, as did the rouge on her lips and the gentle make-up. This was Claudia, the Roman lady, well educated, teasing and dignified as an equestrian should be. At other times this same woman became Enica, granddaughter of Cartimandua, the witch queen of the Brigantes, surrounded with the same awe. That person was wilder, a warrior trained to a high pitch, who killed readily if she felt the need and was as out of place at a sophisticated dinner party as a tiger.

Ferox knew what it was like to have two souls in one body, with the prince of the Silures, the wolf people, living alongside the Roman centurion. Claudia Enica was so much younger and yet seemed to find the dual life more natural, perhaps through some magic inherited from her grandmother.

The door closed, and he caught a glimpse of the dwarf Achilles, Claudia’s ‘whisperer’ when she was acting the part of the frivolous and fashionable lady. Still she stood, without a trace of a smile so that she was more than ever the perfect goddess, as cold as she was lovely.

Ferox took a pace forward. ‘I am…’ The words trailed away and he stopped. What was there to say that would do any good? ‘You are so beautiful,’ he managed at last, and although he meant it the words sounded false, just what any man would say in flattery.

Claudia moved quickly, one step, then another, the built-up heels of her light shoes tapping on the wooden floor boards. Her hand moved even faster and she slapped his left cheek, so hard that it stung. Still her face was rigid.

Ferox flexed his jaw. Although tall like many Brigantes, she was shorter than him by a good few inches in spite of the extra height from her shoes. That meant staring up at him, her green eyes hard as flint. The last time they had met those eyes had blazed with anger.

Claudia’s hand swept back and slammed into his other cheek so hard that his head jerked to the side. Ferox straightened up and stood absolutely still. He knew he deserved this and far more. Almost four years ago the army had given him six months furlough to be with his wife. She was busy, working as queen of the Brigantes to rule her people, and working even harder to persuade the Romans to make official and final acknowledgement that she was indeed queen, recognised forever by the empire. There was not a lot for him to do and idleness never suited him. The fiery Enica was frustrated and short tempered, not helped by a difficult pregnancy, the result of a leave he had spent with her a few months earlier. He was bored and started to drink, and when she snapped at him once or twice he had snapped back, which led to fights. There was a little scar next to his eyebrow from where he had been hit by a nicely decorated Samian cup. Whether he was patient or argued back it only seemed to rile her all the more, but he had to admit that he might have done better had he found things to do rather than drink. As Vindex had so aptly put it, he had buggered it all up.

She hit him a third time and then stepped back.

‘You look older,’ she said.

‘You do not.’ Ferox meant it. Claudia smoothed her hands down her silk dress past her waist. Her figure was as lithe as it had ever been. ‘You truly do not.’ Years ago, when he had first started to learn about this strange young woman she had told him with absolute assurance that he was hers. Whether or not it was true then, it had become true. He belonged to her, to do with as she wished. ‘How are the children?’ he asked.

‘How should I know?’ Her head was slightly on one side, and Claudia was in charge, always ready to mock. ‘They are at home.’ She sighed as if in disappointment. ‘You have received the letters?’

‘Yes.’ Every month Claudia had one of her servants write to him to say that their twin girls were well, and list accomplishments such as the times they had learned to crawl and then walk.

‘I would guess that they are squealing and dirty, demanding food and attention and anything else that takes their fancy. That is how they usually behave.’

‘Would a mother’s guidance—’

‘Silures!’ Claudia interrupted. ‘They make their women work like slaves, whether they will or not. Brigantes and Romans alike are more enlightened.’ Her hands were on her hips now, and she snorted. ‘Huh! Your children are well, no thanks to you, that much I sense even from so far away. They are cared for and loved by women and a few men utterly devoted to them, rather than a mother who finds their bawling and self-absorption tiresome. That is a good deal more than most children get!’

‘How do they look?’ Ferox asked.

Claudia smiled. ‘They take after their mother, thank the gods for great mercies. And so alike that I for one cannot tell the little mice apart. No wonder the Romans call them both Flavia.’ Her head went back on one side. ‘You are grinning like a halfwit, Flavius Ferox,’ she said. ‘They have each sent you a snail shell, and you can have them later. Why snail shells? Why indeed, but I understand the choice was between that and some leaves. They are as half-witted as their father, but at least have the excuse of being infants and may learn in time.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, and on instinct put his hands on her arms. She did not flinch, but did not respond either.

‘Your gifts for conversation have not improved, have they.’

‘Why are you here, my queen?’

There was another smile. ‘At least you know your place, even if you speak like a surly brute and maul me about. Well, I could be here as the dutiful little wife, to help her husband in his many onerous tasks, could I not? Just as dear Lepidina follows her Cerialis half way across the empire.’

‘It seems unlikely.’

‘Pig.’ She pulled one arm free and reached up to her forehead as if wiping away tears. ‘I have missed you,’ she added, serious once again.

‘Not every time, but I am pretty good at ducking.’

‘Brute.’

She did not pull free from his other hand and her skin was soft and warm. Her scent was all around him, and brought back memories of better times.

‘I am here to help,’ she said, and brushed his chin with her fingers. ‘Philo still does a good job, and more remarkably yet manages to restrain himself from slicing the razor through your throat. Remarkable fellow that.

‘And I am here because I am queen and my people are going to war.’

‘We are still at peace.’

Another snort. ‘War is coming. You know it as well as I unless you have truly become a fool. So the commander’s wife has joined her husband as far as the Romans are concerned for there is much that they could not or would not understand. My warriors will know that their queen is here, her sword as sharp as any of theirs.’

‘Speaking of swords…’ Ferox pulled her towards him and kissed her. Her lips were soft, and her arms gripped onto him pressing their mouths ever closer. He was not thinking, not worrying, for the moment all that mattered was to be with her. She moaned very softly, and their bodies started to blend into one. Ferox reached for the shoulder of her dress, feeling the silk and trying to find the catch of the little brooch.

Claudia Enica’s knee jerked up sharply and Ferox groaned with the pain, doubling up as she pulled away.

‘You have to earn more,’ his wife told him, her eyes bright. ‘Now sort yourself out and be off with you. I shall see you tomorrow, but not before. Still, it is good to see you, husband.’

Ferox’s thoughts came slowly as he left the praetorium, for part of him was happy and the fears that now almost all that he cared for in the world had come to this place of danger could not yet drive the happiness away.

‘Did she hit you?’ Vindex was waiting for him.

Ferox nodded.

‘Good lass. Kick in the balls?’

‘Used her knee.’

‘Aye, well enough. She’s a queen and no mistake.’