surprised enough to allow his eyes to drop and meet the legate’s. ‘Oh, yes, tribune, I have been there. Counting every sestertius and gasping at the man’s greed, then counting them again just to be sure he hasn’t stolen a few more. And after that? A year back in Rome, perhaps with an appointment, perhaps not. That is when your future will be decided, and by then it will be in your hands.’
Valerius could see the two aides still staring at the model on the sand table and trying to look as if they weren’t listening. The legate followed his gaze.
‘Leave us.’ The two men saluted and hurriedly made for the door.
‘Come.’ Valerius followed his commander across the dirt floor towards the sand table. ‘There will be a day, Valerius, when your soldiers are mere coins to be spent. What will you do then, when you know you must order them into the abyss? The truth is that they do not seek your friendship, but your leadership. Here.’ He pointed at the sand table, which held a perfect miniature replica of the hill and the British fortress.
‘Sir?’
‘It is time to end this.’
II
The Silurian chieftain looked down from the wooden ramparts towards the symmetrical lines of the Roman encampment and fought back an unfamiliar panic. He was puzzled, and, yes, frightened. Not frightened for himself, or for the impetuous warriors who had brought this upon him, but for the people who had come to this place seeking sanctuary, but were instead facing annihilation. Within the walls of the fortress stood perhaps a hundred and fifty thatched roundhouses, clustered in the lee of the ramparts or around the little temple in the centre of the compound dedicated to the god Teutates. The inhabitants farmed the fields in the surrounding countryside, hunted and fished and traded the surplus to the less fortunate communities, of which he was also the overlord, in the rugged hills to the west. Normally the fort would support fewer than five hundred people — today all the warrior strength he could gather and an additional thousand refugees scrabbled for space among the huts and fought for water from the single well.
The ambush on the Roman cavalry patrol had been carried out at the orders of the High King of the Silures, who had in turn received ‘guidance’ from his druid, who had no doubt received similar guidance from the leaders of his sect in faraway Mona. He had been against it, but how could he, a lowly border chieftain, refuse his king? In any case his young men were eager to test their mettle against the enemy who paraded across their hills and their valleys as if they were their masters. But the High King was a long way from the soldiers who now threatened his fortress. One tribe would feel the power of the Romans’ revenge and it would be this one.
He had always intended to fight; his honour and his authority depended on it. But initially he had intended to fight and run. This was not the first time he had seen a Roman legion prepare for battle. Ten years before, in a valley not three days’ ride away, he had stood with the Catuvellauni war leader Caratacus when the long line of brightly painted shields crossed the river and the last great alliance of the British tribes had smashed itself against them the way a wave breaks against a rocky shoreline. He knew what the Romans were capable of. His puzzlement had begun when the legionaries started digging, and by the time he’d worked out why, his opportunity to run had gone. Now his people were in a fortress within a fortress. Trapped. But the puzzlement only turned to fear when the messengers he sent to ask for terms and offer hostages failed to return. Such offers had always been accepted in the past. The reason this one was not became clear when the leader of the ambush explained the fate of the Roman auxiliary cavalrymen, and clearer still when the heads of his two messengers were sent back by a Roman catapult.
‘Father?’ At first he didn’t acknowledge the melodious high-pitched cry because he needed every ounce of courage and he knew that even to look at her would weaken his resolve. ‘Please, Father.’ He turned at last. Gilda stood at her mother’s side: part child, part woman, liquid doe eyes beneath an untidy fringe of raven hair. For a moment their combined beauty cast aside the bleak shadow that blanketed his mind. But only for a moment. The thought of what might happen to them in the next few hours placed a lump of stone in his throat and he barely knew his own voice.
‘I told you to go to the temple,’ he said to his wife, who, for reasons only a woman would understand, wore her best grey dress on this of all days. ‘You will be safe there.’ He could see she didn’t believe him, but what could he tell her? Another man would have given her a dagger and instructed her to use it. But he wasn’t that man. He had spoken more sharply than he intended and Gilda gave him a look of reproach as they walked away hand in hand. When he turned back to the ramparts and the Roman preparations below, his vision was strangely blurred.
Valerius stared up at the fortress on the flat-topped hill. He had seen native oppida like it many times but this was by far the largest and the most skilfully constructed. He studied it carefully, impressed by the engineering. The approaches had been cunningly designed to force attackers to assault the palisaded walls from an angle, so that they would be more exposed to the slings and spears of the defenders. He could see those defenders now, a silent line of heads silhouetted against the sky above the first of the three ramparts that encompassed an area measuring as much as two legionary encampments.
The legate called for his chief engineer, who had been summoned from Glevum when a siege became inevitable. ‘It may look formidable,’ Livius growled. ‘But this place is no Alesia and I do not have Caesar’s patience. How long before the heavy weapons are ready?’
The man chewed his lip but Livius knew him well enough to be certain he had the answer to hand. ‘One hour for the onagers and ballistas, perhaps two more for the big catapults. We had a little trouble at the last river crossing…’
‘You have two hours to put everything in place’ — he also knew the engineer well enough to be certain he had built in the leeway to be able to meet his general’s deadline — ‘two onagers, two ballistas and a single catapult between each pair of watchtowers.’
Later, the heavy chopping sound that was instantly recognizable as the discharge of a ballista brought him from his tent. He looked up at the sun and a particularly sensitive watcher might have noted the shadow of a smile cross the stern features. Two hours less perhaps ten minutes. Good.
‘A ranging shot, sir, short by a dozen yards,’ the engineer announced. ‘A waste of a bolt, but we’ll do better this time. More tension on the rope there!’
Valerius hurried across to join them and watched as the weapon’s commander hauled on the winch, and the two front arms of the ballista bent noticeably back as the ratchet turned noisily. It was a big bow, really, one that shot massive, five-foot arrows with heavy, needle-pointed iron heads. A big mechanical bow encased in a wooden frame and mounted on a cart for easy transportation. They called the arrows ‘shield-splitters’ and he had seen the destruction they could do to an enemy battle line. They would be equally deadly when they fell among the British warriors and the shambling mob of refugees who had sought the false security of the fortress walls. Those walls were now ringed by twenty ballistas and the same number of onagers, the little stone-throwing catapults. Experience told him the onagers would struggle to hurl their ten-pound projectiles over the walls of the inner rampart, but they would add to the chaos and the panic. There would be no such problems for the big catapults. The long, fifteen-foot arm could throw a boulder five times the size of a man’s head from one side of this hill to the other.
‘Weapon armed and ready, sir.’
The engineer scuttled round to the rear of the ballista and stared along the launching ramp towards the fortress. ‘Another elevation.’
The ballista commander lifted the central beam of the weapon a notch and stood back as the engineer again checked the aim, the calculations twitching one by one across his furrowed brow. Eventually he turned back towards Livius. ‘You have the honour, general.’
The legate nodded. ‘Ballista… fire!’
From the eastern gateway of his fortress the Silurian chieftain heard a soft thud at the base of the hill and detected a flicker of movement against the green and brown of the earth below. In the same second some force disturbed the air close by his left shoulder, plucking at the heavy cloth of his cloak, and a moment later he heard a shriek from within the fortress behind him. He turned, knowing what he would see. At first he wasn’t certain
