increasingly worried him. They must be badly weakened by now by the twin onslaught of fire and the relentless hammering from the battering ram. But perhaps Claudius watched over them after all.
Barely had the thought formed in his mind when the priest Agrippa appeared at his side. He had faded markedly in the past two days and in the pale light of the oil lamp his face took on an unearthly opaque quality and his eyes burned fever bright.
‘The god came to me in a vision,’ he announced in a voice quavering with exaltation. ‘He advised me that the time has come to appease him for our presence in his house. Only by making a sacrifice of great value will we be released from our torment and the rebel horde wiped clean from the precinct of this temple.’
‘We don’t have anything of value,’ Valerius pointed out wearily. ‘Not unless Corvinus has something hidden under his cloak.’ The goldsmith raised his head at the sound of his name and speared a venomous look in the direction of the doorway.
‘We have food and water,’ the priest insisted, failing to heed the warning in Valerius’s voice. ‘What could be more valuable in our perilous position?’
Valerius was suddenly death sick of priests and temples and gods. If Agrippa was right it was Rome’s gods who had failed to stand before Boudicca and her gods and had allowed them to be trapped in this dreadful place. He had always had at least a little faith in the gods, but now with death six inches away behind that oak door he doubted his faith had been repaid. Perhaps their lives were the price that must be paid for using Claudius to fleece men like Lucullus of their fortunes. He had a sudden thought. ‘I won’t give up our bread and water for Claudius, because where he is they have all the food they need. But if you insist I will make a sacrifice of something even more valuable.’
Agrippa looked around him at the sparseness of their cramped surroundings. ‘I see nothing else of great value,’ he said, frowning.
‘What could be of greater value to Claudius than you, priest?’ Valerius drew his sword slowly from its scabbard, where the polished blade glinted in the glow from the fire, and extended it until the point was an inch from Agrippa’s throat. He raised his voice, so everyone in the chamber could hear it. ‘I give you a choice. We can sacrifice our food and our water, or we can sacrifice the priest here, who will no doubt go willingly to his god if it will ensure the survival of his fellow men. Food or the priest?’
‘Priest,’ urged the weary chorus from the floor. Valerius noticed that the loudest call came from young Fabius, the augur.
‘Well?’
For a long moment Agrippa stared at the sword as if it were a snake about to strike. ‘Perhaps a sacrifice is no longer necessary,’ he said in a choked voice and returned to his place on legs that were a little more unsteady than before.
The priest had barely departed when Valerius heard his name called from the far end of the chamber. Petronius. Didn’t he have enough to concern him without the quaestor ’s intervention? ‘Keep testing the door,’ he ordered the legionary on guard. ‘At the first sign of charring, use two amphorae to damp it down.’
He made his way through the prone bodies, wondering what Petronius wanted. Their position here posed an inherent difficulty and one he would have expected to raise itself before now. As the senior military officer he commanded the defence of Colonia, and therefore the temple. But Petronius was the senior civil presence, and his position gave him a certain amount of authority, even in this situation. As quaestor he would have been entitled to demand control of the food and water supplies. True, he had put up surprisingly little fight when Valerius insisted on using the water to damp the door, but still, this summons — for that was what it was — undoubtedly meant trouble.
Petronius looked more careworn than normal but had made himself as comfortable as possible in his straitened circumstances. While inches separated everyone else in the chamber from his neighbour, the quaestor had created a small outpost using the chests containing Colonia’s official records which gave him and his companion not only room to move, but the relative luxury of something to sit upon. On closer inspection the girl was even younger than Valerius had imagined, probably somewhere in her mid-teens, with haunting dark eyes and a body on the brink of womanhood. He realized he recognized her. It was the girl from Lucullus’s funeral.
The gnawed end of a chicken bone protruded from beneath the hem of Petronius’s cloak, a sign not only of a degree of preparation but also that the ‘records’, or at least some of them, were not all they appeared.
‘How may I be of service to you, quaestor?’ he asked warily.
The answer came as a surprise. ‘Come now, my boy, I think we might be a little less formal. I thought you might appreciate somewhere to rest awhile.’ Petronius indicated one of the boxes.
Valerius was tempted to turn down the offer, but it seemed genuine enough and it would have been bad manners to refuse. When he’d made himself comfortable he said: ‘Now tell me the true reason you wanted me.’
Petronius smiled. ‘I underestimated you, Valerius. I believed you were another of those haughty young aristocrats merely using the legion as a stepping stone to greater things.’ He raised a hand. ‘Do not be insulted; after all, I was one myself. But I saw you and your men fight against impossible odds today and you are a true soldier; a warrior and a leader. It was a remarkable action which cost our rebel queen dear. I doubt she will rest until she burns you out of your lair.’
‘The Ninth-’
‘That is why I called you,’ Petronius interrupted. ‘The papers in these chests could be very valuable to her. Intelligence sources and lists of friends of Rome, some of whom are not what the Britons believe. They would be in great danger if the boxes survive and we are taken. Of course, if the Ninth legion is truly coming to our rescue, I need not be concerned.’ There was a question in the last statement, but Valerius looked at the girl and hesitated.
‘I have no secrets from Mena,’ the quaestor assured him. ‘She is the reason I am here.’ He saw Valerius’s startled look and gave a tired smile. ‘I met her mother four months before I was due to return to Rome following the invasion. She was a Trinovante; Lucullus’s sister, in fact. When we found she was with child, I discovered to my surprise that I had a greater duty.’
That word duty again. Valerius found himself torn between admiration and contempt for Petronius. It was difficult to believe that behind the cold and calculating bureaucrat was a lover who had given up his career so that he could be a father to a native girl. Yet this was the same Petronius who had deprived Falco of the arms he so desperately needed.
‘Destroy them,’ he said quietly. ‘Destroy the papers.’
For a moment Petronius’s face lost its urbane certainty. ‘Your legionary?’
‘If he escaped, Messor will ensure the story of Colonia’s last stand is known, but beyond that… The door may last until morning, or it may not. Even if he reaches the Ninth I doubt they will be able to fight their way to us in time.’
Petronius smiled sadly at his daughter, and reached for her hand. ‘Thank you,’ he said, but Valerius wasn’t sure who the words were intended for. He stood up and walked back to his place beside the door, where the base was now clearly glowing.
‘Water,’ he ordered, more brusquely than he had intended. His admission to Petronius was the first time he had allowed himself to acknowledge that all hope was gone.
It must have been close to midnight when the fire outside the door was doused. Valerius saw the tense, white faces as everyone in the chamber waited for the first crash of the battering ram and prayed the seasoned oak would hold once more. But the crash didn’t come. Instead, a few moments later they heard the sharper rap of a heavy hammer accompanied by a scream that froze the blood of every man, woman and child in the Temple of Claudius. When Valerius put his ear to the door he heard the sound of muffled laughter and a rasping, agonized breathing. The hammer struck again, followed by the scream, and he had to take a step back because he feared the agony of the tortured soul on the other side of the oak would unman him.
Messor. Poor brave Pipefish, who had endured the suffocating hell of the hypocaust only to be taken when he must have been almost clear.
The second scream was replaced by the child-like pleading of a man tested beyond endurance. The pleas drew Valerius back to the door but he could think of no words of solace, nothing that would reach beyond the barrier of pain to the young soldier he had sent to his death. What could he say? That he wished he could take his place? That he wished it was he who prayed for his mother, and to be released from his agony? He leaned his head
