again. The light was failing fast, and his men were exhausted. So, for that matter, was he.
Halfway across the plateau, he raised his hand and called a halt. Something had caught his eye in the trees ahead, maybe half a mile away. Marco stopped beside him.
‘See anything?’
‘No, sir.’
They stared a little longer. They were about to move forward again when an unlikely figure emerged from the shadows of the trees and came trotting furiously towards them. No more than trotting, but there was an urgency to it all the same. The mount was an ancient, dusty mule, and the boy who clung to its bony back was jolted around like a rag doll. But he clung on with fierce determination, kicking his heels into the mule’s skinny flanks all the way.
‘Can’t shake this one off even if we wanted to,’ growled Ops close behind. ‘He’s like a nasty dose of Syrian clap, he is.’
As the boy drew closer they could see the fear in his eyes. He came to a panting halt before them at last, his mule wheezing beneath him as if it were about to expire where it stood. The boy twisted round to look back into the trees. He could see nothing. He turned back and collapsed, gasping, along his ungainly mount.
‘Back so soon?’ said Lucius. ‘What’s up?’
The boy hauled himself upright. His face was streaked with grime and sweat. ‘They’re coming this way.’
‘Who?’
Attila shook his head. ‘I don’t know. But it’s me they want.’
‘ You? ’
‘I don’t know why.’
‘Me neither,’ growled Ops.
‘Shut it, Decurion,’ said Marco. ‘Have you had that arm of yours stitched up yet?’
Ops shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. ‘Will soon, sir.’
Marco shook his head. It was a standing joke in the century that, while Ops was quite happy to face a line of howling Picts and not flinch, he hated needles.
Marco turned back to Attila.
Shielding his eyes from the setting sun, the boy looked up at the two grim-faced Roman officers in their tall, scarlet-plumed helmets. ‘I thought I might be able to outride them, but…’
Lucius shook his head, smiling at the thought. That mule couldn’t outride a lame tortoise. ‘Not a chance. They’d track you, anyway.’
The boy lowered his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, almost whispering.
It was Marco who replied, leaning down a little to the boy’s level, his bear-like growl softened for once. ‘Sorry’s got nothing to do with it, lad. You’re our responsibility, and any bunch of marauding barbarians, begging your pardon and all that, that wants to get their hands on you, is going to have to come and take you. Without our permission. Is that understood?’
The boy nodded. ‘Understood.’
Marco straightened his back again. ‘So. How many of them?’
The boy had finally got his breath back. ‘Two hundred? Maybe twice as many horses, and fresh-looking.’
Once again, Lucius admired the boy’s military eye. But the situation was desperate. It would take the Goths only a matter of minutes to saddle up, don their armour and ride out after him. He turned to Marco.
‘I know, I know,’ said the centurion.
Lucius wheeled back and roared at the column. ‘Century, dismount! Packs off, spades out, picks at the ready. There’s work to do.’
Even after eight years of service, he could still be impressed by the speed and stamina of his men. Soon they had gouged a circular trench out of the ground deep enough to trip a horse and rider, and thrown up an earth-and- stone rampart within. They left only a narrow opening, wide enough for a single mounted man. Exhausted, caked with sweat and dust, every muscle in their bodies burning, they set to beating the rampart solid with the flat of their spades, and putting up a rough but effective stockade on top. Not a man complained. Not a man went slow. Not a man stopped for water till the work was done. Even Ops, with his wounded arm and his face still pale with blood-loss, slaved as hard as the rest of them. Even that skinny new lad Salcus set to with a will. And Marco as well. Lucius looked them over, and thought of the two hundred Gothic horsemen coming their way. And for the sake of this one inscrutable boy, all their lives would be spared. But he and his men had a job to do, and not a man here would shirk it. He knew them well enough. The Caligatae: the Boots, the Iron Hats, Marius’ Mules, the Poor Bloody Infantry. He wouldn’t swap his century – what was left of his century – for any other band of men in the world.
He scanned the treeline continually, but there was still no sign of their attackers. What was taking them so long?
‘Use the wagons, too,’ said a voice.
Lucius looked round. It was the boy.
He frowned. ‘I don’t usually take tactical advice from twelve-year-olds, but…’
‘Fourteen.’
‘Whatever.’
Lucius considered again. Then he started giving orders for the two carriages to be dragged into the defensive circle.
The boy interrupted again. ‘On their sides. You need to tip ’em over.’
Lucius growled, ‘You’re beginning to try my patience, boy.’
But Attila was unperturbed. ‘Leave ’em upright and it’s the easiest thing in the world for your enemy to come in close under cover, lasso them, hitch them up to a team of horses and just trundle them away on their own wheels. And then your circle’s wide open. Tip ’em over on their sides and they won’t budge.’
Lucius harrumphed. ‘It’s not the Roman way.’
The boy grinned. ‘No, it’s the Hun way. Oh, and tip ’em over with the wheels on the inside, so they can’t use ’em for climbing.’
So Lucius barked further orders, and soon the two great gilded carriages were roped up to teams of straining horses. With a lot of creaking and cursing, and then an almighty crash, they toppled over into the dust. Lucius had to admit they made a useful extra barrier round about one-third of the circle. And with only forty men to defend the perimeter, they needed all the extra help they could get.
They drove the horses in through the narrow gateway, along with the boy’s rickety stolen mule, tethered them in the centre, and closed the gap off with a further rank of bristling staves. Lucius had a quiet word in Tugha Ban’s twitching ear, and she settled down on her hooves and lowered her head to sleep.
Silence settled over the circle of men.
A few had gathered enough kindling to light a couple of small campfires, and they sat cross-legged in the flickering orange firelight, taking careful swigs of water and mouthfuls of ground-up hardtack. It wasn’t much, but it was all they had left. None of them felt much like leaving the circle to do a bit of twilight hunting. The sun was almost gone, and darkness was settling over the face of the world. The little summer birds were already sleeping with open eyes in the forest, and in the valleys below the cattle were settling into silence for the night.
Lucius and Marco stood side by side on the earthen rampart, straining to see into the forest beyond.
‘They’re there,’ said Marco softly.
‘You can see them?’
‘A flash of something. They’re watching and waiting.’
‘Why didn’t they attack earlier? They just sat and watched us throw up our defences.’
Marco grunted. ‘Such as they are.’
‘So it’ll be a night attack?’
‘Darkness usually favours defenders, as does twilight. Maybe that’s why they’re waiting.’
‘Attack at dawn, then.’
‘I reckon.’
Then Lucius’ blood ran cold. The last of the sun was slanting in low across the rocky plateau, the trees beyond almost black in the failing light. And the Gothic horsemen were riding out of the forest.
But it was no attack. Not yet. It was an embassy.
There were three of them. They rode tall, high-spirited horses, and each held a long spear in his right hand, a
