use the skills he learnt from Gadoric both at home and in Sicily, expertise he had put aside since joining the legions. Four mounted men, not hurrying, but not cautious, matched their pace to the men marching ahead. With luck he would take one of them alive, and just one would be enough. Then he would be able to find out what lay behind them and how many men they might have to fight. He stood up as the first horseman passed him, spearing the second with a well-aimed javelin and his shout alerted his companions, who would handle the other pair easily.
Aquila turned, bending his knees to jump at the first horseman. The man had spun in his saddle, trying to slip off and out of danger, but the javelin took him in the side, adding impetus to the movement, jerking the rider off his mount. Fabius was on him before Aquila could open his mouth, and his shout would have had no effect, given the noise. His nephew was across his victim’s chest, both hands pushing his sword, piercing the breastplate and crushing the ribs as it entered his body. The feet kicked wildly and the arms flayed uselessly, but the man was like an insect pinned to a wall. Still with his entire weight on the sword, Fabius turned and grinned at Aquila, an expression which changed to bewilderment when he realised that his ‘uncle’ was angry.
There was no time for remonstration; they had four horses, animals that could be put to use. Men could be sent off after Tullius, with further information, but first he would have to take a look himself, to find out what it was they faced.
It was easy to mistake Aquila for a local tribesman, stripped of his uniform and wearing an enemy helmet, though he had to crouch over to disguise his height. The whole party made their way back, with Aquila well ahead on the horse, so he was the first to see the smoke in the blue sky, the first to smell the burning. His nose also picked up the smell of horses, a lot of them, the rich odour of fresh manure strong on the faint breeze. They had closed the entrance to the valley as soon as they had seen him leave, taking positions in the hills above the track so that they could catch Ampronius as he left.
Their horses, under a small guard, were now tethered in lines near the river. The Romans would have to come this way, because all the other exits from the valley led them further away from the safety of their base camp and they would come, encumbered by slaves and booty, if the smell of burning was anything to go by.
As Aquila pondered the alternatives, three things stood out as paramount: first, even vastly outnumbered, the Romans would fight better in open country than they could in the narrow defile. Secondly, they would come through that defile unless they were warned of the danger. But it was the third factor that determined the course of action. Ampronius had a force composed mainly of infantry; the Averici normally fought on horseback, so he got out of sight and ran back to join the others.
‘Who can ride?’
Several men put their hands up, though the chance of their being skilful was remote. Roman farmers never bred horses for anything other than toil, so they were rarely competent riders, but if they could stay in the saddle they would move a lot faster than a man on foot, and for the same reason, two would stand a better chance than one. He sent off the first pair with a verbal despatch, outlining the situation and what he intended to do, then he had ten men divest themselves of their arms, and some of their armour, leaving just enough to identify them as Romans. They were then ordered to roll themselves in the dust, Fabius being included because he begged, and Aquila agreed because his nephew was good at anything smacking of subterfuge. The soldiers were roped together by the neck, apparently hobbled, covered in even more dust, and told to act like prisoners who had been severely beaten.
The warriors guarding the horses were already on their feet as the party came into view, because Aquila, shouting Celtic oaths he hoped they could barely hear, had alerted them. Knowing they would be wondering where the prisoners came from, he laid into the stumbling line with a piece of wood, causing them to stagger and fall, which served to increase their wretched appearance and, he hoped, to distract the tribesmen. Fabius, in a piece of overacting that infuriated Aquila, dropped to his knees, hands clasped together, and begged loudly for mercy.
‘Get up, damn you. Do you want to ruin everything?’
Fabius dragged himself to his feet, then started beating his chest and wailing. Incomprehensible to the men guarding the horses, it was clear enough to Aquila, as Fabius told him where to stick his silver spear. As they came abreast of the tethered horses, the guards lined up to jeer at these Roman pigs, but that changed abruptly as those porkers leapt at them and it died completely when the hidden knives found their targets.
‘Bodies!’ snapped Aquila. These were quickly dragged away and flung into the bushes lining the river. ‘Fabius, get some of the men dressed up as locals, then get the others out of sight.’
The next two messengers were then sent off, these to inform Quintus that the Romans held the entrance to the pass. Over the next hour, the rest of his men were brought into the horse lines in small groups. He set some to making torches, while those in disguise made bundles of dry brushwood. Aquila, without helmet or shield, was up in the hills to the left of the track, using all the hunting skills at his command to get close to the besiegers without being observed. It was not as hard as he had feared; they sat in groups talking loudly, sure that their lookouts would give them ample warning if Ampronius finished his looting and formed his men up to leave.
He struggled hard, as he listened, to understand the dialect they were speaking. The odd word was clear, but he could make no sense at all of their conversation. Not that he needed to, for the moment they stopped talking and moved into position, he would know it was time for him to go. Aquila was in an exposed and dangerous position, but he was happier than he had been for an age, free to make his own decisions, away from the interference of superiors and right at this moment he relished the solitude — not something often afforded to a soldier in the legions.
The command — hushed but urgent — killed the conversations around him. He heard the clink of metal on rock as the tribesmen moved and the noises ceased. Aquila crept round the rock, behind which he had been sheltering, looking for a spot that would afford him a view into the valley beyond. It was his eagle that saved him, because the man who put the short sword at his throat hesitated just long enough, unsure of his identity. The question, in the guttural local dialect, was easy to comprehend and he answered with a local name, which gained him another second, as the Averici warrior took hold of the eagle, exerting the pressure necessary to pull it off. The sword on Aquila’s throat, being in the way, was eased just enough for him to move and his knee made contact at the same time as his hand grabbed the warrior’s wrist. The mouth was open, ready to scream but Aquila got one hand on his helmet and jerked it up, using the strap to pull his head back. The other hand was in the Celt’s mouth, pushing down on his teeth till Aquila heard the jaw break. His opponent dropped to his knees with Aquila’s arm now around his windpipe, cutting off the air. The other still tugged at the helmet as slowly, and as silently as he could, Aquila strangled him.
It was clear up to the next level and one look told him what he wanted to know. He could see the Romans, tiny figures in the distance, but visible by their regular formation. The crowd of future slaves, in the middle of the two detachments, formed an untidy mass, but they moved at the same pace as their captors, heading towards the exit from the valley and the road back to the Roman base camp. The whole fertile plain was dotted with the carcasses of dead cattle; what Ampronius could not take he would kill. The huts had burnt easily, but the embers still sent wispy plumes of smoke up into the air.
He watched them for a few minutes, gauging their pace, and confirmed that the mass of the attacking force was on the other side of the ravine, ready to rush down the slope, before turning and making his way back to where his men were waiting. Ordering those in disguise to get back into uniform, he changed himself, all the while counting, trying to match the pace of the marchers in the valley to the mental image of the landscape he carried in his head.
‘Will Ampronius get the message?’ asked Fabius.
‘He’ll get the message all right, but it’s what he does next that counts.’
‘Like nothing?’
Aquila nodded. ‘He’s got food, water and a perfect place for a pitched battle, even outnumbered.’
‘I think we should get away.’
‘Don’t worry, Fabius. Most of them are on the other side of the pass. There are only a few of them on this side, because it’s too steep to get down amongst our men when the trap’s sprung. We’ll be safer up there, and if the worst happens, we can always find a way to join Ampronius.’
They lit the torches, then the brushwood bundles, using their spears to hold them near to the horses. Others dragged more bundles across the track, so that the animals, if they wanted to escape the flames and smoke, had only one way to go. They dragged on their lines, hooves flying to accompany the din of their fear until Aquila shouted the command and the ropes were cut. Those doing the cutting had to move smartly because the animals,
