Moving at the trot, I led him through theopen area of the town to reach the mud track that they call streetsthat was the closest one running parallel to the riverbank, pullingup at what the Parisii called their eastern gate. Hopping off thehorse, I walked over to one of what passed for the pair of gates,which I grabbed with both hands and gave a tremendous yank. I hadno idea if it would work; in truth, I did not expect it to, butsomewhat to my surprise, there was a resounding cracking sound asthe vertical timber that served as the frame for the gate and towhich the hinge was attached pulled free. My actions did not pullthe gate down, but now it noticeably sagged, and I turned toIvomagus.
“I noticed the other day that the woodfor these gates is old and dried out. And,” I indicated the otherone contemptuously, “this one is no better. I could kick this gatedown by myself.”
Thankfully, my demonstration was enough,although it seemed to demoralize Ivomagus even more.
“What is your suggestion,Centurion?”
“I’ve seen the size of the Parisiiwagons,” I told him honestly, “so we’re going to need three, turnedover on their side. They’ll block the gateway. And,” I added, notvery hopefully, “if we have time, we can put together a parapet sothat the men guarding the gate will have some protection, but alsobe in a position to repel anyone who tries to climbover.”
Ivomagus did not immediately reply, so Ibraced myself for another argument, but he surprised me when heasked, “Should we find something heavy to bolster the wagons? Sothat they can’t just be pushed out of the way?”
“Yes!” I agreed. “That’s an excellentidea, Ivomagus. That would work very well!”
I was laying on the enthusiasm a bitthickly, but he was obviously pleased, except we were far fromthrough. With this detail attended to, or at least started, Ihopped back on the bay, then moved at a brisk walk down what was ineffect the outermost street at the town wall that extended south,away from the river. A wall that, as I had observed the instantthat I laid eyes on it, was more to keep livestock in the town thanit was designed to keep attackers out. There was a parapet, ofsorts, but it was in a state of disrepair that, to my dismay, Icould see there was no way to fix within a day. This was not theonly problem, which I pointed out to Ivomagus.
“See all this?” I indicated a motleycollection of sacks, crates, broken carts, and other detritus thatnarrowed the width of what was supposed to be a street wide enoughfor a cart to pass. “This needs to be moved out of the way since wewon’t know where they’re going to attack, and you’ll need to beable to move men quickly to wherever they’re needed.”
From somewhere, Ivomagus had been joined bya man I recognized, serving in roughly the same role as Alex,although this man was a slave, and it was to this man Ivomagus wasspeaking, pointing at the debris. Satisfied that this would betaken care of, I continued on to make a circuit of the town, andthe more I saw, the more worried I became, almost to the point thatI began second guessing my advice to abandon Segovax’s hall. Thewall, like most barbarian walls, was made of wood, essentially treetrunks that had been split in half, with what I would guess was athird of its length buried in the ground. On horseback, I couldjust see over the top of the wall, making it perhaps eight feethigh, but to my eye, it looked as if about every third or fourthlog was either damaged, or in a few cases, was missing altogether.It was not a wide enough gap for an animal of any size to getthrough, but to men who wanted to create a breach, this was aboutas open an invitation as could be offered as a good place tostart.
“There’s too many holes to have anyhope of fixing them,” I told Ivomagus once we had made essentiallya complete circuit, ending at what was the upstream, or westerngate. “The best we can do is keep a couple of men in a spot wherethey can see anyone trying to use that to tear down that part ofthe wall and give them some way to sound the alarm.”
Fortunately, both the southern gatethat had always been open whenever I passed through it and thewestern were in much better repair, which was why I did not thinkit likely that the Brigantes would attempt to force either of them,not when there were so many other spots that looked easier.Although I never said as much to Ivomagus, I was making anassumption based on what I had observed during my time with theParisii, and that was they were similar in many ways to the tribesof Germania, and from what I read of the Prefect’s account, thetribes of Gaul. Namely, they did not have much interest in thedrudgery and hard work of conducting a siege, not like Rome does,so I was somewhat confident that they would behave as I would haveexpected from the Germanic tribes. As the Prefect had commented,and I have observed, the passion of these people runs very hot, butit does not last long. Also, I was equally certain they would beaware that Cogidubnus was, perhaps even at this moment, marching toPetuar, so if they hoped for any chance of success, it had tohappen quickly. Despite my personal feelings towards him, I do notwant to be unfair to Ivomagus, because there were things he had done that were important,like having dozens of barrels filled with water from the river,placed evenly around the buildings nearest to the three walls toput out the fires that the Brigantes would attempt to start in thethatch roofs with flaming missiles. I did not even ask aboutartillery; nowhere had I seen anything that indicated theypossessed any such thing, nor had I heard Ivomagus make any kind ofmention of anything. Once we were done and I had seen everything,in some ways I thought we were even worse off than
