Vespasian came trotting up. ‘You shouldn’t break away like that, secretary. This is hostile country, remember.’

‘Oh, I like to test your vigilance, legate. And what a sight!’

‘Quite. The poor little British.’ Brittunculi. ‘The legions will crush them like peppercorns in a grinder.’

‘Well, it’s a marvel of organisation,’ Narcissus said. ‘It’s like a city on the march.’

‘Aulus Plautius is nothing if not meticulous.’

Narcissus said softly, ‘His enemies say he is nothing but meticulous.’

Vespasian raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you testing my loyalty, secretary? I suppose that is your job. I’d rather follow a man like Plautius than a Caesar. What we need is planning and control, not brilliance - dedication to the cause, not to oneself.’

Narcissus mulled that over. He actually knew Aulus Plautius a little better than Vespasian probably suspected. The Plautii had a somewhat tangled relationship with the imperial family. A daughter of Plautius’s father’s cousin had been the Emperor Claudius’s first wife - and her mother had been a close friend of Livia, the manipulative and dangerous wife of Augustus. So Aulus Plautius was a good choice personally for this crucial project, and as it happened, with his experience as governor of Pannonia, he was well suited militarily and politically as well. Claudius was wily enough to choose a man whom he could trust - but that hadn’t stopped him sending Narcissus along to keep an eye on things.

Meanwhile, as Claudius trusted Aulus Plautius, so Narcissus knew he could trust Vespasian. It had been Narcissus’s influence that had secured Vespasian this posting in Britain, his first legionary command. From humble origins, Vespasian had used the influence of his better-connected mother to climb up the social ladder. He had acquitted himself well in his first military post, as an equestrian tribune in Thrace. Narcissus watched constantly for young men like Vespasian, clearly able, eager for advancement yet blocked by their social origin. They were the hungry sort who needed a favour - and, once given it, were forever in your debt.

‘Well, it’s a marvel, however this adventure turns out,’ Narcissus said. ‘Look at that band of dust we throw up, right across the country, like a dream of the road that will one day be laid here.’

Vespasian grunted. ‘Not “one day”, secretary - today.’ He pointed to the rear of the column.

In the back of the short baggage train, behind bulky shapes that were the components of prefabricated siege engines, Narcissus made out slower-moving units; he saw the flutter of flags, the flash of surveyors’ mirrors. ‘They are laying the road already?’

‘Why not? We aren’t coming this way by chance; for decades to come this route is likely to be a key artery inland from Rutupiae. May as well get it right from the start. Anyhow it keeps the troops busy, and there’s no harm in that.’

‘And show the natives we intend to stay.’