‘What’s it supposed to be?’ someone said.

Ferox found it puzzling that the answer was not obvious, even at this distance. ‘It’s a man,’ he said. ‘Or at least it was.’

‘One of ours?’ Crispinus asked.

‘No one missing, my lord, unless it has happened in the last few hours,’ Arrian replied.

‘Someone from inside then.’ He glanced at Ferox, but said nothing. From this distance it was hard to say much, other than that the dangling body could have been Sosius.

‘Think there is a sign hung on him,’ Ferox said, pulling the brim of his hat down to shade his eyes.

‘Make sure we check,’ Crispinus told his officers. ‘If it is one of our lads then ten of the prisoners get their turn before sunset… And send someone to tell me what the placard says.’

‘When?’ he said softly to Ferox.

‘See how this convoy fares on the way back. Probably when the next one is due or the one after that.’

‘Alive is better,’ Crispinus told him. ‘But if you cannot, then dead will do.’

XX

Outside Nicopolis

The Kalends of May
The twenty-first day of the siege

CRISPINUS WOKE WITH a start from a nightmare, just as the stitching on a section of the tent serving as a roof ripped open and the whole covering shook. Azátē stirred, but did not wake, until another section tore loose and cracked like a whip as it blew in the gale. Hailstones came through, just a few of them, and there was a sound like a falling cliff as more thumped into the roof.

‘What is it?’ Azátē clung tightly to him, eyes wide and frightened like a child’s.

‘Get something around you!’ he said and shouted for his body slave.

The boy appeared, dressed and well awake. ‘There is a storm, my lord!’

‘I know that! Attend to the princess.’ Crispinus leaned back and kissed her. ‘I must go.’ He had to force her off before scrabbling for boots and clothes. Someone started to sound the alarm, which was as well, even if it ought to be pretty obvious to anyone. There were shouts as well, and with a great rent half of the roof of his chamber tore away. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said, breeches on, tunic slipped over the top and his sword belt over his shoulder.

Outside was chaos, animals and men running everywhere, the great sheets of tents flying through the air, hail turning to driving rain and anything that could be lifted blowing over. Crispinus stared around him, wanting to do something, but not knowing what it was. He saw the nearest of the siege towers quivering in the gale, then the one beyond it, the taller one, closest to completion and half covered in great iron scales, began to lean and kept on leaning at more and more of an angle until it crashed down onto the ground.

‘Oh bugger,’ one the guards to the principia said. The man had come to stand behind the legatus, ready to protect him.