Crispinus waved to him. ‘What a shambles!’ he shouted, and then spurred off.

‘Keep an eye on him!’ Ferox called to Vindex and then decided that he had better get into some shelter in case the people up on the walls tried to do better than the grazing hit that had ruined his helmet and come within a whisker of doing the same to his head.

*

Thirty-five men stood in two ranks, parading without armour and helmets, without even their belts, so that the issue tunics went down well past their knees. It was the middle of the afternoon, there was no shade and they had stood rigidly at attention for more than an hour. Five of their comrades lay on the ground, left where they had fainted. Three hundred men, as many as could be spared from the clean-up and all the usual work parties and guard posts, formed three sides of a hollow square around them. There were representatives from all the parent units of the men waiting for judgement.

‘An oath is sacred!’ Crispinus began, standing on a makeshift podium that was really just a neat pile of pack saddles. There was a proper commander’s platform behind his camp on the western side, but he wanted this ceremony to occur in the same place as the crime. ‘Each man who joins the army swears to serve the princeps and the res publica, to give his strength and his very life to protect them. This is the duty of the soldier of Rome. This is the virtus of a man.’ He paused for breath and effect. Ferox could see that another of the beltless men was swaying a little, his eyes beginning to flicker.

‘Some men are called upon to perform special tasks and take even greater responsibility. Since the days of the kings, eight hundred years ago, the soldiers standing guard in front of a camp of the legions are bound by the most solemn duty to stand their ground at all costs. To fail in this duty is to forfeit life!’

The soldier Ferox had been watching fainted with perfect timing.

‘Many famous commanders have imposed that punishment in its sternest form.’

Arrian was standing on the opposite side of the square to Ferox, and the tribune seemed to mouth the word, ‘decimation’.

‘Our ancestors taught us virtue, they taught us duty, and they taught us justice. Manlius killed his own son for disobeying an order, even though the youth had challenged an enemy and cut him down in single combat. That is justice.’

Ferox felt that the legatus was losing his thread, lost in an aristocrat’s love of rhetoric.

‘What justice should I give you?’ That was better, and had their attention as the legatus waited and ran his eyes over the men. ‘What will cleanse this stain on your honour and the even greater honour of your centuriae and of your legion?

‘The sentence is decimation!’ The legatus’ voice thundered across the lines of men. The accused were silent, although several hung their heads, but there was something between a sigh and a groan from the watching soldiers.