‘But that sentence is postponed and may be reversed!’ Heads went up, eyes were nervous, disbelieving. ‘Your names are marked, but you will return to your units and your duties. Serve well and I will consider at the end of the campaign whether or not the judgement can be forgotten. Prove yourselves heroes and the stain to your honour and your unit’s honour will be expunged forever!’

The parade cheered the commander.

‘He had me worried,’ another centurion said to Ferox after the men had been dismissed.

‘I guess that was the idea.’

‘Never heard of a decimation, not for generations,’ the man went on. ‘Better to inspire than waste men and terrify the rest. Reckon that lot will give their all.’

Or desert, Ferox thought. They were still a long way from breaching the defences and even that did not mean that the city would fall. As far as he could see there had been no significant damage to the assault ramp or any of the other siege works during the latest sally. The havoc caused by the storm was harder to judge, especially as it sounded as if the western camps were hit worse, and he had not been over there to see.

‘He tries to be a good chief, doesn’t he?’ Vindex said a little later. The Brigantes rode behind Crispinus on his way back round to the western camp. After several days reinforcing Cerialis, they were to have a day off and rest their horses back at the main camp. ‘Scares ’em, then holds out mercy with his judgement.’

‘He looks happy anyway,’ Ferox conceded. Whether or not it was simply a brave face, the legatus exuded confidence.

‘Of course, he looks happy. He’s on his way back to camp and you won’t see him going short or without his comforts whatever was destroyed. And a cute princess to hump all night! Give me that and I’ll be as happy as you like.’

‘Sorry,’ Bran chipped in. ‘When a man came round selling princesses, we thought you wouldn’t want one so sent him packing. Were we wrong?’

XXI

Before Nicopolis

The day before the Nones of May
The twenty-sixth day of the siege

THE EASTERN RAMP was ready, and at dawn the one siege tower repaired and ready to work was drawn by two dozen pairs of oxen and pushed by relays of men as it made its slow and stately progress along a carefully prepared trackway. There were six wheels, three on either side, and each was almost as tall as a man and rimmed with iron. Its base was forty feet square, its height almost seventy feet, and the front was covered in big iron plates, which flickered and shone red as the sun rose behind the city. The sides were protected by animal hides stretched taut, and padded behind with rags, all fixed to the structure itself. About a third of the way up, a long ram was mounted, the beam tied fast so that it did not start swinging as the tower moved. The tower kept out of range of anything the enemy could shoot from the walls and now and then stopped as men made sure that the track was solid enough to support its weight. On the walls, rows and rows of people watched, for Crispinus had ordered his artillery and archers not to shoot unless the enemy first shot at them, and the Nicopolitans were too transfixed to bother.