Crispinus let the question hang in the air for a while. He had broken the tip of the stylus when he struck the table and he ran his finger over it. ‘Perhaps,’ he said eventually. ‘None of this may happen. The princess was supposed to send a messenger to us, but no one came to the meeting place. Ferox thinks that the man was hunted down and killed before he could get there.’ Crispinus silently cursed himself. He had not meant to mention Ferox’s involvement in the business, at least not before it was unavoidable. Rufus and Arrian both sat up at the mention of the name, but he also thought that there was shock in Caecilius’ eyes and that made him wonder. Still, he had to make the best of things, even if it worried him to have these lapses of concentration. ‘The meeting was supposed to happen on the unfortunate night of our exercise, so those of us who took part can remember the appalling weather, which made everything harder.’

‘Was it a deliberate ambush?’ That was Arrian, as always to the point.

‘Perhaps – perhaps not. There were slavers out there as we know, and they might easily turn their hand to robbery and murder.’

‘But the prince or the king or someone else may know that something is going on.’ Hadrian had assured Crispinus that the tribune was a clever fellow and likely to prove a capable one. They had met at Athens, and both revered Epictetus, but the judgement seemed a fair one. ‘Was the letter concealed or in code?’

‘Both. We have no idea what happened to it, none at all, but clearly we must consider every possibility.’

‘Which brings us back to the point,’ Caecilius cut in again. ‘Let’s say we rush across the Euphrates to this town, but the gates are barred and they’re up on the walls ready to shoot. What then? Slink back with our tails between our legs, saying, will you beg our pardon?’

Arrian chewed his lip as he thought. ‘A lot depends on whether we can trust this Azátē,’ he suggested.

‘She’s a woman and a princess,’ Caecilius said, his scepticism obvious.

‘We cannot fail.’ Crispinus’ voice was deeper than most expected a small man’s voice to be, and he was a trained orator, so the words echoed around the hut. All of them looked at him, so he smiled. ‘That is the nub of the matter. If we commit to this, then we cannot fail. One way or another, we must have Nicopolis, so that our position on both banks of the river is made stronger rather than weaker.’ That needed to be made clear to them, even if they did not need to know why.

Arrian started to scratch his chin, then realised what he was doing. ‘Sorry.’

‘Do you understand what you are saying, sir?’ Caecilius’ voice had all the scepticism of an old hand dealing with a young tribune on his first day with the army.