They found a pair of auxiliary troopers trying to make off with a couple of month-old lambs. An old woman was screaming at them and an old man was stretched on the ground, his head bloodied. Ferox’s crested helmet marked him as a centurion, which made them hesitate, and when Bran, Vindex and three others galloped up, the troopers gave up.

‘Names?’ Ferox demanded.

‘Longus, sir, ala Thracum,’ the young one replied

‘Comus, sir.’ That was the older one, and there was at least a chance that this was his real name.

‘Where are you supposed to be?’

‘Outriders, sir.’

‘Then get back to your station. I catch you again and it’s a flogging.’ Ferox doubted that the threat would deter them for he and his men could not be everywhere. He dismounted and had a look at the old man, who was sitting up. The cut was messy, but not deep and he helped bind it before they rode away. All the while he wondered what his men had stolen, not that he had seen them at it.

By this time the head of the column had already halted, the camp and tent-lines marked out, but it took three more hours before the baggage train came in and the best part of another for the rearguard units to arrive. The Brigantes led their horses to their patch, where servants had already started setting up tents. Beyond them the rampart was finished, for no one expected barbarian irregulars to have the skill for even this simple task. Philo and Indike had set up Ferox’s larger tent at the end of the line. The lad had insisted on coming and also insisted on bringing his wife, and she was one of at least a hundred women in the camp. Outside the ramparts, among the tents and stalls hastily erected by the sutlers, there were as many more. Philo had prepared him a good, solid meal, and he might have enjoyed it even more if the air was not soon filled with the scent of chickens roasting on spits. The farmers were no doubt poorer, but since it could have been a lot worse and it was too late to do anything about it, he did not mind accepting a leg when he did his rounds.

The next day the vanguard and rearguard exchanged places, so the Brigantes were in the lead and no longer eating everyone’s dust. Warned about the horse archers, they saw only pairs of them rather than the larger bands.

‘Someone’s worked out that one can see as well as a hundred,’ Ferox told Crispinus when he came forward. ‘And a second can carry the news.’

The legatus pursed his lips. ‘Still not sure what they intend.’

‘Maybe they’re not either, sir.’

Late in the day, as the men were marking out the camp, Crispinus joined them again and Ferox took him up to a round hill on the left.

‘So there it is,’ Crispinus said. ‘Nicopolis.’ The city was about four miles away, its pale walls reddening as the sun set. ‘You would not think so obscure a place could matter so much,’ he added under his breath. ‘Yet, I suppose over the ages plenty of men have died for much less.’