For a second, the boy hesitated, glancing at the other two, who were watching with silent interest. There was no help there. Wincing, the boy placed his hands against the rounded sides of the log and leaned back out of range, his face terrible in anticipation.

Renius took his time finding a grip he liked. “Hold her tight, now,” he warned, beginning the swing as he spoke. The axe head came round in a blur and split the wood with a crack. The boy yanked his hands under his armpits, clenching his jaw against the sudden pain.

Renius sank into a crouch at the boy’s side, resting the axe on the ground. He reached out and gently pulled one of the hands out to be inspected. The boy’s cheeks were flushed with relief, and as Renius saw there was no wound, he grinned and ruffled his hair cheerfully.

“It didn’t slip,” the boy said.

“Not when it mattered,” Renius agreed with him, laughing. “That was courage in you. It’s worth a cup of hot wine, I’d say.” The boy beamed at this, his stinging hands forgotten.

The three men met each other’s eyes in memories and pleasure at the boy’s pride as they took the handles of the cart and began walking back down the hill to the estate.

“By the time Julius gets back, I want Primigenia strong,” Brutus said as they reached the gate.

*                                                      *                                                      *

Julius and Gaditicus peered through the bushes on the steep mountainside down at the distant, tiny ship moored below in the calm island bay. Both men were hungry and almost unbearably thirsty, but their waterskin was empty and they had agreed not to begin the trip back until it was dark.

It had taken longer than they expected to climb the gentler slope to the peak, where the ground fell away sharply. Each time the pair thought they had reached the summit, another was revealed, and in the end dawn had stopped them moving just after beginning the descent. By the time they caught their first view of the ship, Julius had been wondering if his pirate informer had been lying to save himself from the sharks. For the whole of the long journey to the island, the man had been chained at the oars of his own ship, and it looked as if he had earned his life with the details of Celsus’s winter mooring.

Julius sketched what they could see in charcoal on parchment to have something to show the others when they were picked up. Gaditicus watched him in silence, his face sour.