They talked for an hour, just the two of them, or rather Hadrian asked a lot of questions and each answer prompted even more queries. Then they toured the fort, talking all the time, but now attended by several officers and clerks. Apart from the hospital, Hadrian watched as the guards were replaced at the gates, before visiting the debris from the fire.

‘We were lucky,’ the legatus told them. ‘Without the rain…’

They paused while the legatus had a light breakfast served in the principia, during which he issued orders for his escort and essential staff to prepare. After that he spoke to all the men from I Minervia not on other duties and, after dismissing the others, ordered Ferox to come with him and inspect the ground outside the rampart. They looked at the ditches, the pits and obstacles, wandered through the canabae past the bath house and down to the river. The questions kept coming, and they always were apposite. Ferox had met plenty of senior officers, and the senators even more than the equestrians liked to hear their own voices, but with Hadrian there was a grasp of detail that was unusual. It was a considerable relief to have undertaken so much work on the defences, for he suspected that the criticism would have been far harsher if the inspection had occurred when Ferox had only just arrived. Even so, there were suggestions that were effectively orders to do more, and Ferox could not really resent them. On the whole, the legatus was right.

‘This is not an easy task,’ Hadrian said as he strode across the planks of the bridge. His escort was still waiting inside the fort, and only two troopers had accompanied them and they sat their horses well out of earshot, for he wished to speak to Ferox alone. ‘That blaze was deliberate, no doubt about it. Do you think it was some of your Britons?’

‘No, my lord. I don’t see what they would gain. The sling shot lobbed at me most likely was, unless it was whoever attacked the noble tribune.’

‘Not much noble about that sod. No restraint or wisdom, little honesty and randy as a stoat.’

Ferox forbore to suggest that this was surely fairly typical of Rome’s ancient families.

‘Cannot say that I’ll miss him,’ Hadrian said. ‘Saw him slide his hand onto your wife’s arse more than once.’

‘He would regret that,’ Ferox said without thinking and did not explain, just in case Hadrian decided that Enica or her people had anything to do with the attack.

Hadrian’s brow furrowed, as if trying and failing to read the centurion’s thoughts. ‘Have you seen your wife yet?’

Ferox shook his head.

‘My apologies, for I have kept you too busy. She has travelled a long way to be with you.’

The tone implied surprise at such determination for so small a prize, or perhaps that was Ferox’s imagination. He was no longer sure whether he and Claudia Enica were married and was still wondering what her appearance meant.