And why send Ferox and the troublesome Brigantes as its main garrison in the first place? Ferox thought, but did not say.

‘It cannot all be chance,’ Hadrian resumed. ‘There is too much to be a false trail, so somewhere the wild boar is lurking, waiting to charge. Then again what would he gain? We would win in the end. You were there weren’t you when Oppius Sabinus was killed?’

Ferox nodded, surprised that the legatus knew this for it had happened twenty years ago, when the Dacians plundered Moesia, and he had been a newly minted centurion.

‘And with Fuscus, and then with XXI Rapax?’

‘I was.’

‘That’s three big disasters, and yet here you stand as large as life – and as miserly with your words as Atilius Crispinus warned. Yes, yes, I know him, and he is much recovered in case you are interested. There is even talk of fresh offices in due course.’

That explained some of the knowledge, for Crispinus had been a tribune in Britannia and spent a lot of time in the north. A clever young aristocrat, perhaps too clever, life had become complicated and dangerous whenever the tribune had appeared – indeed it had been quite a surprise that he had not turned up at Piroboridava. Still, during the rebellion of the Brigantes, Crispinus had played a dangerous game and presumably lost, for he had ended up a prisoner of the rebels, paraded in chains like an animal, beaten and brutalized. Ferox had never learned the truth of all that had happened and where Crispinus’ true loyalties had lain. Hadrian was enough of a friend to know about this and speak of his recovery, although not enough of a friend to avoid mentioning it at all. From what Ferox had heard, the former tribune’s family had done their best to cast a veil over his ‘illness’.

‘So I know something about you, centurion, much more than you guess, and since no one else up to now has bothered to have you dismissed from the army, I will believe that the good things are true and that gives me hope. You are a hard man to kill, and you have the knack of winning against the odds. … And please don’t try to make a joke of this and assure me that you are still young and can easily make a fresh start.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.’

Hadrian glared at the rigid face for a long while. Then he stared over Ferox’s shoulder, but the centurion remained at attention and did not follow his gaze.

‘Very well,’ the legatus said at long last. ‘We will all have to do our best.’

‘Can I tear up the bridge, sir?’

‘Why?’

‘The fort is here to guard the road, and especially the bridge. It’s the route that matters, nothing else. Let’s say they come with an army. With luck, the fort may hold out – at least for a while. If it does, what’s to stop them leaving a couple of thousand men to keep us honest and sending the rest off to Dobreta. They could be there before the alarm has been raised, and certainly before a decent force can be concentrated. But without the bridge—’