‘Might want to spend more than a few days in the area before jumping to conclusions. Decebalus is irritating, but not a threat. As I say he’s bright and no mere barbarian. He knows just how big the empire is and how small Dacia is by comparison, so understands that he cannot go too far. If we ever decide to do it, then we can bring enough force to crush him like a beetle. Might take time to muster, but the end will never be in doubt. The little cuss will never risk bringing that on himself. He knows that Trajan will fight if he has to, and won’t give up like Domitian.’

Hadrian remained unconvinced. For all his many faults, Hadrian reckoned that the last of the Flavians had not been that bad an emperor, nor his campaigns against the Dacians the humiliation that everyone – not least Trajan – liked to claim. Domitian had done enough to cow Decebalus, but then had to shift the weight of his forces to meet other threats from the Sarmatians and the Suebi. True enough, the empire was strong, with thirty legions now that Trajan had added a couple, and even more auxiliaries, but it could not be strong everywhere all the time. Now that he had seen Decebalus’ stronghold, its strength and good order, his last doubts that he was wrong were fading away. He wanted to leave this place, leave Longinus with his fool’s confidence, and start to see what he could do to prepare.

‘His fortress is strong, equipped with siege engines he isn’t supposed to have anymore, and it’s not the only one,’ Hadrian said, in a last effort to persuade Longinus. ‘And he is welcoming deserters as readily as ever.’

‘Worthless scum the lot of them. If they’ve betrayed us, they’re not likely to prove loyal to him. No, no, my boy, you worry too much because you don’t know these people.’ The boy was insulting to a former praetor, but Hadrian let it pass. Longinus was sure of himself, so let the man plough on with this furrow and see where it took him. Defeats were coming, probably a crisis, and with them would come opportunity.

At long last the king’s health and his diviner’s opinion both agreed that the day was a good one, so the Roman party marched out of the gate, through the bigger gates into the royal compound, and along a circuitous route through several compounds until they came down to a wide terrace.

‘We’re honoured,’ Longinus said, his irony heavy. ‘These are some of their shrines.’ Hadrian glanced at a great circle of pillars and another beyond it. Neither had roofs, and he remembered reading somewhere that the Getae and Daci worshipped the stars and made their temples open. He wished that there was time to take a closer look and ask questions, for he was sure that there was a pattern and purpose to the designs.

Decebalus was waiting for them, sitting on a chair that resembled the ones used by Roman magistrates. This stood on a wooden platform and over this was a canopy striped in many colours. There were noblemen around him, all of them pileati, the cap wearers, and beyond the platform at least fifty warriors, wearing brightly polished scale cuirasses and carrying the curved swords of their people. By convention, the Romans brought only a dozen legionaries as escort, as well as Longinus, Hadrian, a prefect from the garrison and a centurion from the governor’s staff.