‘But I fear that is not true,’ Ferox said.

‘It had better be, husband!’ Claudia Enica toyed with a small table knife.

‘That was not my meaning,’ Ferox said, making a final effort with his last lever. ‘This fort is a long way from any help if we are attacked. The risk is too great for the children.’

Claudia Enica screwed up her face. ‘So we ladies no longer concern you? Callous man!’

Lepidina raised her voice as she ignored her friend. ‘The answer remains no. We – that is I – appreciate your concern, knowing it to be genuine and from the highest of motives. But I ask you to consider this as a soldier.

‘We are here, and have been for some time now. There are only three of my husband’s Batavians with us, the ones who came with our escort, but they talk with the others. Thanks in no small part to Claudia here…’

‘It’s always down to me,’ her friend preened like one of Lepidina’s cats.

‘As I was saying, thanks in some small part to my dear and immodest friend and her strange fascination with swords and killing, your men here are in good spirits.’

‘Trying to look up my skirt, that’s what it is – and that wretched flag. We all know where men do their thinking…’ came the muttered commentary from the other couch.

Sulpicia Lepidina waved an arm to hush her. ‘Sometimes your wit can be too dazzling, my dear! And sometimes you think that you are the only one with eyes and ears, Flavius Ferox. I have followed the standards for more than six years now, and I believe I have learned something about soldiers. These men may not like you, but they have come to trust you and they all sense that something is going to happen. That business with the catapult made plain to anyone that you expect trouble – bad trouble and soon. With you – and with this little spoiled school girl at your side – they reckon that they can win, or at least survive. If the trouble is as bad as you suspect, and I have little doubt that it is, for trouble seems to find you wherever you are, then you need every advantage you can find.

‘They’ve heard some of the stories about you. I’ve told several of the officers about an island far away, and a tower, and you and Vindex and that handful of men holding off hundreds of savages.’

‘There was a woman too, among those fighters,’ Claudia Enica added, respectful this time, for Brigita had fought at Ferox’s side.

‘Indeed there was – and now he has you at his side to distract him and poor little me to protect!’ Lepidina threw back her head in a great laugh that always came as a surprise from so poised a lady. ‘My point is that you give them hope. A thin, fragile hope perhaps, but hope still and that is a greater weapon than any one-armed catapult. You told me as much long ago.’