‘Are you listening, boy?’ Rholes asked.

‘Yes, my lord.’ Brasus’ wandering thoughts had not quite taken over his mind. ‘You were asking how many men I will need to move the catapult. I should guess at least one hundred, with yokes of oxen and an engineer skilled in such things.’

‘Sounds about right.’

Brasus wondered whether a ballista, even a large one, could smash through a well-built gate. He could not set it up within easy reach of a bow, and could only protect its crew a little. ‘I should like any sacks we have or can make,’ he said. ‘Filled with earth we can pile them in front of the machine.’

‘Good idea.’

The queen’s face came back to haunt him, although she was not his queen or anyone of note, merely a Roman lapdog of a faraway and unimportant tribe. Like all her kind she was a drinker of wine, impure of thought and body. Yet she had power, a strange power that was trying to reach him. Ivonercus had spoken of her as a user of magic, and all his doubts had now fallen away. A witch queen from a dark tale and yet so fair of face.

Brasus knew the strength of their army and the vulnerability of the fort, so frail compared to a proper stone-built fortress on a high peak. The plan was good, Rholes filling them all with certainty of victory. Yet in his heart he doubted.

XXIII

Piroboridava

Eighth day before the Kalends of June

MEN WERE STARTING to die. Ferox leaned hard against the parapet as two Brigantes carried a third in a blanket along to where the steps led down. The warrior had the broken stump of a ballista bolt sticking from his chest. It had pierced his mail shirt, and Ferox suspected that the wound would claim his life because each breath came as a desperate gasp.

‘Watch out!’

Ferox ducked at the warning and felt an arrow flick through the crest of his helmet. It was another new one, hastily repaired from pieces in the fabricae, so that there was one bare bronze and one tinned cheek piece on the iron bowl. It was a little small, leaving a clear line on his forehead because his wool hat kept slipping up.

‘Thanks,’ he said to the auxiliary who had shouted out. The man grinned, then bobbed down when another arrow hissed by.

There was still no sign of the main assault, but all around the fort archers and a few slingers were pressing ever closer. Some worked in pairs, with one using a shield to shelter the one who did the shooting. Others crouched in the ditches, although their V-shape meant that they only got some protection. That did not matter much for the men with the belly-bows – the name Ephippus used for the handheld ballista-like weapons used by some of the Dacians. Further back, there were more archers, many lobbing arrows high without worrying much about aim because chance was bound to find them a few victims, and the artillery. All told, Ferox had counted at least a score of engines, more than half scorpiones or of a similar size. The rest were bigger, of a far greater range of sizes than the army normally used. At first the shooting was wild, and there were ironic cheers when some stones and bolts struck the ground short of the walls, and even more when an archer had to scuttle aside, dropping his bow and scattering the arrows from his bag as he avoided a bouncing stone. Ferox guessed that the crews did not get much practise, but as the morning passed they were getting plenty and learning all the time.