The Romans stopped and Brasus wondered whether to climb down to join his men, before deciding that it was better to watch the enemy. They were staring at the tower and the ruined walls around it. For the moment the driving rain had stopped, and Brasus sensed that the storm had passed and that the night would be dry. He doubted that the Romans understood the land well enough to realise this, and with little more than an hour left before nightfall, they were surely wondering whether the tower offered safety and shelter. Were there more of them? As far as he knew no patrols had come this high up towards the pass since the early autumn, which did not mean that one had not come now.

After an age, with Brasus regretting not having climbed down to join his men, the riders walked their horses forward again. They did not seem agitated, but one had a spear and the other had drawn his sword, and they moved with care.

There was no one behind them, or if there were, they were staying too far back to be of any help. Never before had the man come with soldiers or sent them to carry his letters. Perhaps he would not come today, delayed by the storm or wary if he had seen the cavalrymen. Brasus thought back to the solstice and the sending of the Messenger, when the Roman merchant had knelt as a captive with the two legionaries. For years the man had helped Decebalus, bringing him information, much of it secret and carrying letters back and forth so that the king could speak to Romans of high rank. Their treachery was contemptible, but useful, and perhaps no more than could be expected of such vermin, eaters of red meat and drinkers of wine. The merchant was paid for all this, paid with gold for the risks he ran and the shrewdness with which he performed his tasks.

Brasus wondered whether Decebalus had ordered the fat man taken to the ceremony to frighten him. Yet that was a risk. There were three captives because there were three Messengers prepared to carry word of the world of men to the Lord Zalmoxis. Yet there was risk, for as many captives were fated to die as Messengers, and the Second might have failed the test so that Brasus would become the Third, which meant that he would end his life on this earth to travel to the Heavens and also that the merchant would have been killed.

Less than fifty paces from the old gateway one of the Romans stopped, holding both the riderless horses, as his comrade trotted forward.

Brasus wanted to believe that fate and the will of the Lord Zalmoxis had decided that night, but the doubts kept bubbling up as the months had passed. The merchant was too valuable to the king to be killed, unless he wanted to prove his devotion by the worth of the offering. Brasus had liked to think that he was chosen by the god because of his own merit. Although only twenty, he was a chieftain, a proven warrior and leader of men, head of a family loyal to the king and pure of life and heart. He had been flattered to be chosen as Messenger, and though passion was vanity, he had to admit that there had been a thrill at the thought of transcending this body to join the god. Such a death was more blessed even than a death in battle.