Two days later the Brigantes arrived. Ferox had left one hundred horsemen and one hundred and sixty infantrymen to wait their turn for the ferry over the Danube at Dobreta. Twenty-seven, about half of them cavalry, failed to arrive.

‘They just vanished, sir.’ Ulpius Cunicius told Ferox, struggling to meet his gaze. It was a sorry tale, if no great surprise. Once over the river they were almost out of the empire, with few garrisons, and a warm welcome waiting from the Dacians or the chance to rove free among the other tribes if they chose. One entire picket of four horsemen had ridden off during the first night.

‘Did you chase them?’

‘We tried,’ Cunicius said weakly. Ferox could guess that no one had been that keen. After all, what were they to do if they had caught the men? ‘But I called it off quickly. There was no hope of catching them and I wanted to press on and join you.’

‘Without losing too many more,’ Ferox added to himself. Ulpius Cunicius was a decent man, the son of a chieftain who had stayed loyal to the right side during the rebellion, although had not been directly involved in the fighting. The reward was citizenship for the family, hence taking Ulpius, the family name of the emperor, and then a little later appointment as centurion to the irregular unit. He was the only centurion with the party, and now there was only one other decurion apart from Vindex. Others would appear if ever the rest of the force arrived. Cunicius was twenty-five, long limbed and narrow faced like most of his kin, but was still feeling his way into his new role. Ferox could not blame him, since he did not really know what was going on and how to turn the disparate mob into a useful unit before someone killed him or half of the rest went over the wall. In truth Cunicius had done well to lose so few on the way to Piroboridava. Now that they were here, it became a little harder to desert than it had been on the march, while opening up a whole new set of problems.

The first fight broke out on the evening of the day after the Brigantes had arrived, and Ferox was surprised that it had taken so long. He did not see it, nor did anyone else of high rank, and what had happened only came out after there were more arguments over the next few days, culminating in one that left a veteran of I Minervia with a bad knife wound to the stomach and a Brigantian hit so hard on the head that he remained unconscious and would not wake. Both men were carried to the hospital, along with half a dozen more with lesser injuries.

‘They’re not happy,’ Sabinus conceded.

Ferox had summoned his senior officers to a meeting in his office in the principia, the headquarters of the fort. Thinking about it, he supposed it was now his principia, just as they were his officers. Neither thought felt natural and he wondered whether they ever would. He had been in the army for the best part of twenty years, more than half his whole life, but the only garrison he had ever commanded was the tiny outpost at Syracuse not far from Vindolanda in northern Britannia. There his duties had been modest, the administrative work light or trivial enough to be left to a junior. Here there were some six hundred soldiers to oversee, feed, and keep healthy, as well as sick men in the hospital, army slaves like the galearii, private slaves and no doubt women and children belonging to the rest, although there seemed far fewer of these than he would have expected. The Brigantes had not been permitted to bring families or slaves, apart from one servant for each of the officers.