‘Well,’ he said and let himself smile. ‘That is the broad plan. Now let us see about the details.’

‘I can tell you one thing, sir,’ Sabinus announced after they had spent an hour drawing up lists and plans. ‘We are not going to be very popular.’

‘Just blame the new commander,’ Ferox told them. ‘I hear he’s half barbarian and a right tyrant!’

*

The garrison sweated. Ferox drove the officers hard to make them drive the men just as hard. All of the regulars, legionaries and auxiliaries alike, bitched and moaned, and the veterans, with all their long years of experience, were very good at it. They complained as they worked, and afterwards, and plenty of comments were just loud enough for Ferox and the other officers to hear, if never sufficiently clear to justify a formal charge.

To his surprise the Brigantes resented the labouring jobs less than he expected. The deserters and mutineers had done it before, if unwillingly, and the former prisoners had lost a fair bit of pride toiling in the mines. None were happy, but they did what they were told as long as someone was watching or there was fear of punishment. The rest of the men from the royal units, let alone those sent by willing chieftains, resented work fit for peasants not warriors. Vindex and the forty horsemen he had brought from his own clan, the Carvetii, were a rough and ready bunch, less sensitive about such matters.

‘We’re wondering how best to kill you,’ Vindex told him. ‘Don’t want to make it too quick, after all.’

‘I am sure it’s just talk, sir,’ Cunicius added. He seemed more worried with every passing day.

‘Tell them to wait their turn,’ Ferox said. He made them work, all of them, because he could not afford to have parts of the units seen as more favoured than the others. Most began cleaning the barracks allotted to them. The veterans had done a cursory job, once the roofs were decently repaired, afterwards justifying this as only for a mob of Britons. That meant the Brigantes had to scrub and paint, bring in new straw and rushes to cover the floors, and clean the little chimneys so that the smoke did not choke everyone inside. The nights stayed cold, giving them a more personal incentive, and that helped to speed the work. At the same time they all showed the tribe’s deep love of horses by working with even greater will on the boxes in the stables.

Then things started to vanish. The veterans liked their comforts, and had done their best to fit out their quarters with luxuries and ornaments. Some were stolen, then stolen back. Ferox gave orders that anyone caught was to suffer full punishment for robbing a comrade, but did not hold his breath waiting for arrests. There were a few more fights, and these had less venom than the earlier ones. They did not end the thefts, although they may have made some of those involved a little more careful. The centurion Sabinus had brought a bronze statue of Venus. It was about a foot high, had cost more than its modest aesthetic charm merited, and showed the goddess surprised while bathing, modestly crouching to cover her nudity with her hands to the small extent that this was possible. One morning the statuette was suspended by a little loop of rope from one of the stubby chimneys on the roof of a barrack block occupied by the Brigantes. Returned to its rightful owner, on the next morning it was atop the roof of another building, this time occupied by the legions. After that, the goddess travelled all over the camp, every day finding a new home. At least one of the thieves was a craftsman, for Venus also acquired a carefully made little helmet just like the ones worn by the legions, and later on a belt with a gladius in its scabbard hanging from her left hip. Whoever had made it must have decided that a deity ought to hold high rank, so had put it on the side where centurions and more senior officers wore their swords.