‘Where is Venus?’ became the first question most men asked in the morning, and bets were soon being placed on where the statuette would turn up next. Other thefts dropped off, and there was more laughter to be heard.

‘I can’t think how anyone knew I had it,’ Sabinus said.

‘Thrash your slaves,’ Festus advised, but could not convince his colleague.

‘I always heard that the Silures were the greatest thieves in the world,’ Vindex commented. The others were getting used to Ferox’s willingness to let decurions and other juniors speak out with some freedom, although neither man liked it.

‘Never heard of them,’ Festus grunted. ‘Are they some of your Britons?’

‘No,’ Cunicius replied.

‘We won’t take just anyone,’ Vindex added.

Ferox did not bother to say anything. For most Romans, even those who had served there, anyone from Britannia was a Briton. There was simply no point trying to explain that many peoples lived there and all were different. Vindex was leering at him, and not simply because that was his natural expression. It was hard to tell whether he was fishing for the answer or really knew that Ferox had been the first to steal the statuette.

The days passed and the laughter helped leaven the constant complaining. A couple of times men let things fall during their work whenever an officer, and especially Ferox, passed by. He was spattered a few times by dirt or sand, and narrowly missed by a pile of heavy shingles which had slid off the high roof of one of the granaries. They missed, if narrowly, and perhaps had fallen by accident. The men working up on the roof were only using ladders, not full scaffolding for Festus had declared the job an easy one, and the two Brigantes up there were not men he expected to risk killing him in public.

Ferox was more wary on the patrols out of the fort, although he loved those days for the sense of space that they gave him and the freedom from lists and reports. He went out more often than anyone else, usually with the cavalry, so that he could range further afield and get a sense of the wider area. Contrary to Sabinus’ verdict, there were people all the year around living not so very far away and more would come as the weather improved. Ferox had come up this valley almost twenty years ago on a long patrol, albeit in the summer, and now and again there was a view that he remembered. Memories were coming back, and he tried to fit them into place and learn all that he could about the locals. None of the officers at the fort showed much curiosity, let alone knowledge of these people. They were Saldense, as Sabinus had told him, and were not Dacians at all, but Getae, although few Romans would bother to note the distinction. The closest were the tough ones, the ones who lived in the area throughout the winter and they were neither hostile nor friendly. For the moment, his smattering of half-remembered words and the locals’ even thinner knowledge of Greek meant that the few encounters were short and conversation simple. Still, it was a start.