‘That fills my heart with unalloyed joy,’ Valens said.

‘You are not the boy you were three months ago,’ Narses said.

‘And I am also not dead yet. It was just a precaution. The men might never have to follow Decimus.’

‘If they do,’ Decimus said, ‘I will do my damnedest to get them home. I have no intention of leaving my aged bones whitening on these mountains.’

Valens had never really thought about it, but, for all his good looks, Decimus was far from young. ‘How soon do you leave the standards?’

‘I prefer not to count the months. It tempts fate. But I am getting too long in the tooth for this life. Like old Aulus and Clemens, I should be sitting by the fire, my children gathered around, my wife tending to my needs. Not stuck on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.’

They rode in silence for a time.

‘Are you married, sir?’ Decimus asked.

‘No.’

‘Any family at all?’

‘I have a cousin.’

‘The Tribune of the Horse Guards?’

‘Yes.’

‘No one else?’

‘A few other distant relatives.’ It might have been the wind that made Valens’s eyes water. But there was a catch in his throat. ‘Five years ago, my parents were travelling through the Apennines. They were murdered. Interfectus a latronibus. Perhaps bandits, perhaps stragglers from the Alamanni who marched on Rome. There was no way of knowing.’

Now he had started, the words came of their own volition. ‘It was that that made me join up. I wanted revenge. Against anyone, against the world, even against the gods. I had a childish fantasy that one day, in some remote glen, I would hunt down their killers. Ridiculous, no more than the dreams of a drunken youth, or a mere boy.’

Somewhat ashamed of sharing such confidences, Valens asked Narses if he had a family.

‘Yes.’ The Persian answered curtly, then changed the subject. ‘We are getting close. The Castle of Silence lies on the far side of that ridge. We will turn off the track up ahead. There is a sheltered valley with a spring some way to the west. It is well hidden. I found it when I was after a leopard. Unless another hunter happens along, we should not be disturbed. From the heights above we can watch the road up to the fortress. Tonight there is no moon. We can move unobserved. I will take the two of you to reconnoitre the castle by first light.’

*