‘Saddle up,’ Valens ordered. ‘We move out in half an hour.’

The death of Severus meant a change in the order of march. Valens now rode with Iudex and Quintus at the head of the column. He ordered Aulus to take his place at the rear with Clemens. Let the mutinous quartermaster eat and breathe the dust kicked up by the animals.

Valens considered posting outriders, but Severus had been right, it would remove any pretence of being a merchant caravan. And anyway, there were not enough men. Best they stuck together, kept the intervals short between the animals.

They had not long rejoined the road when they encountered a party of travellers coming the other way. There were about forty of them – men, women and children – most on foot. They stopped and talked. Valens told them of the attack. An old man thanked him gravely in oddly accented Greek. The route was known to be dangerous. That was why they travelled together. They had waited at Resaina until they had enough numbers to set out for Carrhae. The old man said there was a caravanserai some thirty miles to the east. Valens thanked him, wished them a safe journey, and they parted.

Valens pushed the column hard for the rest of the day. There was no grumbling. Although they would not admit it, doubtless the men were as keen as their new commander to spend the night safely behind the walls of the caravanserai.

Night came suddenly in the high country. One moment they were in scorching sunshine, then the sun dipped below the crests, and darkness welled up from the ravines, flooded up the slopes, and engulfed them. They rode under the stars burning cold in the heavens.

‘I hope the tent-dwellers do not fall upon the camp of the old man.’ Valens spoke as much to himself as the others. ‘The travellers were ill-armed, and less than half of them were grown men.’

‘It was not Arabs who attacked us,’ Iudex said. ‘They were too well equipped, too well mounted. The nomads go half naked.’

‘Bandits?’

‘Deserters among them. A couple had the tattoos of their old units.’

‘They were like no bandits that I have ever encountered.’ Quintus had been quiet for most of the day. Evidently now he wanted the morning forgotten, and to get into favour with his new leader. ‘Once I was stationed south of the Danube. There are many bandits in the Haemus Mountains. Hunting them you get to know their ways. What bandits would make straight for four armed men, and ignore the baggage animals?’

The unanswerable question hung in the air as they rode through the darkness.

After a time the silence became uncomfortable. Valens gestured to the stars, asked Quintus to name the constellations. Glad to talk, the navigator pointed them out: the Little Bear, the belt of Orion, the Hyades.

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Mesopotamia