Valens stopped talking. He listened. No sounds but the crackle of the dying torch and the water over the rocks far below. Aulus was inaudible. Either he was wedged fast or had fallen to his death. It seemed impossible that he might be out of the shaft. There was no further need for poetry.

Checking the tinderbox was handy on his belt, Valens stubbed out the glowing torch, without lighting the other.

Let us be men. The darkness itself could not hurt him.

Time lost all meaning. He had no idea how frequently he looked into the dimness of the cavern. Just a glimmer of brightness came from the mouth of the tunnel, where the bowman must be hunched. As his eyes became accustomed to the ambient light, Valens could make out the ledge, and the dark humps of the three boulders that littered its surface.

Most of the while he just sat, blade in hand, listening.

How long would Iudex and the others wait at the foot of the slope? Valens had not thought to set a time. He had entered into this with no thought that he was undertaking something serious. Most likely by the time they became concerned, it would be too late in the evening to venture into the caves. Could he stay here until the next morning? If he did, would he retain his sanity?

His mind wandered. In myth, mountains were the homes of the gods. Virtue lived on a crag. Hercules had been offered the choice between virtue and vice. The path to the former was steep and hard, to the latter broad and tempting. In reality, the high places were wild and dangerous. They were the home of shepherds and brigands, and the two were indistinguishable. It was in the mountains that Valens’s parents had been killed.

The sound boomed down the passages under the mountain. For a moment, Valens could not believe his ears. It came again, the confident note of a hunting horn.

Aulus! The thin, ugly old bastard had made it!

As Valens leapt to his feet the muscles in his back and legs twinged with the suddenness of the movement after long inactivity. He knew if he hesitated, he would never force himself into the open, would never dare to face the risk.

Knife in hand, he hurled himself around the outcrop, and along the shelf.

Four or five rushed steps – boots sliding on the gritted surface – then he dived for the cover of the first boulder. He heard the arrow slice through the air and vanish into the dark.

He had to keep moving, not give the man time to notch and draw and aim.

Pushing himself up, he sprinted around the rock. This time the shaft was so close he felt the wind of its passing.

Flat out, his feet all too close to the lip of the chasm, he tore past the second rock.