‘Flora’s. She’ll be safe there if she can be anywhere.’

Ferox laughed and could not stop, and soon he was leaning against the wall to keep himself up.

‘Glad you are having fun,’ Vindex told him.

At long last the centurion recovered. ‘Look after him,’ he said to the Brigantian. ‘And get the alarm raised in case we can still catch them.’

The old man looked scornful and Ferox was sure that he was right, but the effort had to be made.

‘I’m going to make sure that the prefect and his wife are safe.’

‘Yes, both of them, of course,’ Longinus said.

Frost was still outside, and Ferox hauled himself on to the back of the grey mare and was not gentle as he made her run again. For a moment she fought him, but then she jerked into an ugly canter which soon became smoother. He followed the road, soon catching up with the tail of the procession of effigies and men snarled at him when he went past and forced his way through them to go under the gate. He did not stop. The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning meat, but he ignored it and rode hard for the edge of the canabae, forcing people to jump out of his way. More shouts and curses followed him.

Only once did he slow, when he saw an old man with long white hair and hunched back coming from one of the alleys between the houses. He wrenched on the rains to turn the mare, but then the beggar looked up and he was a fatter, smaller man with a face scarred all across one side by burning. It was not Acco or the great druid or whatever the man called himself, and he did not spare him any more thought as the old beggar went and looked at one of the straw figures, this one of a great cow, tipped on its side and left by the side of the track.

He went on to the big stone house beyond the settlement. There were more guards than usual at the door, and to his surprise he heard Flora as he approached. ‘Let him in.’

She looked grave, but showed him through the hallways. ‘Not much business tonight,’ she said, ‘for Batavians hold it unlucky on this night of the year. Risks demons or evil spirits entering their bodies.’ The brothel owner stated this as a matter of fact, something she needed to know in her line of work, and did not pass comment. ‘There’s a couple of others upstairs, Tungrians, but no one downstairs.’

Ferox guessed that Flora was explaining that the heavy guard was there for another reason. She wanted him to know that she understood everything. In his experience she usually did, and so he walked down the corridor as she pointed him towards her bath.