Cohors III Batavorum, their sister unit, shared their anger and longing for revenge. Whatever the Romans said, Cerialis was from their royal house, and she was his wife or queen, and they would die for them both. The cohort provided another three hundred men, formed into five centuries, and these men also began to cheer whenever the lady and her husband came in sight, swearing to make those who had threatened them pay. The mood spread. Cohors I Tungrorum had begged to be included in the expedition and made up a century of seventy men, attached for the moment to Rufinus and his Spaniards who mustered one hundred and eighty infantrymen. The Tungrians knew the lady, the Spanish knew her by reputation and they too raised a great cry when they saw her. Soon even the century of eighty archers detached from a cohort based far to the south took up the cry as well.

Ferox had spent his adult life around soldiers from all over the empire. They could be brutal, ruthless, cruel, and were capable of stealing anything that was not nailed down – and often even that did not stop them. For all that they had a sentimental streak a mile wide and could be kind, even gentle when you least expected it. It helped that Sulpicia Lepidina was beautiful, the sort of woman a soldier dreamed about and knew that he could never have. It helped even more that she smiled at them, laughed at their jokes and even made a few in return. Ferox watched as a whole army fell in love with a woman and marvelled as the affection spread. He had left Coria long before the main force, but later he heard that she had sat on horseback to watch them go by and that rank after rank of soldiers had cheered her, legionaries and auxiliaries alike. Neratius Marcellus kissed her hand in farewell to yells of approval, and then pecked her cheek to a deafening roar of acclamation. Cerialis glowed with the reflected glory. In their few meetings Ferox did not get the impression of a man gnawed by sorrow for his murdered lover.