Seven men were serving at the tower this week, their names written on the wax tablet hanging from a nail inside the door. There were a couple of legionaries, and five auxiliary infantrymen from three different cohorts. Now there were six corpses and no sign of the last man. By torchlight Ferox examined the scene as Victor told his story. The cavalryman had made good time, but when he reached the tower there was no one on guard, the body outside and the rest on the ground floor. The door had not been forced, and there was little sign of a struggle. There was a lot of blood, long dried but still stinking. Only one of the men was in armour, and someone had grabbed him from behind and slit his throat. Ferox could see the blood on the neckerchief and all down the scales of his cuirass. The rest were half dressed and had been hacked down before they had much chance to fight. Ferox leaned down and saw that two of the men had deep cuts to their arms. Another had his left arm sliced off just below the elbow. He imagined the desperate, terrified men crouching, arms held up for protection as the blades slashed again and again.

From what Victor said they must have been killed early in the day – perhaps at dawn or soon afterwards. Even if he had sent warning as soon as Vindex arrived at Syracuse he could not have saved them.

Victor had done well. The beacon was prepared, but someone had taken the flints and kindling, and shattered the pot of oil kept to light it. A little had survived in one shard, and he had found a tiny piece of old flint among the rubbish piled in the ditch behind the tower. Somehow he had got a fire lit and then set the piled timbers aflame. It had taken most of an hour, but he had done it. Then he had climbed to the top of the tower, pulling up the ladder, and waited through the long day, surrounded by the stench of blood and butchered flesh.

Ferox asked if he wanted to ride straight back to Syracuse, but the man said that he would wait until they left, or would stay if the centurion felt that the tower needed to be manned. In fact Ferox planned to leave soon, just wanting to look one more time. Once he had done that, he helped them drag the corpse from outside back into the lower chamber of the wooden tower.