There was the slightest nod. ‘Some of them. Not seen those daft ones with the painted heads before. Not much skill in them, but they came on well enough. A couple were wearing tunics without breeches. Don’t see that much hereabouts.’

Ferox had not noticed that little detail. Thinking back he thought the men he had fought had all been in trousers, but it was so hard to remember everything. At the time he had worried more about not getting killed. ‘And the others?’

‘Ah, you noticed.’

‘Big men, one of them really big, heavier set than Caledonians, if just as fair.’

‘Germans,’ Longinus said, ‘or I’m a Syrian.’

‘Germans?’

‘That’s right. Don’t tell me you had not thought the same thing.’

‘I wondered, but they told me I was a fool,’ Ferox said, half to himself.

‘Can’t say one way or the other about that, sir. But they were Germans. They did not have time to say much, but the words were in German. I met one of the Gotones once who talked like that. At least, people said that he was one of them and he certainly wasn’t from any tribe we knew well. These ones sounded the same. They’re from far away – the east, or maybe from the north, but enough akin to the closer races to recognise.’

‘Thank you, trooper, that is very helpful.’

A horse whinnied loudly from the next room, then started to kick hard against something wooden. ‘Excuse me, sir.’ Longinus looked up and yelled through the trapdoor into the attic. ‘You there, Felix?’ There was the sound of panicked movement and then stillness in response. ‘I know you’re there, boy!’ There was a low acknowledgement. ‘Do your job, you little bugger!’ Longinus shouted. ‘They want feeding, so get on with it!’ The one eye fixed on the centurion again. ‘Good enough lad, but you have to chase him or he’ll dream the day away.’

Ferox got up.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, trooper?’

‘Bad business at the watchtower.’

‘Yes.’

Longinus winked – or since he had just the one eye perhaps it was a blink, although Ferox did not think that it was involuntary. ‘Something is rotten, sir. And there is something in the air that isn’t good. Smelled it before, or something much like, and that ended in a lot of killing.’

‘Thank you once again, trooper.’

Ferox wondered what the old soldier had meant, but did not doubt the conviction or the shrewd mind in that battered, one-eyed face. He also wondered why the man had not been promoted after all these years. Drink perhaps, or insubordination, or perhaps for all his sharp mind Longinus could not read and write well enough.