Marcus’s voice cut across my thoughts. ‘Well, are you going, Libertus?’
‘As you command, Excellence,’ I blurted, and hurried from the room, blinking in the sudden light as I made my way towards the gate. I had been prepared to go right over to the spring to fetch the troops, but to my surprise I found that the optio had already brought them back and was getting them lined them up outside the palisade. He greeted me with a look of self-satisfaction on his face.
‘I thought His Excellence would want us very soon. Half the cavalry have gone with Subulcus — apparently the field where the horses were is some little way away, behind the hill, on the borders of the forest over there.’ He gestured vaguely. ‘The rebels will have driven the animals into the trees — I think we can certainly assume that.’
I nodded, to show I understood. It seemed a very reasonable deduction to have made. ‘They won’t want to use the open road where they might be seen, and they’ve probably got a hide-out in the forest anyway — that seems to be the way they operate.’
It was his turn to nod. ‘If we could find that hiding place we would strike a real blow against these ambushes.’ He leaned towards me confidentially. ‘I’ve sent five of our horsemen back the way we came, to try to cut the raiders off the other way — or follow them back to their secret camp if possible. I’m hoping they might lead us to the spot.’ He gave me a little sidewise smile. ‘So you can report back to your patron that we’re formed up to leave — and perhaps you’d also tell him what I’ve done. Put in a word for me? I think I made a bad impression early on.’
‘Of course I will,’ I said, but when I got back to the roundhouse there was no opportunity. Marcus was already on his feet and waiting impatiently for me.
‘Ah, there you are!’ he said, as if my whereabouts had been a mystery, and far from being unexpectedly quick about my errand I had been deliberately dallying.
‘The optio has drawn up the men, and is waiting for you outside the palisade,’ I reported. ‘And he has sent the horsemen. .’
‘Never mind all that,’ my patron said. ‘It’s time we made a move. The sun is getting low, and we have many miles to go. There is no time to be lost. It was ill-judged of me to agree to deviate from the path and spend all this time over a foolish servant and some clothes.’
‘And a Roman messenger,’ I said, trying to mollify his mood.
He tapped his baton on his palm impatiently. ‘We should have left that to the mansio, and to the garrison at Isca. We have put ourselves in danger, and we’re not yet out of it. You have no notion what these rebels sometimes do to people they capture — especially those they want to make examples of. Nyros has just been telling me. Some of their customs make your blood run cold.’
I glanced at Nyros, who was standing by the fire. One of the women had brought in a length of broad plaid cloth, like a cloak, and he had wrapped himself in it and was permitting the girl to fasten it on one shoulder with a clasp — a lovely thing of silver, shaped like a sinuous dog swallowing its tail. He acknowledged my admiration with a smile.
‘I will come with you to the gate. Then I must go out and see the damage for myself.’
I looked at him. A brave man, but — at his age — to walk out to the furthest field alone, when there were hostile raiders in the area? To face his losses, and who knows what dangers too? I said, ‘Have you no young men on the farm who could accompany you?’ In fact, when I came to think of it, I had not seen a single male, except for Nyros and Subulcus, since I arrived.
The old man man gave a wistful smile. ‘Alas, not any more. At one time, this farmstead would have been crowded with masculinity — sons, cousins, nephews, brothers, even grandsons, possibly. Then there were the raids I told you of — we lost the cream of our youth, and since then the others are not anxious to stay here on the farm. Even recently there was a period when I would have had a dozen men at my command to chase and find our horses — now it’s only Thullero, and even he is not here all the time.’
‘He isn’t?’ This was new information, and unexpected too.
Nyros shook his head. ‘Like the others, he is often in the town, now that travel is so much easier on the roads. That is where trade and money are, he says — but it leaves the farm work to the old, the children and the womenfolk. Obviously we have our land-slaves, too, but we are still vulnerable to our enemies. Thullero calls it progress, but I’m not so sure.’ He sighed. ‘Modern life is changing everything — not always for the better, it seems to me. Sometimes I think that the old ways were best.’
Marcus had been listening impatiently to all this, tapping that warning baton all the time. ‘We thank you, Silurian, for your hospitality, in the name of Jupiter, Best and Brightest, and on behalf of all the Roman state,’ he said, hurrying over the formalities and signalling to me with his eyes that it was time to leave. ‘Also, we are sorry for your loss, and if you find the culprits we will see that they are punished as severely as the law permits. Now, Libertus, if you’d care to lead the way?’
I glanced at Nyros. For me to do anything of the kind was impolite. He had volunteered to show us out and, since he was a tribal elder, tradition demanded that I should follow him. Fortunately the girl had now stopped fidgeting with his clasp, and he straightened up and strode towards the door, saying as he did so, ‘If you take the farm track veering to the right, it will bring you quickly to the military road.’ He unlatched the gate for us to pass through, and stopped to watch us go.
The troops fell in around us and we marched away, taking the route which had been pointed out to us. I looked back at Nyros. The last I saw of him, he was standing inside the palisade with one hand raised in a gesture of salute: then, as we turned the corner of the path, he was lost to sight behind the trees and we were in the hostile forest once again.
If it had seemed threatening before, it was now twenty times as bad. The faces of all the men were set and strained and no one said a word. We just marched grimly down the path — Marcus, the optio, Regulus and I right in the centre of the moving guards, for all the world like prisoners in a victory parade. The pace was punishing, and at every rustle in the woods I felt all my few remaining hairs stand upright on my head, knowing that any clump of trees might conceal an ambush and, therefore, that every step might be my last.
Nyros’s directions had been accurate. We did soon meet the road, and the lightening of the tension was almost physical. Even the optio visibly relaxed: the cohort spread out a little on the road and the whole company moved more easily, with proper paving stones beneath our feet.
We had not gone very far in this new optimistic mood, however, before Regulus stopped suddenly and raised a hand. ‘Listen!’
The phalanx came to a halt, and we strained our ears. At first, I could hear nothing but the wind among the trees, and then I caught the sound that he had heard. Hoofbeats, faint at first but growing louder all the time.
Regulus was still listening with a furrowed brow. ‘Horsemen,’ he said briefly. ‘Not a chariot or cart. No sound of creaking wheels or harness chains.’ He frowned with concentration. ‘Four or five horsemen, I should say, at least. Skilful riders, judging from their speed. And coming this way — very quickly too.’
The soldiers knew their business. Almost before I had time to take in what was happening, they had placed themselves in readiness: not the simple fence of shields that we’d seen earlier, but a staggered column bristling with swords, the front men kneeling down behind their shields, ready to thrust up and disembowel any passing horse, while their colleagues stood ready to strike down the riders as they galloped past.