‘Good. Another thing – we’ll need a watchword and a response.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Right – the watchword is Sol Invictus, and the response is Lord of Daybreak. Repeat that for me.’
The girl blinked and bit her lip. ‘I cannot,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I cannot… It’s a blasphemy.’
Castus looked away, then scrubbed his fingers across his scalp. For a moment he considered inventing some lewd or obscene alternative.
‘All right… the watchword is Constantine Augustus, and the response is… Ever Victorious. Can you manage that?’
‘Constantine Augustus… Ever Victorious!’
‘Good.’ Castus turned to the woman, Sosibiana, who had sat through the exchange with a look of vague disapproval.
‘But wait,’ the girl said, concerned. Castus looked back at her. ‘How will they know the message is genuine?’ she asked. ‘Why should they believe me?’
Castus frowned heavily. He had not even considered that. Sosibiana raised an eyebrow at him. Think…
‘Here,’ he said, and reached into the pouch sewn into his broad military belt. He brought out a thin vellum scroll, crumpled and almost flattened now.
‘This is an imperial codicil,’ he told the girl, ‘appointing me to the Corps of Protectores. It was given to me by the hand of the emperor himself. Show this to anyone who questions you, and they’ll know you’ve been sent by me.’
Luciana took the codicil and held it in both hands with an expression of reverence. ‘The emperor,’ she said quietly.
‘And all I need now,’ Castus said, turning again to Sosibiana, ‘is a thirty-foot length of strong rope.’
The cocks were crowing in the city as they made their way through the dark streets, and by the time the first faint blush of light was in the eastern sky they were crouching together beneath a wooden lean-to, within sight of the wall.
It had not been an easy journey. Luciana had led the way, moving fast and silently through back yards and alleys, but several times they had been forced to stop and conceal themselves as patrols or gangs of drunken soldiers passed. At one point they had watched from the shadows as four legionaries kicked and beat a civilian at the door of his house, demanding to know where he had hidden his store of wine. Castus had taken a step towards them, his anger flaring, but Luciana stopped him with a hand on his arm. She was right, he knew; whatever protection he could offer would never be enough.
The Sea Gate stood at the furthest western end of the land walls, only a few hundred paces before the city fortifications angled southward to follow the shoreline. It was the smallest of the city’s three gates, and the only one without a deep ditch beyond it; the ground outside was too low and sandy for excavation, and the defenders had contented themselves with digging up the causeway that carried the road up to the gates. Castus had determined all this days before, during his tour of the walls with Brinno. But now, staring at it, the gate appeared formidable enough. Sixteen men in the garrison, more or less, with probably another four in each of the towers along the wall to either side. The idea of trying to take and hold it with only a rabble of poorly armed civilians, most of them with a moral disgust for violence, seemed like the wildest madness.
But the plan had been desperate from the start, and it was too late to give up now. Squatting against the mossy brick wall at the back of the lean-to, Castus tried to remain alert. Gods, he was tired. Every time he closed his eyes he felt sleep massing in his head. The girl beside him seemed entirely awake, her eyes gleaming in the dark.
‘You’re very brave,’ he muttered. ‘Volunteering for this.’
‘Maximian killed my parents,’ she replied. ‘Or his governors did. When you were talking back there… I agreed with all you said. I would do anything to defeat him.’
‘Even so,’ Castus said, shrugging. He felt the ache in his shoulders. ‘Listen,’ he went on. ‘When you get outside the walls, you have to be careful, understand? Some of the men out there… well, they aren’t good men.’
‘I know what you mean,’ the girl told him. ‘But I’ll be all right.’ She looked up at Castus and whispered, ‘The Lord Jesus Christ will be my shield and my guide!’
Castus just grunted. He was watching the wall, trying to make out the movements of the sentries. There were two of them, each pacing a slow and weary route between the towers. They crossed in the middle, and for a short space of time both of them were walking away, before they reached the towers and turned back again.
‘See the steps there?’ he whispered, pointing. ‘As soon as the guards cross, we have to get to them, quick as we can. We go up to the walkway, and you climb over the parapet. I’ll lower you down on the rope and then drop it after you. Then you run, understand?’
He saw her nod in the darkness. Then he took the rope and looped it loosely around her body, beneath her arms.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked as he secured the rope in a firm knot over her chest. ‘I mean, why you out of all the soldiers in the city?’
Castus bunched his forehead. ‘It’s my job.’
He coiled the rest of the rope and slung it across her shoulder; once she was over the other side she could slip easily out of the noose.
‘You’re a good man, aren’t you?’ she said, and he paused in his work and gazed at her. He remembered the last time a woman had told him that: Marcellina, the envoy’s daughter, back in Eboracum many years before. He just grunted again, checking the knot.
‘I’ll pray for you,’ she said, with sudden passion in her voice. ‘And I’ll pray that one day your heart is opened to the love of God.’
‘If you like,’ Castus said, sitting back against the mossy bricks. He peered into the dark, trying to pick out the moving shapes of the sentries on the wall.
‘Get ready,’ he said. He eased himself into a crouch, and then stood. Luciana took his hand and pulled herself up beside him.
The two sentries met in the middle of the walkway, and for a few maddening heartbeats they seemed to pause. Castus heard the sounds of their voices, a snatch of laughter. Then they were moving apart again. He waited, counting their steps.
‘Go!’
Luciana grabbed his hand again and they ran together, bolting from the shelter and across the strip of dusty open ground to the black shadow of the wall. Castus reached the steps first, climbed the first few and then turned to seize the girl and lift her. Raising her over his head, his muscles burning, he sat her on the walkway and then scrambled up after her as she crossed to the wall parapet.
A quick glance back along the walclass="underline" the two sentries were still moving away, oblivious. But the light seemed to have grown suddenly, and the land outside the wall was no longer lost in night’s blackness.
Luciana jumped up onto the parapet, sitting between two of the merlons, then slid herself across and dropped her legs down on the far side. Castus took the rope, wrapping the end of it around his waist and uncoiling the rest onto the walkway beneath him. He took the girl by the shoulders.
‘The gods guide you,’ he whispered.
As he spoke he realised his mistake, but he saw her smile. She leaned and kissed him quickly on the forehead. Then she dropped, clinging to the edge of the parapet until he pulled the rope taut and took her weight.
He drew in a deep breath and held it, leaning back from the wall, forcing himself to pay the rope out gradually through his palms and not let the girl drop too fast. A rattle of loose stones came from somewhere below, and Castus clenched his teeth tight.
A shout from his left, and the sound of running feet. Castus bunched his shoulders, fighting the urge to let go of the rope. Suddenly he felt it slacken in his grip, and threw himself forward into the embrasure. The ground below the wall was a dense tangle of grey and black, but he caught the darting shadow of the girl as she ran for the open ground, and hurled the rope down after her.