Ferox decided to interpret this as a question about Cerialis. ‘The prefect is in his house preparing to greet visiting officers.’
‘What about her?’
Ferox ignored the question. He gestured to Brigita, who rode on one of the ponies taken from the northerners. ‘Come on, child. Let’s get you home.’
A cornu trumpet blared as they were approaching the gate. Arcuttius and his men snapped to attention, slamming the butts of their spears into the ground, as a dozen horsemen came into the fort. The leader was a small man, and although in armour and wearing a deep green cloak he was bareheaded. His hair was white, and even before he turned and Ferox saw his face, he knew who it was and his heart sank. Crispinus, senior tribune of Legio II Augusta, was his superior officer and had a knack of turning up whenever trouble started.
The young aristocrat acknowledged the salute and then cantered his horse towards him.
‘Flavius Ferox! This is a happy chance,’ he called warmly.
‘My lord.’
Crispinus offered his hand, surprising Ferox since the son of a senator had no need to be so welcoming.
‘This is splendid. I sent a rider to Syracuse, but he returned to say that you were not at the burgus and had been gone for well over a month. They said you might be dead for all they knew, so it is definitely an improvement to see you alive and well and here. But are you leaving us?’
‘Yes, my lord, I must return this girl to her family.’
‘You ride well, my child,’ the tribune said, revelling in Ferox’s surprise at this knowledge of even a few words in the language of the tribes. The girl looked nervous, but managed a thin smile. ‘So pretty, as well,’ he added and made her blush.
‘You are learning, my lord,’ Ferox said in Latin.
‘As I once told you, centurion, that is why I am here.’ His escort clattered up to join him. ‘I must go. See that you are back here tomorrow by noon. I need you. And that rogue of yours, Vindex, as well. Farewell, Flavius Ferox!’ He sent his horse running down the road, surprising the troopers with him who took a moment to follow.
Ferox sighed as he rode out through the gateway, and did his best not to think about whatever it was the tribune had planned for him. Like it or not, he would have to do it, both because he was a soldier and must obey and because he had taken an oath to the tribune’s father and was bound to his family. It was just that life tended to become a lot more complicated around Crispinus. The year before last he had wondered whether the man was part of a conspiracy against the emperor. The traitor turned out to be someone else – Ferox felt some pleasure at the memory of punching and kicking the young aristocrat as a ploy to lure the real conspirator out. It was hard to know whether Crispinus still held a grudge, but since then he had twice sent Ferox off to perform duties that had proved complicated and unpleasant. This one was unlikely to be any better.
‘Omnes ad stercus,’ he muttered.
‘Sir?’ the sentry outside the gates was puzzled.
‘Nothing, lad, nothing,’ he said, and rode off to take the girl to her family.
III
BRIGITA’S PARENTS WERE shocked when the two of them rode up to the little cluster of round huts with their tall conical roofs. Her father was patching up some of the thatch on one of the huts used for their cows, and he broke down, coughing hard amid his tears, and had to be helped off by two of his sons. Her mother prayed loudly, thanking Taranis and Vinotonus and Cocidius and any other god she could remember for answering her prayers. In a moment, half a dozen grubby and thin children, all with the same snub nose and bright red hair, were around them, wailing and yelling. The father begged him to stay and share their food, the others all howled the same thing and when Brigita joined them he agreed.
He had learned a lot from the girl on the ride here. Perhaps it was the realisation that she was about to go home or because there was no one else apart from him, she had started to talk and then kept on going, telling him every detail of what had happened. She seemed to need to speak as if that would consign it all to the past, so he had let her, not asking questions and simply listening.
At first she spoke about the farm, and how hard it was to feed them all when her parents did not let her run things properly. ‘The old axe rusted and then snapped because father did not look after it. The goat no longer gave enough milk, so it was better to cook it or sell it and we needed something to buy the new axe – and a spade and some seed if I raised enough. You can get good deals in the market at Coria if you know where to look.’ Her assurance was coming back, and Ferox was pleased to see it. He did not quite understand why it was that this one child seemed brighter and more organised than the rest of her family. Everything to her appeared as a problem needing a solution. If she had had been born in the empire to a family with even a little money, he suspected that she would have made ten times as much by the time she was fifteen and a hundred times as much before she was twenty.
The northerners had appeared from nowhere when she was heading for Coria. They were not gentle, but did not really hurt her – neither did they touch her that way. They did slit the goat’s throat and carved off enough meat for several meals. That was not news to Ferox, for he had found the carcase and seen several of their camp fires after her family had sent word to him and he began the chase. They took Brigita one evening and then Aphrodite the next morning, finding her in a secluded glade a little nearer to the garrison town. ‘She was humping with a man, when he should have been looking after that big horse.’ Ferox was more surprised by her directness than her evident disapproval of someone avoiding work. ‘They all laughed at him as he sprang up in terror and ran for the chestnut, leaving her to them. Didn’t do him any good, for they rode him down and speared him before he could reach it. It was horrible, but they did not harm her. Not then, and just led us off to a patch of woodland where they camped. A man met them later. A thin man, but he kept his hood low and I never saw his face. They talked to him, and a little later the youngest one stayed with us, while the others went off with this man. The boy was kind with us, but kept us tied and said he would hurt us if we tried to escape. He tried very hard to look fierce, but I think he was afraid.
‘After darkness fell the four of them came back with Genialis. I think the boy was really relieved to see them. The other man had gone. Genialis was bleeding from the lip and nose, and bound by the wrists. He cursed them and they were not gentle with him. I do not like him,’ she added and Ferox smiled.
Most of the rest about their journey north confirmed what he had already guessed. They had kept away from people, even as they passed beyond the tribes allied to Rome, and kept away from the most frequented paths. Otherwise they drove the animals and their captives along. When one of the warriors wanted to rape the slave girl, Segovax told him to wait until they were safe. ‘“There is no time to waste. If we’re not back by the next new moon then all of them will die,”’ Brigita said, frowning as she tried to remember his exact words. ‘“If we get back by then I’ll let you do whatever you want, but for now keep it to yourself.” Again and again as the days passed he reminded them of how they must get home to save them, but once I overheard him speaking quietly to the one with the mottled face. He was worried that they would not make it in time. “The black men have no mercy. They are men of the night. They will kill and eat them all.”’ The girl looked terrified as she repeated the words. ‘They say that there are demons and monsters in the far north that devour the flesh of men.’