The great birds were still circling above us when we crossed the summit of the hill and looked down into the Valley of the Dragons. I showed her where we had unearthed the skystones we had found, and then I pointed out the circle segment in the lake side. As I started to lead the way along the crest of the hill towards the lake, she spoke again.
"It seems strange to realize that those massive stones at the bottom there are broken pieces of mountain. " She stared at the cliff opposite.
"Could that be where the eagles have their nest?" I turned and looked across the valley to the great rock face. "Very probably. It's sheer enough, and inaccessible. "
She rode in silence as we approached the lake, and soon we reined in our horses right above it, looking down into its depths, it was a genuine lake, much larger than a normal mountain tarn. This close, all sign of the circle segment we had seen from the distance had vanished. The bright sky and the sun above gave the surface a much friendlier aspect than some I had seen, and I was pleased that she was seeing it at its most appealing.
"Well. " I asked her, "what do you think? Have I wasted your time dragging you out here and making you spend the night in a leather tent?"
"No. " Her voice was subdued. "It's very large, Publius. Much larger than I remember. How deep is it?"
I angled my mount closer and placed a hand on her shoulder, feeling the strength of her.
"I don't really know. No way of telling. But it's deep. My estimate would be about a hundred feet or so at its deepest, judging from the slope of the valley floor, but I could be short by half as much again or even more. "
"A hundred and fifty feet? And you intend to drain it? How? Where will you drain it to? Where will it all go?"
"Come, I'll show you. " I led her for another half mile around to the western rim of the lake where she could see for herself the steep fall of the land down into the neighbouring valley. "Can you see what happened here? The impact of the falling stones threw up this rim across the end of the valley, building up the natural dam that was here already and strengthening it. You can see how new the fall is here, on this side. See it?" She nodded and I went on. "The lake here is like wine in a bowl. All we have to do is crack the side of the bowl, down there, by digging a hole into it, and the wine will spill down into the valley below, there, and then down into the next one, and so on until it reaches the plain and flows into the streams and rivers. "
"That will be dangerous, Publius, won't it?"
"How?"
"Digging that hole into the side of the bowl, as you call it. It will be dangerous. What if you dig too far?"
"No. " I shook my head disparagingly. "It's simple engineering, Luceiia. There's nothing to it. "
She was staring at me keenly. "Perhaps not, for an engineer. You are not an engineer. "
"So? What of it? Engineers can be bought, my love. "
"Where?"
I shrugged. "Anywhere. "
"Where?" Her voice was edged with determination.
"Many places. "
"Where?"
"Ye gods! I don't know! I haven't even started searching yet, Luceiia. "
"Where will you start?"
I shrugged again, suddenly uncomfortable with this inquisition. It seemed she was determined to be difficult. I was wrong, however, as her next words showed.
"This is very important to you, Publius, so it is also very important to me, but I will not have you grubbing and digging around down there on your own, so think! If you had to find an engineer, urgently, for anything, where would you start looking?"
I gaped at her, feeling the surprise on my face. "The army. "
"Exactly. The army. Surely you and Caius have enough friends and influence between you to arrange to borrow a decent engineer? What about Tonius Cicero? Could he not arrange something?" For the space of a few seconds I was filled with elation, but then my spirits slumped again. She was watching my face closely and noticed it.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing, " I said. "And everything. It is a fine idea, but it would not work. Caius would never condone the use of imperial troops for a private operation like this, and when I think of it, I wouldn't, either. "
"Why not, if it benefits the army, too? I heard Tonius myself, during the wedding feast, saying that his people are always trying to find something to do to give their men experience in different areas. It seems to me that this operation would make an exciting training project — a tactical exercise in the physical removal of large volumes of water. " I couldn't get close enough to her to kiss her, but she came to me. "My love, " I told her, "you are your brother's sister!"
"No, I am the wife of Publius Varrus. " I hugged her to me with one arm and looked above to the silent birds wheeling overhead.
The eagles were still there when I returned exactly one month later and sat in the same spot with a small group of serving officers, a special team assembled from Glevum, Venta Belgarum and the great gold mines of Dolocauthi in the mountains of Cambria. Each of these men was a professional in the manipulation of water, and Verecundius Secundus, the senior among them, was directly responsible for drainage and water flow at Dolocauthi itself, where two great open-channel aqueducts, one of them seven miles long, delivered three million gallons of water a day to wash the crushed, gold-bearing ore. Secundus had the responsibility of maintaining the great wooden water wheels that drained all of the overflow of this water from the open-cast workings and the underground galleries of the mine, some of which went down more than a hundred feet.
The group sat silent for a spell, each man gazing around him, noting the fall of the land below, the steepness of the gradients and the angle of the retaining wall of the dam-like structure on which we sat. "Well, Secundus?
How does it look to you?" "Cicero was right. " He did not look at me, his eyes still busy gauging and estimating. "An interesting exercise. Straightforward enough, but a degree of difficulty that'll keep our trainees on their toes. " He glanced at me, and then at Rufus Seculus, his colleague from Venta. "I like it. I think we should do it. Rufus?" Rufus Seculus grunted. "Aye. As you say, though, there are problems. It's not going to be an overnight job. This is going to take a lot of planning. Hit that hillside the wrong way and you could wash a lot of men away when that juice squirts out. Especially since we'll be using trainees and not experienced sappers. What's your opinion, Rasmus?"
Erasmus Lecio was the third member of the group, a grey-haired veteran of many wars. He had been listening to their exchange with his lips pursed and a frown of concentration on his face. Now he spat a glob of phlegm and spoke.
"I think if we tackle this without at least a major contingent of veterans we should all face a court martial. It's a good training project — I've got no objections on that ground — but it could be nastier than a sharp-toothed whore. I'd hate to have to rely on green sappers all the way in this one. You're right, Seculus. This dam is new, from the looks of it, and it wasn't built by Romans. No telling what kind of mess is underneath us, or how unstable it is. Every shovelful that comes out of the sap down there could be the critical one that's holding the whole whoreson lake in check. I wouldn't want to be the one responsible for it if some green trainee who doesn't know his rectum from his throat makes a mistake and empties the whole sewer at the wrong time. Let's do it, by all means, but let's be sure we know what we're doing, every step of the way. "
Seculus turned back to me. "What did you say you wanted this drained for?"
I grinned. "There's a stone buried in the mud at the bottom of it. I want it. "
"I thought that's what you said. A stone. In the mud. Did you throw it in yourself?"