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German here and I found the standard bearer and took possession of his wine before he managed to get through all of it. We told him to view it as the fee to be paid for leaving his grandson to the care of others.’
    Arminius grimaced.
    ‘In truth, it was the prince’s tame Selgovae monster who did most of the dispossessing . . .’
    Marcus raised an eyebrow at Martos, who nodded in agreement.
    ‘It was a sight you would have enjoyed, Centurion. Lugos just took the jar from Morban and then put a hand on his head to hold him off at arm’s length until he got bored of trying to get it back.’
    The Roman smiled quietly at the way in which the Selgovae giant had quietly and patiently become a regular companion to the Votadini prince during their long march to the east, despite the burning hatred his friend still felt for Lugos’s tribe after their betrayal by the Selgovae’s king Calgus. He nodded, looking hopefully at the jar.
    ‘If you have any wine left . . .’
    A cup was passed, and Marcus drank a mouthful of the rich wine.
    ‘You left the boy with your wife?’
    He nodded at Martos’s question.
    ‘He fell asleep next to Appius’s cot, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him. It must be hard on him to have travelled all this way from home without the company of anyone his own age.’
    The men around the fire nodded, and for a moment there was silence as each of them considered the boy’s isolation within the cohort’s hard world. After a moment Lugos stood up on the far side of the brazier, passing Marcus his swords with a bow and a rumble of explanation.
    ‘Have made sharp.’
    Arminius snorted out a bark of laughter, pointing at the weapon in disbelief.
    ‘You sharpened those ?’
    The enormous Briton shrugged easily, as resolute as ever in failing to take offence at the rough humour of his fellows.
    ‘No blade ever too sharp.’ He looked at the weapon resting on the Roman’s knee with a reverential expression. ‘Is sword fit for mighty god Cocidius himself.’
    Marcus returned the bow with a gentle smile.
    ‘My thanks for your efforts, Lugos. As you say, a sword can never be too sharp.’
    Arminius snorted again.
    ‘Even a blade that was forged so keen that it will cut through a shield as if the board were made from parchment?’
    The massive Briton answered on Marcus’s behalf, his expression foreboding in the fire’s half-light.
    ‘Centurion need sharp iron soon. This place be watch from hills around. Lugos feels eyes.’
    The Roman looked at Martos and Arminius, and found both men nodding in agreement. The Votadini prince spoke first.
    ‘We all feel them, Centurion. Our enemy, whoever they may be, is close at hand. This place will know a bloody day soon enough.’

2
    The detachment’s officers gathered in Tribune Belletor’s new headquarters soon after sunrise to meet with the mining complex’s procurator, the man charged with extracting the maximum possible output of gold from the mines whose entrances pocked the valley’s hillsides. The centurions had climbed up the road from their camp to the straggling town of Alburnus Major, casting disapproving glances at the seedy drinking establishments and whorehouses that seemed to be the town’s major form of commerce. Now they were crowded into the headquarters’ briefing room, listening intently as the mine’s administrator briefed them on the valley’s value to the empire.
    Procurator Maximus was a tall, painfully thin man with a half-starved look about him that Marcus found slightly disquieting in the company of so many heavily muscled soldiers as he watched the man from the back of the room. The detachment’s senior officers stood closest to him as he went through an obviously well-practised explanation of the mine’s operation. Scaurus carefully positioned himself a half-pace behind his colleague and superior Belletor, who was wearing the smug expression of a man who felt in complete control of his situation and was unable to