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keep that knowledge from his face. The youngest of the three senior officers stood at Belletor’s other shoulder, his tunic decorated with a thick purple senatorial stripe identical to that of his colleague’s, and in obvious contrast to Scaurus’s thinner equestrian line. Marcus was watching him with careful glances, being sure not to stare at the man for very long so as not to draw attention to himself. Scaurus had told his centurions to form an opinion of the youngest tribune before they had set off for the meeting.
    ‘Keep a good eye on young Sigilis, gentlemen, and take his measure now while you have the leisure to do so. You may find yourself under his command if I fail in this continual struggle not to break my esteemed colleague’s nose, so you might as well try to understand what sort of man he is now, rather than the first time you find yourselves taking orders from him.’
    Marcus observed the young tribune carefully, taking good care to keep a man between them and watch from the shadows so as not to attract his attention in return. His main impression of Lucius Carius Sigilis was that of his younger self, albeit seen from the far side of the chasm that had opened between himself and Roman society with his family’s mass execution on a false charge of treason raised by the shadowy men behind the emperor, in order to clear the way for the confiscation of their huge wealth. Watching the tribune through the throng of men between them, he realised that the confident set of the young man’s face was achingly familiar. Sigilis was clearly possessed of the same utter self-belief that had been his in the months before his uncomprehending flight to Britain. They were so alike, and yet . . . Marcus smiled darkly to himself, musing on the barbarian uprising that had swept northern Britannia soon after his arrival. The Tungrians’ first desperate battles to survive in the face of the revolt’s ferocity had been the fire in which he had been transformed from son of privilege to capable centurion, his former prejudices and expectations of life burned away in the white heat of a succession of pitched battles. He wrenched his attention back to the procurator’s words, shaking his head slightly to dispel the memories.
    ‘And so I welcome you all to the Ravenstone valley, gentlemen, and to our mining colony of Alburnus Major. I have roughly five thousand miners currently engaged in extraction and refining processes, working for three investors who fund the necessary resource and expertise, and who in turn take a share of the profits of our enterprise. Most of our mining operations are below ground these days, since the potential for surface mining is all but done, and that makes the process much more laborious and labour-intensive. What with digging into the mountains to find the gold-bearing rock, processing the ore to extract its gold, ventilation to keep the miners alive and hundreds of men working day and night to drain off the water from the mines . . . well, I can assure you that it’s all very costly.’
    He beamed at the gathered officers knowingly.
    ‘I can however, also assure you gentlemen that it’s very much worth the expense. My last posting as a Procurator of Mines was in Mount Marianus in Spain, and we were lucky if we dug out ten pounds of gold a day. Here in Alburnus Major we’re averaging ninety pounds of gold per day, which makes the mines hugely profitable by comparison. That’s over thirty thousand pounds a year without any sign of the seams thinning out. There is said to be enough gold in these mountains to pave a road from here to the Forum in Rome itself, and I can well believe it.’ He looked around the room with a portentous expression. ‘Which means that the loss of this facility would have the direst implications for the imperial treasury.’
    ‘Not to mention his career.’
    Ignoring Julius’s whispered comment, Marcus focussed his attention on the procurator, who was still