Ferox ran after the gladiator, coming out into a wider room, its wooden ceiling about seven feet high. There were four doors around its roughly circular wall, and another open alcove filled with sacks. A grey-haired woman cowered down inside, screaming again and again. A ladder was ahead of him, Falx just starting to climb, his sword ready to thrust up.
‘Wait!’ Ferox yelled, feeling that he ought to take the risk and go first. The gladiator stopped, jumped down to the floor, so that a thrust spear narrowly missed his head. Falx grasped the shaft with one hand and jerked hard. A man appeared through the opening, coming head first and arms still clutching the spear. He let go, as the big man shook the shaft again. Ferox raised his dagger, aimed and threw, but it missed, bouncing off the ceiling next to the man. He ran past the gladiator and bounded up the steps, as the pirate vanished. By the time he came through the opening into the main living space, the man had picked up a sword and pulled it free from the scabbard. Ferox glanced around. There was a fire in the middle of the floor, raised on a stone base. A naked girl was pressed up against the wall, clutching a blanket to her, but there was no one else in the wide room, although a couple of sections were fenced off by wattle panels and hanging blankets. He could not see if there was anyone else on the raised floor that was mounted higher up on the wall to provide more space.
The man came at him as he pushed himself up onto the floor. The first jab was at his face, and Ferox rolled sideways to dodge it. He gave a wild slash with his gladius, hoping to catch his opponent on the leg or ankle, but missed. The man stabbed a second time, and Ferox rolled over again. The tip of the gladius missed his face by a few inches and drove into the timber floor. The man cursed, pulled it free, but then gave way because Falx appeared at the top of the ladder. Ferox pushed up, lunged and caught the warrior on the thigh. The pirate staggered back, hissing, and the centurion followed, slashing up and then back to cross the warrior’s stomach. He dropped his sword, hands clutching at the gaping wound and Ferox thrust the blade hard, driving the slim point through the pirate’s left eye.
There was noise from above them, and something landed on the raised floor so that it quivered. The Red Cat looked down over the edge, took in the scene, and grinned.
‘Check through there,’ Ferox told the gladiator, pointing at one of the fenced-off sections. This time there was no hesitation, only the prudent caution of the fighter.
The girl started to sob loudly, her body shaking, although whether from fear or relief it was hard to say. ‘My lord,’ she gasped, and the thin voice was familiar. It was Aphrodite, Brocchus’ slave.
‘It’s all right, girl,’ was all that he could think to say. ‘You’re safe.’
Falx held his sword low and wrenched back the blanket hanging across the opening. He stepped in, moving slowly, then flicked his massive arm up to block a blow and sent someone flying back into the side room. He raised his sword and then stopped.
‘You!’ The petulance in the voice was familiar. Ferox went up behind the gladiator and saw Genialis rubbing blood off his lip.
The Red Cat came down the ladder onto the main floor, with Bran and the scout close behind.
‘Search the rest of the rooms up here,’ Ferox said. He turned to the youth. ‘Where are the others?’
‘Don’t know. They kept me up here all the time.’
There was shouting from down below but no sounds of fighting and Ferox guessed that Longinus and the rest of his force had arrived. ‘Your father is here, boy,’ he said, and went down the ladder onto the ground floor, just as Probus appeared, following a couple of Batavians into the tower. ‘He’s fine. Up there.’ He gestured towards the opening in the ceiling.
Simple wooden bars held shut each of the doors on the ground floor. Ferox beckoned to one of the Batavians to be ready, lifted the first one and eased the door open. A cow with soft brown eyes and a calf suckling on her stared at him. The second room held two barrels, some amphorae marked as containing oil and sauce, and a few sacks. There was a sound as he opened the third door and his heart leaped, only to see a big sow and a row of piglets lying on the straw. He began to worry that they had got it all horribly wrong. Someone was shouting for him from higher up in the tower, but he ignored them and wrenched the bar up on the final door, flinging it back.
Sulpicia Lepidina let out a long breath when she saw him. She sat on the rush-covered floor, her feet and arms shackled. Her pale blue dress was ragged around the edges and dirty, her hair wild and around her shoulders. She still wore a necklace and pearl earrings, and there was no mark of injury on her. To Ferox she glowed, and he felt relief flood over him. Brigita was beside her, chained in the same way, her yellow dress drab with dirt and badly torn, but he barely noticed her.
‘You are safe, my lady,’ he said, adopting the same soothing tone he had taken with the slave girl upstairs. ‘It is over,’ he added, not believing it but wanting to reassure. He repeated the same phrases in the language of the tribes, so that queen would understand. ‘We’ll soon have you free of those.’ He went forward, crouching down to look at the irons. They were fastened with pins and he managed to knock the first one off, freeing one ankle. ‘Come on, man, lend a hand,’ he called to the Batavian, who went over to assist the queen.
The other pin was harder, but he hit it with the pommel on his gladius and eventually it came free. The lady wriggled her legs, smiling with joy to be relieved of the weight and grip of the shackles. ‘We’re here, and you are safe,’ he said softly.
‘I knew you would come,’ she whispered.
Sulpicia Lepidina began to cry.
‘My lady, it is a joy to see you.’ Ovidius was at the door. ‘Centurion, you are needed up above,’ he added, and for once the poet sounded like a man giving an order.
Ferox had released one of her wrists and waited to finish the other.
‘We can do that, centurion,’ Ovidius insisted. It came free and the lady rubbed her ankles with her hands.
‘I must go,’ Ferox said.
Longinus was looking down through the hole in the ceiling. ‘Up top. It’s bad news,’ he said.
Ferox climbed up to the first floor, then onto the raised platform. They had lowered a rope through the hole they had made in the roof and the Red Cat was sitting up there, waving his arm. Ferox scrambled up, wishing that he had that agility with ropes that seemed to come so naturally to others. The northerner helped haul him up and they both lay against the thatch, looking out over the rim of the wall. It was cold up here after the fug and dust of the tower. The sky was clearer, stars appearing.
Out to sea, their ship burned in the night.
XIX
THE TOWER WAS not a fortress. Centuries ago a chieftain had got his people to raise it on the tiny island so that his household could live there. It was difficult to approach, and its height reinforced the sense that here was the home of a man of importance. The walls were high and strong, but not designed for defence. There was no parapet or walkway on top, although now that they had knocked a hole in the roof someone could move around up there as long as they were careful. While there, they might just throw spears or rocks down at any attackers, for it was little more than a dozen feet from the closest part of the top wall to the mouth of the winding entrance tunnel. Without windows or slits of any sort, there was no way to do that from anywhere else. The narrow tunnel at least made it hard for anyone to force their way in.