‘Not the safest place.’
‘What does it matter? Apart from that I have confidence in you. And in the gods’ and goddesses’ sense of humour.’
‘Anything in your books that would tell us how to make some special weapon to save us, my lord?’
‘Sorry, centurion, I dozed off on that page.’ Ferox was about to go back out when the poet plucked at his arm. He was obviously struggling to raise something. ‘I was wondering,’ he said at last, ‘what you think will happen to the hostages if we are overrun? It seems unlikely that they would spare anyone. Except young Genialis. Should we let the others – and indeed ourselves – be captured if the worst comes to the worst? I do not like to think of the Lady Sulpicia in their hands.’
‘No,’ Ferox agreed. ‘It’s best not to think about it.’
Longinus and the others limped back, and Ferox went over to Falx to take a look at his head wound. The gladiator said nothing, but that was not unusual, and sat on the stool while Ferox cleaned and bound up the wound. Professional fighters were used to being fussed over by others.
‘Do you have your freedom?’ Ferox asked after he had finished.
The small eyes looked at him suspiciously for a while. ‘The promise,’ he grunted after a while, and jerked his head out of the entrance towards the barricade where his master now stood.
Perhaps it was the sight of Probus, but a howl of rage came from the pirates and a new attack surged forward sooner than Ferox had expected. This time there was little organisation, but a couple of dozen warriors ran across the causeway and started scampering up the mound of corpses.
‘Come up if we look like breaking,’ Ferox shouted to Longinus, who nodded wearily. ‘You three stay here,’ he added, turning to Segovax and the Batavians. Then he ran towards the barricade.
The spears held them for a moment. Vindex put a man down with a thrust to the throat, Probus drove his spear through an upraised shield and into the arm of the man carrying it. He could not free the spearhead so let it go. One of the scouts stabbed forward, gouging along a pirate’s sword arm, but another of them grabbed the shaft and the Brigantian let it go rather than be pulled over. Another of the black-clad warriors bounded up the backs of his comrades and leaped onto the barricade. He had no shield, but cut with his sword and struck the scout in the neck, just above his armour. The man staggered back, clutching at the wound to staunch the flow of blood, and the pirate jumped down in his place. Brigita threw her spear at a warrior following him, hitting him in the groin, so that he shrieked and fell backwards. The man over the barrier hacked at the wounded scout, cutting off his arm below the elbow, and then barged him aside so that he fell into the lake. Another of the scouts took a spear in the face as he tried to close the gap. Vindex and Probus were fencing with opponents over the barricade, while the other scout tried to keep back two men who had waded through the water on the right-hand side.
The black-clad warrior was a big man, tall and rangy, and he went for the queen, who stood in his path. She brought her shield forward, but he was stronger and his left hand yanked it aside as his sword went up ready to cut down with a ferocious power that no helmet or armour would stop. Then he froze, gasping and coughing because Brigita’s right arm had shot forward and the tip of her gladius punched through his windpipe and throat so that it came out the other side. Ferox had hardly seen her move. Blood from the dying man sprayed across her face and armour.
Probus had lost his helmet and one of his cheeks was slashed, but he had put down his opponent. The scout had wounded one of the men in the water with a javelin, and his comrade helped him wade back to the shore. Vindex still had his spear and finished another of them, and they were going back. Both sides were struggling for breath.
‘That was a good stroke, lady,’ Ferox said.
The queen sheathed her sword, and then wiped her hand through the blood spattered across her face. ‘He had no skill,’ she said, as if it were nothing, and walked up to join them at the barricade.
Sometimes a man knew how a fight was going not by anything he could see but simply how he felt. The last repulse had taken the first heart out of the Harii and the rest, and Ferox knew that it would be a while before they came back. Cniva and the others had ridden away. There were a dozen or so men dotted around as sentries, none of them closer than fifty paces to the shore.
‘Aye,’ Vindex agreed. ‘They’ll give us a break for a while. Probably don’t realise how much they have hurt us.’ That was just as well. Five men were dead or badly wounded, and a few of the rest had wounds even if they could carry on. Nearly all the spears were broken or gone, and it would be harder to hold the barricade with swords. There were a few javelins, thrown by the enemy and still in good enough shape to use, but they had slim shafts and were not designed to be thrust.
‘Come on,’ Ferox said to the lean Brigantian. ‘Give me a hand and clear them away.’ He vaulted over the barricade, landing unsteadily on the enemy dead. Vindex followed and they began to lift the corpses and tip them into the lake. Ferox would have preferred to put them on the shore, but he doubted the pirates would let them. He just had to hope that the water nearer the tower would not be poisoned by the dead bodies.
One of the corpses stirred, moaning. Vindex drew his sword and stabbed down. He caught his friend’s glance. ‘They eat people. I’m not going to let him recover and do it again.’
‘So, what is it?’
The scout frowned. ‘What is what?’
‘Your new wife’s name.’
‘After all this time, I’m not sure I want to tell you. You’re supposed to be a friend.’
‘We’re not friends.’ Ferox began the old joke, one he had not made for more than a year. ‘I just haven’t got around to killing you yet.’
‘Well, don’t hang around,’ Vindex told him. ‘Or someone will beat you to it.’
XXI
THEY DID NOT come again during the rest of the long day, and Ferox wondered why. His best answer was that they were planning to attack at night. After all, that was what the Harii did. He leaned on the barricade with Probus, while the two Batavians sat on the causeway behind them. Segovax was on duty at the main entrance, and after all the losses he had reorganised everyone into two groups. Longinus had everyone else, and apart from one sentry to support the northerner they were to rest until they took over at the barricade halfway through the night. It was a long time for anyone to watch, but there were too few of them left for him to grant them shorter spells on sentry duty. Hopefully, everyone should get at least a few hours of peace, perhaps even of sleep if they were lucky. The sky was clear, a rising moon dimming some of the brighter stars but casting a pale light over the world. Ferox could see a few of the pirates standing or squatting on the shore, watching them.
‘I know that one,’ Probus said, nodding at a corpse they had left on the causeway ahead of the ditch. ‘I just can’t seem to come to his name. He was Usipi. Thick as pig shit and about as good company. Didn’t know left from right, but a bastard in a brawl.’
‘Does it all seem a long time ago?’
The merchant paused, realising that he had just admitted who he really was. The soldiers were watching them, and even a duller man than Probus would have sensed their hostility. A man who submits to the army’s discipline has no love for someone who breaks away.
‘A lifetime,’ he said eventually. ‘Another man’s lifetime at that. I was born the son of a great man among the Harii, but he took a wound at the moment of his great victory and his blood turned bad. He screamed a lot before he died.