A light rain was falling, but the night was warm. Castus watched the men building the new wall, and after a while fell to hefting stones himself, glad of the physical labour. The water party returned from the stream, and then the camp settled into a tensed quiet, every man wrapped in his cloak, gazing warily out into the night. Above them was the thin arc of the new rising moon.
‘You see them? Down there to the right, in the long grass… There’s another – he just moved.’
Castus followed the optio’s pointing finger, but could see nothing at first. It was not yet dawn, but the light had increased to a damp greyness, and the surrounding plain and the slopes of the hills looked like heaped fog. His eyes smarted after eight hours staring at nothing.
‘There! See, he moved again!’
This time Castus caught the movement: a man lying flat on the slope with a cape pulled across his head and body. Once he’d seen one he quickly spotted more: the hillside below the fort was covered in creeping cloaked men, edging closer now and again, crawling on their bellies.
‘Think they might try and rush us?’ Timotheus said. He appeared very young in the half-light, his cheeks covered with a downy beard, but his eyes were hard and sunken deep.
‘No, we’d cut them down before they got close. They’re just scouting us out.’
A dry snap came from the slope, and one of the men at the wall fell back with a grunt of pain.
‘Heads down, shields up! Cover yourselves!’ Castus shouted. ‘What in Jupiter’s name was that?’
‘Lockbow,’ Evagrius called. ‘Native hunting weapon. I saw a few of them when I was in the Wall garrison. Like a short bow mounted on a stave. You can aim and loose them when you’re lying down.’
‘Shit of Hades,’ Castus said.
A volley of snapping sounds came from the prone figures in the grass, the short arrows clattering against the wall and the raised shields or arcing overhead. The first shot had hit Culchianus in the shoulder.
‘Any of you with slings – over here now!’ Pointless to waste javelins on the skulking bowmen. Six men jogged across the enclosure, heads down, and dropped behind the wall.
‘Whenever you see one of them move, crack him!’
Almost at once the first sling whirred and snapped, sending its stone flat and true to the target. A cry from the slope, and the men along the wall cheered. Another volley of arrows, and more slingstones hurled back, then the cloaked figures were getting up and scrambling back down the slope. Castus saw one, then two, knocked down by slingstones as they ran.
Behind them, the first sun was glinting through the ragged clouds over the mountains to the east. Castus turned, kneeling, and touched his brow. He muttered a prayer under his breath, and when he raised his head he saw most of the other men doing the same. Strabo, he reminded himself, was no longer here to disapprove.
He stood up, drew his sword and held the blade levelled above his head to reflect the light of the dawn.
‘Unconquered Sun,’ he cried out in his best parade voice. ‘We devote ourselves to your glory. Send your light between us and evil, and give us victory this day!’
The shout of acclamation from the men around him was loud and sudden, spears clashing against shield rims. The long tense night was behind them, and they were drawing strength from the sun. Castus smiled as he sheathed his blade. So far, things were going well.
An hour later, the Picts began to gather on the plain and the surrounding hills. They came from the ford in massed columns, men on foot and on horseback, some riding in carts. Outside the range of javelin or slingshot they assembled in their warbands, sitting or squatting in the grass or leaning on their spears. Others appeared on the far side of the stream, where the ground rose towards their camp, many of them with light hunting javelins and the cross-shaped lockbows. The sky was heavy and grey, and a damp wind came down off the high hills.
‘How many do you think, Evagrius?’
‘Around two thousand, centurion. At least.’
‘That’s about what I make it.’
‘Forty to one. Not bad odds!’
But now a horseman was riding slowly from the enemy mass, his spear raised and tipped with a leafy green branch. As he approached, Castus recognised the crest of orange hair, the goatlike scowl. Talorcagus, enemy of Rome.
‘Caccumattus, to me.’ The interpreter scuttled along the wall to kneel beside Castus. The Pictish chief drew closer, his horse mounting the lower slope. Another man rode behind him carrying a sack.
‘Ruamnai!’ the Pict shouted, punching his spear above his head. He began to call out his address, the words gnarled and ugly.
‘He say: Romani kill Picti chiefs, Ulcagnus and Vendognus,’ the interpreter said, translating rapidly. ‘Try to make chief-talk to fail. But now Talorcagus – him – he high chief. King.’
‘So I guessed.’
The Pict was still shouting, still brandishing his leafy spear.
‘He say: Picti find killers, make punish. No want fighting with Romani soldier. He say you putting down weapon, go home in peace.’
Castus spat between his teeth. No doubt those among his men who understood the native language were already circu shy;lating the offer.
‘Ox shit,’ he said, and grabbed Caccumattus by the arm, pulling him close. ‘You tell him this: Roman soldiers never surrender! And we didn’t come all this way just to go home without a fight, either. Tell him his people must have short memories if they’ve forgotten what the Emperor Severus did to them a hundred years ago. We want Marcellinus, Strabo and our two soldiers back, then we’ll think about going home.’
Caccumattus, released, stood up and called out the reply. There was something like defiance in his voice, quite unlike his wavering tone when he tried to speak Latin. Talorcagus circled his horse, and then shouted back.
‘He say: You not Severus. You small silly man. Soon all to die, like… I no knowing what…’
But Castus could already see the second rider opening the neck of the sack. He lifted something out, drew back his arm and threw.
Two dull thuds from the grass; two heavy round objects rolling to a halt. A low anguished groan went up from the men along the wall. Talorcagus was stripping the leaves from his spear and throwing them aside, then turning his horse back towards his assembled warriors.
‘So now we know where they got to,’ Castus said quietly. One of the severed heads lay face down, but the other had the red hair and startled grey face of the legionary Atrectus. ‘Get a cloth and jump down there, quick,’ he said to Vincentius. ‘Take Bradua with you. Wrap up the heads and bring them back – and try to handle them with respect.’ The less time the grisly message lay in clear view of the other men, the better.
The ranks of the enemy shifted, warriors bunching and gathering. Some of them knelt down in the grass with wooden bowls before them – what were they doing, Castus wondered, eating breakfast? He reminded himself that his men had eaten nothing since the night before. But now he saw the kneeling warriors scooping handfuls of paste from the bowls and smear shy;ing it on their arms and bare chests. The paste left a vivid blue stain on their skin, around the scar-pictures of animals.
‘What are they doing?’
‘Blue make power of animals go into warrior,’ the interpreter said. ‘Call down sky, animal power free. Make very much brave.’
‘Now I’ve seen it all,’ Evagrius muttered, and gave a nervous laugh.
The blue-painted men stood up, throwing out their chests and flexing their arms, roaring through clenched teeth. From the ranks of the other warriors came a reverberating clatter and hum: they were beating the metal balls at the base of their spears against their shields. A strange ringing noise came echo shy;ing back off the hills.
Castus stood up. ‘Everyone on your feet!’ he shouted. The men rose together, shields up along the line of the wall. Castus glanced at the soldiers to either side of him, their faces pale with fear but tensed, straining with the anticipation of battle.