‘Come on, I’ll show you round.’
He turned and padded away into the darkness, his small body framed in the lamp’s pale light, leaving Lupus staring at his receding figure. Turning back to the mine’s entrance, he was momentarily gripped with an instinctive need to run for the rectangle of daylight, but knew in his heart that doing so would not only expose him to the younger boy’s derision but that some part of him would be dissatisfied with the choice to retreat in the face of his fear. Still troubled by the darkness around them, he paced forward in Mus’s wake, concentrating on not losing sight of the boy’s back. The passage walls, dimly illuminated for a few feet on either side, were rough, snagging at his fingers as he reached out for their reassuring touch, and the floor was damp and uneven beneath his boots as it sloped gently up into the mountain. Even the faintest of sounds were magnified by the tunnel’s echoes, each scrape of the boys’ boots sounding like a dozen footfalls. The pair walked in silence down the passage for long enough to reduce the entrance to a distant speck of light, and to Lupus’s surprise he found his initial panic increasingly forgotten as the means of its relief receded gradually from view.
‘Here we are, here’s the first ladder.’
Lupus frowned, looking at the wooden ladders that ran both upwards and downwards from the spot, unable to see where they led to.
‘We have to climb?’
Mus turned back to him, perhaps sensing the uncertainty in his voice.
‘We have to go down to reach the place where they mine the gold. Don’t worry, it’s safe as long as you only move one hand or foot at a time, at least until you get used to it.’
‘But you’re carrying the lamp?’
‘Don’t worry, I can climb the ladders one-handed. Here, you go first.’
Suitably reassured, Lupus climbed gingerly onto the ladder and started down with slow, cautious movements, quickly gaining enough confidence to speed up his pace to what seemed like a breakneck descent.
‘Good, just take it nice and steady, and don’t look. .’
The other boy’s sentence was still incomplete when Lupus found himself compelled to stare down into the darkness. He stopped and hung from the ladder’s rungs, an abrupt and irresistible terror gripping him as he realised that he had no idea what depth of empty air waited beneath his feet. Mus spoke to him from above his head, bringing the lamp close to his face to reveal a reassuring smile as Lupus looked up at him.
‘It’s not far now, just climb down slowly and be ready for your foot to reach the ground. Trust me.’ Screwing up his nerve, Lupus lowered one foot to the next rung down, waiting for a moment with sweat running down his face before moving the other. ‘Good! Keep going, we can get a drink of water when we get down.’
Lupus climbed down another dozen rungs before his foot touched rock, and he staggered away from the ladder as Mus alighted gracefully behind him. The boy took him by the arm and led him to a channel cut into the floor.
‘See, water. Have a drink, we’ve a little way to go yet.’
They drank from cupped hands, and Lupus found the ice-cold water refreshing and clean to the taste.
‘Where does it come from?’
Mus grinned back at him in the half-light.
‘Come down another ladder with me and I’ll show you. And where the gold comes from.’
Marcus walked up to his tribune and saluted smartly, repeating the gesture for Tribune Sigilis’s benefit but giving his attention to Scaurus and thereby turning his face away from the younger man as much as possible. The two men were standing by the wall’s only opening, a ten-pace-wide gap in the centre of the rampart’s eight-hundred-pace length into which a heavy wooden gate was to be set before being backed with enough turf to make it a temporarily immovable part of the defences. They were looking along the line of the planned fortification, and Sigilis was gesturing along the shallow wall with an enthusiasm that the young centurion found surprising given his previous reserve, and his apparent contentment to stay in Tribune Belletor’s shadow.
‘And perhaps we might make their task even harder by embedding stakes in the upper part of the wall, pointing down to keep them from placing ladders against the parapet?’
Scaurus smiled with what looked suspiciously like a trace of indulgence to Marcus’s trained eye.
‘Indeed we might, in fact my first spear was muttering something to the same effect when we were designing this edifice. Centurion?’
Marcus snapped to attention, playing the part of an obeisant officer with all his wit.
‘Tribune, sir, you asked me to scout the valley’s northern side. I can report that the watch post between Rotunda Mountain and the ridge to the west is intact and undisturbed, but that the ground around it shows signs of having been trodden by Sarmatae mounted scouts within the last twenty-four hours. Additionally, the ground beyond the Saddle is open and has been deforested for several hundred paces, making it highly suitable for an enemy attack.’
Scaurus grimaced.
‘I suppose it was inevitable they’d have a watch on the valley. How easily can the Saddle be defended against an attacking force?’
Marcus shrugged, unconsciously calling on the military knowledge he’d gleaned in the previous eighteen months of brutal lessons at the hands of the barbarian tribes of Britannia.
‘I wouldn’t want to lead any strength of cavalry up the north slope, Tribune, it’s shallow enough for a mounted approach, but littered with rabbit holes and boulders. Any infantrymen that might be sent up it will be tired from the climb up through the forest, and would have to attack uphill into prepared defences, but if they’re going to get around that. .’ He gestured to the turf wall’s length. ‘Their leader may decide to spend his foot soldiers lavishly if it’s the price of putting men in our rear.’
Scaurus nodded, turning to Sigilis.
‘So colleague, while this wall and the fortifications we’ll use to deny the enemy the slopes to either side of it are of the utmost importance, we’ll need to be on our guard against just such an attempt to outflank them. Our colleague Belletor might well decide to mount a guard on this weak spot, with the right encouragement from a man he considers to be of equal standing? I fear I’ve used up all the presumption our fragile relationship can bear for the time being, but if you were to make such a suggestion. .’
The younger man nodded his head with a look of understanding, and Scaurus smiled easily.
‘Good. I do so dislike having to manoeuvre him when a man he considers his social equal can be so much more persuasive with a good deal less effort. In the meanwhile the only question that really matters now is just how far away the warband is, because if they arrive in front of this wall before it reaches an effective height, we might as well not have bothered going to all this effort. Perhaps a mounted reconnaissance. .’ He turned to look down the line of the defence work, the space around it teeming with labouring men cutting turfs and carrying them to the slowly ascending structure, while Marcus stood in silence, acutely aware of Tribune Sigilis’s unblinking scrutiny. ‘Yes, I think a scouting party would be our best means of finding that out. Carry a message to Decurion Silus, if you will Centurion Corvus, and invite him to join me here at his earliest convenience, along with yourself and your Hamian colleague. I believe the time has come for us to gain a somewhat better understanding of what’s on the other side of this particular hill than we have at the present.’
He paused, having noted the approach of Felix, the owner of the Split Rock mine further down the valley. The businessman was clearly in a state of agitation, practically running up the slope towards the officers, and Scaurus turned to his colleagues with a wry expression.
‘Ah, I’ve been expecting this all day. I have to say I’m surprised it’s taken him this long to realise he’s got a problem.’ He called out to the troubled mine owner. ‘Greetings, Felix, can we be of any assistance to you? You do seem a little distressed.’