Felix covered the last few paces between them in the attitude of a supplicant, his hands pressed together as if to solicit a favour, and the look on his face openly pleading.
‘Tribune Scaurus, a dreadful mistake has been made, a terrible error that must be put right! I beg of you. .’
Scaurus tipped his head to one side, his face taking on a sympathetic cast.
‘I will do whatever is within my power to assist you. Tell me, what is this “dreadful mistake”?’
Felix turned and pointed at the wall with a look of horror.
‘This wall, Tribune! It is too far up the valley, and my mine is left outside the defences! When the enemy come they will have my business at their mercy, undefended and open to their pillage!’
‘I see. .’ Scaurus stroked his chin as if in deep thought. ‘Yes, that is a problem.’
Felix’s face brightened.
‘So you’ll move the wall, Tribune?’
Scaurus shook his head sadly.
‘I’m afraid not. Not only would that be an insane waste of the progress we’ve already made, but this rampart’s current line requires it be no more than eight hundred paces long. Whereas, were I to command it to be moved in order to defend the emperor’s property to the south, including a mine which you are fortunate enough to be allowed to work on his behalf. .’ he paused to allow the statement to sink in, ‘then I would need to double its length. We would need twice as much turf, which would take twice as long, and I would then need at least twice as many soldiers to defend it. So, as you can see, I have neither the time nor the manpower to incorporate the Split Rock mine into the valley’s defendable ground, Felix. You and your men, however, will be safe enough behind this.’
He patted the eight-foot-high foundation beside him. Felix gestured helplessly in response.
‘But my mine. .’
‘Will indeed be undefended, although I’ll be happy to lend you a sword if you’re that keen on fighting to keep what’s yours?’
The mine owner’s eyes narrowed.
‘You’re making fun of me. I don’t believe you ever truly intended to defend the Split Rock, did you?’
Scaurus shrugged, his response couched in a breezy tone which did little to mask the steel that underlaid it.
‘In all truth, Felix, it was never my main concern. I simply told my officers to find the best line with which to defend the valley and its occupants, and this is what they settled on. If I were you I’d count my blessings, given that we’re here to stand between you and enough barbarians to put a very severe crimp in your day. I’d get as much of your equipment as you can out of the mine and prepare whoever’s left down there to evacuate when the Sarmatae get here. Unless you want to find yourselves fighting to defend the emperor’s gold?’
‘It’s so cold!’
Mus shrugged at the comment, even though the unconscious gesture was invisible in the mine’s gloom.
‘That’s why I told you to wear your cloak.’
They paced through the darkness, Lupus making sure he stayed close to the dim glow of Mus’s oil lamp. The younger boy stopped several times to add oil to the lamps perched on shelves cut into the passage’s stone walls, their flames providing tiny islands of light in the pitch-black that seemed to bear down on them from all sides. Eventually a slightly brighter light appeared around a bend in the passage, and Mus turned to him with a finger to his lips, whispering in his new friend’s ear.
‘Be very quiet. I don’t want them to see us.’
They crept down the corridor, and when he judged that they were close enough to the light from whatever it was that was waiting, Mus put the lamp down before leading Lupus forward again. Keeping low, they peeked around a corner into a chamber lit by torches, the open space dominated by a massive wooden wheel, three times as tall as a full-grown man and mounted on a heavy axle. A pair of muscular labourers were toiling at the device, using their strength to turn the wheel by means of bars protruding from each of the spokes, their powerful arms bulging with the effort. Another two equally powerful men sat off to one side with an hourglass and a water jug. Mystified, Lupus whispered a question.
‘What are they doing?’
Mus pointed to the wheel.
‘Look at the bottom of the wheel. Can you see the water?’
The wheel’s bottom was submerged in a pool of water, and as Lupus stared harder he realised that as it turned, the device was dragging wooden buckets attached to the rim through the pool. Whilst a little of the water captured by the buckets splashed out as they rocked to and fro, they were clearly still quite full as they swung on their mountings. From his own experience of carrying the medical wagon’s water bucket to and from whatever river or spring the cohort camped by, he knew that they were bound to be heavy. At the height of their travel the buckets were tipping over into a wooden trough carefully aligned with the top of the wheel.
‘Now you can see why the passage we climbed down from slopes uphill. The wheel takes the water up to the level of the passage we climbed down from, and the water runs down the slope and then away down the hillside.’
As they watched, the last sand ran out of the glass and the resting workers climbed to their feet and took over the task of dragging the wheel around, while the men they had replaced stretched their aching bodies before sinking down onto the rock floor to rest.
‘Is that all they do all day?’
‘If they don’t do it then the chamber would fill up with water and soon the mine would be flooded. And it’s safe now. My friend Karsas is having a rest.’
Lupus followed Mus into the chamber, and one of the workers got to his feet with a smile of greeting.
‘Welcome, little one. Who’s this you’ve brought to see us?’
‘He lives with the soldiers. He’s got a sword, and he let me hold it.’
‘So you repaid the favour by bringing him down here? You chose the right time to come forward though. If Gosakos there were not at the wheel, I expect he’d be chasing you round the chamber with his prick in his hand.’ Lupus frowned and turned to look at the men on the wheel, meeting the hungry stare of the closer of the two with a shiver of fear. ‘Not to worry, he knows what happens to men like him if they make the mistake of touching my friends. And he’ll be turning that wheel for a while now, so we’ve got time to talk if you like? It still helps to talk. .’
Mus shook his head.
‘Not today. Can we have a look at the face?’
Karsas put his head back and chuckled, winking at Lupus.
‘You want to see some gold, eh young ’un? Come on then, follow me. There’s no one to get in our way today since they’re all upstairs getting chased round the valley by your mates, and good bloody riddance to the lot of them. Always swaggering about and gobbing off about how they’re the real miners when all they ever do is quarry out the rock, while us men practically live down here to keep the place going.’
He took a torch from the wall and walked away up another passage, gesturing to the boys with his free hand.
‘Come on then, my lads, come and see where all the gold comes from.’
Scaurus was enjoying his first cup of wine of the evening when Arminius put his head round the tent’s open flap and held out a message tablet. Scaurus frowned at his unexpected appearance.
‘Shouldn’t you be away training the boy Lupus in which end of a sword makes the nasty holes?’
Arminius shrugged.
‘He seems to have found something more interesting to do, so I contented myself with a swift kick of Morban’s backside for letting him wander off without seeking permission. I’ll go looking for him again once you’ve got some food in front of you. Anyway, take this. .’ He held up the message tablet. ‘One of the woman Theodora’s bruisers brought it to the camp entrance, and a soldier ran it up here. Apparently the messenger’s waiting for you.’