The officers watched as the Sarmatae vanguard rode cautiously up the valley, until they were no more than fifty paces beyond the best distance that an archer atop the wall’s fighting platform could hope to coax from his bow. A single rider came on, the tail of a scarlet banner trailing over his shoulder. Reining his horse in a few paces from the wall’s foot, he sat in silence for a moment and looked up and down the rampart with an amused smile before calling out to them.
‘How very Roman.’ His voice carried to the officers easily enough in the afternoon’s calm, the confident tones of nobility obvious to the listening Julius. ‘You hide behind your walls without any regard for the cowardice you display. Far better to meet an enemy on the field of battle, sword to sword, than to disgrace yourselves like this. .’ He waved an expressive hand at the wall, shaking his head in apparent sadness. ‘When you go to meet your ancestors they will ask you whether you died like men, and all you will be able to say is that you built a tall, strong wall and then hid behind it with your knees knocking together.’
Scaurus looked down at him dispassionately.
‘Possibly, but I won’t be talking with my grandfather any time soon, whereas you my friend have already booked a place at the table with yours tonight, unless you get to whatever point it was you came to make and then shift your arrogant barbarian backside out of the range of my bowmen.’
The horseman nodded up at Scaurus.
‘As you wish. I am Galatas, son of King Asander Boraz and commander of his horsemen. My father has sent me before him in order to offer you a most generous gift. You will be permitted to depart this place with your lives, and with your weapons and armour, if you will quit your defences tomorrow at dawn. My father is willing to allow you this magnificent gift of mercy if you will swear to withdraw from this part of your province, and promise never to return.’
Scaurus looked down at the horseman for a moment before speaking, shaking his head gently from side to side.
‘A generous offer indeed, and I must ask you to thank your noble father for his magnanimity. I am forced, however, to refuse this“ gift of mercy”. It seems to me that while we would be leaving this place with our lives and our equipment intact, our honour and dignity would be left here shredded beyond any repair. I’m sure that your father, man of honour that he undoubtedly is, will understand my reluctance to accede to his request.’
Galatas smiled darkly back up at the Roman.
‘This is both as I expected and hoped. It is a mark of pride for our people that no man can truly consider himself a warrior until he has taken the head of one enemy soldier, and has the dead man’s helmet to bear witness to his conquest. Your crested helmet will look fine on the wall of my great hall when I succeed my father. Perhaps I will cut off your ears before I kill you, to nail up alongside it?’
Scaurus pulled the highly polished helmet from his head, deliberately tilting it to send bright reflections flickering at the Sarmatae noble.
‘This old thing? This helmet has been in my family since long before your great-grandfather was pissing in his napkin, and not one of the seven generations that have worn it have ever brought shame upon it. By all means come and find me, Galatas son of Asander, and I will spare a moment to demonstrate to you why it is unwise to promise to do a thing so patently beyond your capabilities. Now be off with you. If you are still within bowshot after a count of thirty, I will have these archers turn you into a pin cushion.’
They watched as the Sarmatae prince rode away.
‘So, now that they’re here and likely to set up camp just over there, I suppose we really ought to get a couple of centuries of the Thracians up here to keep an eye on them. It’s all very well threatening a man with bowmen, but it’s probably a little empty as a gesture unless there are actually bows in the wall. First Spear, I suggest that it would be sensible to send a runner to their prefect and ask him to send some men down here with plenty of spare arrows. I’d better go and wake up my esteemed colleague to the fact that the war seems to have come and found us.’
Marcus and Silus watched in silence as the main body of the Sarmatae host marched down the valley past their hiding place, waiting until the barbarian infantry and the body of horsemen at their rear had all passed before risking even the most cautious of discussion.
‘Perhaps four thousand foot soldiers, and another four thousand or so horse to add to the two thousand that passed us earlier.Cattle too, perhaps two hundred oxen, and did you see the slaves they were driving along in the middle of all that infantry?’
Marcus nodded, his face dark with anger.
‘Yes. And I also noticed that a good number of them looked Roman. And they were not all men.’
Silus shrugged.
‘There will always be some fools who put the pursuit of profit over common sense. Doubtless when the last emperor declared the Sarmatae pacified there were a fair few idiots who made tracks across the border in search of trading profits. Mind you, why a man would be stupid enough take his woman and children into that sort of risk is beyond me.’
Marcus looked down the valley at the barbarian host’s rear.
‘We’ll have our work cut out if that many men come at us together.’
Silus smiled knowingly.
‘But they won’t, will they? You found the tracks of scouts around the Saddle on the Ravenstone’s northern side, so it’s a fair bet that he’ll send a party of men up there to make a flank attack behind the wall. Not too many, mind you, or we’ll know there’s something going on just from the lack of numbers in front of the defences, but if a couple of thousand foot soldiers were to come down that north slope behind us it’d be about over. They’ll come at us from two directions at once, I reckon, and depend on us having to split our strength to cope with both attacks. Come on. .’
He led the Roman back into the trees, and they remounted their horses and rode cautiously after the Sarmatae, allowing Arabus to lead and interpret the tracks left by the enemy host.
‘These men are travelling heavily laden.’ The scout pointed to the bootprints left in the soft ground by the passing foot soldiers, comparing them with one of his own deliberately laid alongside. ‘The print is deeper than mine. And see. .’ — he bent and picked an ear of corn from the mud — ‘they are carrying sacks of grain. It seems that they have come prepared to besiege the valley, if an outright victory is not gained at once.’
They followed the tracks as they turned south towards the Ravenstone valley, and after a mile or so Arabus stopped, pointing to the ground before them.
‘The warband has split. Most of the men, and all of the horses, carried on down this way towards the entrance to the Ravenstone valley. But here’ — he pointed to their left, up a narrow defile almost hidden by trees — ‘a large party of warriors on foot has turned off the main route. They are marching for the Saddle, I expect. It will take them hours to reach it since the path into the hills will be difficult, but they will have scouted it well enough to be sure of reaching it before darkness falls. Either tonight or tomorrow at dawn they will attempt an attack on the valley by that route.’
Marcus nodded, staring up into the hills.
‘And they may well succeed, unless we can bring this news to the tribune.’
‘Whether this Boraz is a junior partner in this war or not, it seems that our defences are ready just in time to confront the barbarians with something a little more difficult than what they may have been expecting. Our scouts estimate six thousand horsemen and perhaps three or four thousand foot soldiers from their dependent peoples.’ Tribune Belletor looked at the assembled officers for a moment before continuing. ‘We expect them to make a serious attempt at getting over or around our wall soon after dawn, so I want every available man either on the wall or behind it, and ready to fight from first light. Yes, Tribune Sigilis?’