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and filed the thought away for the future.
    Other containers on the galleys, false-labelled as containing wine or olive oil, actually held resin, quicklime and sulphur, and these shared space with several stirrup pumps, amphorae of vinegar, alum and talcum, a quantity of leather protective clothing, two barrels of pumice stones and a number of empty ceramic pots.
    The oily minerals and other substances were to form the basis for a mix that produced the Byzantine Fire, the pumps would spray it, and the leather, soaked in a brew of vinegar, talcum and alum would provide some protection to the troops who handled the flame-throwing equipment.
    I also gave Iskandur instructions for Grimr, who was to construct a number of ballistae on site in Gaul. There was insufficient room on the galleys for them to be transported, and any prying eyes that spotted the war weapons could trigger a response we were trying to avoid. To make the ballistae more powerful, I sent along a supply of animal sinew, which made extra-strong ropes for the catapults.
    The two supply ships sailed out of the harbour on the Dee looking like honest traders, for the crews wore civilian clothes and concealed their weapons below the gunwales where they could quickly be retrieved if needed, but would arouse no alarm to a casual observer. With caution and some careful night sailing, the galleys could slip into Gaul undetected, but I also provided the captains with a supply of small gold ingots and coin to bribe any tax collectors who might come across the ‘traders.’
    They left, and my anxieties grew. Their cargoes were vital to my plan, and if that plan failed, I might pay with the lives of my men, as well as with my own. “Manannan mac Lir,” I prayed to the sea god, “please calm the waves, smooth their way and bring them safe and successfully to land.”

 
    Chapter IX - Raiders
     
    Fretting was pointless. The dice were cast, I had other concerns. In a remote part of the meadows away from the parade ground, three groups of mixed troopers and sailors had set up a couple of wrecked galleys and were practising with the fire-squirting jets they had set up in the vessels’ bows. I observed from a safe distance, and all seemed to be going well.
    The pumps were two-handed machines, and two burly soldiers encased in soggy leathers pounded the handles with vigour, hurling a jet of spray fully 45 yards. The big, scarred centurion Damonius Mallardis, who had distinguished himself in our losing battle for Londinium, was equally protected in vinegar-soaked leather. He carefully pushed a lighted taper to the touch hole in the barrel of the pump and instantly the thin jet turned into a dragon’s hurled and fiery exhalation.
    The target framework of straw bales they had set up caught at once and whooshed into flame, and the pump handlers stopped their heaving, and stepped hastily back. Damonius dropped wet sacking over the pump barrel, but it did not extinguish at once. The Byzantine Fire was so tenacious that it took three applications of sacking before the fabric became just a smouldering heap. “This,” I thought, “is a weapon to terrify the unwary. May the gods help anyone caught in this dragon breath.”
    Within two weeks, word came from Grimr, carried by Iskandur, who had travelled across northern Gaul in disguise and bribed a fishing boat captain to carry him across the Narrow Sea. At one stage he had to hold the captain at blade point to enforce his demands. The news he brought was vital. After an epic journey, the Suehan raider and his crew occupied two old warehouses with a wharf on the Meuse, about 11 miles upriver of the shipyards.
    Grimr’s two galleys had sailed boldly and unchallenged up the mighty Seine, slipped into the Oise and sailed as far as they could before abandoning their galleys, sinking them under stones in a wooded creek.
    The crews had concealed their weapons and dispersed into small groups, one of them disguised as a travelling troupe of