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room, he finally gave up on the notion of more sleep, slid from the bunk, pulled on his tunic and crept outside. He noticed Gallus’ room was empty too, his bedding awry. He soaked his face and scalp with water from the trough in the barrack parade square, then gulped a few mouthfuls to slake his acute thirst and wash away the taste of stale wine. Flashes of the tail-end of last night’s revelry came to him then: Zosimus drawing a dagger on a cat that had clawed at his ankles as they staggered from the tavern, then the sight of a short, hiccupping, trouserless man on the street outside with glazed eyes and some slurred story about his missing breeches. He palmed at his eyes then plunged his head into the water to be rid of the ludicrous scenes. He rose and swept the water from his scalp and face, then started as a messenger scuttled past him and on out of the barracks. He traced the man’s path to see he had come from the barrack walls. A figure remained up there, perched there like a crow.
    ‘I can see the purse was well-spent?’ Gallus said glibly.
    ‘Sir, it was,’ Pavo saluted, hoping he wasn’t swaying on his feet. Had the tribunus been there all night? ‘But we will be well readied for Traianus’ briefing this afternoon.’
    ‘Excellent,’ he said, then patted the scroll the messenger had just given him against one palm. ‘However, I’ve just been informed that the magister militum has brought the meeting forward. We are to be at his quarters within the hour.’
    Pavo suddenly felt more than a little queasy.

     

     
    The five stood before the wide table in Traianus’ planning room, gazing at the yellowed map of the empire pinned out before them. Pavo shuffled uneasily in the stifling morning heat, rivulets of sweat streaking down his back under his woollen tunic. It was so hot that it felt as if a hypocaust was ablaze under the tiled floor. His stomach churned from the foul wine and his mouth was parchment-dry. He eyed the goblets of cool water laid out on the table for each of them, but knew it would be against decorum to gulp from it while the magister militum spoke. Worse, the sight of the closed shutters gave the otherwise austerely decorated office the feel of a desert tomb. A swift glance along the line told him he was not alone. Sura’s eyes were glassy and bloodshot, while Quadratus and Zosimus had a grey tinge to their skin. Gallus, however, was alert, standing tall, eyes sharply following Traianus’ sweeping hands across the map as the magister militum briefed them. He showed no signs of his lack of sleep other than a slight shading under his eyes. Pavo searched the tribunus’ keen gaze for some hint of the trouble going on within, but found nothing.
    ‘The cane!’ an urgent voice surfaced from his medley of thoughts.
    Pavo looked up groggily to see Traianus’ eyes fixed on him. The magister militum’s nut-brown skin told of a life spent under the eastern sun and his white hair placed him at maybe fifty years old. But it was his scowl and pursed lips under his hooked nose that seemed to scourge Pavo with an invisible whip. ‘Will you hand me the bloody cane!’ Traianus repeated.
    Pavo started, then snatched up the cane with the bronze hand on the end, offering it to Traianus sheepishly and feeling a burning look of rebuke from Gallus on his skin.
    ‘So the Goths are pinned down in Moesia,’ he tapped the bronze hand on the stretch of land along the River Danubius’ southern banks where a handful of small, carved wooden horsemen were clustered, then swept the hand across the vast, curved area below this that ran west to east depicting jagged peaks, ‘but only because we can employ the great bulwark that is the Haemus Mountains.’ Traianus used the bronze hand to push five carved wooden legionaries out across the mountains, positioning five of them at roughly equal steps along the range. ‘There are five points where Fritigern and his horde might be able to bring their armies,