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on their rear, with his son Quintus well to the fore, had broken the order of the attackers. Aulus now formed his whole army into a cohesive whole, ready to advance in any direction and engage, but a loud horn blew twice and the enemy evaporated, with a discipline no Roman fighting a Celtic army had ever encountered, leaving him no one to fight. Worse still, his baggage train had been plundered and inthe process he had lost his wife. He had to march past the site of that as he sought to pursue the enemy, forced to gaze on the broken wagons, scattered possessions and the dead from the engagement. His position, the on-going battle and the need to appear in control debarred any notion that he could stop and examine the wreckage to see if the body of Claudia was amongst the dead. Only later, as the sun sank low in the west, was he able to establish that she was gone and that every man in his Praetorian Guard had died trying to defend her. That evening he received private word that she was alive, the personal prisoner of Brennos, who demanded no less than the withdrawal of the Roman legions as the price for her freedom.
    That was a bargain he could not even begin to accept. If her life was to be forfeit, then so be it. He called his sons to him, swore them to secrecy, then told them of the demand and of his decision. Quintus, too old to have much attachment to his stepmother, did not even allow himself the flicker of an eyelid as he agreed. Titus, younger, and less the stern Roman, assented with tears in his eyes, but both were obliged to attend the ceremonies that followed, in which the auguries were taken in an attempt to see what the future held, even pious Aulus surprised by the positive signs they revealed.

    A despondent Aulus Cornelius had achieved more than he knew. His enemies had anticipated an easy victory and had convinced themselves that they would destroy his army and leave their bones to bleach in the sun. His prompt action in uniting his force, plus the steadfast defence of the legions, had destroyed that illusion, which forced the Celts back to their usual tactics of raid and ambush. Yet this Brennos seemed capable of inspiring the varied tribes to an unprecedented level of resistance and it took two campaigning seasons to bring them to heel. No more battles of any size, more an endless series of hard fought skirmishes with an enemy that faded away at the first hint of real danger, often to the sound of that same horn that had been heard in the first battle.
    Needing to be ruthless, Aulus led by example, and the blood he spilt, the men he crucified, both his own and the natives, the women and children force-marched into slavery, testified to his determination. No pity was allowed, and that cruelty he increased as the war dragged on, only being ameliorated when it would have the effect of detaching support from his enemy, Aulus discovering that Brennos laboured under as many problems as did he. The Celtic leader never managed to repeat the effect of that single initial battle, in which he had united the clans under his personal discipline. Outright success would havemade his position unassailable, partial failure exposed the endemic differences between the tribes and their leaders. Not all the chieftains were content to accept his control and quite a few, bribed by Aulus, deserted his cause, so that Rome had good intelligence about both the man and his methods.
    Brennos had come from the misty regions to the north, from the cold windswept islands that were the spiritual home of the Cult of the Druids, a priest as well as a warrior, and this gave him great stature, for he could weave spells and cure the sick, bring rain to parched crops and tell long Bardic tales of Celtic bravery that went back to the very beginning of time. The man was able and cruel, possessed of a silken tongue, and, it seemed, a stone instead of a heart. Utilising his religious powers, this northerner wove a cunning tapestry before an audience