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you’ve developed a taste for this stuff, the infusion isn’t enough,’ he said. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like spending months in a desert outpost trying to keep awake.’
    â€˜Now I think I understand why your night vision is so good,’ Flavius said. Since taking the drink the light seemed sharper, clearer, as if his point of vision had been projected forward slightly. He pointed to the south-west. ‘They’re coming now, up the rise. No more than two
stades
distant. Should I order the men to stand to?’
    â€˜Your call, tribune.’
    Flavius looked down the line. ‘The final section can continue eating. The rest stand to behind the parapet with helmets on and swords drawn.
Sagittarii
to be spaced at five-man intervals with an arrow ready to be drawn. They are only to shoot on my command.’
    â€˜Ave
, tribune.’ Macrobius conveyed the order to his senior
optio,
and the clunk of armour and swords could be heard down the trench on either side as the men stood at the ready. He turned back to Flavius and the two men marched up to the parapet and stood again on it, Macrobius with his feet planted firmly apart and his hand on his sword pommel, his helmet now in place over his felt cap. Flavius loosened his sword, feeling the dust of the air in his mouth again. The group of refugees came into view, three men and a mule, slowly making their way towards the parapet, the man in front holding up a cross that looked as if it had been hastily made from two branches and some cord. There was a shuffling and muttering among the soldiers behind Flavius. ‘The Vandals claim to be Christians too,’ one of them said. ‘We shouldn’t trust that cross. I say shoot them.’
    â€˜Only some of them are Christian and it’s a pretty strange sort. Anyway, that one in front is wearing a cassock. He’s clearly a monk.’
    â€˜Shut it,’ Macrobius snarled out of the side of his mouth, ‘or I’ll have both of you out there for target practice.’
    The man in the cassock came to within twenty yards of them, and then passed the reins of the mule to one of his two companions, both of them Nubians wearing little more than loincloths. The man took off his hood, revealing the long hair and beard of a penitent monk. He raised his hand to shade his eyes and then scanned the parapet, spotting Flavius’ helmet and advancing a few steps towards him. The archer behind Flavius drew his bow, but Flavius put out his hand and stayed him. ‘Identify yourself,’ he demanded.
    â€˜I am a man of God.’
    â€˜We can see what you are pretending to be,’ Macrobius snarled. ‘Where do you come from?’
    â€˜I come from Hippo Regius. I am Arturus, Bishop Augustine’s scribe.’
    â€˜Arturus. That’s a pretty funny kind of name,’ Macrobius said suspiciously, drawing his sword half out of its scabbard. ‘Sounds Vandal to me.’
    â€˜It’s British.’
    Macrobius snorted. ‘What’s a British monk doing in the African desert?’
    â€˜Unless I mistake your accent and appearance, I could equally ask what an Illyrian, possibly even a Rhaetian from the Danube with something Scythian about him, is doing out here.’
    Macrobius’ nostrils flared, and Flavius put out his arm to restrain him. ‘Tell us what has become of Bishop Augustine.’
    Arturus paused. ‘We left Hippo Regius in secret when the Vandals appeared on the western horizon. We lived in hiding in a monastery close to the great desert, working on his final writings. When he entered his final illness he ordered me away, to preserve his books. They’re here, in my saddlebags. I took a southerly route on the edge of the great desert, known to my Nubian companions, to avoid being pursued, but fortunately the Vandals lingered in the cities to pillage and burn and showed little interest in those who had escaped; they know