They led their horses through the gate and into the narrow streets, with their close-ranked tenement blocks and reeking gutters. Thanks to the guard officer’s directions they found the inn and discovered the way station nearby, just outside the walls of the fort that dominated the centre of the town. As they passed the fort’s gate a century of Gaulish auxiliaries marched out, presumably to relieve the guard manning Placentia’s walls. The fort, of a size that would be garrisoned by two cohorts, was sturdily constructed in red brick and confirmed what the man had said: this was a military town, built to withstand invasion and siege. The Gauls were garrison troops and garrison duty had a habit of dulling the senses, but Valerius noticed that these soldiers were hard-eyed and alert and they kept their weapons keen. There were other signs for a man who could read them. Even this late in the day, the streets of the city rang with the clatter of hammer on anvil and the familiar whispering song of a whetstoned sword being given a proper edge. As the two men stabled their horses a cart rumbled past filled with massive boulders. They exchanged glances. Someone had tried to disguise catapult ammunition as building stones, but had not quite succeeded.
‘Looks as if they’re expecting proper trouble,’ Serpentius said.
‘It was like this in Colonia before the rebel queen came calling, but I think they are better prepared.’
‘Let’s hope so.’ The Spaniard spat in the direction of a mangy tan mongrel that had strayed too close, but his hard eyes softened as a young woman hurried by with two small children. ‘I recall that things didn’t end too well for the people in your Colonia. Maybe we should just change horses and move on. It would be foolish to wake up surrounded by our enemies.’
Valerius shook his head. ‘I think we’re safe enough for now. The houses outside the walls have been prepared for demolition, but the people are still in them. If Vitellius’s legions come this way there’ll be plenty of warning.’
XXV
Water had shaped the land north of the river, the decurion had said, and as they rode through a damp, clinging fog it sometimes seemed their world was entirely liquid. The road was solid enough, raised like a narrow causeway above the surrounding countryside, but to right and left lay nothing but bog and stunted briar; glittering, slime-laden pools pitting mud as black as Hades’ hellhound and circled by noisome plants of silver-slicked green. The air stank of decay and unwholesomeness as if somewhere in the ooze a great fish had become stranded and was slowly rotting away, its putrefying flesh tainting all around it. The only sound, apart from the unearthly shriek of an occasional water fowl, was the low thud of their horses’ hooves on the hard-packed gravel.
Serpentius shivered and wrapped his cloak tighter around him. ‘Two days of this?’
‘It won’t improve much before Mediolanum,’ Valerius admitted. ‘But it will look better when the fog lifts.’
‘I should have been born a frog.’
‘Our biggest problem will be finding somewhere to bed down. The landlord of the inn said there is a mansio, but I’d rather not use it unless we have to.’
‘The alternative might be a lily pad.’
Valerius laughed. ‘A man who was born in a snowdrift should have no problem with sleeping in a puddle.’
But the humour soon faded. Valerius’s prediction that the fog would clear was unlikely to be realized, and so it proved. Riding through the relentless murk placed a strain on man and beast alike. True, the fog hid them from potential enemies, but the opposite was also true, and the sense of threat was ever present. Valerius and Serpentius were not nervous men, but every shadow and every sound posed a potential danger and living on the edge for hour after hour takes its toll on any man’s nerves. At one point, Serpentius waved Valerius to a halt because he was convinced he could hear the sound of horses somewhere behind them. After a short but tense wait nothing materialized and they moved on, but their ears continued to play tricks. Was the splash away to their left a leaping fish or a duck taking flight, or someone moving parallel to them through the swamp? Was that the murmur of voices or the burbling of a stream flowing into one of the innumerable lakes they passed? It was impossible to tell. Yet each threat had to be taken seriously and each cost them time. It quickly became clear that, even if they had chosen to, they wouldn’t reach the mansio before nightfall. Valerius turned to his companion. ‘We need to find somewhere to camp.’
‘It’ll have to be close by the road, then.’ Serpentius threw a look of disgust at the swamp. ‘One wrong step and we might never get back to it.’