Ruso stifled a smile. As he suspected, the offer was less for his wife’s protection than for the goodwill Accius might accrue by being seen to protect a native in public. Accius was no fool. He had not served in Britannia during the rebellion but he must know as well as Pertinax that this business of the kidnapped boy could very easily slip out of control. Especially since their inquiries into yesterday’s whereabouts of each member of the search team had gotten them nowhere: Everyone except the supposedly trustworthy optio had a firm alibi. He must also be aware that when news of any trouble was reported back in Rome, the unlucky name that would be associated with it was not that of the legate but of the man whom the legate had assigned to deal with it: Publius Valerius Accius. No wonder he had called Ruso in to help. Accius could do little about what they would say in Rome, but at least he could try to ensure that the name everyone in the Legion here would associate with failure would be somebody else’s.
When they turned onto the main road, the stone walls of the fort and the thatched jumble of civilian buildings they could see beyond it were vanishing into the gloom of an early-autumn evening. A few lamps began to glimmer behind the translucent luxury of windows. A native cantered past on a shaggy pony, yelled, “Where’s the boy, you thieving bastards?” and did not wait for an answer. They were overtaken by a couple of mule carts whose drivers were hurrying to get in before the gates closed. Just a few moments away from the home of a family paralyzed with fear, others were coming to the end of an ordinary day and looking forward to supper.
Accius insisted on escorting Tilla to the entrance of the snack bar. As she stumbled through the gap left by the one shutter that remained open, Ruso promised to join her later.
The men turned and made their way back toward the fort. Now that Tilla was gone, Ruso could ask the question that had been troubling him for a while. “Sir, is there still any chance it might be an official arrest? Some undercover security unit that nobody knows about?” He hoped that nobody knows sounded better than you aren’t important enough to be told about.
“The legate’s looking into that,” Accius confirmed, implying that there might be units of which even the legate knew nothing, although Ruso found it hard to imagine why they would arrest a nine-year-old. “What I’m still wondering is whether the Britons have done it themselves.”
This was even more provocative from a senior officer than it had been from Fabius. “Sir, the family are genuinely—”
“I didn’t say the family are in on it. It would only take two or three mischief-makers to set it up and then sit back and watch the fun.”
“But why—”
“They don’t like the wall?” Accius suggested. “They don’t like the old man? They like causing trouble? I don’t know. We don’t need to know why, we just need to put a stop to it.”
It was becoming apparent to Ruso that if they could not put a stop to it and Branan was not rescued, then whatever the truth, the story would be put out that he had been kidnapped by his own people and the Army were the innocent victims of slander. He could imagine only too well the outrage that would cause among the locals.
“Sir?” It was one of the guards. “Sir, I think I hear something.”
Accius raised a hand and the group drew the horses to a halt. There was indeed some sort of disturbance going on. Abandoning the gate in front of them, they turned left, then right, skirting around the corner of the fort between the outer ditch and the wall. There was a confusion of people and vehicles gathered around the south gate. Accius said, “Your Britons are back.”
“Not as many this time,” said Ruso.
There were eight or ten of them: both men and women as far as he could make out, clustered around the second of the two drivers who were still waiting to take their vehicles in. This time there was no chanting. Instead some sort of argument was going on in British. Accius shook his head. “I can’t follow it.”
Ruso listened for a moment.
“I think the locals are trying to persuade the driver not to deliver,” he said. “They want him to join them instead.” He paused. “ ‘You are bringing food to the soldiers,’ ” he translated, glad Tilla was safely behind the shutters of the snack bar. “He’s saying he has hungry children to feed. They’re calling him a traitor.”
Suddenly the Britons noticed Accius and his men, and the complaints switched to Latin.
“Give us Regulus!”
“We want the child stealer!”
The yells coalesced into a chant of “Regulus! Regulus! Regulus!”