‘Lady Claudia.’ She had turned at the voice, loud and close enough to drown out the noise of trumpets and screaming defenders, to face a young soldier holding a horse by the reins. ‘I am commanded to get you on to this horse. Gaius Metullus suggests that you ride forward to join your husband. Stop for nothing and no one.’

Claudia had looked around at the scene: with the circle of wagons Metullus desired half-formed, they were already slaughtering the oxen, dropping them in the shafts to act as obstacles in the gaps. The ring held soldiers young and old; the servants of the army, cooks, carpenters, metalworkers, maids, seamstresses, slaves and some of the personal servants of her husband and his officers. How could she just up and leave them? Her own natural courage had combined with the thought of what Aulus would do in a like situation. He would never desert any responsibility; that and his modesty were what defined him. Therefore, as his wife, neither could she.

‘You take the horse. Ride hard and tell my husband how exposed we are, but assure him that his soldiers will hold until he can rescue us.’

The young soldier had hesitated, but faced with a command from someone as elevated as his general’s wife, he could not refuse, so he jumped into the saddle, and headed out through the rapidly closing gap as the circle of wagons became complete. Gaius Metullus had yelled after him, before turning to face her, but he must have seen in her expression that she had ordered the youngster to go and he had lifted the blade of his sword to his lips in salute. Surrounded by panic, screaming women, men, servants and drovers running around like headless chickens, Claudia had never felt so useless. She had seen Metullus arranging his soldiers, half to man the perimeter, the other forty members of his century forming up in the middle to provide a mobile reserve. From deep in her memory Claudia had dragged out the stories her father had told of fighting and the things a soldier thought about when engaged.