‘Before you answer, First Spear Frontinius, I’ve got one more question that I’m pondering. And I would be very careful with your answer if you value your place here. Just why is it, I’m wondering, that I find myself commanding a cohort which has an officer who, as we speak, is still being hunted by the emperor’s secret police as a traitor to the throne?’

Frontinius sat in stunned silence for a moment, the prefect’s face darkening with his failure to reply.

‘Come on man, just how stupid do you think I am? The man’s obviously Roman. The name “Marcus Tribulus Corvus” shouts alias, and he’s blessed with skill and speed with arms that probably cost him ten years’ training with the best teachers. As it happens, I hear that the son of Senator Appius Valerius Aquila, a man of high position and reputation who was tortured and executed for treason earlier this year, is known to have spent most of his young life having fighting skills drilled into him by his father’s tame gladiators in preparation for service with the praetorians. He is known to have shipped out for Britannia on faked orders only weeks before his father’s death at the hands of the emperor’s investigators. And, First Spear, he is known to have vanished into thin air after two attempts to kill him, both of which ended with other men’s blood spilt, but not, apparently, that of their intended victim. This man Valerius

Aquila, who was more or less the age that your “Tribulus Corvus” appears to be, is believed to have benefited from the assistance of local troops, and the finger of suspicion was pointing squarely at the Sixth Legion’s former legatus until he was careless enough to leave both his legion’s eagle and his own head on the battlefield last spring. Perhaps Legatus Sollemnis was fortunate that his death was both quick and honourable…’

He paused, raking the first spear with a long, hard stare.