The man Connavar was a devil in human form. He had organized his troops brilliantly, and Valanus, expecting the usual Keltoi tactics of a massed charge, had fallen into a trap. Cut off from supplies, unable to build a camp, the weary, hungry army had been attacked first by heavy cavalry, then by mounted archers. Cogden Field. The name made his skin crawl. Twelve thousand soldiers of Stone had died there.
Back in Stone the shock had been colossal. Appius had been arrested and returned for trial, but he and three other officers had been acquitted of negligence, the full brunt of the city’s fury falling upon dead Valanus, who had, it was said, led his fifteen thousand men against an enemy a million strong. It was such arrant nonsense that Appius could hardly credit it. Yet the people believed it. Their pride would not let them even consider that a Stone army could be defeated by a mere thirty thousand Rigante. No-one wanted to hear the truth – save Jasaray. And then only in secret.
He remembered the day the general – yet to be emperor – had summoned him to his home, forcing Appius to relive every moment of the battle, sketching out fighting lines, recalling tactics. First the Rigante had killed all the Cenii scouts used by Valanus, and the army had been forced to march blind. Then a detachment had cut behind them, savaging the supply column, killing the drivers and burning the wagons. At the last they had surrounded Valanus on Cogden Field, a combined force of Rigante, Norvii and Pannone tribesmen, all under the command of Connavar.
‘I trained him,’ said Jasaray, and Appius thought he detected a note of pride in the general’s voice.
‘You trained him too damned well,’ Appius said. ‘We’ll have to take an army back – and swiftly.’
Jasaray shook his head. ‘All in good time. The defeat has frightened the populace. They no longer trust the Council to make strong decisions. Neither do I. It is my belief that a single figure should rule Stone: a single mind controlling the destiny of our city.’
‘Your mind, general?’ Appius had asked.
‘If they call upon me it would be unpatriotic to refuse. Where do you stand, my old friend?’
‘As I always have, Scholar. By your side.’
‘I expected no less,’ admitted Jasaray.
The wagon lurched as a wheel hit a sunken stone. Appius backed up the horses, and moved round the obstacle. He could see the bridge up ahead now. It was a wooden structure no more than fifty feet across.
Aye, he had supported Jasaray, watched him become emperor. But when his own family were in trouble . . . ? ‘Put not your faith in emperors,’ he whispered.
‘Did you say something, Father?’
‘No, I was just thinking out loud.’
‘Will Barus get into trouble for loaning us his house?’ asked Lia, suddenly.
‘No, there will be no trouble. We are not runaways, Lia. They did not serve the papers. We have committed no crime.’
‘But we knew they were coming when we fled.’
‘We did not flee,’ he snapped. ‘We sought the emperor’s permission to remove ourselves from Stone. He granted it. That was the sum of his help. So we did not flee.’
‘You are bitter. It does not become you. Anyway, we left in the dead of night, while friends of ours were being taken to prison. It felt like flight.’
‘No friends of mine were arrested, Lia. I have never subscribed to their foolish ways. I never will.’
‘I do not think they were foolish,’ she said. ‘And I do not believe the Source would think them so.’
‘Aye, a god of real power, this Source. All who believe in him are put to death and he raises not a finger. But let us not argue it again. I had all this with Pirae.’
Both fell silent at the mention of her name. Appius was not present when the Crimson Priests arrested her. He was serving on the eastern border, helping to put down a bloody revolt. He arrived in Stone the night after her trial, and missed her execution. Pirae had refused to recant, and had faced down her accusers, calling them ‘small men with small dreams’.