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complained.
    â€œNo time.” At the archway I stopped and shouted a last time for everyone to flee. Horace reappeared, and several of the younger women servants ran from the house. “This way!” I shouted, desperate to get everyone clear of the house. “Follow me, everyone. Horace, see to my mother. I will lead the way.”
    At the end of the field stood a small grove of beechnut trees; they grew low to the ground, their branches forming a screening breastwork of dark leaves. In the full leaf of summer, no one would know we were there—a fact I often put to good use in trysts with one of my mother’s handmaids. Inside the hollow of their protecting branches was an old disused well that still held water. This would be useful if we were forced to stay any length of time. The ground sloped sharply down behind the grove where a small brook ran to the woods from which our fields had been cut. If worse came to worst, I thought, we could make an unseen escape along the shallow waterway and into the woods.
    We reached the grove and settled down to wait. I crept to the low-sheltering edge of the branches and lay down on my stomach, staring at the house and straining for any sound. The small ticks and chirps of the night creatures and insects seemed to fill the entire valley. The servants grew restive, and the sound of their scratching and twitching distracted me. “Quiet!” I hissed. “Keep still.”
    As I spoke, I heard a door slam. Instantly everyone froze. A long moment passed, and then I heard someone shouting from the courtyard.
    â€œâ€¦Succat!…Concessa!…Succat!”
    â€œIt’s Calpurnius,” I said.
    â€œThere. You see, dear?” replied my mother. “We are saved.”
    â€œPerhaps.”
    â€œWe can go back now.” She started to her feet.
    â€œWait,” I said, taking hold of her arm. “I’ll go and look. Stay here until I come for you.”
    Leaving the spears with the servants, I darted out from the grove and ran back through the field to the villa. I paused at the archway and heard my father call again, whereupon I entered the courtyard and ran to him. “Here! Here I am!” I shouted.
    â€œThank God you are safe.” His face was smudged black with soot, and he was bleeding from a cut to the side of his neck, but he appeared unharmed otherwise. He looked behind me. “Where is your mother?”
    â€œAt the old well,” I told him. His smoke-grimed face wrinkled with incomprehension, so I added, “In the beech grove. Remember?”
    â€œAh,” he said, “good thinking.”
    â€œShall I go get them?”
    â€œNo,” he said, turning away. “Leave them. They are safer there.”
    â€œFather, wait,” I called, hurrying after him as he dashed to the house.
    He turned to me abruptly. “Where were you tonight?”
    â€œIn Lycanum,” I answered, “with the others.”
    â€œWas it attacked?”
    â€œThere was no trouble when we left.”
    â€œGood. We still may have a chance.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “I want you to go to Lycanum and bring the soldiers—bring as many as you can.”
    â€œBut I could never reach—”
    â€œI sent two riders to Guentonia,” he said, hurrying on, “but they will not reach the garrison in time.”
    â€œFather, listen, I—”
    â€œGo, Succat. We do not have much time.”
    Still I hesitated. “What should I tell them?”
    â€œBannavem is lost,” he said. “But there is still time to save the outlying settlements if they hurry. Tell them that.”
    There came a sound from inside the house. “Come with me,” I said, and made to pull him away. “They are here already.”
    â€œIt is the militia,” he said, removing my hands. “I brought them here. We will hold the villa until you return with troops to aid us.” He saw my