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Cornelius, he had retired to lick his wounds, but he had come back with a vengeance in his takeover of the tribe of the Duncani and their hill fort of Numantia. His usurpation had been bloody; having married Cara, the favourite daughter of the elderly chief, Brennos, a one-time Druid bound to celibacy, broke that vow. But he also broke by threat, sword and secret murder the resistance of anyone who stood in his way. He had then attacked the neighbouring tribes, taking back from them lands stolen over the years from an elderly chieftain more interested in wine and fornication than the defence of his patrimony.
    His next success was to turn a natural fortress blessed by terrain – high bluffs, natural escarpments, a fertile plateau and a constant supply of water – a place in which the added walls had once been allowed to fall into a near-ruin, into the most daunting stronghold in the whole Iberian Peninsula. Numantia provided security in a troubled land, so the itinerant had flocked to the place, turning it from a hill fort into a bustling town; it had become not only a place to defend, but a base from which to attack Rome. Year on year Brennos was getting stronger, with more men to do his bidding and fewer neighbours able to stand against hiswishes. When the chieftains tried, Brennos suborned their younger warriors, holding out his vision, encouraging them to attack the Roman coastal provinces, his aim to keep the border alight.
    His own devious nature allowed Servius to see clearly the temptations the man offered, the most obvious conclusion being that patience, as a policy, might prove unworkable. Brennos was clever, a man who dangled opportunity before greedy Roman eyes, the enticing prospect of a victory large enough to earn the winner a triumph to match any that had gone before. His hill fort, Numantia, might be near-impregnable, but there were others less formidable, and therefore more tempting – Pallentia, halfway to Numantia between the coastal plain and the deep interior, being one such. Brennos let it be known that an attack on that hill fort would draw him to its defence, creating the prospect that, out in the open, he could be defeated by superior Roman discipline. There was an obvious flaw to this dream of glory; it might be Brennos who won, which would leave the whole of Spain at his mercy. What could he achieve then?
    Not prepared to risk defeat, possible death, and at the very least certain disgrace, Servius Caepio had come round to Lucius’s view that,other methods failing, Brennos should be assassinated, preferably by someone who could not command the succession. This would lead to the break-up of the confederation of tribes Brennos already dominated, and that in turn would get them back to warring with each other rather than Rome, bringing peace to the border. Let them fight for their mountains and valleys as much as they liked.
    One of the assets vital to a good intriguer is the ability to listen, because only by doing this can he find his opponent’s weakness. Servius listened to the centurions who had been stationed in Spain for years, just as he did to those Celts who sought protection and peace with Rome. The governor was patient with these client chieftains, garnering nuggets of information from the midst of their endemic Celtic boasting, but most of all he courted the Greeks, who, being in trade, of necessity needed to take a long view. The two who sat with him now had plenty to relate.
    As a race, the Romans had a sharp and immediate sense of their own history; to them, Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who had annihilated two Roman armies and ravaged the whole of Italy, was no distant memory, he was yesterday. The sack of Rome by the Celtic tribes, under another Brennos, over two hundred yearsbefore Hannibal’s invasion, seemed like last week. The Greeks’ protectors knew this, and took some delight in ensuring that the threat Brennos represented seemed real.
    Servius Caepio heard, behind