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up at Silus, holding out a hand.
    ‘Very well, Decurion, since I have no option but to respect Arminius’s example, I presume you stopped at the medical wagon to pester my wife for my helmet?’
    The horseman grinned even wider, raising his left hand from behind his mount’s side to display the masked cavalry helmet Marcus had purchased in Tungrorum for the purposes of deceiving the followers of the bandit leader Obduro, much to Felicia’s disgust when she had discovered the price he’d paid for its fine workmanship. The Roman took off his centurion’s helmet and passed it to Qadir with a wink.
    ‘Can you think of a soldier who might be sufficiently careful to be entrusted with this? I’ll take his shield and one of his spears in return.’
    The Hamian nodded, dropping back a few ranks and handing the crested helmet to the soldier Scarface, taking one of his spears and helping him to pull the shield from its place strapped to his back.
    ‘There you go, soldier, you’re trusted with the centurion’s helmet until he comes back from scouting with the cavalry.’
    Scarface took the additional burden with a solemn nod, ignoring the guffaws of the men around him, and watched as Marcus and Qadir mounted the horses Silus had saddled for them and rode away up the road’s gentle slope.
    ‘Perhaps carrying that lump of iron for the next few hours will teach you to wind your bloody neck in . . .’ Sanga fell silent when he realised that his comrade wasn’t listening to a word he was saying, but staring down at the helmet with an expression of pride. ‘And then again perhaps not . . .’
    The horsemen rode forward for a mile or so on the road’s hard surface, their horses’ hoofs clattering loudly in the silence that hung over the wooded hills to either side. Silus looked back down the road to be sure they were sufficiently well ahead of the marching column of infantrymen, and then waved a hand at the wooded slopes.
    ‘Time to get off the road and make a bit less noise, gentlemen, we’re sticking out like tits on a bull as it is. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything out of the ordinary.’
    The horsemen separated into two parties, each half a dozen strong, and rode their horses onto the strips of cleared ground on either side of the road before reining them in to a walk so that their hoofs would be almost silent in the long grass. Qadir steered his beast alongside Marcus’s big grey, the graceful chestnut mare’s finely drawn lines a stark contrast to the warhorse, while Arminius’s mount fell in behind them at the German’s urging. The three men talked quietly as the patrol ghosted forward up the road’s margins, until Arminius suddenly frowned and wrinkled his nose.
    ‘Do you smell that?’
    Marcus inhaled deeply, discerning the very slightest edge of a familiar aroma on the air.
    ‘Woodsmoke. And burning fat.’
    Qadir nodded, waving a hand to Silus and putting a finger to his nose as Marcus bent to pull his shield from the grey’s flank. As the decurion nodded his understanding an arrow flicked out of the trees fifty paces to their front, snapping past the Roman’s head with a whistle of flight feathers. Flicking down the helmet’s polished face mask he spurred the grey into action, dropping his spear from the vertical carrying position to point forward, knowing that the sight of its long blade would be enough to spark the big horse’s customary berserk charge. A second arrow flew from the trees, its flight a blur of motion that ended with a clang as the missile’s iron head glanced from his facemask’s many-layered protection. The impact’s force knocked his head to one side, momentarily blurring his vision. Raising the shield across his body the Roman rose in the saddle by tensing his thigh muscles against the grey’s flanks, hefting the spear in readiness to throw. The hidden bowman loosed another shot, aiming for horse rather than rider this time, and Marcus felt the beast shudder with