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costly assault on the well-maintained walls, repulsed by Goths aided by armed Neapolitans.
    He lacked the men with the skills required to construct a siege tower or the luxury of time to do so, which meant yet more assaults by ladder and that faced all the options open to defenders outside mere arrows and spears, which included rocks dropped onto the heads of those climbing.
    Even worse, if the location of the attack was anticipated they had time to move into place their ballistae, which meant a barrage of stones faced just to get to the base, where they would be subjected to great urns of boiling oil, this tipped over the battlements to scald the skin. Flavius was losing men and that he could ill afford.
    To take a city like Naples required a force at least three times the size of that available, one that could so threaten a single section as to leave another part of the parapet short on defence. Flavius waseverywhere, both in these attacks and afterwards, to reassure and cajole but in his heart he knew that some coup would be needed to bring on success, that or a change of heart within the city.
    Accompanied by Photius and a personal escort, he spent every passive moment inspecting the defences, seeking some as yet unseen flaw. It was his stepson who clambered up a supporting pillar to stand on the undamaged side of the broken aqueduct, his call for his stepfather to join him one Flavius was reluctant to ignore; he would never concede agility even to one so young. Once alongside Photius, they splashed down the gentle slope of the waterway to the point where it had been broken, the water falling into a line of barrels set below.
    On the other side of the gap the arched roof that prevented evaporation was still intact and defenders had used the rubble from the destruction to block access, creating a wall of fragmented stone that seemed impassable. Had Photius asked to be allowed to jump the gap permission would have been refused; he did not. The youngster just ran and leapt, leaving Flavius with his heart in his mouth, his anxiety made worse when the lad landed badly and had to roll to avoid a fall backwards.
    He then stood up and grinned to reassure his stepfather, the shout of admonition Photius acknowledged with a backwards wave as he closed with the blockage and began to claw at the unmortised stones, in his efforts managing to create a small opening, one that he began to enlarge. In this he seemed to be succeeding, at which point his stepfather called softly that he should cease his furious scrabbling.
    Flavius was not up to the leap achieved by Photius; he had to clamber down one side and up the other, this time followed by his guards, issuing instructions when on the sloping surface that the attack on the masonry should be carried out with quiet care. Twothings were obvious apart from what was before him, the most evident being one he had already recognised: silence, which denoted the lack of any guards on the inner side. The second was that they were far enough from the city walls to be able to work unobserved, hidden by what remained of the arched canopy of the aqueduct.
    Stones were being removed gently now and it was obvious the construction had been haphazard, relying on depth rather than mortar or the skilful interlocking of dry stonework that was really required. It took a long time to get a result but the sudden feeling of cold air on the face told a now filthy and dust-covered Photius that they had made a breakthrough.
    ‘Enough,’ Flavius commanded. ‘Replace that last rock and rebuild something behind it to cut out any light.’
    ‘We will be coming back?’
    ‘Most certainly, but this needs to be thought through.’
    ‘If we do assault by this route I ask to be given command.’
    It was pure inspiration that made Flavius ask if his stepson spoke Goth, it was the shake of the head that allowed him to decline the request and he was not about to say that which was as yet only an idea; if what he had in