Free The Wolf's Gold by Anthony Riches Page A

open and the other closed by two successive mountains which rise to heights over a thousand feet above the plain. The valley walls rise to much the same height, and there appears to be only one route in that isn’t either straight up the road that runs along the valley floor from the west, or over steep and easily defended peaks on the valley walls with excellent fields of view. It’s worth noting that the mining activity is mainly concentrated in the area of the mountains at the closed eastern end.’
    Procurator Maximus nodded.
    ‘Indeed Tribune, that’s much as the Thirteenth Legion’s tribune described it.’
    ‘In which case, there are two main defensive measures necessary. Firstly, we must be ready to repel a strong attack up the valley floor. The Sarmatae might well muster a force of many thousands of men to attack a prize as rich as this, many of them mounted, and we’ll have to be ready to fight them off with only the four cohorts you saw come up the road this afternoon. Nobody else is coming to this particular party. And that means we’ll need to build a wall at the valley’s most advantageous point, Procurator. A wall high enough that it can’t be scaled without a ladder, and topped by a stepped fighting platform to allow a relatively small number of men to fight off several times their own strength. Given that the valley’s teeming with strong men I’m assuming that such a construction wouldn’t tax you too badly?’
    The procurator frowned at the suggestion.
    ‘I’m not sure that the various businessmen who work the mines on the empire’s behalf would take well to having their workforces turned away from the mines . . . not to mention the lost revenue to both them and the empire.’
    Scaurus smiled at him, showing his teeth in a fierce grin.
    ‘I have no doubt that you’re right. But as Tribune Belletor was saying to me only yesterday afternoon as we marched into your facility, it might well be better to lose a few days’ income than risk losing the entire mine, not to mention our own lives, wouldn’t you agree? He made the point to me that the man that loses this facility must either fall in its defence or face a rather more protracted death at the hands of a disappointed imperium, and I have to say I can’t fault his logic.’
    Belletor shot him a surprised glance, but kept his mouth shut. The deception Scaurus was weaving around his superior’s supposed views on defending the mine had advanced too far to be gainsaid without more embarrassment than Belletor’s dignity could bear. For his part Scaurus was making the most of his chance to put the procurator straight as to who was in command of the mine’s resources.
    ‘Besides, I’m sure you’re not entirely without leverage over the men you’ve entrusted to extract the empire’s gold? Perhaps you might intimate to these businessmen that their accounts are overdue a particularly thorough audit, unless, of course, the urgency of defending their investments makes such an investigation superfluous?’ He raised an eyebrow at the procurator. ‘I presume there are a variety of stringent penalties open to your discretion, if any of these businessmen is found to have more than his fair share of the profits sticking to his fingers. I can assure you that you’ll find my colleague Domitius Belletor more than sympathetic with any request to assist you in delivering imperial justice under such circumstances.’
    Left with little alternative his fellow tribune nodded his firm agreement, and Scaurus held the procurator’s gaze for a long moment, waiting until the other man acknowledged his point with a slight bow of his head.
    ‘Excellent. So while your partners help the bulk of our men to build this wall to our specifications, the remainder will be conducting repairs on the temporary barracks accommodation to get my men out of their campaign tents and under some sturdier cover. We’ll be needing several dozen wood-burning stoves, which I