Free Throne of the Caesars 01 - Iron and Rust by Harry Sidebottom Page A

everything?’ Gordian went straight on to answer his own rhetorical question. ‘They would do anything rather than leave behind the plunder they have amassed.’
    ‘They do claim to have a sense of honour.’ Aemilius Severinus spoke somewhat hesitantly. ‘Of course, they seldom live up to it. Things are not the same among them as with us.’
    ‘They are barbarians.’ Gordian waved aside the concept. ‘They saw several hundred speculatores riding here—’
    ‘And,’ Sabinianus cut in, ‘the gap between the salt lakes is narrow, and they will realize that it will be difficult to drive their stolen beasts and prisoners away under our noses.’
    ‘Exactly.’ Gordian grinned, feeling like one of those street magicians who haunt the agora when they produce something from up their sleeves. ‘Either they have to defend the herds, and we have something to charge, or they must come and root us out of the oasis. Either way, we get to fight hand-to-hand. And that is our strength, and their weakness.’
    A breeze got up in the night, some time before dawn. It hissed and rattled through the palm fronds. Gordian leant on the parapet of the watchtower, waiting. He had been unable to sleep. There was little to see as yet. The shifting canopy of foliage just below him was black. It hid the settlement. Beyond the oasis, the desert was flat, laid out in tones of blue and grey. There was no moon. The thousands of stars were as distant and uncaring as gods.
    The previous evening, not long after the war council ended, the first of the enemy had arrived. The speculatores that Aemilianus Severinus had put on picket had been driven back into the village. In the night, off to the north, the campfires of the nomads had parodied the stars. At last, the fires had burnt out, leaving just the real firmament and the blackness.
    All ways of dying are hateful to us poor mortals. No, Gordian thought. There was nothing to fear, he told himself. If, in the end, everything returns to rest and sleep, why worry? Death is nothing to us. When we exist, death does not, and when death is, we are not. Anyway, it would not come to that, not today. Menophilus would be here in the morning; and with him would be the five hundred men of the 15th Cohort Emesenorum. There was nothing to worry about.
    Even thinking of Menophilus somewhat calmed Gordian. As Quaestor, Menophilus had been appointed by the Senate, unlike the legates, who were family friends chosen personally by the governor. Gordian had not known Menophilus before they came to Africa, but had warmed to him. On first meeting, Menophilus had seemed reserved, even gloomy. The Italian was young – still only in his twenties. He had sad eyes and wore an ornament in the form of a skeleton on his belt. He talked readily of the transience of life and was known to collect memento mori. And, to cap it all, he was a Stoic. Yet he little inclined towards the boorish asceticism many of that school so often paraded. No sooner had the governor’s entourage established itself in Carthage than Menophilus had begun an affair with the wife of a member of the city council. Her name was Lycaenion; she was dark, full-bodied, very beddable, Gordian thought. Menophilus liked to drink as well. While these traits showed an agreeable capacity for pleasure, it was the calm competence of the Quaestor on which Gordian was relying now. Menophilus would be here. There was nothing to worry about.
    Swiftly, but by imperceptible stages, the sky lightened, turning a delicate lilac. Behind a haze, the white disc of the sun topped the horizon. For a moment, the Lake of Triton once again filled with water. Waves rolled across its dark surface. You could almost hear them. And then the sun rose higher and the illusion was dispelled. And again there was nothing but salt and mud and desolation.
    Gordian looked off to the north. The leading edge of the barbarian encampment was about a mile distant. Dust and smoke were already shifting up from