Hadrian drank his share, but he remained focused on the part he was playing. He was good at detail; Brigonius heard him sympathise with one unit of mixed cavalry and infantry that it was harder for them to put on a spectacular display than for a dedicated cavalry unit with their larger numbers of horse. Each man seemed to grow in his presence, and Brigonius could see why he was so loved by his troops.

It wasn't a bad life, Brigonius was coming to think, to be a soldier of Rome. You received regular pay and reasonable food. You had camaraderie in the barracks, and there was always the civilian town outside your fort, with its shops and inns and brothels and temples, where you might find a little relief, or a companion who could one day become a wife. The barracks could be rife with lice, and the town with diseases. But you could get rid of the lice in the bath house, and if you got sick you could go to the hospital-the army ran the only professional hospitals in the world. You might go through your whole twenty-five-year career with only two or three campaigning seasons, and perhaps without seeing any fighting at all. You were almost certainly better off than the Brittunculi or other half-civilised provincials beyond the walls of your fort…And every so often an emperor came to visit.

Many of the troops had grown beards, in defiance of the usual Roman custom, imitating Hadrian's coin images. This amused Severa. 'Look at them. The Emperor's beard is more famous than he is!'

At noon the Emperor and his retinue, with Brigonius and Severa in tow, retired to the fortress's headquarters. Today the largest reception room in the block had been decked out as a shrine to many gods, and the party settled down to a long afternoon of eating, drinking and fortune-telling. At the inception of his mighty project Hadrian was seeking good auguries. Since dawn his philosophers had been inspecting the sky, looking for unusual clouds and the flight of birds with auspicious patterns. Now animals were put to death on charcoal braziers, entrails were prodded, statues venerated and libations poured, as scholars worked their way through scrolls of prophecies and interpretations.

Only the sinister freedman Primigenius sat aloof from it all, as always watching, watching.

With Severa at his side like a gaoler, Brigonius had nothing to do but drink. The chanting of the philosophers and the thickness of the air, cloudy with incense, made him feel as if he were floating out of his body. He tried to strike up conversation with Severa. 'Romans are always superstitious, aren't they?'

'None more than Hadrian,' she said. 'But it's not surprising. He is a soldier who has to come to terms with the prospect of becoming a god after he dies-indeed in Egypt they worship him already. How would that feel, Brigonius? Can you even imagine it? Wouldn't you be fascinated by past and future, if you felt you might some day transcend time itself?'

This kind of philosophising baffled Brigonius at the best of times; now the words flew around in his head. 'Superstitious or not, he's still a soldier. And you can see he still has the touch with his men.' He spotted Prefect Tullio sitting close to Governor Nepos. Tullio was silent, his face like thunder. 'But there's one soldier whose life doesn't seem to have been improved by the Emperor's visit.'

'Oh, things have gone slightly awry for our friend the prefect,' Severa said with silky satisfaction. 'He's still in his post. But he's lost a few of his privileges. His wife and kids have been kicked out of the fortress for a start.'

'Why?'

She inspected her fingers, long, perfectly manicured. 'Because of this solution you cooked up between you and your drinking pals. A Wall that is half stone, half turf.'

Brigonius knew how unhappy she had been with the deal, not least because it violated the terms of her Prophecy. 'Not quite half-'

'Shut up,' she said without emotion. 'I had no choice but to accept it. But it took me some effort to sell it to the Emperor-or, more specifically, the freedman Primigenius. I had to promise some favours.'

He asked uneasily, 'What favours?'

'And even then I found it necessary to shift some of the responsibility. I'm happy to say that it is our oafish Germanic friend Tullio who is taking the blame for fouling up the estimates for the Wall, not me, not Xander.'

Brigonius, his head full of beer fumes and smoke, felt as if he was about to pass out. 'That's unfair on Tullio. He's only trying to do his duty. And you have made an unnecessary enemy. That's a bad habit, Severa.'

'Of course it is unfair, which makes it all the sweeter. That'll teach him to call me "love".'

Something in her tone alarmed Brigonius, but he seemed unable to sit up. 'These favours you promised-'

Her face loomed before his eyes. 'You aren't completely incapable yet, are you, little Briton? The poison I've had dropped in your ale will soon grip you completely, though.'

'Poison?'

'Oh, it won't harm you. It will just be that for a sunset and a sunrise you won't be able to impose your will on your own body.' She ran a fingertip down his chest. 'How awful for you. But never mind, there is somebody else who will be able to make good use of your fine body while you're gone. You've guessed, have you? You're the favour, you see, to sweeten the deal you forced me to make. It's not my choice at all, oh no, it's simply a consequence of your own actions. You see that, don't you?'

Suddenly Brigonius remembered the way Hadrian had looked at him. Anger and fear flooded him, but still he couldn't move; he lolled on his couch, a helpless doll, his limbs heavy as logs. 'What have you done-have you promised me to Hadrian?'

Another face loomed over him now: pale skin, black eyes, lips like a wound.

Severa was whispering in his ear. 'Oh, not the Emperor-you aren't pretty or young enough for him-but Primigenius, who wields the power I needed. He has issues with our proposal, you know, for he has his own pet architect he hoped to promote. And then there is simple jealousy, of one bed-warmer for another. Primigenius lusts for you, yet hates you at the same time, for he knows you caught the Emperor's eye, if only briefly. Isn't that a paradox? Won't it add spice to the night you're about to spend together?' She came closer still; he could feel her breath on his ear, smell the spices on her tongue. 'And after he's split you open, o Brittunculus, my daughter will never touch you again.'

That red mouth descended towards him, but he couldn't move, couldn't struggle, couldn't even cry out.

Brigonius rode west towards Banna, along the line of the Wall.

A year after Hadrian's decision, this part of Brigantia had been transformed into a vast construction yard. On this bright late spring morning, from the higher ground Brigonius could see how from horizon to horizon a corridor of broken ground cut across the crags and green-clad hills, mapped out by surveyors' flags and poles, and scarred brown by the ruts of wheels and the prints of feet and hooves. It was a slash through the countryside's green flesh. And all along its length legionaries toiled, hauling and laying stone, maggots in the wound.

In what had been left of last summer, governor Nepos had set his workforce the target of completing three miles of Wall, which had been achieved easily. This year, in the first full season, the three legions working on the Wall were each to complete five more miles.

The mile-forts and turrets came first. The forts were built to a simple rectangular plan, fifty feet wide and sixty deep, with gateways in the north wall and the south. Inside there were small buildings and an oven, and a staircase leading to a viewing platform. The turrets were even simpler, just thatched towers set on bases twenty feet square, each with a hearth and a shelter for the soldiers. The turrets and forts were intended to be part of the fabric of the Wall itself, so they were built with 'wings', stubby extensions on their east and west faces where the curtain wall would be attached.