But some others wore various other costumes. One tough-looking woman, short, stocky, red-haired, stood fearlessly close to the centurion. She wore a kind of woollen poncho, with tunic, trousers and boots; there seemed to be military insignia on her shoulder flashes, but nothing like Roman designs. Still, she stood beside Quintus Fabius as if she deserved her place. Alongside her were more men and women dressed much as she was, as well as an older man, dark, with a Mediterranean look, to Stef’s eyes, wearing a kind of cut-down toga.

Stef heard chickens cluck and sheep bleat, and the voices of women and children as well as the gruffer tones of the men, and she smelled cooking fires. Now she was on the ground the fort felt less like a military installation than a small town, if fortified. But there was a stronger burning smell, of straw and some kind of wood. A building on fire?

As the arguments went on, a line of women, bent low under yokes bearing pails of water, made their way past the knots of soldiers, entirely ignored, eyes downcast. Stef stared. Could these be slaves?

Yuri shook his head. ‘What a day. We came all this way, we stepped between the stars, and now nobody’s paying us any attention.’

Stef shrugged. ‘People are people. Everybody has their own problems, I guess.’

‘Yes,’ said the ColU. ‘What we must do is leverage those problems to our advantage.’

Stef said, ‘ColU, that messenger told Quintus there was trouble at the colonia. You think that’s what this place is?’

The ColU murmured in her ear, ‘It was the Roman practice to plant colonies of veteran soldiers in a newly occupied province. An easy way of enforcing imperial discipline, an example of Roman culture for newly conquered barbarians, a military reserve, an occupied fortification. Maybe that’s what’s being set up here. Many of these legionaries, with their families, may not be going home again when the Malleus Jesu leaves this world. Evidently that’s what they’re grumbling about.’

‘A fortification against what?’ Stef thought back. ‘We’ve seen some mighty ruins here but no sign of an extant civilisation. No animal life even, those clucking chickens aside. What are these legionaries going to wage war against, a slime mould?’

Yuri grinned tiredly. ‘This is an alien world, Stef. I guess it depends on the slime mould.’

‘And also,’ the ColU said, ‘if these Romans can reach this world, so may their rivals.’

‘They speak of the Xin,’ Stef murmured. ‘Chinese, do you think?’

‘The name “China” has a root in the name of the first dynasty to unify the country. “Xin” could be a corruption of that.’

‘And the Brikanti, whoever they are.’

‘I am Brikanti.’ The woman in the poncho who had been standing with Quintus came striding over. ‘Whoever you are.’ Her language, audible under the translation, was Latin but heavily accented. ‘I had heard a rumour that Quintus had discovered strangers by his brand new Hatch.’

‘Rumours travel fast here,’ Stef said.

The woman laughed. ‘In a Roman camp, of course they do.’ She leaned closer to inspect Stef. Her hair was a deep, proud red, and cropped short; she looked perhaps forty years old – maybe a quarter-century younger than Stef herself, but her face, weather-beaten, made it difficult to tell her age precisely. Her eyes were an icy blue. She said, ‘You dress strangely. You smell strangely. I will enjoy hearing your lies about your origin.’

Stef grinned. ‘You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth.’

‘Ha! That bull-headed centurion might not; we Brikanti have subtler minds. One thing is certain – you did not stow away to this world aboard the Malleus Jesu.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘The ship is mine. This mission is a joint venture of Rome and Eboraki – and if you don’t know the Brikanti, you won’t know that Eboraki is our capital. In the orbit of the sun we have our own fleets, Rome and Brikanti, but we cooperate on missions to the stars. Quintus Fabius commands the mission and his Roman louts, but I, Movena, command the vessel and its crew. The Roman term for my role is trierarchus. The ship itself is Brikanti, of course.’

‘I  … think I understand.’

The older man in the toga came over as she spoke. ‘It’s remarkable, Movena. She speaks softly, in a tongue that, to a stranger like me, sounds like your own, mixed in with German perhaps. Yet that – thing in her ear – repeats her words in Latin. But what if we remove it? If I may?’ He reached up to Stef’s head.

She was uncomfortable with this, but she hardly had a choice. She glanced over at Yuri, who shrugged. She let the man remove her earphone.

Movena grinned easily. ‘Don’t mind Michael. He’s the medicus, the ship’s doctor. A Greek, like all the best doctors. And like all Greeks, endlessly curious about trivia. I’m speaking in my native tongue now. Can you understand me?’

Stef heard this only indistinctly, from Yuri’s earphone; Movena’s natural tongue, sounding like Danish with a lilt, dominated her hearing.

Michael said, ‘Say something in your own speech.’

Stef grinned. ‘If you damage that earphone I’ll break your arm.’

‘Ha! Remarkable.’ He passed back the earphone, which Stef quickly replaced in her ear.

And Yuri coughed, suddenly. Stef saw that he was leaning on a low rampart wall, and she felt a stab of concern for him.

Michael pushed forward. ‘Please, let me see if I can help you …’

Movena turned to Stef. ‘Is your companion ill?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘The Greek is an excellent physician – far better than these Romans deserve. He will help, if help is possible.’ As the doctor approached Yuri, Movena drew Stef aside. ‘Now listen to me.’

‘Yes?’

‘I command not only the ship on this mission. I am senior woman. Quintus Fabius has agreed to this.’

‘Senior woman?’

Movena sighed. ‘Do you know soldiers?’

‘I was one myself.’

Movena raised her eyebrows. ‘Very well. Then you will know how soldiers behave – how they have always behaved. The men, anyhow. In the Roman system, you see, the army is all; their navy is essentially a branch of the army. Whereas in our system it is the other way around. Which is why our systems mesh together so well, when we aren’t arguing, Romans and Brikanti.

‘But you need to understand that these Romans are primarily soldiers, and that is how they think of themselves. Most of these legionaries, especially the older ones, have served in war, on conventional military missions – most will probably have seen service in the last Valhallan campaigns against my own people in the northern continent, a war “concluded” with the latest flawed attempt at a treaty, but probably flaring again by now. And in the south the Romans’ uglier wars with the Xin grind on  … In such wars, women are booty. Or targets, their bodies a battleground after the men have fallen. Do you understand? Now, this is not a war of conquest; there are no enemies to defeat here, human or otherwise. Nothing to rape and kill. And of course the men have been able to bring their wives and sweethearts, even their children. Such is the way of it – for if you sent a shipful of Roman soldiers off on a years-long mission, alone without women, they’d have buggered each other senseless before killing each other over the favours of the prettiest standard-bearers before they got past Augustus.’

‘Augustus?’

She frowned. ‘The seventh planet of the sun  … Where do you come from? But, look, even with female companions available, men are men, soldiers are soldiers – and women are targets, the slaves, the celibate servant girls of the vicarius of Christ, even their comrades’ wives and daughters. You, my dear, are not so old nor so ugly that you are safe.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And so we protect each other. As I said, I am senior woman. If you have trouble of that sort, come to me.’