“I won’t warn you, whoreson. Get out,” Teddus said slowly, looking the leader in the eye.

The leader of the raptores lunged his head forward and back in a sudden spasm like a fighting cock.

Teddus moved, but the man guffawed, his coarse laughter filling the shop.

“Bit slow, aren’t you? I could take you here, but why should I bother when it’s so much easier to wait for you in the dark?” He ignored Teddus then and looked back at Tabbic, still standing with his hammer raised to one shoulder.

“Eighty sesterces on the first of each month. First payment by the end of today. It’s just business, you old fool. Will I take it with me now, or shall I come back for you one at a time?”

Once again, he winked at Alexandria and she recoiled from the knowledge in that glance.

“No. I’ll pay you. Then, when you’re gone, I’ll tell the guards and see you cut.”

Tabbic reached into his cloak and the chink of coins made the three men smile. The leader tutted aloud.

“No you won’t,” he said. “I have friends, me. Lots of friends who would be angry if I was taken out to the Campus and shown the butcher’s knife. Your wife and children would be very sorry if my friends were angry about something like that.”

Deftly, he caught the thrown pouch of coins, counting them quickly before placing it inside his grubby tunic next to the skin. He chuckled at their expressions and spat a wad of dark phlegm onto the tiled floor.

“That’s the way. I hope business is good, old man. I’ll see you next month.”

The three of them opened the door, leaning into the wind that came rushing into the shop. They left it open behind them and disappeared into the dark streets. Teddus walked over and shoved it closed, pulling down the locking bar. Tabbic did indeed look like an old man as he turned away from Alexandria, unable to meet her gaze. He was pale and shaking as he laid the hammer down on the bench and picked up his long brush. He began to sweep the clean floor in slow strokes.

“What are we going to do?” Alexandria demanded.

For a long time, Tabbic remained silent, until she wanted to shout the question at him and break the stillness.

“What can we do?” he said at last. “I won’t risk my family for anything.”

“We can shut the shop until the new place is ready. It’s halfway across the city, Tabbic. In a better area.

It will be different there.”

Despair and weariness showed in Tabbic’s face. “No. That bastard didn’t say anything about whether the shop was open or closed. He’ll still want his money if we don’t sell a single piece.”

“Just for a month, then. Until we close up and get out,” she said, wanting to see some spark of life break his stunned misery.

Tabbic hated thieves. Handing over coins he had worked days for hurt him more deeply than a physical pain. His hands shook with reaction as he changed his grip on the broom. Then he looked up at her.

“There is nowhere else, girl. Don’t you know that? I’m just surprised they haven’t been to us earlier.

You remember little Geranas?”

Alexandria nodded. The man had been a jeweler longer even than Tabbic and produced beautiful work in gold.

“They used a hammer on his right hand when he wouldn’t pay. Can you believe that? He can’t earn with the mess they made of him, but they don’t care about that. They just want the story to spread, so men like me will just meekly give up what we worked so hard for.” He stopped then, tightening his grip on the broom until it snapped loudly.

“Better lay out your tools, Alexandria. We have three pieces to finish today.”

His voice was hard and flat and Tabbic made no move to continue the morning routine as the shop was readied for customers.

“I have friends, Tabbic,” Alexandria said. “Julius and Brutus may be away, but Crassus knows me. I can try to bring pressure on them. It must be better than doing nothing.”

Tabbic’s grim expression didn’t change. “You do that. It can’t hurt,” he said.

Teddus sighed, sheathing his sword at last. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

Tabbic heard him. “Don’t be. That cocky bastard didn’t like the look of you, for all his words.”

“Why did you pay him, then?” Alexandria asked him.

Tabbic snorted. “Because your man would have killed him and they’d have come back to burn us out.

They can’t let even one of us win, girl, or the rest stop paying.”

He turned to Teddus and clapped his big hand on the man’s shoulder, ignoring his embarrassment.

“You did well enough, though I’d find a man to replace your son, you understand me? You need a killer for your kind of work. Now I’ll give you a hot drink against the cold and a bite to eat before you go on your way, but I want you here in plenty of time tonight, understand?”

“I’ll be here,” Teddus promised, glancing at his son’s flushed face.

Tabbic looked him in the eye and nodded, satisfied. “You’re a good man,” he said. “I just wish courage was all it took.”

Brutus examined the cracked glass of the water clock. Even with fur gloves, his fingers were numb with cold. All he wanted was to go back to his barracks and wrap himself up like a hibernating bear. Yet the routines of the legions had to continue. Though the cold ate into the men worse than anything they had ever known, the legion watches had to be marked by the three-hour trickle of water from one glass bowl into another. Brutus swore softly to himself as his touch removed a piece of the glass, which fell with a thud into the snow. He rubbed the growth of beard that covered his face. Julius had seen the benefit of suspending shaving in the cold months, but Brutus found the moisture of his breath would crust into ice after only an hour outside.

“The shelters aren’t working. We’ll have to light fires under them. Just enough to keep the water from freezing. You have my permission to take a few billets of wood from the supply for each one. The sentries can keep it going during their watch. They’ll be glad of the heat, I should think. Have the smiths make you an iron sheath to protect the glass and wood from the flames, or you’ll boil half of it away.”

“I will, sir. Thank you,” the tesserarius replied, relieved he was not to be criticized. Privately, Brutus thought the man was an idiot not to have thought of it and the result was the destruction of the only way the Tenth had to fix the length of a watch.

The soldiers of Rome had finally understood why the tribes did not go to war in winter. The first snow had fallen heavily enough to break the roof of the barracks, turning the snug bunks into a chaos of wind and ice. The following day had seen the drifts made deeper, and after a month Brutus could barely remember what it felt like to be warm. Though they lit huge fires below the walls each night, the heat reached only a few feet, blown away on the endless wind. He had seen ice floes the size of carts on the Rhine, and sometimes the snow fell so heavily as to make a shifting crust from one bank to the other. He wondered if the river would freeze solid before spring.

They seemed to spend their entire day in darkness. Julius had kept the men working as long as he could, but frozen hands slipped and a rash of injuries forced Julius to suspend the building as he came to terms with the winter at last.

Brutus passed on through the camp, his feet skidding painfully on the iced ruts left by the baggage trains. Denied grazing, they had been forced to slaughter most of the oxen, unable to afford the grain from the legion supplies. At least the meat stayed fresh, Brutus thought grimly. His glance strayed to the pile of carcasses under a dusting of snow. The meat was as hard as stone, like everything else in the country.

Brutus climbed the earthen wall of the camp and peered out into the grayness. Soft flakes touched him on the cheek and did not melt against his cold skin. He could see nothing out there but the stumps of the first trees they had felled and dragged back to be burnt for warmth.