Queen of the Night

Picti had tortured him and forced the sacred drink down his throat, and the scout had confessed how his companions in the mile fort were few, divided and unsupported. They were weak, ripe for the scything.
    The tribesmen now squatted, all eyes on their chieftain. He sat a little forward of them in the fringe of trees as if studying every step of the open heather stretching between the copse and the Great Wall. The chieftain was feathered and painted for war. Full of fury against an enemy who'd taken what was his, he sat sniffing the air like a wolf, then raised a hand. The war band stiffened; their leader had decided to attack, brave the open ground, defying the possibility that the Crested Ones might dispatch a charging line of cavalry through the great double gates of their fort. The Picti feared this above all, being caught out in the open by the fiercesome Catephracti Cavalry, armoured men on fast-moving horses, wheeling and turning, spears jabbing in a hail of iron, swords cutting like sickles at harvest time.
    The moon slipped between the clouds. The night air was still. An owl hooted. The faint sound of other animals and birds echoed. The chieftain edged forward. He paused for a few heartbeats, rose to a crouch and charged silently into the night, his war band surging behind him. They streamed across the moorland, dark, sinister figures armed with club, axe, stabbing dirk and shield. The wall reared above them, silent and forbidding. The double gates of the mile fort were closed fast. The Picti glimpsed the glow of an oil lamp through a window, and the flicker of orange flame from the beacon on top of the tower licked the night sky, yet no horn or trumpet blew the alarm. Makeshift ladders, poles with pegs along each side, were placed hurriedly against the stone. The Picti clambered up, jumping through the crenellations on to the desolate fighting platform at the top. The beacon fire glowed hot in its iron brazier but there were no guards, no Romani. The Picti pulled back the heavy wooden trapdoor and poured down the steps into the narrow rooms below: empty, nothing but sconce torches glowing.
    The chieftain raced through a recess into the room beyond, his comrades clustering behind. A solitary Roman struggled to his feet from a cot bed. He was unarmed, heavy-eyed with sleep. He was reaching for the tamarisk twig broom, the only weapon at hand, but war club and axe fell, smashing his skull, splashing the walls with his brains and blood. The Roman, dressed only in his tunic, slumped to the ground, drenched in gofe, eyes dulling, as the Picti swept through the rest of the fort chambers. A shout of victory brought the chieftain to the steps leading down into a cellar,- his followers had found the pay chest, a small coffer full of silver. He gestured at them to reseal it; it was a great find, but the chieftain ground his teeth in anger for the Golden Maid was not here! He stood in the square courtyard, heart thumping, blood seething. He had a choice. He could retreat through the narrow alleyway, force the wooden gates at the far end and escape back on to the moorland, or he could breach the south-facing gates leading out beyond the wall and sweep down to plunder and pillage the isolated settlements and villas beyond.
    The chieftain glared up at the sky. He was a fearsome, war-like figure, his thick hair and beard caked with the blood of his enemies, his swarthy skin festooned with sacred war paint, magical roundels etched all over his body. He ran a finger around the rim of his war belt, then stared down at his feet and rejoiced at how they were smeared with the blood of his enemy. He gripped his long shield and, with the other hand, raised his axe club, howling like a wolf. His war band responded. They had found jars of posca, the coarse legionary wine, and were eagerly ladling it into their mouths, making themselves ripe for more mischief. True, they had not discovered the Golden Maid, but they had taken a mile fort, a fortress along the hated wall. No sooner had he given his war cry than the chieftain began to regret his impetuousness. His flesh tingled as the sweat cooled, the fury ebbed and his mind grew clearer, sharper, more cunning. He pushed back his lime-stained hair and stared at the double wooden gates facing south. Should he open them or retreat back to his settlement, to the women with their weaving and the minstrels with their silver-noted harps? There'd be feasting and dancing; perhaps he'd done