Aventicum. A majestic fort, training camp, and city at the foothills of the Alps and on the docks of lake Morten. A place where blue skies are reflected in the water creating a sense of weightlessness, beauty and wonder, one that is enhanced by the white line of snow that is held up in the air by the taller mountains. That, at least, is how Julius Caesar imagined the place when he founded the camp in advance of his invasion of Uffen back in year five AEK.[1] For many decades, the settlement conformed to the conception of its creator. It was well run, well supplied, and trained some of the most effective and (justly) famous legions ever to serve Rome.

In time, however, the inevitable happened. Boisterous, martial men and women, facing an uncertain future and the distinct possibility of an early death or disastrous injury needed heady entertainment. A large amphitheatre was built, which certainly fulfilled that need, but it also served to create a whole new class of residents: those who performed; those who sold food and wine; those who managed the events; and those who were drawn to spectacle. Then too, practitioners of all the various professions that can part a soldier from his or her pay were soon in evidence in Aventicum. By which I mean gamblers, prostitutes, thieves and rogues of every type, from the sophisticated, well-dressed moneylender to the fortune teller and the pea-and-cups trickster.

From the point of view of Arthyr, Aventium was intimidating. As they made their way up the main street of the outer-town towards the garrison walls, he felt dismayed by the bustle. There were so many people of all ages, colour, and manner of dress that it was disorientating. In Betws-y-Coed, you would know everyone and on meeting someone’s eye, greet them. Here, he could look at a young woman, churning milk, sweating ­— despite the coolness of the day — and just begin to get an understanding of who she was and what her life was like, when his attention passed to a small boy, whose finger was tracing the angular letters of an inscription set in a rectangular stone tablet and mounted on the walls of a private house. Again, it seemed to Arthyr that he could understand this child and that the curiosity of the boy was not dissimilar to that of children back home.

And yet. There were a dozen people within fifty feet of Arthyr all drawing his attention. Who were they? What did they do? Were they safe? Some of them, not the milkmaid and the child of course, looked distinctly dangerous. A tall woman with a missing ear and a scar on that side of her face was plucking feathers from a chicken with what appeared to be perverse satisfaction, but that might only have been an illusion created by the artificial grimace. He hurried on, past houses and shops containing hundreds more people. So many names, so many stories. Too many to comprehend.

There was something else. Aventicum was heavy with iron. Iron was in the armour of the legion camped here. It was also in the weapons of the soldiers; in the pots, pans and tools that were needed to sustain the people of the camp; in the nails, bolts and brackets that held together the walls and houses that were crowding around him; and in the broaches that pinned the capes of the many soldiers walking either side of the street. His proximity to this enormous weight of iron dulled Arthyr’s senses and led him to feel like there was a cloud over the settlement, even though the sky was clear. The high density of iron also cut him off from Uffen and interrupted his usual, barely conscious, pleasurable sense of being surrounded by spirits, large and small. This was not a place in which he could easily perform magic

Throughout their travels, Arthyr had become used to the fact that people would stop and stare at him before recovering themselves. It was flattering because there was awe, surprise, and admiration in the looks. Here, though, there was something predatory in the eyes of those who surveyed him and his friends. What to make, for example, of the middle-aged woman with long, unkempt hair who was moving her hands around a battered, rune-covered board, without taking her gaze from Arthyr’s.

‘Tell your fortune, sir?’ she called out. Five other men and woman, who had been standing nearby, feigning interest in the woman’s actions, turned and regarded him silently.

Alerus was walking at the front of the group holding the reins of Sapentia’s horse; he turned and said something over his shoulder. Sapentia, who had been in something of a daydream, undid her cape, folding it into a roll. By doing so, she revealed the golden sun-god on her breastplate and her purple sash.

‘Legate!’ someone in the crowd nearby called out and suddenly the table was folded up and everyone near it was hurriedly moving away. Arthyr just caught the cynical smirk on Alerus’s face as the sergeant turned to face the road ahead once more.

It was surprising how the people of the town now stared at the young Roman officer, rather than Arthyr. Over the course of their travels from Cambria, Arthyr had enjoyed the attentions of the legate and viewed her as a deferential and somewhat enamoured young woman. In other words, a sense of superiority had grown within him. Now, it was evident that she had considerable power and in the eyes of everyone around them, Sapentia was far superior to Arthyr. People on the street ahead stepped to the side to make way for the legate and every soldier stood to attention as she passed. Sapentia took this public abasement very much in her stride, as though used to it.

At the entrance to the camp proper came an even greater display of the respect the Romans had for Arthyr’s travel companion. Beyond a very sturdy wooden gate (with a tower full of archers on either side) was a straight road that ran between a field filled with long, rectangular wooden huts up to a wide plaza. And standing to attention in that plaza were at least twenty lines of Roman soldiers, all wearing their iron armour. Dozens of banners were on display and as their group approached, six trumpeters stepped forward and blew, creating a horrible noise. Arthyr caught Gawain performing an exaggerated wince for Netanya, who smirked in response. If he could have, Arthyr would have shared their secret merriment, but the presence of so much iron made him feel unsteady.

‘Sapentia Avita Metrodora, greetings and welcome back. I take it your mission was a success?’ A grey-haired, grey-bearded, stout man in a heavily decorated uniform approached them with a smile that to Arthyr seemed insincere.

‘Thank you, Camp. It was indeed; here are our magicians. Four of them.’

Thousands of eyes were looking his way. It created a feeling that, along with the debilitating effects of the nearby iron, caused Arthyr to shudder. Even so, he did his best to stand tall and meet the eye of this important-seeming Roman officer.

‘Four. They are a very young. I was expecting… Well, I don’t really know what I was expecting. Not this.’ The Prefect was not smiling now and, indeed, his face was severe.

‘They are powerful though. Especially Arthyr and Merilyn,’ Sapentia gestured with her hand.

The Prefect rubbed his beard. ‘I see. Well, so long as they are capable of serving the empress as she desires, we’ll take them gladly.’

‘Look after them well. And remember, iron interferes with their magic. They are not to be equipped in our usual fashion. My advice would be to give them a room to themselves and minimal training.’

With that, Sapentia took up the reins of her horse and urged it around.

‘Wait, Legate, you are not leaving? A meal surely?’

‘My apologies Camp Prefect, but if I can reach Augusta Praetoria today, Luna the next, I can be in Rome and report to the empress on the third day.’

‘Please, a brief meal only, to fortify yourself for your travels and tell me something of your adventures.’

It was clear to Arthyr that Sapentia was reluctant (though she hid it well), yet to deny this direct appeal in front of all the men and woman of the army would have presumably been extremely impolite. So he was not surprised to see her dismount.

‘No more than an hour.’

A short ­­– surprisingly so for a soldier – man in armour whose design indicated seniority of some sort, took the reins from Sapentia and dismissed Alerus with a nod of his head. ‘Back to your unit sergeant.’

‘I won’t forget you.’ Sapentia called out, but Alerus just lowered his gaze and hurried away. The legate watched him for a moment, with an unreadable expression. Then she turned to Arthyr with a smile. ‘I’ll see you again soon. They will take care of you here in the meantime.’

When the Camp Prefect and Sapentia had disappeared from view into a large building, the small man shouted, ‘dismissed!’ This call was taken up by dozens of other voices and, all at once, the silent ranks of soldiers became a noisy crowd of men and women, moving off in all directions. No longer at the centre of attention, Arthyr gave up on the struggle to stand tall and sank down into a squatting position.

Reaching her hand out to touch him on the shoulder, Merilyn asked, ‘are you suffering from the iron?’

‘I am. You?’

‘Not very much, but enough to know what it must be like for you.’

‘Well now.’ The small officer came over to the group of friends, four other officers flanking him. ‘Magicians from Cambria. Listen well. I am Tribune Johannes Druffus and I’m in charge of you from now on, while you obtain your basic training.’

‘Training?’ asked Netanya. ‘What training?’

‘You are auxiliaries in the Roman army now. You’ve a lot to learn. What’s the signal to advance?’ he looked from Netanya to Arthyr, who shook his head. ‘What’s your position in a tortoise? A square? How do you parry a sweep aimed at the head? How do you keep your sword sharp?’

Netanya shrugged; a response which stood for them all.

‘Can any of you ride?’

‘A little,’ said Gawain. ‘But just ponies.’

The tribune scowled. Evidently that was the wrong answer. ‘Fire a bow?’

‘Me.’ Netanya spoke confidently and Arthyr, now standing, nodded in agreement. She was a good huntress.

‘Very well.’ The tribune gestured to a female officer beside him. ‘That one who can use a bow to the fourth. The spotty boy to the sixth; get him up to proper fitness. The tall one to the ninth and the long-haired girl to tenth.’

‘Very good, sir,’ answered the woman.

‘The legate said to keep us together,’ Merilyn pointed out.

After a moment, in which he visibly clenched his teeth together, Johannes Druffus answered in a slow voice. ‘The legate is not attached to this camp and will be gone within the hour. Then your training is entirely in my hands. I’ll decide what to do with you and you will obey without question.’

‘We’re not Roman soldiers,’ said Gawain, aggrieved.

Merilyn sounded more conciliatory, ‘Think of us as envoys.’

‘Envoys?’ Druffus shared a cynical smile with the junior officers around him. ‘If the legate didn’t make it clear to you, she should have. You are in the army now and you’ll do your training here before going with the legion on its new mission.’

‘Not me,’ Arthyr was sick of the iron and increasingly of the tone of this Roman, whom he judged to be a man whom it would be best to avoid.[2] ‘Come on. Let’s leave this camp.’

‘And go where?’ asked Netanya.

‘I don’t care, back to the forest until they need us.’

‘Centurion, what is the punishment for disobeying an order?’

‘The lash, sir.’

‘Understand your position, magicians. You are auxiliaries in the Roman army and you will do your basic training. If any of you take one step towards the gate, I’ll have you bound up and given ten lashes.’

‘You’d have to answer to the legate for that,’ said Merilyn angrily, hands clenched into fists.

Druffus glanced towards the large building into which Sapentia had disappeared. ‘She can’t protect you, barbarian. There’s not much sympathy for magicians and Sí lovers here. Whipping you for disobedience would be a very popular action.’

‘Arthyr?’ Merliyn took hold of his shoulder. ‘Can you do anything?’

‘I cannot.’ As though he were underneath the waters of the lake, looking up through dark, cold depths, Arthyr sought for his spirit friends and found them impossibly far away and unable to hear him.

‘Let’s do as he orders,’ said Merilyn aloud, then gave Arthyr a glance, which clearly said: until we are clear of this camp and you have your powers restored.

[1] Scholars disagree on dating systems. The reader will appreciate that I follow those who support the rationalization of dates by Julius Caesar. In the year that we now call 0, his advisors, and especially the great mathematician, Agrestes Aethiops, calculated that there were three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter in every year. I believe this to be correct and certainly think it wiser to base our calendar on the movement of sun and moon than on the often spurious belief in various legendary events. Publius Cornelius Tacitus, no doubt in an effort to gain popularity for his works, dates his histories from the foundation of Rome after Romulus and Remus supposedly slayed a black dragon. So, by his calculation, Aventicum was founded in the year 703, but I prefer to say ante emendandi kalendarii.

[2] In this judgment, Arthyr was quite correct. I encountered Jonannes Druffus myself and found that he belonged to that type of officer who is so full of self-belief in his own abilities that he chaffs at his current position and does all he can to advocate his own advance and to harm the prospects of potential rivals. In the case of Druffus, however, any such advance was extremely unlikely, as his reputation for sleeping with those of the new recruits whom he found attractive had spread to the point that it was talked about even in Rome.