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."See for yourself." Tucking her skirts up in hercincture, Pierrette climbed until she could see over the wall.Her gasp of surprise was Kraton's reward."I can see everything from here! There is the Roman camp." Now, for the firsttime, she could really get an impression of it and of the kind of men whooccupied it.From this height and distance, the moat, the earthworks, and thepalisade atop it were a thin line.The two wooden towers were as if made oftwigs.The fane, in the corner nearest her, was a sand-speck yearning to be apebble.The camp was almost perfectly square, judging by the scale of objectsPierrette had seen at close hand.It had to be.almost a half mile on aside! Only a central area, a stretch just over a third of the overall width,was occupied by tents specks so tiny they blurred into hair-fine lines,regular, even, geometrically precise lines, separated by straight streets andavenues.Such precision! It was no accident, no whim of the consul who hadordered it; Pierrette knew that everything was precisely measured, the streetsexactly fifty or one hundred feet wide, the encampments of each maniple oftroops exactly one hundred feet square, and that such camps were built asoften as every single night, when the legions were on the march.file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Douglas,%20L%20Warren%20-.l%20Of%20Tears%20(chunky%20HTML)/0671319973__17.htm (6 of 13)2-1-2007 14:13:16- Chapter 17From the number of those squares sixty, plus twenty half-squares she knew thattwo full legions eighty-four hundred men were camped there.And she knew thatopen areas two hundred feet wide normally separated the tents from the outerfortifications.But the separations were far too wide.The vacant quarter where the fane stood should have been crowded with thetents of auxiliary troops Gallic allies from the Padus Valley, Iberian Celts,and Massilians and the rest of the blocks with Numidian or Iberian horsemen.Now she understood why Calvinus had not immediately assaulted Entremont.Thetwo bare legions were only half the normal force.Without his full strength,the Roman consul had only enough men to defend his own wooden walls, builtoverlarge for the additional troops that had not yet arrived.Farther east, the rising sun made a great gray shadow of the white Mountain ofVictory but it was not called that, not yet.Marius's battle against theTeutons would not be fought there for decades if at all.Between camp and mountain, on the farthest horizon, she caught a glimpse ofwater the sea.Citharista.Was it even a village, now?She climbed higher, then looked down.It was not a dizzying height likeAnselm's keep, but the rough scree would make for a difficult assault.Sheneed not fear Romans flinging themselves over the wall in the night.Page 102 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlVlasso the Boeotian had simple tastes his bed and his servant's were identicallow bronze-footed platforms with canvas ticks, well-filled with sweet hayscented with thyme.There were bronze and clay cooking pots on a shelf, and asimple hearth on the flat roof, accessible via a hewn-log stair opposite thetown wall.Kraton set her small bundle and a wooden box of materials she had requested,and a basket with cheese, bread, and apples, in the front room.When he haddeparted, Pierrette turned to Guihen."Is there a place people gather totalk?" she asked."I've heard what Kraton has to say, but.""The marketplace!" He reached for the basket of food, and emptied it."Here.We'll go shopping.""All the shops I saw were shuttered," she said."You've only seen part of the traders quarter.Most of the Greeks and otherforeigners left the city when the siege began or were slain by Teutomalos'sthugs, during the revolt, but just down this very street is an ale brewersnook where you'll hear plenty of talk
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