"You behave like one, Granddaughter!" the headman said. "Go to your room!"
Rather unexpectedly, she got up and walked to the door. "Good night, Captain," she said, but he did not answer. He was asleep and so were his lieutenants, and, since there were poppyheads in the wine, they did not wake up even when, an hour later, the shouting began outside.
Almost the entire detachment of the Roman troops was killed, and the captain and his lieutenants were being held hostage by the Pictish Decaledonae who had swarmed over the broken Wall—the break having been enlarged by the headman's granddaughter and her friends during the previous night.
The headman and his companions were horrified; they pleaded with the Pictish leaders to spare the Roman officers. "Caesar will send a legion," the headman said, "many legions to avenge this! Leave them unharmed and go back to the North, and the Roman captain will soften the blow that will fall on us all...."
The Picts told him to shut up and called for wine. The headman and his companions took advantage of the carousing to slip out the back way and, taking some of the villagers, including Flavia, they hid themselves in a cottage in the forest. Except for the girl, they were shaking with terror. She was triumphant.
"Now Caesar will withdraw again," she said. "He no longer moves north—but slowly southward. The next Imperial rampart will be below us, and we shall be free!"
"You are mad," her grandfather said. "Under Roman rule, we are safe. What can we expect from these Pictish barbarians?" He looked at her as though she were some new kind of snake.
"I should rather be occasionally robbed by my cousins than taxed to death by strangers," she said, her dark face flushed.
"But the Romans are civilized!" said her grandfather.