Spartacus

68
SP ART ACU S
‘Don’t mount yet. Walk the horses softly.’
Hand beside the moist mouth of his beast, Kleon
led the way. Each crunched twig underhoof seemed
to him thunder-loud. The dead reeds swished as
they passed. Far off in the east a wolf howled.
They held along the south border of the marsh,
till the darkened water lay entirely between them and
the Roman camp. Then the giant spoke:
‘It will soon be light. Ride.’
Now the eastern sky was stippled in crimson.
Mounting, the three looked back. The watch-fires
of the slave-camp had died to a smouldering glow
where all night the three had paced to give the illusion
of an army still camped there.
Kleon yawned.
‘Vale, Varinus !’
Then the three of them rode south.