A bow hung from one shoulder, a hide quiver from the other, and he carried a broad-bladed hunting spear. He stamped the worst of the mud from his ankle boots as he walked, making the pair of rabbits hanging from his belt twitch as if still alive. They weren’t much to show for a day spent freezing his balls off, he thought, tugging the hood of his cloak tighter around his numb ears. It wasn’t as if he’d brought his catch down with his arrows either: they had been in two of the snares he had set several days before. The rabbits weren’t the only creatures hiding from his bow. Arminius had had few sightings of other local wildlife – deer, boar and game birds – all day. Footprints, yes. Fresh-voided dung, yes. Traces of their passage and plants that had been eaten, or ground dug up, yes. But clapping his eyes on the quarry? Hardly ever. Twice, he’d come close to creeping up on something large – a boar, maybe – only to have it flee before he drew near enough to nock a shaft.
