It was even called by that name, since Boise under the Thurston family’s rule had always had a weakness for things Roman. Where it met South Capitol a triangular fortress rose sixty feet to cover the gates and the two bridges; the core of it had been, oddly enough, a library building and the whole had an angular, lumpy, improvised but highly functional appearance even now. The ramparts were black against the western sky, though the stars had begun to fade behind them where the mountains a few miles away eastward were outlined against the first gleams of sunlight. Two hundred hobnailed boots crashed down in unison with each regulation thirty-inch stride, a harsh martial sound echoing back from the walls on either side of the road. Every forty paces the trumpeter up at the maniple standard in the lead blew a short blast on his curled tubae, a signal to make way—unnecessary now just before dawn, but standard procedure and something everyone would be used to.
