Hadrian's wall

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The northern wind blew across the ridge with a howl like an army of barbarians.

The metaphor pleased the emperor, who considered himself a scholar as well as a soldier. A new balcony jutted from the wooden quarters that had been hastily erected for the emperor's entourage, and Hadrian stood on it now, adding the gale to his mental inventory of the empire. The long green blades of the grassy ridge that rose before him were combed flat by the weather and sheets of rain lashed his raw fifty-room complex, drumming against timbers still pungent from their cutting and dripping into the rooms below where the braziers were inadequate. The climate clung to one's clothing and drove deep into one's very bones. Rather than dwell on this, it was better to look outward, into the teeth of the wind. A ravine to the right sheltered a stand of trees that crept up the defile like an advancing patrol, and the emperor's tactical eye followed it, noting how bitterly the branches shuddered at the crest. Not a place any man would wish to be stationed, he thought, but then that was true of all borders, wasn't it? By their very nature, borders were where comfort ended. Behind him the corridors of the complex rumbled with the tread of military boots, the sound echoing all the louder for the paucity of furnishings and carpets. Retiring governor Pompeius, Hadrian knew, hadn't had much time to prepare for the imperial arrival. At the emperor's own insistence, the imperial dispatches heralding his approach demanded maps and models, not luxuries. He wouldn't tarry here long.

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