The barbarian victory celebration shook the capital's remaining windows.
Twenty-nine thousand warriors filled the streets and the squares and the palace's courtyard in the specific configuration that a victorious highland army produced when the army's objective had been achieved and the achieving's euphoria had not yet been replaced by the administrative reality that occupation demanded. The warriors drank the wine that the capital's cellars provided, the cellars whose contents the civilian population's exodus had left behind and that the barbarian warriors' highland traditions regarding captured provisions made available without the rationing that a more disciplined army would have imposed.
