‘No.’ Metellus shook his head. ‘There’s no one near enough to see it. No one, sir. Not any more.’
Cato looked at the legionary. ‘Where did you get the meat?’
‘That farm we found the other day, sir.’
‘Those people …?’ Cato felt sick. ‘What happened?’
Metellus grinned. ‘Don’t worry, sir. They’ll be telling no tales. I took care of that.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Metellus’ brow creased into a frown. ‘Of course.’
One of the other men chuckled. ‘Only after we’d had a bit of fun with the women first, sir.’
Cato bit his lip and lowered his head so that the men would not see his expression. He swallowed and fought to regain control over his breathing, even though his heart still pounded in his chest and his limbs were trembling from exhaustion and rage. It was all too much for Cato, and for a moment the temptation to renounce the last vestiges of his authority over these men was overwhelming. If they wanted to destroy themselves, then let them draw the attention of every enemy warrior for miles. What did he care? He had done his best to win them an extra measure of life, against all the odds. And this was how they repaid him. Then there was the smell of the meat, wafting down into the empty pit of his stomach so that it groaned and rumbled in keen anticipation of the feast. Cato felt a cold wave of self-contempt and anger as his weakness washed across him. He was a centurion. A centurion of the Second Legion at that. He’d be damned if he was going to let all that stand for nothing.
‘Sir?’
Cato raised his head and looked down on Metellus. The legionary was holding out some meat to him, and nodded at it with a placating smile. It was that sense of being treated as a petulant child that made Cato decide what he must do. He forced himself to look beyond the meat to the legionary who had so selfishly endangered them all.
‘You fool! What good is that if we’re dead tomorrow — the moment they find us?’
Metellus did not reply, just stared back – in surprise at first, but then his expression changed to one of sullen insubordination, and he dropped the hunk of pork back on to the ground.
‘Please yourself, sir.’
Cato swiftly swung the butt of his spear and thrust it into Metellus’ chest, knocking the legionary back, into the arms of the men squatting behind him, still eating. Immediately a chorus of angry complaints rent the tense atmosphere.
‘Silence!’ Cato shouted, his voice cracking with anger. ‘Shut your bloody mouths!’ He glared at them, daring them to defy him, and then turned his gaze back on Metellus. ‘And you – you piss-poor excuse for a soldier … you’re on a charge!’
Metellus’ eyebrows rose for an instant, then he suddenly laughed. ‘A charge! You’re putting me on a charge, are you, sir?’
‘Shut up!’ Cato roared back at him, drawing the butt of the spear back to strike another blow. ‘Shut up! I’m in command here!’
Metellus was still laughing. ‘That’s priceless, that is! And what punishment would you have me do, sir? Empty the latrines? Pull an extra guard duty on the main gate?’ He waved a hand at the clearing. ‘Look around you. There’s no camp here. No ramparts to defend. No barracks to clean. No latrine to empty … nothing. Nothing left for you to command. Except us. Face up to it, boy.’
Cato shifted his grip on the spear shaft and spun it round, so that its point hovered no more than a foot away from the legionary’s throat. Around him the others stopped eating and reached for the handles to their knives and swords, watching the centurion intently.
For a moment everyone was still, muscles tensed and hearts pounding as the sow continued her high-pitched shrieking from the side of the clearing.
Then Figulus slowly stepped forward and gently pushed the tip of Cato’s spear down. ‘I’ll deal with this piece of shit, sir.’
Cato glanced towards him, brows clenched together, and then he lowered his spear as he looked back at Metellus, and spat on the ground beside the legionary. ‘All right then, Optio. He’s yours. See to it at once.’
As soon as he had uttered the words Cato turned away, in case the glimmer of tears at the corner of his eyes betrayed his strained emotions. He strode off to the side of the clearing and made his way to a small grassy mound that looked out across the marsh.
Behind him Figulus hauled Metellus to his feet. ‘Time to teach you a lesson, I think.’
The optio pulled his sword out of his waistband and tossed it to one side, and raised his fists. Metellus eyed him warily and then smiled. The optio was tall and broad, typical traits of the Celtic blood that flowed through him. Metellus was leaner, but had been ruthlessly hardened by the years he had served with the Eagles. The contest would pit brawn against experience, and Figulus could see that Metellus fancied his chances as he lowered his body into a crouch and waved the optio towards him.
Metellus took a pace forwards and with a wild roar the legionary launched himself into the attack. He never made it. Figulus threw his right fist forward in a blur and there was a soft crunch as it slammed into the legionary’s face. Metellus dropped heavily to the ground, motionless, knocked out in one blow. Figulus delivered a swift kick to the prone figure, then rounded on the other legionaries.
He smiled, and said softly, ‘Anyone else here want to fuck with authority?’
The night passed quietly. Cato took an early watch, sitting in the dark shadows under a tree and keeping watch over the milky wet sheen of the surrounding marsh, bathed in the silvery glow of a bright crescent moon. Down in the camp all was silent, the men having quietly gone to rest under the brooding menace of the optio’s gaze. The confrontation had ended for now, but Cato knew that the officers and men would be at each other’s throats at the slightest provocation from now on. The ties of training and tradition that still bound them together were unravelling far faster than he had anticipated, and soon all that would remain would be a band of wild men desperate to survive each other, as much as survive the hostile territory that surrounded them.
He had failed, Cato judged himself. He had failed his men, and there was no shame greater than that. And as a result of his failure they would all die in this forsaken wasteland at the heart of a barbarian island.
Despite his tortured reflections on his failure, Cato shut his eyes almost as soon as he had curled up on the ground. He was far too tired to be afflicted by those edgy dreams that usually plague troubled minds, and fell into a deep, dark sleep.
A hand shook him awake and, after a moment’s disorientation, Cato sat up and squinted into the face that loomed over him. ‘Figulus. What is it?’
‘Shhh!’ the optio whispered. ‘I think we’ve got company.’
The shroud of sleep slipped from Cato at once and instinctively he reached for his sword. Around them a thin mist wreathed the camp, and obscured any detail beyond twenty or thirty paces away. A light dew beaded Cato’s filthy tunic and the air smelled of damp earth. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Sentries say they can hear men moving close by. Sent for me at once.’
‘And?’
‘I heard it too. Lots of men.’
‘Right. Wake the others. Quietly.’
‘Yes, sir.’
As the hulking mass of the optio glided away into the mist, Cato rose to his feet and padded softly across to the path that led up from the clearing to the small hummock where the sentries kept watch. When he reached them, Cato crouched down. He didn’t have to ask them to report; the air was filled with the faint clinking of equipment and muffled voices softly passing on instructions that Cato could not quite make out. Even as he crouched, straining his ears, the sounds came closer, all around them.
‘We’re surrounded,‘whispered one of the legionaries, turning to Cato. ‘What do we do, sir?’
Cato recognised the man: Nepos, one of Metellus’ cronies from the night before. It was tempting to point out to the man that this situation was the consequence of his lack of self-control the day before. But the
re was no time or point in dwelling on the blame for their perilous situation.
‘Fall back. We get back to the camp … and hope they pass us by. Whoever they are.’
He led the sentries back down the track and when they reached the clearing Cato saw that the rest of his men were assembled, weapons in hand and waiting for his orders.
‘There’s nowhere to hide,’ Cato said quietly, ‘and there’s only one way into this clearing. If we try and break out across the marsh, we’ll just get stuck and hunted down. Best to stand ready, keep silent, and hope that they can’t see us in this mist.’
The legionaries stood in a small ring, facing out, ears and eyes straining to discern the slightest sight or sound through the grey veil that surrounded them. Soon they could all hear the sounds of men moving a short distance away, the rustling of bushes and snapping of twigs under careless footfalls.
‘What are we standing here for?’ Metellus hissed. ‘I say we make a run for it.’
Cato turned on him. ‘And I say I’ll cut your throat if you make another sound. Got that?’
Metellus looked at him, then nodded and turned back towards the growing sounds of the approaching men, spreading out all around them. Cato’s eyes flickered from the grey outline of one tree to the next, and soon he thought he caught fleeting glimpses of the wraithlike forms of men moving through the trees. Gradually the sounds subsided and then there was silence, broken only by the rustling of the piglets, stirring beside the slumbering form of the sow.
‘Romans!’ a voice called out of the mist in Latin, and Cato quickly turned towards the sound. ‘Romans! Throw down your arms and surrender!’
Cato drew a breath and called out ‘Who’s there?’
The voice answered at once, ‘I speak for Caratacus! He demands you drop your weapons and surrender. Or else, you die.’
‘Who’s he trying to fool?’ Figulus muttered. ‘We’re dead either way. At least it’ll be quick and less painful if we fight. Might take a few of them bastards with us as well.’
Cato could only nod at the prospect of the imminence of his death. It had come to this at last, and he felt his spine and neck clenched in the grasp of an icy fist. He was afraid, he reflected in some small rational part of his mind. At the very end he was afraid to die when it came down to it. But Figulus was right. Die he must, and right here and now, if he were to spare himself the lingering torment of a death at the hands of barbarians.
‘Romans! Surrender. You have the word of Caratacus that you will not be harmed!’
‘Bollocks!’ Figulus shouted back.
Suddenly there was movement all around them and at once figures drifted forward out of the mist, and solidified into the forms of native warriors, hundreds of them, hemming the small knot of Romans in on each side. They slowly closed in and shuffled to a stop no more than ten feet from the points of the Roman spears. Again the voice called out to them, much nearer now, but still invisible.
‘This is the last time Caratacus deigns to make his offer. Surrender now and you will live. You have ten heartbeats to decide …’
Cato glanced round at the fierce faces of the warriors, woad-patterned beneath jagged crests of lime-washed hair. They stood, poised and ready to rush forward and cut the handful of legionaries to pieces. There was a thud, and Cato glanced round to see that Metellus had dropped his sword. Several more of his men immediately followed suit. For a moment Cato felt nothing but contempt and rage for Metellus. He was on the verge of charging into the enemy line … Then he regained control of himself and realised that it would be a futile death. Quite futile. And while he lived there was always hope.
Cato took a deep breath as he straightened up. ‘Drop your weapons …’
Chapter Thirty
‘What do you think they’ll do with us?’ Figulus muttered. They were sitting inside a cattle byre. The previous occupants had been moved, but not the soiled straw they had lived in, and the faecal filth caked on to the mud and grime that had become a second skin for the Romans.
Cato rested his forearms on his knees and was staring down at his boots.
‘I’ve no idea. No idea at all … I’m not even sure why they let us live. They’ve not taken many of us prisoner before.’
‘What happened to the ones they did take prisoner?’
Cato shrugged. ‘Who knows? All we’ve found is bodies — and bits of bodies. I wouldn’t get your hopes up.’
Figulus craned his neck round and squinted through a small gap in the willow-weave that formed the wall of the byre. Beyond the wall the rest of the enemy’s camp stretched out across the island: hundreds of round huts, enclosed by a low palisade. There was only one approach to the camp, along a slender causeway that crossed the shallow waters surrounding the island. The causeway was defended by two formidable redoubts that projected from the island, either side of the main gate, which itself was made of thick timbers of oak. Inside the gate the survivors of Caratacus’ army rested and licked their wounds, while they waited for their commander to decide what to do next.
When the small column of Roman prisoners had been led into the camp a large crowd of warriors and a few women and children had turned out to pour scorn and ridicule on the half-starved and filthy representatives of their vaunted enemy. While keeping his head protected as best he could from the shower of mud, shit and stones, Cato had looked round the camp with a professional interest. The warriors had kept their equipment clean and many still sweated from the training they had been doing before the prisoners had arrived. Cato had expected them to be demoralised and beaten after the almost complete disaster at the crossing of the Tamesis fifteen days before. But these men were clearly fit and eager to return to the fight.
The prisoners had been paraded round the camp and forced to suffer the usual indignities of capture before being led to this byre, where they had remained for three days, fed on scraps and tied up around the wrists and ankles. The existing stench of the small space had been made worse by the urine, shit, vomit and sweat of the prisoners, unable to move far from their position, without disturbing their comrades bound on either side. By day the sun beat down on them, cooking the thick fetid air that filled the byre so that every breath made Cato and his men feel nauseous. Outside, the Britons trained hard, with the monotonous clash and clatter of weapons, punctuated by the grunts and war cries of men determined to fight on against the legions with every fibre of their being.
‘Not much chance of finding a way out through that lot,’ Figulus said, as he turned round and leaned back against the wicker wall. The optio reached down and tried to ease the leather collar around his ankle into a more comfortable angle. ‘Even if we could get out of these.’
Cato shrugged. He had long since given up any thought of escape, after thoroughly assessing the situation. The byre was guarded by three warriors, day and night. While the wall did not represent a serious obstacle to a man determined to find a way through or over it, the long chain that bound all the prisoners made it impossible to get out of the byre.
With all consideration of escape banished from his mind, Cato concentrated on the reason for their being spared in the first place. It seemed to make no sense. They would be useless as hostages. What were the lives of a score of legionaries to General Plautius? And the fact that they were fugitives from Roman justice made them even less valuable as a bargaining counter. So, if not hostages, then what? The alternative purpose of their captivity filled Cato with a horror that clenched its icy grip around his spine.
Human sacrifice.
Caratacus, like all Celt leaders, bowed to an authority placed even above the kings who ruled the tribes of this island – the druids. Cato had encountered them before and carried the scar of a terrible injury given to him by a sickle-wielding druid. Worse, he had seen evidence of what the druids did to the men, women and children they offered up as sacrifices to their gods. The image of himself being slaughtered on a stone altar, or being burned alive in a wooden cage haunted every long hour he spe
nt tethered to his men in their prison.
Most of the others shared his foreboding and sat in silence, only shifting when their position had been endured long enough to become unbearably uncomfortable. Even Metellus and his cronies held their tongues and sat waiting for the inevitable end. Only Figulus seemed to have any fight left in him, and watched and listened intently to the daily routine in the surrounding camp. Cato admired his optio’s resolve, irrelevant as it was, and made no attempt to persuade Figulus to stop fretting and accept his fate.
At the end of the third day Cato was woken from a light sleep by a sudden deafening chorus of cheering. Even the guards outside the byre joined in, thrusting their spears up in the air with each shout.
‘What’s all the noise?’ asked Cato.
Figulus listened a moment before replying. ‘Caratacus. It’s Caratacus – they’re calling out his name.’
‘Must have been away from his camp for a few days. Wonder where he’s been.’
‘No doubt trying to stir up some more resistance to our legions, sir. He’ll soon be running out of allies, I’m thinking.’
‘Maybe,’ Cato replied grudgingly. ‘But it’s not going to do us much good, is it?’
‘No …’
The cheering and acclamation went on for a long time before the native warriors had had their fill and returned to their training and other duties.
The sun dipped down below the top of the wall and threw the prisoners into shadow. This was the time their guards entered the byre and gave them a basket of scraps. The men slowly stirred in anticipation of the chance to try to stave off the aching agony of their hunger. Cato found himself licking his lips and watching the gate that opened into the byre. They were kept waiting a little longer than usual and for a moment Cato feared that there would be no food this evening. Then there was the gentle clink from the chain that fastened the door and it was shoved open. A pale shaft of light stretched across the stinking heap of ordure in the byre, then a shadow passed over it and Cato looked up to see a large warrior looming over them, glaring round at the grimy creatures chained to each other.
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