The Eagle and the Wolves

by Simon Scarrow

  ‘Yes.’ Cato looked round the redoubt, watching the backs of the men who were keeping the Durotrigans out.

  Macro smiled. ‘It’s all right, lad. I can spare you for a moment. Now go.’

  Cato drew himself up and walked stiffly to the entrance of the great hall. He paused on the threshold to take a last look round the redoubt and Macro caught his eye and jabbed his finger at the hall. Cato went inside.

  The contrast between the afternoon sunshine outside and the dim interior of the hall was stark, and at first Cato could make very little out; just shadows flitting across the rush-covered floor. Then, as his eyes grew used to the gloom, Cato saw that the floor was covered with injured men, being tended by the surgeon and Verica’s household slaves. But they could do little more than bind wounds and make the dying as comfortable as possible. The surgeon looked up, and as soon as he saw Cato, he rose to his feet and hurried over.

  ‘You hurt, sir?’

  ‘My leg. Tie it up.’

  The surgeon kneeled down and gently examined the wound. ‘Nasty. Looks clean enough, though. Quite a lot of blood here. Do you feel faint?’

  Looking round at some of the terrible injuries surrounding him Cato felt guilty and ashamed about the attention he was being given.

  ‘Sir?’ The surgeon was looking up at him. He had taken a roll of linen from his haversack and was winding it around Cato’s calf.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ Cato smiled to himself. It hardly mattered what he felt like. He was as good as dead anyway. They all were, and yet here was the surgeon carrying on as if there were truly some chance that his patients would have the possibility of a full recovery. Cato felt an urge to laugh and had to fight the hysteria down. The surgeon had said something and seemed to be waiting for an answer. Cato shrugged and changed the subject.

  ‘Where’s the king?’

  ‘In his quarters. I sent him there to rest.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘He’s doing well enough, sir. But he could do without all the excitement.’

  This time Cato could not help sniggering and the surgeon looked at him with a concerned expression. ‘1 think you’d better sit down, sir.’

  ‘No. I need to see Cadminius.’

  ‘Over there, sir.’ The surgeon pointed to the far end of the hall where the captain of the king’s bodyguard and several of his men were standing guard on the entrance to the training compound. The stout wooden door had been tightly wedged shut and timbers had been nailed across it. A steady series of thuds sounded from the far side. Cato stepped round the surgeon and picked his way over the wounded towards Cadminius.

  ‘How are we doing?’ Cato called out in Celtic, trying to sound calmer and more confident than he felt inside.

  Cadminius turned his face sharply. ‘They won’t get in for a while. It’d take a battering ram to get through that door.’

  ‘Doubtless they’re sorting something out even as we speak.’

  ‘Doubtless. . . Might just chuck them Tincommius’ head to use meantime.’

  ‘Tincommius? Where is he?’

  ‘Safe enough,’ Cadminius smiled. ‘We’ve trussed him up nicely, hand and foot. He won’t be doing any more harm. I’ve given orders for him to be killed the instant one of those Durotrigan bastards sets foot in the hall.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘What’s the situation out front?’

  ‘We’re holding them back, for now.’

  ‘And later?’

  Cato laughed and wagged his finger before he turned back towards the entrance of the hall. ‘I’ll see you later, Cadminius.’

  Outside, the sunlight made Cato squint. The enemy were still shouting and chanting their war cries, but had drawn back from the redoubt, and the legionaries were looking warily over the breastwork. Someone had found a cache of hunting spears and almost all of the legionaries had one to hand.

  ‘Cato! Over here!’ Macro shouted from a wagon at the front of the redoubt. Cato picked his way over the men resting on the ground and hauled himself up beside Macro. From the slight elevation the view across the enclosure revealed a dense mass of Durotrigans no more than a javelin’s throw away. Directly in front of the redoubt lay the piles of their dead and wounded from their first assault. Here and there a man moved feebly, some screaming in agony from terrible wounds, others moaning softly.

  ‘How many did we lose?’ Cato asked quietly.

  Ά few. But they took the worst of it and rather lost their appetite for the fight.’

  Cato gazed wearily at the Durotrigans. Some of the warriors in the front rank were rushing forward, screaming defiance into the faces lining the breastwork and then running back. ‘Looks like they’re working another one up.’

  ‘We’ll be ready for them. How’s the leg?’

  ‘I’ll live.’

  ‘Oh, good. Better get ready. Looks like they’re about to charge. I want you in the next-but-one wagon. Keep our lads on their toes. That’s the last of the legionaries. Have your Wolves ready to fill any gaps.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Cato dropped down into the enclosure, recovered his shield and called his men into formation. A quick head count gave him a strength of thirty-four. That was all. Thirty-four men from the original two cohorts he and Macro had trained and led into battle. The survivors stared straight ahead, red-eyed, filthy and many stained with their own blood and that of their enemies. They looked like beggars, reminding Cato of the human flotsam he had seen as a boy, drifting around the mean backstreets of Rome. As a boy? That was just over two years ago, he reminded himself. The two years he had served with the Eagles seemed like more of a life than all the years before.

  Yet these men were no beggers, and pulled themselves erect as they stood behind Mandrax and his Wolf standard. Cato made no attempt at stirring them on to yet greater valour, as the generals in all the history books did. He simply told them to take the place of every man who fell defending the breastwork. Then he saluted and took his position in a cart to the left of Macro. A short distance to Macro’s right he saw Figulus and returned the wave that the optio made to him.

  ‘Here they come!’ shouted Macro.

  The enemy rippled forward, then all at once a roar swept through their ranks, and they charged towards the redoubt.

  ‘Hold steady!’ Macro bellowed above the din. ‘Just keep them out!’

  Cato tightened his grip on the shield handle and braced it against the inside of the breastwork. Over the rim he watched the enemy rushing towards him, a sea of woad-patterned flesh and spiky lime-washed hair. They closed on the redoubt, clambering over the bodies of their comrades who had fallen in the first assault. Then they reached the hastily erected defences and tried to get at the warriors thrusting at them from above. The advantage of height and reach was with the Romans, and scores of Durotrigans fell to quick thrusts of the spears. Cato had only his sword and watched for his opportunity. Then directly below him a man threw himself forward and braced his arms against the side of the wagon Cato was standing on. Immediately the warrior behind scrambled on to the man’s back and launched himself towards Cato. The centurion slammed his shield boss into the man’s shoulder and the warrior toppled to one side. As he fell he grasped the shaft of the spear being wielded by the legionary fighting beside Cato, wrenching the weapon from the Roman’s grasp.

  ‘Shit!’ The legionary snatched at his sword, but was too late to spot the spear thrown from one side. The tip caught him under the chin and passed straight through his neck, the impact hurling him back so that he crumpled over the rear of the wagon.

  ‘Get a man up here!’ Cato shouted over his shoulder. ‘Now!’

  As soon as the gap opened in the defenders’ line a group of the enemy swarmed forward to press home the advantage, and Cato found himself facing three men, armed with swords, hacking and thrusting at him. He pressed himself inside the curve of the shield and slashed and hacked back at them in a desp
erate frenzy that bore little resemblance to the rigorous sword training that had been harshly drilled into him by the legion’s instructors. There was a lucky strike as his blade caught one of his opponents across the knuckles, shattering the bones of his sword hand. The man screamed and fell back into the swirling mass of the warriors thrusting their way towards the redoubt. But his two comrades were more wily, and while one feinted at Cato the other waited for a chance to strike round the edge of the centurion’s shield, and only the curved surface of his segmented armour saved him from injury as a blow glanced off the side of his chest. Then the gap was plugged as an Atrebatan took his place at the breastwork and thrust his sword down towards one of the men trying to kill Cato.

  How long the fight raged around the redoubt, Cato could never be sure. There was no time for thought; only the instinct to fight and survive. As he stabbed and parried with his sword, and blocked savage blows with his shield, Cato shouted out encouragement to the men around him, and called for replacements whenever he was aware that one of them had fallen out of line. Even though five or six Durotrigans must have perished for every one of the defenders struck down from the breastwork, they could afford to take the punishment. Indeed, the very number of their losses seemed to provoke an ever-greater desire to close with the Romans and their Atrebatan allies, and they pressed forward tighter than ever, heaving against the defences so forcefully that Cato could feel the wagon shifting beneath him.

  As the sun began to dip behind the bulk of the hall the redoubt fell into shadow and the slanting light illuminated the enemy with an intense contrast of light with dark that made them seem all the more vivid and fierce. Cato’s arms felt drained of strength, and desperation was no longer enough. Only iron will forced his shield arm to stay up and his sword arm to thrust with enough punch to strike a lethal blow. But for every man he sent reeling back into the mob, another took his place with the same implacable urge to obliterate the defenders.

  Then, strangely, Cato found himself waiting for his next opponent. But as he readied his shield and steeled his trembling sword arm, the sea of hostile faces before him thinned, and ebbed away from the redoubt. A glance to either side was enough to reveal that the Durotrigans were all falling back. Their war cries faded away with them and, looking across the enclosure, Cato could see them running through the gate. Soon, only a few stragglers were in view, making best speed to catch up with their comrades, and the full extent of the battlefield was revealed to Cato’s eyes. Hundreds of the enemy lay strewn on the ground before the hall, many still living so that the tangle of bodies glistening with sweat and blood seemed to shimmer in the fading heat and light of the late summer afternoon. Cato looked across to Macro and the older centurion pursed his lips and shrugged.

  ‘Now, where the hell are they off to?’ Figulus said loudly.

  The men on the breastwork stayed in position, watching for the enemy’s next move, not yet daring to believe that they might not come back. The clink and clatter of the Durotrigans’ armour and weapons faded into silence and then there was just the sound of the injured.

  ‘Cato!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Strength return, right now.’

  Cato nodded, and slipped down on to the ground. He staggered a moment on his tired legs and then began to count off the survivors at the breastwork, and the handful of men still standing in reserve.

  ‘They’re coming back!’ shouted a legionary, and Cato ran to take up his position. In the fading light dim figures could be seen making their way through the gateway into the enclosure.

  ‘One last effort, boys!’ Macro called out, even his voice cracking under the strain.

  Each defender tightened his grip on shield and spear and steeled himself for a final struggle. Then Cato laughed – a high-pitched nervous sound – and he lowered his spear and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the breastwork.

  Striding through the gate was a broad man with a red cloak. The sun gleamed on his highly polished helmet, and above the helmet curved a brilliant red crest. The man barked an order and a screen of troops fanned out on either side of the gate, and cautiously picked their way across the enclosure towards the hall. As they approached Cato’s keen eyes recognised the officer.

  ‘It’s Centurion Hortensius!’ Cato laughed with nervous relief. Hortensius marched up towards them, smacking his vine cane into the palm of his spare hand.

  ‘Macro and Cato,’ he called. ‘I might have guessed. Only you two could have ended up in a fucking mess like this!’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ‘No,’ Vespasian decided, as he glanced round the shadows lengthening across the scattered bodies in the royal enclosure. ‘It’s out of the question. There’s too much to be done here. We’re staying.’

  Cato exchanged an anxious look with Macro. Surely the legate would see the danger?

  As soon as Vespasian had sent off the scouts to make sure that the Durotrigans were keeping clear of Calleva, he led the relief column in through the blackened frame of the town’s main gate. The legate immediately made for the depot, and the charred ruin of the headquarters block and the grisly remains of the hospital. Although the Durotrigans had razed the Roman buildings to the ground they had at least left the supplies largely untouched. They had intended to gorge themselves and carry off what they could, but the sudden arrival of the legate and his six cohorts had caused the Durotrigans to panic and flee the Atrebatan capital empty-handed.

  Vespasian gave orders to begin repairs to the depot’s defences and then, with tribune Quintillus at his side, they rode off to join Hortensius’ cohort, which had been sent on ahead to secure the royal enclosure. As soon as he caught sight of Macro and Cato the legate had demanded to know the full story.

  ‘Sir, we can’t stay,’ said Cato.

  ‘Can’t stay?’ Quintillus, at his commander’s shoulder, repeated with a slight smile. ‘Centurion Cato, the truth is we can’t afford to leave. Even you must be aware of the strategic situation? Verica will die soon. His warriors are nearly all dead. This kingdom will fall to the first enemy that passes through the gate you two saw fit to burn down. Only Rome can guarantee order here now.’

  Cato placed his hand behind his back and clenched his fist, pressing his nails into the flesh of his palm. He was exhausted and angry, and needed his wits to be sharp.

  ‘Sir, if we lose these six cohorts and a legate, there won’t be a strategic situation to worry about, only a rout.’

  ‘Really!’ The tribune laughed and turned to Vespasian. ‘I think this young man has been pretty roughly handled over the last few days, sir. It’s only natural he might have an inflated fear of the enemy.’

  This was too much for Macro. His bull neck swung forward. ‘Afraid? Cato afraid? It wasn’t Cato who ran off when they gave us that first pasting—’

  Vespasian stepped between them and raised his hand, speaking in an urgent undertone. ‘That’s quite enough, gentlemen! I’ll not have my officers arguing in front of the men.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Quintillus continued quietly, ‘I will not stand for a common centurion inferring that I’m a coward. I was the one that rode for help.’

  ‘Quite,’ Macro smiled sweetly. ‘And I wasn’t inferring that you’re a coward. . . sir.’

  ‘Enough!’ said Vespasian. ‘Centurion Cato, given how things have turned out, I think we can discount anything Tincommius may have said. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s managed to fool a Roman officer.’

  Quintillus tightened his lips.

  Had he not been so exhausted Cato might have been a bit more circumspect in his approach to the commander of the Second Legion, but he had to press upon the legate the seriousness of their situation. ‘Sir, he said that Caratacus and his army would be arriving tomorrow. If we’re not well clear of Calleva by then—’

  ‘I’ve made my decision, Centurion. We stay. I’ll have the scouts out at first light. They can warn us of any approaching danger.’

  ‘It might be
too late by then, sir.’

  ‘Look here, this Tincommius is a liar. He deceived you.’

  ‘He deceived all of us, sir.’

  ‘Quite. So why should we believe him now? How can you be sure he’s speaking the truth? Let s accept that Tincommius wasn’t lying. I doubt Caratacus would be able to give General Plautius the slip. He’d be fighting a rearguard action all the way. He’d have more reason to worry about us than we about him. Look, it was probably no more than a simple ploy by Tincommius to get you to surrender. Surely you can see through that?’

  Macro glanced down to hide his anger at the accusation they could have been so easily gulled.

  ‘But what if he was telling the truth, sir?’ Cato persisted. ‘We’d be caught here in Calleva and cut to pieces. Verica would be killed, Tincommius placed on the throne and the Atrebatans would change sides.’

  Vespasian gave him a stony look. Ά commander of a legion does not let himself be ruled by hysterical hypotheses. I want proof.’

  He looked closely at the two centurions. ‘You two need rest more than anyone else – you and your men. I order you to get some sleep right away.’

  It was a cheap and crude way to end the discussion, but Vespasian had made his decision and would no longer brook any questioning of it. But still Cato made one last effort as Macro saluted and turned to quit his commander’s presence.

  ‘Sir, the price of sleep now may be defeat and death tomorrow.’

  Vespasian, who had not slept for over two days, was fractious, and snapped irritably back at his subordinate, ‘Centurion! It is not for you to question my orders!’ He raised his finger threateningly. ‘One more word from you, and I’ll have you reduced to the ranks. Now get out of here.’

  Cato saluted, turned away and marched stiffly to catch up with Macro as they headed back to where their men were resting outside the redoubt. Most were asleep, curled up on their sides, heads pillowed on their bent arms.

  ‘Not very bright of you,’ Macro said quietly.