Simon Scarrow - When the Eagle hunts

Cato sighed, and then quickly used the side of his boot to scrape a small mound of snow over the heap of smouldering twigs. With a spit of steam and a hiss the tiny lick of flame was extinguished.

'There. Now get moving, soldier.'

Macro had only just awakened when Cato returned to the Sixth Century's billet. He nodded in response to the orders, and then stretched his shoulders with a deep growl before he turned to bellow at his men.

'Up, you idle bastards! Oh your feet! We're moving out!'

A low chorus of groans and complaints rippled round the ruins.

'What about breakfast?' someone piped up.

'Breakfast? Breakfast is for losers,' Macro replied irritably. 'Now move!'

As the men raised themselves and wearily pulled on their armour, Macro stamped around delivering encouraging kicks to those whose lack of haste was most obvious. Cato hurried back to his marching yoke. Once his mess tin and the rest of the field equipment was securely fastened to the yoke, Cato struggled into his chain mail vest and was fastening his sword belt when a man from one of the other centuries came running up.

'Where's Macro?' the man panted.

'Centurion Macro is over there.' Cato pointed over the remains of a wall and the runner began to move.

'Wait!' Cato shouted. He was angry at the way some of the men of the other centuries were inclined to let their resentment of his youth override the respect due to his rank.

The man paused, then reluctantly turned round to face the optio and came to attention.

'That's better.' Cato nodded. 'You address me as Optio, or sir, next time you speak to me. Understand?'

'Yes, Optio.'

'Very well. You can carry on.'

The man disappeared round the end of the wall and Cato continued to put on his equipment. Moments later the runner reappeared, heading back towards the gate, and then came Macro, looking for his subordinate.

'What's the matter, sir?'

'It's that bloody fool Diomedes. He's done a runner.'

Cato smiled at the apparent foolishness of the statement.

Where would the Greek run to? More importantly, why would he flee the safety of the cohort? 'That's not all,' Macro continued with a grim expression.

'He knocked out one of the lads guarding the Druids, and then gutted them before he disappeared.'

'Hmmm. Not a pretty sight,' Centurion Hortensius muttered.

'Diomedes made a pretty thorough job of it.'

The robes of the Druids had been wrenched aside and each man savagely slashed from groin to ribcage. A tangle of glistening guts and viscera lay in a pool of blood by each man. With a convulsive heave, vomit rose up in Cato's throat and he choked on the bitter taste of it.

He turned away as Hortensius began to brief the other centurions.

'There's no sign of the Greek. Shame, that.' Hortensius's brow creased in anger. 'I'm looking forward to kicking seven shades out of him. No one kills my prisoners unless they've bought them off me first.'

The other officers grumbled their agreement. Prisoners who were to be sold as slaves were won at great personal risk, and were too infrequently come by to be wasted in such a profligate manner, even when vengeance was an issue. If Diomedes reappeared, Hortensius would be sure to insist on compensation.

He raised a hand to still the angry undertone. 'We're heading back to the legion with the other prisoners..There's too many of them to Send back under guard – the cohort would be too weak. And without the Greek to speak for us, I doubt we'd get much of a welcome from the other Atrebate villages we're supposed to visit. So we go straight back.'

It was a breach of orders, but the situation merited it and Macro nodded with approval.

'Now then,' continued Hortensius. 'A few of those bastards and their mounts managed to slip away and you can be sure that they'll be running back to their little mates as quick as boiled asparagus. The nearest Durotrigan hill fort is a good day's ride awiy. If they're going to mobilise a force to come after us, we 'shouldn't be seeing them for at least another day. Let's make'the most of it. Drive your men hard – we've got to put as.much distance between this place and ourselves as possible before tonight. Any questions?'

'What about the bodies sir?'

'What about 'em, Macro?'

'Are we just going to leave them?'

'The Durotriges can look. after their own. I've made arrangements for our dead and the locals. The cavalry squadron has orders to place our men in the well with the locals and fill it in before they.set offafter us. That's the best we can do. There's no time for any funeral pyres. Besides, I believe the local preference is for burial.'

The Romans shuddered with distaste at the thought of subjecting the dead to gradual decay. It was one of the more disgusting practices employed by the less civilised nations of the world. Cremation was a neat and tidy end to corporeal existence.

'Back to your units. We leave at once.'

The sun inscribed a shallow parabola across a clear sky on the second day of the cohort's march back to the Second Legion. The previous night had been spent in a hastily erected marching camp and despite the exhausting effort of breaking up the frozen ground to make the ditch and inner rampart, the cold and fear of the enemy denied sleep to the men of the cohort. From first light Hortensius permitted no rest stops and watched the men like a hawk, swooping to bawl out any legionary who showed signs of slackening his pace, and freely wielding his vine cane if further encouragement was required. Even though the air was cold, and the snow compacted to ice underfoot, the men soon broke into a sweat under the burden of their equipment yokes. The British prisoners, though chained, were unburdened and had the best of it. One, who was wounded in the legs, had dropped out of the column towards the end of the first day. Hortensius stood over him and laid into the Briton with his vine stick, but the man just curled up in a protective ball and would not get up. Hortensius nodded grimly, stuck his vine into the ground and in one sweeping movement drew his sword and cut the Briton's throat. The body was left by the track as the column moved on. No more prisoners had fallen out of line since then.

Without any rest periods to relieve the pressure of the hard yoke poles on the men's shoulders, the march was an agony. The men in the ranks grumbled about their officers in increasingly bitter undertones as they forced themselve to place one foot in front of the other. Not many had slept since the night before the attack on the Durotriges. By early afternoon on the second day, as the sun began to dip towards the smudgy grey of the winter horizon, Cato wondered how much longer he could bear the strain. His collarbone was being rubbed raw under its burden, his eyes were stinging with weariness and every pace sent shooting pains up from the soles of his feet.

Looking round at the rest of the century, Cato could see the same strained expressions etched on every face. Even when Centurion HortensiuS called a halt to the march at the end of the afternoon, the men would have to begin the backbreaking work of preparing a marching camp. The prospect of having to tackle the frozen soil with his pickaxe filled Cato with dread. As so often before, he cursed himself for being in the army and his imagination dwelt on the relative comforts of the life he had previously enjoyed as a slave in the imperial palace in Rome.

Just as he surrendered to the need to shut his eyes and savour the image of a neat little desk close by the warm, flickering glow of a brazier, Cato was snapped back to reality by a sudden cry. Figulus had. stumbled and fallen and was scrabbling to retrieve his scattered equipment. Gratefully dropping out of the column, Cato dumped his pack and helped Figulus back onto his feet.