Simon Scarrow - Under The Eagle

'Well now!' He laughed. 'What a fucking surprise it is to see you again, sir.'

Vitellius wiped his bloody nose on the back of his hand. 'Get your hands off me, Centurion!'

'Get my hands off you?'

'You have to let me go. I've got to get back to the Legion.'

'Listen, you bastard, if you think-'

'There's no time for this!' Vitellius shouted. 'There's a bloody army coming down the track. Nearly rode right into them. I don't think they saw me, but they'll be here soon. I have to tell Vespasian!'

'He's lying, sir,' Pyrax growled. 'Kill him, and let's go.'

'Wait!' Cato interceded. 'We don't even know what he was after yet.'

Pyrax raised his sword. 'Who needs to know?'

'Lower that sword legionary!' Macro ordered. 'Now!'

'Please!' Vitellius begged. 'You have to let me go. I have to warn Vespasian. We've found Togodumnus! If that column surprises the Legion we'll lose thousands. Thousands of our comrades.'

'Comrades!' Pyrax spat at him. 'Comrades don't fucking kill each other.'

For a moment they stood in silence, a tableau of crisis and indecision, Vitellius on his knees, Macro with his fist twisted into the tribune's cloak, a look of bitter contempt etched on his face.

'If there is a column,' Cato said softly, 'the legate has to be warned.'

'There's no fucking enemy column!' Pyrax thumped the butt of his spear down. 'He's just trying to save his skin.'

'Then why ride back towards us?'

'He got lost. Why are we even wasting time on this?' Pyrax turned to Macro. 'Kill him, sir!'

Macro glared down at the tribune for a moment, face hardening into a look of pure disgust and resentment at the predicament the tribune's reappearance had placed him in. Then he thrust his fist hard against Vitellius's chest and the tribune went down flat on his back in the mud.

'Go and warn the Legion. But, make no mistake, when this is all over I'll see to it that the general himself knows what you did here. I'm sure he'll be most keen to find out why a senior officer should want to kill his own men to get hold of that chest. Now go! Go, you bastard, before I change my mind.'

Vitellius scrambled to his feet, jumped on to his horse's back and snatched the reins back from the legionary who stood at the beast's side. Without any delay he kicked his heels in and raced up the track, past the cart, and disappeared into the night.

'Right then! Let's move. If he's told us the truth, there's no time to waste. Let's go!'

'Of course he's not telling the truth!' Pyrax snorted.

'You questioning my decision?' Macro asked coldly.

'I'm telling you, we should have killed him.'

'You call me sir when you address me, legionary!'

'Quiet!' Cato raised his hand. 'Listen!'

The small party froze, every ear straining in the direction Cato pointed. For a moment there was nothing to disturb the soft sounds of the night. Then came a distant whinny, then another, accompanied by the unmistakable crack of a whip as someone shouted a Celtic curse.

From somewhere on the track not far behind them.

It was clear that the Britons would be upon them before they even made the ridge. There was no hope of outrunning the enemy, that much was evident to Macro as he frantically scanned the immediate area, and found a faint possibility of hope.

'Over there!' He thrust his arm out to one of the larger folds in the land away to the left of the track. In the dim light of a new moon the mist forming in the dip had a cold luminosity that was far from welcoming, but it offered the only hope of quick concealment. 'Get the cart off the track, quick as you fucking can!'

As the men turned the horses into the long grass and hurried across the slope towards the hollow, Macro followed and tried to conceal the worst of the grooves the cart had crushed into the wet grass. Praying that the marks would be missed in the dark, and fearing that the Britons might march into view at any moment, Macro dashed after the cart which had reached the rim of the dip and was being man-handled down the reverse slope. The thrumming of shod hooves in the near distance spurred him on and when he reached the dip he threw himself down and lay there for a moment, panting.

The slope was steep and the cart was well below the level of the mist that covered the ground in a thick unbroken layer. Ordering the others to stay with the wagon and make sure the animals and the injured remained silent, Cato scrambled up the slope to join the centurion.

'We were lucky there, sir. Wagon nearly went over when we came down this.' He thumped the slope.

'Really?' Macro said, and yawned before he could help it. Then he flipped himself over and propped his chin up with his hands. 'Keep down, and do nothing… absolutely nothing. On my orders only'

Cato nodded and lay as still as he could, waiting nervously for the enemy to emerge from the swamp. And then, suddenly, a small column of cavalry trotted into the dim moonlight barely a hundred paces away, a blend of man and horse in the dark shadows. Cato was surprised to see British cavalry since Caesar had claimed that they preferred to use their animals for chariots. Either the Great General was wrong or the Britons had finally discovered the value of cavalry. The horsemen fanned out on either side of the track and trotted up towards the ridge. The left-flank scout passed within twenty paces of their hiding place and Macro and his optio pressed themselves into the ground, hardly daring to breathe. Their tired eyes strained to detect any sign that the passage of their cart across the slope had been discovered. But the scout passed by without breaking his pace.

From the swamp came the sound of jingling and a dark mass of chariots and infantry spilled out on to the track and snaked their way up the slope. The chatter of their queer lilting language carried softly to the ears of the terrified Romans and Cato found himself comparing the sound favourably with the harshness of the German he had grown used to. A sharp order was given as a chariot passed down the line, and the column obediently fell silent until the chariot had passed beyond the line of scouts and over the brow of the hill, then laughter rippled down the line and they continued talking as before.

There seemed to be no end to the soldiers streaming from the marsh, and now the head of the dark mass had passed over the hill. On and on they came, until at long last the rearguard emerged from the swamp. Macro and Cato watched as the last ranks of the enemy marched over the crest of the hill and merged into its dark silhouette as they passed out of sight down the reverse slope.

'How many do you think there were, sir?' Cato whispered, as if afraid his words might yet carry to the ears of the Britons.

Macro looked down at the small stones he was clutching in his hand and quickly counted them up. 'Say the equivalent of twenty cohorts, that's…'

'Nine thousand!' Cato whistled.

Macro silently did the necessary maths for himself and nodded. 'More than enough for Vespasian to worry about. Not to mention the chariot force. If that lot gets the drop on the legate…'

'Then it's up to Vitellius.'

'Yes,' Macro replied simply. 'Vitellius… Look, we'd better get moving. With that lot on the scene we'd better abandon the cart. Bury the chest here, lose the cart somewhere else and use the horses to circle round the column and rejoin the Legion.'

'Bury the chest? After all we've been through?'

'You want it to be captured? Or worse, you want to be captured with it?'

'No, sir.'

'Well then, we'll have to leave it here and return for it, if we ever get back to the Second in one piece.'

– =OO=OOO=OO-=

It was clear that the horse was badly winded and would drop if he drove it any further. Vitellius swerved off the track and dismounted in the shadows of an ancient grove whose leaf-laden branches stretched out on all sides. While his mount snorted and gasped at the cool night air, Vitellius cursed in anger and frustration. That bloody chest had nearly been in his hands. An emperor's ransom – enough to fund the most lavish of political careers; an endless source for buying the favours of senators and soldiers alike. Maybe enough to buy him the loyalty of the Praetorian Guard. Certainly the services of the Praetorian agent Pulcher had been reasonably priced and the man had been sufficiently impressed by gold to rid himself of any inconvenient principles. And buying the services of the Syrians earlier that day had been easy, once Vitellius had passed himself off as a close friend of Scribonianus.