Cato 05 - The Eagles Prey (36 page)

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 there 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.