Cato grounded his standard.
‘You wish to speak, Roman?’ Caratacus asked in his accented Latin.
‘I do.’ Cato gestured towards the nearest bodies lying on the slope. ‘Last night’s assault cost you dearly. I wish to discourage you from wasting any more of your men’s lives in such futile attacks.’
‘I thank you for your concern,’ Caratacus responded flatly. ‘But I have every intention of taking your fort and burning it to the ground.’ He gestured towards the sky and a smile flickered across his lips. ‘Weather permitting.’
‘You cannot take the fort. It is too strong a position and you have no siege train, nor the expertise to make the weapons you require to batter down our defences.’
‘All we need is a decent ram. Even an uncivilised barbarian has the wit to construct one of those, as you have seen.’
‘Yes, I admired the rudimentary handiwork of the ram we captured. The gate has now been blocked up, so any more rams you decide to make will be useless. All that’s left is to mount frontal assaults. And we have seen how that ends.’
‘We took our losses,’ Caratacus admitted. ‘But so did you, and I rather suspect that I can afford to lose more men than you can. Besides, many of my followers have kin in these valleys and their hearts burn with desire to avenge themselves on those you have slaughtered. It is my intention to keep attacking Bruccium until it is destroyed and every Roman inside its walls is killed.’
For a moment Cato pondered explaining that this was the work of Quertus, but he realised that would make no difference to men who viewed all Romans as brutal oppressors. He sighed.
‘I feared that is how you would respond, sir.’ Cato raised the standard twice, the signal he had agreed with Macro earlier. Caratacus started suspiciously.
‘What trickery is this?’
‘No trick, I assure you. You know that we hold prisoners, your brother Maridius amongst them. If you look there, on the wall to the left of the gatehouse, you will see them in a moment.’
Both men watched as a line of men and a few women shuffled out along the parapet under the guard of Macro and some legionaries. Leading them was the tall, proud figure of Maridius. As soon as he saw Caratacus he called out, and Macro quickly strode across and slapped him hard across the face.
‘Keep your barbarian mouth shut!’
Cato winced at the violent silencing of the man and saw Caratacus’s expression darken. He cleared his throat and spoke loudly to the enemy commander. ‘I want you to know that if you launch another assault on my fort, I will execute ten of my prisoners, out here, in full view of your army, and mount their heads on the gatehouse to remind you of your folly. If that fails to deter you, the next time it will be your brother. Only in his case I will be sure to make his death long and painful. He’ll be crucified on top of the wall. I’ve heard that it can take a man three days to die on the cross. Maridius, as you know, is a fine warrior. Strong and tough. He’ll be sure to go the distance before he’s done.’ Cato spoke in a cold, calculating tone, determined to conceal any hint of his disgust for the image he was painting.
‘So, this is Roman civilisation,’ Caratacus sneered. ‘Your ways amount to little more than the enactment of cruel spectacles. Just as I had been taught.’
Cato shook his head. ‘This is not civilisation. This is war. You threaten to slaughter me and my men. It is my duty to do whatever is necessary to prevent that. You leave me no choice.’
‘I see.’ Caratacus’s eyes narrowed shrewdly and he stared at Cato for a moment. ‘I sense that your heart does not stand behind your words, Roman. Would you really be prepared to carry out your threat?’
‘If you attack us again, you’ll discover that I act on my promises. This I swear. I will kill your people the instant the first Silurian reaches the ditch in front of my fort. They will die by my own hand.’ Cato stared fixedly into his enemy’s eyes, daring him to believe otherwise. Caratacus stared back and then glanced over Cato’s shoulder towards his brother and the others on the wall.
‘I doubt you have the heart for it.’
‘That is your mistake.’
‘Then let me make you a promise, Roman.’ Caratacus raised his voice so that it carried clearly to those standing on the wall of the fort. ‘If you do as you say and harm those you hold captive, then I swear by all my gods that I will show you and your men even less pity. We will take the fort and if you have killed just one of your prisoners, I will take as many of you alive as possible. Then I will have you flayed alive, one each day, in front of his comrades. You last of all. . Now, I will make you an offer. The same as before. Surrender your prisoners unharmed, and I will allow you free passage from this valley. I am not an unreasonable man. I will give you a day to consider. If you refuse my offer we will attack again. In that event, if you have harmed my brother or the others, you know the fate that awaits you. There will be no more words between us.’ He tugged on his reins, and turned his horse about and trotted back down the slope. Cato watched him for a moment, seized with the urge to call out to Macro to have his men loose a volley of javelins at the enemy commander. With Caratacus dead, the coalition of tribes still resisting Rome would collapse. But the moment passed; Caratacus spurred his horse and was soon well out of range.
Cato sighed with frustration at his hesitation, even though he knew it was not in his nature to be so ruthless as to break the rules of parley. Caratacus had also sensed it, and Cato felt a leaden despair at his failure to conceal his true character. He put the standard against his shoulder and returned to the fort.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The remaining hours of the day were spent preparing for the next attack. The sound of hammers ringing came from the fort’s forge as Macro oversaw the production of caltrops, the small four-pointed iron weapons that were often strewn on the ground in front of Roman battle lines to break up enemy charges. A misplaced foot or hoof that was impaled on a caltrop was enough to cripple a man or horse and take them out of the conflict. There had been none of the devices in the fort’s stores and Macro had to give orders to melt down the stock of spare javelin heads, bridles and the handful of iron bars intended for trading with natives, before Quertus had adopted a more forceful strategy. Smoke billowed from the forge but quickly dissipated in the breeze that accompanied the rain, even before it was swallowed up by the low clouds.
‘The trouble is, we can’t create enough of ’em to make much of a difference,’ Macro explained to Cato as the latter checked on his progress late in the afternoon. The heat in the forge was intense and the farrier and his assistants were stripped down to their loincloths. They sweated over the furnace and took turns at the bellows used to keep the fire sufficiently hot. The melted iron was poured into a hastily prepared mould that produced V-shaped lengths that were joined and beaten together while still glowing red. The centurion mopped his brow and indicated a wooden tub, no more than a quarter full of the dark, spiked weapons. ‘That’ll cover barely a tenth of the length of the front ditch. We’ve got enough material to provide for the rest, but not the other ditches. And besides, what we have won’t be finished for four, maybe five days.’