The Eagles Prey

'He said that, did he?'

'Yes, sir. Exactly that.'

'Right then.' Maximius pressed his lips together for a moment as he fixed the native with a look of utter contempt. 'That's enough of this bollocks. Tell him that if I want his bloody hospitality then I'll take it, as and when I like. Tell him he and the rest of his people will do exactly what I say, if they want to live.'

Once the legionary had finished, the locals looked at each other in shock.

Then the cohort commander pointed at the small crowd behind the chief.

'That woman, and those brats. They his family?'

The chief nodded after the translation.

'Macro, seize them! Take five sections and prepare to escort 'em back to our camp. There'll be a few more in a moment.'

'Seize them?' Macro was almost as shocked as the villagers. 'Why, sir?'

'Hostages. I want these savages to co-operate.'

Macro felt torn between his distaste for what Maximius was doing and his duty to obey orders. 'Surely… surely there's other ways we can win them round, sir?'

'Win them round?' Maximius snorted. 'I don't give a steaming shit about them. Got that? Now carry out your orders, Centurion!'

'Yes… sir.' Macro summoned forty men from the head of the column and strode briskly up to the chief's family. He hesitated a moment and then pulled a woman and her three children out from the rest and firmly steered them in between the two lines of legionaries. At once there was a chorus of angry shouts from the villagers. The woman twisted in Macro's grip and looked back at the chief. The old man took a pace forward, stopped and clenched and unclenched his fists helplessly, and as she cried something to him, he grimaced and shook his head. Once there was a screen of legionaries between the woman and the rest of the villagers Macro released her arm, looked her in the eyes and pointed to the ground. 'Stay!'

Centurion Maximius turned to his translator. 'Tell him, I want one child from each family in the village brought here to me right now. If anyone tries to conceal their children, then I'll crucify the entire family. Make sure he understands that.'

The angry grumbling from the villagers turned to a groan of horror and despair as the words were translated. Some of the men started to shout at the Romans, faces wild with rage and hatred. The chief dared not let the confrontation develop a moment longer and hastily stepped into the narrowing space between the villagers and the edgy legionaries. He raised his arms and tried to calm his people down. A while later the noise had subsided to a low undercurrent of bitterness mixed with the sobbing of many of the women and children.

'Tell him to get a move on!' Maximius snapped. 'Before I have to make an example to prove I mean what I say!'

The villagers moved to carry out his orders and as Macro watched with a growing sense of disgust and pity, the families brought out their children and handed them into the rough grasp of the legionaries. Nearly thirty of them stood cowering between the lines of Romans, hemmed in by their broad shields and cowed by their humourless expressions. Some of the children screamed and wailed, writhing in the iron grasp of the soldiers.

'Shut them up!' Maximius bawled out.

One of the optios raised his fist and punched a young boy, no more than five, in the side of the head. At once his screaming sobs ceased as he collapsed, stunned. A woman shrieked and leaped forward, ducking between two legionaries, and making for the child lying sprawled on the ground.

'Leave that brat alone!' Centurion Maximius stormed over to her. The woman, crouched over her son, turned her head to look up at the Roman officer. Macro saw that she was young, no more than twenty, and had piercing dark brown eyes and rich golden blonde hair in two plaits. Her face contorted into a look of contempt and she spat on Maximius' boot. There was a rasp of steel, a glint of a blade biting through the air, a wet crunch and then a thud as the woman's head hit the earth and rolled towards the chief. Her child, recovering from the blow, was drenched with jets of his mother's blood and screamed.

'Oh shit…'Macro muttered. Then he felt a warm spurt on his shin and he stepped back quickly.

For a moment there was only the sound of the boy's shrieks, until Maximius kicked the corpse over, away from the child and leaned down to wipe his blade on her tunic. He sheathed it and stood erect, glaring round at the villagers. A man stumbled forward through the crowd, hands balled into fists, teeth-clenched, but was instantly restrained by several of his people, holding him back as he writhed in their hands. Maximius sneered at him, then pointed a finger at the small crowd.

'Tell them, that's what will happen to anyone who defies me. There will be no warning,just death. Tell the chief he's to come with us when we leave. I will give him a list of our needs back at the camp.'

The First Century turned about and, with a terrified mob of screaming children pressed together between the legionaries, the column marched away from the village, back down the slope towards the stream. The villagers followed them through the gate, and a short distance down the slope, numbed into silence by their despair. Macro felt sick, and tore his gaze away from them as he glanced around the valley. Was this the same valley that had been so easy on his eyes as he marched down its length only a brief while before? The age-long serenity of this valley of farmers had been bloodily shattered in the space of a few hours by the men of Rome. Nothing would be the same here ever again.

05 The Eagles Prey

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The men were beginning to be openly resentful of him, and Cato wondered how long it would be before the sentiment turned into something far more deadly. They had been hiding in the marsh for ten days now, and the lack of food left a gnawing agony in their bellies that preoccupied their minds above all else. The last meal they had eaten had been some days earlier – a small pig that they had found wandering along a narrow path. When the animal had been speared and killed, Cato had heard someone calling out nearby and, creeping forwards with Figulus, he discovered a small farm on a patch of arable ground that barely rose above the level of the surrounding marsh. There were two or three families working the land from a huddle of small huts. Outside the nearest hut sat a young man and his plump wife, playing with two small children, one of them not yet on his feet. To one side of the hut there were two pens, one with chickens and the other contained a large sow and several suckling pigs. There was a small opening in the side of the pig-pen.

'That explains our find,' the optio whispered. 'Now, if only one or two more get it into their heads to go and explore the wide world, we can eat like kings.'

'Don't get your hopes up. They'll miss that pig soon. We'd better get out of here.'

As Cato made to shuffle back his optio grasped him on the shoulder.

'Wait… sir.'

Cato turned to give his companion a cold look. 'Get your hand off me.'

'Yes, sir.'

'That's better. What is it?'

Figulus nodded towards the farmer and his family, just as the eldest child's laughter shrilled out in the warm afternoon air. 'There's only one man there.'

'Only the one we can see,' Cato agreed cautiously.

'All right then, sir. Even if there's another inside the hut, we can still take 'em.'

'No.'

'Kill them, hide the bodies and take our pick of the animals.' The optio fixed his gaze on the sow, grunting contentedly in her pen. 'That lot could feed us for a week, sir.'

'I said no. We can't risk it. Now let's go.'

'What risk?'

'The moment anyone comes visiting and finds the place deserted, they'll raise the alarm. The locals will be all over us. So, we don't take the risk. Understand me, Optio?'

There was no mistaking the centurion's tone, and Figulus nodded and carefully crawled back, away from the small farmstead into the reeds. When they rejoined the small party of hunters Cato had brought along, the piglet had already been gutted and impaled on one of the spears for the march back to the camp. At the sound of their approach Cato was glad to see them stop gloating over their kill and snatch up their weapons. The tense expressions relaxed as their officers emerged from the marsh and stood, dripping, on the narrow track. Metellus looked at him hopefully.