The Eagles Prey

As if reading the Roman's mind the man who had been ordered to guard him rolled Cato on to his front and, wrenching his hair back the Briton slapped the flat of his dagger blade against the throat of his captive.

'Shhh!' the warrior hissed. 'Or I'll slit you from ear to ear. Got it?'

'Yes,' Cato quietly replied through gritted teeth.

'Good. Keep still.'

They lay still, peering through the long grass that grew under the outermost branches of the trees, and waited. Not for long. Cato saw the red of a legionary shield emerge round a bend in the track. For a moment he felt a desperate longing for the company of his own people. The scout trotted forward, glancing round at the huts as he reached the centre of the farm. The legionary stopped, looked round cautiously, head cocked to one side as if listening, then he backed away, turned, and ran off.

Shortly afterwards the patrol marched into the village, and Cato picked out the crests of a centurion's helmet, and that of an optio. The two officers led their men into the loose circle of huts and halted the patrol. Then the centurion barked out a few orders, sending men running to search the nearest huts. He unbuckled the strap beneath his helmet and lifted it from his head. Cato took a sharp intake of breath as the dark hair and high forehead of Macro came into view. What the hell was Macro doing with such a small patrol? Cato's heart rose at the sight of his friend and he lifted his head to see better. The blade at his throat slid round so that the edge rested on his skin and rasped painfully.

His guard thrust his face close to Cato's and whispered fiercely. 'One more move, Roman, and you die.'

Cato could only watch from afar, in an agony of despair and helplessness as the Romans searched the huts, and Macro glanced round, his gaze sweeping right over Cato and the other men still and hidden just inside the fringe of the copse. There was a muffled shout and Macro turned and hurried inside a large hut. He emerged shortly afterwards, in response to another shout and made his way to the very hut that Cato had been kneeling in shortly before. This time it was longer before he emerged, and Macro walked slowly from the dark entrance, a knuckled fist held to his mouth. For a moment all was quite still, as Macro paused and stared at the ground, shoulders slumped wearily. Then, as Cato and the warriors either side of him watched silently, Macro looked up, stiffened his back and shouted out a string of orders. The men of the patrol trotted over to him, closed ranks and stood facing the copse, waiting for the command to move.

'Patrol!' Macro's parade-ground shout carried clearly to Cato, and the men either side of him tensed up, sword hands immediately reaching for their weapons. Macro's mouth opened wide and the sound reached them an instant later. 'Advance!'

The patrol tramped forward towards the concealed men, and Caratacus glanced towards the man still holding the knife at Cato's throat.

'When I say… kill him.'

The patrol marched up to a small hut, turned round it and began to head off down the track that led away from the farmstead. Caratacus let out a sibilant breath of relief and the warriors' tension eased off as the Roman patrol marched away. Cato could only stare at the backs of the legionaries with a terrible longing.

As they reached the edge of the farm, Macro stopped out of line and let his men file past as he gazed back towards the silent huts one last time. Then he turned away, and moments later the scarlet horse-hair crest of his helmet dipped out of sight behind a thicket of gorse. Cato lowered his head on to his arms and shut his eyes, fighting back waves of black emotions that threatened to engulf him and shame him in front of these barbarians.

A shadow came between him and the sunlit farmland beyond the copse.

'Get up!' Caratacus snapped. 'Back to the camp. I've got something special in mind for you and your men.'

05 The Eagles Prey

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

' So they're still around, then?' mused Centurion Maximius. He looked past Macro, through the tent flap and into the dusk beyond. The sun had just set and he pulled one of the parchment maps across the desk and smoothed it out between himself and Macro. 'This farmstead you were taken to was about… here.'

Macro looked down at the spot the cohort commander indicated and nodded.

'Right. Then we can assume they're somewhere close by. No more than half a day's march, I'd say.'

'Why's that, sir?' asked Macro. He waved his hand across the map in a broad sweep around the tiny sketch that marked the farm's location. 'They could be anywhere.'

'That's true, but not likely.' Maximius smiled. 'Think about it. They're hiding. They won't venture too far simply because they want to avoid natives and Romans alike. They have no access to guides, so they won't be familiar with the paths, and will fear getting themselves lost, or cut off from each other. They'll return to their lair each night, so we can narrow the search to the area around this farm. Assuming it was them who massacred the farmers.'

'Had to be, sir. Injuries were almost certainly caused by short swords. In any case, it's hardly likely that Caratacus and his men would go round bumping off their own people.'

'No…' Maximius tapped his finger on the simple sketch of the farm. 'But it seems a little strange. I didn't have much time to get to know Cato, but massacre, and rape? Doesn't seem like his style.'

'No, it doesn't,' Macro added quietly. 'I don't think he can be responsible for this.'

'Well, somebody was.' The cohort commander looked up.'I thought you knew him well?'

'I thought I did, sir.'

'Could Cato really have done this?'

'No… I don't know… I really don't know. Might have been raiding for food, raised the alarm and then had to mix it with the locals. They got into a fight, and had to put them all to the sword.'

'Is that what it looked like?'

Macro paused a moment to reflect, but after what he had seen at the farm, there was little doubt in his mind. 'No.'

'So Cato, or some of his men, have gone native. Or at least they're pretty desperate. That's good. Should make them easier to deal with, when the time comes.'

Macro raised an eyebrow. 'When the time comes, sir? I thought that was the reason we were here.'

'And so it is!' Maximius laughed lightly. 'Although it has been a good opportunity to teach the locals how to behave.'

Macro stared at him. If the brutality of the last few days was a lesson to the natives, then what exactly had they learned about their new masters? That Rome was as cruel and brutal as any horde of barbarians. That, Macro reflected cynically, was hardly likely to foster good relationships with the locals over that vital period when Roman laws and Roman rule were being established in the new province. The local tribe was getting brutalised by Maximius on the one hand and raided and massacred by Cato and his fugitives on the other. All of which could only strengthen their resolve to aid Caratacus and his warriors. Maximius had done a blinding job of bolstering support for the enemy all right.

And as for Cato… for a moment Macro could not think. He was sure that he had known Cato well, but the massacre at the farm was the work of another kind of man. The two memories did not sit well together. But then again, not much made sense to him at the moment. The decimation of the cohort as punishment for being pushed aside by overwhelming odds. The perverseness of fate for selecting the blameless Cato for execution when it was Maximius who bore the responsibility for the escape of Caratacus. Now this unaccountable cruelty of Maximius towards the natives of this valley, matched only by Cato's heartless slaughter of the farmers and their families. It was as if reason itself had been driven from the world. With a chilling sense of foreboding it occurred to Macro that he lived at the whim of maniacs.

Maniacs like Centurion Maximius, who was grinning at him now. 'I tell you, Macro, it's all working out very nicely indeed. Soon the locals won't even be able to take a shit without wondering how we'll react. They'll hate us more than they've hated anything before in their miserable lives. If they find Cato and the others before we do, then you can be sure they'll show those bastards even less mercy than we will.'