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The gate to the Druid enclosure was open and through it Cato could make out a number of smaller huts, and more Druids crouched around small fires, all swathed in their black cloaks. But the gateway was small, so the view was limited. Cato worked his way as close to the gate as he dared, moving along the line of the pens until he was fifty paces from the enclosure. Every so often he risked a glance towards the gate trying not to make it obvious that he was looking. At first the guards ignored him, but then one of them must have decided Cato had lingered too long. The guard lifted his spear and slowly walked over.
Cato turned to the nearest pen, as if he had not seen the man, and leaned on his pitchfork. His heart beat wildly, and he was aware of a tremor in his arms that had nothing to do with the cold. He should make a run for it, he thought, and could almost feel the cold shaft of steel at the end of the Druid's spear flying through the night to take him in the back as he fled. The thought filled his mind with terror. Yet what if the man spoke to him? The end would surely be the same.
He could hear the Druid's footfall now, then the man called out to him. Cato shut his eyes and swallowed, then turned as casually as he could. This would really test Prasutagus's disguise; never before in his life had Cato felt so Roman.
No more than ten paces away the Druid shouted something at him, and jabbed his spear towards the distant hutments of the Durotriges. Cato stood and stared, wide-eyed, and tightened his grip on the pitchfork. The Druid shouted again and paced towards Cato angrily. When Cato stood, fixed to his ground and trembling, the Druid roughly swung him round and kicked him on the backside, launching him away from the enclosure towards the peasants tending the other animals. There was a chorus of harsh laughter from the other guards at the gate as Cato scrambled away on all fours. At the sight of his buttocks, the Druid thrust his spear after the youngster, and only just missed as Cato found his feet and sprinted off. The Druid shouted something after him, provoking another roar of laughter from his comrades, and then turned and went back to his post.
Cato ran on, through the pens, until he was sure he was out of sight of the Druids. Squatting down, he struggled to get his breath, terrified yet exhilarated by his escape. He had found the Druid enclosure easily enough, but now he had to find some way into it. He rose and peered over the pens, through the steamy breath rising from the closely packed animals, towards the wall of the enclosure. Unless his eyes deceived him, it bowed out slightly, and the gate was slightly over to one side. If he could approach along the foot of the hill fort's palisade on the far side of the bulge, he might find a way over the wall, out of sight of the Druids on the gate.
Cato worked his way back through the pens towards the drain, until he was two hundred feet away from the guards. The ground around the pens was devoid of grass, and presented an expanse of churned up mud. Cato dropped to his stomach and, hugging the ground, began to inch his way around the pens to where the wall of the enclosure butted up against the palisade. The wooden stakes had been shortened so that they would end-flush against those of the palisade. There, if anywhere, would be a place he might find a way into the enclosure.
Cato forced himself to move slowly, making no swift movement that might catch the eye of the guards. If they caught him again there would be no horseplay this time. It seemed to take hours, but at last Cato was beyond the curve of the enclosure, out of sight of the guards and he could risk a quick rush over to the angle in the walls. With a last quick check towards them, he rose to his feet and ran the remaining distance to where the wall met the palisade, crouching down and pressing himself into the shadow at its base. Then another glance round. No sign he had been seen. He crept up the ramp to the palisade and looked over the top of the wall.
Inside the enclosure there were scores of Druids, not merely the handful he had been able to glimpse by their fires. Many were asleep on the ground, and Cato assumed there were yet more in the huts lining the inside of the enclosure. Several others were awake, at work on timber structures that were not unlike the frames of legionary catapults. The Druids were evidently fashioning their own crude form of artillery. His eyes searched the enclosure, but the general's wife and son might be in any of the huts. Refusing to give way to despair, Cato sca
Cato's heart sank at the sight of the wretched prisoners. There was no way to get to them, no way at all. The moment he tried to pull himself up and over the wall he would be seen. Even if, by the most incredible miracle, he wasn't, then how could he alone get them out of the cage? Fate had seen fit to permit him to advance this far in his attempt, and now no further.
Cato lowered himself, knowing there was no way he could reach the hostages without getting himself killed. He had always known this was a fool's errand, but the confirmation of it was no less hard to bear. There was nothing more he could do. He had to leave at once.
He made his way back to the drain hole as carefully as he had approached the enclosure. When Cato was sure that he was unobserved, he leaned through the opening.
'Prasutagus…' he whispered.
A shadow rose from the slope and slid towards him. When the Iceni warrior had positioned himself beneath the hole, Cato dropped down, missed his grip and tumbled towards the gully. A powerful fist closed about his ankle and yanked him to a stop, scarcely a foot above the turds and urine trickling down the steep sides of the gully. Prasutagus swung him back onto the grass and collapsed beside him a moment later.
'Thanks,' Cato panted. 'Really thought I was in deep shit there.'
'You find them?'
'Yes,' Cato replied bitterly, 'I found them.'
Chapter Thirty-Three
The Second Legion arrived the following day, at noon. From the tree they had been using as a watchtower Cato saw a thin screen of horsemen approaching the Great Fortress from the east. Although there was no way of being sure of their identity from such a distance, the dispersal was characteristic of the scouts sent forward in advance of a Roman army. Cato gri
'Easy, man,' Cato grunted, tightening his grasp. 'You want everyone to know we're here?'
Prasutagus stopped a few branches lower than Cato, and pointed towards the hill fort. The legion's scouts had been seen by the enemy as well, and the last of the Durotrigan patrols was marching up to the main gate. Soon, all the natives would be bottled up in their fastness, confident that they would defy the Roman attempt to seize the Great Fortress. There was no risk to Cato and Prasutagus now; the burden of concealment was lifted from them, and Cato relented.