The Eagles Conquest

'Keep still, Optio,' a voice whispered so softly he might have mistaken it for a breeze rustling the grass, had the air not been so still. Cato's blood froze at the sound and then he felt anger rising up inside him. This wasn't a proper challenge. What the bloody hell was the man playing at?

'Over here, Optio. Stay low.'

'What's going on?' Cato whispered back.

'We've got company.'

Cato slipped down onto his hands and knees and eased his way through the grass in the direction of the sentry's voice. The sentry, Scaurus, was one of the replacements, a man with a good record, Cato recalled. There he was, dark form squatting on his haunches, javelin held down out of sight. No shield to burden him if he needed to sprint back to the fort. Cato crept to his side.

'What is it?'

Scaurus didn't reply for a moment, and remained quite still, head fixed in one direction, down the slope towards enemy territory. He raised his arm and pointed into the shadows of some tall shrubs growing halfway up the slope. 'There!'

Cato followed his direction but saw only stillness. He shook his head.

'Can't see anything.'

'Don't look, listen.'

The optio tilted an ear towards the shrubs and tried to distinguish any noise that ought not to be there. A single bird whose call he could not recognise sang a melancholy refrain over and over again, and a hunting owl briefly added its mellow hooting before it abruptly fell silent.

Cato gave up. Whatever was out there had either gone or more likely, had 'Imply been the product of Scaurus' imagination. He made a mental note to ensure that Scaurus was given only tower duties from now on. At that moment something snorted down in the shrubs. A horse.

'Hear that?' said Scaurus.

'Yes.'

'Want me to go down and look?'

'No. We wait here. See who it is.'

It might be a Roman scout, lost on patrol and unaware how near he had wandered to his own lines. So they waited, stiftly poised, heightened,cnses straining for further sign of the intruder. The owl called out again, louder this time, and Cato was about to curse it when there was a disturbance down the slope, and a dark shape detached itself from the shrubs: a man leading a horse. He drew the animal up the slope, almost in line with Cato and Scaurus, so that he must pass within ten feet of them. The horseman came on, carefully picking his way in case the ground,'ontained any obstacles that might trip him up and attract unwanted attention. The footfall of the horse was much more obvious, a dull scuffing clomp as it followed its rider, oblivious of the need for secrecy. When the rider was no more than twenty feet away, Cato nudged Scaurus and whispered, 'Now.'

The sentry leaped to his feet, javelin arm raised and moving smoothly back into the throwing position as he called out his challenge. Cato moved out to one side, sword drawn, ready to fight.

'Stand still and be recognised!'

The rider jumped back with a cry of alarm, causing the horse to shy off to one side with a frightened whi

'Don't let him get away!' Cato screamed.

There was a blur of movement and a sickening thunk. The rider cried out and for a moment reeled in his saddle. Then he folded to one side and, head first, rolled off his horse. The beast reared up, nearly toppling back onto its rider, before twisting to one side at the last moment and galloping back down the slope and into the night. The grass rustled briefly as Cato and Scaurus sprinted over to the rider. He lay on his back gasping for breath, the shaft of the javelin embedded in his stomach. He cried out a few words in a strange tongue before he passed out.

'Want me to finish him off, Optio?' asked Scaurus as he braced his foot on the man's chest and pulled out the javelin with a wet sucking noise.

Vitellius was about to make another owl call when he heard the sentry's challenge. Instantly he flattened himself into the grass, heart pounding as he tried to hear what was going on.

'Don't let him get away!'

A sharp cry of pain splintered through the dark night, then came the sound of hooves pounding swiftly into the distance, until only low voices and moaning could be heard. More heartbeats passed before he risked raising his head above the grass for a quick glance. Swiftly sca

There was no doubt about it then: Nisus had been caught trying to cross back over the Roman lines. Vitellius bit back on the oath that nearly sprang to his lips and thumped the ground angrily, Bloody fool! He cursed himself. Bloody stupid fool. He should never have used the Carthaginian; the man was a surgeon, not trained in the arts of espionage. But there had been no one else he could use, he reflected, He had had to make do with an amateur and tonight's catastrophe was the result. It seemed that Nisus had fallen into Roman hands alive. What if the man could be interrogated before he died? And die he would, if not from his injuries then from the stoning he would receive for deserting his unit in the face of the enemy. If Nisus was made to talk then he, Vitellius, would surely be implicated.

The situation was extremely dangerous. Best get back to the camp before he was missed. He desperately needed time to think, time to find a strategy to deal with this predicament.

Crouching low, Vitellius turned down the slope towards the twinkling fires of the army. He had told that dull-witted optio of the Ninth on the gate that he was making an external inspection of the rampart. That would have taken plenty of time, more than enough for him to make his way to the ridge and meet Nisus at the point they had arranged several days earlier.

Now there was no knowing how Caratacus had responded to his plan.

No way of knowing at all, unless he could get to Nisus and speak to him before he died. It was rotteen luck. No he corrected himself, it was rotten pla

Having given the password, Vitellius was re-admitted through the gate. He nodded his thanks to the watch optio and reassured him that the perimeter defences were in excellent order. Slinking back through the lines of tents, Vitellius made his way to his quarters and collapsed on his camp bed fully dressed. He might sleep later, but now he must give thought to the grim situation Nisus' capture had placed him in. That the surgeon would have to be silenced was in no doubt. If the sentry hadn't seen to it already, he himself would. Then he must recover Caratacus' reply from Nisus before the body was searched too thoroughly. Even the best codes could be broken in a matter of days, and the simplicity of the code they had agreed on would be deciphered the moment anyone recognised what they were looking at. If that happened, he could only hope that the message did not include any detail that implicated him directly. If one whiff of his complicity reached the all-smelling nose of Narcissus, he would be quietly, and painfully, executed.

It was a dangerous game that he played. Roman politics had always been dangerous, and the higher one rose, the greater the risks one had to take. That excited Vitellius. Not to the point where he might be careless. He had far too much respect for the intelligence of the other players to ever underestimate them. Fortunately many of his rivals did not return the compliment; they were the kind of people whose intelligence was fatally blighted by their arrogance. Like Cicero, they required regular acknowledgement of their powerful intellects, and it was in those incremental moments of weakness that their ultimate fall was assured. Vitellius had broken this rule just once and then only to persuade Vespasian that the consequences of exposing him would be far more calamitous for the legate than for him. Even so, he still felt he had said too much and vowed never again to say one word more than was necessary.