The Eagle and the Wolves

'Oh! Nice touch. Boy should have been a lawyer. Come on, we have to put an end to this.'

Macro led the way back on to the rampart. They noticed several of the native troops eye them in a guilty, furtive ma

'Can you see him?' asked Macro, squinting into the darkness surrounding the ramparts.

'No. Sounds like he's somewhere over… there.' Cato pointed.

Macro nodded to the cluster of legionaries armed with bows and slings along the palisade. 'You there! Try a few shots. Aim for the voice.'

It was hopeless. The odds of hitting Tincommius were little better than trying to toss a pebble down the neck of an amphora at twenty paces, blindfolded. But it might put Tincommius off his stride and undermine his attempt to talk the native troops round. A steady flow of arrows and slingshot arced into the night, and still Tincommius called upon his people. Macro turned back into the town and shouted down towards the supply cart.

'Silva! Get me some trumpets up here, fast as you can!'

'Better hurry,' Cato muttered. 'He's telling them that it was you who attacked Verica.'

'Bastard!'

'… Now he's saying that we're holding the king prisoner, keeping him from his people. All because Verica has had a change of heart and could see Rome for what it really was… That's why we had to remove Verica.'

'Does he really expect them to swallow that load of bollocks?'

'Unless we start countering it, they might.'

Macro cupped his hands. 'Hurry up with those bloody trumpets!'

After a quick look round at the natives listening to the voice of their prince, Macro turned back to Cato. 'You'd better speak to them.'

'Me?'

'Yes, you. Talk 'em round.'

'What should I say?'

'I don't know. Use your head – you're not usually short of things to say. Just make sure whatever it is, you say it louder than Tincommius.'

Cato stood back from the palisade and, desperately trying to remember some of the stirring speeches he had read as a boy, he began to speak. It was not easy translating the high-flown rhetoric of Roman historians into idiomatic Celtic. He stumbled again and again as he tried to address the Atrebatans and persuade them to ignore the traitor Tincommius, and remain loyal to their king, whom the traitor himself had tried to murder. From the darkness, Tincommius called out more loudly, flatly contradicting everything that Cato said. The centurion smiled and renewed his appeal, abandoning any attempt at producing the classic speech style he had been taught by his Greek tutor. He said anything that came into his head, anything that might appeal to the Atrebatans, anything that might prevent them from hearing Tincommius, who was becoming increasingly shrill as he tried to override Cato. But the centurion was tired, and the well of inspiration was quickly drying up. He knew it, and the men on the rampart knew it, and had it not been for the arrival of Silva, carrying an armful of trumpets from the depot, Tincommius might yet have talked most men round.

'That was close,' Cato said hoarsely as Macro handed out the instruments to the confused legionaries.

'Not out of the woods yet, lad,' Macro replied, thrusting a trumpet into the hands of one of his men. The legionary looked aghast, as if someone had just thrust a venomous snake into his hands.

'Don't just bloody gawp at it!' Macro screamed into his face. 'Stick your laughing gear round that and blow for all you're worth. But you start slacking on me and I'll ram it so far down your throat you'll be farting tunes out of it!… Make myself clear?'

'Yes, sir!'

'Right, start playing then.'

The legionaries began to raise up a braying, nerve-rending cacophony into the night sky, and totally drowned out the cries of Tincommius.

'Good!' Macro nodded, hands on hips. 'Keep it up for a while, then have a rest. If the enemy starts his yacking up again, you start blowing. Understood? Carry on.'

He turned to Cato, leaning close to be heard over the din. 'Get the Atrebatans down from the wall. Tell 'em to rest. They'll need all their strength when the morning comes.'

04 The Eagle and the Wolves

Chapter Thirty

At first light Macro passed the order for every able-bodied man to stand to. Cato was to take all the remaining natives into the Wolf Cohort, and Macro gathered a scratch force of legionaries from the depot and assembled them immediately behind the gate as a reserve. Cato sent a man to bring the royal bodyguard down to the gate, and while Macro briefed his men Cato walked round the entire circuit of Calleva's ramparts. The appeals by Tincommius, made throughout the night, had had their effect, and by the time the centurion had returned to the main gate it was clear that upwards of fifty men had quietly slipped over the wall to join the enemy. A thin mist had aided their flight from Calleva, and even now the milky grey wreathed the ground lying beyond the defence ditch. Cato was gratified that few of those who had deserted had been men of the Wolf Cohort. His attempt to learn their tongue and to be more familiar with their ways had paid dividends. It was a shame, he briefly reflected, that Roman policy makers rarely, if ever, learned from such examples. So much bloodshed might be prevented, and the Empire would win a far larger pool of recruits for its far-flung cohorts.

'How many left?' Macro asked, as Cato joined him in the watchtower.

'Apart from the eighty effectives from the legionaries at the depot, there's a hundred and ten left from the Wolves and sixtyfive from your cohort. Plus the king's bodyguard, that's another fifty or so.'

'Can we count on them?'

Cato nodded. 'Their loyalty is to Verica. They swore a blood oath to protect him.'

Macro's mouth moved in a wry smile. 'Tincommius' oath didn't seem to trouble him unduly. Can we trust Cadminius?'

'I think so.'

'Then where is he?'

'He won't leave the royal enclosure. Or let any of his men.'

'Why not?'

'He says they must guard the king.'

'Guard the king?' Macro slammed his fist down on the rail. 'They'd be far more fucking use guarding him out here!'

Cato waited a moment, before speaking quietly. 'I tried to explain that to Cadminius, but he wouldn't budge.'

Macro quickly glanced round the ramparts, surveying the solitary figures spread out along the palisade. 'Barely half a cohort all told… Not enough. Not nearly enough.'

Cato gazed round at the enemy preparations. 'Must be thousands of them out there. And some of our own lads.'

'And there's more to come. Some cavalry turned up while you were gone. Came in from the north-west.'

'We don't have a chance.'

'Thanks for that morale-boosting opinion.'

Cato bit back on the rush of anger that filled his head. Macro was right. He should keep such thoughts to himself. Centurions had no right to contemplate defeat openly. That's what Macro had told him nearly two years ago, when they first met. So the young centurion forced himself to breathe deeply and calm his raging doubts.