The Eagles Prey

From the moment of taking up his appointment to command the Second Legion Vespasian had felt at home. Army life was free of the endless deception and obsequious grovelling that characterised political life in the capital. Serving with the Eagles a man was largely in charge of his own destiny and most men rose through the ranks on merit. There was no intricate weaving of self-interested schemes, and schemes within schemes. Instead, a soldier was given a clear-cut task and left to improvise the best method of carrying out his orders. To be sure, there was a distressing amount of paperwork involved, and Vespasian had never had so little time for rest before in his life. Yet, after the few hours of sleep he managed to snatch, he awoke with a fresh sense of purpose, and a feeling that he was doing something with real value, something that genuinely furthered the destiny of his people, and of Rome itself.

Flavia would be delighted when the time came for him to quit the legion, he reflected guiltily. His wife had always regarded the post of legate as an unfortunate formality, to be undergone before her husband rose to high office. The discomforts of life in the fortress on the Rhine had put her off the army for ever, and now she waited impatiently at the family home in Rome. Not alone though, Vespasian smiled. She had little Titus to keep her company, and that boy had become quite a handful, if the tactful sentences in her letters were anything to go by. The lad should keep his wife busy. Too busy for her to be occupied by anything else.

All the quiet joy of the morning faded away as the prospect of a return to the snakepit of politics in Rome loomed in Vespasian's mind. Even here, on the fringe of the known world, surrounded by his soldiers, he felt the tentacles of treachery and peril reaching out from the heart of the Empire to entangle and crush him. There would be no simple life of a soldier for him, Vespasian reflected bitterly. He was a fool to think otherwise. Politics was part of the air that his class breathed and there was nothing he could do to alter that fact.

A movement on the periphery of his vision drew his attention. Vespasian turned and gazed beyond the rampart below, to where the Third Cohort of his legion had finished demolishing their temporary camp and was forming up into a marching column. The vanguard century followed by the colour party, four more centuries, then a small baggage column, and then the rearguard. Less than four hundred men. The cohort looked small after the vast formations he had watched on the other side of the river, and Vespasian regarded it with a peculiar mixture of intense dislike and hope. They had stained the reputation of his legion and only their obliteration would remove the shame. Obliteration, or some great deed that would redeem them in the eyes of their comrades, and the rest of the army. Therein lay the hope. Either way the problem of the uncomfortable presence of the Third Cohort would be solved.

If his plan worked and Caratacus emerged from his hiding place to take the bait, Vespasian knew that it was almost certain that Maximius and his men would be crushed without mercy long before their comrades could close the trap on the enemy.

The legate continued to watch as the centurions called their men to order and then fell into place at the head of each century. The cohort commander made one last inspection of the column and then strode up to the colour party and cupped a hand to his mouth. An instant later the faint sound of the bellowed order to advance carried up to Vespasian, as the column rippled forward.

'Easy does it, sir,' the optio said quietly to Macro, and nodded towards the camp. 'We're being given the once-over by the legate.'

Macro turned to look and saw the distant figure in the watch-tower, taking in the gilded tunic, burnished by the sun's rays, and the red cloak clasped across his shoulders. Even at that distance the broadness of the head and thickness of neck were unmistakable.

'What's he want then?' the optio muttered.

Macro gave a soft, bitter laugh. 'Just making sure he's seen the back of us.'

'Eh?' The optio turned sharply to face Macro and at once the centurion regretted the careless remark. He glanced towards his optio.

'What do you think, Sentius? The old man's so fond of us that he's come to wave goodbye?'

The optio blushed and then shot a look over his shoulder. 'Straighten that front rank! You're bloody legionaries, not a bunch of auxiliary arseholes!'

Macro was not fooled by this attempt by Sentius to cover his embarrassment, but continued to let his optio take it out on the men. There was no harm in keeping the men on their toes. Disgraced they may be, but they were still legionaries, and Macro was determined not to let them forget that for a moment. Still, he was deeply troubled by what lay ahead, and not just because the cohort would be inviting danger. That was part of the job. Maximius had seemed more than a little cold-blooded when he had briefed them the night before. Almost as if this was a chance to wreak a terrible revenge on the distant relatives of those native warriors whom the cohort commander blamed for ruining his reputation.

There would be a terrible reckoning for the natives when the Third Cohort arrived in the peaceful little valley that stretched alongside the marsh. And not just for the men of the cohort, Macro reflected. If Cato and his comrades fell into the hands of the Britons once the cohort had begun its bloody work then the native warriors would be sure to make every Roman captive die a horrible and lingering death.

As the cohort marched stolidly along the native track that led away to the west, Macro glanced back at the fortified camp. He could not help wondering if this was the last time he would ever see the rest of the Second Legion.

He was already certain that he would never see Cato alive again. Pursued by his own side and hiding out from the enemy, the youngster would eventually be found. Cato would then die with a sword in his hand, in the heat of a short bloody skirmish, or be executed in cold blood. He was probably already dead, Macro decided. In which case Macro would soon be joining him in the shadows on the far bank of the Styx.

05 The Eagles Prey

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

' Honorius died during the night,' Figulus muttered as he squatted down beside the smouldering remains of the campfire. Opposite him Cato was sitting on an ancient tree trunk, covered with lichen and bright yellow growths of fungi. Cato clutched one of the Batavian cloaks around his shoulders and tried not to shiver.

'That's the last of them, then.'

'Yes, sir.' Figulus nodded, and then stretched his hands over the grey ashes, smiling faintly as the warmth flowed over his fingers.

'Twenty-eight of us left.' Cato raised his head and looked round the clearing at the huddled forms of his men. A few were already stirring as the thin light shafted through the boughs of the stunted trees. Some coughed and two men talked in low tones, that dropped even further when they noticed the centurion glancing in their direction. The clearing stood in a leafy dell that was surrounded by low hummocks of land on every side. Beyond that lay the marsh, wreathed with mist that rose every night. The fugitives had been lucky enough to stumble on this place the day after their skirmish with the Batavian horsemen. They had left six of their dead with the other bodies and carried the seriously wounded with them, picking their way along meandering trails deep into the marsh. Cato helped his injured as best he could, but one by one they had weakened and died. Honorius had taken a spear deep in the guts. He was strong and had fought grimly to hang on to life, gritting his teeth against the agony of his mortal wound, face glistening with sweat. Now he was still, and Cato could see his body lying stretched out, arms by his sides, as Figulus had left him.