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For a moment he debated whether to finish him off. The man was dead one way or another: he could expect no mercy from Vespasian if the Roman fleet won the day. The injury to his head looked severe enough to kill him eventually, and yet Cato could not find the resolution within himself to end the pirate's suffering. If it had been a fight Cato would have no compunction about killing his man, and doing it quickly and efficiently with no sentiment. The prospect of killing a helpless man, however, disturbed him. It was irrational to have such perverse scruples, he reasoned with himself as he lifted the man under his shoulders and started dragging him towards the latrine ditch. The pirate groaned feebly as Cato hauled him across the rocky plateau and dumped him on top of his comrade.
Cato turned away quickly and made his way back to the first man, the one he had killed on the path. As he moved the body he saw that the ground was soaked with blood, and there was more splattered across the side of the boulder. Once the body had joined the others Cato cut some strips from a cloak laying outside the shelter and found a water skin before he returned to the path beside the boulder. He worked quickly, dowsing the stains and rubbing them away with the rags, expecting the enemy to arrive any moment. At last he was satisfied that he had done enough to hide the evidence of the fight. The water was already soaking into the path and would soon disappear. In any case, Cato told himself, the pirates would not be expecting any trouble up on the isolated mountain top. The threat they would be guarding against was from the direction of the sea. The mountains that ringed the bay had been hard enough going for Cato and Macro, travelling as lightly as possible. There was little chance that a heavily armed force of soldiers would be able to scale the steep slopes undetected.
Having taken care of the bodies and washed the blood away, Cato took the chance to examine the lookout station more closely. Not far from the shelter the plateau narrowed and dropped away in a precipitous cliff. From its tip it was possible to look far along the coast on either side. The pirates had constructed a crude signal station with a mast, beside which sat a small chest. Cato lifted the lid and saw bundles of brightly coloured material. All quite useless, of course, without any idea of what each pe
He returned to the shelter, picked up the lookouts' spears then went back to the boulder to keep watch down the track that sloped away for nearly a quarter of a mile before disappearing over a small spur thrusting out from the side of the mountain. He set the spears down behind the boulder and eased himself into a position overlooking the track. He would see them coming in plenty of time. He settled down to wait, leaning up against the boulder as the sun rose into the sky and began to bathe the world in its warm glow. The light breeze slowly drove the clouds before it, clearing them away down the coast and revealing for the first time the full distance that could be observed from the top of the mountain.
For a while Cato revelled in the sense of Olympian detachment he felt as he gazed down on the bay at the foot of the mountain rising up opposite his position. Tiny figures swarmed around three ships drawn up on the beach. They had been rolled on to one side and wedged so that an expanse of their underside was clearly exposed. Smoke coiled up from fires twinkling further up the beach and Cato guessed that the pirates must be applying a fresh layer of tar to the bottom of the ships. His gaze slowly travelled along the thin strip of land that linked the beach to the citadel at the end. That was the only viable approach to the citadel since on the other three sides it was protected by sheer rocky cliffs. The landward side was defended by a solid-looking masonry wall with a gatehouse, from which a timber bridge projected across a defence ditch. Behind the wall, a jumble of whitewashed houses climbed up to the highest point of the rocky spur, where a small tower nestled above the sea, twinkling at the foot of the cliff. The pirates must have seized the citadel, or perhaps it had been abandoned long ago. In any case, Telemachus had chosen an excellent location for his base of operations, in every respect save that there was no alternative route out of the bay should an enemy block its entrance. Hence the need for a lookout station with such commanding views of the approaches to the pirate base, Cato realised. The pirates would need plenty of warning if they were to make a clean escape from the bay.
Gazing out to sea Cato caught sight of the tiny triangle of a sail several miles away; some merchant ship no doubt keeping a wary eye out for pirates, blissfully ignorant that they were sailing right by the hidden pirate lair. He was suddenly aware that had he and Macro not intervened, the lookouts would already be signalling the presence of the merchant ship and thereby sealing her fate. He smiled at the thought that there was one prize Telemachus and his pirates were never going to seize.
As the sun climbed to its zenith it grew so warm that Cato discarded his cloak and set it down beside the boulder as he kept watch. Then, shortly before noon, he heard a voice cry out. He drew his sword and tensed up, but quickly realised the sound had not come from down the slope, but from the other direction, towards the lookouts' shelter. Cato turned round and sca
'Shit!' Cato hissed through clenched teeth. He should have killed him earlier. Now he would have to, before the man recovered enough to become a danger, or called out to warn his comrades. But he just watched in horrified fascination as the man tried to climb out of the ditch, lost his grip and slipped back down, out of sight with a cry of pain and frustration. A moment later his head rose over the rim and he tried to pull himself out of the ditch again.
A distant braying caught Cato's ears and he tore his gaze away from the latrine ditch and stared down the slope. At first he could see nothing. Then a man appeared on the track where it crossed the spur. He was leading a mule with two large baskets slung either side. Another mule appeared behind him, then three men carrying spears. Cato felt a sick feeling of dread wreath its way round his stomach as he watched the men slowly climb up the track. There were too many of them. He eased himself back behind the boulder and was about to make for the shelter to set it ablaze when he stopped and looked at the base of the rock more closely, struck by a sudden inspiration. Placing the palms of his hands against the rough surface of the boulder he braced his legs and pushed steadily. For an instant nothing happened, then he felt it shift a little and small pebbles from around its base rattled down the path.
There was another cry from the man in the latrine, louder now. If Cato didn't silence him the men on the track would hear him long before they reached the plateau. Cato took a last glance down the slope to gauge their pace and then turned to run back towards the shelter. He ran on to the latrine and slowed to a walk a few steps from the edge of the trench. The sun had heated the mixture of ordure, urine and blood to a ripe odour and Cato felt his stomach tighten. The wounded man was still crying out as Cato leaned cautiously over the trench.
'Quiet!' he said harshly in Greek.
The man looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Then he opened his mouth and screamed out.