The surviving legionaries and Decimus and his men had been joined by a handful of mule drivers as they stood on the track guarded by several of the rebels. There they had been securely bound as Mandracus ordered the rest of his men to strip the bodies of undamaged armour and weapons. Any wounded Romans had their throats cut, while the injured rebels were carefully loaded on to the carts and wagons. The dead were carried into the villa, where a pyre was built using any combustible material left from the morning raid.

By the time the rebels were ready to move out it was dusk and the snow had stopped falling. A pale blue hue hung across the valley, where the dark forms of bodies and pools of blood lay either side of the track. The lurid red flames rising from the stockade added to the sombre scene, and Marcus shivered miserably as he and the others awaited their fate in silence. Mandracus took a last look around and swept his arm along the track.

‘Move out!’

Marcus waited until the man ahead of him lurched forward, and hurriedly marched a few feet to give himself some slack, then concentrated on maintaining the gap. He thought it strange that Mandracus was leading them in the direction of Caesar. With a brief flicker of hope, he wondered if Caesar might send a message back to the baggage train, so the rider would see them and raise the alarm with the main column. Then, no more than a mile along the track, Mandracus turned off, taking a smaller path that meandered through a forest and headed into the heart of the mountain range.

They stopped for the night in an abandoned village, where the prisoners were herded into a small sheep pen and left with-out food or water. Around them the rebels found shelter in what remained of the houses and huts of the silent village. No fires were lit, but as night fell the sky cleared and the stars shone like tiny shards of ice.

Marcus explored the pen and found a corner out of the wind containing the musty remains of a pile of straw. He pulled as much of it over his body as he could with his bound hands and sat hunched over his knees, shivering. One by one the other men settled down to endure the freezing night as best they could.

It was impossible to sleep and, in any case, Marcus knew that sleep was dangerous. Titus had told him that once, recalling a campaign he had fought in the mountains of Macedonia. Pompeius’s army had been forced to spend several nights in the open and there were men who fell asleep never to wake again. Come dawn their comrades discovered them frozen stiff. Marcus was not going to let the same thing happen to him. As soon as he felt his eyelids droop he sat up stiffly and pinched his cheeks hard.