Cato felt a drop of rain fall on the hand holding the reins and looked up at the sky. A band of dark clouds was blowing in across the mountains, bringing a downpour with it. He pulled up the hood of his cloak and hunched down inside the thick folds of the material. More drops fell and soon the rain closed in around the riders, hissing as it spattered off the ground and turned the surface of the track into a glistening stream of mud.

‘You know,’ Macro grumbled, ‘it’s times like this when I wonder if it might not be better to leave these particular Elysian fields to the locals. Why the fuck does Claudius want to add this miserable pit to the empire?’

‘Macro, you know how it is. We don’t get to ask the questions. We’re here because we’re here, and that’s all there is to it.’

Macro laughed. ‘Finally, you’re learning.’

The rain continued to fall for the rest of the day without let-up. As the pallid light began to fade, the landscape of the upper valley gave way to what had once been cultivated land. Abandoned farms spread out on either side of the track. Some clusters of huts still stood, empty with no smoke rising from their hearths. Others had been burned leaving ugly blackened ruins rising up from the ground like the rotten teeth of an old hag. About them lay neglected fields, overgrown with weeds and wild barley. Close to the track, in the long grass, Cato spied the remains of animals, weathered pelts hanging over bone, lying where they had been slaughtered. There were the corpses of people as well, wizened, blackened faces stretched over skulls with empty eye sockets. More evidence of the handiwork of Quertus and his men.

The track reached the bank of a narrow river and followed its course as the rain exploded off the surface of the water like a shower of silver coins. A few miles further on, as the last of the daylight began to fade, the riders at last came in sight of the fort of Bruccium. Cato sat up in his saddle and stared ahead. From Trebellius’s earlier description he already had some idea of what to expect and he saw that the site had been well chosen indeed. The course of the river ran around the low hill upon which the fort had been built, providing a natural defence along three sides. An attacker would have to abandon any notion of assaulting the turf ramparts overlooking the steep slopes that fell down to the riverbank. On the fourth side the fort was protected by a ditch in front of the rampart.

‘Impressive,’ Macro conceded. ‘Caratacus hasn’t much hope of taking Bruccium.’