Macro and Cato stood to attention, saluted and then turned to leave. Ostorius stared down at the piles of records and reports at his feet for a moment and then rose slowly from his stool and walked stiffly to the narrow campaign cot that had been set up by the wall. Easing himself down, he lay on his side, still wearing his boots, and pulled his cloak over his body as best as he could before he fell into a troubled sleep.

‘What do you make of him?’ Macro asked when they were a short distance down the corridor outside the governor’s office.

Cato glanced round and saw that there were no clerks near enough to overhear his remarks. ‘He’s at the end of his tether. Worn out by his duties. But I’ve heard that he’s as tough a commander as any.’

Macro shrugged. ‘Being tough does not make you immune to age. I know that well enough. I ain’t as fast in a fight as I used to be. Comes to us all in the end.’

Cato shot him a look. ‘Just don’t let it come to you while you’re fighting at my side. Last thing I need is some old codger guarding my flank when we get stuck into the enemy.’

‘That’s pretty ungrateful, given how I had to nursemaid you through your first battles when you were a green recruit.’ Macro laughed and shook his head. ‘I’d never have guessed then that you’d turn out to be quite the soldier.’

Cato smiled. ‘I learned from the best.’

‘Shut up, lad. You’ll make me cry.’ Macro chuckled. Then his expression hardened. ‘Seriously though. I have my doubts about our new general. The way he looks now, a few months in the field will kill him off. Right in the middle of the campaign.’

‘Not if he can negotiate a peace with Caratacus. Or at least with enough tribes to islolate him.’

‘What chance do you think there is that Caratacus wants peace?’

Cato thought back to the small hut in which he had been questioned by Caratacus. He remembered all too vividly the determined gleam in the Briton’s eyes when he said that he would die rather than bow to Rome.

‘If I was a betting man, I’d give you odds of a hundred to one against.’

‘And I’d say those are generous odds, my friend.’ Macro clicked his tongue. ‘We’re in for a tough time of it, Cato. Just for a change.’

‘Nothing we can do about it.’

‘Oh yes there is!’ Macro grinned. ‘You heard the man; there’s all the delights of Londinium awaiting us.’ His expression became a little anxious. ‘Just as long as you don’t let on to my mother, eh?’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘Well, boys, what do you think of this place?’ Portia asked as they took a table close to the inn’s fireplace. It was the evening of their third day in Londinium and she was accompanied by her son and Cato. Just for a change it was raining again, a steady downpour angled by a stiff breeze that lashed the streets of Londinium, pattered off the few tiled buildings and ran off the thatched roofs of the rest. The inn had once been a large barn before it had been extended with outbuildings that formed a modest courtyard in front of the entrance. A gate opened out on to a wide street that stretched from the quay on the Tamesis up to the site of the basilica complex. Despite the weather the street was busy and the rattle of cartwheels and the braying of mules could be clearly heard over the hiss of the rain.