‘What did he say?’ Ostorius asked calmly.

‘He said that the Iceni have been spending too long in the company of Romans. They are, ah, beginning to stink like Romans.’

Macro chuckled softly. ‘That’s rich. Coming from a bog-hopping, hairy-arsed barbarian.’

Cato glanced at him. ‘Shhh . . .’

With a sudden, harsh cry the Druid wheeled his shaggy mount round and rode back to the head of the column. He gestured to Ostorius to follow him as he trotted away from the outpost towards the distant fires. The night air was filled with the thud of hoofs and the chink of the bits of the horses and the armour of the riders.

‘He’s going too fast,’ Tribune Decianus complained. ‘It’s madness in this darkness.’

‘If he can do it, then so must we,’ Cato called back to him.

Soon the grass beneath gave way to the packed earth of a track and Cato realised they must have rejoined the route from Calleva, and his concern for the safety of their horses abated a little.

Ahead of them the track passed through a small wood before climbing to the crest of a low ridge. The Druid, more familiar with the track, had stopped to let them catch up and as Cato’s mount slowed and crested the rise, he saw the sacred stones of Avibarius in the shallow vale below him. The spectacle caught his breath. An avenue of fires, half a mile long and some fifty feet wide, stretched across a levelled strip of ground. On either side he could make out the pillars of stone, lit a lurid red by the fires spaced between them. At the end of the avenue was a ring of earth, within which stood yet more stones, and more fires blazed from the top of the earth embankment. An open gateway stood at the point where the avenue pierced the earthworks and on the opposite side of the ring stood two monumental obelisks with a slab laid across their tops. Before it lay a large stone altar, barely visible even by the light of the flames, due to the blood that had stained it across uncounted years. A steady stream of figures was making its way down the avenue towards the gateway. The Druid gestured towards the near end of the avenue where hundreds of people and horses milled in an open area and urged his mount on.

They rode down a gentle slope and soon reached the throng, which instantly drew aside at the sight of the Druid, and those that followed him. As they made their way through the natives, Cato was aware of hundreds of eyes watching them pass. But there was no shout of greeting, or any cries of hostility hurled at the Roman governor and his retinue, just a silence that surrounded them as they rode towards the start of the avenue. There the Druid halted and slipped down from the back of his horse. Several boys darted forward to take the reins of the new arrivals and once the Roman governor and the others were ready, the Druid waved them on with a curt word of command and entered the avenue.