It began to rain shortly after dawn and Glevum disappeared behind a grey veil of drizzle as the riders hunkered down inside their cloaks and urged their mounts along the track that led towards the distant line of hills. Macro and Decimus had visited the vicus the night before and shared a few jars of cheap wine in one of the simple inns. Cato had remained in headquarters, searching the records office for as much information as he could find about his new unit, and the officer temporarily in command of it. The Thracians had performed creditably in the years they had been posted to Britannia but in the last few months they had accounted for more of the enemy than they had in the previous eight years.

As for Quertus, there was nothing on record that revealed any more than Quintatus had already told him – except for one minor complaint from the previous commander of the Thracians. Following a skirmish on the banks of the Severnus, prefect Albinus had issued an order for Quertus to escort their captives to Glevum. They never reached the fortress. According to Quertus they had all attempted to escape on the first night of the march and were killed in the process. None survived. There was no mention of any disciplinary action and a few days later the prefect was killed when he was thrown from his horse and his skull was caved in when it struck a rock.

The cohort of legionaries that made up the rest of the garrison of Bruccium had an equally competent and unspectacular record up until their success of recent months. The only curious aspect was that neither unit had reported any breaches of discipline since Centurion Quertus had led them into the mountains. Normally, such infractions were part of the reports that were regularly sent back to the legion’s headquarters. But after the first few reports, there were only brief outlines of the number of enemies killed and villages burned. And nothing more for over a month now.

Cato, his companions and the escort crossed the timber bridge thrown across the Severnus by the engineers of the Fourteenth Legion and followed the route along the riverbank. There were fewer signs of the natives here than at any point on their journey through the new province. A handful of small farmsteads dotted the landscape. The inhabitants, wild-looking people in furs and rags, tended a handful of goats and worked small fields in the rich soil beside the river. Every five miles, the riders encountered one of the small fortlets that had been built to guard the route. Each garrison of twenty or thirty auxiliaries sheltered behind a turf wall topped with a stout wooden palisade, and a sentry kept watch over the surrounding landscape from a small tower rising up above the meagre fortifications.