A strained atmosphere filled the depot for several days after the banquet. The training continued under the disciplined eyes of the legionary instructors, and even Cato was pleased with the improvement in the recruits’ drill technique and weapons handling. But he was also aware of a general pall of distraction and tension that hung over the native levies like a black cloud. So Cato drove them on, keeping them as busy as possible in a bid to occupy their minds with something other than the terrible spectacle their king had provided for his guests at the banquet. To make matters worse, Verica had stuck his victims’ heads on posts either side of the track leading up to the main gateway into Calleva. The mangled remains of the bodies had been dumped, unceremoniously, in the defensive ditch beyond the palisade, where they were worried by wild animals.

The reminder of the grim price paid by those who defied the king stilled any open debate about the Atrebatans’ alliance with Rome. Instead, a few words were infrequently exchanged between those who still trusted each other, and men would fall silent at the approach of anyone else, watching them with mixed expressions of guilt and suspicion until they had passed by. As he walked through the muddy streets of Calleva, Cato came across this time after time, and where before there had only been a dim sense of resentment, now he read guarded hostility in many of the faces he encountered.

Nor was this confined to the townspeople. The men of the two cohorts were also divided between those who felt the traitors had deserved to be thrown to the dogs, and a sizeable minority who kept silent and thus made implicit their criticism of Verica. Not so implicit that it failed to draw the attention of some of their comrades. The drill instructors had already reported a number of fights that had broken out in the ranks. Mercifully most had occurred off duty and could be dismissed as minor disciplinary infractions. But one small fight had flared up during a weapons drill that had taken place under Macro. The five men involved had been punished before a special assembly in the depot.

The men of the Wolf and the Boar Cohorts were made to stand at attention on three sides of the parade ground to witness their comrades’ beating. Cato, standing stiffly beside Macro, clamped his teeth together to stop himself flinching as a pair of instructors rained their blows down on the backs and limbs of each man in turn, while they lay curled on the ground in the open space between the assembled ranks. Macro counted off the blows for each man in an even voice and called a halt when twenty had been received. A pair of medical orderlies quickly carried each victim off to the hospital.

As the third man was led forward Tincommius leaned towards Macro.