‘Yes. Get back to headquarters and give the orders at once. I want every direction covered. I want them found as soon as possible.’

‘Yes, sir. What about this one? Want him interrogated?’

General Plautius looked down at the man, and the Briton met his gaze with a glazed expression, and then wagged a mocking finger at the Roman. In that gesture Plautius felt struck by a wave of ridicule, and sensed in himself the first inkling of a deep self-loathing and rage. Caratacus had tricked him; made him look a fool in front of his own legions, and as soon as word got back to Rome they would laugh at him there as well.

‘Him?’ he replied coldly. ‘We’ll get nothing useful out of this scum. Impale him.’

As Praxus detailed some men to carry the prisoner away General Plautius gazed south again, this time across the river, to the grey haze of the horizon beyond. Somewhere over there, in the distance, was Vespasian and the Second Legion. If Caratacus had turned south then Vespasian would be completely unaware of the enemy army bearing down on him.

04 The Eagle and the Wolves

Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘Open the gate!’ Cato shouted.

‘No!’ Macro grabbed his arm, and leaned over the parapet to call down to the men below. ‘Keep the gate closed!’

Cato shook off his friend’s arm. ‘What the hell are you doing, sir? You trying to get Tincommius killed?’

‘No! Something’s wrong. Cato, think about it! How’d he get through their lines?’

‘I did.’

‘And only just made it to the gate. Look at him! Full armour. Just walking up to us. They let him through.’

‘Let him through?’ Cato frowned. ‘Why?’

‘We’ll know soon enough.’ Macro peered over the palisade. ‘I never really trusted that bastard . . .’

Tincommius was standing thirty paces away from the gate, apparently unperturbed by the presence of hundreds of the Durotrigans lurking in the surrounding darkness.

‘Macro!’ Tincommius called out in Latin. ‘Open the gate. We need to talk.’

‘So talk!’

The Atrebatan prince smiled. ‘Some things are best discussed discreetly. Open the gate and come out.’

‘Does he think we’re mad?’ Macro grunted. ‘We’d be dead before we got halfway to him.’

‘I guarantee your safety!’ Tincommius shouted.

‘Bollocks!’ Macro replied. ‘Step up to the gate! Alone!’

‘Can you guarantee my safety?’ Tincommius responded in a mocking tone. ‘You’d better . . .’