After a quick look round at the natives listening to the voice of their prince, Macro turned back to Cato. ‘You’d better speak to them.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. Talk ‘em round.’

‘What should I say?’

‘I don’t know. Use your head - you’re not usually short of things to say. Just make sure whatever it is, you say it louder than Tincommius.’

Cato stood back from the palisade and, desperately trying to remember some of the stirring speeches he had read as a boy, he began to speak. It was not easy translating the high-flown rhetoric of Roman historians into idiomatic Celtic. He stumbled again and again as he tried to address the Atrebatans and persuade them to ignore the traitor Tincommius, and remain loyal to their king, whom the traitor himself had tried to murder. From the darkness, Tincommius called out more loudly, flatly contradicting everything that Cato said. The centurion smiled and renewed his appeal, abandoning any attempt at producing the classic speech style he had been taught by his Greek tutor. He said anything that came into his head, anything that might appeal to the Atrebatans, anything that might prevent them from hearing Tincommius, who was becoming increasingly shrill as he tried to override Cato. But the centurion was tired, and the well of inspiration was quickly drying up. He knew it, and the men on the rampart knew it, and had it not been for the arrival of Silva, carrying an armful of trumpets from the depot, Tincommius might yet have talked most men round.

‘That was close,’ Cato said hoarsely as Macro handed out the instruments to the confused legionaries.

‘Not out of the woods yet, lad,’ Macro replied, thrusting a trumpet into the hands of one of his men. The legionary looked aghast, as if someone had just thrust a venomous snake into his hands.

‘Don’t just bloody gawp at it!’ Macro screamed into his face. ‘Stick your laughing gear round that and blow for all you’re worth. But you start slacking on me and I’ll ram it so far down your throat you’ll be farting tunes out of it! . . . Make myself clear?’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Right, start playing then.’

The legionaries began to raise up a braying, nerve-rending cacophony into the night sky, and totally drowned out the cries of Tincommius.

‘Good!’ Macro nodded, hands on hips. ‘Keep it up for a while, then have a rest. If the enemy starts his yacking up again, you start blowing. Understood? Carry on.’

He turned to Cato, leaning close to be heard over the din. ‘Get the Atrebatans down from the wall. Tell ‘em to rest. They’ll need all their strength when the morning comes.’

04 The Eagle and the Wolves

Chapter Thirty