When they were out of sight Cato slumped to the ground and stared at the grass between his bare feet. This time tomorrow, he and the forty other men condemned to death would be led into a loose circle of their comrades and friends from the Third Cohort. They would be carrying heavy wooden clubs, and when the signal was given they would close in and beat the prisoners to death, one by one. Cursed with a vivid imagination, Cato projected the scene inside his head, clear in every terrible detail. The blur of clubs sweeping down, the dull thud and crack of wood on flesh and bone, and the winded gasps and cries of bound men, curled into balls on the blood-drenched ground. Some of the men would soil themselves, to the jeers of their executioners, and when Cato’s time came he would have to kneel amid their blood, piss and excrement while he waited for his death to come.

It was shaming, humiliating, and Cato hoped that he would have the strength of spirit to die without a whimper, silently staring his defiance back at his killers. But he knew it would not be like that. He would be dragged, shivering and filthy to the killing ground. He might not beg for mercy, but he would cry out at the first blow, and scream at the rest. Cato prayed that a badly aimed blow struck him on the head early on, so that he was unconscious when his beaten, broken body eventually released his spirit.

That was wishful thinking, he sneered at himself. The executioners would be carefully briefed to make sure that his arms and legs were shattered before they were permitted to break his ribs. Only then would they be allowed to take their clubs to his skull, and end the torment. He felt sick, and bile simmered uneasily in his stomach, so that he was glad that he had not eaten since early the previous day. Memory of the food cooked by Maximius’ slave caused him to retch and Cato raised his bound hands to cover his mouth until the impulse to vomit passed.

A hand rested gently on his shoulder. ‘You all right, lad?’ Cato quickly swallowed the bitter fluid in his mouth and looked round to see Macro looming over him with an uncertain smile on his creased face. A quick glance showed that the rest of the condemned men were too preoccupied to spare him any curious attention. He quickly shook his head.

‘Not surprised.’ Macro’s fingers squeezed his shoulder as the older centurion squatted down beside Cato.’It’s a bad business. We’ve been well and truly shafted. You and this lot most of all … Look here, Cato. I don’t know what to say about this. It stinks. I wish there was something I could do to change it. I really do. But . . .’