The first raindrops pricked lightly at his skin and then pattered on the grass around him. A chill breeze stirred the long grass, and rustled the leafy boughs of the trees along the river bank. The young centurion eased himself over on to his side and curled into a ball to try to keep warm. The leather thongs binding his wrists and ankles had rubbed the flesh raw so that every movement was painful. He tried to keep still, and closed his eyes, even though this was his last night in this world. Cato had often thought that imminent death would make him want to be aware of even the smallest detail around him, to seize each last measure of delight in life.

‘Seize the day,’ he muttered, and then gave a small bitter laugh. ‘Bollocks.’

There was no poignant appreciation of the world on his senses, no thrill of life, just a smouldering anger at the injustice of it all, and a hatred for Centurion Maximius so intense that he could feel it burning through his veins. Maximius would live on, free to redeem himself eventually for his failure at the river crossing, while Cato would be ferried across an altogether different river, never to return, never to prove himself innocent of the charge for which he was being executed.

As night fell, and the rhythms of rain and wind continued unabated, Cato lay on the ground, shivering miserably as he succumbed to wave upon wave of depressing thoughts and images. Around him, most of the prisoners were equally silent. A few talked in quiet, subdued tones, and one man suffered occasional states of tearful delirium after the sun had got to work on his shredded nerves during the afternoon. Every so often he would call out for his mother, and slowly subside in a choking babble. Further off Cato could detect that the rest of the Third Cohort was subdued, quietly sheltering in their tents. The only sounds of happiness drifted over the rampart of the Second Legion’s camp; the odd cries of triumph or disappointment from men playing dice, some faint chorused refrains from songs, and the shouted challenges from men on sentry duty. A hundred paces, and a world away.

Overhead, through a break in the clouds, the stars pricked out of a velvet moonless sky, reminding him of his paltry insignificance when measured against the scale of the world about him. He had almost come to some kind of acceptance of his fate when the first watch was changed. A quick blast of trumpets from the legion’s camp marked the passing of the second hour of the night and the two legionaries assigned to guard the condemned men waited impatiently to be relieved. The rain pattered off their helmets as they pulled greased cloaks tightly about their shoulders.

‘They’re late,’ one of them growled. ‘Who’s it supposed to be again?’

‘Fabius Afer and Nipius Kaeso, new boys.’