Cato scrambled back from the crest and as soon as he was sure it was safe he rose to his feet and turned to run back along the track towards the marsh. A half-mile ahead of him he could see the small figures of his comrades entering the faint mist that had begun to lie across the track. As he ran he frequently glanced down to make sure of his footing, and every so often he saw the unmistakable outline of a legionary boot imprinted in the mud. Those footprints would lead the Batavians straight to them - they were already doing so, Cato realised with a sickening feeling.

As if this bloody rain hadn’t made life miserable enough for the Roman fugitives, it was now conspiring to point them out to the Batavians, and when the pursuers inevitably caught up with their prey they would butcher them without mercy.

05 The Eagles Prey

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

General Plautius walked slowly across the area where the prisoners had been held, under the anxious gaze of his officers. Not only were the centurions of the Third Cohort present, but also Legate Vespasian, his senior tribunes, the Second’s camp prefect, and the senior staff of the other three legions who had been expecting to attend an execution this morning. Only a few of them talked, in tones so muted that they were only just audible above the steady patter of raindrops. The rest watched the army’s commander with fixed expressions as they huddled under the shelter of their cloaks. The heat from their bodies was making the fat used to waterproof the coats give off a thick musty smell that Vespasian had always found quite sickening. It reminded him of the mule tannery owned by his uncle in Reate. Vespasian recalled both the foul oily stench that hung over the steaming workshops and the oath he had taken never to enter into any business that had anything to do with the wretched animals.