‘Can you, sir?’ Cordus frowned, seemed to think about it a moment, and then shrugged. ‘Maybe. But ain’t decimation taking it a bit too far?’

‘You think so?’

Cordus pursed his lips and nodded. ‘Course it is, sir. We fought ‘em tooth and nail at the river. There was just too many of them, and we got pushed back. That’s the way it goes. Some fights you just can’t win. You don’t bloody go and throw away forty-odd men to punish a cohort for not achieving the impossible. That’s just mental, that is.’

‘I suppose. But that doesn’t excuse our man from going and setting them free, does it?’

‘No. But it makes it understandable.’ Cordus looked straight at him. ‘Wouldn’t you agree, sir?’

‘I suppose so. Would you have done it?’

Cordus looked away.’I don’t know. I might have done . . .if someone hadn’t beaten me to it. How about you, sir?’

Macro paused a while before he replied. ‘It ain’t an option for a centurion. It’s our job to enforce the discipline, no matter how unfairly it’s applied.’

‘And if you weren’t a centurion, sir?’

‘I don’t know.’ Macro looked away with a pained, guilty expression. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Cordus glanced at him quickly and then dropped back a pace in deference to Macro’s rank. As the patrol wearily continued its march Macro considered Cordus’ attitude to the fugitives. If the hardened optio had sympathy for the condemned men, then how many more men in the cohort felt the same way? And Cordus had gone beyond mere sympathy. The optio had hinted at a willingness to have helped the men escape. If that was the common feeling among the men, then the pool of suspects was sufficiently broad to offer Macro some hope of concealment. He felt a momentary lessening of the burden of his complicity in the escape. At least until the fugitives were tracked down.

‘That’s it?’ Macro nodded down the track towards the silent round huts. A faint heat haze wavered across the track and made it look as if the nearest of the huts was floating on a sheet of water.

‘Sa!’ The guide nodded.