‘No . . .’ Maximius tapped his finger on the simple sketch of the farm. ‘But it seems a little strange. I didn’t have much time to get to know Cato, but massacre, and rape? Doesn’t seem like his style.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Macro added quietly. ‘I don’t think he can be responsible for this.’

‘Well, somebody was.’ The cohort commander looked up.’I thought you knew him well?’

‘I thought I did, sir.’

‘Could Cato really have done this?’

‘No . . . I don’t know . . . I really don’t know. Might have been raiding for food, raised the alarm and then had to mix it with the locals. They got into a fight, and had to put them all to the sword.’

‘Is that what it looked like?’

Macro paused a moment to reflect, but after what he had seen at the farm, there was little doubt in his mind. ‘No.’

‘So Cato, or some of his men, have gone native. Or at least they’re pretty desperate. That’s good. Should make them easier to deal with, when the time comes.’

Macro raised an eyebrow. ‘When the time comes, sir? I thought that was the reason we were here.’

‘And so it is!’ Maximius laughed lightly. ‘Although it has been a good opportunity to teach the locals how to behave.’

Macro stared at him. If the brutality of the last few days was a lesson to the natives, then what exactly had they learned about their new masters? That Rome was as cruel and brutal as any horde of barbarians. That, Macro reflected cynically, was hardly likely to foster good relationships with the locals over that vital period when Roman laws and Roman rule were being established in the new province. The local tribe was getting brutalised by Maximius on the one hand and raided and massacred by Cato and his fugitives on the other. All of which could only strengthen their resolve to aid Caratacus and his warriors. Maximius had done a blinding job of bolstering support for the enemy all right.

And as for Cato . . . for a moment Macro could not think. He was sure that he had known Cato well, but the massacre at the farm was the work of another kind of man. The two memories did not sit well together. But then again, not much made sense to him at the moment. The decimation of the cohort as punishment for being pushed aside by overwhelming odds. The perverseness of fate for selecting the blameless Cato for execution when it was Maximius who bore the responsibility for the escape of Caratacus. Now this unaccountable cruelty of Maximius towards the natives of this valley, matched only by Cato’s heartless slaughter of the farmers and their families. It was as if reason itself had been driven from the world. With a chilling sense of foreboding it occurred to Macro that he lived at the whim of maniacs.