Figulus was silent for a moment before he responded.’From what I saw on our way in here, our lads are going to be outnumbered five or six to one, sir.’

‘About that,’ Cato agreed. ‘If they’re caught by surprise it’ll be over very quickly.’

‘Yes . . . there’s not much we can do about it, sir.’

‘No.’ Cato was tired, and the powerlessness of their situation bore down on him like a great weight. Even conversation was too much effort. Looking round he sensed the same despondency and despair in the rest of his men. They too knew the end was coming and were contemplating their deaths with the same quiet desperation as their centurion.

As the night fell over the enemy camp, fires flared up in the open spaces between huts. Soon the smell of roasting pork wafted through the palisade to add to the torment of those chained inside.

‘I could murder a pig,’ Metellus grumbled, and a few of the men raised an ironic laugh.

Cato frowned and snapped back at the legionary,’That’s the reason why we’re here in the first place. You and your bloody stomach . . .’

As the evening wore on the enemy camp took on the spirit of celebration. The warriors feasted, and from the sounds of their revelry it soon became evident that they were drinking themselves into a raging frenzy. The air was thick with slurred singing, punctuated by roars of laughter. The prisoners in the pen listened sullenly to the drunken din, and Cato wondered if they were being saved to provide some bloody entertainment later on. The hairs on the back of his neck tingled with icy terror at the recollection of the men he had once seen thrown alive to hunting dogs at the court of King Verica of the Atrebatan tribe. Was that preferable to being imprisoned in a wicker cage and roasted over a fire? That had been the fate, so Cato had heard, of some other prisoners who had fallen into enemy hands. There would be little mercy for Romans amongst the tribesmen who had suffered such grievous losses against the legions in battle.

‘Bastard Romans . . .’ A voice muttered in Celtic just the other side of the wicker wall.’Why have we got to guard them all night?’

‘Yes,’ someone else chimed in. ‘Why us?’

‘Why us?’ a voice mimicked him. An older man from the sound of it, Cato decided. ‘Because you’re little boys, and I’m stuck here to make sure that you don’t create any mischief, when I should be over there with the rest of the lads getting a skinful.’

There was clear resentment in the man’s tone. Cato felt a racing light-headedness as his mind grasped at a plan that formed even as the older guard finished his grumbling and fell silent.

He drew a breath and called out in Celtic, ‘Hey, Guard! Guard!’

‘Shut your mouth, Roman!’ the older man snapped back.