‘It will,’ Narcissus smiled. ‘Trust me. Now, I think we have settled the issue satisfactorily. Neither of you need lose any sleep over this matter. The blame will rest on other shoulders, in place of their heads.’ He chuckled at the quip. ‘Have your inquiry. Find some plausible men to blame and as soon as judgement has been made I can return to Rome and make my report. Are we in agreement, gentlemen?’

Plautius nodded, and a moment later, his stomach twisted by cold, bitter contempt for the other men, but mostly for himself, Vespasian lowered his head, stared at the silver decanter on the tray, and nodded slowly.

05 The Eagles Prey

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The men of the Second Legion had spent the night in the open, curled up by their equipment. They slept deeply, exhausted by the rapid marching of the day before, and by the construction of the marching camp. Since their entrenching equipment had been left with the baggage train the men had dug the ditches with their swords and piled up the inner rampart by hand. Roughly cut wooden stakes projected from the outer face of the rampart, and sentries patrolled along each side of the camp.

The men of the Third Cohort were the most exhausted of them all, having had to fight a battle on top of everything else. Yet a handful of them were denied sleep and tossed restlessly on the flattened grass. Some because they could not forget the terrible sights and sensations that had been etched into their minds, others mourned the loss of close friends, cut down in front of their eyes. But for Cato the cause of sleeplessness was anxiety about the days to come, rather than the eventful day that had passed.

The escape of a significant number of the enemy practically guaranteed that the exhausting struggle would continue. Even if Caratacus was not amongst them, then one of his lieutenants was bound to swear the survivors to further resistance to Rome, spurred on by the need to exact revenge for the loss of so many of their comrades. They would ensure that more blood was spilled, and Cato wondered how much more the soil of this land could absorb before it sank into a sea of gore. The image was fanciful and he smiled mirthlessly and turned over, pulling his cloak round his shoulders and resting his head on his greaves.

But worse than the escape of the enemy was the failure of the cohort to do its duty. Centurion Maximius had fouled up badly. He should never have diverted from his mission to chase down the small band that had sacked the supply fort and slaughtered its garrison. He should have made straight for the ford.