Macro’s little column marched on, quietly calling out the required password when they were challenged by a sentry on the picket lines who looked curiously at the looming bulk of the cart gently rumbling along behind. Then the strange patrol was abruptly lost in the clammy fog, and very quickly even the sounds of the cart were swallowed up.

===OO=OOO=OO===

It was only when the picket came to be relieved that word of the strange detachment filtered back to headquarters. Vespasian was confronted by a puzzled senior watch officer who wanted confirmation that Macro was acting under orders.

‘Twelve men and a cart, you say?’ Vespasian asked irritably — since there was a more pressing matter that needed immediate attention.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s very strange. Doesn’t sound like a reconnaissance patrol to me.’

‘No, sir. That’s what I thought.’ The watch officer nodded. ‘Want me to send a cavalry patrol after them?’

‘No point. Anyway we can’t spare the men right now. The scouts have lost contact with one of the British columns — we need every cavalryman we’ve got to track them down.’

‘I see. So what should I do, sir?’

‘Enter them in the watch log, of course. Until we know otherwise, I think it’s best that we regard them as deserters.’

‘Deserters?’ The watch officer almost laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea. ‘But they’ll be cut down by the very first Britons they come across, sir.’

The cold eyes of the legate warned him against uttering another word.

‘Deserters is what I said. And if they’re caught then I want them brought straight to me. They’re not to be seen or spoken to by anyone.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Once the watch officer had left, Vespasian frowned. He felt guilty about branding Macro and his men as deserters. But if they failed to complete their mission they would have to be silenced to prevent any word of the wagon’s existence reaching other ears. The legate tried not to give the centurion and his mission any further thought. At present, the movements of the British were a source of considerably more worry. As soon as the invasion force had landed Plautius had sent out his cavalry scouts to locate the natives’ army and keep him supplied with precise information on its size and movements. But the dense fog of last night and the lingering mist at dawn had allowed a large British force of chariots and infantry, some nine or ten thousand, to slip away from the Roman scouts and the army’s cavalry commander had been desperately struggling to reestablish contact throughout the night. Word had just come to Vespasian that the missing column was believed to be under Togodumnus — brother of Caratacus, the leader of the British forces, and no fool, if the British émigrés accompanying the Roman army were to be believed.

A shaft of orange light fell across the papers in front of him and Vespasian looked up to see that the rising sun had found a chink in the tent. It was going to be a difficult day but, once he found time, someone was going to answer for the shoddy way the tent had been erected.