The narrow track wound its way through the marsh. Where the ground was too soft for vehicles to negotiate, a thin corduroy road of logs had been laid down and covered with shingle. With annoying regularity, first one wheel of the cart, and then the other, stuck in the black oozing muck on each side of the path. The legionaries had to down spears and shields to lay their shoulders to the thick wooden spokes and strain every sinew to break the cart free and roll it back astride the track. Soon the men were covered in foul-smelling mud and desperately tired. Macro allowed them a short break and they hunched down miserably on a small mossy hummock surrounded by a dank expanse of shallow water. From the angle of the pale yellow disc hovering over the mist Macro realised that it was nearly midday, yet looking at the exhausted men slumped around him he knew that he could not march them much further and still expect them to dig out the wagon once it had been found. It should be near now, if the directions he had been given were accurate.

A sudden lightness in the air caused him to look up and he saw that the sun was at last making an impact on the mist. Patches of brightness began to break up the white swirls, and here and there the air cleared for two or three hundred paces.

‘Cato!’

‘Sir?’

‘Get up on that mound over there. See if you can spot that tree trunk.’ He indicated a mossy lump beside the track and Cato rose reluctantly. Tentatively placing a foot on the soft green surface, he tested it to make sure it would bear his weight.

‘Don’t fuck about lad!’ Macro said irritably. ‘Get up.’

With arms stretched out to break his fall Cato tensed his knees and slowly straightened up. The surface beneath the moss was surprisingly firm and he stood erect and stared at the haunting landscape about them. Ahead the track wound down a small slope and all but disappeared into a particularly foul black morass. Even at first glance it was clear that the cart had come as far as it could along the track. Macro wasn’t going to like that.

‘See anything that looks like our trunk?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What about that, over there?’ Macro pointed to where a gap had opened in the mist to reveal several dead trees, starkly black and crooked against the thick white backdrop.

‘I’m not sure, sir.’

‘Well look bloody harder then!’

Cato squinted his tired eyes, but it was difficult to make out much detail and the mist was closing in around the dead trees once again. Instinctively he leaned forwards to try and see better. With a muffled crunch the moss suddenly gave way beneath him and Cato pitched headlong on to the track, arms outstretched. He came down hard and the breath was momentarily knocked out of him.

‘All right?’ Macro leaned over to help him back on to his feet.