‘You want it, boy?’ Pulcher had curled his lips into a sneer. ‘Then you take it.’

‘Give it back to me.’

‘Make me.’

Cato winced at the memory and his conscience once again demanded of him whether this was really the behaviour of a proper soldier. A proper soldier would have struck the man at once and taken the flask back. But, the rational side of his mind argued, a man would have to be built like a brick shithouse to take on Pulcher, with his solid limbs and hands like shovels. As if reading his expression, Pulcher had snarled and Cato instinctively stepped back, causing everyone to laugh. He had burned with shame, and still did, even though he told himself that retreat from superior forces was perfectly reasonable, intellectually virtuous in fact. A kindly soldier from the escort had retrieved the flask and tossed it back to Cato with a laugh. Pulcher spat in his direction before the soldier prodded him back into line with the butt of his spear.

‘I’ll see you in camp, boy,’ Pulcher snarled, raising his chains. ‘As soon as I get rid of these.’

Since their arrival at the fortress the army had kept the recruits busy and Cato hoped that Pulcher had forgotten about him. He had striven to keep as far from the man as possible, not even meeting his gaze, in a bid to become invisible. Now, he had returned to the barracks rather than remain with the other recruits after they had been dismissed at the end of the day. It was essential, he reflected, to make some friends quickly. But how? And who? The others had bonded into little groups during the journey from Aventicum — while he had been reading bloody Virgil, he angrily reminded himself. What he would give to begin that journey afresh, knowing what he did now.

Alone, and a long way from his friends back in Rome. For a moment misery welled up inside him and Cato’s eyes stung with tears. He turned towards the wall and buried his face in the coarse material of the straw-stuffed bolster. He felt his chest shudder and suddenly felt angry, angry at himself, angry that he wasn’t man enough to cope without tears and angry that nothing in his life had prepared him for this. All his smug Greek tutors and their stupid admiration for only the finest rhetoric and poetry — what bloody good were they now? How could poetry protect him from that animal, Centurion Bestia? At this moment he would have exchanged all his learning for a single friend.

Pyrax paused and looked up, needle poised above the tunic. He had heard the new boy turn over and recognised the stifled sob for what it was. Pyrax shook his head sadly. Most recruits were old enough and hardy enough to cope. Then there were boys, like this one, who really shouldn’t be in the army. It might be the making of them, as some soldiers argued, but equally it might destroy them.