Then it began to rain, quite suddenly, large drops flung diagonally by the wind that stung the skin. Even that failed to increase the pace of the convoy and, with a despairing shake of the head, Macro began the formalities. He opened the main shutter, leaned his head out of the window and filled his lungs.

‘Halt there!’ he shouted. ‘Identify yourselves!’

The wagon reined in a hundred feet from the wall and a figure beside the driver rose to reply. ‘Reinforcement convoy from Aventicum and escort, Lucius Batiacus Bestia commanding.’

‘Password?’ Macro demanded even though he knew Bestia well enough, the senior centurion of the Second Legion and therefore very much his superior.

‘Hedgehog. Permission to approach?’

‘Approach, friend.’

With a crack of the whip the wagoneer urged the bullocks up the rise that led to the gateway and Macro crossed over to the shutter that opened on to the inside of the fort. Down below, the sentries were clustered by the sidegate trying to keep out of the rain.

‘Open the gate,’ Macro called down. One of the soldiers quickly drew out the locking pin and the others slid the beam back into the recess. With a heavy wooden groan, the gates were pulled open just as the wagon reached the top of the rise, its momentum carrying it through the gate into the base. Looking down from the guardhouse, Macro watched the wagon draw up to one side. Bestia jumped down from the driver’s bench and waved his vine cane at the sodden procession of new recruits passing by.

‘Come on, you bastards! Move! Quickly now! The sooner you’re in, the sooner you can get warm and dry.’

The recruits, who had followed the wagon for over two hundred miles, automatically began to mill round it once inside the gate. Most wore travelling cloaks and carried their few belongings in blankets tied across the shoulder. The poorest recruits had nothing, some didn’t even have cloaks, and they shivered miserably as the wind drove the freezing rain at them. At the rear stood a small chain-gang of criminals who had opted for the army rather than remain in prison.

Bestia immediately waded into the growing crowd with his cane, beating a clear space for himself.

‘Don’t just stand there like a herd of sheep! Make way for some real soldiers. Get over to the far side of the street and line up facing this way. NOW!’

The last of the recruits stumbled in through the gate and followed the rest to take up an uneven line opposite the wagon. Finally the escort marched in, twenty men in step, who halted simultaneously at one word of command from Bestia. He paused for effect to let the implicit comparison sink in as Macro ordered the sentries to shut the gate and return to their duties. Bestia turned back to the recruits, legs astride and hands on hips.