The other three exchanged a glance as they stamped their feet in the snow. Beside Cato — Macro’s young optio — stood two young women, natives from the Iceni tribe, wrapped warmly in splendid winter cloaks with fur trims. They had been raised by fathers who had long anticipated the day when the Caesars would extend the limits of their empire into Britain. The girls had been taught Latin from an early age, by an educated slave imported from Gaul. As a consequence their Latin had a lilting accent, an effect Cato found quite pleasing to the ear.

‘Look here,’ the oldest girl protested. ‘You said you’d take us to a snug little alehouse. I’m not going to spend the night walking up and down freezing streets until you find exactly the one you’re looking for. We go in the next one we come across, agreed?’ She looked round at her friend and Cato, fierce eyes demanding their assent. Both nodded at once.

‘It must be down this one,’ Macro responded quickly. ‘Yes, I remember now. This is the place.’

‘It had better be. Or you’re taking us home.’

‘Fair enough.’ Macro raised a hand to placate her. ‘Let’s go.’

With the centurion leading the way, the small band softly crunched up the narrow alley, hemmed in on both sides by the dark huts and houses of the Trinovantes townspeople. Snow had been falling all day and had only stopped shortly after dusk. Camulodunum and the surrounding landscape lay under a thick blanket of gleaming white and most people were indoors huddled around smoky fires. Only the more hardy of the town’s youngsters joined the Roman soldiers looking for dives where they might enjoy a night’s drinking, raucous singing and, with a little luck, a bit of fighting. The soldiers, armed with purses bulging with coins, wandered into town from the vast encampment stretching out just beyond the main gate of Camulodunum. Four legions — over twenty thousand men — were sitting the winter out in crude timber and turf huts, impatiently waiting for spring to arrive so that the campaign to conquer the island could be renewed.