‘Quite talkative when you’re shitting yourself, aren’t you?’ Macro smiled. ‘Come on, mate. Let’s have a little word with this Cruach. See what he’s made of.’

‘Sir, is that wise?’ asked Cato. ‘We’ve found what we came for. Wherever the general’s family are, they’re not here now. We should get moving before we’re discovered.’

‘Not until we check the grove,’ Macro replied firmly. ‘No more nonsense. Let’s go.’

With Macro at their head, the three men strode across the clearing and started down the track. With the torch flickering before them, they could see the gnarled trunks of oak trees lining the route on either side.

‘How far to the grove?’ asked Macro.

‘Near,’ Prasutagus whispered, keeping close to the flickering torch.

The trees were silent all about them; nothing stirred, not an owl or any other creature of the night. It was as if the island was under some kind of spell, Cato decided. Then he realised the smell of decay was back again. With every step along the track, the scent of death and putrid sweetness grew stronger.

‘What was that?’ Macro stopped abruptly.

‘What was what, sir?’

‘Shut up! Listen!’

The three of them paused, ears straining to hear anything above the unnaturally loud crackle and hiss of the torch. Then Cato heard it: a low moan that rose and fell to a whimper. Then a voice muttered something. Strange words that he could not quite make out.

‘Draw swords,’ Macro ordered quietly, and the three men eased the blades from their scabbards.

Macro stepped forward, and his companions followed nervously, senses straining for any sign of the source of the noise. Ahead of them, the track began to widen, and out of the darkness loomed a stake with a lumpen shape jammed on top. As they approached, the light of the torch illuminated the dark stains running down its length, and the head impaled on the end.

‘Shit!’ muttered the centurion. ‘I wish the Celts wouldn’t do that.’

They came upon more stakes, each bearing a head, in varying stages of decay. All of them were arranged to face the track so that the three trespassers were walking under the gaze of the dead. Once again the air felt colder than it should to Cato, and he was about to comment on it when a fresh moan broke the silence. It came from the far side of the grove, beyond the wavering pool of light cast by the torch. This time the moan increased in intensity, and became a piercing wail of agony that tore through the darkness and froze the blood of the three mortals.

‘We go!’ Prasutagus whispered. ‘We go now! Cruach comes!’

‘Bollocks!’ replied Macro. ‘No god makes a sound like that. Come on, you bastard! Don’t chicken out now.’